Lila Jane
"I still don't understand why you wanted to come here? I mean, the whole point of putting off college until the fall is to enjoy ourselves, right?"
Amma had been jabbering on none stop since Lila's mother had dropped her off. Apparently, people didn't voluntarily choose to spend the summer in Gatlin County.
"You do realize we'll be sitting in this room staring at each other for the next three months, don't you? I told you it'd be better for me to come to Savannah, didn't I? Not like you listen to a word I say anyway!" Amma paused in her tirade and looked to Lila in irritation, "You're not even listening to me right now, are you?!"
Lila was too busy trying to pry open the zipper that ran down the side of her battered old suitcase to answer.
It had been a gift from her Mamie in the 3rd grade.
It was an obnoxiously bright colored pink with multicolored flowers stuck all over the front. On the back her Mamie had stitched on four letters to spell out the name JANE.
It was her middle name, but Mamie had never called her anything else.
The suitcase was frayed and torn in places but she couldn't bear to part with it.
"Lila Jane Evers!" Amma had a gift for the dramatic; it was a trait she shared with her Grandmother.
Grandma Treadeau could make you cower and confess every bad thing you'd ever done, or even thought about doing, with just a look.
"I'm not ignoring you, Amma! I'm just —" Lila grunted and pulled at the decrepit zipper as hard as she could, grinning in triumph when the suitcase finally popped open. "Uh, thank god. Look, it's been ages since I've spent any time here."
And it had been.
She and Amma had met through Amma's great-aunt who'd, as Amma always said, 'gotten out' of Gatlin when she married a man from Georgia.
Savannah, Georgia, that is.
Amma's great-aunt and uncle had lived three houses down from Lila's.
When Lila was five years old she was set up on an unfortunate play date with one Amarie Treadeau.
They'd hated each other at first.
Lila used to think it was because they were so different. But, in all truthfulness, it was probably because of how similar they were.
Loud. Opinionated. Passionate, to a fault maybe.
It's something that still caused them to butt heads, on occasion.
All Lila knows is that she'd somehow gone from dreading Amma's visits every summer, to marking the days off on her calendar.
When Amma's aunt and uncle passed away Lila had promised her they'd still see each other. They wrote letters throughout the school year, and every summer Amma would spend two weeks in Savannah.
Lila had only come to Gatlin once.
It was the weekend after her Mamie's funeral, and her mother was too sad, too scattered, to deal with her daughters' grief on top of her own.
Caroline had been sent off to their Aunt Rebecca's, and Lila had come here.
She'd been in Gatlin for a grand total of five days, which was all it had taken for her to fall completely in love with Amma's family.
"I just needed some time away, Amma."
"Yes, OK. But couldn't away have meant New Orleans? Or something?" Amma was smiling at her now, crossing the room to take Lila's suitcase and tossing it onto her bed. "Do you even have any clothes in this?"
Alright, so maybe she'd gone a little overboard with the books she'd packed.
Rolling her eyes, Lila lifted one of the books that lined the top of her suitcase, revealing the neatly folded clothes underneath. The novel she'd picked up was old and worn.
To Kill A Mocking Bird.
It had definitely seen better days. She placed the well loved paperback on her friend's little bureau.
Amma's bedroom was small.
It was just barely big enough for a single sized bed and a dresser.
The walls were painted a light green, and there were long, powder blue curtains hanging over the only window. Her bedspread was an ivory-white, accented by various brightly colored pillows. The bed frame was made of some kind of copper, and there were intricate markings scratched into the sides of it.
Lila knew Amma's family well enough to know the marks probably weren't there accidentally.
There were things like that all over Amma's house.
Assorted charms and totems hung over doorways, strange spices and trinkets kept in glass jars in the cupboard.
It was just a part of who Amma was.
Lila had never been particularly religious, but she was open minded enough that when Amma's mother gave her a little spice filled baggy and told her to 'sleep with it under her mattress'… she'd put the damn thing under her mattress.
"We'll go to New Orleans next summer, Ams. I promise." Lila flashed Amma her best 'charm mom into letting me stay out past curfew' smile.
"Ha! Don't you bat those doe eyes of yours at me, Lila Jane! I'll hold you to that!"
She could never pull anything over on Amma.
She always knew when Lila wasn't being completely forthright about something; it was actually a little unsettling how intuitive she could be about things sometimes.
Lila held her hand, pinky finger outstretched, towards her friend, "I promise, OK? Next summer we'll go somewhere… New York or New Orleans, whatever you want. I just need some quiet, stress free time in a place that is not Savannah. Savannah bad, away from Savannah good."
Amma linked her own pinky around Lila's and squeezed, "Alright, fine... You'll definitely get quiet here. We have a lot of quiet in Gatlin, that's for sure."
That sounded perfect to Lila.
Sleeping in.
Hanging out with Mrs. Treadeau at the library.
Talking and laughing with Amma.
Grandma Treadeau's coconut pie.
It was, no doubt, the last chance they'd have for some down time. They were both enrolled to start classes at Duke University in the fall, and Amma wanted to spend the last of their free time in Savannah?
Lila shuttered at the thought.
She honestly wasn't sure how much more of her mother's passive aggressive nagging, or her sister's 'melodrama of the week', she could have handled. The last thing she needed was more angst in her life.
Yes, quiet was good. She could do quiet.
A/N: Just FYI, this story is set in 1983 (The only reference to Lila's age I could find was in the movie. Her headstone says she was born on December 19th, 1966)