Savannah by the Sea

by Denise Hildreth Jones

  “Oh, I’m just here with some friends.”

  “Savannah, can you believe Joshua is here?” She turned to me with eyes so wide I could have driven a truck into them. I’d have liked to throw myself under the wheels. “It’s fate,” she mouthed for my eyes only.“Well, Joshua . . .” She turned back to him and put her arm through his. “I believe it was meant to be that you and I are here at the same time. You have got to come spend the afternoon with us. We’re going to lay out here by the ocean and have a wonderful afternoon. Don’t you think that’s a brilliant idea, Savannah?” She turned back in my direction and stretched her face out in a rather awkward contortion.

  “Well, I think we need to make sure Joshua doesn’t have other plans.”

  He looked at me with his own large eyes. “Actually, Amber, I appreciate the offer, but I have some friends here, and we have some things to do to prepare for my best friend’s wedding on Saturday. So we’ve got a really busy week. But maybe we’ll run into each other again.”

  “Well, you won’t be able to avoid me all week, Joshua,” she said, running her fingers up and down his T-shirt like she was doing hand motions to “The Itsy-Bitsy Spider.” I determined then and there that she was either schizophrenic or I was. I was beginning to place votes on the latter.“Because I do believe this is preemptive of something very special.” And with that she ran her long hand across my man’s strong and deeply tanned forearm and sauntered back up the stairs. I know I did not just call him my man. Then she turned around and gave me a wink, and we heard a screech of sheer joy as her clamoring heels reached the top of the stairs. My, how the weight of the world could evaporate so quickly.No, not evaporate, just relocate. Right to my shoulders.

  “What did she mean by preemptive?”

  “She actually meant predictive.”

  “Well, thank the Lord. I thought she had a plan of attack or something.”

  “Well, maybe you heard her right the first time. Anyway, you get used to it. Thank you for not saying anything.” I tried to relax every muscle that had called itself to attention in my body.

  “Well, she can plan her plots, but the only one I’m spending time with this week is you. So you’ll join me for lunch?” He wrapped his arms around me.“Eew, you smell like fish.”

  I pulled away and glanced up just to make sure she hadn’t returned with her preemptive assault. “I’ve been running and sweating.”

  “Well, fortunately for you, I love fish.” He wrapped his arms around me again.“So, lunch?”

  “I’ll have to play it by ear. I’m just not sure it’s a good idea.”

  “What do you mean by ear? By what you hear everyone else is doing in your house?”

  “By what I determine I want to do.” I placed my hand on my hip. I felt like I was two, so I casually dropped it back to my side.

  “You will have to tell them all eventually, Savannah.” He ran his hands through his curls.

  “You know, there are a lot of things I will have to do eventually. I will have to go to the gynecologist this year eventually too, but who wants to rush such things? Plus, do you remember that to tell anyone about you would result in a face-to-face encounter with my mother?”

  His eyes didn’t hesitate. “It may take years. It may even take five grandchildren.” I officially gasped. “But I will win her over one day. Even if I don’t, I’ll still be completely in love with you.”

  “Excuse me, did you just say grandchildren?”

  “What? You only want one baby?”

  “Is this The Truman Show?” I scanned the beach for cameras. “This is a joke, right? Get the girl for the vacation. Go back home, tell all your friends. Say things that are completely insane while you’re here, but play it up so big, there’s no way she’d think you weren’t telling the truth.”

  “You watch too much television.”

  “Well, if you’re serious, I’m even more certain that you are the most pompous, self-appointed Don Juan of the panhandle, and I’m not sure that is anything I want to be a part of.”

  His right hand reached for me, and the flicker in his eye let me know what he was going to do.“No, you don’t, mister. I am not a . . . a . . . a . . . kissing machine! Put your compliment in, get your kiss out! No, you are just going to have to take a holiday from such pleasures!”

  He kissed me on the cheek. “I’d love to see you for lunch. We’ll be surfing this morning. I’ll keep my eyes out for you.”

  “Ha! I’ve got an appointment with my mother and Amber.”

  “Well, they’re welcome to come too.”

  “Well, they’re welcome to come too,” I mimicked.

  He gave Duke a rub on the head.“Take care of my girl, boy.” Duke pawed Joshua’s leg.“Yes, you can come too.” Duke settled completely down. The dog knew exactly what Joshua was saying. Well, that and a lucky sand dollar wouldn’t get him anything out of my kissing machine! My word, I had just officially called myself a kissing machine. I wouldn’t be avoiding him for his arrogant ways today. No, I’d be avoiding him for my ridiculous attempt at a metaphor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I knocked on the white-framed glass door attached to the pink cottage off of Rosewalk. A diaper-clad toddler passed in front of the door, trying desperately to balance himself and waddle across the four-inch planked heart-of-pine floor. Kate’s blond hair swung in her face as she scooped him up and planted kisses along his chubby, creased neck and headed to the door. Her eyes reflected recognition, but her face registered worn out.

  “Savannah Phillips. I didn’t even realize it was that time of year. Come in, come in.”

  I motioned to my companion.“We’ll wait out here.”

  “Let me put this rascal in his playroom, and we can sit and talk for a minute.” She scurried away without time for me to respond.

  I scanned the front porch and the familiar rockers where Kate and I had spent many an evening talking about life. She had always been so wise and kind. We would stay up late and play cards and drink Coke, and Adam would ask about Grant if Grant wasn’t with me. And yet now something was missing here today. Some element of life. I wasn’t sure how the absence of one person could make it so different, but even the pink on the wood siding seemed as if it were a different color.

  Kate returned, pulling her loose strands of sun-kissed hair back into her ponytail holder. “Here, I brought you both some water,” she said, handing me a bottle and setting a Tupperware bowlful down for Duke.

  We both thanked her.

  “My mom’s in the kitchen, cleaning up from breakfast, so she’ll keep her eyes on the boys,” she said, throwing her body down into a white rocking chair and sighing heavily. “Sit, Savannah. Sit.”

  I sat down, and Duke made music in his water bowl.“I can’t believe how they’ve grown.”

  “I know. It’s amazing. It’s like you see their legs extend before your eyes. And they’re into everything.” She laid her head back.

  “You look exhausted.”

  She lifted her head slowly and laughed. “I feel worse than I look.”

  “I saw Adam.”There was no need to skirt the issue.

  She turned her head toward me.“When?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “So what did he say?”

  “Enough for me to know that you two aren’t together.” I rocked gently.

  She turned her head back to the center of her rocker and stared across the street.

  “Do you want to tell me what happened? You don’t have to, but if you want to, you can.”

  She shrugged. “I’m not even sure what happened. One late evening became two late evenings. Then two late evenings became weekend business trips. Then weekend business trips grew to a final showdown where he simply stated he didn’t love me anymore. Granted, the babies took up a lot of my time, but we had waited so long. He had eight years of my undivided attention. And now that he wasn’t the center of my universe anymore, I guess he found someone who would allow him to be the center of he
rs.”

  I looked over at her weak blue eyes. “Do you think there is someone else?”

  “Think?” she said, whipping her head around. “I’m certain. That’s why he’s gone. I can do this without him. My mother did it without my father, and we can do it without him.”

  “Kate, I don’t know what to say. Honestly, I don’t know what to say.” I’m certain there were people who would have loved to witness that statement.“How are the boys?”

  “They’re too young to really understand.” Then her eyes ignited with rage. She was always so soft-spoken and loving. But what was coming back at me was a hostility I’d never encountered from her. “I think they need a man of honor and integrity and all those things Adam isn’t. I mean, he even came around a month ago apologizing and crying and acting like all of that would get him back into my house, into my bed, into the lives of my boys. But it will never happen. He’s lucky he gets to see them at all.And when I’m done with him in court, I’m going to do my best to make sure he doesn’t get to see them ever again.” She turned her head back toward the gravel pathway.

  I was glad. He didn’t deserve to see them.“You deserve better than that anyway.”

  “Yeah! I agree. He is completely delusional. I’m taking everything. And when this is over, he’ll wish he had never given me his name.”

  I looked down at Duke and back at Kate’s hardened face. I reached over and touched her arm to try to offer some tenderness. “I’m really sorry, Kate.”

  She kept staring at the gravel path.

  “Thanks for the water.”

  “You’re welcome. It was good to see you, Savannah. Come back by when you get a chance.”

  I would come back. And Lord help Adam the next time I laid eyes on him. I would say he didn’t want to talk this afternoon, that little lyin’, cheatin’, two-timin’ . . . I sang that song as I walked away until the thoughts of my article interrupted my solo.

  The truth was, Kate was in her present state because Adam wasn’t truthful. The epiphany hit me as I swatted at the bee that had charged me from the honeysuckle I just passed. Thomas was going to be in a pickle for the same reason: he didn’t know how to be truthful. Truth be told . . . Oh, that was funny. But honestly, truth be told, the problem with so much is our lack of truth.

  That’s what people need to hear, I decided. They need to hear about where people are, what people are really going through. And this is it. Real life. Real pain. Real betrayal. They need to know what lies produce. What with all the muck and mire in the world, someone needs to help liberate it from such, well,muck and mire. Plus, people are probably tired of reliving all of the horror of those hurricanes. This is better: the inability to tell the truth is at the core of most of life’s issues.

  And that’s the gospel truth.

  “That’s a pitiful concept. It’s overprocessed and boring. I thought you were there to come up with something that would make people cry, rip out their heart, stomp on it, and then make it all better after you were through.”

  I moved the phone from my ear and stared at it, wondering for a moment if Mr. Hicks was going to squeeze all two hundred and something pounds of himself through the little holes in the receiver.“Do you have an inside voice?”

  “You better send me something in about hurricane victims. Call it ‘Weathering a Storm.’ Then maybe you’ll think it has something to do with that ridiculous concept you just pitched. We’ve all been betrayed, Savannah. At some point you get over it. We haven’t all been through Katrina.”

  “They both have equally devastating effects,” I countered.

  “But they don’t both write your check.”

  The man was brutal. “I see your point. Any other words of wisdom you need to offer me today?” I tried to hide my sarcasm.

  “Your story is due tomorrow at 2:00 p.m., that’s 1:00 p.m. your time. I would strongly urge you not to be late.”

  The dial tone blared in my ear. And blared. And blared. And blared.

  “Well, he’s a man with no character.” I heard Mother’s voice as I made my way to the gravel walkway in front of the house. But her words caused me to retreat before I was detected.

  “You shouldn’t question a man’s character simply because he called you Vicky by mistake in the paper.” My father turned the newspaper page as he spoke.

  “Amber deserves better than him,” Mother said, her crispy red feet and calves resting atop an ottoman as she applied aloe to them. It was a rather pitiful picture. Her little princess sat on the ottoman at her feet.

  He closed his paper and turned his attention back to her. “Victoria, it is not your business to determine what Amber deserves.What if Savannah was the one bringing him home?”My heart officially stopped beating.

  She jerked her head in his direction, causing her feet to bounce on the ottoman and practically send the mongrel at her feet into the wild blue.“Jake Phillips, bite your tongue. My baby wouldn’t see anything in that man. And the only reason Amber does is because she’s so wounded right now she doesn’t have a clear perspective on anything.”

  “Well, I like him.” He opened his newspaper back up. “Shared quite a few cups of coffee with him over the last couple months, and he’s one of the finest young men I’ve met in a while. And whether Amber likes him or Savannah fell in love with him tomorrow”—those words about made me swallow my tongue, and Vicky let out a rather gruesome noise herself—“he deserves us to be nice to him.”

  With that she picked up her pooch and huffed into the house. Duke watched them out of the corner of his eye, then made a beeline for the ottoman and plopped himself down. I was certain he giggled.

  I sat down in Mom’s chair and kissed Duke on the head. “Lover’s spat?”

  He looked above his papers and fixed his eyes across the street. He dropped one side and picked up his coffee cup, then took a long gulp. He returned it to the table. “No, Victoria moment.”That pretty much said it all.“Now, how’s my girl and boy?” he asked, rubbing Duke’s head.

  Duke was thankful Vicky had retreated with her ball of fluff. “I guess you realize Amber saw Joshua.”

  “Yep.”

  “She thinks he is the answer to her prayers.”

  “I’d say by the way she came in singing ‘Great Is Thy Faithfulness,’ that is a pretty fair assessment.”

  “She’ll be destroyed when she knows the truth,” I said, rubbing my temples. What a long day.

  He turned those beautiful green eyes on me, the eyes that could make me completely miserable or completely at home dependent upon how they peered into me. This was a mixture of both. “The truth? What exactly is the truth?” Apparently so long a day that sister had forgotten to watch her tongue.

  “Well, you know . . . that he just isn’t into her.”

  “Oh yeah, that,” he said with a hint of sarcasm.

  “What?”

  “What?” he echoed.“Something else you need to say?”

  “You know, don’t you?” He always knew.

  “Know what? That Joshua North is crazy about you? Pretty much. He doesn’t try to hide it.” Dad grinned now. “What about you?”

  I laid my head in the palm of my hands and talked to the ground. “I don’t know. He’s just so pushy and presumptuous.” I straightened.“And so incredibly sweet and kind.”

  “Is that who you saw last night?” he asked, folding the edges of his newspaper.

  “Yeah. It wasn’t my complete intention though. But Lucy and Manuel already had dinner plans.” I looked out at the street. “Amber will be destroyed if she finds out.”

  “She’ll be far more destroyed if she finds out any other way than from you.” He stood and dropped his paper into the chair. “She’s a big girl, Savannah. Not as fragile as you think.”

  “I just stopped the woman from becoming breakfast for a shark.”

  He laughed.“She wouldn’t have gotten her feet wet.”

  I recalled that she really hadn’t put up much resistance when we reache
d the edge of the surf.“You don’t think?”

  “Savannah, those were a two-hundred-dollar pair of heels she was wearing. Shoes your mother just bought her.”

  Mother hadn’t bought anything for me in a while.

  “She was cleaning them with a cloth diaper when she came back.Trust me, she wouldn’t have been learning Spanish by sunset, I assure you.”

  “Are you as confident that Mother will learn to like Joshua?”

  “I’m confident that Victoria will one day like him as much as you do.” He smiled. The Jake smile. The smile that had calmed a thousand fears over the past twenty-four years and found its way to the root of them once again. I heard the whisper of stillness again. My heartbeat steadied, and for a moment I was certain, no matter how it all transpired, that this force standing next to me would hold my secrets until I was brave enough to reveal them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  There was laughter and the banging of pots and pans.“Teach me the chocolate gravy,” I heard Amber say. I peeked my head into the kitchen and couldn’t believe my eyes. There they were. My mother and Amber, cooking. And chocolate gravy, no less. Was nothing sacred? That was our family recipe. And no matter how much Amber thought she was a part of our family,we didn’t produce six-foot women. We produced midgets.

  “It’s really easy,” my mother said, getting the milk from the refrigerator. “I tried to teach Savannah once, but she just didn’t have the patience.”

  Patience? I have plenty of patience. My cell phone vibrated my backside. “Hello,” I whispered, irritated. It was Thomas with a proposal for a round of golf. He had no other options. “That is the most boring sport, and it goes entirely too slow.”

  I hung up and mumbled to the air all the ways I, Savannah Phillips, am patient.

  I made my way back to the porch and its revelations. Today’s revelation: vacation breeds fondness. Okay, just plain passion. The two teenagers were trying to hide behind the outdoor shower in the house across Seaside Avenue. But they weren’t lost on me. I had come back outside alone, with a Coke and a smile and my book. And there they were, tiptoeing around the house in search of a secret corner, trying not to let their laughter reveal their conspiracy. They finally found a safe retreat behind the shower, but their giggles floated all the way across the street. And after what I’m certain was a rainstorm of passionate kisses, he withdrew to the sidewalk and she rested her head on the edge of the shower, plastered with the biggest smile this side of Olan Mills.