“Which direction did they go?” Dirk asked.
In unison Gran and Dora pointed south.
Granny unsnapped the clasp of her white patent leather pocketbook. Reaching inside, she said, “But there is one more little thing you might like, so that you don’t have a complete dead end on your hands here.”
She pulled out a piece of paper with some pencil scribblings on it and pressed it into Savannah’s hand. “I may just be an amateur detective, not a professional one like most of y’all sittin’ here. But I know a thing or two, and I aim to earn my keep on this here trip of ours.”
Savannah looked down at the piece of paper and saw several numbers scrawled across it. “What is this, Gran? Don’t tell me it’s the plate number of the taxi.”
“Of course it is. It ain’t my grocery shoppin’ list. That other one, 592, that’s the number of the cab itself. You know how they’ve got the number painted on the back there where you can see it.”
Dirk jumped up from his chair and gave both his mother and Granny hearty hugs. “I can’t believe you two gals were sitting on this all this time. We’re here stuffing our faces with hot dogs and swilling down tea, and you’ve got the best break of the day.”
“The only break of the day,” Granny said, smiling.
“Okay. The only break.” He turned to Savannah, an excited look on his face. “What you say, babe? Let’s pile in the Bronco and let these ladies take us to the service station. We’ll see if Blondie said anything to the station attendant while he was selling her the can and pumping her gas. Then we’ll take a drive to the taxi office and find out what we can about that cab and his schedule today. Maybe they can tell us where he dropped her off.”
Savannah wanted to go. She desperately wanted to go. But she thought of the sadness in her brother’s voice, of him and Tammy sitting on that deck alone, troubled by a problem that seem to be getting the better of them.
Finally, she said. “But before I perform any other duties on behalf of the Van Cleefs, I’ve got something I need to do for my own family.”
Dirk’s eyes searched hers. “Tammy and Waycross?” he asked.
“Yes. I have to talk to them. Figure out what’s going on. Then I’ll find a way to join you.”
“I understand. You take care of business, and we’ll hook up later.” He leaned over to give her a kiss on the cheek, and when he did, he whispered in her ear, “You tell them that I’m thinking of them, and that whatever it is that’s bothering them, it’s gonna be all right.”
As everyone stood and gathered their belongings, getting ready to go their separate ways, Granny reached out and grabbed Dirk’s hand. “Would you mind too much, Grandson, if it was just your mama who took you to see that gas station? I’m worried about those young’uns myself, and if Savannah’s gonna give them a talkin’ to, I’d like to be along.”
Dirk tweaked her nose. “Not a bit. We’ll be just fine. You’ve already earned your keep and then some today. Go tend to your family.”
Granny reached over and took Savannah’s hand in hers. “That’s all we’ve ever done, ain’t it, Savannah girl? It’s a job I don’t think we’ll ever get to retire from.”
Savannah thought of Tammy and Waycross’s child. Soon the baby would be entering the world with needs of its own. There was never an end, it seemed, to the long line of people to love, people who needed you. Usually at the most inconvenient times.
“I believe you’re right, Gran,” Savannah said. “I reckon this is a life sentence we’re serving.”
Chapter 16
On an upper deck, Savannah and Granny found Waycross, but he was without Tammy and looking most forlorn.
He was standing at the railing, staring down at the busy waterway and town with a grief-stricken expression on his face. His broad shoulders were slumped and his head low. Savannah couldn’t recall ever seeing her brother so sad.
Of her eight siblings, he was one of her favorites. A good man who always tried to be even better. Yet, throughout his life, Waycross always seemed to get the short end of any sticks that were being handed out.
Until Tammy.
Tammy Hart was a jewel, a treasure, a queen. Though Waycross had always felt unworthy of her, he was infinitely grateful that she hadn’t felt the same.
“Hey, sweetie,” Savannah said as she walked over and stood to his left at the railing.
Gran positioned herself on his right. “Where’s your honey bunny?”
He nodded toward the rear of the ship. “Back there. Sittin’ all by her lonesome.”
“Why?” Savannah asked. “Why aren’t you with her?”
“I got the idea that’s what she wanted. To be by herself.”
“I doubt that.” Savannah patted his back and felt him draw a little sob. “Tammy likes company, and she loves you, so I don’t know what’d give you that idea.”
“She told me, ‘Just leave me alone, Waycross. Just git away and leave me be. I mean it. Git.’”
“Oh.” Savannah glanced behind him and looked at Gran.
Granny lifted one eyebrow and shrugged. Then she said to her grandson, “I reckon I can see why you might take that from what she said. But then, she’s expecting. Women don’t always mean what they say even on a good day, let alone on a day when they’re pregnant.”
“No. She means it. She’s been sayin’ it for a while now. I think she’s pretty much done with me.”
Big tears began to stream down his freckled cheeks and he began to cry in earnest.
Granny put her arms around his waist and pulled him to her. “There, there,” she said. “Don’t you cry, my strong, brave boy. I don’t care how things look right now. They’ll all work out for good in the end. You just wait and see.”
“Not this time,” he said, bending down and resting his head on his grandmother’s. “It’s over. I’m losin’ the best thing that ever happened to me. The two best things. Tammy and our baby, and I won’t ever get ’em back.”
Savannah’s heart sank. How could things have gotten this bad so quickly? Only a month ago, they had given Tammy a baby shower, and she had been overjoyed to be having a child with Waycross.
Although . . .
Savannah and everyone else had been wondering when they were going to set a date for the wedding. As the pregnancy had progressed, there had been less and less said about it.
Now that Savannah thought about it, she didn’t recall any mention of a ceremony for weeks.
Maybe Waycross had reason for concern after all.
“You stay here with him,” Savannah said to Granny. “I’m fixin’ to go find Tammy.”
Gran nodded. “You get to the bottom of this, hear?”
“I will. Don’t worry about that. I’ve interrogated a lot tougher cookies than our Miss Tamitha.”
* * *
As Savannah made her way around the deck, passing row after row of chairs, searching for Tammy, she nearly walked right by her.
Her friend was sitting with her feet drawn up to her hips and was hugging her shins. She had pulled a large, red blanket around her and over her face. If it hadn’t been for the bright pink toenails sticking out from beneath the lower hem of the throw, Savannah wouldn’t have recognized her.
No one in the history of the world had ever worn a shade of pink that bright on their toenails but Tammy. It matched her classic Volkswagen bug perfectly, so she had bought two dozen bottles. When it came to nail polish, she was set for life.
Unless, of course, she developed some taste.
Savannah reached down and tickled the toes. Instantly, Tammy’s blond head popped up from inside the blanket.
“Hey, babycakes,” Savannah said as she pulled a neighboring deck chair close to hers and sat down. “I’d ask if you’re up here catching some rays, but not a chance of that happening with you doing your teepee impression there.”
“It’s cold,” was her abrupt answer.
“Yes, it is a bit.” Savannah took another blanket from her own chair and s
pread it lovingly around Tammy’s shoulders. “I’m worried about you, puddin’,” she said.
Tammy looked at her with sad, guilty eyes. “Don’t worry about me. With all the Van Cleefs missing, you’ve got enough to worry about.”
I’ve got a lot more than that to worry about, Savannah thought, but she figured it was best to keep the darker, more depressing circumstances to herself.
Her little friend, her Golden Sunshine Tammy, was obviously going through one of the worst times of her life. She didn’t need any additional burdens.
“I hear that you and Waycross have hit a rough patch, relationship-wise,” she said.
Tammy shrugged. “Not exactly.”
“Well, he’s crying his eyes out there on the deck with Granny trying to comfort him. He thinks you want to be rid of him. Permanently.”
Tammy’s lower lip trembled. “I don’t want to be rid of Waycross. I love him.”
“He loves you, too. Somethin’ fierce. But he must have done something pretty bad for you to tell him, ‘Just git away from me and leave me be.’”
Tammy gasped. “I never said that to him! I wouldn’t! Think about it, Savannah. Does that sound like me or Waycross?”
“It does sound like Waycross. No doubt about it,” Savannah agreed.
“What I said to him was, ‘I need a few minutes to myself, honey. I need to think. Could you just give me a little space?’ That’s what I said.”
Savannah nodded. “Sometimes, people hear what they think you’re saying, what they’re afraid you’re saying, rather than your actual words.”
“That’s what he did. I’m telling you, I might be the woman carrying the baby, but during this pregnancy he’s been the moody one, always asking me if I love him, if I’m going to stick with him, if I’m ever going to marry him.”
There it was. The opening. Savannah jumped through with both feet. “Well? Are you? Going to marry him, that is.”
Tears filled Tammy’s eyes as she answered eagerly, “Oh, I hope so! I do.”
“What?” Savannah shook her head, confused. “What do you mean you ‘hope’ so?”
“I hope I’m going to be able to. It’s what I want more than anything in the world. More than I ever wanted anything in my whole life.”
Savannah reached over and enclosed Tammy’s hand between her own. She was surprised to feel how cold it was. “Tammy,” she said, “if you want to get married, sweetheart, get married.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“Actually, it is. You just do it.”
“I can’t just do it. If I could’ve just done it, I would’ve already done it, months ago.”
“May I ask what’s stopping you?”
“My mom. My dad. They made their feelings on the topic very, very clear. They won’t allow it.”
Savannah’s mind raced, trying to absorb what she was hearing. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t quite get my head around this. Where I come from, the parents of a girl who’s . . . in a family way . . . they’re the ones who usually insist on the young people getting married. Sometimes they insist with a shotgun in hand.”
Tammy sniffed. “Maybe that’s the way it is where you come from. Your people are more traditional in the way they see and handle these things. My parents are from the East Coast. They’re traditional in some ways, too, but there are certain things that they aren’t very flexible about.”
“Like what?”
Crying even harder, Tammy could barely manage to speak the words between sobs: “Who . . . th-their . . . daughter marries.”
“Whom you marry? But you want to marry a great guy, who loves you to pieces, whom you consider to be the love of your life, who’s the father of your baby and wants to make a family with you. What’s there for anybody to object to?”
“I—I just can’t say it. It’s so mean and . . .”
Tammy lost all control, dissolving into a puddle of tears.
Savannah pulled some tissues from her purse. Handing them to her distraught young friend, she said, “Stop crying, if you can, sugar. It’s not good for you, getting all in an uproar like this. It’s not good for the little one, either.”
With what was obviously a great effort, Tammy attempted to compose herself. She wiped her tears away with the tissues, then blew her nose soundly.
“Atta girl,” Savannah told her. “Now you just take your time and explain to me what’s going on here. Don’t pull any punches. Tell it like it is.”
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings, Savannah. That’s why I haven’t talked to you about it before. I haven’t been able to talk to anybody about it. Especially Waycross. I couldn’t break your hearts. I love you so much.”
“We love you, too, honey. More than you could imagine. Don’t you worry about how we’re going to feel. Once the real truth is out in the open, everybody’s going to feel better. Maybe not at first, but in the long run. Truth has that effect on people.”
Savannah could see that Tammy was steeling herself to do as she was asked. She drew a deep breath, as deep as she could, considering the size of her tummy, and said, “My parents mean well. They really do. More than anything, they want me to be happy. They want what’s best for me.”
“Okay. But . . . ?”
“I’m their only child, and they’ve always had great hopes for me, for my future. My mom and dad are both very successful people. My father owns a Fortune 500 company. My mother’s a world-renowned brain surgeon. They’ve worked very hard and accomplished a lot in their lives.”
“That’s wonderful.”
Tammy’s tears began again. “Yes, it is. I’m very proud of them both. I always have been, even when I was a little kid. But they aren’t proud of me.”
“Oh, darlin’,” Savannah said. “I’m sure that isn’t true. Any mother or father would be honored to have you as a daughter. You are the most amazing, loving, loyal, and dedicated woman I have ever known in my life. I’m enormously proud just to say you’re my friend. I can’t imagine what it would be like to call you my daughter. I’m sure you’re mistaken and they’re very proud of you.”
“I wish that was true, but they aren’t the kind of people to hold back their opinions. And their opinion of me is that I’ve wasted my life.”
“That’s ridiculous. Even in the time that I’ve known you, you’ve accomplished a great deal. We may not have made a lot of money and we aren’t brain surgeons, but we’ve saved lives.”
“You’ve saved lives.”
“Yes, I have. But in every instance that I can think of, I couldn’t have done it without your help. We did it together. We’re a great team, you and I and the rest of the Moonlight Magnolia gang. For every life we’ve saved, we’ve made ten lives better than they were before we came along. That’s nothing to shake a stick at.”
“I only wish my parents felt that way. They’re always telling me what high hopes they had for me. They say that I was given the gifts of intelligence and beauty, but I threw them away to be a worthless hippie chick in California.”
Savannah stifled a grin at the term “hippie chick.” While the words might be applied to a nature-loving, free spirit gal like Tammy, the word “worthless” was miles from the truth.
“How did they want you to use your intelligence and beauty?”
Tammy shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. They never really said. I was supposed to graduate from an Ivy League school, get some degrees, and find an occupation that they could brag about at cocktail parties. My daughter, the senator who will be running for president next election. My Tammy, who won the Nobel Prize for curing cancer. Something like that.”
“That’s not asking much. Every halfway decent parent expects that of their offspring.”
Tammy caught Savannah’s sarcastic tone and almost smiled.
Savannah continued. “How about, ‘My daughter, who followed her heart and has become the World’s Greatest Sleuth of All Time.’”
That gained her a full-fledged grin. “The second
greatest,” Tammy offered. “You’ll always be number one as far as I’m concerned.”
The two friends shared a silent, companionable moment. Then Savannah said, “Okay, so your folks wanted you to become rich and famous and don’t think much of private detection. What does that have to do with my brother and the two of you getting married?”
Tammy hung her head. “That’s the hurtful part. The part I can’t tell Waycross or you or anybody.”
Savannah nodded as understanding dawned on her. “He’s not good enough for Mom and Pop.”
Tammy simply nodded.
“He’s a poor kid from a poor family from a wide-spot-in-the-road town in Georgia, and he wouldn’t ‘show’ well at cocktail parties,” Savannah offered.
“Something like that.”
“Something exactly like that?”
“Yeah.”
Savannah allowed the pain to wash through her. She really had no choice. It wasn’t the first time that her family’s non-pedigree had hurt her and those she loved.
But only for a moment. Then in the deepest part of her soul, she told the pain and the people who had caused it that she would have none of it or them.
“You’re in love with my brother,” Savannah told her. “He’s as good a man as comes along in a lifetime. I’m pretty sure you told your parents that, right?”
“Of course I did. Over and over. But it made no difference.”
“What do they expect you to do?”
“When I first told them, they wanted me to come back home and marry this other guy they picked out for me years ago. He’s their best friends’ son, and he just got a divorce. So they wanted me to have an abortion or give the baby up for adoption, move back home, and marry Franklin Dudley.”
“But you don’t want that.”
“No! I can’t stand Franklin Dudley. More importantly, I want this baby, to have it and raise it myself. I love Waycross, and I want to build a family with him. But when I told my parents that, they said I was being selfish. They said I should be more considerate of their feelings, that this is just killing them. They said they’ll never attend a wedding, if I’m marrying someone like Waycross.”
Every Body on Deck Page 13