Savannah Blues

by Mary Kay Andrews

  I took another sip of the wine, and a slight breeze ruffled the back of my hair. I looked up and for the first time saw the light in the third-floor window of the townhouse, Tal’s home office.

  A face was silhouetted in the window. Tal. I could see him so clearly it nearly took my breath away. He was gazing out the window, but seemingly at nothing. As I watched, he buried his face in his hands. I looked away, hurt that his hurt was so naked, so visible. And then, unable not to, I looked again. He seemed frozen in that window, a strand of his thick, wheat-colored hair falling into his eyes, his fingers splayed across his face.

  He was mourning Caroline. The stab of pain surprised me. Hadn’t I battened down the hatches, wasn’t I over all this moony shit? Our marriage had been over for more than a year. Time enough to heal, I’d told myself.

  But it was so damned hard, not loving him. We had dated for two years, been married for a little over ten. Nearly half my life. I had loved Tal for so long, it was hard to remember what I had been like before we were us. Our split had been bitter, and at some point, I had forced myself to shut down any memory of what our life had been like before things fell apart.

  Now the memories came rushing back unbidden, as I sat there, in the garden, in my nightgown, looking up at the only man I had ever really loved. As he sat in the home we had built together, mourning the woman who had come between us. Whom he thought I had killed.

  He looked so damn vulnerable. So fragile. It was a word I never would have associated with Talmadge Evans.

  I thought about the first time we’d met, in a club on River Street. I was eighteen, starting classes at Armstrong State College, living at home with my parents.

  It was clear from the beginning that we didn’t run in the same circles. Tal was preppy, Waspy. Country Day all the way. His parents lived in a big house in Ardsley Park, his daddy did something at one of the banks downtown. None of it mattered.

  At closing time that night, he talked me into walking out to his car with him. He pulled me inside the little MG, sat me on his lap, and we necked like crazy. Oh God, I was so hot for him, I still blush at the memory.

  He called me the next day, and we went to a movie and, afterward, drove out to the beach, and for the first and last time in my life, I had sex with a man on a first date.

  It was fine.

  When Christmas break was over, he went back to Tech, and I followed.

  Tal graduated at the end of winter quarter. It was March. We moved back to Savannah, and in June we got married, moving into a tiny ground-floor apartment of a townhouse on Jones Street, which belonged to a friend of the Evanses.

  And yes, I remembered it as bliss. I worked at jobs I didn’t care about, and Tal and I planned our future. He sketched the beach house he’d build us on a barrier island off the coast. I filled our tiny rooms with my bargain finds, painted and sanded and wallpapered. After five years Mama started making noises about grandchildren, but Tal was still building a career, and besides, we were having too much fun to be tied down to kids.

  When I found the townhouse on Charlton Street, I knew it was meant to be. Tal wanted something smaller, in Ardsley Park, near his parents, but once I saw the real estate agent tacking the sign in the window of the townhouse, I knew it would be mine. I stopped the agent, inquired about the price, and the identity of the owner, but the agent was reluctant to part with the information.

  It didn’t matter. By that time, BeBe and I were friends, and she knew everybody in town. Three quick phone calls later, BeBe called with the news. The house belonged to a woman named Jean MacCready.

  I could have wept with joy. Miss Jean was in her eighties, a spinster who lived on my parents’ block and who had been Mama’s godmother. The Eloise part of my name was an old Foley tradition, but I had been named Jean for Miss Jean MacCready. And I never knew she owned downtown property. When I asked Mama about the Charlton Street house, she acted like I should have known about it.

  “That was their old family place,” Mama said. “I believe it belonged to Walter, Jean’s brother, who died last year. He was a merchant seaman, only came home once every few years.”

  “Call her,” I begged Mama. “I’ve got to have that house. I’ll die if I don’t buy that house.”

  So I put on my most conservative dress, and heels and pantyhose—even my wedding pearls—and Mama and I went and paid a call on Miss Jean.

  She gave us hot tea with lemon, even though it was August and stifling in her little brick bungalow, and she quizzed me about my plans for the MacCready home place.

  “You wouldn’t be tearing it down, would you?” she asked suspiciously. “My grandpapa built that house. My mama was born in that house.”

  My look of shock was authentic. “I would never tear that house down, Miss Jean,” I said, raising my hand in an oath.

  “And what about children?” she asked, staring directly at my empty, so far barren, belly. “That house has always had children. That’s why Walter never would sell it. All those pansies who live downtown wanted to buy my grandpapa’s house, but Walter said he would roll over in his grave if queers got hold of our house.”

  Mama raised an eyebrow. I wondered if she had coached Miss Jean.

  “Oh, we want children,” I said. “But the apartment on Jones Street is so tiny, and the landlord doesn’t allow children. If we could get your grandpapa’s house, we would fill it up with children.”

  Both Mama’s eyebrows shot up, so I avoided looking at her. Tal and I hadn’t really discussed children, but he’d never said he didn’t want any, and I guess I always, at the back of my mind, assumed we would get around to having them—as soon as we had a house of our own.

  “You’d raise the children Catholic, of course,” Miss Jean said, leaning over to pat my hands.

  We were so close to making a deal, I would have agreed to raise my children as cannibals if it would have pleased the old lady.

  “Yes,” I said. “Catholic. Of course.”

  Mother Evans would have a double hissy, I thought evilly.

  Miss Jean took a sip of tea. “I never did like the idea of all kinds of people trampling through Grandpapa’s house, looking at it, talking about it, touching things,” she told Mama, ignoring me now. “But the taxes on this house keep going up, and with Walter gone, I have to think about my future.”

  “Certainly,” Mama said. And then she did the unexpected. She went out on a limb for me, even though I knew full well she thought the house was too old and too decrepit.

  “Jean,” Mama said, leaning close to her godmother, “Weezie really loves old houses. She’s crazy about them. She’s a wonderful homemaker, much better than I ever was. Tal is a very talented young architect. But he’s just starting out. The children don’t have a lot of money.”

  Mama let Miss Jean take it all in. We sipped our tea and talked about Miss Jean’s flowers, and her work with the rosary guild. I was nearly out of my mind with impatience, but I knew what Mama was up to.

  Finally, as we picked up our pocketbooks and made ready to leave, Miss Jean pulled me away from Mama’s side.

  “I want you to have the house,” she said. “That real estate man says we should get three hundred thousand dollars for it. But I think he’s just telling me a lie to make me happy. I know it’s in a state. It would mean a lot to me if my namesake could get my house. Do you think you could pay two hundred thousand dollars?”

  My heart raced. It was more money than I dared think about. It was also half what the house was worth, even if it were nothing more than four crumbling walls.

  “We’ll take it,” I said. And she kissed me on the cheek to seal the deal.

  Out in the car, Mama had been incredulous. “You agreed to buy that—that wreck—without even consulting your husband?”

  Mama didn’t buy a tube of toothpaste without my daddy approving it. After forty years of marriage she never even had her name on their checking account. Every Sunday night, Daddy just counted out a modest little stack of t
en-dollar bills, and that was her allowance for the week.

  “I know what I’m doing,” I said blithely. “Tal will love the house. You know how he is about the historic district. And I couldn’t pass it up—not at that price. Mama, it’s my dream come true. Thank you so much for talking to Miss Jean for me.”

  Mama folded her arms on her chest and gave a tight little smile that let me know she would have the upper hand over me at last.

  It was a Friday afternoon, and just before three o’clock. “Can you take me to the bank?” I asked. We were in her car.

  “Why?” she asked.

  “I want to go to the bank, move money out of savings into checking,” I said.

  The truth was, we didn’t have a savings account, and God knows we didn’t have enough to cover the check I’d just written to Miss Jean. Living the good life took every cent Tal and I made. I wanted to get to my safe-deposit box and raid my stash of savings bonds. The Foleys had been great ones for savings bonds. Every Christmas and birthday, for as long as I could remember, I’d been given fifty-dollar savings bonds—for my college education.

  My three-month stab at college hadn’t made a dent in the bonds. With Mama sitting outside in the car, I went into the bank, emptied out my safe-deposit box, and cashed them in. When the endorsing was all said and done, I skipped out of the bank with a song in my heart. I raced home as fast as I could to tell Tal the news. I’d bought a house. Our house.

  He didn’t believe me when I told him.

  “You bought a house? For two hundred thousand dollars? Are you out of your mind? Where would we get that kind of money?”

  His face was pale, and his lips squinched up at the corners in a way I’d never seen on him before—although I’d seen it plenty of times on Mother Evans.

  “It’s Charlton Street, Tal,” I said, pulling him toward the door. “The three-hundred block. You’ve always said that’s one of your favorite blocks in town.”

  “I’ve also said a Jaguar is one of my favorite cars. But you don’t see me going out and buying one without telling you, right?”

  “Just come and look at it,” I said, waving the key under his nose. “I’m sorry I didn’t discuss it with you, baby, but there wasn’t time. Mama took up for me—for me! And Miss Jean wants us to have it. She really does. It’s never been out of her family. And Tal—you won’t believe it. She’s going to hold the mortgage. Five percent! Can you believe it? The monthly note won’t be that much more than our rent here. And think of the tax break.”

  “Think what it’ll cost to make it livable,” Tal grumbled. “Have you even seen the inside of this place?”

  “I don’t have to,” I said. “It’s wonderful. I just know it. And if it’s not wonderful right this minute, you and I will fix it.”

  “And die broke,” he said.

  But I was wearing him down. In those days, Tal loved what I loved. We took a flashlight and a bottle of wine and walked the five blocks over to Charlton Street.

  “Look at the bricks,” I prompted, standing on the sidewalk in front of the house. “Savannah grays. Even if we only knocked the house down and sold it for the bricks, it would be worth what we’re paying for it.”

  “Good-looking brick,” Tal said, running his hand over the front wall. He craned his neck to look up toward the third floor. “Decent wrought iron too. Not as nice as some I’ve seen. But nice.”

  “Come on,” I said, giving him a tiny shove. “Let’s go inside.”

  As he fumbled with the lock, I was already making a list of things to do. The heavy brass doorknob and kickplate hadn’t been polished in years. I had a can of Brasso under the sink back at the apartment. All the ground-floor windows were thick with grime. But the wrought-iron window grilles had space for window boxes. Mentally, I planted them with pale pink impatiens, variegated Swedish ivy, with cast-iron urns holding potted palms on either side of the wide front stoop.

  Tal opened the door, stepped inside, then stepped out just as quickly. “Christ!” He held his arm across his nose and mouth. “There’s something dead in there.”

  Several somethings were dead inside my dream house. Closer investigation revealed that many generations of pigeons and squirrels had taken up residence in the chimney, and a family of bats had moved into the third-floor bedroom.

  “We’ll have it fumigated,” I said, after we’d made a quick trip to Home Depot for paper face masks and heavy-duty room deodorizers. “But did you see those cove moldings in the living room? Twelve inches wide. And the plaster ceiling medallions? And that darling little sink in the downstairs powder room? And think of the kitchen we could fit in that space where the servant’s room is now. There’ll even be space for a laundry room. God, I can quit going to the Washateria.”

  “Did you see the plaster falling off the wall in shreds?” Tal countered. “Did you see the color of the water coming out of your darling little sink? Liquid mud. That means we’ve got cast-iron pipes. All the plumbing will have to be replaced. Do you know what plumbers charge in this town?”

  I felt my upper lip tremble. Here I had cashed in all my college bonds, begged my mother to intercede on our behalf with Miss Jean, and all he could do was complain about a few squirrel skeletons and some bad pipes.

  In an instant, he was hugging me and apologizing. “I’m sorry, Weezer,” he said, kissing the top of my head. “You’re right. It’s an incredible house. This is one of my favorite blocks downtown. And you forgot to mention the carriage house. We can move into the carriage house and stay there while we work on the big house. Then, after it’s done, we can rent out the carriage house. I’ll bet we could get a thousand a month, easy. Income property! Think of it, we’ll be landlords.”

  He started sketching plans for the carriage house layout on the back of the paper sack I’d carried the wine in.

  I had thought a lot about the carriage house. And I had my own little sketches—in my head, of course, and not nearly so professionally executed. But my plans weren’t for a rental apartment. A little shop was what I had in mind. A tiny, perfect antique shop, a place where I could play store, maybe even set up a playpen in the back. But I kept all that to myself. Tal was right, the income from renting the carriage house would be a godsend. A shop could come later.

  Right now, I wanted to celebrate our good fortune. We uncorked the wine, then wandered hand in hand through the house, sketching and planning our future on Charlton Street.

  Looking up at Tal now, his face a mask of despair and misery, it was hard to believe how much everything had changed in so little time.

  When had the sweetness turned so sour? Why had I given up so easily on my marriage, if it had meant that much to me? I had never thought of myself as a quitter. Maybe, I thought, I should have given Tal another chance, instead of digging in and starting World War III.

  I turned the wineglass around and around in my hands, watching Tal, finding myself wanting to go to him, hold him, offer some comfort.

  Poor wretch.

  Poor sap! I slammed the glass down on the table. Goddamn him for betraying me. Goddamn him for being so careless with what we had together. Goddamn him for loving Caroline DeSantos instead of me.

  I drank down the rest of my wine and tossed the remains of my omelette over the back garden wall for the alley cats who kept the lane clear of rats. I’d lost my appetite, but I was suddenly very thirsty.

  Back in the carriage house, I drank the rest of the bottle of wine and traipsed woozily up the stairs to my bed. Alone. I shut the French doors to block out the view of Tal, but I needn’t have bothered. The upstairs light was out. The house was dark.

  Chapter 18

  On the Monday morning after my arrest, I had a stinking hangover. I sat in the kitchen and sipped coffee and shot dirty looks at the answering machine. Finally, at nine o’clock, I made myself pick up the phone. If I call her, I told myself, I’ll be the one in charge. I’ll be the one calling the shots.

  What a joke.

  “Mama?”r />
  “Where have you been?” she demanded. “I have been calling and calling you for twenty-four hours straight. Your daddy and I have been out of our minds with worry.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. There were reporters camped out at my place, so I spent the night at BeBe’s. Then, when I finally got home last night, it was so late, I didn’t want to call and wake you up.”

  “As if we’d slept a wink since all this happened,” she snapped.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again, making two hatch marks on the back of an envelope on the kitchen counter. It was a habit I’d developed, talking to Mama. Keeping track of the apologies per conversation. My goal was to keep it under a dozen for each ten minutes. Didn’t look like I was gonna make goal this time.

  “Are you all right? You didn’t, I mean, those people at the jail didn’t touch you—or anything?”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “I watched television and read. Didn’t Uncle James call and let you know what was going on?”

  “He did,” Mama admitted, “but I still don’t understand why you called him instead of us.”

  “James is a lawyer,” I pointed out unnecessarily. “I just figured he’d know what to do. About getting me bailed out and all.”

  “Bailed out,” she wailed. “I still can’t believe this has happened.”

  “It’s not that bad,” I said. “Criminal trespass. Hardly even a real crime.”

  “But they think you murdered that woman,” Mama said sharply. “It was on the news, and all over the papers. Even the Atlanta paper. I saw Sarah Donnellen at ten-o’clock mass yesterday. Daddy lit two candles for you, by the way. Sarah’s daughter-in-law is a lawyer in Atlanta. She called Sarah because she knew we’re friends. And Sarah says her daughter-in-law says they could still charge you with murder.”