Gone South (44 page)

He tensed. He didn’t want to open his eyes and see a police cruiser.

A car door slammed.

“George,” Tish said, pulling away from him, “it’s Stu.”

George opened his eyes. Stu came around the front of the SUV, walking slowly. He entered the yard but didn’t seem to see them there on the porch until he was halfway up the steps.

“Stu,” George said. “What brings you here?”

“Mel. Is she here?”

“There’s nobody here but us car thieves,” Tish said.

“Car thieves and scoundrels,” George added. “Mel’s inside.”

Stu looked at Tish. “May I go in and talk to her?”

Tish shrugged. “Sure, she’s your sister. She’s holed up in the bedroom on the left.”

Stu nodded and walked inside, his shoulders not as slumped as usual.

They waited, hearing a muffled sound that might have been a knock on the bedroom door. Then Mel’s indignant “Go away!” came clearly through the window.

After a long silence, she spoke again, her words indistinguishable but her tone even more indignant.

“Oh, Mel,” Tish whispered, “for once in your life, admit you’re wrong.”

Mel screamed. Tish jumped, covering her ears. Mel screamed again.

Abandoning Tish, George ran inside and charged toward the bedroom. He heard Tish behind him as he made the corner into the hall.

Mel bolted from the room with tears rolling down her cheeks. Stu was right behind her, mumbling something, but George couldn’t hear him over Mel’s high-pitched voice.

“You know why Stu’s here? You know why? Because he loves me.” Mel spun around and crashed into Stu, who wrapped his little sister in a bear hug while her shoulders shook. A little gleam of gold in her hand was all that George saw of the watch.

Tish grabbed his hand. “What on earth?”

George leaned over to whisper in her ear. “Stu brought the watch back.” Leaving Mel and Stu inside, they returned to the porch and sat on the top step.

Maybe Dunc had decided not to press charges. Maybe sleepy old Stu had stood up to him at last. George only knew that if Tish hadn’t come to town, everything would have turned out differently … and probably worse.

She reached for his hand, lacing her fingers together with his. “If I never find a job in this town, I don’t care. It would be worth it, just to see Mel and her brother reconnected.”

“It would.” He shut his eyes, listening to the low murmur of Stu and Mel’s conversation inside the house. Stu had a backbone after all, and a heart too. “I think everything’s going to work out just fine. I just have one request.”

She yawned. “What’s that?”

He smiled, remembering the first time he laid eyes on Tish, taking pictures of the house. Tish, weeks later, taking charge of a runaway dog. Taking Mel in. Taking the watch back. Taking the ’Vette back. Taking his world and shaking it to life. She was a take-charge kind of woman.

He lifted their entwined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles. “Well, I know you understand there are two kinds of Yankees.”

“Yes …”

“Please be the kind of Yankee that stays.”

Summertime in Alabama was green, hot, and humid, with fewer flowers and more thunderstorms than Tish had expected. She hoped the power wouldn’t go out again just when she had a crowd over for a potluck. The western sky was black. George had finished grilling the burgers and hot dogs in the nick of time and stuck them in the oven to keep them warm.

The scent of rain wafted through the house as she hurried into the office to shut the window. She crossed to her bedroom and shut that window too, while tree branches thrashed in the rising wind just beyond the glass. The clouds had massed together like bullies about to gang up on someone, but the storm would pass quickly.

She turned from the window and smiled at the rather startling gift George had given her. The black ball gown hung on her closet door waiting for a special occasion, which this wasn’t.

Well, yes it was. Mom and Charles were up from Florida, staying in the guest room for a few days, and Tish had invited some friends over. That was as special as anything. Time with people she loved. That, not the food, was the real feast, and so many people had shown up that she could justify using her big percolator for after-dinner coffee.

Pausing at her dresser, she found her antique honeybee button and pinned it beside the crisp collar of her sleeveless chambray shirt. She took a quick look in the mirror and fluffed her hair.

About to head downstairs, she pulled her phone from her pocket to read an incoming text.
“C U in 5 w pot salad,”
it said.

Tish smiled and sent a quick reply. She’d finally met her next-door neighbors, Jim the hunter and Billie Jo the quilter. Billie Jo made the best potato salad ever.

Running down the stairs, Tish went over the menu in her mind. She’d provided the burgers, the hot dogs, the Detroit-style Coney sauce, and all the fixings. Mrs. Nair, recently widowed, had brought chips. Mom had provided guacamole and fruit salad.

Becky from the garden club would be late, but she would bring the ice cream.

Tish couldn’t remember the rest. She only knew they had plenty of food and too many people to fit around her table, so they’d moved the chairs away and set up a buffet.

The rain had started by the time she hurried into the dining room. She stopped in the doorway to savor the sight of sleepy-eyed Stu and long-legged Janice standing by the food table with their boys and Mel. She’d been living with them since April. Janice had taken charge of her kid sister-in-law, making her meet her learning disability head-on, and what a difference a few months of therapy and tutoring had made. Mel had stopped smoking. Her eyes shone. She held her head high, and she was adorable with her new, sassy haircut.

Dunc Hamilton, not Mel, was the loser. Tish shook her head, refusing to waste another moment’s thought on him.

Kindhearted Darren was there too, being a good friend to Mel, and Calv leaned against the wall holding his Alabama ball cap in his blackened hands. No matter how long and hard he scrubbed, he could never erase all the automotive grease from his hands and nails. Sometimes she suspected he wore the grime with pride.

She stopped beside him. “Would you mind asking the blessing, once a few more people walk in?”

“I’d be honored, Miss Tish.”

“Thanks.”

She crossed the room to stand beside George, who was chatting with her mother and Charles. Daisy sat in the crook of George’s arm, eyeing the food. Tish took his other arm, content to listen without joining the conversation, and inhaled. The Coney sauce smelled fantastic.

The percolator from 1940 gleamed on the sideboard. Having recently gone through the box of family history, Tish had certain dates clear in her mind. Letitia had died in 1940 at ninety, so it was possible that she was alive when the percolator was manufactured. She’d lived to see the age of electric appliances and airplanes, yet she’d been a young woman when Lincoln was shot.

Awed by the history one woman’s life had spanned, Tish decided that was why she loved antiques. They were visible reminders of overlapping lives and events. The continuum of the generations. No generation would ever stand alone.

Jim and Billie Jo walked in with their potato salad, their clothes speckled with rain. Calv raised his eyebrows at Tish. She nodded. There might be more stragglers, but it was time to eat.

“Folks, let’s quiet down and ask a blessing,” he called out. The room stilled as he began to pray.

Tish prayed along in her heart but kept her eyes open to savor the gathering. She’d imagined everyone joining hands in a tidy circle, but they stood in disorganized little groups, overlapping and connecting.

She glanced up at George. His eyes were closed, his long black lashes lying handsomely against his olive skin.

Calv was still praying. He had a way of turning a prayer into a sermon. “We can’t afford no feast or fancy robes and rings, but You can, and You give
them freely to Your children. We’re Your prodigals, Your hungry prodigals, and You’ve got good chow. Help us remember that we’ll sit at the banqueting table one day with the loved ones who’ve gone before us. Make us mindful of the folks on the highways and byways. They’re somebody’s loved ones too. Bring them home like You’re bringing us home, a step at a time.” He let out a long sigh. “In the name of Jesus, our Savior, amen.”

Tish’s mother leaned toward her. “I’ll go get the burgers and dogs,” she said.

“Thanks, Mom. Listen up, everybody. Drinks and cups are on the kitchen counter. We have lots of sweet tea and pop.”

Her mom raised her hands and did a little dance step on her way to the kitchen. “And I’m a Michigander so I brought Vernors and Faygo,” she announced.

“Once you’ve grabbed your plates, sit anywhere,” Tish said. “The kitchen table, the living room, front porch, back porch. And mix it up a little, you guys. I don’t want all the Yankees on one side of the house and all the southerners on the other.”

“In other words,” George said, “mix it up between the folks who say ‘you guys’ and the folks who understand that ‘y’all’ makes more sense.”

“Watch it, Zorbas.” Tish smiled at him, then at Mrs. Nair. “Why don’t you go first, Mrs. Nair? Everybody else, line up after her.” She motioned toward the table. “Dig in.”

Stu’s boys were second and third in line, taking their plates with hands that weren’t exactly clean. That was all right. Kids got dirty. So did prodigals. Sometimes, so did the people who loved them.

The crowd sorted itself into a buffet line, and the conversations started up again. All too soon, though, the house would be empty and silent. Tish had to work on Monday, and her mom and Charles would hit the road for Tampa.

Hayley, now sporting a streak of blue in her hair, slipped into the room
from the other side, looking ill at ease until Calv greeted her. “Miss Mel’s right over there,” he said, pointing. “She’s gonna be so glad you came. I am too.”

Tish retreated to the living room, her heart as full as her house, and took a moment to listen to the rain pounding her solid roof. She had so much to be thankful for.

Stopping before the portrait, she locked eyes with Letitia’s regal stare.
I am Letitia McComb. You can’t change who I am
. But lately Tish had settled into a different way of seeing things.

“I am Letitia McComb,” she said softly. “One of God’s children. Nothing and nobody can change that, ever.”

The floor creaked behind her, and she knew George by his footfalls even before he placed his hands on her shoulders. “Having a chat with the old girl?”

“You caught me. Yes, I have a lot on my mind.”

“I like a woman who has a lot on her mind.” He nudged her into a turn and frowned at her shirt, then looked up with sorrowful eyes. “Aw, Tish. You made your nice old button into a pin? You’ve ruined its value.”

Blinding blue radiance filled the room simultaneously with a rollicking roll of thunder. The lights flickered. Braced for another lightning strike and a power failure, she held her breath, but there was nothing but a new downpour of rain, falling so hard she thought it must have scared the lightning out of the sky.

She started breathing again. “The button’s monetary value doesn’t matter if I don’t sell it, and I’ll never sell it.” She stretched up to give him a quick kiss. “I never get rid of the things I love.”

“I don’t either.” He gave her a slow smile and then a slower kiss.

“Anyway, you can chill out about the button, buddy,” she whispered against his lips. “I only used a safety pin.”

Lightning and thunder crashed again, making her jump. George laughed and pulled her tight, and they waited together. The lights flickered, but they stayed on.

R
EADERS
G
UIDE

1. Southern hospitality is world famous, but a sleepy southern town can be somewhat resistant to newcomers of the Yankee persuasion. How might the descendants of all parties of the Civil War, including the descendants of slaves, be reconciled with one another? As fellow citizens, what are our responsibilities to each other?

2. Tish wants to find her niche in her new community. Given her family’s history of frequent moves, what are her chances of putting down permanent roots in Noble? What might improve or hinder her chances?

3. In some ways, Tish resembles the elder brother of the parable of the Prodigal Son, Luke 15:11–32. She’s a responsible person who expects her good behavior to be rewarded. Meanwhile, Mel hasn’t earned anyone’s respect, but she’s quick to justify her bad behavior. Is either attitude better than the other? Why? Are you able to empathize with one character over the other?

4. The parable in the book of Luke mentions the prodigal’s stint as a farmhand feeding pigs, and also the ring, robe, and sandals given to him upon his return. What is Mel’s “pigsty,” and what significance do jewelry, clothing, and shoes have in her story?

5. Some of the locals snub Tish because she’s descended from carpetbaggers, and Farris the banker refuses to hire her because she has befriended Mel. Do these rejections harden Tish’s heart? Or do they soften her heart toward Mel, another reject?