Novel Podcast: A War Between States, Part 15

This week’s installment of A War Between States has my esteemed colleague Stephanie Thornton reading a different part than she usually does. When she came over to read for me, she told me that the voice she’s been providing for the character of Tamara Granger has gotten her several offers for dates and even one marriage proposal. She does sound kinda sexy, doesn’t she?

Well, this week she plays the part of Tabitha Green. I’m curious to hear what the men who made offers to her think of this.

A War Between States Part 15:

Chapter 8, Part Two: Campaign: Sarah
September 5, 2003

Their next stop was down the street from Mrs. Mobley’s, as was the next one and the one after that. Each stop met them with either a wistful noncommitment, earnest confusion, or a half-hearted assurance that indeed, the people of the household old enough to vote would vote for Sarah when the time came.

“November sixth,” she would say, and they would wave I know to her and say good-bye.

The warm, invigorating morning sun, which had dazzled their eyes and delighted their anxious senses through the haze of cigarette smoke rose high into the sky. Later, it sank behind the countless oaks and pecan trees which shaded the lawns of Washington Street, then Hunt Street, then Hancock Street. It hinted and winked at them between branches and browning leaves as they made their way up one street and down another, leaving an occasional trail of yard signs behind them.

“Stop here,” Sarah said at around five-thirty, pointing to a low, ranch-style block house on the corner of Hancock and Kendrick Lane. The house was painted sunflower yellow with white trim, graced with yet another screened-in veranda, this one filled with a porch swing and a jungle of dark ferns and hanging vines.

“Who’s this?” Nancy asked.

“The Greens.”

They stopped, got out, and crossed the yard.

Betty Green came out of the house to meet them, her face dancing indecisively between a wary frown and an inviting smile.

“Hey, Betty,” Sarah said with a wave, and finally Betty’s face came to settle on a place halfway in between the points of its fluctuation — on what could only be described as a wary smile.

“Hey there, Mrs. Dobson,” Betty Green said. She had always addressed Sarah as Mrs. Dobson, despite the fact that both women were roughly the same age. Betty’s youngest son Terminius was six years younger than Sarah’s youngest, and Sarah had been secretary at the school up until the year Terminius was going to go into the 11th grade. That was the only explanation Sarah could think of for the formality with names.

Quietly, almost slyly — as if they were cats stalking a cautious mouse — Betty’s two daughters slunk out of the front door and came to stand just behind and on either side of their mother. Sarah recognized both of them, although she could only remember the younger one’s name. Tabitha.

Tabitha Green was twenty or so, pretty despite her too-red lips, her scraggle of untoward hair (which usually had braided extensions in it but today did not), and the unfriendly scowl that was on her face. Sarah couldn’t remember a time that Tabitha didn’t wear that scowl, and she thought maybe Tabitha offered it to her all the time because of something Sarah had done or said to the girl back in high school. Sarah did remember Tabitha struggling with school. Sarah also recalled the girl being trouble.

The other girl — or woman, Sarah corrected herself — appeared much older than Tabitha, maybe in her late twenties or early thirties. She was fat and a little careworn, but unmistakably Betty Green’s daughter and Tabitha Green’s sister. Her face wore a blank expression. But her eyes followed Sarah — with occasional flitters in Nancy’s direction — through the whole conversation which ensued.

“Been a while, Mrs. Dobson. What brang you way out here?” Betty Green said.

Sarah smiled. “It has been a while. How’s Terminius?”

Betty’s own half-hearted smile disappeared. Tabitha’s scowl deepened so that Sarah thought the girl might pounce on them, tearing at Nancy and herself with her Lee Press-on nails.

“Terminius done got arrested,” Betty said.

Now there were no smiles on any of the faces in Betty Green’s front yard. It seemed like the chill of winter — which in Marionville usually came in late December and left about mid-February — had settled in prematurely, threatening to crack their stark, still faces like ice if any of their expressions changed again. The silence that came between them was so pervasive that a nattering squirrel in a nearby tree all but roared in comparison.

Sarah decided this was a test — and she was determined to pass it. “Well,” she said, “I’m sorry to hear that.”

Tabitha’s eyes narrowed, and her sister grunted in a deep voice that could have been a man’s. Betty’s face remained unchanged, but her own voice now sounded strained and tense.

“Oh,” she said. “Is that the first you heard about it?”

Sarah nodded. She felt nervous suddenly, and she couldn’t think why.

“I heard there was a teenage boy got busted a couple of weeks back, down at the Underground,” Nancy volunteered. “That was the same time they got that Williams creep.”

Tabitha didn’t quite lunge at them, or swing her Press-on claws, but she did go on the offensive right then. Sarah was surprised by the young woman’s virulence, and even more surprised when she found herself taking a frightened step back.

“Coach Williams ain’t no creep!” Tabitha all but shrieked. “He was set up to go down — to make some high-up man at the po-lice happy! He ain’t no drug dealer, and our Terminius ain’t neither!”

Betty regarded her daughter with a look that Sarah couldn’t place, at least not at first. Later, when she had time to think about it, to ruminate over it, she decided the look was weird mix, and that was why it was so hard to pin down — a weird mix of sympathy, of defiant agreement, and strangely, of pity and disgust.

“Shush, Tabby,” Betty said. “Mrs. Dobson and her friend done said they didn’t know the whole story. Mrs. Dobson even said she didn’t know T been arrested.”

Tabitha threw up her arms, revealing hairy pits caked with whitish-yellow deodorant. “Fuck that! She know! She part of the system! She part of the problem!”

Tabitha’s sister lifted her own flabby arms and stepped between Tabitha and Sarah. She uttered a stream of something, mostly incomprehensible, though Sarah did pick up the words blame and Jesus. Tabitha didn’t calm down — in fact, she seemed further provoked, and a stream of profanity spewed out of her mouth and filled the air. She did back away, though, herded by her sister back into the depths of the house, still waving her arms and screeching foul words.

Sarah and Nancy only watched, bewildered, until the two sisters had disappeared, letting the screen door slam behind them. Betty watched Sarah and Nancy timidly, as if she was afraid of them now that they were alone.

“I’m — I’m sorry about Terminius,” Sarah offered.

Betty waved her off. “Ain’t nothin’ you coulda done. Terminius got mixed up with the wrong crowd. Jamal and Elgin are bad examples of the black race, and I told Terminius to stay away from ‘em. Now I reckon he will.”

“And I’m sorry about what I said about Williams,” Nancy said. “It really set your daughter off.”

Betty hesitated, looked back at the house, then sidelong at the two of them. “Yeah, well, Tabby got a thang for Coach Williams. Has since high school. She was there when the po-lice carried him away.”

“She’s wrong, you know,” Sarah said, hoping that what she was saying — was about to say — wouldn’t set Betty off, too. “I’m not part of any system. And that’s why I’m here.”

“You runnin’ for office,” Betty said. It wasn’t a question. Nancy raised her eyebrows, reflecting the surprise that Sarah felt.

“How did you know?”

Betty smiled and chuckled a little. Pointed at the Aerostar.

“Says so on yo’ van. I ain’t stupid. Or blind.”

Now both Sarah and Nancy laughed a little — albeit uncomfortably.

“Yeah, I’m runnin’ for office,” Sarah said. “For city council to be exact. And you’d be one of my constituents if I won.”

Betty was silent. The nattering squirrel nearby still bellowed at them enough to fill the silence.

“Do you want to hear any of my platform?” Sarah asked.

Betty stared off in the direction of the squirrel — or maybe the tree it was in. Or maybe the sky above the tree.

“Betty?”

The woman turned back to them, her wary smile back in place. “Ain’t no need, Mrs. Dobson. You ain’t gotta ‘splain anythang to me. I know what all’s wrong, and I guess I know how you ‘tend to fix ‘em.”

The wariness on Betty’s face, the unease and distrust in her eyes, belied the earnestness that Sarah thought she heard in her voice.

“You know I’ll do a good job, don’t you?”

“I don’t doubt it,” Betty Green said, but she was already backing away. Sarah watched her go, and couldn’t think of a way to keep the conversation going. Betty opened the screen door, backed inside. As she retreated, she never took her eyes off Sarah and Nancy.

“Well, bye, Betty,” Sarah said as the woman’s face faded away into the shadows of the closing back door. Sarah caught a glance of a slim brown hand adorned with Lee Press-ons pulling Betty deep into the darkness of the porch, into the lushness of the countless plants inside.

“That was abrupt,” Nancy said behind Sarah, who jumped at the sound of her voice.

“Yeah,” Sarah said, recovering. “Let’s go. It’s dinner time.”

They climbed back into the Aerostar. They were finished campaigning for the day.

The Cast

• Sarah Dobson - Jennie
• Betty Green - Candace Cain
• Nancy Walker - Paula Towry
• Tabitha Green - Stephanie Thornton
• Narrator - Will Kenyon