We saw the bus before we heard it—the familiar shape of the Greyhound as it burst through a bank of swamp fog, the sticky morning mist so thick it dampened sound. The bus appeared to fly above the pavement, hurtling toward us, the noise of the engine absorbed by a million acres of marshland.
Five months had passed since Jackie’s spectacular triumph. The Women’s Literary Society was splitting up.
Three of us—Robbie-Lee, Priscilla, and me—were leaving town. Miss Lansbury had already left. She resigned from the library to study water conservation with the Osceola Indians. This was of course a stunning development. Librarians did not simply quit their jobs and run off to be with the Indians, at least, not any librarian that had ever worked in Collier County. As if this were not exciting enough, in her farewell interview in the local paper, Miss Lansbury announced that she was, in fact, an Osceola Indian. She had been passing for white. Her decision to follow her heart seemed to give permission to the rest of us to do the same.
We discovered, also, that Priscilla had joined our group at the library at the invitation of Miss Lansbury. It turned out that the principal and several teachers at the Negro high school had alerted Miss Lansbury to a student named Priscilla Harmon who had read every last book in the Negro high school’s library. Miss Lansbury had quietly become Priscilla’s mentor, choosing books for her and getting them to her on the sly.
Robbie-Lee headed to New York. But first he would escort Priscilla to Daytona Beach, where the fall semester at Bethune-Cookman College would start in two days. Jackie, along with Plain Jane and Mrs. Bailey White, would stay behind to help take care of Priscilla’s baby.
Priscilla went to college after all.
I was going with Robbie-Lee and Priscilla as far as Tampa. My plan was to sleep in the bus station, then board a bus for Tallahassee. From there, I’d take another bus west across the Panhandle, through a sliver of Alabama, and to my destination—Mississippi.
Plain Jane, Mrs. Bailey White, and Jackie had come to see us off. As the bus came closer, I took my eyes off it to take one last look at the friends I was leaving behind and freeze the image in my mind.
I had been worried about Jackie. Being Miss Dreamsville had lost its fascination for her. After her identity was revealed, she quit the show, insisting it would never be the same. Ted, strangely enough, was not fired. In fact, in the wake of the Miss Dreamsville publicity, he had actually been promoted by Mr. Toomb.
Jackie needed a new project—and fast. But considering how often she admitted to having little or no maternal instinct, I was surprised, to say the least, when she came up with the idea to help Priscilla. For two whole weeks, Priscilla said no. She did not want to leave her baby, and besides, she thought it was too much to ask. But in the end, her grandmother convinced her to go.
The bus was now close enough for us to see the words “Tampa/Orlando” on the placard across the windshield. A surge of joy mixed with desperation ran through me from my scalp down to my toes. If for some reason that bus did not stop, I would have run out into the road and flagged it down. Come what may, I had to leave.
Robbie-Lee’s presence was a comfort. He was calm and stoic in his usual Rock Hudson sort of way. Aw, heck, he looked poised and handsome no matter what. It was early September, the hottest month here in Collier County. This meant I looked like a well-used dishrag even though it was only six thirty in the morning. Robbie-Lee, on the other hand, looked damp but not wilted. I tried to read his emotions. Determined, I think. He was going to New York to become a star. Either that or an interior decorator. But another of his goals was to find a doctor who didn’t sneer at his mother’s health problem—her painful breasts. His dream was to bring Dolores north and see to it that she got the help she needed. I had no doubt he would be successful in whatever career he pursued. I was confident, also, that he would find the right doctors. But I wondered if Dolores would go along with his plan.
That part he had not considered, Robbie-Lee being one of those “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it” types. There had been a time when I would have thought he was foolish not to have every detail worked out—to be sure Dolores would agree before he went to all this trouble—but now I could see the genius in allowing the future to evolve. You could create momentum. You could launch something and see where it goes. You couldn’t line everything up, like so many dominoes, and make everything fall into place.
I was proud that I had finally begun to understand this. There was no greater proof than my own plan, which was not really a plan at all—just go see where my mother had come from. To visit Mississippi. Maybe even meet Eudora Welty.
When I asked for a leave of absence at the post office, in the blank space for return date I had written “unknown.” If Marty couldn’t hold my job open, so be it. The only thing I worried about was my turtles, but then Judd Hart offered to take care of ’em and I had total faith in him. I was ready to take some chances and see the world, not hide behind the post office counter for the rest of my life. I didn’t want my epitaph to be “She Played It Safe.”
I was the first one at the bus stop, as if the 6:35 a.m. Greyhound to Tampa was my one and only chance to get out of town, even though that old bus stopped in the very same spot every single day of the year. I was beyond ready.
Priscilla, on the other hand, did not look ready at all. She was clutching her beat-up suitcase with both hands, like she was afraid to let go. Now, as the bus came close, she dropped the suitcase to the ground.
She turned to Jackie, Mrs. Bailey White, and Plain Jane. She hugged each one and, in a voice way higher than usual, pleaded, “Take good care of her!”
“Of course we will!” Jackie cried. “And remember, your grandma is in charge! She’ll be the boss.”
Plain Jane stepped forward at that moment and tried to turn Priscilla back toward Robbie-Lee and me. “Now, don’t be sad, you’ll come home often. Go on and study hard!” she said sternly.
But it was Mrs. Bailey White who calmed Priscilla down. She scooted around to Priscilla’s other side, took her hand, and whispered something into her ear. It was magic. Priscilla straightened her shoulders, wiped away her tears, and managed a brave little smile.
The bus was going too fast. For three or four long seconds, I thought it would pass us by, but sure enough the brakes shrieked and it skidded to a stop, the driver having forgotten that sand piled up on this section of the Tamiami Trail. The door popped open like a secret passageway into a tunnel. The time for good-byes was gone.
Robbie-Lee tossed our suitcases on board, then took Priscilla’s hand and helped her up the first, deep step as if she was Princess Grace. God, you had to love that man. He helped me next, making me feel like a goddess too, and then he hopped on himself. There was barely a second to spare before the driver clamped the doors shut behind us.
“Go to the back,” the driver barked at Priscilla. She did as she was told and we joined her, breaking the rules about Negroes and whites sitting together. The bus driver turned around in his seat and gave us a bug-eyed scowl. I guess he was too tired to pursue it, and since there was no one else on board to make a fuss, he didn’t stop us.
The back row was actually one long bench seat, and we half fell onto it as the bus took off. I told myself I would not look back, but I couldn’t resist joining Robbie-Lee and Priscilla, turned sideways and half kneeling so they could peer out the back window.
Plain Jane and Mrs. Bailey White were waving like they were seeing us off to war. But Jackie—where was she? Had she left already? Maybe, I thought, she’s jealous. The fact that three of us were leaving may have rubbed it in that she was stuck there.
Then I realized I was wrong. Jackie was in a hurry to pick up the baby, that’s all. Priscilla’s grandmother had to be at work by seven o’clock on the dot or lose a week’s pay. For once in my life, I stopped myself from reading too much into a situation.
I was thrilled for Priscilla, who had named her baby Jacqueline Dreamsville Eudora Harmon. This was a lovely gesture, but privately I wasn’t sure Naples could handle another Jackie. Apparently neither was Priscilla. Within hours of the baby’s birth, Priscilla chose the perfect nickname. From that moment on, the child was called Dream.
And that is how three white ladies became nannies to a baby who was black, which—I guarantee—was a first for Collier County. Naturally, this decision resulted in some sensational fireworks. But that is another story for another day.
Thanks to the Collier County Women’s Literary Society, we all found our place in the world. Jackie, Plain Jane, and Mrs. Bailey White not only took care of Dream while Priscilla was at college, they started an integrated preschool and home for unwed mothers at Mrs. Bailey White’s old Victorian house. Robbie-Lee encountered some bumps in his path, but in the end, he made it to Broadway. Miss Lansbury became an environmental activist who devoted her life to our beloved Everglades. Priscilla not only finished college, she followed in the footsteps of her hero, Zora Neale Hurston, by becoming an anthropologist and a writer.
As for me, to my absolute amazement, I became a famous author and storyteller. Mine was a circuitous path—with some peculiar adventures along the way—but I wouldn’t change a thing. I saw the world beyond Florida. I even lived in other states. But when I got old, a funny thing happened. I wanted to come home to Collier County. I guess I always knew that one day, I’d return to my little cottage by the Gulf.