Chapter 51 Georgia
Georgia
I slap the five-dollar bill in the palm of the teenage girl manning the register at the Dollar General.
“Thanks,” I say as I tuck the package of toilet paper under my arm and go.
My blonde wig slips as I screech to a halt in front of the sluggish electric doors. I adjust it, then swoop through and hop
back into the passenger seat of Junie’s truck.
“Want me to drive?” Cece offers.
She once took a race-car driving course up in North Carolina at one of the NASCAR tracks—presumably on her Cards winnings.
Needless to say, the training stuck.
“I’ve got it,” Junie says. “I don’t have the energy for chasing runaway TP rolls, and I’m hoping we won’t need those driving
skills.”
I lean my chin on top of the toilet paper package sitting in my lap and enjoy the winding of the truck through the woods.
The roads aren’t well lit, but it feels more like the comforting cover of canopy as opposed to anything spooky.
We wind up and down hills, the brush looking blue and purple under the moonlight.
Eventually we pull onto a main road and into the outdated strip mall.
This time we don’t sneak behind the storefronts; we park right up front.
“Ready?” Tina asks.
“As we’ll ever be,” Cece says.
“Junie, flash the headlights if you see anyone.” I pop open the door and step out.
We scurry up to the store and start hanging and wrapping toilet paper wherever we can. It’s a little less straightforward
than TPing a tree-lined front yard. Not that I would know because I have most certainly never done it before. Tina winds the paper around the hinges of the front door, through the handle, and across. I make a
job of stringing threads over the support beams on the awning. Cece twists hers like Christmas lights around the pillars of
the awning.
When I’m done with the crossbars, I giggle to myself as I pop the mail slot open and thread in sheets like toilet paper letters.
“The sign,” Cece says. “We’ve got to hit that too.”
I stop and prop my hands on my hips. “I’m a terrible shot. Especially that high.”
“Here.” Cece tosses a roll that bounces off the slanted awning and rolls into the parking lot.
“Tina, any ideas?” I ask, pointing up to the sign.
She joins us. “If only we had a ladder.”
I look between the three of us. “Let’s get the truck. Junie!” I call out as I take off jogging in the direction of her and
the vehicle.
After a quick explanation of the plan, Junie repositions the truck and backs it up in front of the awning. I climb into the
bed after the truck shifts into park and Junie calls, “All clear!” through the rolled-down driver’s window.
“I’m not sure that’s safe,” Tina says. “We need to be quick. It’s only a matter of time before someone drives by.”
“Junie will warn us,” I say.
“I’ve got a great view of the road here,” Junie calls from the cab.
I turn back to the awning and the work at hand, reaching up. From here I can touch the bottom of the matte black awning, but
I can’t quite reach to loop around the letters of the sign. I try a few times to toss a line, like a cowboy with a paper-product
lasso.
“I’m not close enough. I need a boost.”
“I may be sixty-two, but I think I could manage a boost.” Cece approaches, lacing her fingers together and making a landing
spot out of her palms.
“You’re sure?” I ask.
“Go on. Let’s see if those weights I’ve been lifting make a difference.”
I place my foot into Cece’s hands, and she launches me up with surprising force. In one giant heave, I latch my knee onto
the front lip of the awning and reach out to pull myself onto it. Then I grab a roll and sling it across the letters. To my
luck it lands perfectly across them and leaves a coily tail.
As I’m admiring my work, the awning cracks underneath me. It sends a jolt through me, and I grab on for dear life. The awning
hangs at an angle, and I hang off it.
“I’m going to fall!” I cry out.
Cece’s hands are firm on my hips when she promises me, “I’ve got you. Let go, I’ve got you.”
If I’d been asked a year, months, even more than a few weeks prior, if I’d ever trust Cece in a moment like this, I would’ve
laughed until I cried. But I close my eyes and let go.
She gently lowers me back to the bed of the truck.
I drop to sitting and take in the hanging end of the awning above me. I press my eyes shut, as if to reset them, and when I pop them open, Cece’s grinning at the awning between us from where she’s leaning on the side of the truck.
“Let me guess. Something about your life flashing before your eyes?” Cece asks.
I bark out a laugh. “Something like that precisely.”
She pats my shoulder and then turns to Tina, who stands there with her hands clasped over her mouth with white knuckles. “We
should get out of here.”
The three of us step back to admire our handiwork. The awning hangs off at a forty-five-degree angle with a Georgia Louise
Scott–shaped dent in the middle of it. Not that anyone other than these women here could identify the dent as resembling the
curve of my backside.
Junie pops her head out of the open window. “Ladies! Incoming vehicle. Let’s go!”
Tina yelps.
I yell, “Run!” as I leap from the truck bed and toward the cab.
Junie yelps at us to hurry as we pile in. Lights from another vehicle cross the shopping center as it enters the lot. Tina
slams the door and Junie hits the gas, tearing off in a squeal in the opposite direction from the newly arrived vehicle. As
we turn onto the main road, I look back. The vehicle we narrowly escaped is a large black SUV, very much like the one Misty
Prince owns, but she wouldn’t be caught dead at an All-Star Cuts, so it must be someone else.
We ride in silence until we’re well clear of the scene of the crime.
“Georgia Louise,” Junie says. “We never said anything about property damage.”
“Yikes,” Tina says. Perhaps about the damage or perhaps about the entire endeavor.
“It was an accident,” I say quietly.
“Not sure the police would agree to that,” Junie says.
A solid silence follows, and it’s Cece who cracks first—with the tiniest giggle.
Then Tina joins in. “Oh my goodness, I don’t know how or why I’m laughing because this is bad news.”
By now we’re all laughing, holding our bellies.
“Junie, get us home before we cause any more trouble,” Cece says.