Souvenir

And while he wasn’t so young and romantic as to believe that Val was his soul mate, the one woman he was meant to be with, the woman he’d waited his whole life for, etcetera, he thought they made a pretty good couple. She kept him distracted and entertained. She was sweet and affectionate, and fun in bed. She was beautiful, in a tomboyish way. And she loved him. It was enough; it had to be.

That evening, Carson and his father, James, walked the fence line of the McKay citrus farm, checking for rotted posts. James, a sturdy, upright sixty-five-year-old with still-dark hair, was gradually replacing the old wooden posts with steel in the steady, conservative manner with which he did everything. The McKays’ was one of the fortunate Ocala-area farms that by luck of diligent grove management and the two small, warm lakes within their groves, lost only a few trees when the freeze of ’89 put so many growers out of business. If it had gone otherwise – if the groves were lost and had to be replanted, as so many had – Carson never would’ve left to pursue his music. Instead, he’d have stayed to replant, rebuild the business. It was funny how things turned out, how you couldn’t predict where luck would land or which kind it would be when it did.

Post-checking was only an excuse, he knew, for his dad to get him alone. As an only child, he’d forged a strong, close bond with both his parents, one that had helped see him through what they all referred to as ‘those years’, and which told him, now, that something other than fence posts was on his dad’s mind. But he knew not to rush the matter, and so he ambled along at his dad’s side through the calf-high grass, appreciating the peace layered all around him: rosy sky, soft breeze stirring the nearby lemon-tree leaves, a trio of horses gamboling across the way on pasture land that had until recently belonged to Spencer and Anna Powell.

‘I see the new people have things up and running over there,’ he said, pointing toward the horses.

His dad stopped walking and looked that way. ‘They do. Kind of strange to see the place active again, after so long.’

‘How long has it been?’

‘What? Since there were thoroughbreds over there?’

‘Yeah,’ Carson nodded. He couldn’t remember, having lived away from here for more than fifteen years, now.

‘Oh, maybe a decade, maybe more. Around the time Julianne married that Canadian fella and moved up to Quebec.’

Carson recalled hearing about it. Meg’s youngest sister, only seventeen at the time, got pregnant just before her senior year and married the father, a college student from Quebec who’d been visiting relatives for the summer. He got the news by phone while he was touring with his first band and wondered, then, how different things might’ve gone for him if he’d accidentally gotten Meg pregnant. She would’ve had to stick with him and try to make a life together, would’ve seen that there was nothing to fear about being so much in love – if that was her real reason for breaking up.

He never did quite buy that excuse, though. He figured she’d fallen for Hamilton, was seduced by the money and just didn’t want to admit it. And that morning before her wedding, all she wanted was a fling for old time’s sake. One last toss with the guy she’d thought was such a good lover but wasn’t worth marrying – he didn’t have money, after all, didn’t have what looked like a life of luxury ahead of him, not then. He’d been nothing but a shit-kicker, a grower’s kid who intended to be a grower himself. He couldn’t compete with Brian Hamilton, couldn’t give her the life she apparently wanted.

‘Carson?’

‘Oh, sorry, just lost in thought.’ Well, whatever, he thought; water under the bridge.

His dad went on, ‘After the youngest left, Spencer sold off the last of his stock and stuck to just boarding. I never did know why.’

‘Maybe he just got tired of failing. God knows he couldn’t seem to make any money breeding.’

‘That’s the truth,’ his dad said. ‘And I wondered about that, about just what was working for Spencer. Because time was when all the talk was on him sliding into bankruptcy and foreclosure – he was overextended everyplace around.’

‘I remember,’ Carson said.

‘But something turned around for him, and I found out just what when I was over to the co-op last week,’ his dad said, turning to continue their walk. ‘Dave Zimmerman pulls me aside. He says, “Hey, what do you know about Spencer Powell?” And I say, “Well, we been neighbors for thirty-some years, till about two weeks ago.” And Dave says, “Then you probably know all about the business with the money.”’

‘What business?’ Carson asked, more to be polite than because he cared.

‘Well, that’s what I said.’ Cause I never heard anything – but you know, I don’t, always; Spencer never let on about the details of things, and I got better things to do than hang around the co-op and gossip like them retired guys. So Dave tells me, “This is all in confidence – I trust you, Jim, not to get me in trouble,” and he starts telling me about the sale of the farm there. Seems that Dave’s wife – you remember Linda, she’s the real estate lawyer – made out a pretty sizeable check when she was putting together all the paperwork – $387,000, which was a little more’n a third of what Spencer got for the place.’

‘So I guess he found some way to borrow against the farm, and that solved his problems.’

‘You’d think. But that’s the funny thing. He didn’t have any sort of mortgage. Hadn’t, according to the title record, since ’89.’

‘Okay … he owed for something else,’ Carson said, curbing his impatience.

‘Nope. No record on his credit of any debt that size – or so says Dave. But get this: the check was made out to Bruce Hamilton personally.’

So, Carson thought, this was what their walk was all about. Something was going on between Meg’s father and father-in-law, and his dad hadn’t wanted to bring it up around Val, believing that anything Megrelated might yet be a touchy subject. It felt a little ridiculous, his dad still trying to protect his feelings about that long-ago trouble; he was done with it, moving past, moving on. To prove it, he would talk about Meg plainly, show that the topic wasn’t worth tip-toeing around.

‘This money stuff ’s not so hard to figure – do you think?’ he said. ‘After Meg married Brian, they must’ve lent Spencer the money to pay the mortgage off the books, you know? A friendly loan between in-laws.’

His dad nodded, one eyebrow raised slightly in what Carson knew was silent acknowledgement of this shift in Meg-related communication. ‘Sure, maybe, but it’s hard to imagine that kind of generosity – Hamilton giving over the title of the land and no guarantee Spencer’d ever pay it back. I mean, we’re talking Spencer Powell here.’

Carson pushed his hand through his hair. Why did they have to keep at this, anyway? Not that he’d admit it after his show of bravado, but all this talk was raising his hackles in a way he couldn’t explain. He said, ‘I bet it just amounts to some shady bookwork on Hamilton’s part – wouldn’t surprise me any.’

His dad nodded. ‘Maybe so. But if that’s the case, I wonder why Spencer paid it back like he did, in a regular check made out to Hamilton personally. That’s a big chunk of income to get all at once – Hamilton’ll get hit hard on his taxes, and it might flag an IRS audit.’

‘Maybe Spencer wasn’t thinking about that, or figured it’s not his problem,’ Carson said.

‘Maybe. I can’t help wondering, though, why Spencer’d pay it back at all, if he didn’t have to.’ His dad scratched his cheek and looked over at the horses, still puzzled by the behavior of a man who’d once been a close friend.

Carson tried to ignore the prod that said there was more to this money thing than what he and his dad could suss out. He was ready to be done with the subject for good.

He said, ‘You know, I always figured Meg married Hamilton for his money, and now it’s obvious Spencer got good mileage out of it, too. I don’t know what’s up with all that, but none of it really matters, does it? I mean, what any of them did or do hasn’t been our business for a long time. And we have better stuff to think about, don’t we?’ He put his hands on his dad’s shoulders and smiled. ‘For example, getting you fitted for a tux.’

FIFTEEN

‘Good job,’ Ms Henry said Wednesday, handing Savannah her graded world history test. The score, in purple ink at the top right corner, read 104 – an A+, short only one of the possible five extra-credit points.

Savannah looked over at Rachel’s test. ‘Eighty-two,’ Rachel said, holding up the paper. ‘Your fault, for not letting me come over and study with you.’

‘Your fault, for not studying enough on your own.’

Rachel, dressed today in a tight yellow shirt that made her look chubby – which she was, a little – scooted her chair closer to the aisle and leaned toward Savannah to whisper, ‘When are you going to tell me who was keeping you so busy last night that I couldn’t even bribe you with peanut-butter cup ice cream?’

It had been a good offer; Savannah was usually glad to hang out with Rachel, and she loved that flavor of ice cream, one of many foods they never kept in her own house because her dad was severely allergic to peanuts in addition to dogs. But she had something else more important to do: finalizing her plans for Miami. ‘It’s not just a “who”,’ she whispered back. ‘It’s a “what” too. And I can’t tell you yet – but I will, I promise.’ At the very last minute, so there’d be no chance of Rachel leaking the plan and screwing things up. Well-meaning as Rachel might be, she was too close to her sister, Angela. While Angela could usually be trusted on small stuff, something like this might bring out her righteous-older-sister side. Savannah couldn’t take that risk.

‘Okay, fine,’ Rachel said, leaning back. ‘Whatever.’

Caitlin Janecke, the most spoiled of all the spoiled girls Savannah knew, said from the desk at Savannah’s left, ‘What’s her problem? Is she pissed about her grade?’

Savannah looked at Caitlin’s pink cashmere-blend shirt and belted khaki Hollister shorts, the matching pink ribbon in her perfect blond hair; Caitlin was perfect down to her slim tanned legs and calfskin boaters. No, Savannah wanted to say, she didn’t want to believe you gave blow jobs to three different guys last weekend – a story that had come from a reliable source: Caitlin’s sister Riley, a freshman in Savannah’s gym class. Riley, by contrast, had been at the same party but done it to only one guy, she said, and ‘Ohmigod, it was the most awful, bizarre thing you could imagine!’ As slutty as the sisters’ actions seemed, Savannah wished Riley had elaborated just a little more.

Now was not the time to get into any of it, so she just nodded and said, ‘She didn’t study.’

‘Did you?’

Savannah lifted one shoulder. ‘Not really.’

‘God. My parents make me study every night, and I only got a ninety-one. Must be nice to be so brainy.’ The compliment, even delivered so grudgingly, surprised Savannah.

‘I guess,’ she said, suddenly chagrined. Maybe Caitlin wasn’t so bad … and having someone so popular envy her out loud pleased her. Brainy was okay, brainy was good – better than her usual tag of ‘hippie girl’, usually delivered with a sneer as though she was smelly and unwashed. This school, filled by girls whose parents had too much money, was made for Caitlin clones. As great a prep school as the place was, originality, unless it was in the pursuit of the finer arts like painting or classical composition, was not so welcome here.

And she still had two more years to endure. If she could somehow make things work out with Kyle – eventually she’d have to confess her true age and hope he’d stick with her – the time would be much more enjoyable.

She liked to think that in addition to being brainy, she was also strong on organization and determination. When she came up to a roadblock, she didn’t turn back; she found a way around it. Ever since she was a toddler, this had been true about her. One of the stories her Grandma Shelly liked to tell all her rich friends was of how Savannah once escaped from her parlor, which was gated off to adjoining rooms, while she, Shelly, had gone to the bathroom. ‘I came back – not two minutes later, you understand – and Savannah was gone. Just disappeared from the room! I looked under the furniture, behind it, all around the house, thinking she could’ve climbed over one of the gates. But no! The child had pushed out a screen and gone out through the window! I finally saw her on the patio, where she had a chair pulled up to the fountain so she could reach the water – she was soaking wet and giggling, pleased as punch!’ Her grandma used this story to show how much Savannah was like her dad, and maybe in some ways she was: results-oriented, single-minded – but she would use her powers for good, not evil, that was how she thought of it.

She packed up her world history textbook and her binder, wondering what her grandma, and the rest of the family, would think if they knew how she was making the Miami trip work; her mom should do a better job of hiding her credit cards. By the time the bill came, she’d have a good excuse to give if she got caught – but more importantly, even if she was caught, she’d have already been to Miami with Kyle.

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