Prologue #2
Lee gave my hand a few squeezes, practically dragging me down the hallway.
“Jim Williams was the biggest collector of antiques and fine art in all of Savannah. He threw the most wild parties around Christmas time. I heard my parents would always come home trippin’ over themselves trying to get in the house after one of his galas. ”
I poked my head around a corner into what I assumed was once a grand dining room—and possibly my death at a very young and tragic age.
There were painter’s drapes covering most of the furniture and ladders lining the walls.
I figured it must have been part of the restoration Eunice Wilder was part of.
We reached the front of the house and turned a corner into a formal sitting area. A low rumbling sound filled the room—a humming that buzzed in my ears and vibrated through to my bones. My whole body shook with fear. Lee gripped my hand, but I could feel him quivering, too.
“W-what’s that noise?” Charlie finally said, stammering over his words like the big baby I knew he was. I moved in closer to Lee, and Charlie waved the flashlight around the room, landing on different varieties of beheaded and stuffed wild game.
“Stop, it’s like a strobe light, and it’s making me sick,” I said, trying to let my eyes focus on the room around me.
The noise grew louder as we made our way through the sitting rooms toward the back of the house. Just as we reached what Lee said used to be Jim’s smoking room—where we’d first entered—a painter’s tarp suddenly rose up with a howl and flung its ghostly form straight at Charlie’s head.
“It’s the ghost of Jim Williams’s lover!
Get out!” Charlie screamed before creaming into me, arms flailing, knocking me back into a couch and running off with the flashlight.
The whole room was plunged into darkness, and I froze with fear, trying to stay as quiet as possible to not upset the spirits, or to let Lee know that I was an absolute chicken on the verge of tears.
I felt movement around me and stayed very, very still, until it made contact with me. I fought back the urge to shriek and throw punches into the air, but judging by the size of the entity, I wasn’t in much danger.
The mischievous ghost, now purring loudly and licking my knuckles, settled onto my lap. After turning in a few circles, she curled up into a ball, using me as her mattress.
“It’s a… cat,” I stammered when I was finally able to get my breathing back on some sort of normal pattern.
“Maggie, are you okay?” Lee’s voice sounded like it was coming from the floor.
“I’m fine. Where are you?” The cat, annoyed by my talking, shoved its head under my hand, demanding to be petted.
“I think I’m under a table.” A loud thud and a few cuss words confirmed this as he cracked his head twice off what sounded like a hard piece of mahogany. “Are you okay?” he asked again, as he crawled across the floor to the sound of my voice.
I giggled. “I’m fine. I think I’ve adopted a cat, though. It won’t stop kissing me.”
He had made his way up off the floor and onto the couch next to me.
“My momma said that sometimes strays make their way into the house from time to time. She likes you.” I could feel his smile in the dark, and our hands met while we took turns rubbing the top of her head.
Each time it happened, my breath caught in my throat.
“What do you say we go get those pralines now?” he finally said, breaking the silence and snapping me back to reality.
“What about Charlie?”
Lee pulled me up off the couch, letting his hand rest for a minute at the small of my back. “Let’s check at your place, but if I had to guess, he’s off trembling in a bush somewhere.”
I held the cat in my arms like a baby until we reached the door to our apartment, directly next to the bar, listening to her coo and purr as she licked my forearm, locking her big brown eyes with mine.
I let myself up the stairs and called out for Charlie. No answer. The bar below was loud enough that I knew my uncle couldn’t hear me come into the front hallway and question my whereabouts this evening.
Poking through the rooms of our apartment, Charlie was nowhere to be found, so I dumped the cat off in the bathroom with a can of tuna and some water and met Lee back downstairs.
“Maybe she’ll give him another scare when he gets home. He deserves it, leaving us behind like that,” Lee said, as he ran a hand through his wild blond hair.
When I reached the bottom of the stairs, he grabbed my hand again, so naturally like it was something he had been doing his whole life—holding on to me.
We made our way down toward the river, breaking our grip on each other only long enough to make it safely down one of the narrow staircases that led to the cobblestoned road that winded down to the river’s edge.
Once we reached the bottom, he took his hoodie off, draping it over my shoulders.
I was so damp from the summer heat and humidity that the soft cotton stuck to me like cellophane, but I didn’t mind.
He guided me to the riverfront and sat down on a concrete paver, patting the spot next to him for me to join. We both draped our legs over the side, and I bent over to watch the water putter and flow on its journey to the Atlantic Ocean.
“I’ll go grab some goodies,” he said, and I noticed he had been staring at me. “Don’t go running off on me now, okay?”
I nodded, quickly dropping my gaze back to the water, trying not to stare at his handsome, sun-kissed face.
In the few minutes he was gone, I imagined every possible way I could embarrass myself when he returned.
I tried to stay calm and collected, but this was a teenaged boy in my general vicinity—one I wasn’t related to, no less—and honestly, I felt like I was about to be knocked into the river and swept downstream. My body started to shake.
Before I could talk some sense into myself and dash back toward McDonough Street as fast as my little legs could take me, Lee reappeared, still wearing that same bright smile.
“This is my treat,” he said, sitting beside me again, holding a sleeve of pralines and Coca-Cola in a glass bottle.
“You were really cool tonight, Maggie. None of the other girls at school would even give it a second thought to go in there like that. And there you go, busting in there all brave and strong—and coming out with a souvenir to boot. You were a little sweaty there, though. But you handled it better than Charlie and me. You’re something else, alright. ”
No one had really ever given me a nickname before, and when he called me Maggie, my heart skipped a beat. It felt like a secret between us. I couldn’t stop smiling, my cheeks warming up. It was like he’d wrapped me in a special little moment that only belonged to us.
I sipped on the Coke with my legs dangling over the side of the river wall, too nervous to do anything else.
I finally turned to look in his direction and caught him staring straight at me again.
His big blue eyes were dancing with the lights shining off the river, and he was wearing a smile so wide it almost knocked me straight into the murky water.
“This has been really fun, but I should go check on the cat.” I stood up, and he scrambled to his feet.
“At least let me take you to see my momma. We have some old pet stuff in the basement, and she’s been dying to meet y’all since I told her you moved into town. Besides, I intend on making you my girl, so we may as well get the introductions out of the way.”
“Excuse me?” I stumbled backward.
“You heard me.” He grabbed my hand again, smiling sideways at me, giving me an up-close glimpse of the crooked dimple on his right cheek. “Now let’s go get some litter for Pickle.”
“Did you just name my cat?” I wasn’t sure if I was more offended that he told me I was going to be his girl or that he named my cat. I did know, however, the entire scenario was making me want to run from him as fast as lightning before he figured out how much of an emotional train wreck I was.
Or worse, realized how much better he could do than an almost-thirteen-year-old with a bad attitude and hand-me-down clothes from the state.
“You mean our cat? Yes, I did. We’re in this one together, you know?” He laughed and planted a kiss on my cheek so quickly, it wasn’t until we got back to his house and I wiped the sticky praline residue off my face that I knew it was real.
Being outside the Wilder house was one thing. Standing inside was another. Every meticulous inch of their four-story home was like something out of a magazine. Dust didn’t exist here. Neither did carpet that smelled like moldy keg beer and three-dollar gas station menthols.
The floors were so shiny I could see my reflection, and the chandelier overhead sparkled like a million tiny stars.
I fiddled with the fringe of my shorts, suddenly aware of my scuffed shoes and how they looked against the edge of the spotless rug.
And then there was her. Eunice Wilder. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen—aside from my Momma––with her hair pinned back all elegant, pearl earrings that caught the light, and a cherry-red dress that made her look like she belonged on the cover of a magazine.
I felt small and messy just standing there, but then she smiled—warm and real—and bent down to my level.
“You must be Maggie,” she said, her voice soft and sweet like honey.
In that moment, I didn’t just want her to like me; I wanted to be her someday. Graceful. Kind. Effortlessly beautiful.
“I’m sorry for the mess,” she gestured to her pristine home. “And this should be everything. Next time y’all find a stray down by the river, you bring him here first, though. I’m not sure Cole will appreciate coming home to find a cat in his house without someone talking to him first.”
Eunice Wilder’s voice was gentle and soothing as she set the reusable grocery bag filled with litter and food beside me. Taking a seat across the table, she crossed her stockinged legs at the ankles and gave me a sad smile, her lips pressed together gently.
I took a bite of one of the cookies she left out. “He won’t care,” I started boldly. “He sleeps in the office of the bar anyway. He hasn’t really been in the apartment much since we moved in.”
I didn’t want to look up, but I could feel Eunice and Vance Wilder’s concerned eyes washing over me. Lee sat next to me, close enough for comfort, but not touching me directly. His presence was calming and kind, and I let the feeling wrap around me like a blanket.
“Oh, I see. So, what do y’all do for dinners? Or to get ready in the morning for school? Not that it’s our business, you can tell us or not. Up to you,” Vance Wilder said, spreading his hands in a disarming gesture.
I met Mr. Wilder’s concerned stare with a tight-lipped grin. “Charlie and I are pretty good at taking care of each other, Mr. Wilder. Speaking of, I should get home to my brother. He’ll likely be worried and probably have a few questions about Pickle the cat.”
Eunice let out a small giggle, and they both rose to their feet when I stood. “Leland will walk you home, of course. You come back and see us any time, Magnolia Pruitt. Our door is always open.”
“Your family is really nice, Lee.” He hadn’t tried to hold my hand again as we walked toward my apartment, and my fingers suddenly felt cold and empty. He was quieter than he had been all night.
“Everyone’s got their flaws, Maggie. Besides, you haven’t met my brother yet.”
We stopped at a corner to let a horse and carriage pass. “Why do you keep calling me Maggie? No one ever does.”
He looked both ways before guiding me across the street. “I figured as much. It’s the first thing I ever gave you—a nickname. But it won’t be the last.”
I rolled my eyes. “What is with you, Leland Wilder?”
He stopped and turned me toward him, smiling so big I thought his stupid face might break.
“Magnolia Pruitt, you’re the kind of girl they write songs about, you know that?”
That made me cackle and snort. “You’re thirteen years old, Lee. And we just met! What makes you think you can go around talking to me like that? You sound like the kind of boy my momma would warn me about if she was still here.”
“Well, you’ll just have to wait and see then, won’t you?”