Southern Lights (15 page)

“About the same as at home. We’re all kind of in the homestretch, waiting to hear from college. You’ve got to screw up pretty badly to blow it in the last term. It’s pretty much coasting from here.”

He laughed as she said it.

“I’m sure they’d be happy to hear that.”

“They know it. We don’t even have final exams at the end of senior year at home. You just have to get passing grades in your classes.” She wasn’t going to hear about her acceptances till the end of March, some of them even April, so she wasn’t worried about it yet.

They were at the house five minutes later, and her father dropped her off and went back to the bank. He said he’d see her later. She went out to the kitchen for a snack, and there was no one there. The two ladies who usually sat in the kitchen had left a note that they’d gone grocery shopping. And there was no sign of Daisy or Luisa. Savannah went upstairs to her room with an apple in her hand and a can of Coke, just as Daisy bounded out of her room with a broad grin. She knew her mother was out, so it was safe to throw her arms around Savannah.

“How was school?” she asked, following Savannah into her room, where she put her books down and bit into the apple.

“Kind of scary,” she admitted. It was easier saying it to her than her father. “Lots of new people.”

“Mean teachers?” Daisy asked sympathetically, as she tossed herself onto Savannah’s bed and watched her.

“No. Just different.” And then she remembered something she had wanted to ask Daisy, who was now her official counselor on local customs. “What’s this ‘bless her heart’ thing everyone says? They’re always saying ‘bless her heart.’” It had seemed a little weird to her, and Daisy laughed out loud when Savannah said it.

“That means they hate them. First, you say something really mean about someone, and then you say ‘bless her heart’ right after. My mama does it all the time. So does my grandma. We call that ‘nasty-nice’ here.” Savannah laughed then too. Julianne had said it about her mother. “If you say ‘bless your heart’ to someone’s face, that means you
really, really
hate them. My mama does that too.” It was easy for Savannah to believe now that she would.

They heard the front door slam right after that, and Daisy ran back to her room, in case it was her mother. They didn’t want to get caught together. Savannah heard Luisa’s bedroom door close right after that, so she was glad that Daisy had left. Luisa would have had a total fit if she knew they were so friendly and sleeping in Savannah’s room at night.

Alexa called Savannah shortly after that and asked her how school was, and Savannah told her all about it. She said she had made a friend, more or less. And just out of habit, her mother asked her what her name was, and Savannah told her. There was a silence at the other end as Alexa digested what her daughter had said.

“That’s strange,” she finally said, and sitting at her desk in New York, she had an odd look on her face. Savannah could hear it in her voice.

“What’s strange?”

“There must be a thousand kids in that school, and you found the daughter of the woman who was my best friend for all the years I was in Charleston. She did the same thing, she sought me out as soon as I moved there, helped me with everything, showed me the ropes. She was like my sister.” Alexa’s voice drifted off as Savannah listened. She could tell there was more to the story. She knew her mother.

“And? So?”

“She claimed undying loyalty when your father told me he was divorcing me, and we’d be friends forever. I never heard from her again when I left. She stopped writing to me. She didn’t return my calls. And last I heard, she and Luisa were best friends. Very southern. Watch out you don’t get your heart broken there too. It’s all a lot of phony bullshit.”

“Don’t be like that, Mom.” Savannah scolded her. “There are people like that in New York too. People are friendly down here, some of them.” She was thinking about Luisa then, who was anything but friendly and certainly hadn’t shown any southern hospitality to Savannah. “There are real people and fake people everywhere. That’s not southern or northern.” She was right, but Alexa didn’t want to hear it.

“Not one of those people stuck by me when I came back to New York. I never heard from them again, after seven years of thinking they were my best friends. I don’t have anything to show for those years, except you.” Alexa smiled sadly. “And I miss you so goddamn much. You’ve been gone for two days, and I can hardly stand it.”

“Yeah, I know. Me too. It feels like it’s going to be forever. When are you coming?”

“Not this weekend. The next one. It’s the best I can do. This case is a killer.” She was exhausted and Savannah could hear it. “How were your classes?”

“Boring. I’ll get through it,” she tried to reassure her. Her mother sounded stressed. And she knew that her mother was dreading coming to Charleston, but she would have gone to hell and back for her daughter. Savannah was thrilled she was coming.

Julianne called her on her cell phone before dinner, and had discovered the same thing Savannah had, that their mothers had been best friends when they were little. “My mama said to send yours her love, bless her heart,” Julianne said, and Savannah had to fight to keep from laughing. She wanted to say she knew that meant Julianne’s mother hated hers. But Alexa would have said the same thing if it were one of her idioms. Being from New York, she was more direct and had called Julianne’s mother a traitor.

The two girls talked for a few minutes and promised to meet up at school the next day. Savannah started her homework, and had just finished history when it was time for dinner.

Without Travis and Scarlette for distraction, conversation was slim that night. Luisa spoke to her daughter, but ignored both Savannah and her husband. Tom spoke to all of them, Daisy only to her parents, and Savannah didn’t dare speak at all—she thought it was safer not to.

Her father came to see her in her room afterward. She had her books spread out and was working on her computer, and sending e-mails to her friends in New York, telling them about Charleston. She hadn’t explained to anyone why she went away. Her mother had told her not to. She just said she’d be back soon and missed them, and was visiting her father in Charleston. She didn’t tell them she’d changed schools. And she was relieved she’d be back with them for graduation. At least she could say goodbye to them all then, before they left for college. For her, her New York school days were already over, but her friends didn’t know it.

“How’s the homework coming?” Tom asked her as he wandered into the room.

“I’m almost finished.” She’d had an idea that afternoon and wanted to ask him about it, but hadn’t wanted to bring it up at dinner. She didn’t want to say anything in front of Luisa, bless her heart. She smiled as she thought it to herself. “I was wondering if sometime I should go and visit my grandmother.”

“Do you want to?” He looked surprised.

“I thought it might be nice.” He nodded. Savannah had arrived in Charleston so suddenly that it hadn’t occurred to him so far, but it was a gracious thought. She was a good girl, and he was touched.

“I’ll talk to her about it.” His mother and Luisa were extremely tight, and he was concerned that taking Savannah to visit her might set off another explosion, maybe even a worse one. “She’s pretty frail.”

“Is she sick?” Savannah looked sympathetic. “No, just old. She’s eighty-nine now.” She had been forty-four when he was born, and he had been a big surprise. His parents had never been able to have children in twenty-two years of marriage, and then he arrived. His mother still talked about what a miracle it had been. She had called him her little miracle as a child, and he had hated it. She still did.

“If she wants to see me, I’d like to,” Savannah said. She hardly remembered her at all. She was extremely close to her New York grandmother, but her Charleston grandmother had totally removed herself from Savannah’s life, out of loyalty to Luisa. And because Alexa wasn’t southern, and an outsider, when they left, she closed the door on them and never opened it again. Savannah knew her mother was bitter about that too, and she wasn’t sure how her mother would feel about her visiting Grandmother Beaumont, but it was something she wanted to do, as long as she was here. She was tasting every aspect of Charleston life. This was her family too, not just her father’s. It was half of her, although saying that to her mother would make her sound like a traitor, and she felt a little guilty about it.

Tom stopped in to see his mother the next day. He had some free time, and drove back to Mt. Pleasant to pay her a visit. Eugenie de Beauregard Beaumont lived about ten minutes away from his house, on thirty somewhat run-down acres, in a colonial mansion surrounded by oak trees with extensive slave quarters still standing at the back of the property, though empty. She had two ancient servants living in the house with her, both of them women, and a man who came in the afternoons to do heavy work. They were nearly as old as she was, and they had neither the strength nor enough manpower to keep her enormous house clean. It was the house where Tom had grown up, and his father before him.

Tom had tried several times to get her to sell it, but she wouldn’t. It had been her pride and joy for nearly seventy years.

She was sitting on the back porch, reading, wearing a heavy wool shawl, when he arrived. A cup of mint tea was sitting next to her, and her gnarled hands were holding a book. She was frail, and walked with a cane, but she was in good health, and she wore her white hair, as she always had, in a bun. She was the president general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She bore the title of general because her grandfather had been one, and an illustrious one. And several of her other ancestors had been as well. She liked to say that her family had been the pride of the South. She had been appalled when Tom had married a Yankee. Alexa had been extremely kind to her when they were married, but she was still a northern girl, and second best, or worse, to his mother. She had been thrilled when Luisa came back, and had done everything in her power to convince her son to marry her again. The decision had been made when Luisa very cleverly got pregnant, which Tom knew now had been no accident, but a careful plan, at his mother’s suggestion, and it had worked.

“Mother?” he said gently, as he walked onto the back porch. Her hearing was perfect, and her vision was fairly good as well. Only her knees bothered her at times, but her mind was as sharp as ever, and her tongue. He didn’t want to startle her, but she looked up and smiled as she set her book down.

“My, what a nice surprise. What are you doing here in the middle of the day? Why aren’t you working?”

“I had some spare time and thought I’d come to visit. I haven’t been out here since last week.” He tried to visit her two or three times a week, and Luisa came at least once. She was very dutiful about it, which Tom was grateful for. And she brought Daisy with her every few weeks, but the child always got bored. There was nothing for her to do there. “What have you been up to? Has anyone come to visit?” he asked as he sat down. The woman who cooked for her offered him a cup of tea, but he declined.

“I went to the hairdresser yesterday,” she said, rocking in her chair. “And Reverend Forbush came to see me on Sunday. I missed church and he was worried. My knee was acting up, so I stayed home.”

“How is it now?” he asked with a look of concern. He was always afraid of her falling, that she might break a hip, and at her age it would be a disaster. She was pretty shaky on the stairs but insisted on getting up them under her own steam.

“Better. It’s just the weather. It was damp on Sunday before the rain.” She smiled at her only son. He was a good boy and she was proud of him. His father had been too, and had died three years before at ninety-four. His mother had been lonely since. Alexa had been very kind to him too. He was a feisty old man with a keen sense of humor, and he had never liked Luisa, but unlike his wife, he stayed out of Tom’s business. Tom’s mother had always had a million opinions about what he did, and she was a powerful influence on him. He revered her, even more than he had his father. His father had been more distant and more aloof. “Luisa said you went north.”

“I did,” he confirmed. “I went skiing in Vermont.”

“She didn’t tell me. I thought maybe you had business in New York.”

“Not this time,” he said.

He decided to brave it then and see what happened. She knew that he saw Savannah a few times a year. She never asked about her, and Tom didn’t comment. As far as his mother was concerned, that chapter of their history was closed, though not as much as she thought.

“I took Savannah skiing.” Eugenie said nothing.

“How’s Daisy?” It was her way of saying not to go there.

“She’s fine. Having fun at school.” And then he decided, in a rare show of bravery, not to beat around the bush. “Mother, Savannah is here.” For a moment, his mother said nothing, and then she looked him dead in the eye, and he returned her gaze.

“What do you mean, ‘here’? In Charleston?” He nodded, and she looked instantly disapproving. “What a terrible thing to do to Luisa! How could you do that?”

“I had no choice. Her mother is the prosecutor in a murder trial in New York, and the defendant was threatening Savannah. Her mother was afraid her life was in danger, and wanted her out of New York. We had nowhere else to send her.” There was a long silence as his mother thought it over.

“Why is she handling cases like that? That’s no job for a woman.” She knew that Alexa’s mother was a lawyer too, but she had been a divorce lawyer, which was different, and then a judge. She wasn’t prosecuting murderers and putting her family in danger.

“She went to law school after the divorce, and she works in the district attorney’s office. It’s a very respectable job.”

“Not for a woman,” his mother said tartly, and clamped her mouth shut. She looked like a nutcracker when she did. She had been a pretty woman in her youth, but that was long gone. She was too thin now, and had a face like a hawk with hooded eyelids and a sharp nose. Her lips were set in a thin line, which meant she wasn’t happy. It was a while before she spoke again, while Tom waited, and wondered if he should leave. If she didn’t want to see Savannah, he wasn’t going to insist. His mother only did what she wanted. That had always been the case. “How long is she staying?” she finally fired at him through narrowed eyes.