by Hope Ramsay
“And so I reluctantly vote no on this proposed amendment to our master plan.”
A roar of triumph and despair filled the tiny room, forcing the chairwoman to bang her gavel and demand order. Jude slumped back in his chair and scrubbed his hands over his head, a portrait of frustration and disappointment. Her heart ached for him, and her opinion of Harry Bauman took a nosedive.
How could he have done such a thing to a man he purported to like?
Maybe she didn’t want to know Harry. Maybe she was better off never letting him know who she was.
But then it occurred to her that if she chose that path, she’d have to leave Jonquil Island and never come back. And that wasn’t what she wanted either.
Was it?
No. It was not. And that thought was nothing short of a revelation.
“Well,” Greg said with a shrug of his shoulders, “it was worth a try.”
The chairwoman had just gaveled the meeting to a close, and folks were streaming out of the small, stuffy room. Jude tried to feel something, but he was numb. Greg had never really held out much hope for this gambit. Not when South Carolina had decided that the structures were too damaged or altered to merit protection.
They had a point. Most of the original freeman cottages had been one or two rooms, and folks with families had added on. To protect those houses, they’d have to be taken back to their smaller state. And at this point, most of those places had been abandoned. People were ready to sell off the land and cash in.
And that would spell disaster for everything he cared about.
“We’ll have to see if we can get private help, although so much of the money is going to other sea islands with more historic structures. We’re a little late to the party,” Greg said as he buckled up his old-fashioned briefcase. Greg gave Jude’s shoulder squeeze. “I’ll be in touch,” he said, and then headed out the door with everyone else.
Except Harry, who came over to sit down next to him. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Jude tried to be angry at his old friend. But it was hard. Harry had always been on the side of development. Jude had never expected to win his vote. But he didn’t fully accept Harry’s apology. He just nodded his head.
“Look, I know this is hard. But without the seal of approval from the state’s historic preservation office we just couldn’t move forward the way you wanted us to. But look here. There’s another way. I’ve been telling you this for months. Are you ready to listen?”
Jude shook his head. “Where are we going to find the private money for a museum? And I know a museum is a good thing, but there’s this part of me, down deep, that just hates the idea of shoving my great-grandmother’s culture into a museum. Is that what we’re down to, becoming something extinct that people have to go to a museum to see?”
“Look, I know you’re angry at me right now, but think about it. I want to even up the score. We need to include Gullah as part of our history. And it’s long past time.” Harry also gave his shoulder a squeeze before he left. Jude stayed put, letting everyone leave before he got up. He really didn’t have the energy to deal with people’s disappointment, or regret, or pity, or whatever emotion they wanted to pin on him.
He was about to get up when the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He turned, as gooseflesh puckered his back. She was there, walking down the aisle in a sundress with daffodils all over it.
She had nice legs, and she’d upgraded her sandals and lost the rubber flip-flops. “Hi,” she said as she dropped into the seat next to him. “I’m sorry about what happened. I wish there was something I could do to help. For what it’s worth, I don’t think I like my uncle very much. And I know the museum doesn’t solve your problems. It’s really about the land, isn’t it?”
Damn. It was like she understood. How did that happen? A warm, liquid feeling swamped his chest. “Hey,” was all he managed to say.
“I looked for you last night, sailing with the Buccaneers.”
“Oh, I didn’t make it. Greg and I were doing last-minute meetings with the council members. Not that it did much good.”
“I’m sorry. You know, I’d love to see your ancestor’s land,” she said.
He let go of a hoarse laugh. “So you want to see the place before it gets divided up and paved over, huh?”
“Isn’t there some way you could raise private funds to save the structures?”
He shook his head. “It’s not just the buildings.”
“No? What, then?”
She didn’t fully understand, which was predictable since she was a white woman from Boston with more money than God. “It’s everything. A way of life. And all the money in the world can’t save it.”
She reached out and squeezed his hand, and comfort flowed through the connection. He didn’t want to feel that. He didn’t want her to understand.
Damn.
“Would you show me? Please?”
He turned to look her in the eye. “When? Now?”
She shrugged. “I was thinking of buying you dinner now. At Annie’s Kitchen. I love her beans and rice. But maybe you could take me on a tour tomorrow if you don’t have a charter.”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“Are you trying to avoid me?” she asked.
Well, she had him there. He had been trying to avoid her because she looked like a big mess of trouble. If he didn’t watch out, he’d end up exactly like Daddy, strung out on some blond woman who didn’t belong here. And what the hell would Harry say if he knew Jude had gone to bed with his niece?
Harry was a good man, but he was still commodore of the yacht club, which had yet to accept an African American as a member. And hadn’t Harry just chosen development over saving Jude’s culture?
“Look, Jenna, I think maybe we should—”
“Don’t. Don’t push me away just because Harry did something asinine. He may be related to me, but I don’t know him from Adam, remember?”
He looked up into her warm brown eyes. “You really want to go see what the fuss is about?”
“I do.”
“Okay. I’ll pick you up at the cottage around ten tomorrow.”
“And dinner?”
He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I have to get home,” he said, using Daddy as an excuse. He didn’t trust his heart around this woman. He couldn’t afford to fall in love with Jenna Bauman. There was no scenario where a relationship between them could ever work. Tomorrow he’d show her why.
Chapter Fifteen
Jude was early, but he strolled through the back garden gate off of Lilac Lane and found Jenna on the porch wearing a pair of yoga pants and a sports bra. She was lying on her mat, her body flexed upward. The pose gave him a killer view of her breasts, which were just the right size. Enough to fit in the palms of his hands.
Damn. He was supposed to be here trying to discourage her. And himself. This was not a good omen. He didn’t say a word though. Instead he stood there admiring the way she could flex her body, until she became aware of him. Funny how her loose and supple muscles tightened right up the moment she laid eyes on him. Yeah, there was a lot of chemistry here. Strong chemistry that could blow up if he didn’t watch himself.
She scrambled up from the porch. “Oh my God, did I lose track of time? I’m so sorry. I—”
“Chill. I’m early. I was enjoying the view,” he said, unable to help himself.
Her cheeks colored. “Um, I’ll just go in. You know…and change.” She cocked her head and studied him. He got the feeling she was about to say something else, but she held her tongue. Good.
He didn’t think she needed to change at all. She was perfect exactly as she was, with a glow on her pale cheeks, her lithe body hugged by the spandex, and that light in her big brown eyes.
He wished to heaven he didn’t like her so much. He dropped into one of the rockers and waited for her. She didn’t take long to change—another thing to admire about her. When she reappeared, she was wearing a pair of faded
blue jeans and a Boston Red Sox T-shirt, both of them a little oversized. He found himself wishing she’d left her yoga clothes on.
“So,” she said with a bright smile, “tell me about everything.”
“Everything?” He couldn’t help but smile at her enthusiasm.
She nodded.
“I think showing might be better than telling.”
Jude took her to a beautiful place way back in a forest filled with live oak, scrub pine, and palmettos. It was shady here under the twisted branches of ancient trees, and everywhere, the long trailing beards of silver Spanish moss draped from branch to branch.
He parked his truck in a sandy spot in front of an old house sitting under the biggest live oak Jenna had ever seen in her life. Chickens ranged free in the sandy front yard, and a neat vegetable garden grew along the side of the house in a patch of sunlight.
The house had a rusty tin roof and looked in need of painting. The siding was uneven, as if it had been hand hewn. A couple of women sat in straight-back chairs on the porch weaving baskets.
“Come meet my aunts,” he said.
“Are you bringing me home to meet the folks?”
He turned and gave her a sober stare out of those amber eyes of his. “Yes. But not for the reason you think.”
“Oh, you mean you’re trying to scare me off?”
He blinked.
“I wasn’t born yesterday. I realize that my being Harry Bauman’s niece is a big problem for you. But hey, I don’t know Harry, and he really doesn’t know me. So it’s not like we’re a real family. And furthermore, I don’t have a family at all. Just my mother, and she passed away three years ago. So scaring me is going to be hard. Just sayin’.”
“Noted,” he said with a little smirk as he opened the truck door.
She hopped down from the pickup and followed Jude across the yard, studying his aunts as she walked. One of them was a thin, ancient-looking woman with white cotton hair and a sinewy look to her. She wore an Atlanta Braves sweatshirt and a pair of white cutoff jeans that showed her sticklike legs. She hadn’t looked up from her work, not even when Jude pulled the truck into the dirt driveway. The woman sitting beside her was much younger and stouter and wore a straw hat, a jean skirt, and a flowered blouse in pink and purple. She looked up and gave Jude a broad smile that flashed a gold filling.
“Hey,” she said. “How you doing, Jude? Heard about the town council. It’s a shame. A sad, sad shame.”
“Yes, it is. Aunt Charlotte, come meet my friend Jenna. She wanted to come out here to see what the fuss was all about. As you can see from her shirt, she’s from Boston.”
Charlotte got up from her seat and came down the porch steps. “Nice to meet you. Are you a baseball fan, or are you just wearing that shirt?”
Jenna grinned. “Been a BoSox fan all my life.”
Charlotte glanced toward Jude. “I like her already.”
Jenna’s face heated, and Jude rolled his beautiful eyes before he said, “Aunt Charlotte is Annie’s momma.”
“That’s right. And I taught her everything she knows about cooking.”
“Well, that’s a lot,” Jenna said. “I especially like her rice and beans.”
“Come on up and sit for a while,” Charlotte said with a wave of her hand.
They followed her up onto the porch, and Jenna soon found herself sitting next to Jude on an old, slightly rusted metal glider.
“Hey, Aunt Daisy,” Jude said once they sat down.
The old woman finally lifted her gaze from the gorgeous basket she was weaving, studied Jude for a moment from behind her metal-rimmed trifocals, and said, “Me glade fa see oona.”
Jenna thought she heard the words “me” and “glad,” but the rest of it sounded like some other language.
“I’m glad too,” Jude said, confirming at least one of the words the old woman had spoken. He turned toward Jenna. “That’s Gullah,” he said. “It sounds pretty foreign, but if you listen carefully, it’s got a lot of English and African words all jumbled together.”
A moment later, Charlotte returned with some sweet tea. “Aunt Daisy, tell Jenna about your basket,” Jude said in English.
The old woman nodded, clearly capable of understanding, but then she started talking in a rusty voice in a language Jenna couldn’t follow but which had a beautiful, syncopated rhythm to it that sounded African.
Daisy did more than lull Jenna with the way she talked. Her old bent fingers working, stitching together a basket made of grass and palmetto fronds, was nothing short of mesmerizing. This old woman was a master craftsman. The basket she was making was a thing of beauty and utility.
“You want to start one?” Charlotte asked, looking right at Jude.
“Sure,” he said, picking up a handful of grass and bundling it together. He wrapped the palmetto around the grass and began working. His young fingers were as skilled and nimble as the old woman’s.
After he’d been weaving for a few minutes, he looked up at Jenna. “My old granny—that would be my great-grandmother, Aunt Daisy’s momma, was a basket maker. And it’s a tradition that basket makers teach their children from an early age. Old Granny taught my grandmother, who was Aunt Charlotte’s mother. And Charlotte taught Annie, although Annie always had a knack for cooking. But my daddy never learned, and my momma was a white woman from Chicago.”
“Yes, well,” Charlotte said, “my momma, Jude’s granny, married a St. Pierre. And our daddy wasn’t part of Gullah culture. So that’s where the handing off got lost.”
“Ain so wid hunnuh,” Daisy said, giving Jude a smile.
“No, not with me. Because I ended up staying with Old Granny a lot of the time when I was little.”
“’Cause your momma was a party girl,” Charlotte said, looking up at Jenna, sending a message. Okay, she got it. He’d brought her out here to make a point. They came from different worlds. So what?
“Can you teach me to do that?” she asked.
Silence. Both Charlotte and Daisy looked up at her. And then Daisy said, “Ona kum yah. We bin yah.” She gave a nod and returned to her work.
Uh-oh. She’d clearly stepped on a land mine. “I guess that means no,” she said.
“Well, roughly translated it means that you just came here, but we’ve all been here,” Jude said.
So she was an outsider. Clearly. Or maybe the old woman was trying to say that she was white and they were black.
Jude put down the basket he’d started. “I want to show you something.” He stood up and offered her his hand. She took it and let him pull her out of the old glider. The warm, rough texture of his palm unleashed a torrent of chemicals in her bloodstream. He was handsome, and strong, and stubborn, but he could still sit down with a couple of old ladies and make a basket.
She admired that about him.
“Come on,” he said as he pulled her down the porch and around the house. Along the way, he pointed out the hand-hewn siding and the handmade bricks in the old chimney. “That’s the kind of thing I wanted to save, you know? But this house was added on to, back in the 1940s, so it’s not historic enough.” He shook his head as he guided her down a sandy track at the back of the yard that led down to the edge of a marshland bordering the bay.
“See that?” He pointed to the tall grass growing at the end of the marsh. “That’s the sweetgrass my aunts use to make those baskets up there. It takes a day to make a simple basket, and as much as a month to finish something like what Aunt Daisy is working on. But that’s okay because each of those baskets fetches a lot of money when Charlotte takes them down to the market in Charleston. Charlotte and Daisy and Old Jeeter, my uncle, depend on that income. And if Santee Resorts comes in here and forces these folks off this land, that stand of sweetgrass will be uprooted and destroyed to make way for yet another resort golf course.”
Jenna turned to stare at him. “You don’t care about the houses, do you? It’s all about that.” She pointed at the grass.
He nodded
. “It’s way more important than preserving the buildings. But no one gives a crap about the grass. This is where it grows. And if Charlotte and Daisy have to sell out, their livelihood will be gone.”
“They don’t have to sell out, do they?”
He shook his head. “Once the development starts, the property values around here will get so high that they’ll have no way to cover the taxes on the land. Plus, it’s complicated because this land is something called ‘heirs property.’ It’s been passed down informally from generation to generation without legal paperwork. So there are at least thirty people who own shares in this land. Any one of them could sell out.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No, it’s not. But it’s reality. And the sad part is that there aren’t many places you can get sweetgrass anymore. Either it’s been bulldozed into oblivion or it’s inaccessible, growing behind the gates of new communities.
“When it’s all gone, not even shoving my aunts into a museum will save the culture.”
“Oh, Jude, I’m so sorry,” Jenna said, turning toward him with what looked like real understanding in her eyes.
Damn. He kept trying to make this difficult for her, and she kept seeing right through him.
“There must be some way we can stop it from happening.”
He laughed because he didn’t know what else to do. “So says the trust fund girl.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call me that. I didn’t ask for the money, you know. And now that I have it, it’s a huge responsibility.”
“I’ll bet,” he said, turning his back on her.
“Look, I get your resentment. I do. But I’m trying to be helpful.”
“Right.”
