The High Tide Club

“See there?” Varina said. “I knew she’d make things right. Didn’t I tell you?”

“I’ll believe it when I see it,” Felicia said. “Louette told me the state wants to make Josephine sell them all the rest of Talisa, for the state park. How’s she going to give twenty acres to our people with the state breathing down her neck? How would that work?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Brooke admitted. “I was just hired last week, and I haven’t had time to start my research. I can tell you that Josephine intends to fight the state to prevent them from taking her land. And in the meantime, she’d like to immediately begin the process of deeding over Oyster Bluff to the families who still live there.”

“About time,” Felicia said. “You know what she paid for my folks’ house over there? Did she tell you? If not, I will. She paid my widowed mother $1,500. For the house and more than an acre of land. I think Louette’s daddy got even less than that when he sold to her.”

“Now, Felicia, honey,” Varina said gently. “You know as well as I do those houses was in bad shape. Josephine fixed your mama’s house up real nice for her after your daddy passed. And Louette’s daddy, well, he was my cousin, and I don’t like to speak ill of the dead, but Gerald was bad to drink and didn’t care nothin’ about patching a leaky roof or painting a porch. That house of his wasn’t fit for chickens by the time he died.”

Felicia rolled her eyes but didn’t argue with her great-aunt.

Brooke sighed. “I can’t speak to the fairness of the real estate transactions. It’s my job, now, to get a list of the surviving Oyster Bluff families who sold their land to Josephine. My assistant can do some of that research in the courthouse, but it would be great if you and your aunt could give me names and addresses.”

“We can do that,” Felicia said. “Right, Auntie?”

“She’s really gonna give back Oyster Bluff?” Varina said. “All of it? The church too? The graveyard where my mama and daddy and brothers are buried?”

“Yes,” Brooke said. “All of it.”

“Praise Jesus,” Varina said. She dabbed at her eyes again and sniffed. “I guess we can go on home now, Felicia.”

Felicia stood up and helped the old woman from her chair. She looked around the room again. “Auntie, would you like to visit the bathroom before we get on the road back to Jacksonville?”

“That would be real nice.”

After she’d helped her aunt into the bathroom and closed the door, Felicia turned back to Brooke with a stern expression.

“I didn’t want to say anything more in front of my aunt, Ms. Trappnell, because she doesn’t like to ‘fuss,’ as she calls it, but I think it’s best you know who you’re dealing with here. My aunt is an amazing woman. First in her family to finish high school, and then to leave the island to take business classes and work for the railroad. You have no idea what an accomplishment that was in the forties, and in the Jim Crow South. She is the matriarch of this family, and she has been doing for others her whole life. But she still very much suffers from a plantation mentality. She’s grateful for whatever stale crumbs Josephine Warrick throws her way.”

Felicia crossed her arms over her chest. “But that’s not me. In case you’re interested, after I finished Emory, I got a master’s in American history and a PhD in African American studies at Northwestern, but I’m currently my aunt’s caregiver.”

“That’s very admirable of you, giving up a career for your great-aunt,” Brooke said.

“Please don’t patronize me,” Felicia said. “Auntie Vee is the one who did without to buy me a secondhand car to take to college. A month didn’t go by that I didn’t get a card with a little check in it from her. I didn’t give up my career. I’m teaching online classes through the University of North Florida and working on a book proposal. All of this is just to let you know—I don’t intend to let Josephine continue exploiting my aunt or the rest of my family.”

Brooke was startled by Felicia’s intensity. “I know it’s late in the day, but I honestly do believe Josephine wants to make things right by your aunt and by the others living at Oyster Bluff.”

“Do you know anything at all about my people? About the Geechee and how long we’ve lived on these coastal islands?” Felicia asked.

“Only a little,” Brooke admitted. “I know there was a plantation where Shellhaven now stands and that your ancestors were slaves who worked there.”

“Typical,” Felicia snapped.

They heard the toilet flush through the thin Sheetrock walls, and a moment later, Varina slowly emerged from the bathroom.

“All set?” she asked, smiling at her niece.

“Yes, ma’am,” Felicia said, taking her arm. She looked over at Brooke. “Do you have a business card or something? I’ll make some phone calls after I get her home, and then I’ll email you the names and addresses of the Oyster Bluff folks.”

“Any idea how many people we’re talking about? Like, maybe a ballpark figure?”

“My guess? Nine or ten families,” Felicia said.

Brooke fetched a card from her desk and offered it to her visitor, and at the same time, Varina Shaddix reached up and planted a kiss on Brooke’s cheek. “You tell Josephine I’m coming to see her real soon,” she whispered in Brooke’s ear. “You tell her I’ll be praying that demon cancer lets loose of her. Will you do that?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Brooke said. “I’ll let her know.”

16

Felicia Shaddix had hit on a matter that had been worrying Brooke ever since she’d changed her mind and decided to work for Josephine Warrick. The State of Georgia was, as her client said, circling like buzzards, trying to force Josephine to sell Shellhaven and the land surrounding it to add to the existing park on the other end of the island.

Brooke knew little to nothing about statutes pertaining to condemnation law. The good news was that she knew somebody who would be able to school her on the issues. The bad news was that he was a senior partner in her old Savannah law firm. And she hadn’t spoken to Gabe Wynant since the day she’d turned in her resignation letter four years ago.

He had actually been the one who’d hired her, been a mentor and a friend to her, and Brooke could still see the look of disappointment on his face the day she’d shown up, unannounced and dripping wet in his office doorway, to tell him she was quitting and leaving town.

The morning she’d quit, Brooke had to make three circles of the block around Calhoun Square, where the Farrell, Wynant offices were located, before finding a curbside parking space a block away. And of course, she’d left her umbrella at home. By the time she stepped into the office’s marble-floored reception area, she looked like a drowned rat.

“Gabe?”

He was sitting at his desk, his suit jacket draped over the back of his chair, his face still ruddy from having just showered and shaved in the bathroom adjoining his office.

“Brooke! My God, what happened to you?”

She gestured toward the bow window that looked out on the live oaks of the square. “Poor planning,” she said. Rain streamed down her face and her legs, leaving a puddle on the jewel-toned Oriental rug.