Southern Lights

Chapter 9

Savannah was nervous when her father drove her to Bishop England High School the next day. Daisy had already left on her school bus when Tom and Savannah drove away. Luisa was still in her room, and as she always did, Savannah had gobbled a quick bowl of cereal, and had been ready for her father promptly at eight a.m.

She said little on the drive north on Mark Clark Expressway. And she was obviously worried about it, as he tried to reassure her. Once they reached Daniel Island and the sprawling fifty-acre campus on Seven Farms Drive, he put his Jaguar in a space in the parking lot and walked her into the principal’s office, where they congratulated her on her good grades in New York and welcomed her to the school. The assistant principal handed her a schedule, which looked reasonable to Savannah, and offered to take her to her classroom for her first class, and Savannah quickly kissed her father goodbye.

The school was much larger than the one she’d gone to in New York, and looked like the schools she’d seen in movies, with miles of lockers lining every hall. There were students congregating in little clusters, with books in their arms, laughing, and then hurrying to class. A few of the boys glanced at her with her lithe figure and long blond hair. She had worn jeans because they said it was allowed, Converse sneakers, and a plaid blouse that hung out of her jeans, with a sweatshirt from her volleyball team in New York. She knew it was too late to join the team here, but she was hoping to play intramural sports if she had the chance.

The first class on her schedule was French. She took AP French classes in New York and had gotten good grades for her boards. The teacher was reading a paragraph from a book as Savannah slipped into her seat. She glanced up, looking slightly annoyed by the distraction, nodded, and went on. There were thirty students in the class, and most of them looked bored. The class lasted for fifty-two minutes, and when the bell rang, after the teacher had given them their assignment, everyone bolted for the door. The teacher smiled at her as she left, and Savannah wandered down the hall. She had been given a map, but everything was confusing and she had no idea where she was. She was turning the map around and around, with her books still in her arms, when a girl with bright red hair in a pony-tail and freckles came over to her with a smile.

“Looks like you’re lost. Can I help?” Like everyone else except Savannah, she had a heavy South Carolina drawl.

“I think I have history next. Thanks,” she said as she handed the pretty redhead the map.

“You’re on the wrong floor,” the girl explained. “The class is straight up, right over our heads where we’re standing, and Mr. Armstrong sucks. He gives too much homework and has bad breath. Where’re you from?” She was still smiling and Savannah was grateful for the help. No one else had asked, although several boys were staring at her from their lockers across the hall, and Savannah thought they were cute. She hadn’t had a boyfriend since the end of junior year. She just hung out with friends. And she knew that if she’d had to leave a boyfriend in New York to come here, it would have been worse.

“I was from here originally. I was born here. But I’ve been living in New York for ten years.”

“Welcome back.” The girl smiled broadly. “I have to go upstairs anyway. I’ll walk you up. I have chemistry. I always flunk. I can’t wait to get out of school. I’m taking a year off.” Savannah nodded as they hurried up the stairs. The girl was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, and so were most of the boys. It was no different than New York, although she felt out of place here somehow, as though there were a sign over her head, “I’m new.” “Why’d you come back?” the girl asked her.

“I came to stay with my dad till the end of school. I live with my mom in New York.” She didn’t want to say that she was there because her life was at risk. That was too heavy to share with other kids, particularly one she didn’t know.

“If you’ve been fighting with your mama, I know alllllll about that,” the girl said with a grin. “My mama and I fight like cats and dogs, but I love her to pieces anyway, bless her heart. I can get around my daddy, but my mama is a bitch,” the girl said, and Savannah couldn’t help but laugh. “Yours too?”

“No, mine is pretty good. Great actually. We just thought it was a good idea if I visited my dad for a while.” It sounded suspicious even to her, but she didn’t know what else to say.

“What’s your name, by the way?” She was curious about the girl from New York. She had style even in her sweatshirt and jeans, and a spark in her eye.

“Savannah Beaumont. What’s yours?”

“Julianne Pettigrew. My great-grandfather was a general or something like that. Sounds pretty boring to me. I get so tired of all that crap. My grandmother’s in the United Daughters of the Confederacy, and goes to tea parties all the time.” She was tired of it but had mentioned it anyway. It made Savannah think of her father’s mother.

Julianne had gotten Savannah to her classroom by then, and promised to catch up with her later. She said she’d be in the cafeteria for second seating at twelve-thirty and invited Savannah to join her. Savannah glanced at her schedule and saw that she was free then too and said she’d try to find it.

“Thanks for the help. See you later,” Savannah said, and disappeared into her classroom. There were twice as many students in history as in French, and she got the last seat in the back row, behind a wall of boys who passed notes to each other and ignored the teacher completely, who did exactly what Julianne had said he would, and gave them too much homework.

She had two more classes after that, English Comp and a social studies class, and a break. And then it was lunchtime, and she found her way to the cafeteria, but didn’t see her new friend. Two boys asked her to sit with them, but she felt awkward since she didn’t know them. She was helping herself to a yogurt and fruit salad and a bottle of orange juice, when Julianne found her.

“You were right,” Savannah said, happy to see her. Finding someone in the cafeteria was like looking for a lost sock at the airport. There were hundreds of kids milling around and sitting at large and small tables, and the noise level was tremendous. “Armstrong gives too much homework.”

“I told you. I just got a D in chemistry again. My mama’s gonna kill me. She’s got this thing about good grades, but she never went to college herself. She just goes to lunch and plays bridge with her friends. You don’t need to go to college for that.” Savannah nodded. She didn’t volunteer that her mother was a lawyer, it would have sounded too stuck up. “My daddy’s a doctor. A pediatrician.” Savannah nodded again.

They found a table and sat down, and a flock of girls and boys joined them. Apparently, Julianne was popular and seemed to know everyone in the school. Halfway through lunch she admitted to Savannah that she had a boyfriend. He was the captain of the football team, which was a big deal.

Everyone at the table was making plans for the weekend, talking about the basketball game on Friday night, asking about friends, exchanging phone numbers and trading gossip. It was a lively group, and Savannah felt a little out of it, so she listened. She had been totally confident in New York, but she felt overwhelmed here, with so many new names and faces, and such a big school.

She was feeling somewhat dazed by the time her father picked her up at three o’clock. Julianne and two other girls had given her their phone numbers, which was a good beginning, but she felt too shy to call them.

“How was it?” her father asked as she got in. He thought she looked tired and ill at ease.

“Kind of overwhelming, but okay. I met some nice people. There are just a lot of them, and it’s hard having all new classes and new teachers. Most of the material is familiar, and not much different from what I’ve been doing in New York, except for the civics class, which talks only about the south and southern history. The Confederacy is definitely still alive and well in Charleston. I guess it wasn’t bad for a first day,” she said fairly, and he nodded, as they headed home.

“A lot of homework?” he asked with interest. He was being very attentive to her, far more than she had expected, and it touched her.

“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.

“Until May or June, after the trial.” Her eyes flew open when he answered.

“Luisa must be very upset.” She hadn’t said a word about it, but they hadn’t talked in several days.

“That’s an understatement. She’s ready to kill me. But Savannah is a very sweet girl.” His mother said nothing. “She’s my daughter,” he added. “I can’t just treat her as though I owe her nothing. It’s not right. I never should have let Luisa talk me into keeping her away from Charleston and only seeing her in New York. She’s part of my life too, or she should be, and she hasn’t been for more than ten years.”

“It’s too upsetting for Luisa to have her here.” Eugenie hadn’t wanted him keeping any ties to Alexa, any more than Luisa did. She knew how much Tom had loved her, and she didn’t want him going back to her. Luisa was his wife. And after her “little mistake,” as his mother called it, Luisa had come back. His mother wanted it to stay that way. Luisa was a good southern girl from Charleston. Alexa was a stranger, from a totally different world. She didn’t belong here. And neither did her daughter. But Savannah was Tom’s too. She didn’t want to admit that.

“Luisa will have to put up with it till after the trial,” Tom said firmly. “She owes Alexa that. Alexa took care of the boys for seven years, while Luisa was in Texas. Three months now won’t kill her.” But she might kill him. It looked likely.

“What’s she like?” his mother asked him. “How old is she now?” It seemed like a hundred years since they had left.

“She’s seventeen, beautiful, sweet, polite, kind, gentle, smart. She looks like her mother.” His mother’s mouth shrank into a thin line again, and he decided to give up. “You don’t have to see her, Mother. I wasn’t going to ask. I knew how you’d feel about it. But Savannah suggested it last night, so I thought I’d mention it to you. I’ll just tell her you don’t see visitors anymore.” His mother said nothing, and he got up to leave and gently stroked her hair. He was a loving son, and had always been devoted and respectful, and obeyed her commands. He bent to kiss her cheek then, and she looked at him with steely eyes.

“Bring her to tea on Sunday” was all she said, picked up her book, and began reading again. And without another word, he walked quietly off the porch and drove away. Savannah had gotten her wish. And Luisa would have another fit. He was used to it. She didn’t scare him anymore. Savannah’s visit had given him something back he lost a long time ago. Courage.