“I don’t think we’ve met,” she trilled, sounding all old south and hoopskirts. “I’m Violet.”
“Hi, I’m Annie.” I replied, handing Trip his drink. Her earthy green eyes blinked rapidly, and I could see the wheels behind them whirling like a pinwheel in a gale storm when she realized my name wasn’t actually ‘Angel.’ She took another sip, this one slightly longer than the first. In fact, it was more like a gulp.
“Annie. This is my ex-wife, Violet.” Trip’s explanation spewed from his lips like a bath tub faucet flipped on at full strength. I looked from Violet to Trip and knew my expression was significantly more composed than it would have been if Martin hadn’t just given me a head’s up.
“A pleasure to meet you.” I smiled my well-practiced customer service face.
“Likewise,” she managed between dazzling gritted teeth.
“So, are you ready for me yet?” I asked Trip, marking my territory swiftly and harshly. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Violet slump back against the padded pleather of the booth.
“Yes, I am. In fact, I came here to ask if you are available to go shopping on Saturday. Then I ran into Violet.”
“And I informed him that I’m engaged.” Violet cooed, toying with the umbrella in her drink and staring at Trip. Trip’s stunning eyes regarded her in a weird mix of disbelief and despondence. It was painfully obvious he was crestfallen. That was the moment I should have walked away, but we all love to tell ourselves all manner of lies, don’t we?
“Congrats.” I tilted my head toward her and plastered on a smile. She winked at me and lifted her glass in salute.
There was a moment of silence as Trip looked from Violet to me. The corner of his mouth twitched upward, and he spoke. “So? Saturday? ”
“It’s a date,” I replied. I’d already decided on the way to their table that being his rebound girl suited my needs perfectly. I was officially bored, and he was sex incarnate. Besides, I didn’t have time for anything serious anyway.
“Well, you’ll have to pick him up. He lost his license years ago. It’s a charming story. I’m sure he’d love to tell it to you.” Violet’s snarky remark was masked in the heavy perfume of magnolias. She gracefully removed herself from the booth and I realized I had several inches on her. I’m 5’7”, and though some women might have felt powerful in that scenario, I slouched to appear more feminine. She grinned up at me confidently, placing a French manicured hand on her shapely hip.
“Have fun, y’all. I’m sure you’ll love whatever he picks out, Annie. Reg has always had excellent taste.”
“Get up, you pussy,” Randall bellowed from around his mouth guard. I blinked wildly, trying to clear the stars from my vision. For the record: I’m fast. My footwork is way above average. And my former trainer, who was now in his mid-thirties, had just connected with a killer right hook, knocking me flat on my ass.
“Focus, Sammy.” He grabbed both sides of my sparring head gear with his gloved hands. His hard, dark eyes glared into mine. “Do not embarrass me, White Boy.”
He had every right to be pissed. Randall had several guys touring the gym today and had been talking me up earlier as one of his success stories. The rich white kid from Ardsley Park who’d won fight after fight, despite having a silver spoon shoved up his ass. And here I was, sitting on the mat, looking like a little bitch.
In my defense, I was completely stuffed and a little buzzed. I’d just gorged myself on a gourmet lunch, and I had no idea Randall was planning for me to perform an exhibition. Mama had lured both Trip and me to The Chatham Club. I hadn’t been to the club since coming back to town, and I was torn about going when she suggested it. The club was the one place besides his study that really reminded me of Daddy.
Daddy. Thinking about him still wrecked me. He’d always been the fun one…the life of the party everywhere he went. Trip had always been a lot like him, actually. My father had always been a joker, constantly laughing and making others laugh in return. And the Chatham Club was his favorite place to eat; he’d get as excited about their brunch as a little kid on his first visit to Disneyworld.
After a bit of private deliberation, I decided that if I was going to live in Savannah, I needed to face the club head on. Knowing Cosmo, she was scheming to fix one (or both) of us up with some well-bred ex-debutante, but she’d scheme Machiavellian-style whether I brunched or not, and a man has to eat.
It was a clear day, so the dining room’s panoramic windows offered an unencumbered view of Savannah’s famed historic district and the river. Seeing the river made me think of Annabelle, and I wondered if she’d ever speak to me again. I’d never seen anyone as angry as she’d been in the car when I’d wedged my foot squarely in my mouth. If looks could kill, Cosmo would have been burying my ass at sea. I’d gone way too far with what I’d said, and it was evident I’d leapt across some amorphous line of hers. I wasn’t sure if she held a grudge, but based on my single afternoon with her, she certainly seemed like the type. If by some sort of fluke Annabelle and Trip turned into something lasting, her hostility toward me was sure to make for some awkward family Christmases.
When the entrees arrived, Trip mentioned that he and Annie were going out to get a dress later that afternoon. Mama seemed peeved that I knew who he was referring to and demanded to know who this “Annie person” was and why she hadn’t yet met her. Meanwhile, I downed my whisky sour, reveling at the burn in my chest and belly. The mental image of Annie in a changing room in various stages of undress was mighty distracting. It irked me that I had given her a second thought. But now that I had, I found it impossible not to give her a third…and a fourth…
When it became evident that Annie’s family was of no importance and that Trip had no plans to introduce the two of them, Cosmo promptly changed the subject.
“Tell me, Son. Has Violet agreed to let you have Maisie for Halloween? I’ve found her the perfect costume.” Mama’s eyes sparkled youthfully when she spoke Trip’s daughter’s name. Though she’d never admit it, I have no doubt that Mama had always wished I’d been a girl. When Violet and Trip found out they were expecting a daughter, I swear Mama was transformed. For the first time in my life, she exuded an undeniably nurturing aura. She smiled more easily and laughed for the first time since we’d buried Daddy.
It was undeniably the “girl factor.” At long last, she had an excuse to buy frilly pink underwear and ostentatious dresses no toddler could actually play in. Little Maisie gave her purpose – a tiny blonde “sugar bean” that she could spoil rotten. Maisie was instrumental to keeping Cosmo relevant in Trip’s life, and she knew it all too well.
I watched as Trip’s features clouded over. The subject of his daughter obviously troubled him. His answer was brief.
“Yep.”
“You don’t look very pleased about it,” I chimed in and Trip’s frazzled eyes met mine.
“She’s letting me have her for the entire weekend.” He stated with the solemnness of a prison guard at an execution. I wondered if he was up for having a three-year-old for two hours, much less two days.
“Why, Trip! That’s marvelous news!” Cosmo gushed. Trip’s eyes narrowed. He gave her a cool sideways glance, and his expression shifted to one of grandiose distaste.
Considering Trip had always been Cosmo’s favorite, his responses to her were downright frigid, even compared to my own. My brother had always been generous to a fault, notorious in his drinking days for buying rounds for the house to the tune of thousands of dollars in one night. The fact that Mama had been hocking antiques from the family estate spoke volumes about Trip’s lack of financial assistance to her.
I pondered the mystery of their falling out as I slowly chewed my Kobe beef. When Trip had turned twenty-five, he’d been granted total access to his trust fund. Since before Daddy died, he’d had the means to set Mama up for life in the style she was accustomed to without making a dent in his fortune. Yet as far as I knew, he hadn’t given her a dime. Earlier that morning, he’d
made it clear on the phone that the only reason he’d come to lunch with her was because I would be there.
Their current lack of relationship absolutely perplexed me. They’d always been close when we were growing up. In fact, I’d kind of been jealous of the all attention and adoration she gave him. My earliest childhood memories all involved some sort of Tripapalooza with Mama fawning all over him. Not long before Daddy died, things eroded between Trip and Mama. I always wondered if it was some kooky Oedipus thing since he was marrying Violet, but Cosmo liked Vi, so it didn’t really add up.
Come to think of it, I always sensed that Trip was also Daddy’s favorite. It seemed like he took him everywhere he went. I tell myself it was because Trip was five years older than me, but that could just be my adult mind glossing over the facts. Even my nanny, Athena, noticed that neither of my parents had much interest in me. She always let me tag along with her; I can only assume this was because she felt sorry for me. That’s how I ended up meeting Randall. Athena’s son was a boxer at his gym. Of course, Hard Knocks was Randall’s father’s gym back then, but Randall was already an assistant trainer. I can still recall the fascination I had at the antique steam heat radiators and the rank smell of determination emanating from the place. The rhythmic sound of fists beating against heavy bags had me entranced before I’d even seen my first fight.
Mama was appalled when I asked to train as a boxer, but Daddy quickly countered that “colored kids using me as a punching bag” would help me to become “a real man.” When Cosmo realized this was not just a passing fancy of mine, she finally conceded. Even at the tender age of eleven, I could be exceptionally persuasive when properly motivated. I knew I would never have Trip’s artistic talent, nor would I break his state record in the four hundred meter hurdles. So instead of trying, I chose to blaze my own trail.
“How is Violet these days?” Memories of my lonely childhood fanned my envy, so I intentionally pressed my thumb into the open wound Vi had left in our family. Both Mama and Trip trained sharp blue eyes on me.
“She’s well. Engaged to a banker from Charleston. They’re announcing it in a couple of weeks.” Trip stared down at the table and spoke as if the words tasted like curdled milk on his tongue. Cosmo placed an impeccably manicured hand to her chest, and her expertly painted eyes bugged out, giving her a cartoonish appearance.
“So I suppose she thinks she’s just going to uproot Maisie and move to Charleston?” Though Mama’s question sounded legit, her expression already seemed to be calculating her next move on the chessboard.
“No, Mama. She’s going to leave Maisie behind… in a closet. With a bag of Doritos.” I shook my head snidely, downed the rest of my drink, and waved my empty glass at the waiter. Cosmo shot me an icy scowl, but I watched her expression morph to one of shock as she gaped over my shoulder. Her lips parted in surprise. and it was as if she’d completely forgotten what we’d been discussing. Unable to resist, I shifted in my seat to see who or what had struck my verbose mother speechless.
At the table behind me sat a Heisman trophy winner, a big hulk of a black man. At first, I thought Mama was being racist (a black in our club not carrying a tray? God forbid!), and I was ready to wring her wrinkled neck. Then my eyes were drawn to a dashing older gentleman that seemed to be holding court at the same table. He wore navy Armani that nearly matched his shrewd eyes and contrasted dramatically with his salt and pepper hair. There were two men hovering behind him who could have passed for secret service. The man’s confident mannerisms demanded my focus, and it took me a full minute to even notice he was also dining with the mayor of Savannah and the owner of the local paper. He simply outshone all of them. It occurred to me that I’d seen him somewhere before (he’d be pretty damned hard to forget), but I just couldn’t place him. He wore a wry smile and regarded my mother in a familiar, almost filthy manner that immediately got under my skin.
“Who the hell is that?” I scoffed, turning back to her. She had paled visibly, and this alarmed me. Cosmo is a ball- breaking hard ass and usually pretty unflappable. My instinct was to grab her by the arm and drag her the hell out of there. I turned to Trip for moral support and saw that he looked worse than Mama did. He stared fixedly at his lap, drained of color and trembling.
Mama seemed to find her voice. “Who?”
“The skeevy guy in the navy suit.”
“Sebastian Wakefield,” Mama practically whispered his name, and her voice sounded like it was coming from miles away. “He was your father’s business partner.”
I shot Trip a curious glance. He looked at me grimly; the skin around his mouth looked almost gray, and he packed his cigarettes with visibly shaking hands. A moment later, he shot to his feet and mumbled something about meeting us outside. As he passed their table, Mr. Wakefield shot a knowing smile at Trip, but Trip didn’t even look in his direction. I looked on as Trip tore out of the main dining area and noticed with surprise that Wakefield was now focusing on me, but his smile had vanished. He nodded at me thoughtfully, and I turned back to Mama, perplexed.
“Business partner? In which company?” The Beaumonts were major shareholders in companies all over the southeast United States when my father was my age. Unfortunately, it was common knowledge that my father had no head for business and never grew the family fortune like his father before him. Thankfully, he hadn’t lost his shirt; he’d just let the dynasty become a bit dusty and stagnant.
“He served on several of the board of directors. He and your Daddy were fraternity brothers. He sold his shares and moved west years ago.”
I swirled the ice in my glass thoughtfully. “He looks familiar.”
“He comes back to Savannah from time to time.” Her eyes flitted back in Mr. Wakefield’s direction, and something about her expression made me feel like a Peeping Tom. This time, I opted not to look over my shoulder.
So it wasn’t much of a leap to say I was distracted by my family’s bizarre behavior and a little under the influence when Randall and I were putting on our exhibition.
“Are you drunk?” Randall demanded once the others were gone and we were headed into the locker room. He frowned at me disapprovingly and folded his monstrous arms across his chest. I knew I’d better explain myself, or he’d promptly kick my ass as only a best friend can.
“I had a couple of sours at lunch,” I blurted.
“At lunch? Okay, Trip Junior. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“It’s not like that, Randall.” My overall exasperation at being judged had reached an all-time high.
“Oh yeah? What is it like, exactly? Dropping out of school…couch surfing at your mom’s…drinking hard liquor during the day! They teach you that shit at Harvard, Sam?” Randall’s brown cheeks had a red under glow to them. His fury was obvious, and I had no plausible explanation for my out of character lackadaisical behavior. I felt my shoulders sag, and I stopped mid-act while unlacing my shoe.
“I don’t know what I’m doing.” I confessed, staring at the cracked cement floor.
“Well that much is painfully obvious. You need to get a grip, Beaumont.” Randall pontificated. When I didn’t argue or even respond, his tone and volume softened. “Maybe you should apply to a law school closer to home…”
“No. I’m done. I don’t have the stomach for that kind of life.” Randall and I had already discussed school until I was blue in the face. When I set out for Harvard, I’d intended to honor Daddy’s wishes and specialize in corporate law. Even though he paid little attention to me in my youth, when I shone on the debate team and later graduated valedictorian, he started bragging about me to his cronies. He claimed I was “a shark” and often compared me to his father. It sounds pathetic now, but back then I took great pride in the comparison to the original Reginald Beaumont, who’d been single handedly responsible for doubling the family’s net worth. So I’d had designs on working for the family corporation, but I soon found I had no appetite for screwing people over. I discovered that studying econom
ic torts made me loathe my legacy. Regardless of my family name, I had no desire to follow in the footsteps of slave owners who’d once cornered the market on cotton. The more law school I experienced, the more obvious it was that Harvard and I were through. With all my apprehension and uncertainty about where I was headed, that was one fact I was certain about.
Seeming to comprehend just how lost I was, Randall appeared momentarily sympathetic, but that expression disappeared just as quickly. “Well then, what’s next? Are you gonna just sit around and sip high balls all day on your yacht with your brother?”
“Trip quit drinking.” The words tumbled out of my mouth, and I was shocked at how defensive I sounded. It seemed I was still capable of sticking up for Trip, and that surprised the shit out of me. I knew Randall was onto something, though, and it stung.
“Good for him. So are you auditioning for the vacant role of town drunk?” His fierce eyes dared me to argue, but we both knew he wasn’t wrong. I had been acting pretty foolish, and the whole booze thing was a slippery slope. Time to nip it in the bud, hard and fast
“Alright, alright. Enough. Message received, asshole.” I glowered at him, and he seemed satisfied – at least temporarily – with my response.
“So what the hell have you been doing with your time? ‘Cause I know you ain’t been working out.” He took a seat next to me on the bench. He was a couple of inches shorter than I, but damn! That dude is big! And even now that I was a grown man, his attitude made him seem large than life.
“Not a lot. I met a girl…but she’s into Trip.”
“Jesus. Not again. Can’t he find his own dates?” His snarky backdoor reference to Violet made me laugh.
“Nice. No, this time I’m the one who’s late to the party. Her name’s Annabelle. She really hot, but she’s a royal pain in the ass. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t think much of me, anyway.” I stood and kicked off my shoes.
Crazy Love Page 6
