“Our first taste of this lovely city is for the tea drinkers,” Nash says, stopping at a small café. At the Charleston Teahouse, he cracks open the door and waves, letting the staff know we’ve arrived. “Not to brag,” he says to us, “but as a little bit of an expert on the matter, the Teahouse makes the best London Fog in the city”—I freeze—“using tea grown right here in the Lowcountry of South Carolina.”
The worst is not over; the sailing is not smooth.
A barista appears with a tray of tiny cups, doling them out to each of us as Nash starts talking about the year the building was built and the earthquake it survived. I stare at the cup in my hand like it’s a live bomb. Like at any second, shrapnel of Earl Grey tea leaves, sweetened frothed milk, and vanilla will explode all over me. I refuse to taste it. Refuse to acknowledge the fact that the first one he had in his life was with me in Fontain.
“It’ll change your life,”I promised with a cheeky grin.
He kissed my temple then said against my skin,“Not sure if lightning can strike twice in this town, Rue Conway, but let’s see it.”
“Never had one of these,” Cap says, the tiny cup looking doll-sized in his big, weathered hands. “Be better with rum.”
He chuckles, and I’m once again reeling, pushing the wheelchair like a drunk NASCAR driver as my untouched London Fog spills out of the cup and burns my hand. There’s an alley up ahead; I crane my neck to see where it goes. If I take it, it might loop us back to my car so I can come up with plan B. Or C. Or D. One that doesn’t involve Nash. One that involves me re-mailing the divorce papers like Jonathan suggested and solvingthis gold mystery without ever having to talk to him. I’ll figure out another way to convince my mom to have the surgery and Bennie never has to know the truth. I will take my lie to the grave and then into the fiery pits of hell where my soul will be damned for all eternity.
“Will you take it easy?” Cap shouts as I jostle him around a palm tree packed with oyster shells at its base. “You sure you’re not in love with him? You’re driving this damn thing like a damn criminal running from the damn cops.”
“Sorry.” I force myself to slow down, realizing I passed the alley exit.Shit. “I was thinking about the gold.” I toss my now empty cup into a trash can and wipe my hand on my flannel. “And he’s infuriating.”
“He didn’t even do anything,” Cap argues.
Like a scolded child, I stick my tongue out at the back of his captain’s hat. “Then maybe you should make him call you dad.”
He swats my words away with a hand in the air and a grunt, quiet a minute before asking, “What’s your kid’s name?”
“Bennie.” This at least makes me smile. At the next historic stop, I pull a picture up on my phone. “Bennie Francine.”
Cap studies the photo then gives me a long look as he hands the phone back. “She looks like him.”
He says it like he’s talking about the weather. Like it’s raining, and he’s said it’s raining, and he’s waiting for me to agree about what a deluge of rain there is. I want to whack him over the head with his cane.
“Shhh,” I hush. “I can’t hear.”
Nash points to a stone pineapple that looks more like a pinecone, saying something about hospitality before making a joke about our ears popping because we’ve reached the highest point in the city at some number of inches above sea level. Nothing he’s spewing registers in my brain as I look at him.Him. Nash. Telling stories like he used to all those years ago.
Even if the air wasn’t thick enough to cut with a knife and I wasn’t buttoned up in a flannel body bag, I’d be sweating.
A horse-drawn buggy clods down the street and pauses next to us,Chucktown Wagon Tourswritten in an elegant script on the side. The blond woman standing at the front holding the reins smiles wide at Nash, clicking her tongue at the horse before saying to the people in the wagon, “For those of y’all who prefer wearing yourselves out on vacation, Mr. Fletcher here’s the man for the job.”
Nash chuckles and gestures to the woman. “Folks, don’t listen to Miss Emma, she’s leaving out the snacks and drinks you’d miss out on.” He blows into his harmonica, and it lifts the hair on the back of my neck. “And live entertainment.”
“Hope y’all brought your earplugs.” Emma’s smile widens as she gently slaps the reins. “See you later, Nashy.”
HerNashymakes me pause—that’s a term of endearment if there ever was one.
But it’s his response of “I’m sure you will” that turns my spine to stone. They know each other beyond passing through these historic streets. Intimately.
Good for them—great even. He should be with someone. I’m with someone. I love someone. I love someone so much I’m marrying them.
I wonder if he loves her,I think.
Only I don’t think it, I say it, because Cap says, “Thought he was infuriating?”
“He is.” I clear my throat, watching the buggy—mostly Emma—the entire time they clod away. She’s spewing facts and smiling, and the people in the carriage laugh. Her skin is dewy from the humidity in a way that makes her cute and my mortal enemy. “I feel bad for her is all. She must not realize what he is yet.”
I wonder how they met and how long they’ve been together.
A poke at the rim of my hat and a crotchety “We going?” drags my attention away from her.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
