Chapter 1
Chapter one
MAGNOLIA
Iwas surrounded by mounds of paperwork with the stench of stale beer and cigarettes permeating in the air from another slow night at the bar.
My brother, Charlie, sat across from me, mindlessly thumbing through a stack of papers I had handed him to keep him busy—fully knowing he wouldn’t understand a lick of it.
With his head bent, I noticed some silver strands poking through his once vibrant auburn hair. Small, slightly noticeable flecks of freckles still dotted his nose and cheekbones, not quite like the millions of round, brown spots that used to cover his entire face.
Having just turned thirty, he didn’t look like my big brother anymore, but a stately, well-groomed gentleman. He looked up and shot me a sympathetic smile.
“I think you’re kind of in deep shit, Magnolia. The bar really isn’t in good shape,” he murmured, as he leafed through another pile of papers.
“Do you even understand anything that’s in front of you right now?” I asked.
He let out a puff of a laugh. “No, not a word. I can help you cover some of Cole’s funeral costs, but the overhead from the bar is quite a lot. I just don’t understand. Why did he leave this place to just you and not both of us? You shouldn’t be the only one taking on this debt.”
“What would you have done, though? Shut down the art studio? Your river-front rent is astronomical as it is. At least I own this building now.”
He nodded, and I watched the wheels turn in his head. Charlie had moved out of our apartment shortly after graduating from Savannah College of Art and Design. He took odd jobs around the city, eventually saving enough money to open his own studio on River Street.
The owner of the building, Jordan, allowed him to rent the studio apartment just above the space for a small fee, on the condition that he would collaborate on wine tastings and art shows. Jordan had recently opened his own wine shop, Cheese, Please!, in the space next door with his partner, Doyle.
And while I missed having my brother around, I was glad to free up the space in my apartment that was filled to the brim with his pieces of junk… or art.
Charlie was a reclamation artist, or so his business card proclaimed.
Charles Abner Pruitt, Reclamation Artist, it said—I wouldn’t just make that up.
He had gone to SCAD to study painting and fine art, but somehow, in the throes of boredom and artistic frustration, he’d begun finding discarded items from the streets and dumpsters and he turned them into works of art.
He did sculptures, paintings, pretty much anything.
He took ugly things and made them beautiful.
“It’s mixed media art,” he told me one time, and I nodded and smiled because that’s what you were supposed to do when you fully supported and loved someone but had absolutely no idea what they were going on about.
After he moved out, he left me with a few of his “installations,” as he called them.
One time, he was hanging a map of the USA made of old license plates and mile-long CVS receipts over my mantle and I said, “I’m sitting on a cash cow if you ever get famous.
Maybe move things along for me, slice an ear off or something. ”
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 into a 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 of Savannah 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.
“Yes, I am going. Sutton is going to be working the party with her catering company. And, as previously discussed, I am bringing the flowers. Why do you ask?”
Charlie finished chewing his next bite and gave me a snicker from across the table. “Well, I’m asking because—dammit, Pickle!”
Pickle had latched herself onto his leg and was biting frantically at his shin. She jumped up onto the table, stuck her head into the pizza box, and wrangled herself out a slice. Plopping down across from Charlie, she kept one eye on him as she noshed.
“Anyway, as I was saying, do you think Lee will come?”
I thrusted my seat back from the table and spun toward the window, flinging it open in one swift movement. It startled the cat, who now had fur sticking up every which way while covered in pizza sauce. She threw paws at Charlie.
“You and this cat were made for each other. You’re both unhinged as shit. Magnolia, get your damn cat!”
I crossed over to the table to give Pickle the death glare, and she jumped down on the floor and groomed herself, leg stretched in the air, purring loudly. She was proud as heck for thinking she won the fight—this time.
I moved back to the window, staring down at the alley below. The scent of warm, hot garbage crept through the open window, and I could feel a wave of nausea rising in my throat.
“Touched a nerve, did I?” Charlie smiled, mouth full of pizza.
I turned to face him, leaning back on the windowsill. “I mean, he hasn’t come to one event in the last ten years, so I’m not sure what makes you think he would come home for this one.”
Charlie nodded, and Pickle paced around his chair. “You’re probably right. I’ve sent him a few messages this week, but he hasn’t responded. He did buy a piece of mine from my online gallery a few months ago.”
“Wow, what a great best friend,” I scoffed, reaching for the bourbon and pulling a swig directly from the bottle.
“Well, it’s complicated, of course,” my brother offered.
“Right. I’m sorry that’s yet another thing I ruined for you and Lee.” My shoulders tensed up, and I let out a long, bourbon-scented sigh.
“Well, that’s just about all the self-loathing I can handle for one day,” Charlie said, inching his chair slowly away from the table so the cat didn’t maul his leg. “Are you coming to the wine tasting tonight? I’m showing four pieces I think you might like.”
My brother, ever the opportunist.
“I have to work tonight, clearly. I have one bartender left, and I can’t afford to keep her on all night. Stop by for a drink when you’re done. Bring Doyle and Jordan. It will be fun.”
Charlie crossed the kitchen and kissed my forehead, letting his hand rest on my shoulder. “You’re my baby sister, and we’ve been through so much. We’ll get through this one, too. Don’t even think about Lee. I’m sorry I brought it up. Besides, you’re happy now, right?”
I kept my eyes on the floor and nodded slowly.
“Happiness isn’t tangible, Magnolia. You had a vision of how your life would work out, and this isn’t it, but that’s okay.
It’s not about a relationship or your career.
You’re not where you thought you would be at this point in time, and with who you thought you would be with, but you’re here.
And you’re surrounded by great things and great people who love you. ”
“Thanks, Charlie,” I said, leaning in for a hug. “I’ll see you later.”