Saving CeeCee Honeycutt Read online

  “Those are some mighty wild stories about your momma. Ain’t nobody could make up something like that. When Miz Tootie said you was havin’ a real hard time up north, she sure was tellin’ the truth.”

  Oletta patted my back with her wide, strong hand as if I were a baby and she wanted me to burp. “I was crabby this morning and made you feel bad. I’m sorry. I was just in a bad mood from havin’ to climb up all them stairs to wake you up. I worked in my vegetable patch yesterday and my legs ache something awful. It didn’t have anything to do with you.”

  “That’s okay,” I said, wiping away a tear, only to feel another one form in the corner of my eye.

  “Child, child,” she said with a heavy exhale. “You’ve got a whole lot of healin’ to do. But the Good Lord sent you to the right place. Ain’t nobody walkin’ this green earth got a bigger heart than Miz Tootie. Once you settle in and let me get some meat on your bones, you’ll feel a whole lot better.”

  Oletta leaned back to look into my eyes, and there came a deafening crack, as if a bolt of lightning had exploded into the room. Next thing I knew we pitched backward and crashed to the floor. After I got over the shock of it, I crawled to my knees. But Oletta just lay there, motionless, splayed out across the floor.

  “Oletta. Oh, no. Please wake up.” I patted her hand but she didn’t move. I called her name again and squeezed her fingers, watching for her to breathe. “Oletta . . . Oletta?” Finally she blinked her eyes open and looked at me, dazed. I leaned close. “Oh, my gosh. Are you all right?”

  She lifted her hand and grimaced when she rubbed her forehead. “What happened?”

  “The chair broke.”

  She was quiet for a moment and seemed disoriented as she slowly looked around the room.

  “Are you okay?” I asked, touching her arm. “Should I call an ambulance?”

  Oletta let out a grunt as she struggled to sit up. She reached out, picked up a splintered piece of the destroyed chair, and examined it closely. “I don’t need no ambulance, but this chair sure does.”

  I nodded. “I think a coroner is more like it.”

  Oletta gave me the strangest look, and then she launched into the finest laughter my ears had ever heard. It was a rich, gorgeous sound, as thick and smooth as pudding. I sat on the floor next to her, and pretty soon we were both laughing like fools.

  I knew my wish had come true: I had a girlfriend in Savannah.

  Seven

  On my second full day in Savannah, Aunt Tootie and I had breakfast together. When she finished her coffee, she stood and dropped her napkin on the table. “I’ve got a meeting with the trustees of the Historic Savannah Foundation a little later, but would you like to go for a walk through Forsyth Park before I get ready?”

  “Sure.”

  Before leaving the house, Aunt Tootie put on a sun-bleached straw hat and grabbed a bag of sunflower seeds from the pantry. While we strolled around the park, we talked and tossed the seeds to the birds and squirrels.

  “Aunt Tootie, do you have children?”

  “Taylor and I were never blessed with children, but I do have a lovely young girl in my life.”

  “What’s her name?” I asked, feeling an odd twinge of jealousy.

  My aunt put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “Her name is Cecelia Rose Honeycutt.”

  I smiled up at her.

  “Savannah is so pretty. I love the trees,” I said, looking up into a maze of moss-draped branches. “Have you always lived here?”

  She eased herself down on a bench in the shade and I sat next to her.

  “I was born in Brunswick, Georgia. My father had a small jewelry store and we lived in the apartment above. My sister, Lucille, still lives there—she took over the store when my father passed on. When I met Taylor, this is where he’d lived all his life. So after we married, I left Brunswick and moved into his house in Ardsley Park. It’s just a few miles from here. I liked his house just fine, but it was downtown Savannah that I loved. The first time Taylor drove me down Gaston Street, it was just like coming home—as if that was where I’d always belonged. But so many folks had lost their money during the Depression, and a good number of the big old houses were in disrepair. It made me feel so sad to see such magnificent homes fall to ruin. I told Taylor it was a crime and he agreed, but he didn’t say much more about it.

  “Well, I couldn’t get those wonderful homes out of my mind. One evening during dinner, I asked Taylor if he’d consider buying one as a rehabilitation project. He put down his fork and looked at me like I’d lost my mind, so I dropped the subject. But every time we’d go out for a drive, I’d ask him to go down Gaston Street, and he’d take me.

  “There was this one old house that stole my heart. It had been boarded up so long that even the paint on the FOR SALE sign had begun to peel. Well, one Sunday afternoon, Taylor took me out for ice cream. We drove around for a while, talking and having ourselves a gay old time. He turned down Gaston and pulled up in front of that house I loved. He turned off the engine and said, ‘Look, Tootie, the FOR SALE sign is gone. Looks like somebody bought your house.’

  “I was crushed. Taylor got out of the car and climbed the front steps to the house. He rattled the door and then reached over and ripped a board from one of the windows. I jumped from the car and asked him what on earth he was doing. He pulled a key from his pocket, unlocked the door, and called out, ‘Well, c’mon, Tootie. Don’t you want to take a look at your new house?’ ”

  “He bought you the house? The one you live in now?”

  She nodded, smiling at the memory.

  “Wow. I bet you were surprised.”

  “I certainly was. I flew up those steps and into his arms. My sweet husband bought me that old house even though he thought it was a huge mistake. It took a team of workmen almost two years to bring the house back to the pride it once had, and I’m sure it cost Taylor a small fortune, but never once did he complain. He said as long as I was happy, well, then he was happy too.”

  She tossed a handful of sunflower seeds to a gathering of birds and let out a sigh of contentment. “I planted all the gardens myself, and then one day I got an idea and founded the Ladies of Savannah Garden Club.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, it’s more social than anything,” she said with a chuckle. “I get together with seven of my dearest friends on the first Thursday of every month. We rotate so we all have the chance to play hostess once a year. We play cards, drink oodles of Long Island iced tea, and talk about gardening and gossip till dinnertime. It’s so much fun, we always laugh ourselves sick.”

  I turned and looked at the giant fountain, trying to imagine having seven girlfriends to laugh with. “But if you have so much fun, then why don’t you get together more than once a month?”

  She looked at me like a wise old owl and winked. “Do something too often and it stops being special.”

  After we returned home, Aunt Tootie changed clothes and left for her meeting while I browsed through the books in her library. Floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lined three of the four walls, and there was a tall wooden ladder that rolled back and forth on wheels that ran along a shiny brass track bolted to the ceiling. Most of the books were about world history and biographies of famous people—Abraham Lincoln, Winston Churchill, and the like. As far as I could tell none of the books was anything I wanted to read, so I climbed off the ladder and wandered into the kitchen.

  Oletta was singing some song about Jesus and collard greens while she worked at a butcher-block table that sat in front of the window. Flour covered her hands like thin white gloves, and beads of sweat glistened on her forehead as she beat a mound of dough with a wooden mallet.

  “Whatcha doing?” I asked.

  “I’ve gotta whack this dough at least two hundred times,” she said, hitting it so hard that puffs of flour rose in the air and dusted her chin. “The secret to my beaten biscuits bein’ the best in Savannah is ’cause I whack the dough till it blist
ers up real good.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “Beaten biscuits? I’ve never had one.”

  She stopped and raised her eyebrows. “Never had a beaten biscuit? Well, then you ain’t lived. There’s nothing better than a beaten biscuit with butter and honey. Do me a favor, child. Fetch the roll of wax paper from the pantry. It’s in the third drawer on the left.”

  As I entered the pantry there was a knock at the back door, followed by a shrill “Hellooooooo, anybody home?”

  From where I stood I could see Oletta. She turned toward the door, rolled her eyes, and called out, “Miz Tootie’s gone for the day.”

  The screen door creaked open, and a moment later a short, big-busted woman stepped into the kitchen doorway. Her pudgy body was stuffed into a strawberry-pink dress that was so tight I could see the seams of her girdle. The neckline was cut so low, I was sure her breasts would explode into full view if she took a deep breath. She had the biggest mound of teased-up blond hair I’d ever seen.

  “Well, I was just over at Sissy-Lynn’s havin’ my weekly manicure,” she said in a high-pitched, singsong voice, “and I heard there’s a new resident of Savannah named Cecelia who just so happens to be living here with Tootie. I had to come over right away and see if it was true.”

  Oletta kept right on beating the dough. She never even looked up when she said, “Afta-noon, Miz Hobbs. Like I said, Miz Tootie’s out for the day, but I’ll tell her you stopped by.”

  It was obvious Oletta didn’t like this woman, so I shrunk back into the pantry, but my head banged into the teacup holder and set the cups rattling.

  “There she is!” the woman bleated, shimmying across the kitchen in a pair of pink high heels. She looked me over with the bulgy eyes of a Chihuahua. “You must be Cecelia. I’m Violene Hobbs, and I wanted to be among the first to welcome you to Savannah.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You poor thing,” she said, cocking her head in that irritating, sympathetic way that grown-ups do when they think you’re pitiful. “I heard your momma passed away. Such a tragedy. Once you get settled, you’ll have to come over and tell me all about it. But I just can’t stop myself from askin’—how in the world did she get hit by a truck?”

  I was stunned speechless. Who does she think she is? What kind of person would ask a question like that?

  “I’ve learned the more we talk about things the better we feel. I talk about everything, and I know that’s one of the reasons why I never so much as catch a cold.” She pinched my cheek and grinned. “But now that you’ve been rescued by Tootie, I’m sure everything will work out just fine.”

  The more she talked, the louder Oletta whacked the dough. Each time she brought down the mallet, I thought the table might break.

  Miz Hobbs just babbled away, paying no mind to the deathblows Oletta was inflicting on the dough. She didn’t even flinch when Oletta brought down the mallet so hard it made the window rattle.

  “You’ll like Savannah, it’s the gem of the South,” Miz Hobbs gushed. “I live two doors away—the house with the swimming pool. Did you know I’m one of the only people in Savannah who has one?”

  “No, ma’am.” I said, trying to edge my way closer to Oletta.

  Miz Hobbs followed me across the kitchen like a bloodhound on a fresh scent. “Like I said, you’ll have to come over sometime soon so we can talk about how you lost your poor momma. I just can’t imagine how devastated you must be, bless your little heart. You must be beside yourself.”

  “I’m fine,” I mumbled.

  Her lips formed a pitying grin, and the thin veneer of her phony graciousness fell away when she said, “I heard you were a Northerner. You have a sweet face, but it’s hard to see it. Your bangs are too long—looks like you’re hidin’ behind a raggedy old curtain. When’s the last time you had your hair cut? I see those hippies hitchhiking on the side of the road in their dirty torn clothes and sandals, and I just don’t understand it. I can practically see the bugs crawlin’ in their hair. That whole hippie thing started up north, didn’t it? Or maybe it was California. I forget.”

  Oletta looked over her shoulder and gave Miz Hobbs a nasty look.

  With fingers as plump as Twinkies, Miz Hobbs reached out and touched my ponytail. “If your hair gets much longer you’ll be sittin’ on it. I’m sure you don’t want to look like one of those dreadful hippies. But don’t worry—my beautician can fix you right up. You’d look nice in one of those short pixie haircuts. I think those are so cute. I’ll be sure to mention it to Tootie.”

  It was all I could do not to slap her hand away.

  “Well, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’d better skedaddle on home. The day is runnin’ away from me, and I’ve got sooooooo much to do. Buh-bye,” she chirped in a syrupy-sweet voice as she headed toward the door. But she stopped midstride and looked down her nose at Oletta. Her voice was fi lled with a superior bite when she said, “Later this afternoon I’ll be expecting you to drop off some of those wonderful beaten biscuits. Last time I mentioned it you never did bring them by. But I’m sure you just forgot, isn’t that right?”

  Oletta didn’t answer. She just kept right on whacking the dough.

  Miz Hobbs waved her hand in the air. “I’ll be waitin’ for your visit, Cecelia.”

  She made a ridiculously grand, sweeping exit as if she were auditioning for a remake of Gone With the Wind.

  When the slap of the screen door sounded, Oletta stopped bludgeoning the dough and let out a snort. Her eyes narrowed as she leaned forward and looked out the window. “The devil will invite Jesus to Sunday supper before I’ll give that woman a crumb of my cookin’.”

  I walked across the kitchen and stood next to Oletta. We watched Miz Hobbs wiggle across the patio until her wide, strawberry-pink rump vanished around the side of the house.

  “She’s always pokin’ around in everyone’s business, thinks she’s gonna die if she ain’t in the center of everything going on in this town.” Oletta looked at me thoughtfully. “You be careful of her. Mind every word you say. Don’t tell her about your momma, ’cause if you do, it’ll be all over town in less than five minutes. Miz Hobbs ain’t nothin’ but an ole flap-jawed busybody.”

  “Is she a friend of Aunt Tootie’s?”

  Oletta wiped her hands on her apron and frowned. “Lord, no. She nice to her because that’s how Miz Tootie is, but far as I can tell ain’t nobody friends with Miz Hobbs. People just put up with her, that’s all. I guess they feel sorry for her.”

  “Why?” I asked, brushing a drift of flour from the edge of the table.

  “She lives all alone in that big house, and nobody stops in for a visit. She has two grown daughters, but I ain’t seen either one of ’em in years. Far as I know they never come back, not even at Christmastime.”

  “Miz Hobbs doesn’t have a husband?”

  Oletta shook her head and began rolling out the dough. “Not anymore she don’t. Her husband owned a bank right here in town. He was a nice man. Real quiet and gentlemanly, always had something nice to say to everybody. Story goes that one Saturday mornin’ he was sitting in the kitchen reading the paper when Miz Hobbs walked in flappin’ her jaws about somethin’. Nobody knows what all she said, but I guess he couldn’t take her big mouth no more. He didn’t have the nerve to kill her, so he up and shot himself instead.”

  At first I thought it was a joke, some story Oletta had made up to make me laugh. But when I saw the look in her eyes, I knew the story was true.

  While Oletta’s biscuits were in the oven, we took a plate of egg salad sandwiches out to the porch and had lunch. It felt so good—just Oletta and me sitting in the big white rockers, sharing some quiet time. I watched her from the corner of my eye: how she chewed her sandwich real slow, and how, after she swallowed, she’d rest her head against the back of the chair, seeming pleased with the taste that lingered on her tongue.

  She wore no jewelry except for a narrow silver ring. Though I didn’t want to seem nosy, I thought it was
probably okay to ask her about it. “Are you married, Oletta?”

  She glanced at her hand. “No. This here ring was my momma’s. I put it on the day she passed away and haven’t taken it off since. Makes me feel close to her. I was married once, but that was a long time ago. His name was Henry. We was only married six years—then the mule-kick did him in.”

  I’d never heard of anyone dying from the blow of a mule’s hooves. I imagined an ornery mule letting out a deafening bray and hauling off and kicking the life out of her husband. The thought of it made me shudder.

  “That’s awful, Oletta. Did the mule kill him on purpose, or was it an accident?”

  She looked at me with the oddest expression and laughed. “Oh, child, mule-kick is liquor—you know, booze. Henry ain’t dead, least not far as I know. He was just lazy and drank too much. Couldn’t hold a job more than a few months at a time, so I had to throw him out of the house. That’s when I came to work for Miz Tootie. Been here twenty-nine years. Lord, time goes so fast.”

  Oletta stretched her legs and sighed when she looked at her thick, broken-down ankles. “My legs keep telling me to retire, but I don’t see no sense in sittin’ around waitin’ for my final day. Besides, I like to cook, and Miz Tootie’s always been real good to me.” She took a sip of sweet tea and said, “Yes, she sure has treated me fine. Mr. Taylor did too, bless his sweet soul. I couldn’t have asked to work for finer folks, that’s for sure. I turned fi fty-five last May, and Miz Tootie gave me the whole week off with full pay. She said a double-nickel birthday was something to be celebrated by relaxing. So that’s just what I did. I was at home sitting on the porch when a truck pulled up. A man got out and said he was there to deliver a new color TV and a leather recliner chair. I told him he had the wrong address, but he said they was gifts from Miz Tootie.” Oletta leaned back and closed her eyes. “Best chair I ever did sit in. Every day I go home, sit myself down in that chair, and take a nice long nap.”

  Just then I heard a rusty squeak. Through the row of open windows on the back wall of the garage, I saw a glint of light spark from Delilah’s wings as Aunt Tootie pulled the car in and parked. A moment later she came walking toward us at a brisk clip.