Hildreth 2-in-1

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  “What? I’m not telling Mom anything for you.”

  “I need you to go take down those banners. Please, they are humiliating. And as long as we keep her inside, she won’t even know they’re gone.”

  “Would you like me to hang them up in your room?”

  “I will refrain from telling you what to do with them, because I am a southern lady.” I turned my back to him and headed up the stairs to a landing that connected four bedrooms. Mine was in the far left corner.

  Mother has revamped this house completely three different times and rearranges furniture and accessories on a bimonthly basis. But she is not allowed to touch my room. It is where I can come and know that things will be like I left them. The color of my room is yellow. It reminds me of sunshine. My bedroom suite consists of a wrought-iron bed and a pine dresser that sits to the left of my bed in front of the windows. A pine armoire stands directly across from the bed, housing those things that make young adulthood tolerable: a TV, a stereo, a VCR,and a recently added DVD player. My mother, an only child, had wanted to put my grandmother’s antique bedroom suite in my room after my grandparents died, he from a heart attack, she from heartbreak. But I don’t do dead people’s furniture. I’m more than glad to love ’em while they’re living, but once they’re gone, well, I don’t want to be sleeping on their furniture.

  My bed is flanked by floor-to-ceiling bookcases. On these shelves lie my greatest treasures. Pictures of some of my best memories with my closest friends are stuck between the books that have shaped me. Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia, and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. Brontë’s Wuthering Heights is still wuthering as far as I’m concerned, but some things were just required reading. I also have numerous biographies, some that were authorized and others that weren’t. There is the one about the Onassis women that is rather enlightening; a book of Ronnie’s love letters to Nancy Reagan, which leaves little room for most men to stand a chance; one of Hillary Clinton that my mother told me I couldn’t leave in her house; and the one of George W. Bush she bought to replace it.

  When he won the election over Al Gore, she acted like a giddy school girl. She even calls him by the pet name his wife gave him, “Bushie.” I told her she needed to get a grip. She told me I needed to appreciate her respect for world leaders. I asked her to name one other world leader she actually knew.

  “Oh, you know, the lady with all the shoes. I hear she’s pretty good.”

  “Imelda Marcos?”

  “Yes, that’s her,” she said, acting as if she had said it herself.

  “Did anyone ever tell you she went to prison?”

  She told me I was getting a little snippy and needed to watch my tone, that she was still my mother. But I saw through the protest.

  My mother has a crush on the president. I know it, she knows it, and anyone who catches her watching Fox News knows it.

  Some books inside this bookcase have changed me. Roots by Alex Haley first came to television when I was in elementary school. Mom wouldn’t let me watch it, thinking it would be too troubling for my tender years. But she was so glued to the TV set downstairs that I sneaked in the first four nights of viewing without her knowing. My father eventually caught me and held me in his arms while we watched together. He did his best to explain, at least as much as he was able to understand himself. For the next week’s show and tell, I brought no show, just tell, and all I told was the story of Roots. My teacher finally assured me I had covered all that could possibly be covered. I assured her there was more, but one week was all I got. For my thirteenth birthday, Dad gave me the book.

  Gone with the Wind rests there too. That one was Vicky’s gift for my thirteenth birthday.“Everyone needs to know her heritage.”

  “It’s fiction, Mother,” I told her.

  “Fiction to some; reality to truly southern women.” I will never tell her that I have actually read the book, or that Scarlett is my secret heroine. In fact, no living soul will ever know, because my mother would see it as cause for public celebration.

  Scanning to the bottom of my bookcase, my eyes caught the biography of John Wesley. It is one of my two most precious books, and the sight of it caused me to laugh. I was forced to read it by the pastor of Wesley Monumental United Methodist Church. My longtime friend and eventual boyfriend, Grant Lewis, conned me into sneaking inside the church one Saturday night during our eleventh-grade year, all because he wanted to see who could stay inside the longest without getting freaked out by the shadow figures coming through the fifteen stained-glass windows. We both lost it at the same time when we heard footsteps on the hardwood floor.

  “What was that?” Grant whispered.

  “God coming to tell us we shouldn’t be messing in His stuff.”

  “No, He only comes on Sunday. It has to be John Wesley’s ghost.”

  “Well, rest assured, he’ll know for certain whose inane idea this was by the time he heads home.”

  About that time, Pastor Mason walked up the stairs and laid his Sunday sermon on the pulpit, eliciting from me a scream loud enough to make Grant scream too. All this lively noise culminated in a scream from Pastor Mason louder than the aforementioned. Not to mention he also went airborne, jumping so high that his knee hit the edge of the pulpit. By the time he hobbled over to turn on the lights, Grant and I were frozen. I couldn’t have run had I tried. I knew then that, just like in dreams, fear prevents retreat.

  Pastor Mason hobbled calmly toward us, removed us from the red-carpeted runner, and sat us firmly on the front row of the stiff wooden pew. I was too scared to speak, and Grant never opened his eyes.

  Then Pastor Mason decided that if we felt it necessary to come to church so early for the Sunday service, we must be in need of a powerful sermon. So he climbed to his pulpit—well, limped actually— and proceeded to preach.

  You would think, due to my state of mind, that I’d have trouble remembering his sermon, but I think it is precisely because of my state of mind that I do remember. Surely part of my punishment in heaven for pulling such a stunt would be to recite the sermon verbatim. And I still pretty much can. His message was titled “The Door.”

  He began by describing the front doors to people’s homes and likened them to Jesus being the door to life . Then he compared Jesus to shepherds and spoke of how shepherds are the door to the sheep pen. No one gets to the sheep unless they go through the shepherd. Then he finished with this word: “Each of us should be a bridge builder to that door, the door of Jesus Himself.” I wasn’t sure I got it, what with all those mixed metaphors, but I’d certainly remember it.

  For the benediction, Pastor Mason made us sing four stanzas of “Christ Is Risen” and assigned a twenty-five-page report on the life of John Wesley. Somewhere between the message and the singing, Grant passed out from holding his breath. When Pastor Mason finally left us alone, I was at the altar praying that God would somehow forgive me, and Grant came to long enough to roll around underneath the pew in hysterics. I didn’t speak to Grant again until I had written my report, and I have kept the book on John Wesley’s life safely tucked away ever since.

  John Wesley is known for starting Sunday school in Savannah. It is told that as a little boy he escaped his room in the attic one night when his house caught on fire. He said that night he realized there was a destiny for his life. Wesley loved people, all people. He preached to the Spanish, the Italian, the French, and the English. “The world is my parish,” he said. So I guess you could say he was a door to the world. His only desire was to leave something life-changing in his wake. I didn’t know if I’d ever leave a wake, but I hoped I could leave something, be a door to someone, somehow.

  The other book that has changed my life is my grandmother’s Bible. Though I wasn’t willing to take her bed, I was pleased to take her Bible. So, it rests here as well, with all her hopes and markings, and new hopes and markings of my own. My greatest treasures are in this room. The past six years, however, have led me to bel
ieve they are in this home, in this city.

  I only hope I’m still Vicky’s treasure by the time dinner is over.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  In the land of lard you don’t have to be told what’s for dinner; each offering has a distinct smell of its own. There is the fried-steak smell, the fried-pork-chop smell, the fried-green tomatoes, squash, or okra smell; and the greatest of them all, the fried-chicken smell. As for the smell of Victoria’s fried chicken, well, let’s just say it is so sinfully delicious that I am forced to call her Victoria when referring to it. My mother is in her element in the kitchen, where she dances around like a virtuoso in apron and high heels.

  My first evening back revealed all things as they were: Dad at the table going through the mail,Duke at his feet,Thomas nowhere in sight; he rarely was. This world of mine was still mine.

  I set the table and pulled out serving dishes. When all was ready, a yell went out for Thomas to come to dinner. Upon his arrival, we all took our usual seats—me across from Dad and Thomas across from Vicky. And there in front of us was a piece of heaven, a platter of fried chicken à la Victoria.

  We also had fresh corn on the cob, butter beans, macaroni and cheese—and not that boxed kind either. Vicky would have needed rehabilitation if anyone in her home cooked something out of a box. The only thing she bought in boxes was cereal, and that only after my father took a liking to Frosted Flakes. If it wasn’t homemade, Vicky declared it wasn’t worth eating. This caused a bit of a controversy every now and then, but I’ll just leave that to the imagination.

  No, OK, I’ll tell. One evening some new neighbors invited us for dinner. Vicky usually liked to have new families over to our house so she could supervise all culinary activities, but this couple was insistent that they cook for her after all she had done to help them get acclimated to the city.

  Upon arrival,Vicky gave me a dirty look for having gum in my mouth.“Would you mind telling me where your trash can is?” I asked our lovely hostess.

  She stopped putting ice in the glasses and pointed me in the direction of the pantry.“Sure, honey, it’s right over there.”

  Vicky was standing next to me when I swung the pantry door open to get to the trash can. There, in full view,were boxes for just about anything you could imagine. There was macaroni in boxes, rice in boxes, soups in boxes, cakes in boxes—and the crowning transgression—entire meals in boxes.

  Poor Vicky grew white as a sheet. She politely excused herself, grabbed my father, and pulled him into the half bath beneath the stairs.

  I heard snippets of “I wouldn’t feed Duke . . .” and “. . . snowball’s chance in Dixie.”Then I heard a male voice say,“You will and you’ll like it.”

  Dad must have been immensely clear, because she returned and we all convened at the dinner table, where Vicky sat staring at her plate. As our hostess passed her a perfectly acceptable meal, she asked, “Victoria, is anything wrong tonight? You look kind of peaked.”

  Vicky came out of her trance long enough to say,“No, nothing’s wrong.” She then picked up her fork and let it slowly work its way through the food without ever bringing it to her mouth. My dad glared at her from across the table, but even that didn’t work. Finally she asked the lady, “So, how do you make this, this, this lovely casserole?”

  “Oh, it’s really easy. In fact, I think I have another box of it in the pantry that I’ll give you to take home.”

  Well, I honestly thought Vicky was going to expire right there. But with one more glance at my father, she ever so slowly put a minuscule amount of food on her fork. It crept to her lips, where she placed only the tiniest bit into her mouth. I was mesmerized.

  When the first bite entered, she feigned chewing. The next thing I knew, her eyes were watering, and she started coughing and gagging and holding her throat. She jumped up and asked the lady, fist clinched around her throat. “What’s in here?” The poor hostess, horrified, ran to the trash can, pulled out the empty box with my chewing gum stuck on top, and began to read out loud every ingredient on the back.

  When the lady got to an ingredient she couldn’t pronounce, Vicky said, “That’s it! I’m deathly allergic to that.”Waddling over to my father, still holding her throat, she grabbed his arm and feigned gasping,“Jake, you’d better get me to the emergency room immediately.”

  My dad hadn’t budged and didn’t budge. He simply looked at her and said,“You can walk yourself home, get the car, and drive yourself to the emergency room. The kids and I are going to finish dinner with this kind family, and we will check on you when we get home.”

  I don’t know if our poor hostess was more horrified by what she had done to my mother or by how my father was treating her. Her husband did his best not to break out in sheer hysterics, and I just sat back and enjoyed the drama. Thomas never looked up. He was still enjoying every bite of his boxed dinner. Vicky glared at my father, touched the lady’s arm gently, apologized, grabbed her purse, and waddled home.

  When the door closed behind her, Dad looked at the sweet hostess about to collapse in tears and touched her arm. “Victoria has episodes like this quite often, but trust me, she’ll be back to normal, oh, I’d say by early morning. Now, let’s enjoy this excellent meal.” He looked at both of us, smiled a smile we knew all too well, and we stayed another two hours.

  “Lord, we thank You that Savannah is home. We thank You that we can be together. We thank You for this meal we are about to receive and the amazing hands that so sacrificially and lovingly prepared it for us from scratch.” I thought it rather shameless to try to schmooze your mother through prayer, but I would take whatever worked.“Amen,”Thomas closed.

  Vicky started right in. “Savannah, has Dean Hillwood let you know when you could expect to hear the results of the contest?”

  Thomas was on that like a duck on a June bug.“Mom, did I tell you that I’m going to bring some of the guys home this summer? They haven’t quit talking about your biscuits since the last away game and—”

  “Thomas, that will be great, but I was speaking to Savannah. She and I haven’t had time to talk in weeks. She’s been so busy.” She turned back to me.“So if you win, will you move to New York or try to stay here?”

  I wiped my mouth and refolded my napkin. “There is something you need to know about the contest.”

  “Tell your mother anything, darling.”

  “I spoke with my dean before I left school, and he totally agreed and is supporting me. I hope you can do the same.”

  “Now, honey, your mother loves you more than Dean Hillwood. I’m sure anything you do I will support.” My eyes caught Dad’s. I knew he would support whatever decision I made. As long as I was making an honest living and enjoying what I did, he would be happy for me.

  “Well, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking over the last couple of months, and I’ve made some decisions for my life. I did receive the results of the contest.” Poor Vicky leaned in so far her chin was about to touch the gravy.“And I won, actually.”

  “Oh my stars! I knew you would win,” she said with a little too much enthusiasm. “I just knew you would. You were created for this, Savannah. You are just going to be amazing! Oh, but you can’t move. Will you have to move? Surely you won’t have to move immediately, if you have to move at all. I mean, can’t you write books from anywhere?”

  “Yes, I can write from anywhere.”

  “Yes! Right! You could. You could write them from right up there in your bedroom.”

  “Yes, I could, actually.”

  “Oh my stars! Oh, well, let’s eat. Let’s just eat and eat and eat and then go get dessert and eat some more,” she said, laughing at her own delight.

  “I’m not finished, Mother,” but she didn’t hear a word. I was forced to reach over and touch her hand.“Mother, Mother . . .”

  “Oh, yes, darling, what is it? If you have something else to tell your Mother, just go right ahead.”

  “I did win the contest,” I said, pausing to take a de
ep breath, “but I am not accepting the award.”

  “You what?”

  “I turned it down. But before you go off in the other direction, let me finish.”

  “Savannah Grace Phillips, I cannot—” she began. Dad reached over and touched Vicky’s arm and nodded in my direction. She looked slightly perturbed but conceded.“Continue, Savannah,” she said through pursed lips.

  “Go ahead, Savannah. We’re listening,” Dad said, softening his brow.

  “I’ve been doing a lot of thinking. I love to write. I really do. In fact, until this contest, I thought that really was what I wanted to do with my life. But when the opportunity came, something didn’t feel right.” I studied Vicky’s expression, but she offered nothing but staged melodrama.

  “I can’t believe this! Something didn’t feel right,” she started.

  “Victoria, let her finish.”

  “Do please finish, Savannah,” she said, stabbing at a butter bean.

  I looked over at Thomas for support. He gave me a wink and a smile.“It just isn’t right for me. I believe there is something else.”

  “Something else? What? A street hustler? A Falcons cheerleader? Heaven help us all.”A brief clutch of her chest caused the entire table to flinch.

  “I believe I have a different mission in life than to simply write novels. And that’s basically all I have to say.” I picked up my fork to eat my now-cold dinner. Then I let fly the arrow that would certainly strike with practiced precision.“Oh, there is one more thing. I want to live here, here in Savannah. And if I can, Mother, I’d really like to stay at home, at least until I can find an apartment.”

  My,my,my, a verse and a chorus of “Sweet Beulah Land” could have been sung about that time. You would have thought the last five minutes were a distant memory by the light that came on in Vicky’s black eyes and the smile that crept its way back into position. I knew it was evil, but it was necessary. For a moment, my thoughts went to visions of the inevitable Vicky meltdown when I indeed found my new place. All could be certain she would die a thousand deaths, each of which we would suffer with her.