Page 28 of The High Tide Club
There was a light tapping at her office door. A moment later, it swung open, and a black woman in her midthirties stepped inside. “Come on in, Auntie,” she said, grasping the arm of a tiny white-haired woman with a walker.
“Hi,” Brooke said, standing. “I’m Brooke Trappnell. Can I help you?”
“This is a nice office,” the elderly woman said, looking around. “You reckon this is the right place?” She gave Brooke a warm smile. “We’re looking for a lady lawyer.”
“I’m a lady lawyer,” Brooke said.
“See, Auntie Vee? It is her.”
“Wait,” Brooke said, startled. “Auntie Vee. Is your aunt Varina Shaddix?”
“That’s right. And I’m her great-niece Felicia Shaddix. My aunt’s cousin Louette called this week and said you might be in contact. We were coming up from Jacksonville today anyway, to see about a headstone for my great-uncle, and I just decided to drop in and see what you wanted with my aunt.”
“This is great,” Brooke said, still surprised. She pulled two chairs up to her desk. “Won’t you sit down? I’m glad Louette called, although I wasn’t aware Josephine had let her know I was looking for your aunt.”
Felicia Shaddix got her aunt seated and then sat down in the other chair. She was tall and willowy, with short-cropped hair that had been peroxided nearly white. Her skin was a shade darker than her aunt’s. Half a dozen gold-and-ivory bangle bracelets jangled from her left wrist. Her dark, almond-shaped eyes were outlined with kohl, and she wore a form-fitting black tank top, white jeans, and cork-soled gold sandals.
“What’s that old bird want from my aunt now?” Felicia said, crossing her legs.
Brooke found herself momentarily at a loss for words. Had she told Louette she wanted to contact Varina—and her niece? Had Josephine Warrick asked Louette to reach out to the two women?
“Um,” she said, stalling. “I didn’t know Louette was related to your great-aunt.”
Felicia gave a wave of her jangling wrist. “Everybody who ever lived at Oyster Bluff is somehow related to everybody else. Except Shug, of course, and he married into the family.”
“Right.” Brooke took a deep breath. “I’m sorry. You really did take me by surprise. I spoke to Josephine last week about trying to track you and your aunt down. In fact, that was my plan for today. And now you’ve showed up.”
“Josephine wasn’t very nice to us last time, was she?” Varina said, looking from Felicia to Brooke. Her skin was surprisingly smooth for a woman in her nineties, Brooke thought. Varina Shaddix seemed swallowed up in the wooden office chair. She wore a neatly pressed pink floral cotton dress, loosely belted at the waist, of a style Brooke hadn’t seen since her own grandmother was alive, with pin tucks on the button-front bodice. Varina had undoubtedly made the dress herself. A large white patent-leather pocketbook dangled from herbony wrist. Her rubber-soled, white lace-up shoes were spotless, and her snowy white hair was parted down the middle, braided in a series of cornrows, and fastened with pink plastic barrettes. A tiny silver cross nested in the hollow of her throat, and a pearl brooch was pinned to the collar of her dress.
“Josephine was Josephine,” Felicia said, shrugging. “She’s only nice when she wants something from you, Auntie Vee.” Now she turned again to Brooke. “So what is it she wants this time, and why now?”
“She’s been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer,” Brooke said. “And she wants to make amends with her oldest friends and their heirs. She’s hired me to try to make that happen.”
“Make things right how?”
Brooke sighed. “Nothing is in writing yet, but as you know, Josephine has no living heirs. She wants to leave Talisa, and Shellhaven, to her friends and their heirs. And that includes your great-aunt.”
“What’s that?” Varina leaned in.
“Josephine is dying,” Felicia said loudly. She sat back in her chair and crossed her arms defiantly over her chest. “Serves her right, for all the things she and her family did to all of us. Now she wants to make things right by you, Auntie Vee.”
Varina blinked rapidly. “Is that right?” she asked, her voice quavering, eyes welling up with tears. “Josephine is dying?”
14
October 1941
Just as fast as Varina finished washing a load of plates and glasses in the big kitchen at Shellhaven, one of the waiters who’d been brought in special for the party from Atlanta toted in a tray with another load of dirty dishes. She had been standing at the big cast-iron sink for three hours with her arms plunged up to her elbows in soapy water, and still it seemed the dishes kept coming.
The back door was propped open with a big electric fan, but it barely made a dent in the heat of the kitchen. It might be October in the rest of the world, but summer lingered on in this part of the Georgia coast. Sweat dripped down her face and her back. Her calves ached.
Whenever the swinging door from the butler’s pantry opened, she could hear the strains of music coming from the ballroom. At one point in the evening, she’d been allowed to put on a frilly white apron and take a tray of sandwiches and drinks out to the men in the orchestra while they took a break from playing, but other than that, she’d been cooped up right here in this kitchen.
The ballroom was so crowded she hadn’t even seen her friends, but that was just as well, considering how ugly she looked.
She had a brand-new dress store-bought, special for the party, that Josephine had given her. It was her first grown-up dress, a light pinky-orange color with beautiful embroidery and no baby-looking puffy sleeves or silly bows or sashes like her mama used to make her wear. She had almost-new shoes too, which Ruth had brought her, all the way from Boston.
They were pink. Pink shoes! With sassy ankle straps that fastened with rhinestone buckles. Rhinestones! And a little heel, and they were as far from her scuffed-up hand-me-down brown leather brogans as a pair of shoes could be. They looked just like the shoes in the fashion magazines Millie brought her every time she came to the island, and they were almost too perfect to wear.
