The food court had filled up while I’d been on the phone. At the next table several women with Iowa accents were regaling each other about their lodging arrangements. From their groans and laughter, I gathered that four of the women and two male co-workers were sharing a private house that their company had rented for the week.
“—just two bathrooms. I had to wash my hair in the kitchen sink this morning while Sam was making coffee.”
“Was that Sam snoring last night? I thought I’d never get to sleep.”
“—from the Friedman chain, says they lucked out this year. Four bedrooms, three baths and only five people, but one of them—”
More of their friends arrived. My table for four was down to two chairs, and as one of the Iowans started to confiscate the remaining empty, a smaller, oddly dressed woman put out her hand to stop her.
“Excuse me,” she said in a deep gravelly voice. She wasn’t much taller than five one or five two. Her build was that of a young, sexless child, but her voice could have been Lauren Bacall’s had Lauren Bacall been born with a thick Southern accent. “I believe this is my chair?”
The words themselves were courteous enough and even ended on a polite up-tone, the sort of tone that many cultivated women use when pretending they might be mistaken in their understanding of the situation. As with such ladies, there was so much ice beneath the politeness that Iowa backed away, apologizing profusely.
“You are alone this evening, are you not?” the woman asked me, seating herself in the disputed chair and settling two canvas tote bags at her feet like one of my aunts after a hard day of shopping. This being High Point though, her bags had the logo of a large furniture company.
It was a week past Easter, the date when it becomes officially permissible in the South to wear white shoes and pastels; and this small-boned woman was dressed like a slightly disheveled Easter egg. Layers of pink, green and lavender chiffon scarves enveloped her body. Her wide-brimmed garden hat was woven from pale lavender straw and had lavender and green ribbons that tied beneath her chin. The hat itself had slipped down onto her shoulders and her wiry gray hair was barely constrained by a chignon that looked dangerously close to exploding. She wore pale blue tights and dirty pink satin ballerina slippers.
I reserved judgment because the South is full of elderly eccentric women who may look like bag ladies but who turn out to be the wealthy blue-blooded widows or spinster daughters of exceedingly prominent men.
“Mrs. Jernigan,” she said in that hoarse voice, abruptly extending the tips of her fingers. “Matilda McNeill Jernigan.”
“Judge Knott,” I replied, extending my own fingers.
She frowned. “What makes you think I would?”
It was a common error.
“That’s my name,” I explained. “Deborah Knott. I’m a district court judge.”
“Really? How fascinating. And is your husband a judge, too?”
Well, of course, she’s that generation that still defines a woman by the man in her life.
“Y’all eating?” asked the teenage busboy as he removed a cup and napkin left by a previous diner and gave the table a quick swipe with his cloth. He pointedly straightened a small placard that read, “Please be mindful of others during Market Week and vacate this table when you’ve finished eating.”
Actually, food was beginning to sound like a good idea. I glanced around at the various kiosks. The choices ranged from pan pizzas and fried chicken to alfalfa salads and yogurt.
I glanced inquiringly at my tablemate. “Could I get you something while I’m up?”
“Why, thank you,” she said, and inclined her small head so graciously that I realized she thought I had invited her to be my guest. “I do like a little something to take the edge off my appetite before the parties. Perhaps turkey salad on a croissant and hot tea with lemon? Wine will flow, I fear, and a lady should not risk the danger of an empty stomach.”
Turkey salad and hot tea sounded as good a choice as any and quicker than waiting on lines at separate stands.
When I returned with two of everything, I found Matilda McNeill Jernigan absorbed by the yellow pages that still lay open on the table.
She lifted the thick book in her little hands and held it out of the way while I set down our tray. I returned it to the telephone stand, and as I got back to the table, Mrs. Jernigan took out a tiny coin purse, carefully extracted two pills, one a green-and-white capsule, the other a white tablet, and laid them beside her plate.
Seeing her pills reminded me that I was due for a pill of my own. I’d had a throat that was raw as freshly ground hamburger last week and the doctor had prescribed ten days of antibiotics—one tablet three times a day. They were supposed to be evenly spaced, but I kept forgetting and instead of one tablet every eight hours, it was apt to be ten hours for one and six hours for the next till I was back on schedule. How on earth people with chronic conditions manage to keep it all straight, I can’t begin to imagine. I swallowed the tablet and was thankful that I had only one more day to go.
Between nibbled bites of her croissant, Mrs. Jernigan gave me a concerned look and said, “I could not help but notice that you were calling hotels. Please do not tell me you have no place to stay?”
“Afraid so,” I admitted.
She made a duckling sound of sympathy. “In Market Week, too.”
“I had no idea that Market was this big a deal,” I said ruefully. “There must be ten thousand people here from all over the country.”
“Try seventy thousand.“ Her tone was dry. ”From all over the globe. And it is a big deal. This is when the town comes fully to life. Ten days in April, another ten in October.“
With a sweep of chiffon, she gestured toward the big windowless buildings that could be seen from our table overlooking Main Street. “Seven million square feet of showrooms in a hundred and fifty places around the area and all the buildings are dark and silent for three hundred days of the year. Then we have a month of hustle—tearing out walls, putting in new ones, laying carpets, painting, hanging wallpaper, installing the furniture—just to get ready for nine days of buyers. Retailers come from all over the world to order the chairs and couches and case goods that will wind up in Mediterranean villas and Manhattan penthouses. Japanese decorators will buy outrageously expensive bibelots to grace a chain of hotels from Nagasaki to Sapporo. And those polyvinyl chaises that a newly famous Hollywood star will buy for her first swimming pool next fall? Someone will sell the line to a California distributor this week.”
The Midwesterners at the next table were raising their eyebrows at each other, but Mrs. Jernigan was oblivious. Her voice became throatier, her dark eyes flashed and I abruptly downgraded her age from late sixties to mid-fifties at most. The gray hair had fooled me.
This was no little old dowager.
“Think of the great couturiers who show their spring and fall fashions,” she said. “High Point is Paris! New York! The Milano of the furniture industry!”
“No wonder I couldn’t find a room.” Half-jokingly, I added, “I don’t suppose you have a spare couch you could rent me for the night?”
Mrs. Jernigan drew back so sharply that all her layers of pastel chiffon swayed and quivered as if tossed by the wind. “Stay with me? Oh, no, that would not do at all. No, no, no. That is totally out of the question.”
Her hat bumped the back of her chair and more wisps of wiry gray hair escaped from her chignon. She was becoming so agitated that I quit feeling offended and urged her to take a sip of tea while it was still hot.
She held the plastic cup to her lips with both hands and took several swallows. When she was calm again, she said, “I cannot extend you hospitality, but perhaps I do know someone who can help. However, she will not be there until later. Would you like to go to a party or two first? Experience the Market for yourself?”