Does Pink Toes have a name?” I asked my father as he filled the cooler with Cokes from the refrigerator in the garage. I was avoiding the house at all costs. Not having to see my mother or Amber offered a little hope that maybe this nightmare that was supposed to be a vacation would all go away.
“She does. Magnolia.” He smiled.
“Well, why did I ask?” I really should have known. Magnolia was what Mother had wanted to name Duke. It was in fact one of the reasons she despised Duke and he despised her. Her animosity: he wasn’t her Magnolia. His animosity: she had wanted to name him after a tree. Granted, the dog liked to pee on trees and flowers, but he didn’t want to be named after one.A dog had his pride.They hadn’t cared for each other since. She hid his treats; he ate her shoes. It was an equal trade. But his life had now successfully been destroyed. At least at home. I doubt Pink Toes would make it to Jake’s Coffee Shop for daily siestas.
“I think I’ll call her Maggy,” I said as a declaration.
“If you dare.”Vicky hated anything ending in y. That’s why I wanted to change my name to Betty.Why I still called her Vicky in my head. And why her friends Cindy, Lucy, and Chloe have been renamed Cynthia, Lucinda, and Chloina.The woman doesn’t care that Chloina isn’t a name. Nor is she apparently cognizant of the fact that Chloe doesn’t end in a y. But if Chloe doesn’t mind, who am I to protest.
“Oh, I dare.”
Dad disappeared into the house to round up Mother and Amber. Paige rounded the corner of the garage about the same time Maggy came running out of the house, barking as if she had no idea one swat would fly her into next week.
My friend halted in her tracks at the edge of the house, suitcase in one hand, art portfolio in the other. She set the suitcase down. “Savannah, you better tell me that dog doesn’t belong to your mama.”
“Okay.That dog doesn’t belong to my mama. Now, let’s put your little bag here in the trunk.” I tried to lift her two-ton bag from the concrete into the back of the SUV.
“Oh no you don’t!” She jerked her luggage from my hand. “You are not going to corner me in a car with all of this”—her jutting neck indicated the surrounding chaos—“and then sit me in a house with it for a week.”
I grabbed both of her shoulders and made her look into my eyes. Her messy, short, bleached-blonde tresses were in exceptional disarray today. But I stared into her blue eyes.“You can do this,” I assured her. “We can do this,” I assured myself. “We are competent, able women.”
She met my gaze.“You are certifiable.”
“I just need to go.”
“Why? Why do you need to go? You could have a week’s vacation from all of this if you stayed here. Why in the world would you want to follow the havoc?”
“Because . . . well, there’s a story. A necessary story that I need to tell. And the only way it will be told is . . . well . . . is if I tell it.”
“And you couldn’t just make a phone call, take an interview, write your little story, and prevent this madness?”
“Please, no more questions. My little mind is full of riddles. And it can’t take all this riddling. Please, you have to do this with me.We’ll get there and leave these people to their own devices. We’ll lie on the beach far away from them.We’ll eat at different restaurants. We’ll sleep outside in a pup tent if necessary.”
“That will not be necessary.”
“Good!” I sighed in relief.“But I would have done it for you. Plus, the tans that await us will be spectacular.”
“You will owe me for the rest of your life.”
I removed her luggage from her death grip. “I probably already do.”
“Oh, you do.” She glared.“You do.”
“Okay. Let’s get a move on,” Dad declared as he returned. He opened up the back and let Duke in where he had created enough room for Duke’s expansive pillow. Mother came out of the house with one arm wrapped around the sniffling Amber, and the other arm carrying a pink-pillowed basket with Pink Toes resting inside. Few ever returned from the place where we were about to travel. One could only hope the spiral downward would offer directions back up.
Like all things Amber, even her getting “settled” into the backseat was a performance. Paige and I, not being the sharpest knives in the drawer, just stood and watched as Amber “settled” herself into the middle. Had we been a tad more astute, we would have pushed her long-legged behind over to the door.
She placed her purse between her legs. Set her makeup bag on top of that, and then nestled a box of tissues in her lap. She put her seat belt on, attentive to its potentially crushing effects on her seersucker sundress. One leg stretched itself onto my side, the other reached over to Paige, and then Amber reached into her rather colorful Louis Vuitton bag, which probably cost as much as a month of my rent, and pulled out some rather sizable white-framed sunglasses.“They’ll cover the puffiness,” she informed the two lamentable gawkers witnessing her invading their space. Truth be told, the child looked like an albino fly. Further truth be told, I might just pawn her bag to pay next month’s rent and the speeding ticket that should have been hers.
Paige only entered because I shoved her.
“Grrr,” Maggy offered.
“Grrr,” Paige retorted.
Maggy returned to hiding.This was going to be fun.
I squeezed in beside the retail store, and Duke sat in the back, none too happy either. He leaned his head over my right shoulder mighty close to Amber’s rather large white hoop earrings and about ripped her ear open with his nose when it got caught in the center of the ring.That caused a brief interruption, but with Duke’s nose set free,Amber’s earrings placed inside next month’s rent, and Paige’s huffing slowed to a heavy sigh, we finally made it out of the garage. Nothing transpired as planned. Had it, we would have all started looking up for Jesus’ return!
As we pulled onto Oglethorpe, I felt the familiar tug of my city. The tug that reminded me I really never liked leaving this place, even if it was only for a week of vaca—research. Odd for a woman who had been gone six years and only returned ten months ago. But even through those years of college and graduate school there was always an aching for home. My home. The city that mocked me as its “Savannah from Savannah,” an identity forced upon me by years of Victoria-induced introductions.
I, however, finally accepted it, realized only one man would ever call me Betty, and now ended each of my columns declaring my own self “Savannah from Savannah” to the very readers who taunted me. The hope was that the self-assertion would end all ridicule. It wasn’t completely successful. Today, I simply disregarded the pockets of resistance. Well, most of the time.
But Savannah the city had come to define me. It had allowed me a place to fail miserably and yet survive. Few places allow such grace. And even though I had let go of my one-time goal of literary acclaim, I settled into a nice rhythm of literary life, examining the essence of our humanness and telling its story through the eyes of a less-than-perfect journeyman. The city had welcomed me. Begrudgingly but eventually. I had accepted it. Begrudgingly but eventually as well.
The foghorn of Amber’s nose blared beside me.
Let’s hope my return would be better than the departure.