Frankly My Dear, I'm Dead. Livia J Washburn
Augusta and I were back in the office with the door closed, she said, “Aunt Delilah, you’ve got to talk some sense into her—”
“What’s this about body piercing?” I couldn’t help but frown as I said the words.
Her response was quick. “It’s very safe. It’s done by professionals, you know. And I just want to get a belly button ring and maybe a little stud for my eyebrow. It’s really no different than having pierced ears. You have pierced ears.”
“Yeah, but I don’t have a hole in my belly button.” I leaned back in my chair. “What do you think your mama would say if I was to call her and ask her if it was all right for you to get these…piercings?”
Augusta looked down at the floor and didn’t say anything.
“That’s what I thought.”
“It’s still not any of Amelia’s business,” she muttered. “She’s such a little suck-up. And a tattletale.”
Inside every sixteen-year-old lurks a twelve-year-old, I guess. Especially when it comes to sisters. Twin sisters, at that.
“Can I at least call myself Gus?”
That took me by surprise. “Augusta is a beautiful name.”
“An old-fashioned name.”
“Honey, you’re talkin’ to somebody named Delilah here, you know.”
“I still want to be called Gus.”
I looked at her through narrowed eyes, or maybe I just squinted at her. “Now there’s an elegant name.”
“There’s nothing wrong with Gus.”
“Not many sixteen-year-old girls named that, though.”
“I don’t mind being different. I want to be different, and since you won’t let me get my belly button pierced…”
I’d lost track of all the pierced, Gothed-up sixteen-year-old girls I’d seen, not that I’d been counting to start with. Augusta’s concept of “different” wasn’t quite the same as mine.
“You say that now. How are you going to feel about it when school starts again?”
“We’ll be back home then, so it won’t be any of your business, will it? Anyway, it’s got to be better than Augusta.”
“Your sister’s never minded being called Amelia. You think that’s a more modern name?”
I could see her digging in her heels. “All I’m saying is that it ought to be my decision. It’s not any of her business what I want to be called.”
She had a point there. And calling herself something else wasn’t nearly as permanent as getting holes stuck in her.
“Go back out and send your sister in.”
“You’re not going to make me go by Augusta, are you?”
“Just send your sister in.”
I sat down behind the desk and waited. A few seconds later Amelia came in and closed the door behind her a little harder than necessary.
“Augusta is absolutely immmmpossible. Mama would have a fit if she got her navel and her eyebrows pierced.”
“She’s not going to. But she’s going to change her name to Gus for the summer.”
Amelia stared at me in horror for a second before she said, “Gus? That’s horrible!”
“Your sister’s got a right to call herself whatever she wants to.”
“But Gus Harris sounds like a boy! An ugly boy, at that.”
“Maybe she could call herself Gussie.”
Amelia gave me the look. You know, the one that teenagers give adults when they want to say, Could you be any more ridiculous?
“You know, she’s probably going to change her mind about this whole thing before school starts again. That’s still more than two months off.”
“But what if she doesn’t? I’ll be Gus Harris’s sister! It’s already hard enough being a twin.”
“You liked having a twin sister when you were four. You even liked it when you were eight.”
“I’m sixteen now.” She managed to sound terribly world weary as she said it.
“I know, I know, everything’s different now. All I’m sayin’ is that if you just let things go for a while, a lot of problems will sort themselves out so they aren’t problems anymore.”
“Oh? Like the problems you and Uncle Dan had?”
I felt my jaw getting tight. I didn’t know if I was more hurt or mad.
She saw that and said quickly, “I’m sorry, Aunt Delilah. I didn’t mean that, you know I didn’t mean that.”
I held up a hand to stop her. “No, you’re right,” I said. “Sometimes you can’t just let things go and hope they’ll get better. The trick is knowing when those times are and which battles are worth fighting.” I turned my chair so that I was facing the computer and turned it on. “Go on back outside, and we’ll talk about this some more at home. For now, you and your sister just try to get along, all right?”
“Yeah.” She caught her lower lip between her teeth for a second. “Yeah, sure.”
I kept my eyes on the monitor and watched the screens change as the computer booted up. I didn’t let myself sigh until Amelia was gone. I didn’t let myself cry at all. I’d been there. Done that. A lot.
A knock sounded on the door and Luke opened it without waiting for an answer. “Talked to the phone company,” he said. “Phones’ll be on by the end of the day.”
“Thanks, Luke. Sorry about the mix-up. My bad, as the kids say. If they still say that. I haven’t checked lately.”
“That’s all right. You’ve got a lot to keep up with these days, Miz D. It’s not easy opening your own business, you know. Not to mention taking care of kids, even if they’re not yours. I hope by the time Melissa and I have kids, I’m a lot smarter and more grown up than I am now.”
I smiled and said, “That’s a good way to look at it.”
“’Cause sometimes I think I’m dumb as dirt.”
“No, you’re a sweet young man, and when the time comes, you’ll do just fine.” I sat up straighter, trying to be more brisk and businesslike. “Now, let’s talk about this Gone With the Wind tour.”
So that was how things started out on the first-ever day for Delilah Dickinson Literary Tours. A little ragged, maybe, but I had high hopes. We’d get over all these rough patches. Things were going to get better as they went along. I was sure of it.
Of course, folks hadn’t started getting killed yet….
CHAPTER 2
Downtown Atlanta was hot and muggy, even at eleven o’clock in the morning. Clouds scudded across the sun every now and then and offered a little relief from its glare, but that didn’t affect the humidity.
I was sort of used to it—although anybody who tells you that you can get used to ninety degrees and ninety percent humidity is a flat-out liar—but many of my clients weren’t. They were from cooler, drier climates.
The German couple was really sweating. I heard them sigh in relief as we went into the air-conditioned Visitors Center next to the Dump, as Margaret Mitchell had called the house on Peachtree Street, which had been known as the Crescent Apartments when she and her husband, John, moved into it in 1925. They lived there while she was writing a little book called Gone With the Wind.
I’m sure you’ve heard of it.