Sandhurst – Meet the Folks

By Atonia

Max Skinner watched Ben’s back retreating down the street then turned to go back inside the bank.

“Oops, sorry!” He’d turned into Terry Thorne.

“Skinner, just the man I need to see.”

Max smiled crookedly, “Bringing or taking, Mr. Thorne?”

Terry grinned a little. “Neither…can we talk?”

“Right this way.” Max led the way to his office upstairs on the mezzanine.  “What can I do for you?” He moved around his desk and Terry sat down.

“I need to transfer some money. We’ve got an account, say…offshore, and I need to send some money to Brazil. I don’t want it to be sent directly so I thought I could bring it here and you could transfer it to an account in Brazil.”

Max blinked, “This is not for something illegal, is it? I mean the account offshore is legit and the Brazil account is not associated with drugs or…or…?”

“Strictly legit. Not to worry,” Terry smiled.

“I don’t need any more trouble, Terry.”

“I’m not bringing you any.” Still smiling.

Max felt uncomfortable and squirmed in his chair. “How much money are we talking about?”

“600,000 US.”

“Jesus!” Max removed his glasses.

Terry raised a brow. “Is that a problem for you? There will, of course, be a transfer fee. I would expect that. Probably close to 10%...probably.”

Max put his glasses back on. “When can we expect the arrival of these funds?”

“Within 24 hours. Give me a call when the transaction is complete.”

“Right.” Max looked at him for a moment. “You have that kind of money off shore?”

“It’s not all mine. Dino and I share.” He smiled again.

Lulu Cameron came in to make a withdrawal. She’d been talking with her painters and wallpaperers and, seeing that the job was well in hand, she was going on a shopping spree to furnish her new Bed and Breakfast.  She could hardly wait to move in. Right now she was staying at the Main Street B&B. Once the owners found out what she was about she was lucky to have a towel or a wash cloth and soap in her room. Old Miz Waldrop’s mouth turned upside down and had not righted itself to date.

Lulu was from Beaufort, SC, where she and her ex-husband operated a little B&B. She found out about Sandhurst through a trade magazine. Real estate was very reasonable in this area and with the settlement she received she was beginning again.

Terry came down the stairs with Max behind him and he stopped on the bottom step. “Who is that?”

Max looked over his shoulder. “That’s Lulu Cameron, making a B&B out of the old White house. It’s going to be the Pink House,” he grinned.

Lulu, tall and slim with her sandy blond hair piled on top of her head and tendriling softly around her face, was waiting in line. She cast her brown eyes over to the stairs. “Max.”

“Good morning, Lulu. May I be of service?” Max swanned over to her side, leaving Terry still staring at her.

She seemed to be dressed in multi layers of thin embroidered tank tops, vests, skirts and a short sleeved jacket, all in a creamy shade of white. Terry stepped up to Max’s side and cleared his throat.

Max turned, looking over his glasses. “Ah. Terry Thorne, may I introduce you to Lulu Cameron?”

Terry smiled broadly. “I couldn’t help noticing, Miss Cameron, a bit of what appears to be blue paint here, on the tip of your nose.” He touched the tip.

Her eyes went wide. “Thank you, Mr. Thorne, for your keen observation.” She flashed him a smile and tilted her nose in the air. “Max, do you think you might get me through this line? I need some money, honey. I’m goin’ shoppin’.”

Terry stepped back and chuckled to himself as Max led her to an empty window. He figured he needed to get into town more often. That was a nice piece of work. Terry lived out on an island. He’d bought a sizable piece of property from Robin Longstride on the canal side. It was useful for training purposes. He did most of his work from the island but he and Dino had an office in town, a front, as Dino called it.

Out on the street he felt for his cigarettes, remembered he was trying to quit and had left them in the drawer of his desk. He crossed the street and heard music coming from the old theater. Only three letters still hung from the marquee S-A-V, save? He walked down toward the sound.

Johnny Devlin was sitting on the sidewalk, cross-legged in his ragged out jeans, sun shades and an old fedora. He was picking out something on his guitar, totally oblivious to anyone else, with his back against the dingy red and white tile surrounding the entrance to the closed theater. He’d bought the theater from the town and was taking his time renovating the insides. Not many people knew any work was being done at all as the trucks parked in the back alleyway.  Johnny was an internationally known actor, an A-lister who had chosen to live quietly as possible in Savannah. He’d made a project out of Sandhurst Theater. Quietly, of course, because that’s the way he liked it.

Terry dropped a dollar in his guitar case.

Johnny’s mouth twisted to suppress a smile. “Gonna take more than that.”

“I can’t support you, sport, but you play a mean guitar.” Terry looked up. “S-A-V, wonder what played here last?”

“From Russia With Love.” He played a riff.

“Oh, SAV. Well, I hope somebody does save it.”

“I’m working on it…sport.”

Terry looked down at him a moment and almost recognized him. He was familiar and yet…not. “Well, have a good one.” He smiled a little and walked off down the street toward his store-front office.

Johnny looked after him and smiled.

“I heard you playin’. People will think you’re a bum out here.” Kristen Ashley stopped by the marquee and brought him a cup of coffee.

“I am a bum. I’m a rollin’ stone.”

She pushed a strand of green and purple hair behind her multi-pierced ear. Her eye makeup matched today’s hair color and she was dressed in her usual black leggings and a long knit top. Kristen was the younger of the two sisters who had just opened Tallulah’s, a little boutique two doors down. She and her sister Blythe had bummed around Europe and England for two years before Daddy put his foot down in Charleston, SC and demanded they come home and make something of themselves. So they took the money he offered and settled on a store here in Sandhurst. They were still living in Savannah with friends but looking to move down here soon.

“I gotta go to work. You gonna make me a star, Johnny?”

“I’m gonna make you a star, Kristen.” He smiled and drew a star with his guitar pick on the sidewalk.

Kristen opened the door to their shop and the little bell alerted the man leaning across the counter talking to Blythe. He straightened up.

Blythe tossed her blond hair over her shoulder. “Kristen, this is Alex Ross. He’s a newspaper reporter come to solicit business. Wants us to take out an advertisement announcing our opening.”

Kristen slid a grin up her cheek. “Solicitin’, are ya?”

“Yeah,” he grinned, taking in her colorful appearance.

She looked at him a moment and grinned back. Hot looking guy.

“So I thought we could do that.” Blythe eyed her sister.

“Sounds good to me. How much is it?”

“$50.00...come on, I know you gals got $50 bucks between ya. I’ll make it sound real nice and it will bring folks out of the swamps to see what you two have on hangers.” He used his shit-eating grin that always worked.

Alex had come to Sandhurst by way of Atlanta. He’d been a sports reporter connected with Georgia Tech and The Atlanta Constitution newspaper. He got in too deep with a woman there who vowed she was leaving her no account husband. One day the no account husband found him and beat the crap out of him, threatened his life if he came around his wife again. Alex found out he was a former UGA football player and had friends. He resigned his job and left town one weekend and never went back. He drifted from Savannah to Sandhurst, sensing an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a new paper.

He was also an Iraq war veteran and a Marine.

Blythe chuckled, “Not sure I want swamp dwellers trackin’ around our shop.”

“They got money,” he smiled.

The sisters looked at each other and agreed to the add. Ross took out the paperwork and Blythe took out the checkbook.      

Meeting the Folks-2

Ed Hoffman walked his lovely wife Cassy out to the sidewalk. They’d just had breakfast out on the veranda. He handed her the red bag she always carried and they kissed.

“Now, Ed, don’t forget about the dinner tonight.”

“I won’t. You have a good day, Cassy.” He walked back to the veranda still in his pajamas and robe and picked up his coffee cup for the last sip. He was enjoying the peace and quiet of the morning. He didn’t get to enjoy it for long. The electric saws and generators and hammering began somewhere through the trees. Even the birds had taken flight.

“Infernal noise!” He took himself off his porch and rounded the house for the line of trees and high hedges that defined his property. Pushing aside the limbs, he peered into his neighbor’s yard. Out there in the midst of all that noise stood a man with a bird on his shoulder, talking. At least Ed thought he was for his lips were moving. The conversation evidently got funnier because he was now laughing.

“Nash, that’s John Nash,” Ed mumbled.

Not to be outdone, the house next to John Nash’s came alive with music. Loud music. Loud enough to drown out the saws and hammers and generators. Ed grabbed his ears and the limbs swatted him as he backed away from the divide. He made for his house and closed the door. The windows followed with a bang.

Ed lived in the house his Great Grandfather Sandhurst built. His mother was an only child and married a Hoffman from Virginia. She inherited the house and now it had come to Ed since his brother was killed in a plane crash off of Hilton Head Island. Ed was the town historian and he helped his wife, Cassy, take care of the business end of her antique shop on Main St. He was a retired military officer, Citadel graduate and the father of Andy and a daughter named Nancy Anne. Nancy was in college at the University of South Carolina.

He'd met Cassy in Boston during a trip up to New England with his mother. He was home on leave at the time.  They began corresponding, one thing led to another, and now they'd  been married for twenty-five years.

Miss Grace Connors inspected her expansive record collection. Today it was folk songs from the Ukraine. There was a dance that went with the album that was playing. She stood up and began the steps. Tall and thin with long limbs and long black hair, she lifted the skirt of her nightgown and twirled and bowed. An arm above her head, she moved around her music room and twirled and stamped her feet. The dance took her into her foyer where she eyed a man standing on her front porch. She didn’t know him and did an extra turn before going to her door.

“Yes?” She peered around her door.

“Good day to you,” John Nash began. “I wonder if we might have a jug of water. They’ve turned mine off while they’re working on something or the other.”

“You have a bird on your shoulder.”

“Why, yes, I do. This is Henrietta. She’s a cockatoo. She’d like a drink, too.” He had to shout above the music. “I’m John Nash.” His sister suggested birds to him several years ago. She thought if he was going to talk to imaginary friends at least if he had a bird…

“Wait just a moment.” She took his jug and disappeared into her house. A few moments later she came back out onto her front porch with the jug full.

“How much longer will they be making so much noise?”

“I’m not sure…they…they’re working on it. Are you going to the university today?”

“Not until 1:00. I have a 2:00 class.”

“I have one at 3:00. I’ve seen you in the quadrant.”

“Have you?”  She whirled about him, her nightgown billowing around her. “What do you teach? Are you in the English department?”

“Ah, no. Mathematics…calculus and so on.” He looked around her porch but she had zeroed in on him.

“I didn’t know you were over there in your house already.”

“I don’t mind the mess. Do you always play your music this loud?”

“No. I’m trying to drown out your noise.”

He nodded his head. “Well, I’d better be going. Hopefully they will stop soon. Thank you for the water.”

He stepped off down the sidewalk. “Ooo, you’d better watch out for her.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“I’m telling you, she’ll be bringing over casseroles.”

“She’s a fellow professor.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, she’s a female.”

“Of course I noticed, Charles.”

Cassy arrived at her antique shop, Sandhurst of Yesterday. She noted her niece was already wrapping a purchase. Katherine Elizabeth Sandhurst Hoffman came to them when her parents were killed in a plane crash. She had finished college and much like her son, Andy, had yet to find her feet. She was working in the shop until she decided what to do with her life.

“Good morning, dear. You were out early this morning.”

Having finished wrapping the vase and saying 'thank you' and 'please come to see us again',  Kathy turned to her aunt, her long, wavy red hair falling over one shoulder.  "It was so beautiful out, Aunt Cassy.  I watched the sunrise and ate some breakfast, and then just decided to go ahead and come open the shop."

She pushed the cash register closed and smiled at her aunt.  "Wasn't a bad idea, either.  I've already made three sales."

Cassy gave her a hug. “You are a gem, Kathy.” She parked her red bag behind the counter.

ON TO CHAPTER 3

BACK TO SANDHURST: INTRODUCTION

BACK TO SANDHURST CHARACTER INDEX

BACK TO LIBRISCROWE