Aunt Sookie & Me

by Michael Scott Garvin

  Rows of parked polished automobiles lined the curb in front of the Banks’s grand estate. Children dressed in their finest ran up the steps and into the massive walnut front doors. Bundles of balloons were tied to the necks of two granite lions that reclined on pedestals flanking both sides of the entry.

  We stood small at the steps of Tallulah’s house.

  Pearl gasped, “Holy moly.”

  “Yessum,” I replied. “Tallulah’s folks must be loaded.”

  As we entered the house, the birthday festivities were in full swing. Smartly dressed children ran in and out of the elegant rooms and up and down the carved mahogany staircase. Like attacking “injuns,” boys chased girls through the marble hallways. Pink, yellow, and purple balloons were tied to the carved banister, and strands of crepe paper draped like garlands along the upper balconies, reaching into the center of the grand foyer, tied into big bows on the crystal chandelier. The polished floors reflected like glass. I couldn’t detect a speck of dust or any signs of roaming goats or grazing livestock. Girls dressed to the nines in ruffles and ribbons sipped fruit punch from cut-crystal glasses.

  Little Tallulah stood in the front entry, greeting each arriving party guest. Fastened to the side of her head was an enormous pink satin bow, the sheer weight of which seemed to cause Tallulah’s tiny head to dip slightly to the left. “Good afternoon, Pearl! Poppy!”

  “Happy birthday,” Pearl declared. “Tallulah, you’re awfully quiet for a kid who was borned into such loud money. If I lived in such grandeur, I’d be braggin’ to anyone within an ear shot.”

  Tallulah smiled and curtseyed. “Poppy, I’m so pleased you could attend.”

  “Thank you kindly for the invitation.” I handed Tallulah a small wrapped box with a tortoise ink pen for her journal.

  “Thank you so much,” She cordially accepted my gift with a gracious nod to the left, struggling a bit to lift her adorned noggin. “There’s chocolate cake and fruit punch in the dining room.”

  I spotted Jackson Taylor in an adjacent room. He was surrounded by a bunch of other kids. I nudged Pearl, and we casually moseyed over in his direction.

  The room had crimson velvet drapes cascading from the beamed ceiling. Jackson stood in the center of the laughing party-goers, doing his spot-on imitation of Dixie McAllister. He’d placed a lace doily atop his head and walked about the room with a snooty air of pretention. He held a punch glass with his pinky stuck high into the air, like a high-society teetotaler.

  Peering down his nose at the howling boys, he mocked, “Jeffrey Marshall, didn’t your momma ever tell you not to chew with your mouth open? You’re disgustin’!” Jackson reprimanded each boy, speaking in a strict, syrupy drawl. “Jimmy Atkinson, I swear, if you don’t start learnin’ to say thank you and no, thank you, I’m gonna call your momma to complain.”

  All the boys cackled wildly.

  Grabbing a feather duster, Jackson scolded another boy, “Jessie Lee, you need your filthy mouth washed out with a bar of soap.”

  When Jackson saw Pearl and me, he winked and continued with his Dixie impression. “Christopher Isaac, you’re an absolute scoundrel. It’s high time you learn to behave like a proper gentleman.” Jackson tickled the boy’s nose with a swipe of the feather duster.

  Two girls, whom I recognized from the bus stop, walked past Pearl and me with turned-up noses, snickering at Pearl’s modest dress.

  Pearl growled low, and the prissy pair quickened their pace from the room.

  Constance White sat in the center of a circle of chatting, pretty girls, while some older, menacing boys encircled them, all vying for Constance’s attention.

  “I’ll never understand boys,” Pearl declared. “They are dirty, squirrely critters who don’t use the good sense God gave ’em.” She pulled me from one opulent room to the next. “I haven’t met one who is worth his weight in salt.”

  I agreed with Pearl’s sentiment, but I always kept a watchful eye for any sight of Jackson Taylor.

  “I reckon we need boys for some things, like diggin’ dirt and pumpin’ petrol,” Pearl remarked. “But for the likes of me, I can’t see much more value.”

  A few boys with plastic squirt guns dashed through the sitting parlor, chasing two screaming girls.

  “Buses,” I replied.

  “What?”

  “Drivin’ buses. We need menfolk to drive buses. I’m certainly not boardin’ no bus with a woman sitting’ behind the wheel.”

  Pearl laughed out loud, “Me neither! Can you just imagine?”

  We made our way into a tall, serious room with leather tufted chairs and walls papered with tiny roses. There were shelves of old books and stacks of even more thick texts on the desk and tables. Alabaster sconces lit the room, and a stuffed and mounted peacock stood in the corner with its long tail of sapphire and purple feathers. Some older kids played records on a phonograph and paid us no never mind. The same two snotty girls who had crossed our paths earlier entered the room, but this time they flashed Pearl forced smiles.

  “Howdy, Pearl.” One of the stuffy girls slightly curtseyed.

  Pearl returned a practiced smile. “Hi, Lisa. Hi, Tara. Lisa Horan, I do believe that’s the prettiest dress I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”

  “Well, thank you, Pearl.”

  The two kept walking.

  Whispering from the corner of her mouth, Pearl muttered, “I believe that’s the ugliest frock I ever did see.” She rolled her eyes and stuck her index finger down her throat.

  From behind, a pair of hands reached around my face, covering my eyes. “Guess who!”

  “Hmm.” I grinned in the dark. “Can you give me a hint?”

  Jackson lowered his voice an octave and chuckled, “A hint, eh? Well, let me see. I’m the closest thing to a livin’, breathin’ Superman in all of Savannah, Georgia.”

  “Superman?” I wondered. When I blinked, I could feel my lashes against Jackson’s cupped palms. “Hmmm? Bobby Fredericks?” I guessed.

  Jackson’s hands were warm on my face. He smelled of cologne.

  “Not even close!” He laughed. “Guess again!”

  “Well, if it’s not Bobby, it must be Mr. Jackson Taylor.”

  He shouted, “Bullseye!”

  I reached up and pulled his hands from my eyes but would’ve preferred for them to have remained longer.

  Jackson flashed a dreamy grin and quipped, “I reckon I gotta be content with second-place prize, behind the illustrious Mr. Daniels.”

  Pearl piped in, “Jackson Taylor, you’re no more Superman than I’m Brigitte Bardot!”

  He pulled the sleeve of his cotton T-shirt up to his shoulder, flexing his modest muscle. “Come on, Pearl, you can touch it,” Jackson teased her and then offered his flexed bicep to me. “Come on, Poppy. You know you wanna touch it.”

  “Jackson Taylor, you’re a dang fool,” Pearl dismissed him. “Let’s go, Poppy. Let’s leave these hooligans and go find some more civilized conversation.”

  Pearl pulled me in to the next room, leaving Jackson and his buds behind.

  “Where are we goin’?” I asked.

  “Let’s let Jackson stew on it for a while,” she whispered.

  “Stew on what?”

  “Nedra Sue says that ladies shouldn’t go round town giving free milk to a hungry cow.”

  I considered her theory. “Huh? Is Jackson the cow?”

  “Yes. Menfolk are the hungry cows.”

  I asked, “Do cows even drink milk?”

  Pearl sighed, “Just never mind!” She pulled me along.

  I hadn’t the vaguest notion what Pearl meant, but I rarely questioned any of her older sister’s wise counsel.

  “Jackson is sweet on you. Poppy, you’ve snagged yourself the bull in the farmyard. He’s hungry for some Poppy Wainwright, and if he stews on it for a spell, he’ll appreciate the meal even that much more!” Because Pearl so fervently believed in the opinion she was sharing, I nodded my head in total agreement.

&n
bsp; Jackson and his boys trailed behind us into the library and out to the back terrace. Pearl tugged me through yet another door and into an expansive grand room as wide as Sook’s entire yard, with inlayed rosewood and marble floors. When we heard the following boys’ laugher, we ducked back into the main hallway and escaped down to the foyer.

  “You can try, Poppy Wainwright,” Jackson called, “but you won’t never get away from me.” Some of the other girls gasped and whispered in one another’s ears.

  My face went pomegranate red.

  “Jackson Taylor!” Pearl hollered back. “Your momma didn’t raise you right.”

  She pulled me up the carved, curved staircase, leaving the boys at the bottom of the banister. We escaped to an upstairs sitting parlor with overstuffed chairs and satin drapes the color of Jackson’s eyes.

  With the boys now out of sight, Pearl panted, “Now that you got Jackson swimmin’ near your bait, you gotta hook him!”

  CHAPTER 19

  I inched opened Miss Loretta’s door and snuck a peek into her darkened room. Her window blind was pulled closed; only the thinnest sliver of morning filtered in. Her clothing from the night before was strewn about, and the air smelled of cigarette smoke and sickly, sweet perfume. Her mangy fur stole rested at the foot of her bed like a sleeping stray cat. A single red pump sat on her nightstand. Its companion had journeyed to the far side of the room, teetering on the top of a haphazard lampshade.

  “Miss Loretta,” I whispered, “you awake?” Poking my head inside her chamber, I spied her lying unconscious, buried beneath piles of white cotton sheets and patchwork quilts, snoring like a sawmill. I treaded lightly across the littered floor. A brassiere hung from the alabaster chandelier, and her stockings were tossed across the foot board. A half-eaten slice of apple pie sat on a dish and was adorned with a dozen extinguished cigarette butts.

  When I pulled the cord to her window blind, the shade retracted, rapidly sending white sunlight pouring into the room. Miss Loretta popped up from the tangle of blankets and bed sheets. Sitting upright, she sheltered her eyes with the palm of her hand, cursing, “Oh, Lordy. Are you tryin’ to kill your momma? Baby, please, close that gawd-damned window shade. My head is splittin’ right in two.” Blinded by the daylight, she fell back into her pillows and pulled the covers back over her head. “Now, be a doll, and go fetch your momma an aspirin and a glass of freshly squeezed juice.”

  “No, Poppy. She can get her ass out of bed and go squeeze her own blessed orange juice.” Sookie came shuffling into the room. “If Miss Loretta wants breakfast in bed, she can sleep in the kitchen. It’s approachin’ midday. Only gluttons and ladies of the night sleep until this advanced hour. Loretta, are you either one of those two dubious deviants?” With her walking stick, Sook poked the mound of blankets quilted over Miss Loretta. “This ain’t some motel where you can stay out until an ungodly hour and then sleep in till dusk.”

  Loretta mumbled something foul from under her smothering pillows.

  “Miss Loretta, we need to have ourselves a talk.”

  “Please, not now, Sook,” Loretta pleaded. “Not now.”

  “Get yourself out of this bed.”

  Loretta huffed and asked, “Baby girl, will you hand your momma her robe over yonder?”

  I picked the robe off the wooden floor and offered it to her. As she reached for the frilly pink wrap, her bare forearm was exposed. Dotting inside her arm were two tiny red pin-holes where a needle had recently punctured the skin.

  I wasn’t sure who saw the wounds first, Sook or I, but Momma went quiet and quickly withdrew back under the covers. Sookie looked over to me and with a wave of her hand gestured for my leave. “Poppy, Miss Loretta and I need to have ourselves a talk. Go on downstairs.”

  I walked from the room, closing the door behind me.

  “Loretta, a piece of my silver serving set and my sweet momma’s diamond-rose pendant have gone missing. I have my suspicions who took ’em.”

  “Ain’t true, Sookie. I swear to God, it ain’t true.”

  “Don’t make me do this, Loretta. Floyd down at the pawn shop has already phoned me. No need to further the lie. And I have a hunch I know exactly what you’ve done with the money.”

  “Don’t dare accuse me of nothin’, Sook.”

  “Loretta, you’ve been warned. I will not tolerate this under my own roof. Perhaps it’s best you start makin’ your plans to leave this house.”

  Loretta deliberated for a moment, seemingly to determine just how deep of a hole she’d dug for herself. “I slipped up, Sook. I got messed up with the wrong fella. I’ve already sent him on his way.”

  “Missy, it seems to me that you’ve made a vocation of messin’ with the wrong fellas. Don’t be the tragic sort of woman who needs a man. Be a woman who a man needs.” The room went quiet for a spell until Sookie spoke, “I believe you’re nearing the end of your stay in Savannah.”

  I wanted to bust through the door and save Momma from Sook—save her from herself. But I steered clear. My back remained stiff against the wall, while the war waged on inside her room.

  “Loretta, who’s gonna clean up the mess when you leave? Who’s gonna pick that child off the floor after you’ve gone?”

  Momma spoke in a whisper, “I’m so lost.”

  I didn’t recognize the weary voice on the other side of the panel.

  “It’s been so hard for so long,” Loretta admitted. “I can’t see no way to save me or save Poppy from all this darkness.”

  “Miss Loretta, I ain’t never had no youngins of my own,” Sook replied. “But it seems to me that a child can endure darkness. I’ve seen ’em survive mighty heavy dark days as black as night. But they just need to know there’s a glimmer of light waitin’ for them somewhere on the horizon. Loretta, you gotta let that precious child downstairs know that one fine morning she’ll rise and find her momma with honest eyes and a healed heart. Give Poppy a flicker of light to hang her hopes on.”

  I recalled years earlier, after Miss Loretta’s last stay in a hospital. Grandma Lainey and I made the drive to Little Rock to visit her for a spell. It was a Saturday, visitor’s day, and we found Momma under a lonely sycamore, sitting at a picnic table. She waved wildly in the air when she spotted us coming through the chain link gate. Momma’s eyes were clear as the clearest water, and when she smiled, I knew with absolute certainty that she truly saw me.

  We sat and gobbled up Grandma’s egg-salad sandwiches and laughed until the afternoon turned to shadows. For most of the day, Miss Loretta held Grandma Lainey’s hand like a good daughter would. Before we had to depart, before the nurses ran us off, Loretta searched about in her mound of teased yellow hair and pulled a single bobby pin. With the metal end, she scratched into the wooden picnic table her and my name in the center of an etched heart. She carefully engraved Loretta loves Samuel into the pine table.

  On the long drive back to Mountain Home, Grandma Lainey told me that the heart is a fragile thing. “It breaks easily, like one of my delicate porcelain dolls on the foyer credenza,” she said. “A heart needs to be held gently in your hands and treated with care like something cherished.” Lainey reached over and rested her palm on my knee. “Do you understand, Samuel?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  I reckoned it wasn’t much later when I understood that a heart didn’t ever truly break. It pulls and stretches like Silly Putty. In warm palms, it can be shaped and molded by whomever you let play with it. But in neglectful hands a heart can be toyed with, and if left unattended, it hardens like a clod abandoned in an unforgiving sun.

  Pearl and I walked side by side down Gaston Street into Forsyth Square. When I first saw him, Jackson was sitting cross-legged in the park with the other guys. His head was tilted back, laughing at the blue sky. Timmy and Tommy McAllister, dressed in matching striped T-shirts, were squatting on their knees in the dirt with some other fellas, shooting a game of marbles.

  Pearl jabbed her pointy elbow into my side. “Stop s
taring at Jackson! A lady has gotta play hard to get. No boy wants a girl who’s an eager beaver.”

  I sighed, “OK, OK.”

  We found Constance, Tallulah, and some of the other girls resting in the shade with their backs leaning against a singular giant oak that canopied over most of the park. Pearl and the girls started gabbing about school gossip, ornery, older boys, and the upcoming Halloween festivities. I feigned interest, always keeping the corner of my eye turned to track Jackson Taylor’s whereabouts.

  The giddy girls’ continual giggling lured the boys’ attention away from their marbles.

  One of the no-neck McAllisters hollered over, “You girls sound like a bunch of clucking chickens.”

  Us girls huddled together and made the joint decision that no response to Timmy’s pestering would be our best approach. Instead, we carried on, laughing even louder, testing the patience of the always-watching boys.

  “Poppy!” Jackson called to me, waving his arms. “Over here. I’m over here!”

  “Poppy, ignore him,” Pearl spoke low. “Just ignore him.”

  Constance advised in a hushed whisper, “You make Mr. Jackson Taylor come on over here and address you like a proper gentleman should. No boy should call to you like you’re some loyal hound dog.”

  Finally, all the boys stood up from the grass, dusted off their backsides, and moseyed on over to us.

  “Hey, Poppy Wainwright, do have a bucket of wax in your ears?” Jackson asked, and all the other boys snickered.

  “You’re disgustin’, Jackson,” Constance replied.

  The other girls agreed in unison, “Yeah, Jackson. You’re disgustin’!”

  I answered, “My ears are very much clean. Thank you very much. But they only listen when there’s something worth hearing.”

  “Glad to hear it.” He shrugged his shoulders and gave a puzzled expression over his shoulder to his buddies.

  All us girls remained silent, shaming the boys with our disinterest.

  Tommy McAllister stepped up, announcing, “I do believe you girls are the most unfriendly bunch of stuffy know-it-alls I’ve ever laid my eyes on.”