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Right underneath, she found a picture of a young woman in a white dress, standing in the same yard, shading her eyes from the sun and smiling at the person taking the picture. Evelyn thought that she was probably one of the loveliest-looking creatures she had ever seen, with those long eyelashes and that sweet smile. But she didn't recognize her. She asked Mrs. Hartman if she knew who it was.
Mrs. Hartman put on the glasses she had hanging on a chain around her neck and studied that picture for a while, puzzled. "Oh, I’ll tell you who that is! That's that friend of hers who lived here for a time. She was from Georgia . . . Ruth somebody."
My God, thought Evelyn; Ruth Jamison. It must have been taken that first summer she had come to Whistle Stop. She looked at it again. It had never occurred to her that Ruth had been so beautiful.
The next picture was of a gray-haired woman wearing a hunting cap and sitting on Santa Claus's knee, with Season's Greetings, 1956 written on the backdrop.
Mrs. Hartman took it and laughed. "Oh, that's that fool Idgie Threadgoode. She used to run the cafe out here."
"Did you know her?"
"Who didn't! Oh, she was a mess, there was no telling what that one would do next.”
"Look, Mrs. Hartman, here's a picture of Mrs. Threadgoode.” The photograph had been taken downtown at Loveman's department store, about twenty years before; Mrs. Threadgoode was already gray and looked very much like she did the last time Evelyn had seen her.
Mrs. Hartman took the picture in hand. "Bless her heart, I remember that dress. It was dark navy blue with white polka dots. She must have worn that dress for thirty years. After she died, she said she wanted all her clothes to go to the Goodwill. She really didn't have anything worth saving, poor soul, just an old coat and a few housedresses. They picked up what little furniture there was, all except for the glider on the front porch. I just couldn't bear to give them that. She used to sit in that thing all day and night, waiting for the trains to go by. It just wouldn't seem right to let strangers have it. She left her house to our daughter, Terry.”
Evelyn was still taking things out of the box. "Look, Mrs. Hartman, here's an old menu from the Whistle Stop Cafe. It must be from the thirties. Can you believe those prices? A barbecue for ten cents . . . and you could get a complete di
"Isn't that something. It costs at least five or six dollars to get a decent meal nowadays, even out at the cafeteria, and they charge you extra for your beverage and your pie, at that."
Before she was through, Evelyn found a photograph of Idgie wearing a pair of those glasses with the fake nose, standing with four goofy-looking guys dressed up in crazy outfits, with Dill Pickle Club . . . Icebox Follies, 1942 written underneath . . . and an Easter card from Cleo, the postcards Evelyn had sent her from California, a Southern Railroad pullman car menu from the fifties, a half-used lipstick, a mimeographed copy of Psalm 90, and a hospital armband that said:
Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode
An eighty-six-year-old woman
And down at the very bottom of the box, Evelyn found the envelope addressed to Mrs. Evelyn Couch.
"Look, she must have written me a letter." She opened it and read the note:
Evelyn,
Here are some of Sipsey's original recipes I wrote down. They
have given me so much pleasure, I thought I'd pass them on to
you, especially the one for Fried Green Tomatoes.
I love you, dear little Evelyn. Be happy. I am happy.
Your Friend,
Mrs. Cleo Threadgoode
Mrs. Hartman said, "Well, bless her heart, she wanted you to have those."
Evelyn was sad as she carefully folded the note and put everything back. She thought, My God, a living, breathing person was on this earth for eighty-six years, and this is all that's left, just a shoe box full of old papers.
Evelyn asked Mrs. Hartman if she could tell her how to get to where the cafe had been.
"It's just a couple of blocks up the road. I'll be happy to go with you and show you if you want me to."
"That would be wonderful, if you could."
"Oh sure. Just let me turn off my beans and throw my roast in the oven, and I'll be right there."
Evelyn put the picture and the shoe box in the car, and while she was waiting, she walked over to Mrs. Threadgoode's yard. She looked up and started to laugh; still stuck up, high in the silver birch tree, was Mrs. Threadgoode's broom she had thrown at the bluejays over a year ago, and sitting on the telephone wires were those blackbirds Mrs. Threadgoode thought had been listening to her on the phone. The house was just as Mrs. Threadgoode had described it, with her pots of geraniums, right down to the dog-eared snowball bushes in the front.
When Mrs. Hartman came out, they drove a few blocks from the house and she showed her where the cafe used to be, sitting not twenty feet from the railroad tracks. Right beside it was a little brick building, also abandoned, but Evelyn could just make out a faded sign in the window: OPAL'S BEAUTY SHOP. Everything was just as she had imagined.
Mrs. Hartman showed her the spot where Poppa Threadgoode's store used to be, now a Rexall Drug Store with an Elks Club on the second story.
Evelyn asked if it would be possible to see Troutville.
"Sure, honey, it's right across the tracks."
When they drove through the little black section, Evelyn was surprised at how small it was—just a few blocks of tiny run-down shacks. Mrs. Hartman pointed out one little house with faded green tin chairs on the front porch and told her that's where Big George and Onzell had lived until they went over to Birmingham to stay with their son Jasper.
As they drove out, she saw Ocie's grocery store, attached to the side of a falling-down, wooden shotgun house that had once been painted baby blue. The front of the store was plastered with faded old signs from the thirties, urging you to DRINK BUFFALO ROCK GINGER ALE . . . MELLOWED A MILLION MINUTES OR MORE . . .
Evelyn suddenly remembered something from her childhood.
"Mrs. Hartman, do you think they might have a strawberry soda in there?"
"I'll bet he does."
"Would it be all right if we went in?"
"Oh sure, a lot of white people shop over here."
Evelyn parked and they went in. Mrs. Hartman went to the old man in the white shirt and suspenders and began shouting in his ear. "Ocie, this is Mrs. Couch. She was a friend of Ni
The minute Ocie heard Mrs. Threadgoode's name, his eyes lit up and he got up and ran over and hugged Evelyn. Evelyn, who had never been hugged by a black man in her life, was caught off guard. Ocie started talking to her a mile a minute, but she couldn't understand a word he was saying because he had no teeth.
Mrs. Hartman shouted at him again, "No honey, this isn't her daughter! This is her friend Mrs. Couch, from Birmingham . . .”
Ocie kept gri
Mrs. Hartman was rooting around in the cold drink box and pulled out a strawberry soda. "Look! Here you are."
Evelyn tried to pay for it, but Ocie kept saying something to her that she still could not understand.
"He says put your money away, Mrs. Couch. He wants you to have that cold drink on him."
Evelyn was flustered, but thanked Ocie, and he followed them out to the car, still talking and gri
Mrs. Hartman shouted, "BYE-BYE!" She turned to Evelyn. "He's as deaf as a post."
"I figured that. I just can't get over him hugging me like that."