Saving Savannah by Sandra Hill Page B

the walls. She recalled then that this had been an opera house in the 1800s. There was a cafeteria-style meal service to the left where folks were lined up for breakfast, it being barely nine a.m. After filling their trays, they sat down at long folding tables.
    At one end were a series of ladies’ and men’s rooms and showers for each of the sexes. Desks had been set up at the far side where social service people were advising folks on what benefits they could get—not much—and job opportunities—very little. Racks of used clothing and blankets occupied another area, along with giant bowls filled with hotel-sized personal products, like toothpaste, soap, and shampoo, probably donated by traveling businessmen.
    She’d have to mention this to her niece Charmaine who owned a bunch of beauty salons. Charmaine, a self-proclaimed bimbo who was once Miss Louisiana before she married the hottest cowboy to put his tushie on a horse, probably had lots of this kind of stuff she could donate. Poor people didn’t care if they were using last year’s samples or a no-longer-popular scent like Peanut Butter Brickle.
    “No kidding?” she’d asked Charmaine when she’d shown her a new manufacturer’s display case last year highlighting ice cream scented shampoos, conditioners, body washes, and colognes.
    “Oh, yeah,” Charmaine had assured her. “Some ladies like to smell like ice cream flavors.”
    “I wonder if they attract lots of bees .  . . or ants,” Tante Lulu had wondered. What was wrong with good old Ivory soap anyhow?
    Whatever! Ice cream scents were out this year, apparently, and tropical fruits were in. Go figure!
    Most of the shelter space was filled with cots, hundreds of them, some of which were separated from their neighbors by hanging sheets. For families, Tante Lulu presumed.
    The most pitiful thing was the belongings piled next to cots. Suitcases, boxes, big plastic trash bags filled with all their personal effects.
    Tee-John explained that the Katrina floods wiped out certain neighborhoods, including ones with low-income housing. But instead of rebuilding the units, the government chose to sell the land to developers who were constructing more upscale dwellings way beyond the means of the poor people. “That on top of shutting down the HUD trailers,” he added.
    She wiped the tears welling in her eyes with her St. Jude handkerchief. It was then that she noticed one element all these people shared: hopelessness.
    “The saints must weep over this travesty,” she murmured.
    Tee-John was staring at a curly-haired boy, no more than five, playing with two rusty old Matchbox cars. The little mite probably reminded him of his own son, Etienne. Distressed, he snarled at her, “Where’s your famous St. Jude when he’s needed so badly?”
    She winced. It was hard sometimes to understand why God allowed certain things to happen.
    “Do you wanna leave?” he asked, putting an arm around her shoulders.
    She shook her head. “Not yet, but I need ta get some air.”
    When they were standing on the back porch, which faced a small parking lot, she straightened with determination. “We gotta do somethin’ ta help.”
    “We who?” Tee-John inquired.
    Knowing her nephew, Tante Lulu figured he would probably slip the little boy’s mother a fifty-dollar bill. And he would mail a check to the shelter. She would, too.
    But that was the easy way.
    “Me and St. Jude, thass who, you idjet. St. Jude musta sent me here t’day. He’s usin’ me ta get a job done.”
    “Like an angel?” he teased.
    “If thass what you wanna call me. All I know is God mus’ wanna use me fer a higher purpose. A LeDeux family mission, I’m thinkin’.”
    Tee-John suspected that she’d be calling on him to be one of the “missionaries.”
    Living on Not-So-Easy Street .  . .
    SAVANNAH JONES was a master of deceit. She’d become so, by necessity, while living in the Big Easy these past few years.
    It was just past dawn. On the