Sweet Talk Me

by Kieran Kramer

  “We do, too, use the Francis the First,” said True. “At Christmas and Thanksgiving. And we always will.”

  “She also got some Fiestaware at a garage sale,” Weezie went on. “Pumpkin orange. Delightful in the autumn but so wrong for summer, according to Nate Berkus. Too bad his show got canceled…”

  True at garage sales? True using Fiestaware?

  What the hell was going on?

  “Where’s the library rug?” he asked Weezie. “And the couch?” He had a suspicion True would never tell him.

  “Sold to the highest bidder,” Weezie said glibly. “We needed start-up capital for the U-pick operation. We got rid of a lot of stuff. Whole rooms full. We were just about to advertise for boarders when Dubose proposed to True. Too bad. I was hoping a funny old lady would move in, someone like Honey. Now we’re stuck with Dubose instead. He’s dullsville.”

  “Weezie.” True sounded genuinely pissed. “You know better.”

  “Whatever,” Weezie flung back at her. “Because of you, I can’t get a car until you get married. And if we’d taken in boarders, I could have had one by now.”

  “No, you couldn’t have.” True glared at her. “Every cent would have gone to the business.”

  “I hate that business.” Weezie crossed her arms over her chest and looked at the ceiling. “I’m tired of strawberries and blueberries. I’m tired of everything we grow except for tomatoes. I’ll never be tired of them.”

  Harrison almost laughed. Weezie was angry. But she’d never unleash her ire on a tomato, apparently.

  “Good thing,” said True—how did she keep a straight face?—“as you’re in charge the next couple of weeks, and we have a bumper crop.”

  Weezie’s eyes filled with tears. “You expect me to juggle the tomatoes when I have your wedding coming up and school to get ready for?”

  “You don’t have anything to do to get ready for school,” True said. “Now calm down. You’re living at home, and everything will be fine.”

  “I’m not living at home,” Weezie yelled. “I’m moving into an apartment in North Charleston with Jamie Rivers and Courtney Gadsden. And I’m going to work as a waitress to pay for it.”

  “No, you’re not.” True remained calm. “You’re not ready for that yet.”

  Weezie stomped her foot. “You think I’m staying here with you and Dubose? No way!” And then she pushed past Harrison and ran up the stairs.

  Good Golly, Miss Molly. There was nothing like a teenage girl in a tizzy to blow your hair back.

  “So you’ve had hard times.” Poor True. She was awfully young to play parent to Weezie.

  She shrugged. “Nothing I can’t handle.”

  Them were fighting Maybank words, he knew.

  But they weren’t enough to settle the strange, aching feeling hovering near his heart. Biscuit Creek was a story he carried with him wherever he went, against his will, like a song in his head that wouldn’t stop playing. There were characters in this story, and they weren’t allowed to change, much less die. Even his mama lived on, her tanned face taut with concentration as she crouched over an aluminum washtub and counted how many crabs he and Gage had caught for their supper.

  Collier and Helen Maybank and their housekeeper Ada were supposed to be at Maybank Hall forever, the way the tide rolled in each day over the oyster beds in the creek and the locusts buzzed in the summer and the camellias bloomed by the front porch every winter.

  And True was supposed to be the unreachable southern lady without a care in the world. That was what had sustained him all these years, and what had fueled his hard indifference to her, knowing she’d be all right, no matter what happened to him. He’d been able to forget her, to seal her up in a ziplock bag of old memories and toss her aside.

  “I’m sorry about your parents,” he told her. “They were a fine couple. And Honey was a grand old lady.”

  “I don’t cry about them anymore,” she said. “I don’t have time.” Her gaze met his full-on, but her mouth … ah, that mouth. It told him all he needed to know. She’d never had a chance to recover. She must have hit the ground running …

  Had she ever gone to her beloved Chapel Hill?

  “That’s a good thing, you not crying anymore,” he told her. “Your parents and Honey would want you to be happy again.” He paused half a-second. “I hope you will be.”

  And he really did.

  “Thank you,” True said quietly, and stepped aside so he could leave.

  When he crossed the threshold onto the porch, he ached for her and Weezie both. And it ran through him then, like a translucent shrimp streaking across the surface of Biscuit Creek, how no one had ever told him they were sorry for all that he’d lost over the years. He’d give away his whole fortune and start over again as a newbie in Nashville to hear that.

  Just one time.

  But like a flash that thought disappeared, sinking deep into the briny darkness where Harrison never went.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Embarrassment warred with wounded pride when True ran to the living room window and hid behind the curtain so she could watch Harrison walk to his car. She had a one-inch crack to peer through, which drove her nuts. She fumbled with her cell phone and, barely looking down, texted Carmela: Harrison’s back.

  You’re kidding! The response was instant.

  Carmela was a tall Italian bombshell from the Bronx with curly dark brown hair twisted in a knot and a Sophia Loren mouth.

  I’m totally serious, True texted back and wondered if she was a disloyal fiancée talking about an old love affair. He gave me a ride home. I ran into him when I was picking up my gown. No big deal.

  OMG, Carmela answered her. It’s not every day you run into an international star, much less one you relinquished your V-card to. It’s definitely a big deal.

  True’s heart sank. She was trying so hard to make sure it wasn’t!

  Can you come in? Carmela wrote. I’m doing inventory. I want all the details.

  She owned a gift shop on Main Street called Southern Loot.

  I’m late for the couples shower in Charleston, True wrote. That was what mattered—her marriage to Dubose and the life that awaited them. I’ll tell you tomorrow. XOXO

  You’d better! But being the good sport that she was, Carmela added: Have fun!

  True would try. She wasn’t crazy about the downtown Charleston crowd. She knew them all from cotillion, which Mama had always insisted upon, but they were a little fast for her taste. Dubose, however, fit right in and told her she only felt that way because she was insecure.

  “You’re a Maybank,” he always said. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

  True hated hearing that she was a Maybank, as if that made her any more special than anyone else. “Big deal” is what she always said back to Dubose.

  But he didn’t get it.

  She could hear Harrison talking with the dogs, taking his sweet time, but he finally walked through the gap in the curtain. Her pulse quickened and she dared to push the curtain back just a little bit more.

  He knew.

  Finally.

  She could see in his eyes on his way out the door that he’d figured out the gist of things: Her family had come down in the world. Big-time.

  True had never finished her degree at Chapel Hill. She’d come home in the middle of her sophomore year when her parents had died to help seventy-eight-year-old Honey raise Weezie. But she’d also had to figure out a way to bring in money. Co-op farming was a big trend, so she came up with the idea of starting a U-pick business from the berry patch Mama used to tend to amuse herself. She’d called in favors from farmers who’d hunted deer and quail with Daddy on the far reaches of the property and coaxed them into putting in two big fields. Gifts from her father’s collection of bourbon, baskets of Honey’s fried chicken and biscuits, and permission to continue hunting had sweetened the deal and brought the men back occasionally to teach True how to get real use from the ancient tractor in their barn. They
taught her how to tend her crops without having to hire help.

  But her first year’s harvest was so abundant, she’d had no choice. Luckily, she’d found some hardworking teens who wanted a little extra cash, so whenever she was overwhelmed, she’d give them a call. They were worth their weight in gold.

  True and Honey had sold every valuable piece of furniture they owned, save for the pieces in the front parlor, but Honey had made True swear she’d never sell off any of the family land or the china and silver. True’s great-aunt had been a pragmatist by nature, but even she drew the line there. “All of that’s got to be passed down, darlin’,” she’d said in her strong Geechee accent, “as you well know. Otherwise, we lose the Maybank mojo.”

  True had been tempted many a time since Honey’s death to defy her wishes, but she’d restrained herself. She didn’t want to be the Maybank who let the family down. She was saving more than herself, Weezie, and Maybank Hall. She was saving the family history that went back all the way to 1703 when the first Collier Maybank had taken up residence on this spit of land on the curving tidal creek near the mighty Atlantic.

  Harrison finally took off in the Maserati. He’d put the top down, and his golden brown hair streamed out behind him. Had the shocking revelation about her parents roused pity in his heart? True dreaded that it would. She didn’t want him feeling sorry for her.

  It was the last thing she wanted.

  “Shootfire,” she whispered.

  Dubose’s black Mercedes came into view and approached Harrison’s car on the gravel drive. The vehicles stopped, side by side.

  Dubose lowered his window.

  Harrison slung his arm over the Maserati door.

  What was Dubose doing here an hour early? He should have called. True wasn’t anywhere near ready, and the last thing she needed was for her fiancé to show up at the house in a sulk about Harrison. Tonight was a big night for them. A romantic night.

  “When two bulls meet—” said Weezie from behind her.

  True nearly jumped out of her skin. “Don’t sneak up on me like that, please.”

  “—only one survives,” Weezie finished with a dramatic flourish of the red kitchen towel she held in her hand.

  “Neither Harrison nor Dubose is a bull.” True yanked the heavy linen window drapery back to its proper place. “And they’re both going to survive each other’s company just fine. Harrison’s leaving tomorrow anyway.”

  She glanced at the lighthouse clock on the mantel, ticking slowly, serenely away next to her father’s ashes in the shiny silver trophy. “Please tell Dubose I’m in the shower and will be downstairs in half an hour. I didn’t expect him this early, and I’ll get ready as fast as I can.”

  She wasn’t ready to see him yet. She needed to disentangle herself from the events of the day and come back to center.

  “You’re going to have a hard time thinking about Dubose now that you’ve seen Harrison.” Weezie had an uncanny way of saying exactly what she was thinking. “I will, too. So please don’t expect me to entertain Dubose, Sister.”

  Weezie often called her Sister when she was overexcited.

  True stopped. “I don’t expect you to entertain him. But promise me you’ll make him feel welcome. And if you do start talking with him, don’t go on and on about Harrison, okay?”

  “I don’t like Dubose,” said Weezie. “And I never will.”

  “You know what?” Usually True was patient—Weezie took a while to get used to change—but it had been a long day already. “You’d better start liking him soon. He cares about you a lot, and he’s going to be your brother-in-law.”

  “He’s not yet.” Weezie followed her into the hallway. “And now the man who took you right out of his arms at the senior prom and didn’t deliver you home until the next morning—”

  “Please stop channeling Wendy Williams.”

  “—is back in town for the first time since that eventful day.”

  “Thanks a lot for bringing it up,” True said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I wasn’t really thanking you. It doesn’t matter anymore anyway.”

  “Yes, it does. Harrison’s hot and single. And Dubose dumped you in college when Mama and Daddy died.” Weezie was thrilled with the drama of it all.

  “Don’t hold that against him. It was a really tough time. I needed to pay attention to what was going on here, and he needed to get through college. We got back together eventually, didn’t we?”

  “Only when he moved back here, and you were right under his nose.”

  “We got back together when he could make a commitment,” True told her firmly. “Law school’s hard. And he had to pass the bar.” Her whole body hummed with anxiety. “Now please behave yourself.”

  “Me?” Weezie pointed a thumb at her chest. “I’m not the fickle one who doesn’t know her own heart.”

  “Please, Weezie!” True seldom got into real arguments with her sister. “Don’t you understand how much it hurts me to look back at that time?”

  Weezie stared at her. “No.”

  That was the problem. Weezie had deep feelings herself, but she didn’t always recognize the depth of other people’s.

  “Well, listen closely,” True said more softly. “It does hurt. It hurts me the same way it hurts you to think about stray dogs and cats.”

  Weezie winced.

  “Or when Will Ferrell’s wife divorced him in Talladega Nights and married his best friend.”

  “God, that broke my heart.”

  “Exactly.” True was glad she was getting through. “So I’d rather forget what happened ten years ago. I want to move on.”

  Weezie bit her index fingernail. “All right,” she murmured around it.

  “Thank you.” True let out a big sigh. “See you in a few. Will you check on the customers, too, please? Give them all some extra tomatoes.”

  “Sure.”

  Which reminded her, Harrison never got his.

  Oh, well. That was probably a good thing. She might have pelted him with a few just because he got under her skin. Around him, she always questioned the status quo. It had reversed itself since they’d last seen each other. He was the one now who was surrounded by shiny stuff while she—former high school homecoming queen and sorority girl—was happy with her dirt-stained shorts and blunt fingernails she could never grow long, not if she was going to continue farming.

  And she was. The community relied on her now, and she liked being outdoors and working hard. She especially liked the money. It was just enough that she and Weezie could remain independent.

  While her sister headed outside, True took the main stairs two at a time. But she was too late. Her future husband’s familiar, confident tread sounded on the front porch. She paused and straightened her shoulders. It was time to act like a grown-up and remember what she had—an amazing fiancé. In fact, if she were an answer in one of Gage’s crossword puzzles, the clue would be lucky woman. And if Dubose Waring was an anagram …

  Who knew? She’d ask Gage—just for fun—next time she saw him.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  “Hey there, beautiful!” It was Dubose’s usual greeting, but his voice had a wary edge.

  True composed herself and turned around with a smile on her face. She felt like an adulteress. And she hadn’t even done anything wrong.

  “Hi, sweetheart,” she said.

  In the doorway stood the high school and college boyfriend who’d come back into her life at her lowest point—five years after her parents’ death, when her trials kept coming and coming—and told her she’d never be scared and alone again.

  For that, she’d always be grateful.

  He was nearly as handsome as Harrison, but in a totally different way—a more refined way. He was a gentleman, scholar, and athlete (he’d been second-string quarterback at the University of Virginia), and his hair was parted perfectly, the short sideburns and crew cut neat as a pin. He had the square jaw all the Waring men had and a broad
forehead over groomed blond eyebrows, evenly spaced hazel eyes, a handsome nose, and strong cheekbones. In his smartly cut suit from Berlin’s on King Street in Charleston and his Hermès tie, he was a poster boy for eligible southern bachelors.

  “So the great Harrison Gamble is back in town.” He gazed up at True with a confident grin that was still a walking advertisement for Biscuit Creek’s only orthodontist, his uncle, Dr. Waring. His own father, who’d died two years earlier, had been a well-established attorney, and his mother, Penn, was a general surgeon. “He told me all about taking you home from Atlanta.”

  He would, thought True. Harrison loved to make trouble.

  With her heart in her throat, she came down to the bottom stair and wrapped a hand around the elaborate carved finial. “He took me by such surprise. I’d have felt churlish saying no. It’s been ten years, after all.”

  Why did she feel so nervous? She’d done nothing wrong. She had nothing to hide.

  They shared a perfunctory kiss. Dubose was obviously as distracted by Harrison’s presence as she was. “I guess he’s come a long way from the Sand Dollar Heaven trailer park.”

  “Trash talk’s not really necessary, is it?”

  He picked up her free hand and kissed her knuckles. “I love how noble you are. If a bit naive.”

  She backed up a step. He climbed one. They were now eye-to-eye.

  “Harrison worked hard to get where he is,” she said. “And you work hard, too. There’s no need to drag him down. Or make fun of me. I’m not naive in the least.”

  Dubose laughed. “You go, honey.”

  “Dubose—”

  He put his hands around her back and pulled her close. “Don’t you see all this is about you? Not Gamble’s money. Not his fame. You’re my girl. Not his.”

  Normally, True would have felt flattered. Cherished. Right now she felt a bit owned, although that was a strong word. Dubose respected her. She knew he did. He was being something of an ass at the moment about Harrison, but he had strong provocation. What man wanted an old rival for his fiancée to show up right before their wedding?