The Cherokee Rose. Tiya Miles
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effect on her waistline.
Cheyenne took a sip of her lime-freshened tonic water. “When I saw that house advertised for auction, it was like a dream come true. My family, my grandmother’s people, came from that part of the state. They probably lived on that plantation. You’re right, De’Sha, it was a museum back when we were in school, but the state closed it down. The house has been sitting empty for at least four years while the director of the Department of Natural Resources weighed what to do with the property. The state can’t take care of it anymore. But I can. I’ve always wanted to design and run a bed-and-breakfast. This, ladies, is my chance.”
“But have you thought this all the way through, Chey?” Toni asked, her gold hoop earrings rocking with the emphatic motion of her jaw. “Where would you get your nails done? Where would you get your light Frappuccinos? How would you even find the staff to run the damn place? I hear they have a Dunkin’ Donuts up in North Georgia. And a bunch of Billy Bobs. Maybe you could get used to that, but I doubt it. You like expensive coffee and fine men too much.”
“Fine men?” Layla pounced. “Did I miss a breakup story when I was away at that conference last week? And does this mean I can have Devon now?” She paused at a look from Toni. “Yes, Toni. I take Cheyenne’s leftovers. Her men are always beautiful, and you know I don’t have time to meet people while I’m working on my dissertation.”
“Girl, that dissertation is working you,” Toni said. “What is this, year six?” She took a sip of Fresca and returned her attention to Cheyenne.
Cheyenne forked a leaf of baby arugula. “I know this comes as a shock, but I am serious. Atlanta is less than an hour away in good traffic; I can drive back here on Fridays. You’ll hardly know I’m gone. And you can come up to the B&B after it’s open, relax a little bit.” She shot a cool look at Toni.
“If you open a B&B, you can say bye-bye to Fridays and hello to a new identity as Butterfly McQueen,” Toni said. “You’ll be slaving away twenty-four/seven, washing other folks’ linens and handing out maps for hiking trails.”
“I have to say I think you’ve got this all wrong, Toni. She’s not Prissy the maid in this story,” Layla chimed in. “She’s Scarlett O’Hara. Isn’t that right, Cheyenne?”
“Which version of Gone With the Wind did you watch?” Toni said. “Tara was a plantation that ran on black slave labor, and the last time I checked, we were all black—even those of us who think they’re Indian because they have good hair and a legend.”
“We all have good hair, girls,” Layla inserted in a warning tone. “Let’s not be catty.”
Cheyenne ignored Toni’s dig and directed her words toward Layla and De’Sha. “I want something big in my life, something romantic. I’m tired of working at a rarified boutique, helping the society set pick out three-hundred-dollar throw pillows. I was meant for more. Buying this plantation house and bringing it back to life, that could give me purpose. I’d be saving part of my history, part of my family’s history.”
“If you’re right about that Indian legend,” Toni said.
Her friends’ expressions ranged from patronizing disbelief to misplaced sympathy. Cheyenne was hurt, but she refused to show it. She knew Toni had always been jealous of her. Toni craved attention, was used to it. But as striking as Toni was, she couldn’t hold a candle to Cheyenne. Cheyenne drew open, naked stares from attractive men—and a few women, too. People were transfixed by her willowy figure, toffee-toned skin, and swirling dark tresses. The hair was her inheritance from the mysterious Cherokee ancestor who jealous women including Toni loved to dismiss as fantasy. Most female friends she’d ever had were just like Toni—secretly wishing to see her fail, but hoping her charms would rub off on them like some kind of magical fairy dust. Cheyenne smoothed the skirt of her Lilly Pulitzer floral dress and flicked back the ponytail she had pinned with a rhinestone-studded clip. She was ready to go.
“It sounds like you’ve made up your mind, Cheyenne,” Layla said, reading her body language. “I’ll come visit you up there, but only after you’ve fixed up the place. You know I don’t do rustic.”
“Let me know if you need a home loan, Chey,” De’Sha, a banker, added with a grin.
Cheyenne slid a fifty-dollar bill onto the table. “Desserts are on me,” she said, standing.
c
Cheyenne arrived home late that night, after first stopping to fill the gas tank of her silver sports coupe. She planned to hit I-75 at dawn and beat the other drivers as they headed to quaint inns and cabins in the Blue Ridge Mountains for Labor Day weekend. The Hold House was waiting. She wanted to get a feel for the property before it was auctioned on Tuesday.
Opening the door of her condo and slipping off her pumps, Cheyenne sank her feet into the white shag carpeting. Her glass-walled townhouse in Candler Park was sleek and modern, boasting views of the city skyline. She looked around at the Eames side chairs and angular cranberry couches. Maybe she was 100 percent city, as Toni claimed, but who said she couldn’t bring city to the country? The Hold House could be completely redone in a modernist style—straight lines, nickel fixtures, shagreen finishes, textured throw pillows. The contrast between nineteenth-century architecture and the clean look of her interior design would be to die for.
Cheyenne dropped her dress in a tent on the floor, showered, and blew-dry her hair until it fell arrow-straight. She changed into silk pajamas, stepping over the crumpled dress. Gretchen, the domestic help whose visits were a gift from her parents, would be in tomorrow afternoon to tidy up. Cheyenne settled onto the leather couch, tucked her feet beneath her, and turned on Lifetime. The made-for-TV drama about a divorced couple’s new lease on marriage after taking in an orphaned child was a repeat. It was Friday night, after all. Nothing was on. Cheyenne flipped through last month’s Cosmo, then picked up the racy urban romance she was in the middle of. She plunged back into the story of Diamond, the pretty girl who grew up too fast in the Chicago projects, and Jay, the would-be poet turned drug dealer who sold crack only to satisfy Diamond’s gold-digging appetites. Cheyenne tried to ignore the hungry ache she felt in the pit of her stomach. A salad at Aria and a Nutri-Grain bar were all she had eaten that day. As she often found in the dim hush of her luxury condo at nighttime, she was starved for more.
c
Cheyenne had been fooling herself when she pledged to hit the road at dawn. She never woke a minute before nine o’clock. She packed her suitcases and makeup bag, dressed in a skirt and fluttery blouse, then waited in line for ten minutes at the nearest Starbucks drive-through. Damn holiday travelers. She sipped her light latte as she peeled onto the highway behind a line of cars. It took her thirty minutes just to clear the city sprawl on the way to her dream house in the foothills. Cheyenne sped up I-75 with the top down on her Mercedes-Benz and a Jackie O–style scarf tied around her head. The view of closely congregated buildings gave way to green space; flat land rose into hills and dipped into shallow valleys.
Cheyenne felt on the verge of a great discovery, one that could change her life. She had always been interested in her grandmother’s stories about their Native American heritage, but she hadn’t started tracing her roots until after her grandmother’s death. There were so many things she wanted to ask, now that it was too late. To compensate, Cheyenne was an avid participant on the AfriGeneas and RootsWeb genealogy sites, posting queries and checking compulsively for the latest postings to the Cotterell crowd-sourced family tree. She could trace her family history back to the 1860s, but then the trail went cold. That’s where her grandmother’s stories came in. They explained the gap. Many times growing up, she had heard her grandmother tell the tale that traced their family’s origins. Her grandmother used to say that the Cotterell line had started on a Cherokee plantation two hundred years ago with a female ancestor who married an Indian man. The couple’s children hadn’t been enrolled in the tribe because of their mixed-race ancestry, but the children’s names, along with those of all black Indians on the plantation, were recorded in a secret list that no one had seen since. The Hold Plantation in the North Georgia foothills, the heart of former Cherokee territory, was the only place she had found during her