Chapter 3 – Emily Goodwin

I made no bones with Leo that I was seething. I saw him talking about Muriel Roberts with Caleb Freeman inside the café yesterday. I knew they were sharing information of some sort. It hadn't escaped my attention—nothing happening in Pulaski Square escapes my attention—that something was amiss with Muriel.

I had intended in pursuing that directly with her, but I'd been so busy that I hadn't gotten around to it yet.

And I could see that Caleb was upset about her somehow. He better not have carried through with the desires I knew he had for her. I knew about Caleb and women. I knew them quite well. Muriel would have been the last one to have succumbed to his particular . . . charms . . . I would have thought. It was time for Buddy Roberts to come home—and, perhaps for me to bring Muriel's husband to account. What was this about needing more money than he could make in Savannah? He made perfectly good money here. Was there something amiss between Muriel and Buddy? If so, why didn't I know what it was?

I expected Leo to come to me immediately after Caleb talked to him. But he didn't come yesterday. He was forcing me to go to him today on the matter. I was not pleased in the least about that.

I would have accosted him at the café yesterday, but I was nonplused and if I'd broken away from those with me at the table in the café, they would have known something was amiss. They already were all atwitter that Terry had come to the café while we were there. It was the first time in years that Terry and I had been there at the same time. He had become such a recluse in later years. I was just an old fool. I shouldn't let him affect me as he does whenever I see him. But, dammit, I still love the man—despite everything. Despite his men. Not that I'd let anyone see that—especially him.

I knew about his men for several years before the issue came to a head. I should have known before we were married. Our two families have lived on opposite sides of Pulaski Square for more than two centuries. Not each living comfortably here with the other, of course. My father had told me not to marry Terrence Rowland—that nothing good could come of such a match. I believe he knew even then why I shouldn't marry Terry. But he hadn't whispered a word of it to me. Proper Savannah families didn't speak of such things in those days—certainly not to their daughters. I had just assumed it was because of how cold our families were to each other.

The elite set in Savannah did such things, of course—that and worse. They just didn't speak of them.

Our match had started off so promisingly—one could almost say cast favorably in the stars. Terry and I hadn't met here on the square. Even though both families were here, we hadn't had a thing to do with each other for generations. The Rowlands had been in Savannah forever and were into publishing one of the city's newspapers before branching out into other forms of advertising as well. My family hadn't arrived until mid way through in the eighteenth century and were into liquor and the places that served it, so, though we were richer than the Rowlands, we certainly weren't in their set. I'm not sure I could have said whether the Rowlands even had children, not to mention a son a year younger than I was, before I went off to college.

It therefore only seemed slightly coincidental that I met and was attracted to a handsome, dark-haired, Byronesque-type young man at Vanderbilt University over the mountains in Nashville. We were both in the creative writing program there, me a year ahead of him. I suspect we both had been shunted off there by our families because we were so rebellious closer to home. He was a brilliant writer—almost as good as I was. And we both kept up with our writing. Even now I write southern mysteries of the first caliber and I occasionally see in the press that Terry also is writing still—the war adventure novels he became obsessed with because his family wouldn't let him go on any actual adventures that included any semblance of danger.

Of course I seduced him. I found him to be quite a proficient lover, admirably equipped, and as beautiful of body as he was handsome of face. Granted I had to take the lead, that he was an innocent in those days. But it was the combination of innocence and sultry that had attracted me to him in the first place—that and his yielding to my lead. Little did I know then that at the same time our male creative writing professor was indoctrinating Terry into another form of sensuality altogether.

I asked Terry why he went ahead with a marriage to me when he was learning even then that he preferred men.

"That we were to marry was kismet," he had said. "Meeting, as we did, at Vanderbilt rather than on the square where we both lived in Savannah obviously was fate," he said. "Besides, I both was trapped in convention and, at the same time, wanted to stick it to my parents."

I suspect the real reasons he married me were because my family was richer than his and for camouflage purposes. Still the explanations he gave me seemed reasonable to me—almost poetical. But I divorced him anyway. Quietly, of course, never giving his homosexuality as a reason. I didn't want to embarrass him or add fuel to the family feuding. But, more than that, I didn't want to be embarrassed myself. And who knows? Perhaps I can be more honest about it after the passage of the years. I was addled enough to hope that he could be cured of his homosexuality and would come back to me.

Having divorced him doesn't mean I haven't carried a torch for him all these years. We are both fools—me for still caring for him; Terrence for choosing men over me.

I didn't want to encounter Terrence again at the café today, so I sent Sadie, the downstairs maid, out to check. He wasn't there. So I sailed ahead. Leo saw me coming and pulled me inside the shadows of the café's interior to give us privacy. Of course he knew why I'd come.

"What exactly did Caleb Freeman tell you was wrong with Muriel?" I asked straightaway.

"He doesn't know. He knows that something is wrong, but he doesn't know exactly what. Buddy Roberts told him. That's why Buddy went to Memphis. He needs to make more money faster."

"He should have come to me," I said. "I could have gotten him all the work he could handle right here in Savannah—and at the price he needed. I've always taken care of anyone living in the square who needed it."

"I know," Leo said. He didn't add to that. I looked sharply at him to discern whether he questioned my capabilities or intent, but I saw no indication that he did.

"So, we must find out what—"

"I know what the problem is," Leo said. "Caleb didn't know, but Jaivon did."

"Who?"

"Jaivon Johnson, who works with Muriel at the inn."

"Oh, him." I didn't see how such as the Johnson youth would know anything of importance, and I said so. I also didn't really want to talk about him, because I knew what he was to Terry.

"Muriel confides in him, Jaivon says. Muriel needs a kidney replacement. That's what Buddy is trying to raise money for."

"Oh, Lord, the poor woman. There's no way Buddy could raise enough money for such an operation. We will have to take this into our own hands."

"I fear you're right."

"Does Martin know?"

"I have no idea. Martin and I haven't spoken for years."

"Are you two in that silly family feud still? We never had this trouble in the old days. The leading men of Savannah society always had a darkie mistress or two—and thus half-breed children. Old man Rowland treated all of his children well, no matter what side of the color barrier or blanket they were born on. You, of all people should know that."

"Yes, of course I do. It's Martin you need to talk to."

"At the moment, it's Martin you need to talk to, Leo. If he doesn't know about Muriel already, he needs to know about her now. You go to him immediately and then we will start to plan."

"Yes, ma'am."

"Whatever we decide to do, we'll have to find someone to be the public face of it. You can't do it, because Martin would resent that. Martin can't do it, because he's Muriel's brother and seeking money for one's sister in Savannah would be seen as tacky, no matter how charitable the cause. And I certainly can't. I haven't created this crusty persona as a barrier between me and every Tom, Dick, and Harry with his hand out for a free ride just to let it down now, at my age."

"I'm sure, Emily, that everyone who matters knows how generous you are."

"Tut, tut. You're too young to live with lies and I'm too old to be fooled by them, Leo. So, I think I know what we can do—at least to provide a veneer—but we'll have to think of someone to front this."

"Yes, ma'am."

That was what I wanted to hear—yes ma'ams. It makes everything much easier and faster just to "yes ma'am" me from the beginning. I turned and returned to my home. Darkness was descending. He should be home by now—now that the sun was fully down—and he should be waiting for me upstairs, in my bedroom.

He was, stretched out on my bed, naked, his body magnificent. I took my time undressing, savoring every moment that he was under my command and control. When I too was naked, I climbed up on the bed, straddled his hips, impaled myself on his prodigious staff, and rode him to orgasm.

Afterward, I sat, in my robe, at my dressing table, removing my makeup, while Caleb continued to lie on his back on the bed, his muscular arms bent behind his neck, smoking a cigarette, and watching me, his handsome black face graced with a small smile.

"It seems to take you more time each day than the last to take your war paint off," he said, teasingly.

Only Caleb could get away with saying that to me. I knew he was too wild to tame. That was probably the major reason I turned to him. I'd always wanted my men a bit wild. But I also knew that I wanted him in my bed for as long as I could hold him. To do so, though, I had to tolerate his roving eye.

"Are you saying I'm growing too old for you to screw?" I asked. "That you wish to seek new accommodations and protections—even a job away from the square?"

"No, I'm quite content here," Caleb said, with a sigh.

"Meaning I'm still one of the best fucks you can find, right."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Well, just you remember that, Caleb Freeman. Someday you'll be as old as I am. And if you don't play the fool, you will have a big chunk of what I have to leave behind."

He just smiled at that. If there was one thing that Caleb Freeman was not a fool about, I surmised, it was about ensuring his future. That and perpetually getting off.