The Sassy Belles

“You know. A licker. He wasn’t much of a kisser but, God, he sure loved to lick. Can you tell me just why Sonny needs to know that?”

I started feeling drops of perspiration dripping down between my breasts, and my breath had left me. But I grabbed Vivi by the arm and explained, “We are trying to clear all of this up so we can find Lewis.”

“And by learnin’ all about Lewis lickin’ me from my knees to my neck, I’m a free woman?”

I slammed on my brakes, realizing we had reached our destination and I was about to jump the curb getting into a parking space. Vivi and I looked at each other.

“Maybe we can leave that little detail out.” I was already feeling nauseous. “It’ll be fine,” I said, hoping I was right. “Let’s go.” I parked and we got out.

The Tutwiler was so elegant. It was a regal 1920s hotel with most of its original architecture still intact. Dapples of yellow and cream splashed the walls, shadows of the afternoon sun dancing and darting up and down the curving banisters and sprinkling light across the 20-foot ceilings. Sunlight peeked through the palms planted in oversize ceramic pots scattered throughout the lobby. White ceiling fans whirred slowly, just enough to stir the jasmine-scented air and cause the palms to wave in their breeze. The large French doors around the lobby opened onto the courtyard at every corner, and the three-layer fountain stood in the center offering a watery lullaby to the early evening. Every sense was stirred here. It was intoxicating.

Harry and Sonny had arrived first, and I could see them in the shadows of the bar off the lobby. Sonny was propped up on a bar stool, his long legs stretched out in front of him, and Harry was talking to the bartender. Harry motioned to us. I wanted to linger a little longer.

The courtyard beckoned, and I was swept back ten years earlier when Harry, fresh out of law school, stood in the spring sun in the middle of the Tutwiler courtyard. He had a martini in one hand and a peach-colored rose in the other. God, he was gorgeous. Dressed in navy dress pants and a heavily starched, crisp white shirt, silver wire frames and his wavy mass of dark hair, he looked straight out of a magazine. His cuff links glistened in the sunlight.

I loved that Harry wore cuff links. I’d never known anyone who wore cuff links. They made him seem elegant and refined, classic. They were a symbol to me of who Harry was. Eccentric and his own man in every respect. He was unexpected. The cuff links were unexpected. They made you notice that he was confident, but not in a flashy sort of way.

That evening in the courtyard was about a month after we’d graduated from law school and I was meeting him for drinks. Harry had had a job interview with the most prestigious firm in Tuscaloosa that day. They had offices in Atlanta and Birmingham and Harry had wanted to work for them ever since I had first met him. When he called to invite me to drinks, I thought, Oh, he got the job! He wants to celebrate! I had hurriedly dressed in my favorite suit, covered myself in my perfumed body cream from my hot-pink toenails to my tan shoulders, slid my favorite pink lipstick over my lips and flew out the door.

When I met Harry at the Tutwiler, I expected to hear all the nitty gritty details of the interview. I spotted him in the courtyard and raced across the lobby and out through the French doors, throwing my arms around him once I’d reached him.

“Hey, honey! How’d it go?”

“Great! They told me they were hoping the next Heart out of law school would choose their firm. My name is my reputation,” he said proudly.

“Oh, baby, that’s great!” I said, but I sensed something else. “Harry, what’s wrong?”

He cocked his eyebrow up.

“Oh, no, they’re not sending you to Atlanta, are they?”

“Blake. Sweet, sweet, Blake,” Harry whispered as he pulled me closer. “No, darlin’, I’ll be here in Tuscaloosa, ’cause I told them I couldn’t leave at the moment. They’ll hand me my first file next Monday.”

I continued holding him tight. “Oh, thank God. I don’t think I’m cut out for long-distance.”

“Sweetie, they’re looking for one more fresh-faced attorney.”

“You mean…me?” I blurted out.

“Well, I took the liberty of suggesting you and they’d like to talk to you in the morning.”

“Harry! This is our dream coming true! To practice together until we can open our own firm. I can’t believe it’s really happening.” My eyes had filled with happy tears and I felt Harry move his hand from behind my waist just as a waiter in a crisp white serving jacket and a black bow tie approached. He had a sterling silver tray with a round silver dome over it.

“Your order, Mr. Heart.” Harry reached into his front pocket and handed the man a tip.

By this time, I was thinking, Okay, time for a champagne toast. Harry told the waiter to set the tray down on a nearby table. He slid his fingers through mine and looked down at me and smiled in a way I had never seen. As if he had a secret.

He led me over to the table and said, “Time for a toast!” He lifted the tray top, revealing two champagne flutes full of amber bubbly.

Handing me a glass, he said, “To us, and our future.”

On the tray next to the glasses was an antique china plate covered in pink and white and peach-colored rose petals. In the center was one large pink blossom.

“For my Southern beauty,” he said.

As I picked up the large center rose, and lifted it to my nose to breathe in its sweet fragrance, underneath it I saw lying on the rose petals an amazing, large, square-cut diamond ring. The sunlight flickered in its brilliance.

“Oh, my God,” I said for about the ninetieth time that day. “Oh, my God, Harry!”

He knelt down before me, slipping my fingers through his and said, “Blake O’Hara, I love you and want to share every breath with you. You are the sweetest, most beautiful girl in the world. I love every little thing about you—the way you smell and the way your hair frizzes at the slightest bit of humidity. I love it that when you sing you continually change keys. You are my very best friend, and I can’t imagine my life without you. I promise to take the best care of you that I can. I promise your happiness will be what I strive for every day. I promise I will keep you in legal pads for the rest of your life. Will you please do me the honor of a lifetime and be my wife and partner?”

I lost all sense of time and space and was down on my knees before I knew it. I could barely speak. I looked into his blue-gray eyes and put my hands on his clean-shaven face and pulled him to my mouth, kissing him before I answered.

“Harry, I love you more than life itself and I will never be able to have joy without you. Yes, baby! Yes!” Between every yes I kissed him on the lips, then the cheeks, then the lips. “Yes! Yes! Yes! I’ll marry you! Yes!”

There we were. In the courtyard of the Tutwiler. Both on our knees. Both crying and holding each other, my tears mixed with his. In that moment, the whole world went away and there was only us. The bees were buzzing, the dandelions floated by, the jasmine and magnolia filled the May air. I was in Harry’s arms, in the bosom of my hometown, and it was the single best moment of my life.

I was shaken away from that memory by Vivi. Literally shaken when she grabbed my shoulder.

“Blake, honey, you home? I’m talkin’ to ya. Your eyes are somewhere else.”

“Yes, Vivi. I’m here. “

“Oh, damn,” Vivi murmured under her breath. “I get it, honey. You and Harry. Today, it’s…”

I interrupted, “It’s okay.”

“No, dammit. It’s not okay. You and Harry should be kicking up your heels. Oh, my God, and this is your spot. Oh, Blake, this is so awful!”

“No, no, Vivi, this was all beyond your control today. Let’s go on to the bar and get this over with.” She knew Harry and I had been in a slow-motion free fall for a while now, but I had not even discussed with Vivi my plans to talk to Harry during our lunch date earlier today.

I am by no means a needy person. But I am all female and I do like to be pursued. Romanced. Fussed over. Maybe even the center of attention. Harry’s attention had been elsewhere for so long and every attempt to talk to him ended with him saying, “Well, what do you want from me, Blake? You knew this was the life I wanted when you said you’d be my partner.” Little did Vivi know, she probably saved me from asking Harry for a separation today. But I couldn’t decide which was worse—being at the Tutwiler to discuss a divorce, or being there to discuss a missing brother-in-law! I took Vivi by the arm and we headed into the abyss.

The bar in the Tutwiler was massive, made of deep, rich mahogany wood with intricate carvings. The ceilings were at least twenty feet high and the moldings had the same beautiful etchings. There was a huge mirror over the bar that reflected everything and everyone. It was all done in dark mahogany. The hardwood floors were a throwback to the 1920s. Just entering the bar was an event. You went through time to the elegant era of Bugsy Segal and flapper dancers and it always felt like you needed a long strand of pearls to twirl. They even had music from the 1920s playing, usually by a live band over in the corner. Maybe this location would help to ease the tension of the moment.

Though Harry and Sonny were both waiting at the bar, neither of them was drinking. Sonny was on duty so he had his usual, a Dr Pepper. Harry had club soda. We all knew this was going to be very uncomfortable, so there was an agitated, prickly uneasiness in the air. Like trying to swallow hot peppers with a whisky chaser followed by dill pickle juice. It was just too much at one time for the tongue.

Vivi and I stepped up and slid onto our stools. I ordered a seltzer water with lime, and Vivi ordered a Jack Daniel’s straight.

“Ms. McFadden,” Sonny began, “I’m going to be recording this and taking a few handwritten notes. You are not at this time a suspect of anything. There is no crime at the moment. We are treating this as a missing person case, and we will until such time as it becomes something else. Any details you can provide may go a long way in helping us locate Mr. Heart. But this is informal, so please feel relaxed and try your best to remember everything. Even some things you don’t think are important might become just the details we need later on. You were the last one to see Mr. Lewis Heart. Can you please describe your encounter with him?”

Oh, Lord, I thought. Here we go.

“Okay.” Vivi looked over Sonny’s shoulder to where I had positioned myself next to Harry. She grabbed her shot glass and threw her Jack Daniel’s back in one swig, her mop of orange frizz flying.

“Lewis called me this mornin’. I was out at the Big House.” (That’s what Vivi called her family’s plantation.) “I had been tendin’ the rose gardens with Arthur, my gardener. I love it when I can get my hands in the soil and feel the earth damp and squishy in my palms. Know what I mean, Mr. Sonny?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Sonny answered. “But, please, can we jump on over to when you met up with Lewis?”