I got up before anyone else so I could make a quiet exit. I wrote a quick note saying I had some work to do until late that evening (which I did), I wouldn’t be home until late (which I wouldn’t), and I would see them in the morning (which I would). Adding the only thing necessary to prevent a return to a thousand questions, I jotted a note to my mother offering lunch tomorrow. That invitation alone would save me from being accosted by a woman perched atop a chair in the dark when I got home.
A new bronze button-down with a patterned skirt in cream and bronze seemed appropriate for my lunch appointment. I pulled my hair back in a low ponytail and slipped on a pair of cream-colored slides, which I’m certain Vicky paid entirely too much for. The entire ensemble was topped off with a Louis Vuitton backpack, a graduation gift I never asked for.
Heading west on Interstate 16 allowed me about two and a half hours to drive, catch my breath, and sort my thoughts. How was I possibly going to be able to write a story about a rigged beauty pageant and not make a debauchery of Gloria’s good name? She wrote stories of conviction. She wrote articles that made readers believe in something, even someone. She unearthed a moral compass that came from something more profound than herself.
I wasn’t sure which way my own compass pointed half the time, and I probably wouldn’t be able to help anyone else find theirs. The only thing I knew on this day was that I had her job, a possible first story, and a knowing in my heart that this was what I was supposed to do. At that point, those were the only things I could trust.
This is for a purpose. This is for justice. If Emma really lost because of unethical behavior and her pathetic existence is the end result, then this does have a purpose. Emma needs me. She might not know it, but she’ll thank me for this when it is over, I thought.
The parking lot at Buckhead Diner off of Piedmont was pretty full at eleven thirty. As I pulled up, I realized that neither Mrs. Harvard nor I knew what the other looked like.Voice recollection would be our only connection, other than the “are you her?” look in each other’s eyes.
The hostess put my name on the waiting list. I told the super-model hostess my guest would be a Mrs. Harvard and then sat down at the curved booth under the window. Scanning the waiting area, no one seemed to look like a Mrs. Harvard, not that I had any idea what a Mrs. Harvard would look like. There was a couple all cozied up in the corner, acting as if there was no other person around their love nest. They were totally unsympathetic to the fact that someone in the room had just been forced to hear her onetime boyfriend and future husband tell her he was marrying another woman. I found them annoying.
A group of thirty-something women chattered away by the door, as if this was their first day of adult conversation in the last millennium and they were making up for lost time. With each woman hardly taking time to breathe between sentences, it was a miracle that they even knew what the others were saying. I’m sure as long as the words returning weren’t “Mama” or “gimme,” it didn’t matter much.
The young couple took their seats without ever removing their hands from each other. I’d love to see what you two look like in fifty years. Looking back now, Grant and I had never been that way. He hadn’t competed with another man, just my own selfishness. It made me wonder if I had ever loved him the way real lovers do, those who finish each other’s sentences and can’t walk without holding hands.
The group of jabbering women forced me back into the moment as they walked to their table. Around eleven forty-five, the supermodel led me to mine. A young waitress made her way to my booth by the far window to take my drink order. Coke seemed adolescent, so I asked for water with lemon.
At noon sharp, Mrs. Harvard walked through the door, looking just like the seventy-some-year-old wife of a “retired” accountant from Atlanta should. As her low-heeled, closed-toed, cream pumps brought her stately frame to our table, I stood to greet her. She placed her small and wrinkled hand into mine. We made our introductions, and I invited her to sit down.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Harvard. Thank you so much for coming.” I waited for her to get comfortable in the booth.
She nodded her freshly styled, frosted gray hair. She straightened her dainty pink-and-white striped piqué skirt, then ran her hands across the matching short-sleeved jacket accented with pearl buttons. I glanced at her matching pink purse. “Well, if I hadn’t given you my word, I would’ve canceled this silly meeting. I don’t know why on earth you are fooling around with something that is thirty years old and of little importance to most people.”
“Well, I’m bringing it up because of the people it was important to at one time.”
“‘At one time’ may be the key words, young lady.”
That “young lady” thing was so irritating. “Well, apparently not. After thirty years, a woman I know actually felt she should tell someone.”Mrs. Harvard seemed to debate whether she would stay. Her pause allowed me to add another thought.“And it was obviously something that either your husband or his partner was troubled enough by, or caught red-handed doing, that they never performed the task again.”
The waitress arrived in time to prevent her from grabbing her knife and flinging it in my direction.“I think I’m going to need a Coke, young lady,” she said, looking at the waitress and then returning her glare to me. I figured if I was the source of causing a seventy-something woman to actually “need” a Coke, then we might get somewhere.
“Savannah, is it?” she asked. I nodded back at her with as genuine a smile as I could muster.“Savannah, let me tell you something about my husband, God rest his soul,” she said with a quick bowing of her frosted head and crossing of the chest. “If there is one thing that Stanley was, it was honest. He never wanted anything to do with anything or anyone that wasn’t totally honest. So, if you are here questioning his character, then I’ll let you know right now our conversation is finished.”
“Mrs. Harvard, I’m not here to destroy anyone’s character. I am simply here to find out why in 1972 a young lady who competed in the Miss Georgia United States of America Pageant left feeling rather confident that the wrong girl was chosen.”
“I’m sure girls feel that way every year. It’s a beauty pageant; only one girl can win.”
“I know that. But this is a different situation, and I’m here to find out what Mr. Harvard might have known, or Mr. Wilcox for that matter. Did a judge have a complete change of mind? Or, for some ridiculous reason, did your husband change the scores?” I asked, keeping my eyes on her knife.
The waitress came back again, and Mrs. Harvard, who had never opened a menu, looked at her and ordered blue cheese chips. “I would like a Coke too,” I added.
“Well, you’re just an adventurous little soul, aren’t you?” Mrs. Harvard said, moving her straw around in her glass and never taking her eyes off me.“So, Nancy Drew,why would my husband quit if he had something to gain? I would think he would continue forever if he was making a profit, wouldn’t you?”
The giggling sounds from the booth across from us pulled my attention in their direction. There they sat. The two young lovers, oblivious to common decency. I wanted to slap them. By George, for a moment I wanted to slap her. But I was too busy watching them to remember her. And when I did, she was still in full discourse.
“Let me tell you why: Because he didn’t. Because my husband was the auditor for that pageant for one year. One year too many. And, to kill your curiosity, it was my husband who realized that something underhanded was going on. So if you thought this is where you would find your story, you are sadly mistaken, young lady.” I noticed her run her frail fingers around a simple gold wedding band that still graced her ring finger.
“Then who is the story, Mrs. Harvard?”
“You’re the reporter, Savannah.”
“So you’re not going to give me anything?”
“Oh, yes, young lady. I’m going to give you something. I’m going to give you a piece of advice. You need to decide first if this is even a story worth telling. If it is, you need to make sure my husband’s name is never mentioned. And then you need to figure out where the real story is, because you’ve looked in the wrong place.”
“Can’t you throw me a bone?” I asked, exhausted.
“Yes, I’ll give you a bone. Longevity is the key here, and what would be gained is the question. If you’re going to be a reporter, you need to ask all the questions.”With that, she stood up, laid her unused napkin on the table, picked up her pink purse, and pranced herself out of the diner.
The waitress arrived with a plate of blue cheese chips. “I’ll need another Coke,” I said, staring at the plate in front of me.“And you can keep them coming.”
Mrs. Harvard left me feeling like an idiot, totally speechless and with the check. I didn’t even have my first paycheck, and she had left me with the stupid bill, which I paid only after I had successfully made myself sick on blue cheese chips. Walking out to my car in a stupor, I was half-fuming, half utterly confused, and completely full.
Why in the world would she even agree to meet me if she wasn’t going to tell me anything? I thought as I drove. My word, I drove three hours to talk to her. This is a joke. I’m going to go work for Paige. That’s what I’ll do. I’ll stay at home, make the basement an apartment, and work for Paige on the weekends, live on Daddy’s money and Mother’s cooking.And I’ll make prank phone calls in the wee hours of the morning to a little old frosted-haired, pink-and-white-striped prima donna in Atlanta.