Southern Lights

Chapter 12

On her first day back after her weekend in Charleston, Alexa was busy with endless cops and investigators. Everything was coming together in the case, and she had dumped enough discovery on Judy Dunning to drown her. There was so much forensic evidence, and so many reports to go through, that the public defender was totally overwhelmed. Alexa took a break at noon, which was rare for her these days, and went to the family court to see her mother and have lunch with her in chambers. Alexa seemed like she was in a good mood.

“So how was it?” her mother asked her. They were each eating a salad from the deli across the street.

“It was better than I feared,” Alexa said to her. “Savannah was in great shape. And we ran into Luisa coming out of church, and she was a total bitch. But other than that, it was great. Charleston is as pretty as ever, and Savannah and I had a wonderful time together. I ran into an old friend of mine there, who defected when Tom divorced me, and that was creepy. But on the whole it was pretty good.”

“I told you. This is interesting for her, and it’s good for her to discover the other side of her family. She’s a smart girl. She’ll pick and choose. No one’s going to pull the wool over her eyes. It sounds like Tom bought himself a one-way ticket to hell with Luisa. Why does he stay with her?”

“Probably for the same reason he went back to her,” Alexa said curtly. “No guts. When he left me, he did what his mother and Luisa told him to do, and now she has him by the throat.” Or worse.

“How does he look?” Muriel asked with interest, and her daughter laughed. She was in good spirits. It had done her a world of good to see Savannah.

“Handsome and weak. I guess I never noticed. He’s still the best-looking man on the planet, but I know what he’s about now, and who he is. I guess I’ll always think he’s gorgeous, but thank God I’m not in love with him anymore. That’s something at least.” She sounded freer and less angry than Muriel had heard her sound in years. She wasn’t as tense, despite the pressures of the Quentin case. She’d been working closely with the FBI, and now that they weren’t threatening to take her case away every five minutes, she was enjoying working with them. There were no female agents on the case, and she didn’t mind being the only woman in a world of men. She liked it. And the FBI agents were interesting to work with.

While her mother was back at work, Savannah was busy at school in Charleston. She had added a Chinese class to her AP French, and was having fun trying to learn the language. She didn’t need it for credit, so there was no pressure on her. And she was starting to make a lot of friends in school. She and Julianne met for lunch almost every day.

She went to all the volleyball and soccer games, and rooted for their teams. They let her join the swimming team because someone had dropped out with a serious problem with her ears.

And the weekend after her mother had been there, the captain of the soccer team asked Savannah out on a date. Julianne nearly fainted when she heard. He had just broken up with the prettiest girl in school.

“Are you going to go out with him?” Julianne asked breathlessly when Savannah confided in her.

“I might. I have nothing else to do.” She sounded very cool.

He took her to a movie on Friday night, and they stopped at a coffee shop afterward. His name was Turner Ashby, a descendant of the general of the same name, he informed her over burgers and shakes.

“It seems like everyone in town is related to a general,” Savannah commented. She was wearing her mother’s pink sweater and jeans, with high heels. She looked different from the girls in Charleston when she got dressed up. She had the sophistication of New York and was wearing just enough makeup but not too much. He looked crazy about her.

“That’s a big deal around here,” he explained.

“I know. My grandmother is the president general of the United Daughters of the Confederacy. She’s the president general because she’s related to a general too.” Savannah grinned. She wasn’t making fun of them, but she did think it was funny. He was a handsome boy with dark hair and green eyes, the oldest of four boys. “Where do you think you’ll go to college?” she asked with genuine interest. She noticed that most of the people she talked to about it had applied to southern schools.

“Georgia Tech, or maybe SMU in Texas. I applied to Duke and UVA, but I don’t think my scores are good enough to get in. What about you?”

“I’d really like to go to Princeton. It’s close to home, which would be nice, and I liked the school. I liked Brown too. I think Harvard would be too serious, and I probably won’t get in either. I liked Stanford, but my mom doesn’t want me that far away.” She went down her list.

“That’s some list of fancy Ivy League schools you applied to,” he said, looking impressed. She was smart but not stuck up, and the prettiest girl he’d ever seen.

He had her back at her house very respectfully at ten-thirty, and she had enjoyed him and the movie, and said she’d see him around school.

Julianne called her just after dawn the next morning to ask how it had gone.

“It was fun,” Savannah said, and giggled, sounding younger than her age, and more like Daisy.

“That’s it? You went out with the hottest guy in school and ‘it was fun’? Did he kiss you?” Julianne wanted all the details. She had learned that from her mother. Gossip was their stock-in-trade.

“Of course not. We don’t even know each other. Besides, it would be dumb to get involved with anyone now. We’re all leaving for college, and I’m only here for a few months.” She was practical about it. She wasn’t looking for romance, just friends, which made her even more appealing. She didn’t have the desperation of some of the girls in school who were always looking for boyfriends.

“There’s nothing dumb about going out with Turner Ashby. Did you know his father has oil rigs all over Biloxi? My mama says he’s one of the richest men in the state. And,” she said for emphasis, “he’s cute. And the captain of the soccer team. What else do you need?” Savannah was well aware that playing soccer wouldn’t get him far in life, it took more than that. And she didn’t care about his father’s oil wells. “Did he ask you out again?”

“No. Don’t be silly. I just went out with him last night.” She was totally relaxed about it.

“He will. Guys always like girls like you who don’t give a damn about them.”

“I didn’t say that. I liked him. I’m just not going nuts about it, like you,” she teased.

“I bet he asks you out next weekend,” Julianne said, sounding moonstruck and hopeful.

“I hope not. I think my mom’s coming. She said she’d try, but she may not make it till the following weekend.”

Julianne made a disgusted sound. “Who would you rather go out with? Turner Ashby or your mother?”

Savannah answered without an instant’s hesitation. “My mother.”

“You’re sick.” Julianne promised to check in with her again later that day to see if Turner had called her yet.

Daisy was the next member of the interrogation team.

“Who was that boy who picked you up last night?” she asked casually over pancakes in the kitchen.

“Just a boy from school.”

“That’s all?” Daisy asked, looking disappointed. “Is he in love with you?”

“No,” Savannah said, smiling. “He hardly knows me.”

“Are you in love with him?”

“No. I don’t know him either,” she said, her feet firmly on the ground.

“Then why’d you go out with him if you’re not in love with him?” Daisy asked, looking disgusted.

“Because we wanted to eat dinner and see a movie, and I figured I might as well do it with him, since he asked.” Daisy nodded at the logic of what she said, but found it pathetically unromantic. Their father walked in, in his tennis clothes, while they were talking.

“Was that one of the Ashby boys I saw you leaving the house with last night?” he asked with equal interest. Clearly, her dating life was the hot topic in town.

“Yes.”

“Nice kid?”

“I think so. He seemed like it,” Savannah conceded.

“I play tennis with his father. They’ve had some hard times. His wife died last year. A drunk driver hit her on Highway 526, five miles from home. It must be hard on the kids.”

“He didn’t say anything about it. We just talked about school.” Tom nodded, and told her that Henry was coming in from New Orleans that afternoon.

“He’s anxious to see you. He’ll be home for dinner tonight. Travis and Scarlette are coming over too. The whole family will be together,” he said, looking happy, as Luisa walked into the kitchen and ignored him. She said she was going to the country club for a spa day that was just for women. Tom said he was picking Henry up at the airport, and Luisa said she’d be home in the late afternoon. She left the house five minutes later, and when they were alone again, Savannah offered to take Daisy to the aquarium, which sounded like fun to both of them. It was called the South Carolina Aquarium, and was said to be very good.

She and Daisy left the house at eleven o’clock, walked all over the aquarium, and had lunch there, and came back at three in the afternoon. Tallulah said their father had just left to pick up Henry, so they played Go Fish and War and Hearts and Gin Rummy, and shortly after five o’clock Tom and Henry walked in. Daisy flew down the stairs to greet her brother. He was a year younger than Travis and was a handsome young man with a powerful athletic build. He had played football in college and instead of UVA had gone to Duke. Savannah knew that he had been an art history major and eventually wanted to teach. He wasn’t interested in business like his older brother or his father, and he was working in an important art gallery in New Orleans, and as an intern at a museum. He was interested in curating too.

After Henry had lavishly hugged his younger sister, he looked up the stairs and saw Savannah smiling at him. She looked no different than she had as a little girl, as Travis had already told her, just bigger.

“I am sooooo happy to see you,” Henry said softly, as he came up the stairs to where she stood and folded her into a bear hug. “I am so glad you’re here. Travis and Daisy already told me all about you. I came home this weekend just to see you.” And the way he said it, she believed him. They walked back down the stairs and into the living room. Fortunately, Luisa hadn’t come home yet, or she would have objected to his making a fuss over Savannah. But Henry didn’t care. He had never danced to his mother’s tune.

They sat down and talked for a while, and he asked pertinent questions, what she liked, what she did, what her favorite music was, her favorite books and movies, the names of her friends. He wanted to know all about her. And his eyes grew sad when he asked about her mother.

“I didn’t like to write when I was a kid, so I didn’t. But I always thought about her, and about you. Your mom did something very special for me when she was married to our daddy,” he said solemnly, as though he was about to share an important secret. “I’m dyslexic, and your mama tutored me for all those years. I hated the tutor I had, so she did it. I think she took classes to learn how to do it. Anyway, thanks to her, I got through school. I never forgot it. She was the kindest, most patient woman I have ever known, the spirit of compassion and love.” Tom had been standing in the doorway and heard Henry say it, and walked away with a pained expression. Neither Henry nor Savannah had seen him there, and then he disappeared.

“She never told me,” Savannah said honestly. “That’s pretty good if you got into Duke.”

“It’s a good school,” he confirmed.

They went on talking, and eventually Luisa came home from her spa day. She came to kiss her son, and then rapidly went upstairs to change. She wasn’t happy to see him talking to Savannah, but she didn’t comment, and she found her husband looking unhappy in their room. He had forgotten about Alexa tutoring Henry for all those years, and how loving she had been about it. Remembering it made him feel sick.

“What’s wrong with you?” Luisa asked him, noticing how unhappy he looked.

“Nothing. Just thinking. How was your spa day?”

“Very nice, thank you,” she said coolly. She had no intention of warming up to him again until Savannah went back to New York. She was planning to punish him for the entire time, to teach him a lesson. She wanted him to get the message loud and clear so he didn’t bring her back again. She was not going to tolerate having Alexa’s daughter in her house. But so far she was overruled.

The atmosphere at dinner that night was lively and jolly, thanks to Henry. He told funny jokes, did hysterical imitations, and teased everyone, including his mother. Travis was far more reserved, although a nice person too. Scarlette loved her soon-to-be brother-in-law, and he teased her mercilessly too, about the size of the wedding. Scarlette said her younger brothers did the same. Henry was twenty-four and he looked young, but there was also something more sophisticated about him. Savannah wondered if living in another city had shown him more of the world. Travis still lived in the family cocoon in Charleston. And even their father had done so all his life. Only Henry had really left home, although he had chosen another southern city. But New Orleans was bigger and more sophisticated than Charleston, and he seemed to spend a lot of time in London and New York. He knew all of Savannah’s favorite haunts in New York.

With Henry in charge of most of the conversation, everyone was in a good mood, even his mother. She asked him at the end of dinner how that lovely girl was that he went out with the previous summer, and he gave her a strange look.

“She’s fine, Mama. She just got engaged.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry,” she said, gushing sympathy for him, and he laughed.

“I’m not.” Henry talked a lot about someone called Jeff who was his roommate. Apparently he was from North Carolina, and they had taken several trips recently. Luisa didn’t ask about him.

By the time they finished dinner, everyone’s sides hurt from laughing, and after they went back into the living room, Henry played cards with the girls. They were still playing when his parents said goodnight and went upstairs. Travis and Scarlette had left by then, since there was a breakfast shower for Scarlette the next day. She said she would have asked Savannah, but she’d be bored to tears. And Travis had told her she’d better not invite Savannah or his mother would be livid, so she hadn’t, but felt terrible about it. But she did what Travis said.

Luisa would have liked to keep Henry away from Savannah too, but there had been no obvious way to exclude her from the evening, and she knew Henry would have objected and accused her of being rude. He never hesitated to challenge his mother, and tell her when he didn’t like her behavior. He wasn’t afraid of her. And Daisy had already told him on the phone that their mother had been awful to her, so he had gone out of his way to be nice to Savannah at dinner. And when he said he had come home just to see her, it was true.

Daisy fell asleep during their card game, and Henry gently carried her upstairs to her bed, while Savannah went to her room. Henry knocked on her door to see if she was decent. She was in her nightgown, brushing her teeth, when he came in. He strolled right into her bathroom to chat with her, like a real brother.

“I like having another sister, one I can really talk to,” he said, smiling at her in the bathroom mirror. “You’ve been gone for way too long.”

They sat down in her room and talked some more then. He said he wanted to move to New York or London in a few years, once he figured out if he wanted to work in a gallery, a museum, or a school. But working in the art field was his dream.

“You don’t want to come back here?” She looked surprised. People in the South seemed to stay close to home and cling to their roots, judging from what she had seen so far.

“Too small for me,” he said simply. “This is a very small provincial city. And being gay is too complicated for me here.” She looked at him in surprise.

“You are?” She hadn’t figured that out, and his mother had asked about a girl he had gone out with the year before.

“I am. Jeff is my partner. I told my parents I was gay when I was eighteen. Dad wasn’t thrilled, but he’s okay about it. My mother acts like she forgot and doesn’t know, no matter how often I remind her. Like the girl she asked me about going out with. She knows I don’t go out with women. I figured out I was gay about a year after your mom left, when I was fifteen. By sixteen I knew for sure. It shouldn’t be a big deal, but for some people it is-my mother, for one. She’s going to ask me about the women I go out with till I’m a hundred years old. She’s probably hoping I’ll get ‘cured.’ My being gay just wasn’t in her plan. I think she’s relieved I don’t live in Charleston. It would be too embarrassing for her, and too hard for me. She still lies to her friends.”

“How weird,” Savannah said, looking puzzled. “What difference does it make to her?”

“It’s not ‘normal,’ as she puts it, or ‘right.’ But it is for me.”

“That’s just who you are,” Savannah said, smiling at him. “It shouldn’t be a big deal. Does Daisy know?” she asked, curious about it.

“They’d kill me if I told her, but she’ll figure it out sometime. I don’t think Travis is too thrilled about it either. He’s a lot more like them than I am. He’s a small-town boy who wants to do everything he can to make them happy and fit in their mold. I’d commit suicide if I married Scarlette, but she’s just right for him, a nice southern girl.”

“You’re sounding like a Yankee,” Savannah teased him.

“Maybe I am at heart. There are a lot of hypocrisies I don’t like here, or maybe it’s just a small-town thing. I hate seeing people covering up what they really think and feel, just to be polite or fit in. There’s a lot of that here. It’s all okay, if you have a couple of Confederate generals in the family, but not a gay son, at least not in this family. They tolerate it, but don’t like it. Shit, for all we know, maybe all those generals were gay.” They both laughed, and then he looked serious again. “It wouldn’t have mattered to your mother. She was the most loving woman I’ve ever known. I didn’t know I was gay when she was here, but afterward I wondered if she knew before I did. She’s very sharp.”

Savannah nodded, proud of her mother.

“Is your mom okay?” he asked her, and Savannah nodded. “She really got a shit deal from my mom and dad. I take it she never remarried, from what Travis said the other day. I asked him.”

“No,” Savannah said, “she didn’t. She’s only thirty-nine, though. But she’s still pretty mad about your dad,” she said honestly. “Or hurt, I guess.”

“She has a right to be,” he said, equally honest. “My mother really screwed her over, and Dad let her. I think their relationship has been lousy ever since, but Dad stays in it, and my mother walks all over him. She walked out on all of us when she left my dad. And everyone conveniently forgets she did. That’s just the way it works.” He looked disapproving as he said it.

“I’ve seen it,” Savannah admitted. “She’s furious about me.”

“Too bad. He should have brought you back here years ago. I feel terrible that I never reached out to you or your mom. I let it happen too. I was fourteen then, and I hated what they were doing. And then, I don’t know, high school, college, life, I never did anything about it,” he said. “But I’m glad you’re here. I hope I see your mom too one of these days. I have a lot to tell her.”

“She’s going to try and visit me every couple of weeks. We had a great time last weekend. She didn’t want to come back here, but she did.”

“It must be tough for her,” he acknowledged, as Savannah nodded. They were both thinking about Alexa, and then Henry finally got up, gave her a hug, and went to his own room. Daisy had slept in her own bed that night. And Savannah lay under the covers thinking about what Henry had told her. She didn’t see what difference it made that he was gay. But she was from New York, not from Charleston. Things were different here.