He was not amused by that.?
“Well, back to what I was offering,” he said, snapping me out of my thoughts. “At least let me help pay for the funeral and the leftover hospital bills. You can’t do everything on your own, you know.”?
I leaned back and looked around the bar. We were so young when we came here. I was twelve, and Charlie was thirteen—Irish twins, my mother always called us. She was an O’Malley, one of the original Irish families in Savannah that forged a union of strong Irish immigrants called the Hibernian Society that helped put on the very first St. Patrick’s Day parade in Savannah back in 1824.?
Over one hundred years later, an O’Malley stood in front of the very building on McDonough Street that Charlie and I sat in and scooped it up, putting in a pub and a meeting space on the first floor and a two-bedroom apartment on the second floor. My momma and Uncle Cole grew up right above the very same bar Charlie and I grew up in, but Momma never wanted it that way.?
After Momma met Daddy at the University of Georgia, they moved intoa small beachside condo on Tybee Island before opening their own coffee shop and bookstore. The two things they were good at. Momma loved making drinks, no matter what kind, and Daddy loved stories.?They loved each other so much that they blended their dreams into something amazing, a true reflection of their bond.
Charlie and I adored spending our weekends at the bookshop. In the off season, when the tourists went back up North and left the island to the natives, we’d cozy up by the fire, sipping on Momma’s famous hot chocolate and listening to one of Daddy’s wild made up stories about the ghosts of Bonaventure Cemetery.?
Sometimes, in the warmer months, we’d all pile in the car and head into the city to do some shopping and get some ice cream at Leopold’s, waiting in line with the scores of tourists, pretending we were from somewhere else other than right down the road.?
We’d sit laughing on a bench in Forsyth Park waiting for my Uncle Cole to join us, and he’d always show up with cocktails to-go for the adults and Shirley Temples for us kids to sip on while we picnicked in the perfect Savannah sun. Then, we’d head on back to our quiet, beachside town, Charlie and I dreaming about moving to the big city someday.?
We just didn’t know it would be so soon.?
Momma and Daddy went on a dinner-date for their anniversary the summer I turned twelve, just before the start of seventh grade. They never came home. According to the police officer that scooped us up in the middle of the night, alongside a children’s welfare worker, a drunk driver flew through a red light and wrecked their car. And their lives.?
And ours.?
Momma always said that there weren’t a lot of O’Malleys left in the world. Most had moved away—moved on from Savannah and those days of big parties that spilled out into the squares at all hours of the night. And with Daddy having no family of his own, losing his own parents when he was in college, Momma held on tight to her brother Cole.?
So that night, when everything changed for Charlie and me, we had to hold on tight to Uncle Cole, too.?
“It doesn’t have to be the worst bar in Savannah anymore, you know?” Charlie rose from his chair and slid behind the bar, pouring us a couple of bourbons. His neat, mine on the rocks. “I mean, you’re a member of the Daughters ofSavannah Civic Society now, right? Can’t you get them to throw a charity event here or something?”?
I picked up the pile of papers in front of me and fanned myself. Lord, it was hot in that bar, but I wouldn’t dare turn on the air conditioning. Nothing like the start of fall in the south, crisp autumn air a distant dream and lingering, endless heat creeping all around.?
“First of all, I was lucky to even be granted access to their elusive girls’ club. If I wasn’t an O’Malley and I wasn’t a business owner now, they wouldn’t have even given me an invitation. Dane probably pulled a few strings anyway.”?
“Speaking of pretty boy, when does he arrive from Atlanta to whisk you off your feet again?”?
I rolled my eyes. “Tonight, actually. I’m hungry. Can we go up and order a pizza? I can’t look at this anymore. I’m getting cross-eyed.”?
We took our bourbon and padded up the staircase that led from the back of the bar, and what used to be Uncle Cole’s bedroom, to my second-floor apartment. When we were kids, we were convinced the bar was haunted by the ghost of drunken Irishmen and we’d run up the winding steps as fast as we could, getting our long, gangly legs wrapped around themselves and whacking our heads and limbs off the old wooden stairs.?Now, the dark hallway was a welcome reprise from the sweltering heat of the hot, sticky barroom.?
While Charlie ordered, I changed into a less-sweaty tank top and flumped down on my bed to check my email and go through my usual rounds of what my best friend, Sutton, called my stalking sessions. While I didn’t maintain social media for myself, I did have accounts for the bar on all platforms since Uncle Cole made me a manager right around the time social media came into full swing. And while I didn’t exactly follow a lot of people, I still had access to the search bar, which sometimes was a bad, bad thing.?
In the middle of scrolling, very delicately, through Instagram as to not accidentally “heart” something, Charlie hollered from the kitchen that the pizza had arrived.?
“What were you doing in there?” he asked, as he settled down on a chair. My cat, Pickle, promptly jumped on his lap and swatted at his face. “Good Lord, I hate this stupid cat,” he yelped, tossing a pepperoni on the floor for her to snack on so she would leave him alone.?
“Everyone loves Pickle. She’s possessed with the spirit of a dead antiquarian, after all.”?
Charlie sighed in exasperation, taking a bottle of sweaty coke from the table and pouring it over our half-drank bourbons.?
“Speaking of things we don’t talk about—ever—Eunice Wilder told me you were coordinating the flowers for her big birthday bash. How very charitable of you. And, might I add, unlike you.”?
I shoved a slice of pizza in my mouth so I didn’t cuss at my own brother. Eunice Wilder, Archon of the Daughters of Savannah Civic Society, had been a huge part of mine and Charlie’s life since we arrived in Savannah. She took us under her wing and filled in the gaps that Uncle Cole couldn’t fill on his own, try as he might.?
Through a cheese-filled grin, I turned to my brother and said, “Why wouldn’t I help? She’s done so much for us.”?
Pickle had finished her pepperoni and was now pouncing sideways at my brother like a predator, haunches up and hissing for more food.?
Charlie made a disgusted face at me, swallowing his own bite. “Please chew your food. For someone who has been to more galas than I’ve been on dates, you’re still a damned animal. Anyway, so back to this party, you’re going, right? Or are you just doing the flowers?”
My sister Spidey senses went off, and I locked eyes with my brother over the table.?
