Hanna shook her head. “I read them sometimes when I take my aunt to her doctor, though. Why?”
His mother kind of whispered, “You do know it’s not quite Memorial Day yet, don’t you?”
Hanna nodded. “Yeah, but I don’t— So, did we get the date wrong?”
Evelynn scanned Hanna’s form. “The slacks.” She pointed her long, skinny finger at Hanna’s trousers.
Hanna glanced down at her pants and craned to try to see the back of them. “Do I have a stain?”
It was too late. His mother had the unpretentious, beautiful woman by the jugular.
“Hmmm. I thought everyone here knew the imperative about not wearing white before Memorial Day and after Labor Day.” She let out a disgusted breath. “And we all know about what those so-called fashion magazines say to the masses.” She rolled her eyes. “The people I know don’t care what they purport. It’s still not done here.”
“Okay, Mother. Why don’t I walk Hanna to her car now and the two of you can talk about spring fashions some other time.” He touched Hanna’s elbow. But before he could get her past Evelynn Laurens, she stopped them.
“Oh, my word. What in the world is that putrid smell?” His mother looked around the porch, sniffing. “It smells like fish…and roses. Is Bessie trying to fry flounder in the house again?”
“No. She’s roasting lemon chicken. I checked on her earlier.”
“It was nice to meet you, Mrs. Laurens,” Hanna said.
His mother crinkled her nose. “Dear, do you also work for a fish monger?”
Hanna’s face turned a shade of crimson that resembled his mother’s beloved roses.
“Mother!” He couldn’t believe her audacity. Oh, wait. He could. And he knew why. She evaluated every female he spoke to and ran off the ones that didn’t fit her high expectations—just to make sure nothing untoward got started. Like a dinner date or something. His mother’s penchant to protect the family bloodline and reputation at all costs was stifling to him.
“No. I mean yes. I mean, I don’t work for a fishmonger, but I was fishing this afternoon and— I took a couple of roses off your bush out there to try to cover the smell because my dog Sinker—”
Furman knew where that last sentence was leading his mother. She ran down the steps and to the prized rose that she had been cultivating for the flower show this weekend.
A look of confusion covered Hanna’s face.
He closed his eyes when he heard his mother’s scream.
Chapter Three
Red and Wrong
Hanna froze in her tracks when she heard Mrs. Laurens’s shrill scream. Though her feet wouldn’t move, her hands trembled as she shoved them into her pockets to retrieve what she had confiscated off the rose bushes moments before. She managed to step toward Furman. She extended her trembling hands. They were filled with the crushed petals. She knew it was a stupid gesture, even as she was performing it, but she wanted to give the roses back. What was he going to do with the mangled pieces of red and yellow?
“Furman! Come look at what that…that…woman has done to my prize-winning roses!”
“I’ve got to go,” Hanna said. Each word seemed to go up an octave in pitch. Her hands continued to shake. Her feet felt as if they had been made of lead as she forced them along the tabby sidewalk. She gently placed them in Furman’s palms.
He looked at Hanna, then at his mother. Then at the bruised petals in his hands and at Hanna again. “Please. Don’t leave just now. We can sort this all out.” He looked back at the crushed roses. “They’re only flowers. They’ll grow back. Evelynn will calm down in a minute. She’s just been so stressed lately.”
“I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry,” Hanna said as she walked backwards toward the front gate. She seemed unable to pull her gaze off the horrifying scene until she reached the street. And then she ran.
On the drive home, Hanna fought back the tears of her embarrassment. She had known better. Leaving the protected confines of the bottom edge of Summerbrook was fraught with exposure to all sorts of protocol and culture she didn’t know. Her lack of social skills didn’t matter where she lived. Her place was there.
Downtown Charleston was filled with pedigreed people and their uppity customs. How was she supposed to know there was such a thing as prize-winning roses growing in someone’s yard? But if she hadn’t smelled like a fish market, that wouldn’t have mattered.
She finally exhaled when she could no longer see the twin diamonds of the new Arthur Ravenel Bridge in her rear view mirror. Charleston was finally behind her.
The whole situation was really all her fault. For not saying no to Callie in the first place when she initially asked about helping with the catering job. And for not saying no when she had asked Hanna to run the new contract back to the Laurens mansion. Hanna was her own worst enemy.
This could all be fixed. She would tell Callie that she wouldn’t help her any longer. That was the only thing to do. Because Hanna wasn’t about to face either one of the Laurens again after wringing the life out of Mrs. Laurens’s prized rose. Hanna would tell her cousin tomorrow—after she put all her energy and strength into trying to put the whole fishy episode behind her.
The only thing good that had come of the meeting with Furman Laurens was his advice to her. Not the advice to call him Furman. Imagine her being on a first-name basis with a man like that. It was a pleasant thought, though. Her upbringing discouraged her from calling him Furman to his face because Aunt Della had taught her to say yes sir and no ma’am and to call her elders and persons of a higher social class by their proper surnames. The only exception was when she referred to a familiar older person as Miss Lucille or Mr. Henry. And, of course, her cousins, friends and Cubi-Jack.
In her head, though, she would think of Furman by his first name when not around him. Which wouldn’t be long since she’d decided to abandon the crazy idea to help Callie. In downtown Charleston of all places. And anyway, none of that would put her on the path to becoming the financial planner she wanted to be.
Hanna pressed the gas pedal even harder—to put more distance between herself and the so-called Holy City. There was nothing holy about it.
Furman’s recommendation not to delay her dreams and to use her talents with money to invest her savings and to break into the financial world was solid counsel. Advice she’d already known deep down inside. She’d be much better able to help her great aunt and uncle when the time came if she were making the kind of money she thought she could make. All Uncle Marion really needed right now during the day was a set of strong arms every once in a while. If she carefully put her own money to good use and, perhaps, started a career in some kind of company that dealt with numbers and money, she could afford to help pay someone to do that job for her uncle. And she could still do his light bookkeeping at night.
Her mind kept toiling and figuring. Could it all really work like that? Did she have the courage to leave the quiet safety of the swamp to do it? She didn’t know for sure, but what if she kept putting it off and never even tried? What if she had to take care of her aunt and uncle on the meager income that the market would bring them? Uncle Marion had never planned for retirement. The income from the shop wouldn’t be enough if extra care was needed. Maybe she owed the effort to her aunt and uncle, too. She remembered something Cubi-Jack had said to her earlier. If you eat a coward’s dinner, you’ll have regrets for dessert. To some people, Cubi-Jack’s life may have seemed shallow on the edge of the swamp; however, his wisdom ran into depths she couldn’t quite explain.
Finally, she pulled into familiar territory. The thick groves of oak and pine trees and the low lands they grew upon welcomed her home. The wild ferns and dwarfed palms growing on the low bottom land amongst the trees seemed to wave their fronds as she passed, heralding her homecoming.
It was late when Hanna got home. The meat market was closed, so she walked up the outside staircase to her little apartment. When she opened her door, the comparison betwe
en her countrified life and Furman’s citified life struck her upside her head.
Even though he may not technically live in the downtown mansion right now, the house would most assuredly be his one day. He’d grown up there—surrounded by refinement, fancy furniture and good taste.
On Hanna’s walls was every manner of animal known to frequent the black cypress swamp in her backyard. The eyes of deer heads, wild boar, ducks, foxes, and even raccoons that had visited Jarvis’s Taxidermy Shop stared at her. Her aunt and uncle had begun to fill her apartment with the beasts after the walls in their own home were completely filled with expired wildlife. Though those were not hers, the rustic cypress furniture her dad had made before he’d died was—the small tables, her bed, two chairs and a mirror where he’d cut out the center and placed the glass inside. It had framed her face—and her life—the entire time she’d grown up. She even had a couple of pieces from her grandfather, who had taught her dad how to construct the furniture. Because her apartment was so small, Aunt Della possessed the rest of the chunky, rugged pieces. One day, if Hanna could purchase a bigger place, she’d ask Aunt Della if she could have them.
Mrs. Laurens would be horrified at how Hanna lived. The Laurens mansion—with its fine antiques, china and designer fabrics—was made to be stared at by humans. Nothing in it stared back like it did in Hanna’s little studio—especially not the crystal roses she’d seen earlier today. Everything at the Laurens house was elegantly coordinated. Nothing harmonized at Hanna’s—except for the pair of boars on either end of her sofa and, in a way, the unique cypress furniture. Uncle Marion had Mr. Jarvis glue red eyes into the boars’ heads because that’s how her uncle had remembered them when he downed them in the swamp. So four red eyes glared at her—day and night.
Hanna adored the beloved pieces her father had made from the old sinker logs he’d found in the swamp when he’d been there doing things the family didn’t talk about any longer. Though simple and rustic, she cherished the unique furniture because it was all she had left of her father and her heritage, and it didn’t matter to her what anyone thought of that.
She turned on her television, watched a financial show on one of the news networks. One stock in particular caught her attention—Outward Knowledge Reflection Associates, OKRA. Aunt Della had drawn her attention to it months ago in the shop when she saw the letters on the ticker. “Look,” she had said. They’re selling okra for ridiculous prices up there in New York City.” Hanna had giggled to herself, but then did some research. The company was pioneering new satellite technology, and Hanna understood all their complicated mathematical calculations. It was a very special stock.
She knew what she had to do to get started on her dream—on her idea to really plan for a future for herself, her aunt and her uncle. When she’d finished learning all she could, she turned in for the night.
The next morning she met her uncle downstairs in the meat market.
“Mornin’, darlin’,” he said.
She gave the bent over old man a peck on his cheek. “What are we going to tackle first this morning?”
“That side of beef ribs in the cooler. All the meats for next week’s revival is beginning to come in.” He sat down in his tattered old recliner behind the meat counter. “Just let me catch my breath, and I’ll help you with it. This ole back of mine is givin’ me fits this mornin’.”
She put her hands on her hips. “Did you lift anything you weren’t supposed to yesterday?”
He nodded, putting his hand on his back.
Watching her uncle struggle to pretend things were as they used to be hurt her. He was getting too old for the hard work. It cemented her plan. He was going to need more from her than just help with lifting sides of beef.
“Uncle Marion, you know that’s how I get my exercise and build my muscles. I’ve got the best arms in Four Hole Swamp.” She really did. People told her all the time that her arms were as defined and as tight as one of those Hollywood starlets who worked out all the time. “Let me just turn on my channel, and I’ll get it.” She walked past the chest cooler that was filled with bottles of Cokes and orange and grape Nehis and pressed the button on the television.
For years her uncle had let her turn on the old TV in the corner to the news channel to watch the scrolling stock ticker on the bottom of the screen. She kept the sound off, but she glanced at the numbers all day long as she worked in the market. When a show about the economy came on, she’d turn up the volume.
After pulling out the side of ribs, she noticed her uncle had dozed off once again—something he’d been doing more and more after he’d turned seventy-five. Good. That would give her a chance to change one of the signs Aunt Della had made and taped to the display case yesterday while she was gone. “Surlon Stakes.” And it was written in bright yellow—a most inappropriate color. It reminded her of many things—mostly her cowardice, which she was about to remedy.
She made another sign with a red marker and a piece of paper. She taped it to the case as quickly as she could—before Uncle Marion could see her. As soon as she got back to business, the bell at the top of the door rang.
Without turning around, she said, “Be with you in a minute.” She grabbed the plastic-covered side of ribs and put it on her shoulder in order to place the slab in the display case while she helped the customer.
When she turned around with the bloody beef draped across her clavicle, Furman Laurens was standing in front of her.
Quick. What should she do? “I’ll be right back.” She took the meat and put it back in the cooler. It gave her time to gather her thoughts. But for what? She’d imagined she’d never see the man again. What did he come for? Money for damages to the roses or an explanation as to why she chose to ruin his mother’s chances at the fancy flower show this year?
If only Uncle Marion would wake up. She could just shiver in the cooler until Furman left. But her uncle’s little impromptu naps had become bouts of short comas lately.
The only thing she could do was to face the handsome man. She brushed at the butcher’s smock and realized the bag had had a small leak. Red streaks ran down the front of the white smock. She was sure they were probably down the back, as well. Nothing she could do about it now, and anyway, he wasn’t here to ask her out on a date. She stepped into the store’s front to find him perusing the display cases like he was about to stock up on meats for the week or something.
She usually wasn’t much into talking, but in the shop she was probably at her most loquacious. “How’d you know where to find this place?”
“Your cousin’s number was on the contract. She told me.” He continued down the line of meats. “Wow, you have alligator tail.”
She could feel her face flush. Swamp meat.
He surveyed the other offerings in the case. “And liver pudding. I’ve had that before. Exactly what’s in it?”
She was going to die. Did she really have to explain to him what liver pudding was? “I don’t think you really want to know.”
“Sure I do. Do you make it here?” He stared at her.
Was he trying to embarrass her further, or did he really want to know? “Yes, we do make it here.” She wasn’t going to tell him they used ground pork, livers, ears, onions and rice—that they spiced it up with lots of seasonings, like sage and thyme, and then they stuffed the mixture in the casings. Rural Southern food.”
“I’ve always been curious about what goes in it. Bessie brings it to work sometimes.” He took another step and stopped dead. “And blood pudding?”
She was not about to go there. “I know you didn’t come here for blood pudding. What do you want?”
He stood up straight, turning his back from the sausage counter. “I came to apologize for my mother. She was way out of line last evening.” He leaned against the case. “It was only a rose, and Evelynn’s got a million of them.”
“I don’t think your mother would appreciate you calling her Evelynn.”
“I know. I know.
I shouldn’t, but I call her that sometimes when she…misbehaves. Sort of like a parent using a child’s full name when he or she had done something inappropriate.”
“No need to explain, and an apology isn’t necessary. I was wrong to ruin her roses in the first place.” She looked at the counter of country meats. Then at her uncle. If he stayed asleep, Mr. Historic Mansion wouldn’t see that Uncle Marion wasn’t all uppity like his family. Heck, he didn’t even worry about getting dentures when several of his teeth fell out. What must Furman be thinking about her now? “You can tell your mother that I won’t be back. I’m calling Callie this morning and telling her that I can’t help her with the dinner.”
“No. I don’t want you to do that.” He crossed his arms like he meant business.
Why couldn’t she say no like that—firm and solid? Because she was a chicken-hearted coward and had been taught too many ubiquitous Southern manners—which made her look…weak. That was why.
She moved over to try to cover up that “Surlon Stakes” sign she’d put down by the register. “I’m afraid I’ve already made up my mind.” As much as she could do that and be resolute about it.
“I won’t stand for my mother to manipulate or intimidate you. You had planned to work with your cousin, and I’m going to see that you do. Whatever it takes.”
“You didn’t have to come all the way out here to apologize.”
He picked up a Moon Pie from the stand by the chest of colas and sodas. “I haven’t seen one of these in years.”
Now, he couldn’t have come all the way out here for Moon Pies either.
Looking up, he said, “I did want to apologize. And for other reasons, as well.” He placed the Moon Pie beside the register. “I also wanted to ask you about the cypress sinker logs—about any places you think I might begin to look.”
He didn’t want to know what she thought about that subject—she liked where all the old logs were—thank you very much. They served a purpose in their places right now—for her to sit atop—and for the animals to swim around and use for cover. Some were a kind of…swamp reef. Hanna didn’t want some outsider coming around to cart off part of what was special about the swamp. The next thing you know, some developer would be in here, sizing up Four Hole for a subdivision. She crossed her arms. “I don’t think I can help you with that.”
Swamps and Soirees: A Summerbrook Novel Page 5