Page 33 of The High Tide Club
“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 aPhD 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 herumbrella 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.
He stood, went into his bathroom, and came back with a thick, white monogrammed bath towel. “Here, see if this will help.”
She toweled off her hair, made a half-hearted attempt to mop up the worst of the water, then draped the towel over her shoulders.
“Sit,” he said, gesturing toward one of the leather wingback chairs facing his desk. “Unless you want to go home and change first. I’m sure whatever it is can wait.”
“No,” she’d said quietly. “I’m afraid if I leave now, I’ll lose my nerve.”
