Isle of Palms (32 page)

“Mother? You just don’t come into Anna’s house and call her daughter low rent! Why is that so hard for you to see? Emily is merely doing this to make some statement about her independence.”

“Henna,” I said to them.

“The tattoos are henna paint and they wear off in a couple of weeks.”

“But her hair?” Trixie said. “And the way she spoke to me? In all mah life . . .”

“Trixie? You blasted her hard and then expected her not to defend herself. That’s really not fair, you know.”

Trixie started her engine and looked at me.

“You have gone too far, Anna.”

“Whatever you say, Trixie.” I said in the most unemotional voice I could find.

“And don’t expect mah support of your salon either!”

“I don’t expect anything, Trixie. See you later.”

I turned around and went back toward my house. Surprisingly, I felt pretty good about what had happened and knew it was proof of why I was right to buy my own damn house. Distance.

Rare and Well Done

“SO am I grounded for the rest of my life? Because if I am, it’s not fair!”

Jim and I looked at each other. I thought she would have been packing to run away from home but she was in the midst of helping Daddy and Lucy clear the table. Actually, she was holding a stack of dirty plates and standing by the door waiting for us to come back inside. And, given the moment, she was properly terrified. Daddy and Lucy were in the kitchen. If I knew anything about my father it was that he was already up to his elbows in suds and listening to every word.

“Not at all,” Jim said, “that is, if I still have any influence around here. Mother can be intolerable and it is understandable for you to be upset by what she said.”

“On the other hand, I can see it’s past time for you to have a brush up in Grace and Poise. Let’s start with Rule One in dealing with our elders.”

“Come on, Mom. Is this serious?”

“Yes.”

“Mom!”

“Listen to your mother,” Jim said.

“Rule One: When older women have already proven themselves to be wicked old biddies, we do not attack them. It is unnecessary, as no one with half a brain listens to them anyway.”

“Look, I know that’s true, all right? But it’s such bull!” She took a deep breath. “Okay. I know you’re totally and completely correct, but I get
so
mad!”

“Verbally attacking old biddies is pretty rude,” Jim said. “Your mom’s right.”

“I just don’t understand how you can sit there and let her say whatever she wants and you just
take
it. This whole world is just taking whatever is flung at it!”

“You’ll understand when you’re an adult,” I said. “Knowing which battles to fight is part of maturity.”

“No! Okay! Maybe this is from living in D.C. on red alert! I know that, but at that moment, I just lost it!”

“Yeah, we all lose it, but you know you’re going to have to apologize, Emily. You just can’t treat Trixie like that. She’s been pretty good to you all your life. Right?”

“Okay. Fine. Shit. Fine.”

“Now.”

“Can’t I do it tomorrow? I’m pretty beat and I don’t feel like going through it again.”

“Call my mother now, Emily, before she gets home and leave a message on her machine.” Jim smiled at Emily and me. “God, am I smart or what?”

“A certifiable genius, baby boy. Come on, let’s get that kitchen.”

“I’ll be right there,” Emily said. “God, I
hate
doing this!”

And that’s what we did. Emily made the phone call and we stuffed our five fannies in my phone booth kitchen and put Trixie where she belonged—out of our minds.

To give you a recap—Lucy never said a word about any of it. All Daddy said was, “I understand it was difficult to hold your tongue, but I’m sure you and your momma will work that out. She had to learn the hard way too.” Spare enough.

Everyone said the shrimp was delicious, how good it was to be together, and we all shook our heads over Trixie’s behavior.

Later that evening, we were all supposed to go to Lucy’s for another glorious sunset light show, courtesy of Lowcountry’s Mother Nature. Emily and I were still talking about Trixie and so they went on ahead without us.

“Don’t wait too long! You’ll miss everything!” Lucy said.

“I’m going with Lucy,” Jim said, and left.

The telephone rang. It was Satan’s wife.

“Ah’d like to speak to Emily,” she said.

I handed the telephone to her and we grimaced, knowing from the tone of her voice that a possible Armageddon was on the way.

“Hello, Gram?” Silence. “Yes.” Silence. “I said I was sorry, didn’t I?” Silence.

I couldn’t stand it. I wanted to grab the receiver from her and tell Trixie to lay off. But I walked away, not wanting to hang over Emily. I wanted to see how Emily would handle her. I went in the bathroom and stayed for a few minutes and then came out when I heard Emily crying. She had gone into her room.

“What happened?”

Emily was spread out over her bed, sobbing. She didn’t answer me so I sat down next to her and asked her again.

“Come on, baby, tell Momma.” I leaned over and scratched her back. “What did she say?”

“Oh, Momma! She is the
meanest,
most hateful bitch in the entire world!”

“I don’t know about that. I have a list of my own, you know.”

“Oh, God! You’re gonna kill me.”

“I would do no such thing. I might wash that black shit out of your hair and I might scrub your henna decorations with a Brillo pad, but kill you? Never.”

“She said I had seen the last nickel from her. Momma? I know, I know . . . I know we don’t have a lot of money. . . .”

“She actually
said
that?”

“Yeah.”

Trixie had no right to lay that kind of mental punishment on Emily. She should have told me and let me work it out. But, no, she had wanted to make Emily worry and suffer and she had succeeded. Temporarily.

“Well, screw her.”

Here’s where we revisited my theory about taking money from anybody. It always came back to bite you in the butt.

“You mean it?”

“Well, yeah. I mean, look Emily, when somebody gives you something like that, it’s supposed to be a gift. People shouldn’t give gifts with strings.”

“And, in English that would mean . . .”

“It means that something else is attached to the gift—usually an expectation of some kind.”

“Oh, and Gram expected me to grow up to be a debutante?”

“Ah reckon! If you really want to make her crazy, you should write her a real sweet thank-you note and tell her how much you appreciate all she’s done for you.”

“Yeah!
‘Dear Gram, up yours!’
”

“Well, that ain’t bad, but I was thinking of something a little sneakier and more underhanded. You know, say something like,
‘If you don’t want to help me or if you can’t, I understand and really want to thank you for all you’ve done for me.’
That would kill her worse than anything.”

Finally, Emily sat up and took the tissue I had for her. She blew her nose.

“Kill her with kindness, huh?”

“Exactly! Someday when we’re both old ladies, I’ll tell you some stories that will make your hair stand on end.”

“Tell me now!”

“Hell no! You’re still too volatile! You might use it against me in court or something!”

We smiled at each other and then hugged each other. If I closed my eyes, I could see her as a little girl, hanging on to me and hugging me so hard I had sometimes thought that she would never let go. Maybe that was why she had done all this to herself—she was trying to let go. I wondered why young people didn’t just go their own way and why, instead, they had to push everyone away. I didn’t care if her hair was purple or if her tattoos were real, she was still my daughter and I loved her with a kind of ferociousness I couldn’t live without.

“You know what, sweetheart?”

“What?”

“Let’s try to make this summer wonderful, you know? I mean, we’re going to have to figure out what to do about Trixie’s allowance. I guess I’ll have to cut a few more heads and you’ll have to get a job.”

“I can do that. I don’t know
what
I can do, though.”

“We’ll scrutinize the want ads tomorrow. Let’s go watch the sunset and help Jim chaperone Doc and Lucy.”

I stood and Emily rolled over and followed me to the living room. I started turning on a few lights so we wouldn’t come home to a dark house. Old habit—make the robbers think you’re home. Like we had so much worth stealing anyway.

“Um, Mom? I’m, like, really glad you brought that up. What in the world? Is he, I mean, are they, you know, dating?”

“It’s hard to say. I think so. Lock the kitchen door, okay?”

“Okay.”

“But so far, he hasn’t taken her out anywhere that I know of. I think Daddy’s too shy or something.”

“Or maybe he doesn’t want to be seen in public with a middle-aged Britney Spears.”

“Whoever she is.”

“God, Mom! Don’t you watch television?”

“Yeah, all day every day.”

“Well, you can say whatever you want, it just grosses me out to think of my grandfather with a girlfriend to begin with, much less one that looks like her.”

“Go easy, honey. Old Lucy is really as good as gold. You’ll see. Just give her a while.”

We spent the next few hours at Lucy’s, laughing, drinking frozen drinks, and it didn’t take long for Emily to shine to Lucy. After the sun slipped away, we climbed down from her deck and then gathered in her kitchen to make a bowl of pasta for supper. I was chopping onions while the garlic sizzled in Lucy’s frying pan. Jim opened three big cans of tomatoes and, using an odd little tool that looked like an arc-shaped blade, he hacked away at them in a bowl.

“Hey, Lucy?” Jim said. “What do you call this thing?”

“A tomato chopper,” she said.

“Why did I bother to ask?” Jim laughed to himself and I just shook my head.

I slid the onions from the cutting board into the pan and in minutes the whole room smelled wonderful. Lucy was at the counter with her laptop.

“Come here, honey, lemme show you what I found on the web.”

“What?” said Emily.

“This is the debate team from the University of South Carolina.”

“Whoa! Not bad.”

“Right?” Lucy said, and giggled.

I came around to see for myself. There was a full screen of great-looking young men and women, all of them very serious. Lucy pointed to a particularly adorable young man who looked like an Abercrombie & Fitch model. He had thick blond hair and penetrating eyes. I don’t know if anybody besides Lucy still said
hunk
, but he was one.

“See that cute fellow? That’s my nephew, David. He’s coming to spend the summer with me. Tomorrow sometime. He’s driving down from Columbia with all his stuff.”

“Ohmagod.”

“My sister lives in Greenville. I don’t think David knows too many people his age around here. Maybe you could help me entertain him?”

“Ohmagod.”

That was all Emily said about David and for the rest of the evening she was very quiet. We had our dinner and helped Lucy clean up. At what seemed to be the right moment, Jim, Emily, and I walked back to our house, leaving Daddy and Lucy alone.

“So, Anna, do you think they, you know, get it on?”

“Jim!”

Emily burst out laughing and I began chasing Jim around the yard, pretending that I was going to beat him up.

“Disgusting! That’s what you are!”

“Em! Help your old man here!”

“You’re on your own!”

We finally gave up and, out of breath, we went inside. Jim stood looking at the couch. He recognized it as his destiny for the night. Emily was standing next to him.

“Okay,” she said, “sleep in my room. I’ll sleep with Mom.”

Jim hugged her wildly. “Thank you, child! Thank you! My back has been saved!”

“What do you mean? We paid two hundred dollars for that couch fifteen years ago! Don’t you remember?”

“I rest my case,” Jim said. “Yeah, and it belonged to the Marquis de Sade.”

“There ain’t a bargain in the world that ain’t got my momma’s fingerprints on it.”

We said good night and when I finally turned out the light next to my bed, it was Emily and I, in the dark.

“Tonight was fun,” she said.

“Yeah, it was.”

“So what do you think about that kid David?”

“He looks pretty conservative, but he’s very good looking. What did you think?”

“He’s probably an asshole. I mean, debate team? Please!”

“Must you say
asshole
?”

“Yes.”

So say it. At least she was talking to me about what was on her mind. I decided to tell her what was bothering me.

“Arthur is coming over tomorrow. What am I gonna wear?” It wasn’t what I was going to wear that had me going, it was that he was coming over in the first place.

“Get some sleep, Mom. You don’t want to look like a beat-up old bag.”

“Oh, thanks a lot.”

We were quiet for a few minutes or longer. I had so many things on my mind, but I was so sleepy I could barely keep my eyes open. Just when I was drifting off, Emily spoke again.

“Mom?”

“Hmmm?” I was sinking into my mattress and didn’t want to wake up.

“Is Jim my real father? I mean, he’s, like, this definitely totally gay guy. Was he always? I mean, did you, you know . . .”

My eyes shot open in the dark. In the first moment, I didn’t know whether or not to pretend to be asleep. I decided to dodge.

“What kind of a crazy question is that? Jim is more than your father. And he’s more than my ex-husband. Now, let’s be quiet and we’ll talk tomorrow.”