“You want me to come with you?” Tami Lynn calls after her, her curiosity piqued. Employed with the local paper, the perfect disguise for her inherent nosy personality. Savannah waves her off, making her way to the front.
Jack paces in the lobby, the intern eyeing him nervously, wishing he would take a seat as prompted. Savannah reads the angst in his body language as she walks through the door to the open waiting area.
“Jack,” she greets him, her low vocal tone brimming with caution, her body language now on guard.
“Were you jogging with some big son of a bitch? At Hutchinson Island yesterday?” He interrogates, stepping closer to her, his voice strained and hushed.
Savannah looks to the intern, giving her an uneasy smile, attempting to mediate her concern. Wrapping her hand around Jack’s elbow, she quickly leads him toward the elevator.
“I was at the station. On an overtime shift. Smith,” he refers to a fellow firefighter by his last name, “said he saw you and some jock all smiles, chumming it up over a run.”
Savannah coaxes him inside the elevator, her finger mashing against the ground floor button, thankful they have the big metal box to themselves. “And you felt the need to come all the way down here to ask me that?” she finally responds. “What about your shift?”
“I left. Told Captain I was feeling sick,” he sputters. “I am. Sick to my stomach with the thought. What are you doing, Savannah?”
Ding!
The elevator stops on the ground level. Savannah pulls him off the ride, extending forced nods and greetings to familiar faces they pass on the way out the front door.
“Who is he? Where did you meet him? Is that why you signed the divorce papers? Because of
him?”
Jack continues.
Savannah drags him out the door and to the side of the building, away from foot traffic. “Jack, you cannot do this. You can’t come to my work, all amped up, firing away twenty questions. Would you want me to do that? To you? At the station?”
“Well, at least I might think you care,” he says.
“So, this is your way of
caring?”
“Who is he, Savannah?” Jack continues with a one-track mind.
“He’s a friend, Jack. You know all about
friends,
don’t you.” She folds her arms defiantly over her chest.
“Back to the phone calls,” he bites flippantly.
“Yep,” she pipes. “Speaking of which, seems you couldn’t wait to leave my house the other night to call her up.” Savannah references his immediate and lengthy phone call to one of those infamous numbers that continues to receive his undivided attention on their phone bill. “You giving her the blow by blow, Jack? If you’re going for the sympathy angle, let me give you a little tip. Women don’t care to hear about other women. You’ve got seven days to get your own phone account,” she adds, the last of their joint bills that needs tending.
“Fuck!” He slaps the side of the brick building with his hand, quickly pulling it away, shaking the appendage to relieve the pain.
“Go ahead,” she says, her tone calm and detached. “You want your hand to end up like your foot?” She references a past argument where he kicked a tree, resulting in his foot finding its new home inside a boot cast for six weeks. “Or your phone?” she continues. “How many phones have you been through in the past year?” Seemingly one of his recently acquired venting mechanisms, slamming his phone against the ground.
“Savannah, don’t patronize me.” He paces the sidewalk. “At least I care, which is more than I can say for you.”
“Then why are you here? If I am so uncaring, unloving…incapable of giving you want you want, then you should be jumping for joy that we are divorced. Go. Go find what you want. Who you want.” She throws her arms out to her sides.
“I’m never going to find anyone like you. Don’t you get that?” He stops pacing, facing her. “I didn’t want any of this.” He speaks to his resistance to the separation, divorce.
“I didn’t
want
it either, Jack,” her voice softens. “It’s just sometimes what we want and what we need are two different things.”
“I told you, you never really needed me. I knew it,” he deflects yet again. “You’re going to go on, just fine. You’ll be great.” He kicks at a pebble on the sidewalk. “My life sucks.”
Savannah huffs, the inside of her palm slapping lightly against her forehead. “And here we go,” she says. “You’ve been saying that now for the past three years. If your life sucks and you’re married to me, what message am I supposed to take away from that?”
“I don’t know,” he answers sarcastically. “How about sticking with me. Hanging in there. Seeing it through. That’s what you do when you get married, Savannah.”
She chuckles, the action completely opposite of the contempt in her voice. “Why didn’t I think of that,” she spars. “What do you call the last three years, Jack? You weren’t open to therapy. I can’t make you have a better outlook on life. I can’t make you change the way you perceive and react to things. The only thing I can control is me and my reaction. I’m done. I’ve had it up to here.” She throws her hand up over her head.
“You know I have a lot of issues. My childhood. My parents’ divorce. Anybody I’ve ever loved has walked out on me, Savannah. I never thought you’d be in that category.”
She shrugs her shoulders, quieting the urge to point out his exhausting poor-pitiful-me focus. “I’m sorry you feel that way. I’m sorry I’ve hurt you, really, I am. I don’t know what else to say.” She pauses. “I mean, the only thing I know, if you don’t like where you’re at in your life, it’s up to you to change it. I want you to be happy, Jack.”
“Have you told your family? Your mom? Your sisters? About the divorce.” He asks, knowing they all like him and treat him as one of their own. “Bet they’re not too
happy
about it,” he bites on her word.
“No, they’re not,” she says. “I don’t think divorce is something people get elated about.”
“What about the kids? Vangie’s kids…Zoey and Luka.”
“You’ll always be Uncle Jack to them. You can see them anytime you want. Vangie and Payton.” She smiles with the mention, hoping Jack’s friendship with Vangie’s husband will give him something to look forward to. “Payton will still expect to see you for the monthly poker game, nights out with the boys, golfing tournaments. All the good stuff. You and I, our status doesn’t change any of that.”
“What about your mama?” he continues, still playing the family card, hoping it’s enough to guilt her into changing her mind.
“You’re always welcome at Mama’s.” She drops her chin to her chest, remorsefully. “Mama was really hoping we could work things out.” Returning her eyes to his, Savannah persists, “She’ll always consider you her son-in-law. And she told me to be sure to tell you, ‘Don’t be a stranger.’ You’re still part of the family, Jack.”
“Just not
yours,”
he says. She refrains from saying anything. “What about Jac?” he questions, knowing her eldest sister is very protective of her.
“You might have to give her a little time, but she’ll come around.”
“Oh, so you told her about the phone calls…to other women?” he deduces, knowing Savannah and Jac have no secrets. “Why’d you have to go and tell her about that?”
“You can tell whatever you like to whomever you like, but I can’t confide in my sister?” she says, her anger resurfacing with the thought of the onslaught of questions she’s received from firefighter wives. “I know what you tell all the guys, Jack. The reason why we’re divorced. Because I want to ‘screw around with other men,’” she quotes his usual story.
“That’s the truth, Savannah. The way I see it,” he says adamantly.
“Did you tell them you’ve been calling other women? Doing whatever it is you’re doing with other women?” She challenges, finding herself caught up in their usual, revolving, regular circus-fare conversation.
“Well, no,” he huffs.
“Of course not.” She chuckles. “Say whatever you have to say. Whatever makes you feel good, Jack. Put it all on me, if you like. That’s fine.” She shakes her head. “This is ridiculous. We can’t keep doing this.” Savannah tires of their constant tit-for-tat approach, rehashing and arguing over the past. She eyes her wristwatch. “I have to get back inside.”
“I know,” he begins, blaming, “be a shame if your personal life got in the way of your precious work.” She ignores his goading. “So who is this guy? Is it serious?” he returns to his initial reason for paying her a visit.
“If we’re ever going to move on and establish some semblance of a friendship, I don’t think we even need to go there, Jack. It was good to see you.” She turns to walk away.
“Savannah,” he calls, causing her to turn back around, now standing a few feet from him. “I hope it is serious. I hope you fall head over heels in love with this guy, and he doesn’t love you back. Then you’ll know how it feels.” His expression laced with hurt and resentment.
Fighting off tears at the backs of her eyes with the realization of just how much she must have hurt this man for him to wish the same on her, Savannah clears her throat. “I’m sorry you feel that way, Jack. I wish you nothing but happiness. Really, I do.” She makes her way back inside the building.
Chapter Six
Sunday afternoon at the home of Elizabeth “Buffy” Bondurant, Savannah and her sisters help their mother prune and tend her immaculate backyard. The three sisters, perched on their hands and knees, pull weeds from rosebushes. Luka and Zoey busy themselves with play in the tree house above nestled in a sprawling live oak.
Jac wears a white t-shirt tucked into skater shorts, her short, wispy platinum blonde hair is spiked in the front, the ends tinted a deep purple, a diamond stud implanted into the side of her petite nose. If one didn’t know any better, they might mistake her for the rebellious rocker
Pink,
her voice and attitude a dead ringer. Beside her, Savannah wears workout gear, a tank top and running shorts from an earlier physical excursion. Her long dirty blonde hair in low braids, a do-rag wrapped about her crown. Vangie, on the other side of Savannah, wears a vibrant yellow sundress, her dark brunette locks pulled into a ponytail at the base of her matching wide-brimmed yellow sun hat.
Their mother, Buffy, with a full head of Paula Deen-esque silver hair, stands behind them. In her gardening gear—khaki-colored capris, a long-sleeved white blouse and her Crocs—she supervises her daughters. Savannah grows edgy as Jack Bondurant takes up the majority of their conversation.
“You did tell him he’s still welcome here, didn’t you?” Buffy asks.
“Yes Mama. I told him,” Savannah answers, her tone frustrated, wondering how it is she is supposed to move on when her mother feels the need to hold on.
“I just don’t want him to think we’ve deserted him,” Buffy says. “Shame you two couldn’t work things out.” The Bondurant matriarch knows nothing of and does not condone divorce, having been married to their father for thirty-plus years prior to his untimely passing.
“Payton invited him over for poker last night with the boys. But he never showed up. Didn’t even answer his phone,” Vangie adds. “Texted Payton back and said he had a date.” She looks at Savannah, awaiting her response, which does not come. “That doesn’t bother you?”
“No, Vangie. It doesn’t bother me.” Savannah stops pulling weeds and runs her forearm across her cheeks, mopping from them beads of perspiration. “I hope he had a good time. Might give him something else to concentrate on.”
“What do you mean?” Jac asks, growing defensive. “Has he been bothering you?”
“Not really,” Savannah sidesteps the truth. “He came by my work the other day. And he calls regularly, every night,” she bites, the constant calling verging on harassment.
“To see if you’re home,” Jac reasons, shaking her head.
“The poor dear,” Buffy sighs.
“Poor nothing, Mama,” Jac snaps. “You need to quit answering your phone,” she scolds Savannah. “And he needs to get a life. Move on.” Jac wings another wad of weeds over her shoulder. “And Mama, you need to get a yard-boy.”
“A yard-boy?” Buffy ponders.
“Yes,” Jac answers. “Preferably a hot one.” She throws her arm out in the direction of the next-door neighbor. “You know like Widow McKettrick’s pool-boy.” Savannah and Vangie chuckle.
“You mean that young man who services her pool while she and her friends sit around the sun deck, sipping mint juleps and ogling?” Buffy retorts.
“Exactly!” Jac says. “And don’t kid yourself, Mama. Her pool is not the only thing he’s
servicing.”
“Jacqueline Bondurant, you hush your mouth,” Buffy scolds, the corners of her lips forming into a grin.
“We could hold auditions,” Vangie joins in the banter, her imagination fully engaged with the idea of a hunky male casting call.
“Yeah, we’ll have Savannah hang a wanted poster at that gym she goes to.” Jac elbows Savannah. “So what’s the scoop on
gym boy?”
“He has a name, Jac. It’s Brody.” Savannah dodges her question.
“I didn’t ask for his name. Have you talked to him? Went out again?” Jac continues.
“No.” Savannah pulls her gloves from her hands, tightening her do-rag. “He called and invited me to dinner.”
“And you turned him down, because you didn’t want to hurt Jack’s feelings,” Jac comes to her own conclusion, knowing her little sister better than she knows herself at times. “He had a date Saturday night. At least that’s what he told Payton. Savannah, I’m telling you, if you continue to let Jack play with your head, he will.”
“Jack’s going out on dates. You’re running and talking with some other man,” Buffy begins. “You kids move fast these days. In my day, you at least waited for the sheets to cool off.” She fans herself, the Georgia sun high in the afternoon sky. “It’s inappropriate, Savannah.”
“According to who?” Jac contends. “You propose she take your lead and let five years of her life waste away before dating again?” Jac mentions her mother’s resistance to leaving the house, much less dating, since their father’s death.
“Jac,” Vangie scolds.
“It sure is sweltering, this heat. You girls must be parched,” Buffy deflects. “I’ll go get us some tea.” She makes her way into the house.