The High Tide Club
Ruth was right.
“Should we do something?” I asked. “Maybe try to distract him?”
“And how would we do that?” Ruth’s dark green eyes crinkled in amusement. “Strip naked? Faint at his feet? Offer him some cake?”
“Or another flask of whiskey. I’ve got a better idea, though. You could ask him to dance.”
“You ask him. You’re the hostess.”
“Should I?” My stomach did a little flip. Russell Strickland had always been perfectly polite to me, but there was something intimidating about him. And not just his football-player size. Everything about him was outsized and intense.
“Never mind now. The song’s almost over. I think you and I should warn Millie…”
But it was too late. The music had ended, and Russell was steaming across the room, shouldering his way through the throng of partygoers until he’d reached the spot where Millie was standing.
She’d been talking to Gardiner, her cheeks pink with excitement. A moment later, Russell clamped his hand around her bare upper arm. She turned, and her eyes widened in surprise. Russell said something to Gardiner, who took a step backward, shaking his head in disgust.
The next moment, Russell was towing Millie toward the ballroom door, not really holding her hand but nearly dragging her. Luckily, most of our other guests didn’t notice. The music started again, and Ruth and I stood rooted to the spot where we’d been standing.
“Should we do something?” I asked. “Should we tell my father?”
Ruth thought about it, then shrugged. “Maybe not. It would just make Russell madder. And he’d probably take it out on poor Millie and spoil your wonderful engagement party.”
“Poor Millie,” I whispered.
* * *
“Are you going to help me or not?”
“I want to help you,” Brooke said. “But I’m still not clear on what you think I can accomplish. Besides, you never finished telling me about these friends of yours. Or how you plan to make amends with them.”
“I certainly did,” Josephine snapped. “I told you about Millie. And Ruth. And Varina.”
“You told me that Varina is still living and that your friend Millie was my grandmother,” Brooke said. “But what about Ruth? And why do you need to make amends with these women?”
“Oh.” Josephine looked down at the Chihuahuas, who were dozing on her lap. “Sometimes I do get a little forgetful. And sleepy.”
Brooke laughed. “Sometimes I dream of sleeping ’til noon. My son creeps into my room two or three times a night. I don’t think I’ve gotten more than four uninterrupted hours of sleep since he was born.”
“Why don’t you just lock him in his room? Or lock your own door, for that matter?”
Brooke tried not to show her shock. “You’re joking, right? Lock a three-year-old in his room? What if there was a fire? Or he really needed me in the middle of the night?”
“Oh, well, I didn’t think of that,” Josephine said with a shrug. “That’s why Preiss and I never had children of our own. I don’t think I would have made a good mother.”
Brooke silently agreed with that assessment. “Anyway, it’s time for Henry to transition to a big-boy bed. Maybe then he’ll let me sleep in peace.”
“Is Henry a family name?”
“Yes. He’s named for my grandfather. Millie’s husband. I suppose you knew him too?”
“I regret now that I never met him. But Ruth said he was a good man, and I heard he was good to Millie.”
“Mama was only sixteen when he died, and she was devastated. I think he was much older than Granny,” Brooke said.
“I believe that’s what I heard.” Josephine nodded. “Thank goodness he left Millie well fixed. You know, Millie’s father—he’d be your great-grandfather—lost everything in the crash of ’29. If it hadn’t been for her grandparents, they would have been penniless.”
Brooke gazed at the pin fastened to Josephine’s chest. “I’m a little confused. Earlier, you said my grandmother had those pins made for her bridesmaids. But you just told me you never met my grandfather.”
Josephine ran a bony finger over the pin. “Millie was engaged to someone else. His name was Russell … something.” She looked up at Brooke. “Can you believe I’ve forgotten his last name? That’s the wedding I was to have been in. But it never came off. Later, Millie married your Henry. Ruth said he was very distinguished. Some type of educator, I believe?”
“He was an English professor at Kenyon College, in Ohio,” Brooke said. “His first wife died in one of the influenza epidemics, and Mama said he’d been a widower for years before he met Granny at a party in Boston. They got married a month later. Can you imagine doing that now?”
“Quite the whirlwind courtship,” Josephine said, her tone acerbic. “But dear Ruth said the wedding was a lovely, intimate affair.”
“You were going to tell me more about Ruth,” Brooke prompted.
“She had the loveliest red curls,” Josephine said. “And a temper to go along with them. A spitfire, we called her. But she had a tender heart. And she was such an animal lover. She’d find an abandoned kitten behind the dining hall at school and rescue it. Sneak it into our room, feed it milk with a medicine dropper. She hated any kind of injustice, hated cruelty. Ruth was a crusader.”
“Whatever happened to her?”
Josephine shrugged. “We … had a disagreement. I suppose it came to a head with the ’72 election. Ruth despised Nixon. She was what Preiss called a limousine liberal. Came by it honestly. Her mother was a suffragette.”
Brooke shrugged. “Was that so awful? She sounds pretty amazing to me.”
“You wouldn’t understand,” Josephine said. “It was a different time. Ruth was so … preachy. So damn certain about everything. Now? I see that our quarrel was silly. She and Millie were wonderful friends. We were like sisters. Closer than sisters.”
“I know what you mean about missing your oldest friends,” Brooke said wistfully. “My best friend, back in Savannah? Holly? She was Harris’s sister.”
“The man you jilted,” Josephine said.
“She was supposed to be my maid of honor. But I ran away the night of the bachelorette party,” Brooke confessed. “I was scared and confused. Afterward, I was too ashamed of the way I’d acted to reach out and apologize. It’s been nearly four years, and we still haven’t spoken.”
“Foolish pride,” Josephine said, shaking her head. “Foolish, foolish pride.”
7
“So, Ruth and Millie. They were your best friends from boarding school? What about Varina, the woman you mentioned yesterday?” Brooke asked.
“Ah, Varina. Of course she didn’t go to school with us. She was black! And much younger than we were. Only fourteen. Her father was Geechee, and her family worked for my father here on the island. Do you know about the Geechees?”
“They’re the descendants of slaves, right? From the Gullah tribe in West Africa? Who stayed here on the coast of Georgia after the Civil War and emancipation?”
“That’s right. Harley—he was Varina’s father—was a Shaddix. The little church graveyard at Oyster Bluff is full of Shaddix headstones. Harley’s people were slaves who worked at the plantation that once stood right where Shellhaven now stands. Harley and his wife, Sally, came to work for my papa before he’d even finished building this house. Poor Sally, she was from the mainland, and I don’t think she ever got used to living over here. Sally died, leaving Harley to raise their four children. Varina was still a baby, and the only girl.”