“Mother is taking advantage of this opportunity to remind me that if I had married and had children already, like I was supposed to have done years ago, that I wouldn’t have to deal with all this by myself. I’d have a proper wife to help me carry on with family obligations when called upon.” He shook his head. “Enough of Evelyn. Let me see what you have.” He leaned toward her and just as he did, Bessie walked onto the porch with an etched silver tray, some linen napkins and two iced teas with green leaves hanging out the top.
She set the tray on the low table between the two rockers. “If you need anything else, I’ll be in the kitchen.”
When the large, solid door closed behind the older woman, Furman said, “I hope Bessie isn’t cooking fish tonight. Mother hates the scent in the house.”
Hanna wanted to die. Sinker had obviously left his swampy scent on her when he’d brushed past her. Tonight when Bessie would bring out his quail or steak or whatever she was serving, he’d know it was Hanna who had reeked of fish. She wanted to just throw the contract down and run to her El Camino. But she was a person who kept promises—especially to family—the little family she had left.
He took a glass from the tray. “Okay, back to the menu,” he said as he leaned over the side of his chair again.
Hanna leaned, too—toward the other side as she reached out her arm as far as it would extend. “Here, you can have this.” She’d already memorized the food, the services and the numbers.
“The menu is just as Evelyn dictated.” He looked up. “Sorry about that. I don’t want you to think that I dislike my mother or anything. It’s just that she really does have more important things to consider with Father in the hospital, and I thought what we chose this morning was excellent.”
“She must be a perfectionist,” Hanna said in a soft voice. She knew his mother had to be one by the looks of her home and surrounding gardens. Rose, gardenia and camellia bushes were everywhere—and perfectly pruned and shaped—nothing like the haphazardly planted bushes that grew in Four Hole Swamp.
His mother had even grown a perfect son—with his sandy blond hair framing the refined features of his angular face. Probably took a thousand years to get heredity to produce a face so perfect.
“Oh, look.” He pointed across the narrow yard. “The squirrels are arguing again. I love to watch them play in the evenings.” He turned back to Hanna. “Aren’t you going to drink your tea?” he asked.
She extended her arm as far as she could to reach the glass because she wasn’t leaning her fishy body any closer to him.
He sat admiring the squirrels as entertainment. If anyone in her neck of the woods had a chance, they’d shoot the things for Sunday dinner. She was so out of place here.
She took a sip from her glass. “This is good.” It was nothing like the tea made from the generic bags she picked up from the Piggly Wiggly in Summerbrook.
“Locally grown leaves from the Charleston Tea Plantation. Bessie really knows how to brew up a good pot of iced tea. It’s art if you do it right, and she’s an artist.”
She knew about the Lowcountry’s impressive history of growing tea—about Dr. Shepherd and the Tea Farm that was practically in her own back yard. But why was he dilly-dallying so? Talking of watching squirrels and brewing tea? “Mr. Laurens, I’ve got to be going soon. I’d have written down the numbers, but I came at a moment’s notice, and I forgot my pen, so I’ll just go over them now.”
She ran down the prices from memory.
“Wow. You’re really something with numbers.” He stood. “Oh, and call me Furman. Let me get you a pen so that we can get this contract signed.” He stepped inside the house and returned a moment later.
The pen was silver as she had figured. She filled in his contract and her copy with the proper digits and gave the papers to him.
He signed them with a flourish of his hand and passed her copy back. The signature looked important, like he had to have taken classes or something to write like that. Her signature was all cramped and small, like she was trying to disappear, but her tiny writing served her well when she was in her element, filling in forms with numbers.
“Now tell me, where’d you learn to crunch numbers like that?” He turned slightly in his chair, like he was actually interested in what she was about to say.
Why did he care? All he really wanted from her and Callie were some crab canapés and peach tarts. He was probably being gentlemanly, like she had heard some of the men were in the downtown Charleston area.
Where she lived, men were in short supply—especially gentlemanly single men. Most young people around Summerbrook left right after high school. Some would return married a few years later. Summerbrook was a quiet place—a good place to raise a family, but it wasn’t a good place to meet eligible, single people. And in the swamp, her neck of Summerbrook, she could forget the male species, altogether.
“Guess I was born with numbers running through my head. I never really had to try all that much.” She took another sip of the amazing tea. “Sometimes numbers are the only things that make sense to me.”
He crossed his legs and leaned in his rocker, tipping himself back and forth. “Well, I hope you are using your gift to its greatest advantage. Exactly, what kind of business did you say your uncle owned?”
Oh, no. She knew it would come to this. There was no way out. It was a pointed question and she wasn’t a liar. “He owns a small butcher shop.” She looked into her lap. He’d probably throw her off his front porch now that he knew she was a pig killer and chicken de-boner. But wasn’t that what she really wanted? To be thrown back to the dark, wet land where it was safe and untroubled?
But instead, he stopped rocking and turned in his chair to face her. “Is that your dream?”
He knew about dreams, too? She shook her head. “Not exactly.” But it was comfortable and reliable, and Uncle Marion had needed her. Maybe not nearly so much now that Aunt Della had recovered, and he was back at the shop.
“Well, then? What do you really want to do?”
She couldn’t be sitting on the front porch of a huge downtown mansion, sharing her impossible ideas with the most attractive man she’d ever met. A man she’d never seen before this morning. And how could she explain everything? Her loyalty to her aunt and uncle. And that she felt at ease behind the old meat counter because she’d grown up there. She couldn’t possibly explain how peaceful she felt on her stump beside the dark waters in Four Hole, just outside Summerbrook. He certainly wouldn’t understand how she wanted to cling to the familiar protection the area offered with its camp meetings and church socials. No, he wouldn’t understand any of that—and how it all clashed with her gift with numbers. “I’ve tried not to think of my dreams much. Because I’ve had obligations.”
He rocked and looked up at the magnolia tree. “I understand that. Since my father’s been ill, I’ve been spending too much time handling my family’s real estate holdings, but I don’t let it preclude what I was destined to do.” He stopped rocking. “Pretend that you didn’t have obligations. What would you do?”
She thought for a moment. “It’s hard to explain.”
“Try,” he said.
“Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve loved numbers. They’re…stable and real, and they make me feel…confident. It’s the only thing I’ve ever excelled at.”
“Well, what do you want to do in that field?”
She inhaled. “Since college, I’ve wanted to work with investments. In financial planning. You know, set up 401Ks, IRAs, retirement plans, buy stocks, bonds. And some day, I’d really like to own my own financial investment and accounting firm.” She sat back and took another sip from her glass and couldn’t believe what she had just shared with the man. “I like the idea of helping people plan for their futures. I watch the tickers on those news channels all the time. I do the research and I know the numbers like the back of my hand.”
“I have no doubt about that.” He placed his palm on the arm of her chai
r. “So tell me what’s stopping you?”
She paused. “My great uncle and aunt did…for a while.” They had given everything they could to raise her. But that was only partly the truth.
“And why should they stop you?” He checked his watch.
She shook her head and explained everything. About how they were childless. About how they’d cared for her when her father had died. About Aunt Della’s illness and how they needed her help. “They would’ve gone under if I hadn’t stayed there to help.”
“I understand familial obligations.” He shook the contract in the air.
“It’s not that I’ve abandoned my dreams forever. I’ve just put them off.”
“Why not do something now? Your aunt isn’t still sick, is she?”
“No.” Even though her aunt still had difficulty on some days, she was managing quite well lately, and her uncle had nearly taken back all his duties at the shop. Did she really want to tell him that in addition to her former obligations, a part of her didn’t even want to leave the place she’d grown up? And that she was a chicken? A yellow-bellied, lily-livered chicken. She really didn’t want to admit that even to herself.
“With your talent, you could work for any number of financial firms. Save some money, then come up with a business plan. Banks and the government are looking to help women and minorities start small businesses these days. If you have a little starter money.”
“I don’t see how I could come up with enough to make a bank take a second look.” He really had her attention now.
“Do you have any savings at all?”
She nodded.
“Well, if you believe in yourself, invest it. In mutual funds, stocks, whatever you know you can make a good return on.”
She knew better, but she had set her investing sights securely and low and had been saving in hopes of buying a better used car. Anyway, her couple of thousand couldn’t make her much in the way of dividends.
“If investing is your dream, then just do what it takes. We only go around once in this life you know. You can’t afford to waste your talents…or your dreams.”
This man was telling her things that she’d been toying with and tamping down in her mind for years—things that had recently resurfaced. But it would mean leaving the sanctity of her own little section of Four Hole Swamp, and that was why she had delayed for so long.
“If you’re successful in your own career or business, you can help your aunt and uncle even more than you are now.”
Her brain knew that to be true. She didn’t want to die grinding up chuck roasts and quartering chickens. “It’s not like I had truly abandoned my plans. I was just waiting for the right time.”
“Well, you know what they say? There’s no time—”
“Like the present.” She’d heard the old saying so many times before.
“But while you’re still figuring out the when and how of it all, I’d like you to help me with something—if you could. I still want to ride out to Summerbrook and look for some wood for my boat.” He crossed his long legs.
“Well, there are a few lumber mills in and around Summerbrook. In fact, the mayor owns a building supply store. But don’t they have lumber stores in Charleston?”
He chuckled. “That’s not the kind of wood I’m looking for. I’m building my own boat right now—a replica of an historic design.”
She couldn’t imagine the man before her doing something so arduous. “You mean you’re having your dream boat built?”
“Nope. I’m building it with these.” He held up his hands. They were strong and solid. “I build boats—big ones, wooden yachts and custom sailboats, and I need a special kind of wood.”
“What kind?” She was curious.
“Ever heard of sinker cypress?’
Of course she’d heard of it. She sat on her sinker cypress log nearly every day. And she had a real problem with his request. She’d heard of outsiders like him, coming into the swamps, raping the low forests, taking the ancient wood for their own profits. She’d also heard of corporations, filling in all the lands they could around her precious swamp, building vinyl tract homes on reclaimed ground and ruining the natural resources around her. She didn’t want to help him cart away the ancient trees that made her surroundings unique—things that belonged in the swamp—like her. Would he like her to come to Charleston and cut down the old oak that the squirrels were playing on earlier?
He looked around his chair. “Bessie has got to be cooking fish tonight. Evelynn will die if she fries them in the house again.” He stood. “I do love a good fish, though. I’d better go tell her that mother will be coming home for a break from the hospital soon. Excuse me for a moment,” he said as he walked inside.
How about excuse Hanna for a lifetime? Why didn’t she just…run? It was she who was sitting on the handsome man’s porch stinking like a pot of discarded catfish heads. She looked around. Roses! Real ones.
She sprinted from her chair down the steps and grabbed a couple of the red and yellow beauties from the bushes in front of the house. As fast as she could, she rubbed the flower heads all over her arms and neck and stuffed the remnants of the bruised petals in her pockets. That would help, as well. The gift that’ll keep on giving. When she was a little girl, she used to rub Aunt Della’s gardenias on her neck for perfume. It made the old woman smile when she caught the scent of her. It was a trick she’d learned from her aunt when she was out of perfume. In seconds Hanna was back in her chair.
Furman came out the door and shook his head. “Must be something dead under the porch. Bessie’s cooking roasted lemon chicken tonight.”
Dead? Hanna stood. “I’ve got to go, Mr. Laurens. I’ll give this to Callie in the morning and she’ll call you if there are any questions.”
“Furman. Call me Furman.” Something caught his attention and he looked up. “There’s Mother now. She really wanted to meet you.”
No. No. No. Hanna didn’t want to meet his mother. Furman Laurens was one thing. His mother sounded like a completely different animal—one that expected perfection. And Hanna was far from perfect.
Some kind of foreign species of white car that she didn’t recognize pulled into the drive. Probably something so expensive she’d never had the opportunity to see one before. An elegant woman with a short gray bob and a single strand of pearls got out the car and walked onto the porch.
Hanna’s insides shook like Aunt Della’s cherry gelatin salad.
⸙
Furman stood to greet his mother and suddenly had second thoughts about what he was about to do. Maybe introducing Hanna to his mother was a bad idea. He knew how disapproving his mother could be of people who were not in their social circle. And Hanna was far from the stuffy, stuck-up society women he knew. But it was too late now. “Mother, this is Hanna…from the catering company,” Furman said.
“Son, didn’t I tell you that it is always polite to use a person’s first and last names?” His mother extended her hand.
“And I’m Evelynn Laurens,” she said glaring at him for his bad manners. “Sorry, I’m late. I stopped by our antique shop on the way home. We just acquired some rare sterling pieces, and I just had to see them.”
His mother was putting on the Charleston—showing off her accent and elegance. It really wasn’t necessary. Hanna wasn’t in competition with her. But his mother loved to put people in their places, even before they knew they had a place. It was tacky, if you asked him. But he was caught between his idea of good manners and being an only son and the torchbearer for the family name—a weight that was growing heavier every day his father was ill.
Hanna tentatively shifted her weight with the tiniest step forward. “It’s nice to meet you, and I need to let you know that it’s not my catering—”
“I’m glad we got that little menu thing ironed out. It would have been a shame if I hadn’t checked behind Furman.” She pretended to shield the side of her mouth so that he wouldn’t hear. “Okra soup. Leave things t
o a man. I wanted Lowcountry, and he gives me low and country.”
Hanna downed her head and took a half step backwards. Maybe introducing the two was an even worse idea than he’d originally thought. Hanna had to be the mildest, quietest person he’d met in his entire life. And his mother could just mow her down and grind her up for mulch for her prize-winning roses, and have Hanna thanking her for the service.
“Mother, Hanna’s got to go,” he said. He could tell his mother was sizing Hanna up for fertilizer.
Hanna looked at him with gratefulness in her eyes.
“Furman, I’ve only just met the young lady. And her catering company is about to put together one of the most important dinner parties I host all year. I believe I have a right to know a little something about her.”
He caught his mother scanning Hanna for flaws. “Now, dear, from where are you originally?”
“Summerbrook. Mostly.” Hanna was fidgeting with something in her pockets.
“And who are your people?” She gave Hanna a condescending smile.
Great. Here she goes with the Charleston inquisition—all draped in faux Southern gentility.
Hanna answered in a quiet voice.
“And from where do they hail? I mean, your ancestors. England? France?”
His mother smelled blood.
Hanna glanced up at him. “I don’t know,” she replied.
“Oh.” His mother’s response was short and flat. “And where did you attend college?”
“Palmetto State University,” Hanna said softly, then looked behind herself, like she was getting ready to run. “I had a scholarship there.”
He knew that in his mother’s eyes Hanna had attended the wrong school. She lived in the wrong town. Had the wrong last name. And didn’t have a pedigree.
His mother lightly touched the pearls at her neck and said with contrived curiosity, “Dear, do you subscribe to those common fashion magazines from New York?”
Swamps and Soirees: A Summerbrook Novel Page 4