Swamps and Soirees: A Summerbrook Novel

by Vicki Wilkerson

  “Not a problem. The shop is never busy on Friday afternoons anyway. Because of the football games. You know Summerbrook. The whole town practically shuts down.”

  “I know. I wish I could go, but them bright lights and that loudspeaker gets me real nervous.”

  “I know, Cubi-Jack.” She touched his hand. “But you have a lot of important things you need to do around Four Hole.”

  “I do.” His face lit up again. “When do I start?”

  “As soon as we finish here. I’ll help.” She picked up the rake he’d dropped.

  “I’ve got to fill this one last bag and I’m done,” he said. “The revival will be here before you know it.”

  They worked together to clean the last path.

  While he was picking up the twigs and grass clippings, he stopped and said, “Hanna, you have that courage that I told you about.”

  “You did tell me, and you were right. I don’t think I’ll have to worry about eating regrets for dessert now.” How did Cubi-Jack know things like that? He could simplistically verbalize the most complicated things.

  They finished and got into her car. He grinned and thanked her again and again on the way to the meat market. This change was going to be good for everyone.

  When she got home she explained everything to Uncle Marion. Aunt Della just happened to be there also.

  “That’s my girl,” Uncle Marion said. “Cubi-Jack, can you help me this afternoon and tomorrow?”

  Cubi-Jack looked worried. “Now, I won’t be able to help when they play football. Or when they have camp meeting. I done promised Nonna I would help her with setting up the cabin at the church campgrounds and getting things ready for our family.”

  “Don’t worry, Cubi-Jack,” Uncle Marion said. “Neither one is a problem.”

  Aunt Della chimed in. “We’ll be closed the week of the rival anyway.”

  “Ain’t no Rudder worked the week of revival or camp meetin’ since we settled in this here swamp two hundred or so years ago,” Uncle Marion said.

  What kind of a proper history was that for a family? Settling in a swamp of all places? Camping out with neighbors for a week? And holding church services under a huge shed when there was a perfectly good church just yards away? But that was her heritage. And though the stories were sketchy, she’d heard how some distant relative with some animal name like bear or deer or fox or something had first conquered and settled the swamps around them.

  The stories about her family always seemed to be missing the important parts. And what kind of a family would want to remember their ancestors by the names of local wildlife? Hers, of course.

  “Grab that crate over there, Cubi-Jack,” Uncle Marion said and pointed.

  Aunt Della beamed and hugged her. “I can’t wait to tell all the girls in my faith circle. Everyone will know about your new job by Sunday morning.”

  Imagine…me being known around church and camp meeting as a financial mogul instead of the butcher’s niece.

  “Now I have some ideas about decorating your office. Seen them on the Shopping Network last week. Red, white and blue. I can get a desk-sized Statue of Delivery over the phone. Don’t even have to go nowhere.”

  Hanna didn’t like that idea one little bit, but she wouldn’t hurt Aunt Della’s feelings. “I think we’ll hold off on the decorating right away. The office may be decorated already.”

  “Well, you just let me know, honey. I can have that statue, some flags and a lighthouse lamp ordered likkity-split.”

  Hanna narrowed her eyes, trying to figure how the lighthouse lamp would fit into Aunt Della’s patriotic theme. “Lighthouse lamp?”

  “Yep. They got them, too. They got the lighthouse, the Capital Building and the Lincoln Menorah. All the famous buildings in Washington, D.C.”

  It all made sense to Hanna now. She hadn’t been thinking clearly since she’d accepted Furman’s invitation for tonight.

  She crossed her arms and watched Cubi-Jack smile and place a box of hens in the refrigerated case. Today was a new beginning for them all.

  Soon, she’d have the money to pay Furman back and help her aunt and uncle if they needed it. Soon, she’d be able to buy herself a better car and some professional clothes. With her salary, she could almost immediately spring for a few really nice outfits from Enjoliver, the little French dress shop in the Summerbrook Town Square. Jenna, one of her classmates from school, worked there and would surely help her.

  Tonight, however, was not a problem. She already knew what she was going to wear. She had a simple navy dress with little capped sleeves that let her get away with wearing it almost year round. Aunt Della had loaned her a strand of fake pearls for church that she’d not yet returned. The only problem was shoes. But Callie could fix that. They wore the same size.

  Hanna called Callie just before she hopped into the shower and told her all about her new job and her date. Her cousin agreed to run the shoes over.

  Hanna heard the knock on the door as she was finishing with her make-up. She slipped on her dress and let Callie in her little one-room apartment.

  “Wow!”

  Hanna ignored the comment. “I was pressed for time. Thanks for bringing these over. They’re perfect,” Hanna said as she held them up by their ankle straps and admired them. She could always count on Callie…and her best friend, Charlene—if she’d had the shoes, but all of Charlene’s shoes were sensible shoes for work.

  Callie plopped down on the bed. “That’s what cousins are for, and I needed the break,” she said as she ran her fingers over the stitched triangles of the blue and white quilt. “I’ve got the whole crew working today, prepping for the Laurens dinner. Thank goodness.”

  “Everything under control for tomorrow?” Hanna asked, slightly worried. She slipped on the elegant black sandals and adjusted the strap around her ankle.

  “Everything. I still wish you were helping, but I understand.” She smiled, rolled over and stared straight at Hanna. “I told you that man was after you. And just look at you. Who wouldn’t be?”

  “Callie, I’m just taking a little break from Four Hole right now. And celebrating my new job. You above all others know where this will lead if I let it. Our family doesn’t have the necessary papers to gain entrance into that world.”

  Callie moved to a stool by the window and peered through the blinds. “You and your hang-ups about our ancestry. We may be missing a few pages from our lineage, but we have people dating back to the American Revolution.”

  “Yeah, swamp people,” Hanna said.

  “Girl, who cares these days? So what that we’ve got a little swamp mud between our toes and our name’s not on the Declaration of Independence? I’m not bootlegging, and you’re not in prison.”

  But Hanna’s mother was. She wished she had Callie’s attitude. But everyone reacted to her particular circumstances in different ways. Unfortunately, Hanna’s shady, swampy heritage clouded her soul and spirit, as well. It was a pall she had felt since childhood.

  Callie looked out the window again. “He’s here!” She gave her cousin a hug. “I’ll lock up. Go, have a great time and stop being such a pessimist.”

  Hanna could accomplish all of the above. Except the pessimist part. She was what she was—a stump-jumping swamp gal with mud between her toes. And a date with a charitable, handsome man couldn’t change any part of that.

  ⸙

  Furman stood in awe as Hanna descended the stairs. She was like a deep, blue rare sapphire. Exotic and mysterious. Quiet and understated, and exciting and mesmerizing all at the same time. And she was his date.

  “You look amazing,” he said as he opened the car door for her. There was something different about her tonight, but he couldn’t quite figure it out.

  She tilted her head slightly and smiled. “Thank you. You look pretty amazing yourself.”

  He would challenge even his mother to find anything wrong with the way Hanna was dressed tonight. Elegant and understated. But he didn’t want to s
hare his rare gem with his mother. Or anybody else.

  At a stop sign, he took the opportunity to stare at her. “Are you ready to start your new job?” Small talk was all that came out of his mouth. He wanted to say she was gorgeous, stunning and that he wanted to own her heart. But she’d probably jump out at the next stop sign, and he wouldn’t blame her. He had to take this slowly.

  She reached over and touched his hand. “I can’t thank you enough.”

  His heart thrilled at her touch. “What about your uncle? Will he have any help?” He hoped he hadn’t created problems for her or the old man.

  “Everything has worked out perfectly. A precious man at our church needed the work. He was more grateful than anyone who has ever gotten a job before.”

  Furman nodded his head. “One man’s trash—I mean. I didn’t mean anything by—it’s just a phrase I use all the time at my shop when I work with sinker wood. Everyone has a different idea of treasure.”

  “No need to explain. I understand.” She looked out the window.

  Did she really? Somehow he didn’t think she quite understood the depths of the inelegant euphemism. Almost everything had value to someone. He had learned that as he looked for sinker wood. Some people didn’t admire the old dark wood, and some thought it more exquisite than gold.

  He drove to the Church Street parking lot with his attention divided between Hanna and the road. He knew he was in one of the most beautiful areas of downtown, but the palms, palmettos and palatial fronts on the buildings all paled in comparison to his intriguing companion.

  He had found treasure when he wasn’t even looking for it.

  ⸙

  How could things get any better for Hanna? She was surrounded by beauty. The palm fronds swayed in the warm breeze. Charleston glowed in its antique elegance. And the man sitting beside her was dashing—incredibly dashing.

  His long legs barely fit under the steering wheel of his car. His chiseled cheeks looked like they had been sculpted by Michelangelo himself. With his camel-colored blazer and blue tie that matched his eyes, he was all perfection and light.

  And she was in a dark dress and had things in her life she wanted to stay in the dark. She wondered if he suspected anything, and wondered why God didn’t make everyone equal. She tried hard to keep those thoughts tucked away for tonight. Tonight she was celebrating.

  After the most amazing dinner of stuffed flounder at Anton’s, they strolled back toward the Dock Street Theater.

  Two small, blond boys ran past them ahead of their parents. Furman smiled.

  “They were cute. The one on the left looked so much like you that he could have been your son,” she said.

  He waited an uncomfortable moment before answering. “Mother would like that. She’s always hammering me about carrying on the family name. It’s kind of getting old lately. And I don’t exactly see her point or necessarily agree with her. There are too many children out there who need to be adopted.”

  Hanna didn’t have to worry about carrying on her family’s name. In fact, she sometimes thought it was good that the Rudder name was going to die off. She was embarrassed to even think of it all sometimes. Her father had been the only male child born to the previous generation of Rudders. The family’s bootlegging legacy in Four Hole died with her father in the terrible car crash he’d had after he’d sampled too much moonshine and had filled his car for deliveries of the unique family brew. More dreams gone.

  Her dream of children, however, was strong and powerful. If she ever did get married and have babies, they would have her husband’s surname. But children and marriage were not in her future and even the talk of them made her sad and uncomfortable. She needed to change the subject. “I forgot to ask. What’s playing tonight?” She watched each step she took on the undulating bluestone sidewalk. The last thing she wanted was to trip in Callie’s high heels.

  “A Raisin in the Sun. I hear it’s really good.”

  “I think I was supposed to read that in high school. I must have been sick or something that week.”

  He reached for her hand and placed it in the crook of his arm. “Good, it’ll be a new experience for you, then.”

  She paused in front of the old theater. She had learned about it in a Lowcountry history class she’d taken as an elective in college. The first theater in America. How the original burned. The Edgar Allen Poe connections.

  The façade was like a fairytale, painted in dark salmon and muted green. Antique faces that resembled theater masks embellished both sides of the building. It was a solid old structure with lacy wrought iron railing. Inside was as dark and as mysterious as its past. Two sets of wide, sturdy stairs flanked the center lobby.

  He was probably used to old, elegant places like this. She was used to the meat market.

  “Let’s take a look around the art gallery. It’s connected to the lobby—right over there.” He checked his watch. “It’ll be a few minutes before curtain time.”

  As soon as they walked through the door and down the step that led to the gallery, a man in a seersucker suit and tortoise-shell-framed glasses made a funny wave with his hand and said, “Furman, old boy. Where have you been?” His accent sounded rich and educated—like Furman’s. And pretentious—like his mother’s.

  “Hanna, this is Proctor Berkeley. We go way back. Elementary school to the Citadel.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” she said as she reached out her hand. Proctor picked it up and shook it like one would a butterfly’s wing. She looked at Furman. He turned his eyes toward one of the paintings, like he didn’t want to acknowledge his friend’s antics.

  “Is this pretty little plaything why you’ve been hiding from all your friends lately?” Proctor asked.

  “You do remember that Father’s been ill.”

  Proctor took out the pipe he had merely been holding in his mouth and slipped it in his pocket. “That’s right. How is the old real estate mogul?” He still stared at Hanna.

  “Just old these days.” Furman looked at Hanna, too.

  Proctor leaned in to her. “Now tell me about yourself, young lady. To which clan do you belong?” He raked his hand through his very straight sand-colored hair and shifted.

  She knew exactly where this was heading. He was gathering and circling the wagons—just as Evelynn Laurens had done—and was preparing to keep out the savages from entrance into their gilded Fort Heritage. It had been the Charleston way for centuries.

  She didn’t want to embarrass Furman, but she wouldn’t lie either. She inhaled and mustered all the strength she could. “I’m from—”

  Furman cleared his throat and put his hand on her forearm. “Let me handle this.”

  All the false courage she’d filled her heart with deflated in a huff.

  It was official. He was too embarrassed for her to tell him of her low environs.

  Chapter Six

  plays and promises

  “She’s from Four Hole Swamp.” Furman knew what Proctor was trying to accomplish by calling Hanna a plaything and prying into her background. He was establishing the Southern social strata so that Hanna would know just where she fit in according to the Charleston aristocracy. Unfortunately, it appeared she already believed she didn’t belong. Furman detested Proctor for what he was doing. Hanna was no plaything in Furman’s mind. And where she was from didn’t matter to him one little bit.

  “Ah, yes. I believe I know the area.” Proctor folded his arms then promptly unfolded them and slipped them into his pockets again. Did he think his untreated hyperactivity disorder was charming? “And your family’s name?”

  Again Furman stepped in before Hanna had a chance to answer. “It’s Rudder. Hanna Rudder.” He didn’t want her—or Proctor—to think he was embarrassed of her in any way. Providing the information up front was like heading him off at the pass.

  “And is your family into buying up half the Lowcountry, like Furman’s?” Proctor asked.

  What? Was he absolutely joking?

&nbs
p; “Proctor, Hanna just landed a job with Sterling Financial. And now that you have the Cliff Notes on Hanna’s biography, why don’t you tell her a little about yourself and your family’s business?” Furman turned to Hanna. “Proctor’s family is into horse trading.”

  “Furman, that sounds so base. More like horse breeding. It’s boring actually.” He shifted his stance once again, and once again folded and unfolded his arms. “Berkeley Stables. We’ve been around for over a hundred years. We’re based out of Colleton County, near Walterboro.”

  “I don’t know much about horses, except that I was thrown by one when I was a little girl.” She looked so uncomfortable.

  “Well, it either wasn’t a proper horse, or you weren’t taught how to properly ride.” Proctor made an attempt at laughter, but it sounded rehearsed.

  Furman could see that nothing he could say or do would lessen Proctor’s impact upon Hanna, so he decided to just cut the bleeding now.

  “Proctor, we’ve got to get going. I want to grab a soda before we head to our seats.”

  “Sure thing. Listen, we’re having a little gathering at the house next week. I’ll call you Monday and let you know the particulars.”

  “Sure thing,” Furman said mockingly. As sure as a snowball’s chance on Market Street in August.

  He led Hanna to the upstairs watering hole. It was paneled in dark wood and almost looked like a cliché of an old men’s club. “What’ll you have?”

  “Water,” she said as her eyes traveled over each wall.

  “Two waters,” he said to the man behind the old mahogany bar. He could see Hanna’s wheels turning. She was probably integrating Proctor’s equine elitism with what she was viewing. He was well aware of how pretentious his friends and his environs looked to outsiders. Not that he thought of Hanna as an outsider, but he could only imagine what the shy woman was thinking.