Georgia Bottoms Page 15

  “Leon, we have to go,” Georgia said. “Dr. Horn was having chest pains at the party and I’m driving him to the hospital.”

  Leon’s eyes widened. “Okay, now stay calm, now, you gonna need an escort, let me get some backup—”

  “No, we do not need an escort, Leon, thank you very much. Just let us go, so they can see about him.”

  Ted leaned over. “I’m fine, I just need them to refill my cardiac meds.”

  “I will escort you,” Leon said firmly. “Fall in behind me.”

  What choice did they have? Leon got back in his sheriff’s car and blooped the siren and led them two blocks to the former Callum’s Nursing Home, which had been the Cotton County Medical Center since the old hospital burned. (Quantities of pharmaceuticals disappeared in the fire. Brother and Sims Bailey were never charged.) The emergency bay glowed brightly at the far end of the long, low building. Georgia did not want to drive Ted’s car into all that bright light, but how could she avoid it with Deputy Bulmer leading the way?

  The brown scarf and Sophia Loren shades did not hide the plain facts: her cover was blown, Rule Number One lay shattered in pieces on the ground, Deputy Leon had more than enough information to spread around, not to mention possibly dragging Krystal’s name into it. Amazing how quickly a minor mess can turn into total disaster.

  Georgia turned to Ted. “You still got a problem?”

  “Oh yes. Worse than ever.” You would think the element of danger, the sudden appearance of flashing blue lights might help, but it had the opposite effect.

  “I am not going in that hospital with you, Ted.”

  “That’s fine, honey. I really do appreciate you driving me here.”

  “Just get out and go in. I’ll park your car over yonder. Go.”

  She didn’t sound very sympathetic but so what? She was mad at Ted for getting them into this, furious with herself for going soft and forgetting her most important rule. That was a sloppy move, putting her entire lifestyle at risk.

  Ted got out with his sack of clothes and began hobbling toward the double doors. Deputy Bulmer jumped out of his car to help. He shot a look at Georgia that said what he thought of letting a man with chest pains hobble by himself into the ER.

  Georgia drove toward the parking lot.

  Deputy Bulmer helped Ted through the door with a modified fireman’s carry. They were facing the other way; Georgia could not see if Ted’s dilemma was still in evidence. She hoped the deputy did not notice it and get the wrong impression.

  She tucked Ted’s keys over the visor and stepped out of the car. Through the glass of the emergency entrance she saw Ted immediately place himself in a wheelchair. Good thinking!

  Georgia’s job was done. She whipped off the scarf and sunglasses and set out at a fitness-walking pace across the parking lot, trying to decide which street to take home so as to meet the fewest people.

  A deep voice came from the darkness: “Miss Georgia? Do you need a ride?”

  She couldn’t make out the face. He sounded familiar but who among her male friends had that deep, almost radio voice?

  He stepped into the light and oh yes of course, the new preacher, Mr. Wavy Blond Hair, the Reverend Brent Colgate. Standing beside his beat-up K car with the Jesus-fish license plate. Had he been there the whole time, watching her?

  “Well, hello,” Georgia said, and, since the best defense is a good offense, “What are you doing here?”

  “Visiting our infirm brothers and sisters,” he said. “I’d be happy to give you a lift.”

  “No thanks, I like to walk. I enjoy the exercise.” Of course she wanted to get to know the reverend better, but things were complicated enough for one night. To accept a ride now would be asking for trouble.

  On the other hand.

  Brent had already seen her. Perhaps by engaging him she could deflect his attention from whatever else he had seen. And riding home in his car would lessen the chance that she would be spotted by anyone else.

  Once you stopped to think about it, Georgia really had no choice but to go with him. She sent him a mind signal: Ask me again.

  “Are you sure?” he said. “I’m headed home now. I’ll be glad to drop you.”

  “Well… if you really don’t mind.” She gave him a grateful smile. “It is kind of late. Six Points is totally safe, of course, but still, to be walking around this time of night…”

  “It will be my pleasure, Miss Georgia,” he said in that thrilling rumble, deep enough to produce its own pleasure. It wasn’t just his voice, but his manner. He was so courtly. You didn’t find that quality much in young men these days. Georgia remembered her father’s friends speaking with that kind of elaborate courtesy when a lady was present. Colgate swept open the passenger door as if his K car were a chauffeured limo.

  “Poor Ted,” she said, getting in. “We’re old friends, all the way back to high school… Whenever he gets these heart palpitations he calls me. I drive him down here and they do some kind of procedure, I don’t know what you call it. In an hour he’ll be all better, and he’ll drive himself home.”

  “Very kind of you to help him out.” Brent Colgate started the engine.

  Georgia buckled her seat belt. Colgate’s car smelled of old french fries.

  “Ted’s a nice man,” she said. “Kind of sad when you think about it. He’s the doctor, keeping everybody else healthy, but when he gets sick, who can he call?”

  “I’ve enjoyed getting to know Dr. Horn,” Brent said. “For a medical man he has a good sense of humor.”

  She wondered if that was some kind of subtle dig. She turned to give him the once-over, found him gazing placidly at the road ahead with those glowing green eyes. He didn’t seem all that subtle. For a preacher, he was a sharp dresser. Tonight he had tried for casual, but the sleeves of his green plaid shirt were rolled up just so, khakis pressed to a crisp edge. Georgia could not quite identify the scent rising off him—woodsy like Old Spice, but muskier.

  “I’m sure you need a sense of humor in your line of work, too,” she said, steering the conversation away from Ted.

  “Oh yes,” said the reverend. “I was just visiting a certain parishioner who shall remain nameless. He’s had some surgery on his, well, how can I put this—on his rear end. And he was dying to show me his scar!”

  Georgia laughed. “I hope you declined.”

  “As emphatically as I could.” Colgate flashed that creamy white smile. “But thinking about it, I wonder if that was the right thing to do. I doubt Christ would have turned away. I think he would have been willing to face the sight of the poor man’s suffering.”

  “You always try to do what Christ would do?” Georgia said.

  “ ‘Try’ is the operative word,” said Colgate. “I fail a lot more than I succeed.”

  “Don’t we all,” Georgia said.

  One thing she always liked about Preacher Eugene was that he never brought Jesus into the conversation. When he was with Georgia he was definitely off the clock.

  This fellow Brent seemed to carry his job around with him. Georgia would have to work on that. There are plenty of nice things you can say about Jesus, but frequent mentions of his name do not help a romantic mood.

  14

  It was a quick drive to Georgia’s house on Magnolia Street—too quick to establish any real connection, but long enough to confirm that Brent Colgate was as polite as he was handsome, and, thank God, not at all nosy. He didn’t question why Georgia had brought Ted Horn to the ER wearing only a bedsheet. They chatted about small things. Brent said he and Daphne loved living in a town where everybody knows everybody. “Such a sense of community,” he said.

  “Yeah, we’ve got community coming out our ears,” Georgia said. “Sometimes I go to Mobile just to get away from it.”

  He smiled. “What’s in Mobile?”

  “A stoplight,” she said. “A store that sells more than one kind of panty hose.”

  She wondered if the mention of panty hose was t
oo forward for their first time alone in a car. Brent just smiled.

  “Did you know they have cell phones in Mobile?” she said. “We’re still waiting for a tower. The rest of the world has call-waiting, too. And cable TV. And high-speed Internet.”

  “But that’s the charm of Six Points,” he said. “Y’all don’t need those things to be happy.”

  “I’ve spent my whole life in this town,” she said, “and don’t get me wrong, I love it—but sometimes I think I was born to be a city girl.”

  At first she asked him to drop her in front of the house. At the last minute she directed him around back, to the alley—to make it seem slightly illicit, just as he had involved her in his little white lie after church.

  Brent cast a glance sideways. “You’re not like the other ladies in Six Points, are you?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “You speak your mind. You don’t care what anybody thinks.”

  “I care,” she said. “I just don’t let it show.”

  His teeth flashed in the darkness. “Good for you.”

  “See there, under that streetlight?” she said. “That’s our slave quarters. Let me out there.”

  “We never did discuss your idea about the garage sale.”

  Georgia looked at him. He was smiling, maintaining that innocent expression.

  “Yeah, well, you made that up,” she said. “Or else you have me confused with somebody else.”

  “No, you’re right, I made it up.” A quiet admission. He pulled the car to a stop. “I just wanted an excuse to talk to you alone.”

  “Well, you got what you wanted. Thanks for the ride!” She gave his wrist a friendly squeeze—could have been thank you, or possibly more—and hopped out of the car.

  He leaned across the seat. “Wait, I want to—”

  “Thanks again! Bye!” Georgia slammed the door and hurried around the garage without looking back.

  She released the breath she’d been holding. The man had an effect on her, no denying it. Georgia got carried away just being in his vicinity. She felt breathless from the torrent of ridiculous ideas rushing through her—she found herself reimagining her name, as if he were a junior-high crush: “Mrs. Brent Colgate…” “Mrs. Georgia Colgate…” “The Rev. and Mrs. Colgate…”

  Georgia was no longer sure if she was the fisherman, or the fish.

  Anyway. There already was a Mrs. Brent Colgate, and that woman was nobody’s pushover.

  Whizzy came scampering over the yard. Georgia remembered the load of towels she’d washed before Ted came over. “Come on, Whiz, if we leave ’em in the washer all night they’ll sour.” He trotted along after her, happy for the mission.

  With both hands Georgia dragged the heavy towels out from around the agitator and shoved them into the open maw of the dryer. She tossed in an antistatic sheet to perfume the air in the apartment, and twisted ON.

  In the great Ant Connection it didn’t matter much that Georgia stopped to put towels in the dryer. She was just another dutiful citizen doing her work for the colony. But the delay meant that by the time she and Whizzy reached the house, there was only a vague disquiet, a disturbance of air, the dying ember of a sound: a telephone that had just left off ringing.

  Georgia sensed something, she didn’t know what. She went upstairs to peek into Little Mama’s room—Mama’s death being the foremost possible calamity in her mind. She found Mama snoring happily under quilts.

  Then of course there was Brother in jail. Georgia liked to pretend he was safe in there, but in jail there are shivs, gangs, stabbings.

  She hurried to her room. The red light blinked on the answering machine.

  Oh God. She dreaded news of any kind. Her life was perfect just now.

  She pressed PLAY. The click of the machine, hesitation as someone decided whether to speak. A human sound, not exactly a word—a sigh?—then whoever it was hung up.

  Georgia pushed REPEAT to hear it again.

  The person took in a breath—trying to decide, should I speak?—then that small sound, an exhalation or the beginning of a word—then click.

  She played it a third time, a fourth, a fifth.

  It might be Ted Horn, starting to leave a message and thinking better of it. But it didn’t sound like Ted.

  It couldn’t be Brent Colgate. He’d have had to drive directly to his house, call her number, and hang up without leaving a message. Which made no sense at all.

  She had a feeling the call was important. But then why not leave a message?

  Maybe it was something too important to leave on a machine.

  The next morning she replayed the message three times without hearing anything new. Finally she hit ERASE and instructed herself to forget it.

  She had a full list of errands before the League of Women Voters at noon, where Krystal was to face off against her opponent, Dr. Madeline Roudy. It wasn’t organized as a debate, but since Roudy was scheduled to speak first, Krystal had decided to use her time to destroy her challenger. No more Madame Nice Guy! None of Madeline Roudy’s supporters seemed to realize she had no governmental experience, in fact had never showed the slightest interest in civic affairs. Krystal told Georgia that all she had to do was point this out in a public forum, and Roudy would fold like a tent.

  Krystal had phoned first thing this morning for an anxious fashion consultation. Her nerves had been causing her to pig out a lot recently, so she couldn’t get into her nicest mayoral outfits. She was trying to choose between the navy wool suit, which was really too heavy for all but the coldest days in Six Points, or the khaki pantsuit from Lane Bryant, which was “on the snug side.”

  Georgia proposed they meet at Belk’s, pick out something nice in the right size so Krystal would feel attractive, but no, Krystal was too busy running from garden club to church supper to VFW begging for votes.

  Entering the meeting room at the community center, Georgia was dismayed to see that Krystal had settled on the khaki pantsuit, which you would only call “snug” if you avoided looking in a mirror. The buttons of the jacket did not even meet the buttonholes.

  Krystal, who never used makeup—she didn’t “believe” in it—that same Krystal had slapped on peachy lipstick and a layer of foundation, and rubbed some kind of product into her hair that made it look sticky and strange.

  Madeline Roudy, on the other hand, wore a crisp white cotton sleeveless shirt dress, cool and elegant against her lovely brown skin, also subtly emphasizing her role as doctor, medicine woman, healer of the poor.

  Dr. Roudy didn’t wait for chapter secretary Irma Winogrand to call the meeting to order. She walked to the front of the room and took charge. “Hello, everyone,” she said. “I’m not going to be able to stay, but I took a few minutes away from the clinic to come say hello.”

  Her bullhorn voice was now carefully modulated, silky in tone.

  “Most of you ladies know me, or at least you know who I am. You know I’m a person who gets things done. I really appreciate the mayor we have now. I can only hope to improve upon the excellent job she has done.”

  Improve? Was that a dig at Krystal? Of course it was.

  Roudy smiled. “Anybody have any questions?”

  Georgia looked around at all the silent ladies, so dazzled they could not think of one thing to ask.

  Georgia had hoped not to be the one to have to do this, but what are friends for? She raised her hand. “Dr. Roudy, can you please tell us what experience you have in city government?”

  Roudy maintained her gracious smile. It was the first time Georgia had noticed her slightly buck teeth, which detracted only slightly from her resemblance to Diahann Carroll. No one could say she was not an attractive woman.

  Krystal, on the other hand, looked like Kathy Bates in that movie where she bashed James Caan’s ankles with the sledgehammer.

  “Thank you for the question, Georgia,” Roudy said pleasantly. “While it’s true I haven’t had experience in governing a town per se, I was president
of my junior and senior class at Auburn. I’ve been vice president of the Alabama Federation of Pediatric Physicians twice, and of course y’all know me as the founder and CEO of the Six Points Wellness Center.”

  Georgia wondered when the free clinic became the “Wellness Center,” and how you could call yourself “CEO” of a county-funded clinic. Little Mama had an expression for people like this: Her dog’s named Brag.

  Roudy said, “Now, do you need some form of executive experience to do as good a job as our current mayor is doing? Of course you do. But do you have to have been mayor in order to run for mayor? I don’t think so.”

  Georgia hadn’t said a word about having to have been mayor. Her question was about experience. See how Roudy danced out of harm’s way, pirouetting to re-ask the question with her own slant, delivering her answer as a slam dunk. She turned back to Georgia with a pretty smile. “Anything else?”

  Georgia smiled too, and shook her head no.

  “Okay, well, I hope y’all will excuse me, I’ve got appointments all through the noon hour.” Madeline Roudy edged toward the door. A ripple of appreciation traveled through the ladies. They could only dream of a schedule as busy as hers.

  To Georgia it seemed obvious that Roudy was far too busy to be mayor. How could she ever squeeze in city business between all those important appointments? Roudy shook hands with Maribeth Parker, president of the LWV, then made her exit to a smattering of applause.

  Georgia was amazed at all these white women in awe of the doctor. Even the Junior League types acted as though they liked her. Georgia knew in her heart that if Roudy had won over the Junior Leaguers, Krystal was finished.

  Never mind that Krystal had been the best mayor ever—annexing East Over without a hint of racial upset, landing a fat state grant she used to resurface every street in town, breaking ground for a new office park on the Andalusia Highway. If the people of Six Points wanted the hardest-working, most competent mayor, they would vote for Krystal. If they wanted a glamorous lady doctor who looked like a slightly bucktoothed movie star…

  Krystal was watching Roudy’s protracted departure with a predatory smile, like one of those hard-eyed lady tennis players when the ball is coming down and she’s planning an overhead smash. Georgia tried to send a mind signal: Go easy on Roudy. She went easy on you. These ladies like her, or at least the idea of her. Nobody wants to hear you trash Madeline Roudy.