Sweet Talk Me

by Kieran Kramer

  “I know it, Daddy.” True looked out over the sparkling wide body of water known as Biscuit Creek. The brown-green reeds of the marsh fronting it held all sorts of treasures: fiddler crabs, pluff mud, egrets, and tiny wrens. “My favorite part is the water. I love when the dolphins come.”

  “Me, too, sweetheart.” He put his hand on her shoulder. “You know why it’s called Biscuit Creek?”

  “No, sir.”

  “A long time ago, an old Sewee woman lived up the creek. She made hardtack for the travelers going through.”

  Harrison said he was one-sixteenth Sewee. They played Sewee warrior and tribal princess all the time at Sand Dollar Heaven.

  “And after a while,” Daddy said, “the other women—the settlers—joined in with their own recipes. But that Sewee woman started it all. So eventually the creek was called Biscuit Creek in her honor.”

  “I love Honey’s biscuits,” True said.

  “Don’t we all.” Daddy chuckled. “You know how she treasures her recipe? You have to do the same for this property. Don’t you ever let it go. And make sure you keep the Maybank name prominent in these parts. I know you’re gonna marry someday, but Maybank would make a helluva good first name, right?”

  “Yes, sir, Daddy.” True could tell he wished he’d had a boy. “I don’t care what my husband says. I’m gonna be True Maybank forever.”

  “No, no, no,” her father said. “You take your husband’s name, like a good girl. Maybe you’ll be True Maybank Waring. You marry Dubose, and bring our families together, then you’ll have done your mother and me real proud.”

  She tried her best to look obedient. She felt sorry for Daddy. None of the women in his life listened to him. He called Honey his crazy spinster aunt, all because she refused to “settle down and behave,” Mama’s favorite phrase.

  But Mama had misbehaved, too. Just last week, True heard Daddy and Mama fighting late at night after a party. Daddy found out that Mama had their new baby with another man’s help. Daddy told Mama she hadn’t behaved like a Maybank should. But Mama said he’d driven her to it by marrying her for her money and then slowly forgetting about her. Daddy cried. And Mama cried. And they both said they were sorry, and then Daddy pulled Mama onto the back porch and called her “Helen, my love.” True didn’t know what happened after that.

  But she cried, too, from where she was sitting on the stairs. The next morning, she asked Ada what it was all about, and Ada said that all Daddy meant was that another man helped Mama pick Weezie up at the baby store. It was all in the past, Ada assured her, so it didn’t matter. But True was ten, for goodness’ sake. She knew babies didn’t come from a store.

  Her father looked down at her with a slight frown. “Warings and Maybanks are the two oldest families in Biscuit Creek. And we’ve never married.”

  “Why is that, Daddy?” True wasn’t too crazy about Dubose. He was a tattletale. Once she stole a piece of ham off his mama’s table before they were called in for Sunday brunch. And he told their cook. All because she’d sunk his battleship and beaten him at Go Fish.

  “Rivalry,” Daddy said. “And none of us have ever fallen in love with each other. No Romeo and Juliet stories. But these are harder times. We could lose everything our families have fought for and stood for these past two hundred yeahs. It’s about time we unite, and you and Dubose would make a fine pair.”

  “But I’m only ten years old, Daddy. So is he.”

  “So?” He pulled out a cigar and lit it. “You just keep him in mind. You’ll both be grown up before you know it.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  After that, True’s father spoke to her on the porch every year on her birthday. When her twelfth one came along, she was wearing a bra even though she didn’t need one, and she had a cheap lip gloss from Wyatt’s hidden in the secret pocket of her purse. She was almost a woman, especially now that Harrison had kissed her—kissed her right on the lips—not three days ago. And it wasn’t anything like that kiss they’d shared when they’d gotten married two years before in their fake Sewee marriage ceremony in the honeysuckle bower. She didn’t know why things had changed between them. All she knew was that one day she was watching him, and his profile suddenly looked like the handsomest thing she’d ever seen. When he’d turned to smile at her, her heart had literally stopped in her chest and she couldn’t breathe for a second.

  She was madly in love. And as soon as she could escape, she was meeting him on the dock at Sand Dollar Heaven. He had a birthday present for her.

  Now her daddy said, “The sheriff was over at Sand Dollar Heaven the other day.”

  “Oh?” True’s heart sped up.

  “He told me he saw you there.” Daddy’s voice was low.

  “I-I go there sometimes to play.” But True knew her mother wouldn’t like it. Not one bit.

  “You won’t be going anymore. Heah? You’re lucky your mama doesn’t know.”

  “But Daddy—”

  “Sheriff said you were hanging around the younger Gamble boy. That’s gonna stop right now.”

  “Why?” True felt all trembly inside. Did the sheriff see them kiss? “Harrison’s my best friend.”

  “Enough of that talk.” Daddy’s brow furrowed. “You got plenty of friends from good families. His daddy just got arrested for bootleggin’. He’ll be locked up at least a couple years.”

  True got tears in her eyes. “R-really?”

  “It’s a sad story.” Daddy shook his head. “He had a still out in the woods.”

  Was that what that collection of junk was—the one Harrison had always told her to ignore in the honeysuckle bower?

  “If your mama ever finds out you been over at Sand Dollar Heaven, you’d be off to boarding school the next day,” Daddy said in a scary voice. “She’d insist.”

  “I’m not going to boarding school.” True could hardly fathom such a thing. Leave this house? Leave Biscuit Creek and all she held dear?

  Never.

  “I don’t want you to go, either.” Daddy spoke softer now. “But Weezie’s a handful already. Honey’s no easier. Your mama’s stressin’ about both of ’em. She can’t take any more. I need your help, little lady, keeping the peace around here.”

  And she could tell Daddy really did. His eyes were troubled when he looked at her.

  “Yessir.” She was frightened seeing Daddy so worried. It shocked her that he thought a twelve-year-old girl could make things better. But maybe she could. She had to try.

  In that moment, she grew up. A lot.

  He patted her shoulder. “Good job, honey. Now you have fun today.”

  Behind a fake smile, True’s heart broke. It was the worst birthday she’d ever had. But poor Harrison. He had it far worse. What was it like to know your daddy was in jail? And then for your best friend not to show up when you’d told her you had a gift for her?

  But birthdays, True finally came to understand that day on the porch, weren’t for herself. They were to remind her of her duty as a Maybank, which was why that night she wrote Harrison a note and told him she could never meet him at Sand Dollar Heaven again.

  I hope you’ll understand, she wrote at one point, tears rolling down her cheeks. My family needs me to grow up.

  She added a few more lines, and then she folded the note into a tiny football and tried to shove it in his locker at school, but too many people were looking. So she found Gage at the high school track and told him to give it to his brother as soon as he got home—without delay. She made him promise over and over. It was all she could do.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A few seconds later a bump and a rattle startled True, and she sat up. She’d forgotten where she was—

  And then she looked over and saw Harrison and felt the book on her chest.

  Wow. The whole Atlanta thing came rushing back.

  “Feeling better?” His profile belonged on coins—a Sexy Man coin collection.

  “Much better. Thanks.” She’d contact the Franklin Mint right away
, and next year Parade magazine would run the full-page ad, and she’d make tons of money …

  Not that she needed to worry about money anymore. Thank God.

  She sat up higher in her seat. “I can’t believe I—” They passed under a familiar canopy of oak trees. “Wait a minute. We’re here? In Biscuit Creek?”

  “Yep.” He wore a self-satisfied grin.

  “I was asleep? For three hours?”

  “You should’ve seen your mouth hanging open. You even snorted once or twice.”

  “Good Lord.” She was a mess. She needed to get her act together, but she still had a book down her dress. So she pulled it out. It wasn’t the most graceful action she’d ever taken.

  Harrison gave a southern-boy chuckle, which bordered on a cackle.

  “Redneck,” she said.

  “And proud of it.” He shot her a wicked grin.

  “Just drop me off on Main Street, and I’ll walk home.” No way was he going to see her house. “I never meant for you to take me all the way to Maybank Hall.”

  “You still there?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, it’s not much farther. By the way, what was that sign I just passed? U-pick tomatoes up ahead, two miles? That’s y’all’s place. I can’t believe your mama would allow such a thing.”

  True lifted a shoulder and let it drop. “Community-sustained farming is in.”

  “I never thought the Maybanks cared about what was ‘in.’”

  “I’ll tell you what I do care about—a big superstar showing up and scaring the customers, if we have any. Besides, Gage lives in the opposite direction.”

  “Yeah. You’re a whole five minutes out of my way,” Harrison said, “and we never got to catch up. I’m taking you home, and that’s that. I’m gettin’ me some sun-ripe tomatoes while I’m at it.”

  “You’re used to having your own way, that’s clear.” True swallowed. “But I need to say something before we talk.”

  “Ruh-roh.”

  “Just remember the first song you ever wrote was about me. I think. And it made you a star.”

  “Are you saying I owe my success to you because a long time ago you told me to get lost and broke my teenage heart?”

  “No.” True paused. “Well, yes. Just a little. Right?”

  ”Wrong.”

  “It still wouldn’t hurt you to do me a tiny favor.”

  Harrison whistled. “Pardon my French, but you got some balls, Miss Maybank. Isn’t your world all sweet tea and Sunday chicken suppers served on china brought over by one of George Washington’s generals during the Revolutionary War?”

  She wouldn’t disenfranchise him of that notion. “I thought that maybe since you’re here you could … forgive and forget.”

  “Hey. It was high school. No big deal.”

  “Thanks.” It had been a very big deal at the time, and if she still thought hard about it, she felt terrible about the drama that ensued post-prom. “So if we run into each other, you’ll avoid bringing it up? Especially the part no one knows about?”

  He lofted a brow. “Surely all of Biscuit Creek guessed we did more than walk on the beach that night. Damn, girl, I came to get you on a proverbial white horse the next day. Yeah, it was a blue Ford pickup truck, but hey, you use what you got when you’re trying to be Prince Charming.”

  He turned onto the dirt driveway that led to Maybank Hall, past a sign of a giant painted tomato. Morning glory hung in gorgeous loops all around, lavender bubbles of color, the smell so sweet that True forgot for a moment that she was discombobulated.

  Harrison would never be. The man did what he wanted. And he knew his own soul and somehow had a bead on everyone else’s, too.

  “Dubose doesn’t know,” True said. “He thinks … he thinks you just took me home from the prom, and I cried myself to sleep.”

  “He’s not that naive.”

  “My mom confirmed the deets with his mom the next day.”

  “So your mom covered for you.”

  “She didn’t want me to lose him.” True didn’t like remembering how desperate her mother had acted. “Dubose gets that he was a jerk. He doesn’t blame me for leaving him that night. He’s not mad at you, either.”

  “I don’t care whether he is or not. And what does it really matter, all these years later?”

  “It matters a lot to him.”

  “Why?”

  “He has this thing about you. Can you blame him? No man wants his wife comparing him to a guy who’s been named one of People’s One Hundred Most Beautiful People.”

  “He’s got issues, your fiancé. It’s not like I was named Sexiest Man Alive.”

  “Yet.” She let that sink in a second, but either he’d already considered the possibility or he was bored by the idea. His expression didn’t change. “You’re living in a dream world if you think your celebrity doesn’t intimidate nine out of ten of the people you meet. All I’m asking for is some discretion. I don’t need any paparazzi coming through Biscuit Creek stirring up trouble.”

  “As if I would ever talk about you. Real men don’t gossip. We just do the things other people like to gossip about.”

  “That’s my point. You and juicy stories go together like white on rice. You need to buy stock in the National Enquirer.”

  Harrison parked the car on the gravel drive in front of the house, slung an arm over the steering wheel, and turned to her. “Always worried about what the neighbors will think. That should be the Maybank motto.”

  True’s pulse ticked against her temples like bees against the inside of a Mason jar. “I don’t care what the neighbors think—”

  “Really?” His open collar revealed a tan neck. A smidgeon of dark golden hair. “That’s a new development.”

  “No, it’s not. If you’ll look back with some objectivity, you’d see that the reason I didn’t run off with you had to do with … common sense.”

  “Oh, yeah?”

  She let out a gusty sigh. “I was eighteen and college-bound. Surely now you see what a disaster hightailing it to Nashville with you would have been for me. And for you, too.”

  “I see it, all right.”

  “I’m done going over this. It’s old history.”

  “Believe you me, I’m not interested, either.” He finally caught sight of the house, tilted his head, and squinted.

  True’s defenses came up, as naturally as breathing. “It’s ten years older than last time you saw it,” she reminded him.

  “Yeah, but”—he hesitated—“it looks like hell, quite frankly.”

  “It’s old. Almost two hundred years old.” She pushed her hair off her face. “And we’ve been too busy to get it painted.”

  Harrison scoped out the surrounding fields, where nothing was happening other than two customers picking tomatoes down a row. “Look, a couple of those customers I could scare off.”

  “Don’t you dare.” Maybank Hall had two large fields dedicated to strawberries from late April to early June, blackberries and blueberries from late June to mid-July, tomatoes from mid-June to August, and from late September to late October, pumpkins.

  “So y’all have been too busy to work on the house? For ten years?”

  “I’ll admit it’s time to freshen the look. We will soon.” After True married Dubose. It was his wedding present to her, to restore Maybank Hall to its former glory. He’d wanted to start last year, but she refused to let him. It didn’t feel right when they weren’t married yet. She wasn’t taking a dime from him before they were married.

  Harrison sent her a sharp look. “Is something not right in the Maybank world, after all? Your family isn’t the type to let things slide. Or to let strangers hang around.”

  True shook her head. “Everything’s just great.”

  She tried not to notice the new gleam of interest in his eyes.

  “I don’t know,” he murmured. “You look a little desperate. That’s what’s new, what’s different about you. And you had that … that wei
rd thing happen at the airport.”

  “I am desperate.” She swallowed. “I-I’m wondering whether I picked the right florist for the wedding.” Let him think she was a nitpicky, shallow bride. The Bridezilla of Biscuit Creek.

  He wasn’t buying it. In fact, he was staring at her dress, Honey’s vintage Lilly Pulitzer, which True had pulled out of an old trunk. It was timeless. Classic. In pristine condition. It most definitely did not shout Hanging on by a thread.

  “You’ve been gone ten years,” she said. “Please get that I-know-you-better-than-you-know-yourself look off your face. Nothing is wrong. I’m getting married to a wonderful man—”

  “Yada, yada, yada.” Harrison dropped his fist on the edge of the steering wheel. “I don’t need to hear the Maybank party line. I asked you what’s wrong—something is—and you’re shutting me out. No surprise there.” He shrugged, his eyes locked onto the house. “You were right. We really have no business talking to each other.”

  She was trying to hold on to her patience, her good manners, and her hard-earned indifference to him. But it was difficult. Harrison wasn’t an easy man to ignore. Especially when he wanted to know—in the way that all ex-lovers were curious—how she was.

  She wanted to know the same about him.

  “We might as well talk.” She wished he’d look at her and not the house. “You’re here.”

  “I sure am.” His eyes roamed Maybank Hall’s buckled tin roof. Silver shone through the brick-red paint. And then there were the shutters, threadbare now, two of them hanging slightly askew on the second floor. “But I can’t promise to act like we’re BFFs if I see you around town.”

  “That’s the last thing I want,” True huffed, “you and me acting like BFFs.”

  His mouth quirked up. “I’m too rich and famous for that sort of thing. We celebrities tend to be hard-assed, if you want to know the truth. Sorry.”