Night Magic (3 page)

"Be careful. Promise, Poppy."

"Don't worry now, cher. Your papa, he can
take care of himself." He hugged her to him.

Savannah nodded uncertainly. She knew her
father was a strong man and not easily taken down, but he couldn't
keep dodging danger forever. Despite his confident words, she felt
a sense of foreboding. The mere thought of losing Antoine was more
than she could bear. She tightened her embrace and pushed away the
frightening image of him lying hurt in the swamp.

Chapter 2

"Galee, sha! You done got so pretty. Come
give Nenaine some sugar." Nenaine Sherleen grabbed Savannah in a
big affectionate hug.

"Humph, Humph. You sho is somethin', yeah."
Uncle Coy took his turn, giving her a big kiss on the cheek.

Savannah was a bit overwhelmed by all the
relatives who descended on the spacious home. Even the wooden frame
house seemed to be bulging, packed with family and friends eager to
see if and how Savannah had changed. Like good-natured doctors,
they poked and prodded for clues that she was still one of them.
She endured teasing about losing her taste for down home favorite,
like cracklins.“Now y'all just hush up. No matta how long she been
'way from here, she won't lose her taste for real food." Tante
Marie set a large plate down in front of her containing a generous
helping of fried catfish.

Savannah forced a smile. Looking down at the
dish, she took a deep breath. The spicy aroma of traditional Creole
seasonings made her mouth water. It would take all of her strength
not to stuff herself on everything on the plate then accept
seconds. She picked up a hush puppy, admiring its golden brown.
Breaking it in half, a thin finger of steam rose from the center.
Nobody could tempt her like her aunt. In a region where good
cooking was the standard, her Tante Marie's talents placed her in
class all her own. Having had no children and widowed at the age of
thirty-eight, she had readily taken on the task of helping her
younger brother raise his infant daughter. And Savannah loved her
with the same fierceness she loved her father. For those times
Tante Marie was busy catering ritzy functions for the wealthy and
tourist parties at local plantations, her godmother, Nenaine
Sherleen, gave her the same loving attention and lots of good,
fattening foods; a definite threat to her waistline. Pudgy all
through childhood, going away to college had meant a change in her
eating habits. Working out regularly had become a habit after law
school, especially when she was able to afford a really nice health
club. Taking another bite of catfish, she made a silent vow to
search the phone book for one nearby.

"Poppy was telling me about the fight over
the plant." Savannah was helping her aunt wash dishes after dinner.
They had finally seen off the last of her welcoming committee.

"That Trosclair ain't nuthin' to play with,
no. He low down. I don't put nuthin' past him." Tante Marie shook
her head as she scrubbed plates vigorously.

"But what do you think?" Savannah knew that
her aunt was sharp.

"They right about one thing, every plant been
put up in the last twenty years or so been in or near poor folks'
neighborhoods. And usually without a whisper being raised. Ain't no
coincidence, cher."

"But black people owned a lot of the land in
Easy Town."

"Old Claude is slick. He paid them more money
than anybody else would have and made sure they knew it. Then he
hired some of the men to work, some of them hadn't been workin' for
months."

"And jobs are scarce around here," Savannah
said.

"What with prices down on crawfish and
shrimp, then the oil refinery laid off almost fifty people."

"I worry about poppy, Tante Marie. He looks
so tired. I hope he knows what he's doing. He can be so stubborn
sometimes."

"How you two doin', sha?" Tante Marie paused
in her cleaning up to regard her steadily.

"So far okay. It's just, he tries to keep me
a little girl." Savannah traced an invisible line on the table top
with her finger.

"He jus' love you so much. Kinda hard for
him, lettin' you go. You his pride and joy. Oughta hear him talk
'bout his baby girl. An' you look so like Therese. When she died
like that, so young, almost killed him, too. I still can see him,
sittin' in that chair starin' out the window. Three days, wouldn't
talk to nobody, didn't leave that house. I had took you home with
me, ya know. Only thing brought him out of it was seeing you.
That's what kept him going. Had to take care of his baby girl."

"But he never really came out of it,"
Savannah sighed. "No matter how I tried, he never seemed to truly
enjoy anything. It was scary, seeing him going through the motions.
I don't ever want to love someone that much. Being left behind
hurts too much."

"One thing about it, sha, life can be cold
and empty without love. Plenty done wake up too late to find they
protected theyselves right out of somethin' precious."

"But look at daddy. Holding on to a memory so
hard, you can feel it. Sometimes it's like he is more with mama
than here with us." Savannah turned to stare out of the window,
hugging herself as if she felt an aching cold.

"There's a lot a ways of grievin'. Antoine
just went inside himself."

Savannah pushed away painful thoughts of the
mother she barely remembered. She was only four when Therese had
died, but the childish anger at being abandoned was just as strong.
Not only had her mother left her, but in some indefinable sense so
had Antoine by withdrawing part of himself deep into a place that
even she could not reach. Eager to change the subject, she turned
back to helping her clean up.

"What's Paul Honorè got to do with this plant
being opened anyway?"Savannah tried to sound casual. She didn't
look at her aunt, but made it a point to busily dry a stack of
plates.

"Yeah, I heard y'all tied in wit each other.
He a fine young man, yeah. Here you fightin' wit the man and every
other woman in town from eight to eighty tryin' to get on his good
side." Tante Marie gave her a knowing look. Seeing her niece refuse
to meet her eyes, she smiled.

"That's his problem. If you ask me he's the
type that thinks every woman he meets ought to fall at his
feet."

"Plenty young ladies after him, sha. Course
he ain't been runnin' with a whole lotta gals. Kinda been pickin'
and choosin'."

"I'll bet he has," Savannah sneered.

"You tellin' me you don't think he's
good-lookin'?"

"I'm not saying that, I'm just saying he's
too full of himself for my taste."

"Seems to me he a serious one. He's some
kinda smart, yeah. Doin' some testin' to see if that Big River
Plant is safe. Got his own business, too." Tante Marie poked her
and winked.

"He's acts like he's really impressed with
himself, for sure."

"Oo-wee. Sparks was flyin', I hear." Tante
Marie egged her on.

"I guess they were at that. I had to set him
straight, that's all." Savannah smiled with satisfaction.

"Well, watch out."

"For what?"

"Them kinda sparks can lead to red hot flames
if you ain't careful. I had three husbands, so I oughta know."
Tante Marie walked off chuckling to herself.Embarrassed that her
aunt had so easily seen through her and detected her attraction to
Paul, Savannah rushed to protest."I don't think so--" She tried a
snappy comeback, but her aunt's retreating back made her lose
steam.

*****

The next three weeks were a pleasant but
exhausting whirlwind of visiting or being visited by a host of
relatives and friends. Savannah was surprised to learn that almost
half of her high school classmates still lived in Beau Chene. To
her delight, hearing a familiar voice call and turning to see the
smiling face of an old pal was an almost daily occurrence.
Especially her best friend, Charice. They were inseparable from
first day of the third grade at Belle Rose Elementary. Now the
divorced mother of two active little girls, Charice taught sixth
grade at their alma mater. She had changed little since then, still
all sass. Short, with the kind of plumpness the boys never seemed
to mind, she now wore her thick reddish brown hair in long braids.
Even after a two year separation, it took them no time to
re-establish their closeness. Since high school, meeting for lunch
on Saturdays had been a ritual. Now they settled back into the old
custom with ease. Charice would send the children home with her
mother and meet Savannah at the Fish Net, a local favorite that
served the best seafood in town.

"So it took a while, but we finally decided
that continuing the same fights we'd been having all the time we
were together was stupid." Charice finally wound down after a
spirited account of the beginning, middle, and end of her seven
year marriage. "Girl, I gotta admit, you were right not to get
married young."

"And I've got to admit, I was a little
jealous you got married to one of the handsomest guys at Xavier U.
After being in three weddings that year, my bragging about being
young, single, and free to mingle began to sound like a lame excuse
for not being asked, even to me."

"Yeah well, none of those marriages lasted.
Honey, Imelda just separated from Carlton." Charice lowered her
voice after looking around to see if anyone they knew was close
by.

"No!" Savannah gasped, leaning across the
table. "Not Miss `can't nobody take my man' Imelda."

"I remember how we could always tell when she
was on the prowl looking to take somebody's boyfriend for the
thrill of it. Had more than one fine boy crying when she dumped him
for somebody else."

"Sure did. She could wrap men up like that."
Savannah snapped her fingers.

"And Carlton had it worse than any of them,
too. But come to find out, homeboy been tipping on her with some
woman at his job for two years. I felt so bad for her." Charice
shook her head.

"Happens to best of us. Poor thing." They
looked at each other for a few seconds before bursting into a
giggling fit at their hypocrisy.

"Good afternoon ladies." Paul Honorè called
to them as he stood at the counter paying for a takeout order.

"Speaking of fine, Lord have mercy," Charice
whispered then waved. "What's up, Paul?"

Much to Savannah's dismay, Paul strolled over
to their table after paying for his food. As Charice chatted with
him, flirting shamelessly, Savannah feigned a mild interest.

"So how is your business doing? I think it's
great you’re in the business of preventing waste contamination.
That's something that has become so important, particularly around
here with all these refineries and chemical plants." Charice leaned
toward him.

"Not just that, we're working on several ways
to safely clean up contamination from the soil. We can't eliminate
our need for these products, but we can make sure we don't poison
ourselves with them." Paul pulled up a chair to their table and sat
down.

"That's so true." Clarice nodded
emphatically. She beamed at him as Paul launched into an
explanation of a new organism being tested to break down chemical
spills.

Savannah's lip curled in disgust at the way
her friend was hanging on his every word. As the minutes passed,
her annoyance grew. He seemed to be eating up the attention.
Charice was being her most coquettish, inching closer and closer to
Paul. Not that it mattered, of course. That was Charice's business
if she wanted to look like a high school sophomore in heat.
Savannah fumed. She couldn't help noticing the way his face seemed
to light up when he talked about his work. His eyes were the most
beautiful shade of brown she had ever seen in a man. They were
perfectly framed by a set of black, shapely eyebrows that rose when
he was amused. Some witticism Charice had uttered caused him to
throw back his head in laughter. This startled her back to paying
attention to what they were saying. Savannah drummed her fingers on
the table top. When Charice giggled at a corny joke Paul told, it
was the last straw.

"So it's no wonder you're supporting this new
toxic waste dump in our backyards, you are counting on a fat
sub-contract to clean up after them." Savannah sat back with her
arms folded.

"I'm not supporting anything just yet. My
partner and I haven't had a chance to read their reports
carefully." Paul's smile froze on his face.

"I doubt we'll be surprised that at the
results," Savannah said.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, they
are
paying
you."

"The university is paying for our study."

"And the Trosclair family has contributed
heavily to that school, they even endowed a chemistry chair,"
Savannah said.

"Nobody buys my integrity. If I don't think
it's a safe site, I'll say so." Paul stood abruptly, looking down
at the top of Savannah's head he seemed about to say more.

"Don't let us hold you up. I mean, your food
will get cold." Savannah ignored the cutting glance from her
friend.

"Goodbye, Charice. At least
it was nice seeing
you
." He strode off without waiting for a reply.

"Now just what was that ab--, oh, I see."
Charice smiled to herself.

"See what?" Savannah said evasively.

"Listen, girl friend, why didn't you just
say? I would never have come on so strong." Charice shrugged.

"Oh please. Sure he's good looking, and knows
it. He one of those pretty boy types who like to keep several women
dangling at a time."

"Okay, okay. So you're not interested. So it
won't bother you if we happen to get together, right?"

"No problem. If you don't care that he tries
to be a lover boy, well--" Savannah shrugged and picked at her
shrimp salad.