Page 112 of The Night the Lights Went Out
Merilee choked on her cookie. “Stepping out?”
“She means dating,” Wade said as he sat down next to her and took a cookie from the tray. “I told her we were dating.”
“We are?”
He nodded. “It’s not just anybody I will agree to cart around while their leg is in a cast. Or put up their Christmas tree and decorate their house.”
“I guess we’re dating, then.”
“Ew,” Lily said as she took another bite of her cookie, but Merilee knew she was happy about it. Michael and Tammy were getting married in a month, and Lily would be the flower girl, which was also good news. As had been the news that after the Christmas holidays, Lily and Colin would be returning to their old school and their old friends. It had ultimately been the children’s choice, since Merilee couldn’t decide whether the stigma of your mother being arrested and then exonerated for murder or your father impregnating your math teacher was worse.
Wherever they went would be a challenge, but she knew Lily and Colin would eventually find their social group in school. The trick was in determining who your real friends were. Heather Blackford had taught her that lesson the hard way. But as Merilee watched Sugar and Willa Faye, she knew a person needed only one really good friend to get through all the hard stuff. And to help bury any bodies along the way.
The things we do for those we love.Like protecting a secret. Or driving through a tornado. Or allowing your son to keep a dog. It was something she thought about frequently now, remembering how Sugar had saved her life and how Lindi had never doubted Merilee’s innocence. Her parents’ desertion had somehow lost its sting in recent months as Merilee had discovered these new and unexpected friendships and the love they contained.
“So,” Wade said, sitting back on the sofa, his arm around Merilee’s shoulders. “I’ve had a question burning my tongue. When Sugar was in the hospital and Merilee sent me here to pick up a few things, I got a text from Merilee asking me not to go into the office on the first floor.”
Willa Faye turned to her old friend. “You didn’t. Heismy grandson, you know. That’s like a red flag to a bull.”
Sugar pursed her lips. “I was under heavy pain medication, or else I would have thought twice about it.”
“Anyway, I went inside the room, and you’ll never believe what I saw.”
“A state-of-the-art computer and Internet router,” Merilee said.
He sent Merilee a questioning look. “You knew?”
She nodded. “Right after the third or fourth blog post, I believe, I was at your house with the children, learning how to make fried chicken and gravy. Apparently Sugar doesn’t believe I can survive as a woman in Georgia without knowing how to do that or fold a fitted sheet. I needed to use the powder room and opened the wrong door. I saw the computer and printer and a copy of one of the blog posts sitting on top. I remembered her saying that she once had a newspaper column a while back in theAtlanta Journal. She kept that Smith-Corona typewriter on the dining room table for show, which is exactly something Sugar would do. That’s when I figured out that Sugar was our anonymous blogger.”
“And you never said anything.” Sugar sounded almost disappointed.
Merilee grinned and took a sip of her tea. “I guess I can keep a secret, too.”
THE PLAYING FIELDS BLOG
Observations of Suburban Life from Sweet Apple, Georgia
Written by: Your Neighbor
Installment #11: Life Goes On and Other Myths
As I’m sure you’re all aware, this has been a consternating month for us here in Sweet Apple. What with a murder, an attempted murder, and a tornado, it’s like the Tower of Terror, Times Square, and Armageddon all rolled into one. I know some of us are thinking that life will never be the same in our corner of the world.
But it will be—mostly. That’s a good thing. Life shouldn’t be an unbroken road of wonderful. It’s the curves in the road that build character and show us our mettle. Every path has its puddles, but that doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t travel them. We just need to remember to wear our boots and bring along our friends and those who love us. They can lift us over some of the puddles, or pull us out when we fall in. And we can do the same for them. Life’s journey doesn’t mean much without friends who love you to come along for the ride.
We’re very lucky to have emerged relatively unscathed from the tornado, unless you’re one of the pine trees that got put through the sawmill of that particular storm. It was nice seeing neighbors helping neighbors, and our Sweet Apple police and fire departments working extra hours to make sure we were all safe. It’s why I live in a small town, and even though I feel the outer limits of the city of Atlanta pressing on us like a bruise, I hope we never lose what’s special about living here.
Before I move off the topic of our recent tragedy, allow me to share a few words of wisdom that I gleaned from all these goings-on. The first is a Latin proverb: Revenge is a confession of pain. We’ve all been hurt by something in our past. And those of us who may have been the cause of the hurt probably regret it deeply. We all carry our own burdens. Everybody. So before you try to get even for some slight, either real or imagined—even if that bicyclist is going half the speed limit in the middle of your lane—remember that. We’ve all experienced here a very good example of revenge gone very, very badly. And just in case your mama never taught you this, two wrongs will never make a right.
And now on to a lighter note: Christmas decorations. There used to be a time when people put a wreath on their door and lights on their tree in the front room window and called it a day. Nowadays I hear of people you can actually hire to decorate your house for you, placing a different themed tree in each room and timing your three million tiny colored bulbs on the outside of your house to blink on and off to the loud sound system hidden in your front garden.
I used to think that the blow-up Santas and snowmen were a little left of center on the tacky scale, but they were festive and showed good spirit, so I was happy to look the other way. The light show worthy of Disney World, though? I’m not so sure. I knew I’d seen enough when I spotted a Mercedes convertible with a large red nose on its front bumper and antlers sticking out the sides of its windows. The poor little dog in the backseat—in a car seat, mind you—wore a Santa hat and looked like he’d be happy to jump out of the car into traffic just to get away from the embarrassment.
This is not LA, people. We shine instead of sparkle, we smile and bless their hearts instead of giving the finger. Like my mama taught me about wearing jewelry: Put on everything you want to wear, and then take one thing off. Same should go for Christmas decorations. You do not need a wreath in every window. The one on the front door looks special enough.
This all brings me to today’s Southernism: “You can’t tell much about a chicken potpie ’til you cut through the crust.” Just because somebody’s beautiful on the outside, with the best clothes, perfect children, and a loving husband, doesn’t mean there’s nothing rotten on the inside. And you won’t know until you dig a little deeper. It’s like buying cantaloupe at Kroger—you can smell it and squeeze it and even thump it, but you’re really not going to know if it’s sweet until you cut it open and take a bite.
In closing, I’d like to respond to a frequently asked question about this blog—namely, who’s the author. Let’s just say I’m your neighbor, somebody you probably see around town as you’re taking the children to school, having coffee at the local coffee shop, or getting your hair done. I’ve lived here for a while and seen a lot of changes—some of them good, some of them not so much. I will continue to apprise you of my observations of our little corner of the world, provide interesting Southernisms that may be defined for our growing number of newcomers, and sometimes even point out our absurdities.
I will eventually retire one day, and pass the blog on to someone I already have in mind. Someone smart and wise, and who knows what surviving life’s storms is all about. But I won’t confess my identity. There are no secrets that time will not eventually reveal, yet for now, in this age of oversharing, I choose to hold on to this small thing, shared only with true friends. That’s the measure of friendship, isn’t it? Knowing people who will jar your secret and store it in a dark cellar forever. People who know it’s never about the secret itself, but the keeping of it. And that’s something to keep in mind the next time the lights go out.