The High Tide Club
“Fine. I’ll tell the dean it’s an emergency, and I’ll tell my aunt’s hairdresser it’s an emergency too, see if she’ll fit her in on Thursday afternoon instead.”
“Thanks so much,” Brooke said.
* * *
Her own mother was the last piece of the puzzle, and a surprisingly hard sell.
“Friday? Oh no. That’s out of the question,” Marie said. “I have a committee meeting on Friday morning. I was going to tell you tonight. I’ll have to head home to Savannah on Thursday.”
“Mom, I really, really need you to meet with Josephine and those other women Friday on the island. I’ve been through hell getting everybody’s schedules lined up. I didn’t expect it would be a problem with you.”
“Sweetie, I’m sorry, but this is my Fresh Air Home board meeting. We’re going through the applications for the children for summer camp. I really can’t miss it.”
“Mommmm.” Brooke knew she sounded like a petulant teenager, but she couldn’t help herself. “You’re the chairman of the committee, so can’t you just make an executive decision and reschedule? Those women don’t have jobs or day care to figure out.”
“Are you saying my friends and I are just idle, rich ladies who lunch?” Marie asked.
Damn it, Brooke thought. She’d bungled that one badly.
“No, not at all. I know how much good work you and your friends do and how hard you work at it,” Brooke said hastily. “But couldn’t you let your cochair run the meeting? Please, Mom? For me?”
“Well, if it really means that much, I’ll do it for you, but not for her. This seems like a lot of fuss,” Marie complained. “I don’t mean to second-guess you, Brooke, but how do you even know Josephine really and truly means to leave the island to a bunch of strangers? It’s just so unbelievably odd. Are you sure this isn’t some ploy, just to get attention or sympathy?”
“It had better not be,” Brooke said.
23
Gabe Wynant was dressed for his Wednesday morning meeting with Josephine Warrick in what was apparently his idea of island casual—white button-down oxford cloth shirt (sans necktie), pressed khakis, and navy-blue blazer, accessorized by Topsiders (sans socks) and a briefcase. Brooke didn’t have the heart to tell him that Shellhaven didn’t have air-conditioning.
“Who’s this?” C. D. asked Brooke as the two boarded the boat.
“Gabe Wynant,” the visitor said, extending a hand in greeting.
C. D. reluctantly shook hands. “C. D. Anthony. You got a business card?”
Being the Southern gentleman he was, Gabe produced a thick velum card and handed it to the boatman.
“Another lawyer?” He raised one bushy eyebrow.
“How are you today, C. D.?” Brooke asked.
“Same as ever. Bursitis, arthritis, and gastritis. Them VA doctors are all a bunch of quacks, if you ask me.”
Gabe started to offer his condolences, but Brooke gave him a warning shake of her head to telegraph Do not engage.
* * *
“I haven’t been over to Talisa probably since the eighties, when it was included on one of the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation’s rambles,” Gabe said as they puttered slowly through the marina’s no-wake zone. “At the time, the house wasn’t open for tours. I’ve always been fascinated with the place.”
“It’s pretty much a living time capsule,” Brooke said. “Josephine has tried to keep everything the same as it was at the time of her husband’s death.”
“When did he die?”
“Sometime in the sixties, I think.” She glanced at C. D., whose back was turned to them. “The house and grounds are in pretty sad shape. Unfortunately, she doesn’t have the manpower to keep up with all the needed maintenance. Even in its current condition, you can tell it was once pretty magnificent.”
“I’m looking forward to seeing it. And, of course, to working with the lady of the house,” Gabe said.
“You might change your mind about that once you actually meet her,” C. D. said. He’d turned around and was facing them now, ready to insert himself into their conversation.
Brooke frowned and shot her colleague the Do not engage look again, which Gabe cheerfully ignored.
“Why’s that?”
“Just sayin’. She’s a tough old bird. Stingy as hell.”
“Why do you stay?” Gabe asked. “I mean, if she’s as bad as you say.”
“I’m seventy-six years old. I got a bad leg and some might say a bad attitude. I ask you, who else is gonna hire me and give me a place to live, sorry as it is?”
“Exactly,” Brooke said. She pointedly turned toward the bow of the boat, leaving her back to the boat’s captain and effectively ending the conversation.
* * *
When C. D. pulled the boat alongside the dock at Shellhaven, the same little boy was stationed at the end of the dock, waiting. “Hey, C. D.,” the boy called.
“Gimme a hand with the bowline, will ya, Lionel?” C. D. tossed him the bowline, and the kid knotted it around a cleat.
“You take me for a motorcycle ride?” Lionel asked eagerly.
“Maybe later,” C. D. said, nodding at his departing passengers.
It was Louette, and not her husband, who was waiting for them at the dock this time. She was driving a vehicle Brooke hadn’t seen before, a gleaming aqua-and-white four-door Chrysler with the exaggerated tailfins of a fifties muscle car.
Brooke gamely climbed into the backseat of the car and introduced Gabe Wynant. “Where’s Shug today?” she asked.
“He’s up on the roof, trying to patch another hole,” Louette said. “Silly me, I never did learn how to drive a stick shift, which is why I had to come fetch you in Nellybelle.” She gave the turquoise vinyl dashboard a fond pat.
“My dad had a Chrysler like this, only his was brown and cream,” Gabe said. “I can’t believe this thing still runs.”
“Shug likes to tinker with Miss Josephine’s cars when he has the time,” Louette explained. “This is one of his favorites.”
“There are others?” Gabe asked.
“Oh, sure. The barn is full of ’em. She don’t like to get rid of anything, especially if it had something to do with Mr. Preiss. Let’s see, there’s the Cadillac he bought her after they first got married. I guess it’s from the fifties, like this. And there’s her daddy’s old Packard. I don’t know how old that thing is. Shug can’t find parts for it no more. The oldest car, the roadster, is one that belonged to her brother, Gardiner, the one who was killed in the war.”
Gabe gestured at the cars parked nearby. “Is this some kind of junkyard?”
“Looks like it, don’t it? No, this is where island folks leave their cars when they’re going across to the mainland. We just leave the keys in ’em, in case somebody needs a ride somewhere,” Louette said.
“And nobody worries about car theft?” Gabe asked.
“Who’d steal any of this mess?” Louette scoffed. “Anyway, it’s an island. How far is somebody gonna get in a stolen car?”
“How’s Josephine feeling today?” Brooke asked.
“She says she feels fine, but I know she didn’t sleep much last night. I heard her get up two or three times in the night.”