Sweet Caroline(81)

I’ve never seen him before, but I like him. The aura around him is genteel. His chin is square. His shoulders proud.

“Evening.” His voice is raspy, but strong.

“Evening.”

“My name’s Sebastian Fowler. I’m eighty-one this year, and like the first talker, Hank, over there, I’m a born and raised Beaufortonian. I got a story for this old Café and this young gal right here.” He motions to me.

Me?

“Jones McDermott was like a brother to me. Our parents were friends, and they stuck the two of us in a crib together, don’t you know. Our dads took us hunting and fishing out on St. Helena. We played football for Beaufort High, chased the same girls. But in our senior year, old Jones tripped and fell in love—headfirst—with a little ole gal from Port Royal.”

Sebastian smiles, gently rocking the mike stand back and forth.

“Never seen the boy so gone. Wrote to her every day while we was in the Army. He’d say to me, ‘Sebastian, I’m going to marry her.’” The old man gazed down the length of the dining room. “Even recorded an original love song at one of them fairground booths.”

I stand away from the wall. The recording we heard the night of the hurricane.

“This gal was a pretty thing. Sweet, a church girl, and loved Jonesy, but not like he loved her. The Army sent us TDY to Germany for six months. Hoo-wee, he was lovesick. But he had a plan.” Sebastian jabs the air with his finger. “Save money, come home, buy a business, marry this gal, and live happily ever after.

“About our third month of TDY, he got the letter.” Sebastian presses his hands over his heart. His eyes glisten. “She was engaged to another man.”

The room is quiet, steady on the story. Even Mercy Bea and Paris have stopped working.

“He had a rough go of it for a while. I tried to tell him there’d be other gals. We saw lots of pretty ones in Paris and Berlin. But he wanted this one particular gal. You’d think a fella would get over his heartbreak, but not Jones. No sir. But he saved his money, bought this place, and lived a good life. Happily some days. Not so happily others.”

Sebastian weaves his story with purpose, leading us to the dramatic end.

“The gal Jones loved was Gracie Kirby.”

My jaw drops. Nana? I look over at Dad. His sharp expression tells me this is the first he’s heard anything like Sebastian’s story.

“Gracie Kirby married Hank Sweeney Senior before our TDY ended. The catchall is Jones had asked Hank to look in on his gal while we was gone, make sure no other fellas invaded his territory. Hank agreed, but he kept telling Jones to cut loose of that skinny, stuck-up gal. Hank didn’t care much for Gracie, so Jones figured he was safe. But like Jones, Hank tripped over Gracie’s charms and fell in love.”

Nana was the object of Jones’s love song. And a love triangle? Nana . . .

“Jones never quite got over Gracie. The Café became his wife. My job moved me across the country, and we only talked a few times a year. But, one day out of the blue, he calls up and says, ‘I met the cutest gal.’ I thought, Good, you’re fifty-six, and it’s about time you settled down. I was already a grandpa.”

The serene Café ambience is pierced with laughter.

Sebastian turns toward me. “The gal he met was you, Gracie’s granddaughter. Something about you, Caroline, watered his dry heart.”

The static questions from the summer have answers now—loud and clear. Jones’s affection for me came out of his love for Nana. For the first time, I understand why Jones gave me the Café. But instead of being shocked and surprised, my heart responds, Of course.

“Jones regretted Gracie died before he came to his senses and mended a broken friendship. When I heard he left the Café with Caroline, I figured it was his way of saying, ‘Gracie, you and me, we’re all right.’”

Sebastian pauses with a glance at me. “Guess that’s my story, and, young lady, how do I get off this stage?”

To: MusicMan

From: CSweeney

Subject: Reminisce Night

Mitch,

It’s late. The Café is closed, the deposit done, tips paid out, and the first Reminisce Night at the Frogmore Café is over.

Ding howdy, did you miss it.

Remember the woman Jones sang to on the record? It was Nana Sweeney.

Granddad stole her from Jones when the Army sent him to Germany. Granddad was supposed to keep the other guys away.

Jones never recovered, Mitch. He loved Nana and no one else.

Sebastian thinks he left the Café to me as his way of mending fences with Nana.

Afterwards, Dad, Posey, Henry, Cherry, and I talked with Sebastian and his daughter, Rose.

Daddy never knew about any of this. He just knew that one Friday after Thanksgiving, Granddad took me to the Frogmore Café (I was ten) and hit it off with Jones.

So here I sit, the center of a love triangle. Jones worked out his feelings for Nana by seeing me as a granddaughter.

One half of my heart is overwhelmed that Jones would entrust his life’s work to me. The other half angry. Why didn’t he talk to me? Tell me how he felt?

Odd, these small-town mysteries of who loved who. When and why. Friendships lost, friendships found. Hearts broken. Hearts mended.

Contrast this story to the potential buyers making an appearance tonight with their lawyer, an Amazon woman.