Georgia Bottoms (6 page)

Georgia smirked. “Don’t cross me, hear?”

After much clucking and shaking her head, Krystal began to describe her adventures at the Mayors’ League meeting in Atlanta. “There was this girl mayor from Kentucky, Louise Massengill—”

“Like the douche?” Georgia snickered.

“
You’re
the douche! God, are you juvenile!” Krystal leaned across the desk to deliver a fake smack on the arm. “Anyway she was a nice gal, so pretty and smart… We wound up in that revolving bar, you know, the top of the Peachtree Plaza? Lord, we must have had about fifty of them revolving margaritas. Turns out girl mayors have more in common than you might think. Next thing I know, Louise goes, ‘Come on, hon, let’s go out and get some fresh air,’ so I said hell why not, and we—”

“I can’t believe you can drive by yourself in that Atlanta traffic,” said Georgia. Sometimes you had to stop Krystal from telling more than she meant to.

Krystal registered the interruption with a little downward smile. “Nothing to it, as long as you stay in your lane.” She shook her head and changed the subject. “Hey, shouldn’t you be getting into a panic about now? Two days till D-day, you’re supposed to be freaking out.”

“Oh no,” Georgia said. “Everything’s under control.” She ticked off all the food she’d already made. “If I wasn’t sitting here waiting on my alkie brother to finish his meeting, I’d be home making Chow Mein Noodle Cookies instead of falling behinder every minute.”

“They’re called ‘haystacks.’ I guess you’re too ignorant to know that,” said Krystal.

Georgia laughed. “Haystacks! Well, that does sound appetizing. Here, have a bite of some hay!”

Krystal said, “I’m bringing those blue-cheese tea biscuits whether you want me to or not. They are absolutely the best thing I ever put in my mouth—”

“Since Billy Satterfield?” Georgia finished. That joke went back to high school. It still made them laugh.

“Oh Georgia, you are a big ol’ mess,” Krystal said. “Let me back to my stupid spreadsheet. You want me to come by tonight and help you cook?”

Georgia pondered. “I could really use you more tomorrow—to set the tables, do your arrangements? You’re so good with the flowers and linens and all.”

Krystal smiled. “Why, thank you. That’s nice of you to say.”

“Don’t get the bighead,” said Georgia. “I’m just stating a fact.”

She knew Brother wouldn’t come to meet her. She went to the rendezvous point anyway, so she could hold it over his head. She waited precisely five minutes, then drove around the front of the T. C. Looney Community Health Center. Ralph Lemmon leaned against his car, smoking, talking to J. T. Cobb of the savings and loan. Georgia started to roll down her window to ask, but no, they were “anonymous.” Besides, it was no mystery where Brother had gone—to shoot pool with Sims, like he said. If he wanted to violate his parole, let him. Let him go back to jail if he had no more self-control than that. Georgia always got a better night’s sleep when he was behind bars, anyway.

She pointed her Honda toward home. This was the first evening that actually had a feeling of September: angled shadows, a touch of gold in the light, a river of blackbirds streaming overhead. Just when you thought you couldn’t take another minute of summer, here came the first hint of cooler, longer nights ahead.

All this golden light raised a lump in her throat. The old town seemed suddenly lovely: long green lawns stretched out under live oaks, sprinklers chattering, flinging arcs of bright glitter. Some of the clapboard cottages were as old as the live oaks. Kids made skateboard racket on the broken sidewalks.

At home, Georgia stirred up a pan of cornbread to go with the peas. She propped Little Mama in her chair with her blanket and supper and the Channel 12 news from Montgomery. Little Mama loved to rail against the black weather girl, Gwen somebody, who was actually very pretty, Georgia thought. Well-spoken.

“Look at her,” said Little Mama. “They all dress like prostitutes these days. Look how low cut that blouse is!”

“I’m gonna go get my bath,” said Georgia.

Little Mama said, “Did you bring the Mentholatum?”

“It’s right there by your hand. If it’d been a snake woulda bit you.”

“I thought you forgot it again.” Little Mama opened the jar, put a dot of ointment on her upper lip. She used vats of Mentholatum but never had a cold. Georgia suspected the smell reminded her of all the Kools she used to smoke.

Mama waved a claw at the TV. “Would you look? Everything she’s got is hanging out!”

“I know, Ma. You hate poor ol’ Gwen. You’ve hated her for years.”

“They used to have that nice gal from Evergreen, whatever happened to her? Oh, that’s right—she was white, so they took her off. Everything for the Nigroes these days.”

“Yes, Mama. You’re right.” You had to agree with her, or she would never shut up.

“They never let one of ’em have their own show until that
Diahann Carroll. Now they done taken over the whole damn TV! I mean, come on! Give ’em a channel of their own, I don’t care. But do they have to be on every last one of our channels too?”

“Yes, Mama, they do. It’s the law now. They have to be on every channel.”

“It’s that goddamn Rosa Parks.”

“That’s exactly who did it,” said Georgia. “They should never have put her in charge of television.”

“Did you bring my Mentholatum?”

Georgia peered at her. “Mama. It’s next to your hand.”

“I thought you forgot it again,” Mama said.

Georgia didn’t say if it had been a snake it would have bit her. She loved her mother, although when she tried to think of reasons why, all she got was a headache. She hoped Little Mama would have a happy old age, but secretly she also hoped it didn’t drag on and on, like some mothers. Even if you love them, you don’t want them hanging around forever, do you?

Also, Little Mama was a terrible patient. You could not do a thing to suit her. She used to say, “When I get old, I hope you just take me out in the woods and shoot me.”

She hadn’t said it lately. Probably thinks I’ll take her up on it, Georgia thought grimly.

Ah, well, it’s part of the Ant Connection, everybody working for the good of the anthill, the strong ant helping the weaker ant, daughter ant helping mother ant—and Brother ant—daughter ant giving and giving, day in day out, working working working until she gets so exhausted she drops the crumb. Some other ant snatches it up and carries it down the hole. And that’s how the world goes around!

Georgia turned the shower as hot as she could stand it, to make her skin glowy and warm. She slathered her body with rose milk, sudsed and conditioned and rinsed her hair three times. She dried her hair and brushed it out, tied it back with a silk ribbon. She applied oils and potions, elbow cream, knee smoother. She poured a little puddle of eau de toilette in her palm. Drawing two fingers through it, she painted twin stripes of lavender fragrance up her heel, her calf, the back of her knees. She painted the curve of her rib cage, between her breasts, to the nape of her neck.

When she smelled even better than God made her, she slipped into the peach linen chemise with clusters of tiny chiffon roses at the bodice. At the waist she fastened a short, scalloped petticoat of cream-colored flannel, followed by a longer petticoat of white-starched cotton, a third petticoat, a fourth. Over these layers she drew a satin dressing gown—the same shade of peach as the chemise—the embroidered silk-velvet belt, and matching slippers.

These clothes were a gift from the man who would be removing them shortly. He had ordered the complete ensemble for her in three colors—peach, ivory, and a soft rosy pink—from the Civil War reenactors’ superstore in Myrtle Beach. Perhaps tonight he wouldn’t undress her all the way. Some nights he just liked to play part of the game. Some nights the whiskey made him sleepy and he dozed off in his chair while she rubbed his shoulders. Or he might start to undress her carefully, layer by layer, but fall asleep before he got down to bare skin.

Georgia swished this way and that in front of the mirror, swaying her skirts like a bell. She loved the rustle of stiff cotton against her legs. When the judge wasn’t sleepy, he could be downright frisky.

A glance at the clock sent her downstairs in a hurry. Whizzy ticked up the hall to greet her.

“Mama, you need anything? I’m going up to work on my quilt.” Georgia used to take such pains to confine her costumes to the apartment, but these days Mama barely noticed whether it was night or day.

“How’s the new one coming, baby?”

“Beautiful.” Georgia kept walking down the hall. “You’re going to love the colors in this one.”

“Did you bring my Mentholatum?”

“It’s beside your right hand.” Georgia held the scrabbling dog inside with one foot while the door hissed shut on its piston. She knew it was risky, blowing off her mother that way. One day she would come back to find Mama dead in that chair—God, wouldn’t she feel guilty then!

But it would be just one or two days of guilt. In exchange for years and years of blowing her off. A decent trade, overall.

Every year or so, Georgia drove halfway across Alabama, to a bend in the Catfish River where a little settlement of old black women made quilts. Some of the women were so old they were the granddaughters of actual slaves. The quilts were beautiful: brilliant colors, stark geometric designs. Somebody had wised up the women to the folk-art angle, and now they were charging up to two hundred bucks per quilt—but they charged Georgia half that because she’d been buying their quilts in bulk for years.

She started by giving a few as gifts to well-placed friends. Everybody wanted one after Susan Chastain showed off hers on the Holiday Parade of Homes. Now Georgia sold the quilts with a hefty markup in Alma Pickett’s gift shop, Treasures n’ Stuff, on
Court Street downtown. Georgia’s quilts were famous in Six Points. Everyone assumed she made them herself, though she had never claimed that in actual words. Every couple of weeks she would bring a new example of her handiwork downstairs to show Mama and Brother before driving it over to Alma’s shop.

Everyone in Six Points was eager to believe in Georgia’s quilting ability. People knew to leave her alone in the evenings. That was quilt-making time, Georgia time. The rule was, you didn’t disturb Georgia when she was at work in the apartment unless blood was flowing and the ambulance was already on the way.

What if those old colored women ever stopped making quilts? She barely knew how to thread a needle.

She struck a match to light the lamp, and touched it to the paper beneath the firelogs. She turned the A/C to LO. One last glance around the room told her everything was perfect. A perfect night from a hundred fifty years ago. Georgia was good at this game.

She flipped the switch that turned on the light in the alley. One if by land… That was the signal.

Immediately she heard a car door slam. She smiled. He was sitting in his Town Car, waiting for the light. Waiting for her.

Nothing felt quite so stirring as being the object of desire. Georgia had tried most of the known thrills, and this was the one she liked best.

She met him at the iron gate. His fingers curled around hers. She shushed him, hurried him in, stayed behind to lock the gate. She tucked the key in the pocket of her dressing gown.

She found the judge gazing down at his mother’s hand mirror, eyes aglow. From the other side of the room he looked forty years old—okay, fifty. You had to get close to see the ruin of years in
his face. He had kindly gray eyes and a livid complexion, flushed pink as a ham, blue veins spreading across the crumbly skin of his nose. “My God, woman,” he said, “you are a positive vision of heaven.”

“Why, Cap’n Barnett, how you do flatter me!” Slipping his seersucker jacket off his shoulders, she steered him to his chair. “I just threw on this old dressing gown till I make up my mind what to wear to Twelve Oaks tonight.”

He beamed. “Are you going to the barbecue?”

“Why, you know I am!” she cried. “Don’t be a horrid old fool, Jackson Barnett, you know perfectly well you’re taking me to eat barbecue, and I don’t want to hear another word about it!” She grabbed her Japanese fan and swatted him.

The judge hunched over to untie his shoes. “I’m happy to see you feeling better, Georgia. It looks as if you’ve recovered completely.”

“A girl who faints in the morning is always more lively by evening.” She poured whiskey from the crystal decanter on the desk. “Just put that silliness out of your mind.”

“I was afraid you might—thank you, darlin’.” He wrapped a meaty hand around the glass. “After the way you were stricken, I thought you might not feel up to our rendezvous tonight. It made me realize all over again how precious you are to me. There I sat in the dark—in my carriage, you know—waiting like some lovesick swain. Anxiously awaiting the light in your window.”

“You’re a sweetheart to wait for me, Captain. I’m a very lucky girl.”

His gaze settled upon solemn old Robert E. Lee astride his horse. “No, I’m the one who’s lucky. Sunday is the best day of my week, by a long shot.”

She agreed that it was for her, too.

She was waiting for him to take a swallow of bourbon, to cut the garlic so she could move in closer. Garlic was the major drawback of Judge Barnett. It was not by accident that she saw him on Sunday and kept Monday free… an extra day for airing out the apartment. “Do you think the Yankees can possibly win the war, Captain?”

His brow darkened. “Not a chance. Our brave boys… Why, it takes three of those Yankee bastards to whip one of ours.” He took a sip from the glass. “I did see a dispatch today with glorious news from the front.”

“Oh, tell me about it.”

“Well, it seems General Lee has whipped the Yankees at Chancellorsville. Sent them reeling back into the woods. The obnoxious Joe Hooker was caught with his trousers down. The word around Washington is he’s to be sacked!”

“Wonderful,” Georgia said. “I can’t keep all the details straight in my little ol’ head, but it sounds like great news for our side.”

“Oh, it is.” The judge patted his knee. “Come sit, my little flower.”

“Most gladly,” she said, “but—shouldn’t we be a tiny bit discreet?” She tugged the sash of the curtain, unfurling a velvet curtain across the French door.