Sugar and Spite (24 page)

His girl? Savannah thought that one over. Funny, she had never thought of herself as Macon’s girl. Or any other guy’s girl for that matter.

When he answered, his voice sounded older, more feeble than she remembered. A lot older, in fact.

“Hello, Vanna Sue? Is that you sugar?”

Vanna Sue? She hadn’t been called that in about twenty years. She’d gladly opt for twenty more “Vanna Sue-free” years.

“This is Savannah, Macon. I received your message and thought I should give you a call.”

“I’m so glad you did, honey. How’s about I buy you a cup of coffee and a slice of apple pie?”

She wanted to tell him no. She wished now that she had pretended not to have gotten the message in the first place. But it was too late. In for a penny, in for a pound.

“When?” she asked.

“Why right now! I’d just be so proud to see you.”

“It’s late, Macon. And it’s been a long time.”

“Too long. That’s why we oughta do it now. Say you’ll meet me at that little cafe over here in a few minutes.”

She sighed, feeling old, tired, empty. Not at all the way a daughter should be feeling before meeting her estranged father.

“Ten minutes,” she said. “But I can’t stay long.”

“That’s fine, sugar. I’m mighty proud you’re coming.”

“Okay.”

She hung up the phone and walked woodenly out of her room. As she passed the guest bedroom, she heard Dirk snoring. At least he was getting some sleep, bless his heart. He needed it.

So did she. But, once again, she was putting someone else’s interests before her own. Was it because she was a loving, generous woman? Or because she was a fool and a doormat?

She left a note for Dirk on the kitchen table, just in case he got up and found her gone. Then she threw on a sweater and walked out into the brisk, winter, Southern California night.

Halfway to her Camaro, she decided…

Yeah… it was the fool/doormat thing. Had to be. She just wasn’t all that-generous and loving. At least not where Macon Reid was concerned.

* * *

The odor of diesel from the eighteen-wheelers in the cafe’s parking lot mixed with the aroma of fried food and coffee from the diner itself and made Savannah a bit nauseous as she walked up to the door. Or maybe it was her topsy-turvy emotions bouncing around in there that made her feel like she had just ridden a loop-the-loop roller coaster.

She didn’t want to do this. She so didn’t want to do this.

You don’t have to do this, a voice inside told her. You could just turn around and walk away.

And run out on him?
asked a more humane, kinder, gentler voice. Possibly the voice of a doormat.

Hell, yeah, run out on him. Just like he did you and your mom and your brother and your sisters ,over and over and over… Show him what it’s like to be sitting, waiting for someone you love to show up. On your birthday, on Easter, on Christmas Eve.

But by then she was already inside the cafe. And he had spotted her and was rushing to meet her.

Well, not exactly rushing. She noticed that he limped a bit. Obviously, it wasn’t only his voice that had grown more feeble over the years. His formerly auburn hair had turned white, and even though he had never been considered a lightweight, he had definitely gained thirty or forty pounds—all around the middle. Heart-attack city, just waiting to happen.

He met her in the aisle and they shared an awkward moment as they decided whether or not to embrace. Finally, they gave each other a halfhearted hug and an air kiss in the general cheek vicinity.

“We’ve got a booth right back here,” he said, ushering her to the far corner of the room full of chrome-and-red-leatherette seats and pearlized gray tabletops. Overhead hung wagon wheels sporting lanterns with red hurricane globes. But the lighting did little to illuminate the room, and Savannah didn’t realize until she was nearly sliding into the booth that they had company.

After making the phone call and hearing the woman’s voice, she had briefly wondered if Francie would be there. She had quickly dismissed the idea. Not even Francie would be tacky and tasteless enough to show her face at this meeting.

But, as with everything relating to her father, Savannah had underestimated the situation.

Francie was older, too, than the last time Savannah had seen her. Her blond hair had turned as gray as Macon’s. The heavy makeup she had always worn now looked pathetically garish on her aging face. Her figure had once been voluptuous, but gravity was having its way and her ill-fitting polyester stretch pants and too-tight T-shirt did nothing to camouflage the problem.

“Have a seat, sugar,” Macon was saying as he gently shoved her into the booth bench and slid next to Francie on the other side. “I’m just so glad you could make it. Does me a world of good to see your pretty face.”

“You
are
looking good!” Francie gushed. “My goodness you’ve turned into a pretty girl.”

Savannah could smell the strong odor of alcohol on her breath. Between dark black lines of heavy eyeliner, her eyes were bloodshot and bleary.

“Thank you, Francie,” she murmured, sounding anything but grateful. “I didn’t know you were going to be joining us tonight.”

Macon reached over and covered Francie’s sun-spotted hand with his. “I wanted her to be here, when I tell you the good news.”

Savannah was fairly certain she didn’t want to hear this “good news,” but she heard herself saying, “What’s up, Macon?”

“Well…” He looked a bit disappointed. “I wanted to sorta work up to the subject, but since you ask me outright like that, I guess I’ll just spill the beans now.”

Savannah waited, her hands folded demurely in front of her, projecting an image of calm that she didn’t feel.

“Well,” he began, “I reckon this might not be the best news as far as you’re concerned, but I’m really happy about it, and I want you to be, too. If you can be, that is.”

“What is it, Macon?” she asked, trying not to jump up out of her seat and run out the door without hearing what he had to say.

“I’ve asked Francie here to marry me. And she said she would. In fact, she wants to ask you something special.”

“Something special?” Savannah’s fists were clenched in her lap under the table. “Special how? What?”

“I want you to stand up with me. To be my maid of honor. I think it’s high time that we acted like family. One big, happy family, ‘cause I’m gonna be your stepmomma, you know.”

Savannah searched Francie’s face to see if she was serious. Regretfully, she was.

Amazed, Savannah slowly shook her head. “I don’t quite believe this. I…”

Macon gouged Francie in the side. “See there, honey bunch. I told you she’d be surprised. Just look at that. She’s pleased as punch. She can’t even talk straight.”

“Then you’ll do it?” Francie said. Without waiting for an answer she plunged ahead, chattering on about wedding plans, something about Las Vegas and twenty-four-hour wedding chapels that played Elvis music while you walked down the aisle.

“Wait a minute,” Savannah said, when she finally found her voice. “Hang on just a darned minute.” She took a deep breath and turned to her father. “You tell me that after all these years, you’re finally divorcing my mother? You and Mom
are
still married, right?”

He nodded. “Yeah, but I’m gonna get one of those quickie divorces as soon as we get to Vegas, before the wedding, of course.”

“Of course. And as soon as you’ve divorced my mother, you’re going to marry the woman you’ve been having an affair with for as long as I can possibly remember. The woman you used to drop off at that seedy little motel on the edge of town the few days a year that you actually came home to your family. The one the whole town talked about behind Mom’s back and behind us kids’ backs, but loud enough that we could all hear and be embarrassed as hell about. The woman that you would swing by and pick up on your way back out of town, leaving Mom pregnant with my next brother or sister. Is that what you’re telling me, Macon?”

She turned to Francie, whose badly lipsticked ruby red lips were starting to tremble. “And
you
. You have a more than twenty-five-year affair with a married man. You run all over the country with him in his rig, while his children practically starve at home because of his neglect. And then you have the gall to ask me, the oldest of those nine kids—the one who remembers you best—to be your maid of honor? Did I hear you correctly? Is that what you two just told me?”

Francie shrugged. “Well, if you put it like that, it don’t sound like such a good idea…”

Macon bristled and put a protective arm around his bride-to-be’s shoulders. “Now look here, Little Miss Savannah Priss, I’m not going to sit here and let you insult the woman I’m gonna marry. That just ain’t right.”

“And we all know how concerned the two of you are about doing what’s right. Right?”

“Don’t you give me none of your sass, young lady. I could still—”

“What, Macon? Put me over your knee and give me a whuppin’? Let’s get real. The day of you taking your belt to me is long past. So don’t even start down that road with me, or I’ll slap you stupid, just for old times’ sake.”

“You’re a lot like your mama,” Macon said, shoving his cup away and slopping coffee onto the table. “You got a big mouth and a big butt. Always did have.”

Savannah stood and silently counted down her temper before replying in a studied, calm voice, “Listen to me, Macon and Francie. In spite of what I just said, I don’t wish either of you ill. It would bring me no happiness to hear that misfortune had befallen you. I don’t hate you. But I don’t love you either. Too much water has gone under the bridge to even pretend that I do.”

She saw her father wince, but she decided to continue. “And I can’t give you my blessing for this upcoming… union of yours. If you want to get married, get married. If you’d had the courage to do it properly years ago, you might have saved us all a lot of grief.”

She started to walk away. Then she came back to the table. “And one other thing, Macon. I used to resent the fact that you weren’t there to raise the children you brought into the world. I used to resent the childhood that I missed as the oldest, acting like a surrogate parent while you drove your rig and your girlfriend all over the country, while Mom sat in bars and drank enough booze to kill an elephant trying to drown her pain. I used to resent all the diapers I changed, the skinned knees I doctored, and the snotty noses I wiped.”

Tears flooded her eyes, and for once, Savannah didn’t bother to blink them back or wipe them away. “But then, I realized that
you
were the one who got the bum end of the deal. You weren’t there when Atlanta took her first steps, or when Waycross hit his first homer in Little League, or when Vidalia came waltzing into the living room wearing her prom dress and looking like a fairy princess. You’ve never held her sweet babies. You missed all that. But I was there, Macon. And those moments were worth the dirty diapers and the hours of homework and the sleepless nights when they all had the chicken pox. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

She leaned over, offered her father her hand, and, to her surprise, he shook it. “Have a good life, Macon,” she said. “And you, too, Francie. Go get married and be happy if you can. Just don’t contact me anymore. Okay?”

She didn’t wait for an answer. She walked out the door and into the night air that reeked of fried onions and diesel fuel.

But she had said some things that she had needed to say for a long, long time. And the strange combination of onions and diesel had never smelled so sweet.

The next morning, Savannah and Dirk sat in the back of John Gibson’s Bentley and stared out the window at the panoramic view below them. John and Ryan sat in front, John in the driver’s seat, as always.

“Can you imagine having the bucks to live on a piece of property like this?” Savannah said as she took in the sweeping vista: orange and lemon groves directly below them, the city of San Carmelita a bit farther down, embracing the gently sloping hills, all the way to the beach. And the glorious Pacific Ocean reaching to a hazy pink-and-aqua infinity.