Jessica was trying to hide a tear. Imagine that. My word, the child was actually human. I was beginning to think she was a short-circuited Stepford wife. “Gotcha, didn’t it?” I said to her.
She flitted herself around to stare at her filing cabinet.“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Yes, you do, Jessica. See, you’re not so mean after all.”
She spun around.“I’ve never been mean.”
“You don’t call putting pictures of me in the paper in embarrassing and misunderstood situations mean?”
“I don’t make the decision of what gets in the paper around here, Savannah. He does.” She pointed to Mr. Hicks, who was still trying to recover from Joy’s departure. She was right, of course. At the end of the day, Mr. Hicks made the decisions. I looked at him. He looked back. Joy had gotten him. I could tell . The grown man’s eyes were sweating.
“Savannah, she’s right. The buck stops with me. And about your picture . Well, I’ll try to make sure that in the future your picture appears only above your article.”
He nodded at me with a smile. Jessica wore no expression at all.
“One more thing, Savannah . Tell Joshua North I’ll be talking with him shortly.”
Joshua was at my desk when I went to grab my purse. He had, once again, invaded my personal space and was looking at the picture of me and Paige from a trip we took a year ago to Greece for part of the Olympic games.
“Did you knock?” I picked up my bag.
He set the picture back down and turned to face me. “Very funny.”
He stopped and stared at me. The look in his eyes made me uncomfortable.“What?”
“You look . . . well, you look rather nice today.” I knew he’d notice. He thought he had me pegged. I could tell.
“I’ve got to go,” I said, heading back out.
He grabbed my elbow.“You can’t ignore me forever,” he said, trying to hide his smile.
“No, but I can ignore you for today. And I can deal with you tomorrow.” I removed my elbow from his grip before offering him my hand upside his head as well.
He brushed past me on his way back to his own cubbyhole to answer his ringing phone . Mr. Hicks.“I’m not going anywhere.”
“Well, I am.”
“You’re a mess.” He laughed.
“I am not. I look much better today than the other day,” I said, passing my hands over my skirt.
“I didn’t mean the way you look; I mean you. But you’re figuring it out. I can tell.”Well, wasn’t he just some master of life.
“Oh, well, I’m so glad you approve. Because at the end of the day, my greatest desire is for your approval.” I tried to be as snide as possible. I exited with no further parting words. I didn’t care to ever see him again. Not again today anyway.
“Ooh!” I let out my frustration as I straightened my cushion to sit down in Old Betsy. She let out a similar sound, and we were on our way.
Most every street from the newspaper to the court-house was blocked. It didn’t matter. I would walk. It was hard to park nearby on a typical day anyway. The sidewalks were packed because the streets had been cordoned off with rope and police officers, so the presidential motorcade could drive directly up to the courthouse.
“Betty?!”
I turned to see Judge Hoddicks walking up the sidewalk with some men who were sweating underneath their black suits and death-grip neckties. He had called me Betty since I petitioned to change my name to Betty in the eighth grade. From that day forward, the name Savannah had never even crossed his lips.
“Judge! I haven’t gotten to see you all week . Tied up, huh?”
He chuckled, wiping his sixty-five-year-old white eyebrows with his handkerchief and wrapping the other free hand around me as we walked.“I would say your mother has paid the tied-up price for me.”
“You got me there.”
“Are you heading over there to see her?”
“Yes, sir . Want to make sure she looks okay . You know, with the president coming and everything.”
“She’s proud of you, Betty.”
“I know. And I’m proud of her.”
“You should be. She’s shown us what she’s made of this week.”
I looked at his tired eyes . Wonder what Joy would have said about him.“Looks like you have too.”
“It’s been worth it . We might not win here, but the message sent by the people who have flocked to this square is proof of what they’re willing to fight for.”
“You did good.” I put my arm through his and rested my head on it as we walked.
“It’s not hard when you love what you do.”
The path cleared before us as Judge Hoddicks made his way to the courthouse . There were some pats, some cheers, and a few rather snippy remarks. Sergeant Millings raised his nightstick at the protestors, as if he would know what to do with it. I paused across the street from my mother while the judge went on inside the courthouse. Vicky was standing, talking animatedly with some women who were gathered around her. She looked beautiful, stunningly beautiful, considering the sweltering humidity of this first day of June. Of course, she was underneath her umbrella and holding a tiny motorized fan to her face, but in spite of that, she looked fabulous.
I didn’t want to bother her. I just wanted to enjoy her. She loved these people. She loved this city. Her love showed in every gesture and every hug and every question about someone else’s children . True, she wanted to control it, but at the core, she just wanted to see it succeed.
A lady on the roped-off sidewalk caught everyone’s attention. “Watch it . Watch it. The president. That’s his car. Look, look, the president’s motorcade!”
All the action on the sidewalks and around the courthouse ceased. And in that moment in time, it seemed as if the entire light of the sun shone on one Victoria Phillips and the monument she protected. Everybody backed away from her, and she stood in front of the monument,waiting to meet the president. She looked regal. Almost queenlike. Handcuffed, perhaps, but queens had passed that way before as well.
I heard the sound before I realized what was happening . The roar of an engine. The squealing of brakes. I turned quickly from my position across the street from my mother. In one lightening-flash moment, the third car in the motorcade broke loose and headed directly for my mother and the monument.
The air was sucked out of the square. All I saw were the whites of Vicky’s eyes, larger than life . They were like a Shih Tzu’s with its ponytail too tight. In an instant, the car broke through the iron hitching posts and crashed into the monument . The sound of crunching metal, crumbling concrete, and piercing screams could be heard on Bay Street. Then silence. For an eternity no one moved. All that was heard was the hissing of the radiator of the engine and the clanging metal as the rest of the bumper detached itself and landed on the sidewalk.
“Mother!” I screamed as I ran across the square. Bile rose in my throat at the thought of what I would see. Before I knew it, two men who looked for all the world like morticians, grabbed me and pulled me away . The back door of the limousine flew open, and out climbed two secret-service men, followed by the president of the United States.
The president’s car had killed my mother! The president scrambled out and ran toward the monument . The secret service men were in front of him and behind him. I broke free from the two men holding me and ran in terror to find my mother. As I rounded the side of the car, I noticed movement underneath some of the granite. My father rose from the mess, and underneath him lay my mother, virtually lifeless until she heard the president’s voice . Then those Mary Kay mascara eyelashes batted open. The secret service men pulled my father up. He had a noticeable cut across his elbow and a small cut on his cheek. Other than that, he was mostly dusty.
The president then reached down to help up my mother. She wasn’t quite the picture of perfection that she had been moments ago. Her hair was sitting predominately on the right side of her head, now a white ashen color. Her face was practically albino, and her pretty pink suit . . .well, let’s just say it wasn’t so pretty. She had a slight cut above her right eyebrow. She’d milk that one for a month. One heel was broken. She’d milk that for two. And her stockings were ripped to shreds, proving once again the ridiculous notion of wearing clean underwear during a wreck . Who’s to say how the mess happens.
She tried to brush herself off. Make herself presentable for the leader of the free world. A vain attempt at uselessness.
And there in rubble, surrounding the woman that had protected it, lay the crumbled monument of the Ten Commandments. For the past week people had prayed by it, sung by it, slept by it, and fought over it. And today it was nothing more than a mass of chunks of marble and piles of dust. No court would decide its fate now . That had been decided by a crazed limousine driver.
Then I remembered Joy’s tap on my heart. It was still intact in there, no matter what had happened to it out here . We would fight for the monument again. But no matter the outcome next time, it hadn’t been shattered inside me.