Forsythe Park is the essence of our city to me. It seems to embody the heart of Savannah. Every element of our character seems to merge here and is represented somewhere in this two-block area . Tilling here with Duke—this morning he was desperate enough for sanity that he agreed to accompany me—was such a perfect way to start a day. The manicured shrubs lined the perimeter, the branches of towering trees cascaded over the sidewalk, the soothing sound of the fountain bubbled out of the center. The kaleidoscope required one to focus on something central.
Every morning it brought me to focus on communing with my Creator. Not some life force that gave us morning beauty and evening splendor. Not someone who only mattered when recognized, but who recognized us even when we treated Him as if He didn’t matter. It was our time. His time to remind me of eternal things. My time to remind Him of my much-needed graces.
Somewhere between my attempts to make more headway than I had the day before, a redheaded flame passed me. She was wearing short shorts and had legs up to heaven. Her curly mane was pulled back in a ponytail. She had her earphones on but was singing. It was clear she wasn’t tilling, because she obviously didn’t realize how loud she was.
She didn’t recognize me, or at least didn’t let on if she did. I’m sure Grant had a picture of me somewhere. As many memories as we had made on film, it wasn’t possible he had removed every trace of me from his existence. After she passed me I slowed up, forcing Duke to retreat with a gagging sound, as I hadn’t forewarned him.
You have no idea your world’s about to be rocked, do you, sister? Well, I don’t want to have to hurt you, but love is difficult.
“Isn’t it, Duke?” He looked at me, seeming a tad irritated and confused.“Love is difficult. Don’t you know?”
Of course he knew. His gaze wandered to a poodle coming up the sidewalk. But he couldn’t fool me. I knew every dog made him dream of Lucy. He had pined for that dog since she got antique-store broken. But Mr .Newman knew Duke’s reputation. Duke has a wandering eye, that must be admitted, which is why Dad has to keep such a close eye on him. And why Miss Alberta carries her Chihuahua in her purse. Rumors of his philandering float the streets of Savannah. As do a few suspicious-looking mixed-breeds.
This distraction from my tilling was rather frustrating. But it did affirm that my evening plans would be worth all the heartache I’d endured.
We entered Jake’s through the back door. Duke began growling at the swinging doors immediately. I peeked out to see none other than Miss Television Time perched at the counter, talking to my father.
“She must really like it here.” I patted Duke on the head. He growled again.“What’s into you, anyway?”
“He doesn’t like that little lady,” Richard said as he came out of the stockroom with more napkins.
“Growls at her every time she comes in,” Louise said, looking up from the dishes she was washing.
“How often does she come in?” I asked.
“Oh, three, maybe four times a day. Only wants your father helping her. She likes him.”
Their drama cracked me up. “She’s a silly lady. She knows my father is married.”
“Savannah, child. Some women don’t care ’bout that kind of stuff,” Richard said, putting away some cups that Mervine had just dried.
“Please, what would that woman want with my dad? He’s old enough to be her father.” I took a quick peek out through the slats of the door. I patted Duke on the head.“Come on, boy, let’s try to get ice out of the ice dispenser again.” He wasn’t interested. I sighed and turned my attention back to the manual dishwashers. “Anyway, when is that dishwasher getting here, ladies?”
“I called that little twit again this morning. He said he would have it here this afternoon,” Louise said, becoming slightly more aggressive with the cup she was washing. “I told him if he didn’t he would have me to contend with when I showed up on his front porch.”
“Ooh, call me before you go. I’m needing a good human-interest story.” I headed to the door.
“Better not have to go. And you could do an interest story on all these demanding people that keep coming in here,wanting stuff we don’t have. If one more young’un asks me for a Frappuccino, I’m going to beat his big old—” Mervine slapped her wet hand over Louise’s mouth, leaving Louise to spit out soap suds.
“Well, you two just keep that woman away from my dad,” I shouted as I went to close the door.
“Hard to keep women away from a good-looking man, Savannah.” Mervine spoke with a sly smile.
“Oh, that’s disgusting.”
I heard Mervine laugh . That was about all she offered. Probably wouldn’t hear from her for another week.
As I walked out to my car, I could hear my mother’s voice talking lively and loudly . Turning slowly so as not to attract attention, I saw the top of her red mane shooting out above possibly ten microphones. It was when I heard my name mentioned that red blood cells in me began to swim upstream and land inside my face. I was tired of being her topic of discussion. She wanted me to interview her for my article . There was no need to. She had given me everything I needed to know in her sound bites.
“Gave up on the heels today, huh?” my office partner asked as he stared at my brown leather flip-flops. “And the pearls? Where are the pearls?”
“Do you monitor everyone’s clothes, or do you just need someone to irritate at the crack of dawn?”
He couldn’t hide his perfectly white smile, even though he tried to feign disinterest.“Well, only the attire of those who like to dangle beneath cars, and it is nowhere near the crack of dawn.”
I sat my Coke down on my strip of desk that ran from one end of my Styrofoam heaven to the other . The metamorphosis of my cardboard world to some semblance of an office was slow, menial, and probably impossible.
“You are such the comedian . Do you work or just walk around?” I turned my back on him and sat down to cut on my computer.
He produced a pathetic mimic. “Do you work or just walk around? Actually, I work while I walk around, and bike and sit and all kinds of things. So what are you going to write about?” He pulled up a chair.
I turned to look at his black curls, which were drooping into his eyes. His tanned and masculine hand pushed them away, leaving his black eyes to stare at me . The richness of them caught me off guard and I looked away. “Did I invite you here this morning?
Because trust me, I’ve met my irritation quota for the day.”
“No, but I’m not invited to most of the places I end up.
Anyway, you’re too young to be irritated so early in the morning.
So quit avoiding the subject . What are you going to write about?”
I began to check my e-mail so I wouldn’t have to look at him.
“I’m going to write about what everyone is talking about. It would be rather odd for me to act as if nothing is happening around here, wouldn’t it? Especially after I was highlighted in the paper! ”
“Well, I’m sure there is plenty to say. So are you going to talk about your mother?”
I finally turned to him. He sat there with his elbow leaning on my desk and his face resting in his hand, like a two-year-old just needing to talk. “You can read it with the rest of the city. Now, would you please go away?”
“You don’t look like you want me to go.”
His words startled me. I stopped, not knowing where he was getting his imaginary information.“You . . . you are beside yourself this morning, mister . Trust me, I want you to go!” I said, adding a little push to his arrogant arm that rested underneath his chin.
His face fell but he lifted it with an evil smile and got up, returning his chair beside the door. “I gotta get to a meeting anyway. I’m going to cover the chamber of commerce.”
“I thought you couldn’t cover them anymore since you referred to my mother as Vicky in your first coverage.”
He peeked back around my opening.“She won’t be there now, will she?”
“Touché.”
“Adios, Ms. Phillips. Adios.”
Adios,Ms. Phillips. Adios. I don’t want you to go? You must be out of your mind. I am a woman in love with a wonderful man who is going to be thrilled that I have finally come to my senses . You need to get over yourself and join up with the woman who loves you. Miss Amber Topaz . You wll be perfect for each other . Then she can finally be Mrs. United States of America.
The pace of a newspaper seems consistently frantic. There is always the sound of a printer echoing in the hall . There is the sound of the pecking of computer keys. The smell of coffee. The fizzing of Coke. And the chatter of televisions. I wasn’t used to this pace. I was a person who stole away and wrote in parks . Who sat in cafés and sipped Coca-Cola and snacked on chips. Most deadlines I created for myself. But now things were different. Life was different.
I stared at the computer screen in front of me and could make out my own image in its black reflection. Even though I had just written a story one week before, the simple task of turning yesterday’s stream-of-consciousness efforts into an article suffocated me. I turned my hands over and watched as the dampness seeped its way into the lines on the palm of my hands. I had expected different things in my life.
I had expected Grant to marry me. I had expected to be a novelist. I had expected the circle of life to end up, well, in a circle. But somewhere Savannah’s train had missed the junction, and I was heading into a land of uncharted territory and frightening change.
My fingers crawled gingerly up to the keyboard. And with the steady well of irritation that had been pent up for the last five days, the dam burst. What I had feared, flowed. I typed like a crazy woman. I typed and laughed and grimaced and typed. It was downright cathartic. I didn’t need to make a revelation of ideals. I just needed to talk about the human factor. After all, I was a writer of human interest. And nothing was more of human interest than interesting humans. And my word, there was a human factor on that square bigger than all get-out.
By my two p.m. deadline,my third human-interest article was printed and tucked neatly away in a folder and placed on Mr. Hicks’s desk . The truth about this city would be revealed by one of its very own, Ms.“Savannah from Savannah.”