Dixie Divas (35 page)

Photos of Clayton and Brandon in gray Confederate uniforms sat atop the mantel in the living room. And hung on the wall in the living room. And on the wall above the landing at the top of the stairs. And in the hallway. And in Bitty’s room, and—well, suffice it to say, there are photos of them in every stage of growing up, wearing Confederate uniforms with officers’ hats and swords. There have been a few incidents with the swords over the years, but since most of them are too dull to slice bread, nothing more serious than bruises inflicted by the spontaneous—and unauthorized—battle reenactments.

“Handsome,” I said truthfully, “very handsome.”

An idea began to form in my brain. I knew if I stayed with Bitty much longer I’d be a candidate for Whitfield’s caring embrace, so I decided to take my own spring break. With the permission of Jackson Lee, of course. Just in case. So I went to see him in his office right after lunch and before a complete melt-down.

Jackson Lee, either convinced by the nervous tic under my right eye or the way my head occasionally jerked to one side, agreed that Clayton and Brandon were indeed quite capable of monitoring Bitty’s unfettered conversation.

“Not quite as well as you can, of course,” he said, smiling a little, “but I’ll talk to them so they know how important it is that she doesn’t say anything inappropriate.”

“Every other word out of Bitty’s mouth is inappropriate. I was thinking along the lines of incriminating,” I said, then added, “Talk to Brandon. He’s taking pre-law classes. Besides, he has the calmer nature of the two. Which isn’t saying a whole lot.”

Jackson Lee grinned. “I’m familiar with Clayton and Brandon. They’re just three years behind my youngest son.”

I’d forgotten Jackson Lee has three boys of his own. The oldest must be around thirty-five by now, the youngest, twenty-five. They still live up in Memphis, and all have jobs and two are married with kids, according to Bitty.

“That’s just chronologically,” I said. “Maturity-wise, Clayton and Brandon are still about sixteen much of the time.”

“Well, so’s their mama. It’s not a bad trait to have occasionally; it just gets a little inconvenient when there are problems.”

“An understatement if ever I heard one. So, do you think it’ll be all right if I take a break from babysitting? Just while the boys are here, of course. If they don’t work out, I’ll buy ear plugs, a suit of armor and a stun gun, and go stay with her again.”

Jackson Lee walked me to the door of his office. “Use that stun gun correctly, and you won’t need any of the other stuff.”

I really like Jackson Lee. He’s practical.

So Jackson Lee had a talk with Clayton and Brandon, I told Bitty that I thought she and her boys needed some private time together, and I packed up my little carry-on case and went back to Cherryhill. It was like the difference between Oz and Kansas. The phrase “There’s no place like home” kept going around and around in my head, and I truly appreciated what Dorothy must have felt waking up in her own bed again to black and white sanity instead of Technicolor insanity. Cute little Munchkins aside, there hadn’t been a single attraction in the Emerald City that justified one more moment in Oz.

Mama and Daddy were delighted to see me, and even Brownie greeted me at the door with a degree of enthusiasm only slightly more than that exhibited by France greeting the Nazi invasion. I felt truly welcome.

“I don’t suppose he’s passed my emerald earring yet?” I asked Mama, and as I expected, the answer was No. I sighed. A good earring, gone forever.

Apparently, the official arrival of Spring summons a new wardrobe in the Truevine household, as Mama wore cotton instead of wool, and Daddy and Brownie wore matching cotton tee shirts that said
N’awlins
in big letters. Souvenirs of their recent cruise, of course. My shirt is upstairs in my closet, a hot pink imprinted with
Bourbon Street
and a light pole that Daddy had chosen. He’s never quite understood the color scheme-complexion connection. Mama had tried to tactfully dissuade him, but he’d insisted I’d be lovely in it. He’d picked one out for Emerald in a bright yellow that will turn her complexion sallow. We’ll probably end up swapping if we can manage it without Daddy noticing.

Even though Cherryhill isn’t full of antiques, just old furniture, and a lot of the decoration is more thirties and fifties style from the twentieth century instead of the nineteenth like Bitty’s, it still felt so good to be home again. Floors creak under my feet in all the familiar places, the same windows stick, and I have to turn the hot water faucet on the tub in the opposite direction from where it’s supposed to turn. Michelle was right. I need to be here.

That first day back home, I helped Daddy bring up some of the old furniture from the cellar where it was stored under covers and only used during the pilgrimage, fragile pieces that’d probably soon disintegrate if used daily. A lovely chest Great-Grandmother Truevine had used when she was a little girl still had scorch marks on it, souvenirs of the fire that’d destroyed their original house. It was one of the few pieces saved, along with a few framed photographs, and other odds and ends salvaged from the charred remains and nearby family members.

“My great-great-grandmother barely had time to stash the family silver before the Yankees got here,” Daddy said, breathing a little heavily as we took a rest in the kitchen. “She buried it under the scarecrow in a just-planted cornfield. Not that it was worth that much then, just that it was all we had of any value. Rhondda Tryweryn, daughter of Griffith Jones, brought it with her when she married Dafyyd Tryweryn. That was back in the eighteenth century, before Morgan Tryweryn anglicized our surname to Truevine.”

As I listened to Daddy tell the familiar story his father had told him, and his father before him, I felt a connection to all those who’d gone before me, all the Truevines and Tryweryns, the Joneses and others. There’s something in the human soul that needs to make that connection, no matter if ancestors were common working people or royalty. It’s a promise for the future, as well as a history of the past. Southerners in particular cling to that reassurance, maybe because there have been so many attempts to eradicate or deny it. While there are those who fictionalize their family roots, the real joy is in the truth. Endurance. Survival. Knowing that despite tremendous hardships and incredible dangers, your people survived to bring you into the world. I really think most Southerners recognize and respect the shared hardships and kinships with the people once enslaved. After all, many Southerners had come here as indentured servants or were enslaved by hunger and poverty, and most Southerners never owned a slave. Only the wealthy could afford to feed another mouth. And after the war, when devastation lay all around, black and white families struggled side-by-side to survive. It took another generation for prejudice to once more supplant basic survival. In my opinion, when some people have enough food to eat and enough time to waste, it’s far too often spent unwisely.

Anyway, I helped Daddy prepare Cherryhill for the pilgrimage, brought up the heavy stands with velvet ropes to barricade certain areas, and unpacked the brochures the Historical Society had provided with the history of our house. Even though it was two weeks before the pilgrimage, I think Mama and Daddy just like to reacquaint themselves with our history. Mama has things she brought from the Crews side of the family, who had owned slaves up in Hardeman County. I’m not particularly proud of that part of our history, although I do understand it was a different era. Family legend says they were well-cared for, and hidden in the basement for the first part of the war, but after the Battle of Shiloh’s catastrophic events very close by, they were set free. Many of them even wanted to stay, since it was all they knew, but there wasn’t enough food for all. It must have been a terrible time for everyone.

Later, when I sat upstairs on the sleeping porch sipping sweet tea and watching clouds chase the sun away, I thought again about what Daddy had said. For some reason, I just knew his history lecture was connected to Philip Hollandale’s death. How, I hadn’t a clue. See how my mind works? It teases me with bits of information but never makes a connection, so all I have going around in my brain are all these unconnected pieces that make no sense at all. It’s really maddening.

Right before I fell asleep, it occurred to me that maybe the Truevines were related to the Hollandales somehow, or even Sherman Sanders. As unlikely as it’d be that no relationship had ever been mentioned, there might be some dark tidbit of history that had been long-buried in our family ancestry legends. And how on earth that connected to Generals Grant and Forrest, I hadn’t a single idea. But I intended to check it out.

Cindy Nelson seemed surprised to see me back at the museum. “Hey,” she said, “you’re getting to be a regular customer.”

I smiled. “I insist upon paying my two dollars this time. If I’m going to take up space and use museum facilities, I might as well do my part to help support it.”

Smiling back at me, Cindy took the two dollars. “Ever think about volunteering a day or two? Even once or twice a month would be wonderful. There’s just so much to do, what with the restoration and all. If I didn’t have to leave early every day to pick up my kids at school, or go to school functions, I’d probably spend a lot more time here. It’s fascinating.”

“You know,” I said, “that’s a thought. I’d hoped for a paying job, but no one seems to want a middle-aged woman whose skills range from typing to answering phones. I’m a little limited in my employability, I fear.”

Cindy assured me I’d be more than qualified for a volunteer position, but there were some paying positions available in the county clerk’s office if I was interested. I didn’t want to admit I had already tried that and been turned down, so I said I’d consider it.

“Where’s Melody today?” I asked to change the subject, and Cindy shrugged.

“She comes in just when she can. She’s working for Dr. Johnston now, you know.”

'93I remember her saying that. It’s very convenient for her, not having to drive to Memphis every day to work.”

“Melody? When did she do that?”

“Before she took the job with Dr. Johnston. Didn’t she? Maybe I misunderstood.”

“Well, I haven’t seen her since our last Diva day, so I could be wrong. Anyway, now she doesn’t have as much time as she used to. I think business is picking up for Dr. Johnston since he always seems to be booked when I call to get an appointment. I’ve got this spur on my heel that’s been bothering me.”

Since she was wearing sandals, Cindy showed me the spur and I agreed that it needed to be seen, then someone called her to come help move another stack of files, and she left me alone in the room with old books and ledgers. These weren’t yet copied to computers or microfiche files. The oldest ones were contained in special cases to retard deterioration, and the handwritten entries in old county ledgers are graceful, spidery loops and swirls peculiar to that century. I think that sometimes progress isn’t all that pretty or progressive.

While I flipped through entries looking for deeds or sales, or any reference to the Sanders, Truevine, and Hollandale families having done business, it occurred to me Cindy Nelson hadn’t been quite truthful. I had seen her in the museum just this past week, and Melody Doyle was here then, too. It probably meant nothing more than the forgetfulness of a busy mother and young wife, but still, it seemed a little odd that she’d say that.

My hours spent poring over local history and family roots as tangled as kudzu vines turned out to be futile. I found nothing linking the Truevine, Hollandale, or Sanders families except their burials in Hill Crest Cemetery. When I left, Cindy had already gone to pick up her kids at school, and I stopped to talk to Mrs. White, an elderly lady who belongs to the Historical Society, the museum register, and one of Holly Springs’s oldest families. We chatted for a while about the weather, she asked tactfully if Bitty was holding up well, and then we discussed the upcoming pilgrimage.

“I just hope we have decent weather for it,” Mrs. White said, “sometimes it’s so cold and stormy hardly anyone comes out. We have charity functions and donors of course, but it’s always nice to be able to put some money back into our Society funds with a lot of admission fees.”

Since I’d already heard these same concerns expressed by Bitty, I knew to say that this year would be wonderful weather and draw tourists by the droves. “And there are more houses on the tour since renovations, even without The Cedars. Walter Place is opening the cottages behind the main house this year, and that should be a huge draw.”

Mrs. White looked pleased, but added wistfully, “It would have been so nice to get The Cedars this year. I suppose now it will go to Mr. Sanders’ heir, and heaven only knows what they’ll do with it.”

“He has heirs?”

“Why, I heard he did. It came as quite a surprise to me, too. I mean he was the last one of the Sanders left, which is one reason we’ve been trying so hard to get him to bequeath us his property, so it’d be protected. No one’s supposed to know yet, but word gets around, you know.”

“Does the heir live in Holly Springs?”

“My understanding is that the will goes to probate now, but the heir will be contacted very soon. We’ll just have to wait to find out, I suppose. And cross our fingers.”

Bitty would be crushed. She’d so counted on getting The Cedars on the tour. Of course, while she really does love old houses and antiques, I think a major part of her determination is to spite someone else on the committee. Madewell? Whoever it is, Bitty will just have to get over it.

Since Bitty might not have heard about this new wrinkle yet, I went by Six Chimneys just to prepare her for the disappointment. Even if I couldn’t have found her house blindfolded, I’d have been able to find it by following the pulsing throb of loud music. Seven or eight cars were parked on the street and in her driveway, and I ended up parking down in front of Richard Simmons’ house. He stood out in his front yard, and Mrs. Tyree stood on her front porch, and the neighbor across the street, Allison Kent, stood out on her sidewalk. They all looked irritated.