“The hell it doesn’t. He knew exactly what he was doing coming over here without her.” Jac heads toward him. Savannah cuts her off, holding her around the middle. “You can play all the games you want with idgit. But you leave my sister the fuck out of your twisted little schemes,” Jac barks, pushing against Savannah, her arm and finger accusing in his direction.
“It wasn’t supposed to go down like this.” Jack shakes his head, his eyes remorseful, moisture collecting in them.
“Just go, Jack. Leave!” Savannah’s voice rises with emotion and the physical objection she faces from Jac.
Jack lobs her phone into the grass, reluctantly getting into his car and peeling out.
“Savannah, let me go,” Jac warns politely.
“You promise not to go after him?”
“Yep.” As soon as Savannah releases her, she heads for her truck on the other side of the street.
“You promised.” Savannah chases after her.
“I promised not to go after him, little sister.” Jac shuts herself inside her truck. Savannah jumps up on the hood, lying on her stomach, her fingers clutching around the lip between the hood and the windshield, a dramatic sacrificial protest. “Savannah Georgia Bondurant, I am pulling rank,” Jac threatens with her superior birth order. “Remove yourself from my truck this instant.”
“No, I will not, Jacqueline Bouvier Bondurant.” Savannah clutches her grasp more firmly, to which Jac lays on her horn.
“Oh, good Lord,” Vangie exhausts, watching them from the backyard. “You’d think I would have at least one civil sister.” She rolls her eyes at Payton, who consoles her. “They better knock it off before Mama gets back. Can I get you some more cider, Widow McKettrick,” Vangie offers, veering the nosy next-door neighbor out of sight from the street.
“This is my duty as your big sister,” Jac continues, her voice projecting through the windshield. “It’s just like Snotty Sammy Salazar. Remember? He called you metal mouth when you had your braces. I still wonder how that tin foil felt coming out the other end.” Jac reminisces about how she force fed him the paper-thin metal sheet for picking on her kid sister.
“And I love you for it. But you can’t go beating up everybody who has a bad opinion of me.”
“What that idgit did was uncalled for, Savannah. And somebody needs to let her know that.” Jac revs her engine. “Now, cease and desist.”
“I don’t care. What they think of me,” Savannah speaks in half-truths. “It doesn’t even matter. Jac, please.”
“Savannah,” Jac whispers, shutting down the engine after noticing tears roll down her youngest sister’s face. Quickly getting out of the truck, she props herself up on the hood aside Savannah, both of them lying against the windshield. “If it doesn’t matter, then why are you crying?”
“I don’t know,” Savannah’s voice flutters through abdominal gasps, her hands roughly swiping at the moisture filling her cheeks. “Being called names. Especially hateful, vile ones, isn’t exactly a pleasant experience.” She catches her breath, disappointed in her adolescent self for not having outgrown the opinions of others, even in her thirties. “I didn’t mean to offend her…Daisy. I really didn’t.”
“I know. Shh.” Jac holds Savannah’s hand, quieting her cry. “I don’t think she’s offended. Threatened maybe. That’s the only logical explanation for someone to respond like that. Freaking classless idgit,” Jac mutters.
“This is so stupid. The whole damn thing. I’m sorry I’m wasting tears over this.” Savannah attempts to get hold of her emotions.
“I wish you’d just get mad instead of sad. Don’t you want to punch her lights out?”
“Well yeah,” Savannah defends, chuckling at her spunky sister. “Sure. That’s my knee-jerk reaction. A mouth that nasty ought to have its vile little teeth rammed right down the back of its ugly little throat. But what’s that going to solve, really?”
Jac shrugs. “Might make you feel better.”
“Momentarily. But eventually I’d feel bad for doing so. Resorting to that level, you know.” Savannah wipes her running nose on the sleeve of her shirt. “This is some high school bullshit. It’s ridiculous! Thirty year olds don’t act like this, right?”
“Not secure thirty year olds. If idgit felt confident in their relationship, she would have no reason to feel threatened and in turn threaten you. Moron,” Jac continues to spout animosities about Daisy, hopeful it will somehow soothe her desire for physical aggression.
Savannah snuffs, wiping away the last of her tears. “Makes me wonder what he’s been telling her. ‘He hates me. I used him,’” Savannah rehearses the sentiments of Daisy’s texts. “I knew he wasn’t happy about the split. Guess I was naive to think it could be amicable. I would never say those things about him.” Her voice cracks as more tears fall, faced with the truth of Jack’s feelings, hurt and disappointed that the eight years they spent together have essentially been wiped off the map and replaced with contempt.
“Maybe you should start,” Jac pipes, her admission that she’s game for slandering Jack if it would replace Savannah’s hurt with anger, an emotion she’s much more comfortable with.
“I just wanted to let go of everything in a healthy manner, you know. Honor it, respect it for what it was,” Savannah talks herself through their separation. “Both of us move on with our lives. Be happy. And be happy for one another. He is clearly not happy for me. He hates me.” Savannah throws her arms out to the sides. “And frankly, I don’t feel all warm and fuzzy for him either. Not after this.”
“Good. You shouldn’t feel anything for him. Douchebag,” Jac bites. “I don’t even know why they’re talking about you in the first place. They should mind their own freaking business. Talk about each other and their sick, twisted little relationship.”
“I know, right.” Savannah regains her composure, her tears ceasing yet again. “It’s like he’s using the demise of our relationship to bond his new one.” She shrugs.
“Oh, I’m sure he’s using the ‘poor pitiful me’ card with her, fueling the fire. Telling her how bad you were, so she can take pride in how good she is. Freaking mutt.”
Savannah thinks momentarily about the conversations she and Brody have had about past relationships. “You think that’s what everyone does? Talk about their past relationships, minimalizing and comparing them to new relationships, justifying how they’re in a better place.”
“I’m sure that’s a part of it. It’s the manner in how you go about it. You and Brody don’t sit around badmouthing Jack, right?”
“No. We just talk about what did and didn’t work, hoping to avoid falling into the same patterns.”
“Do you call him names? Does Brody call him names?” Jac continues bombastically, already knowing the answer.
“Well no,” Savannah chokes out, as if it’s even questionable. “I’d be a bit alarmed if Brody took to calling a man he doesn’t even know names.”
“Exactly!” Jac emits confidence in her point, unable to refrain from sneaking in another shot, “Simpletons.”
From up the street, an apprehensive Noah spots the two familiar faces sitting atop Jac’s truck. He waves to them upon approaching. “You two get thrown out of the party?” he jokes.
“Yep,” Jac beams insolently. She and Savannah hop down from the hood to greet him, both of them take a turn embracing their newfound brother.
“You been crying?” he pulls away from Savannah, examining her bloodshot eyes.
“It’s nothing,” she dismisses. “I’m just emotional lately, that’s all.”
Noah looks to Jac, reading the still present repugnance on her expression. “Does somebody need their ass kicked up around their shoulders?” The olive-skinned, dark haired, light-eyed, terribly attractive man takes to his brotherly instinct.
“Now I know we’re cut from the same cloth.” Jac chuckles at his feisty spirit.
“Oh great!” Savannah chimes. “Just what we need in this family, another heroic
protector.” Softened and comforted by his presence along with Jac’s, her mood elevates.
“Come on. Let’s get you introduced.” Jac leads them toward the backyard. “You missed the family dysfunction. Should be smooth sailing from here.” She chuckles.
“Glad to hear I’m not alone,” Noah says, having his fair share of kindred defectiveness. “No family get-together is complete without a little dysfunction.”
The three siblings, Noah anchored in the middle, walk bravely into the party, the Bondurant lineage equally exemplified on their forms.
Chapter Fifteen
Late in the evening, Savannah returns home. Jack’s red Challenger sits in her driveway. Savannah remains calm, collecting her things from inside her Jeep.
“Can we talk?” Jack asks, approaching her.
“I believe you and yours said it all. It’s been a long day. Please, just leave,” Savannah dismisses him, making her way toward the front porch.
“She feels really bad…Daisy…about the things she said to you,” he begins explaining. “She started drinking when I left. We had a big argument over me going to your mama’s party. It was me she was mad at. Here,” He offers up his phone, barraged with the same name-calling text messages from Daisy. “If you don’t believe me, see for yourself.”
“I don’t care to see it.” She pushes the phone away. “What you two do is your business. I’ll stay out of your life. You stay out of mine.”
“She said you called her.” Jack inquires solemnly.
“I did. After everything calmed down. She didn’t answer though,” a hint of skepticism in Savannah’s voice, contemplating how Daisy was bold and brave when it came to texting, but cowardice in the face of actually speaking to her. “I left a voice mail. In a rational, pleasant tone,” the diplomatic admission causing her eye to twitch. “Letting her know I have no intentions of meddling in your relationship and that I am sorry,” she chokes out the term, her obtrusive conscience wreaking havoc on her pride, “if I offended her or made her feel threatened.”
“Thank you.” Jack hangs his head, embarrassed. “You didn’t have to do that.”
“Oh, I know. Believe me, it was the last thing I wanted to do. If Jac knew I did that she would be furious. Hell, I’m halfway mad at myself for doing it.” Savannah bites her lip, conflicted at forcing herself to be the bigger person. “Thank God for the Dalai Lama,” she mutters. An avid reader, Savannah is a fan of his philosophy.
“Who?” Jack asks, unfamiliar with his works.
“‘Forgive your enemies,’ he says. It’s one of the hardest yet most important things in one’s spiritual development.” The imperceptive look on Jack’s face causes her to muster a simple summary, “Basically, it will set you free.” Savannah can’t help but hope that he will soon trade in his negative feelings about their split for the positives he will gain from it and forgive her, too, eventually, ultimately setting himself free.
“She said she tried to respond with a nice text message, but it was refused,” he continues to defend Daisy.
“How nice of her.” Savannah chuckles, unable to refrain, still chewing on the elements of a true pardon. “I blocked her from my phone. In case she gets the urge to take out her frustrations on me again. It can’t happen again, Jack. I’m truly sorry if I offended her in any way. But her response was completely uncalled for. I won’t be anybody’s punching bag. Once,” Savannah exaggerates the count, confirmation that she will not be inclined to turn the other cheek in the future, “that’s all she gets.”
“I know.” He holds his hand up testifying. “She’s not herself when she drinks.”
“I don’t care,” Savannah’s hurt long since passed, her anger rising at his justification of Daisy’s unwarranted actions. “Maybe that’s normal for you two. To get drunk and call each other names. It’s not normal for me.”
He looks at her, annoyed. “I know it’s not normal. We’re just going through some things.”
“Again, I don’t care,” she reiterates the fact that their affair is none of her concern. “Quit trying to talk to me about your relationship. And quit talking to Daisy about me. No wonder she feels the way she does.”
“I don’t talk to her about you,” Jack contends.
“Oh? You didn’t tell her I’m a slut who divorced you so I could sleep around with other men? You didn’t tell her I used you? You didn’t tell her you hate me?” Savannah keeps track of each count on her fingers, her voice rising with every recollected text accusation.
“I didn’t mean it like that. I meant I hate you in the way a man hates a woman he can’t get over. I still love you, Savannah,” he contests, his face contorting as if he may cry.
Beyond tempered, Savannah grabs up a football from her front porch and wings it at him. “Don’t you even stand there and say that,” her teeth grind uncomfortably. “You don’t love me! You don’t love someone and tear them down with snide little comments.”
“But I didn’t say those things. Not like that. Not the way she said them in her texts.”
“Maybe not in so many words. But you said it. That’s the bottom line, Jack. She didn’t come up with all of those things on her own. Maybe she simply said what you’re thinking.” Savannah’s voice shakes, a slow burn.
“I’m hurting, Savannah. Can’t you see that?” He beats his hand off his chest. “I’m not the first man to say mean things about a woman who kicked him to the curb. Do you know how that makes me feel?”
“Hate me then! I’m fine with that, Jack. At least I know where you stand.” She stomps her foot against the concrete porch. “You come to me with all of your ‘let’s be friends’ bullshit. All the while concocting a plan. With friends like you, who needs enemies?” Savannah runs her fingers through her hair, frustrated, pulling it at the ends. “And the irony of it all. I feel bad for her…Daisy. Even after she called me every name in the book.” Savannah chuckles, disappointed at the fact.
“What do you mean, you feel bad for her?”
“Do you love her, Jack?”
“Well, yeah. I love her. She’s the only thing holding me together right now.” Again, he reverts back to himself and his needs.
“Then show her that. It’s your role as a man.” Savannah finds herself playing the Brody ‘man’ card. Following up, she paraphrases words she has heard the fabulous gym boy say in one of their many lengthy conversations. “It’s your job to make her feel safe and secure in your relationship. It’s your job to relieve any doubts she may have of your love for her. It’s your job to protect that union, that commitment.”
Jack looks at her quizzically. “You’re getting all this from that jock, aren’t you?” He chuckles. “He’s feeding you a line of shit so big. And you’re lapping it up. What a piece of…”
His words are halted by Savannah as she grabs up a broom from the front porch, wielding it in his direction. “Shut up, Jack,” she warns through gritting teeth. “I let it go once. At the bar. So help me God, if you utter one nasty little word about him, you’ll be doing an expose for Good Eats on just exactly how broomcorn tastes,” she threatens of the stiff, stemmed, grass species used to form broom heads and brushes.
“Defending him?” Jack smirks scornfully. “Guess it’s getting pretty serious.” He waits for her to elaborate. She does not.
“No different than you coming over here defending your foul-mouthed idgit girlfriend,” Savannah’s forgiveness of Daisy teeter-totters with Jack’s irritation. “I’d say we’re both exactly where we’re supposed to be. You run on home to yours. And I’ll worry with mine. Don’t trouble yourself stopping by again. You got it?”
“Yeah,” Jack exhausts hatefully, “loud and clear.”
About an hour later, Savannah is stirred from her nightly, winding down, reading ritual by the sound of a honking horn outside her residence. Peering out of her bedroom window, she is pleasantly surprised. The vehicle sitting in her drive is not a red Challenger but a chariot in the form of a black crew cab pickup. Savann
ah shuffles nimbly to the front door, throwing her pink fuzzy robe around her frame. Flicking on her front porch light, she steps into view.
“Ms. Bondurant,” Brody greets her, overly chivalrous in his playful manner. Stepping outside of his pickup, he pulls his baseball cap from his crown, holding it to his abdomen, giving in to a sprightly bow.
Savannah laughs, playing along, calling to him from the front porch, “Why…Mr. McAlister. What can I do you for?”
“I come calling to see if you may be interested in accompanying me and my black steed,” he taps the hood of his pickup, “on a moonlit excursion.”
“I do declare. Have you gone mad? It’s rather late for a lady to entertain gentlemen callers.” She looks at her wristwatch, a quarter ’til midnight.
“A little birdie told me you had quite a day.” Brody takes her front steps two by two, catapulting himself directly in front of her, dropping his Rhett Butler charade. “How is she?” He looks at her concerned, his hand pushing her hair back around her ear to get a better look.
“What little birdie?” she sidesteps his question.
“Jac,” he says. “She came by the shop a little bit ago.”
“Jac?” her surprise resonant. “You got pixie dust in your pocket?” she asks, assured he must have some sort of magic, scoring Jac’s approval so early in the screening process.
Brody grins handsomely. “I think we have a mutual understanding,” he speaks of Jac, empathetic to her cause as the eldest sibling, a role he can surely relate to. “She doesn’t waste any time getting to the point.” Brody chuckles, recalling his brief and most direct conversation with the matriarchal Bondurant. “I like her…Jac,” he emphasizes the uncanny female nickname. “So what do you say? You up for some howlin’?” He takes her hand in his, wrapping his other arm about her waist, initiating a casual dance under the well-lit sky of a full Georgia moon.
“It’s late.” Savannah indulges him, twirling around underneath his elevated arm. “I have work in the morning. You’re more than welcome to a sleepover,” she purrs. Ceasing her spinning, she seductively wraps her arms firmly around his broad shoulders.
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