Chapter 13 #3
“Now it’s believed the concept of boiled peanuts originated in Africa,” Nash continues, “but they took hold in the South due to the fact the crop was—and still is—grown so abundantly here. There are even records of Civil War soldiers cooking peanuts over a fire with salt when food was scarce, especially in the later years of the war.”
He holds up a peanut, pops the shell open with his teeth, and scrapes the nuts out before displaying the empty shell between his fingers.
His token grin is steady on his lips. “Can’t beat it.
” He takes a sip from his beer. “Or that.” He lifts the glass toward the group.
“Cheers. I’ll be around if you have any questions. Enjoy.”
Because this world is a cruel place, he approaches our table first.
“Y’all having a good time?” he asks, leaning a hip against the edge of our table.
The familiarity of his voice at this proximity scrapes over the curves of my bones. I sink down in my chair and take him in through my sunglasses.
Same strong jaw.
Same straight nose.
The hand wrapped around his beer still looks like it knows its way around a . . . history book.
I clear my throat while Cap sizes Nash up like a real dad.
Cap asks, “You know a lot about the city?”
“Much as I can,” Nash says easily before taking a sip of his beer. “Been here about three years now, but there’s a lot of secrets in these old streets.”
Three years? I glanced at the postcards long enough to get angry but didn’t study them like a timeline. Three years is a lifetime in Nash years. Borderline fantastical.
Cap grunts. “You ever go anywhere you ain’t supposed to?”
I take a hefty sip of my beer, hiding as much of myself as I can under the rim of my hat.
“Maybe when I was younger,” Nash says with a chuckle. “But I try not to. City is a pain in the ass about that stuff.”
That is a shockingly responsible answer from the man who once spent a summer convincing me to break nearly every trespassing law in Fontain for the sake of taking our clothes off.
Cap grunts again, and I down the rest of my beer and shove four peanuts in my mouth at once. They’re warm, seasoned, and perfectly spicy. I’d love them if I wasn’t panic face-stuffing.
“You married?” Cap asks, glancing at me with an annoying smile. “My daughter here’s too shy to ask.”
I choke—fully choke. Severe enough Nash sets his beer down like he’s about to try to help me.
“She’s fine,” Cap says without really knowing. “She gets like this. Excitable little thing.”
I wave in agreement, cough subsiding as I pluck half of the shells out of my mouth and force myself to swallow the rest whole.
“I’m flattered,” Nash says, eyeing me as I wipe my half-hidden face. “But I am married.”
What?
“Oh really?” Cap probes. “What’s she like?”
Before Nash can respond—I would have loved to have heard that one—a man from another table pulls him away with a call of his name.
I glare at Cap. “What the hell, Cap?”
“Dad,” he corrects.
Through gritted teeth: “What the hell, Dad?”
“Seeing if he’s up for it.”
“By asking him if he’s married?” I say in a harsh whisper. “Stop it. I’ll talk to him when I know how.”
He takes a sip of his beer. “What kind of husband don’t you know how to talk to?”
I put another peanut in my mouth, this time allowing myself to eat it like a civilized human. “The kind that I thought I’d never see again.”
“Says he’s still married.”
“Well—” I don’t know why I’m so damn flustered and out of control. “He is. We are.” I told everyone he’s dead and he easily admits he’s married; I cannot make sense of that. Maybe he is married to someone else. I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. “It’s complicated.”
By the time we’re walking again, the alcohol from the too-tiny beer hits me just enough to settle three of my nerves.
As Nash talks us through a row of houses every shade of a watercolored rainbow, a few old churches, and government buildings, I relent to the heat and shed my flannel and tie it around my waist. I’m instantly cooled when the breeze licks my skin.
We turn from a commercialized street of shops and restaurants into a residential neighborhood and pause briefly in front of a gate with swords on it.
Nash is smiling as he tells a story making everyone laugh then we’re walking again.
I’d admire the architecture and well-preserved historical details of the city if it wasn’t Nash—Nash—describing them.
We walk nearly a block before stopping again.
“Here we have 64 Legare Street, built in 1860 right before the start of the Civil War.” Nash gestures to a vine-covered stone wall that borders a half-hidden yard, teeming with bushy magnolia trees.
In the middle of the lot sits a large Victorian two-story yellow house with black shutters.
It’s beautiful. “While this house was fully renovated years ago, it’s retained some very typical features you’ll see on many historic Charleston homes.
We have a privacy door on the piazza—the side porch where many people would sit in these hot afternoons because it gets such a nice breeze.
” He gestures toward the porch door, which is closed.
In a stage whisper he adds, “I like to think people on the other side of that door are in their birthday suits cooling down with a cold beer.”
A murmured wave of chuckles ripples through the group.
“Now the color of the piazza’s ceiling is that light shade of blue you’ll see throughout the city called haint blue.
The word haint comes from the Gullah community, which is a culture that developed in the Lowcountry from the enslaved population here.
The color is said to ward off ghosts, and you’ll see it on porch ceilings, doors, and even entire houses. ”
While a woman in the front asks a question about the paint and prompts Nash to talk about the indigo plantations that once filled the area, the swoony bachelorette in front of me whispers loudly to her friend, “We should see if getting him in his birthday suit could be arranged.”
They giggle and my hackles raise. I have half a mind to tell her to stop looking at my husband.
Cap’s cane thwacks against my arm.
“Ow.” I push the obscene mermaid away. “What was that for?”
“I said ask if he knows who Anson Burns is.”
“Ask him?” I look at Nash at the front of the crowd, talking about the house at hand. “Now?”
“Now.”
“I was thinking af—”
“Now,” Cap barks. “Or I’m not telling you what I know.”
I glare at him; he’s not bluffing. Damn this man.
“Excuse me. Nash,” I call. “Sorry to interrupt, but I have a question.”
Nash stills, turns his head toward me, then pulls the sunglasses from his face.