Isle of Palms (45 page)

“I wish I’d had a camera,” I said. “Oh, my God! You shoulda seen your face!”

“And yours! When you came out in that bag, I lost it!”

“I thought I looked pretty darn good! Some anniversary!”

“Want a divorce?” he asked.

“Are you crazy? I want to know what we’re gonna do for an encore!”

I went home and sneaked inside. Emily and Jim were sleeping and I thanked heaven for that small favor. I took a shower and since it was too early to get up, I decided to lie down on the couch with a quilt. All I could think about was Arthur and what had gone on between us. Coast Guard rescue aside, I knew I would never get him out of my system. I had fallen in love and in lust and I don’t even know in what order. Not get involved? Yeah, good luck.

Incredible Odds

I DRAGGED myself into the salon by nine, grateful that no one knew what had happened last night. But on a curious note, I wanted to tell somebody about my “cruise” because without question, it was the funniest thing that had ever happened to me. It was even more insane than a Lucy story, and those were my benchmarks for the outrageous. Nonetheless, I said nothing, thinking maybe I would tell Jim and Frannie. It was too fabulous to file away and repress.

“Here’s your schedule for today,” Lucy said, handing me the list. “You look worn out, girl. What’d you do last night?”

“Hot date with the Cheese Whiz.”

“Isn’t it always about men?”

“Seems like it.” The mystery plant was on the floor next to Lucy’s desk. I had all but forgotten about it. “Who sent this thing?”

“Dunno,” she said, “no card.”

“Where’d it come from?”

“Belva’s.”

“If you have a minute, why don’t you call Belva’s and see who it was.”

Somehow I got through the day without giving myself away and, of course, promptly forgot about the origin of the plant. Besides, Mr. Don’t Want to Get Involved called around three.

“Wassup, Ms. Abbot? You busy?”

“Not at the moment. What’s on your mind?”

“I was just thinking about you. You know, last night and everything.”

“I’m never getting on another boat for the rest of my life.”

I could hear him laugh a little and instantly I began to relive the other, more intense episode that made me sleep like the dead in the first place. I couldn’t decide whether I had better never see him again or put him on a leash. Who was I kidding? I wanted him all to myself.

“Did you hear what I said?”

“I’m sorry, Arthur, I was just thinking about last night and this place is a little noisy. What did you say?”

“I said, I don’t have to work Thursday night. Do you want to go do something?”

“Sure,” I said, and then remembered that Jim was leaving Thursday. “Wanna cook or go out? Movies?”

“I was thinking about this restaurant I found downtown. It’s pretty charming.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said.

“And, Anna?”

“Yeah?”

“I enjoyed last night, I mean what happened between us. I enjoyed it very much.”

“Me too.”

We hung up and I was so pissed off I thought I would spit fire. He
enjoyed it?
What was I? Dessert? He couldn’t say something like,
Wasn’t it incredible?
No. This unromantic dumb-ass was thanking me like I had given him a piece of pie instead of my body and soul for hours on end
and
I’d wound up dressed in a garbage bag, humiliated beyond description.

He
enjoyed
it.

Well, isn’t that
special
. I had to assume that him calling me was slight headway. Actually, given his politics, a phone call from Arthur probably should have been considered hot pursuit/stalking. Was I taking a crumb he tossed my way and making something larger out of it?

Yes.

This whole dating thing made me truly insecure.

I turned my attention to planning something for Wednesday night to say bon voyage to Jim. I knew he needed some uplifting. It sounded like it was going to be all but impossible for Jim to have a civilized visit with Gary’s family. I realized that my stupid, almost obsessive, musings over Arthur were pretty low on the scale of real issues like the one facing Jim and Gary. Once again, my relationship with Jim had helped me put things in perspective. I decided to go all out and have a big cookout in the backyard.

I called Frannie on the off chance that she might be free to come and surprise Jim. Besides, I was dying to see her myself. It had been far too long since we’d made the effort and Jim was a great excuse for anyone to go the extra mile.

“Hey! Frannie! It’s me. You got a minute?”

“Girl!
Where
have you been? I’ve been missing you! You got your house and opened your business and I suck so bad, I didn’t even send you a plant! How’s it going?”

I brought her up to date, leaving out the story of Arthur and the boat. Then I told her about Gary and how upset Jim was, that he was going to try and see him.

“I think he needs us, Frannie.”

“Whoa. No shit. And, I expect that Miss Trixie knows nothing.”

“Probably not. I didn’t ask him if he had told her or not. I should call her and ask her to dinner for Wednesday.”

“Lemme get this straight. You’re calling me on Monday to see if I can be there Wednesday?”

“Yeah. No can do, right?”

“Wait a minute. I have to be in Raleigh on Friday—tobacco business—don’t ask. I could leave on Wednesday, fly to Charleston—can I spend the night at Chez Anna?”

“Of course!”

“Then I could fly out Thursday night. Let me see if there’s a flight. I’ll call you back.”

In an hour, it was all done. Frannie was coming.

I called Daddy and invited him, after checking with Lucy to see what the temperature of their relationship was. They were back in love. Naturally, I invited Brigitte and Bettina and her husband and I assumed Emily and David would be there. I should have told Arthur, but he probably had to work. Everyone agreed to help and we kept it a secret to surprise Jim.

After work, Emily and I took a long look at the backyard. I didn’t have a deck. I only had one tiny charcoal grill. I didn’t even have a hammock. All that existed there was beach grass, a shed, and a ton of flowering bushes and plants. I looked at my checkbook and the story was pretty dismal. However, I did have a Visa card with a liberal limit that I almost never used. Once again, since leaving the watchful eye of Daddy, I was about to blow the bank.

“Emily? Let’s go to Lowe’s and just see what it would cost to make this yard look like something.”

“Can we stop at Taco Bell?”

“You bet.”

Six tacos and two Diet Pepsis later, while strolling the aisles of Lowe’s, Emily and I calculated that we could get a table with an umbrella, six chairs, a medium-sized Fiesta gas grill, and a small Pawley’s Island rope hammock on a frame for right under a thousand dollars. This “Sydney” collection of furniture wasn’t out of
Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
, but it would do the job.

“What the hell, Mom,” Emily said, “go for it.”

I did. For another forty dollars I bought enough citronella torches to make the backyard look like we were having a luau.

“I don’t want to point this out, Mom, but you got six chairs and ten people.”

“We’ll use the chairs in the house.”

“And, you gotta have food. What are you gonna cook?”

“Obviously, something from the grill! Don’t wreck my good mood, missy. I’d hock my jewelry for Jim.”

“Um, you don’t have any jewelry.”

“Well, if I did . . .”

“Whatever.”

By Wednesday morning, I had a menu, courtesy of Bettina and Brigitte. I had seven pounds of baby back ribs marinating in Lucy’s refrigerator for the grill. And I planned to serve steamed shrimp to pick on while the ribs cooked. Brigitte was bringing salad and a watermelon basket. Bettina was bringing meatballs. Lucy was bringing her blender.

And I had invited Trixie. It went like this.

“Trixie? Hi! It’s Anna.”

There was a sigh, punctuated with silence and another sigh. “Well, hello,” she said, “how are you, dear?”

In Trixie’s vocabulary,
dear
was a name reserved for those she held as slightly putrid. I thought, Oh, screw her, let me just invite her and be done with it.

“I’m fine, thanks, busy. You know.”

“Ah’m sure you are. Bless your heart.”

“Anyway, the reason I called is that you know Jim’s leaving on Thursday . . .”

“No, Ah didn’t know. Is he going back to California?”

“Uh, yes. So Emily and I thought it would be a good idea to do something like have a cookout for him Wednesday night and we were hoping you could join us.”

“Ah’ll have to let you know. Ah’m not sure of what’s on my calendar and I’m just running out the door now. Call you later?”

Call me never for all I care.
“Sure. That’s fine.”

Why was it that certain people in my life made me feel guilty over every single thing? Was it my fault that Jim hadn’t told her he was leaving? No. After the way she had treated Emily I should have just reduced our relationship with her to greeting cards on required occasions. But, hell no. The good little Catholic girl in me was always willing to turn the other cheek. The Queen of Darkness in her was always willing to give that cheek another slap. I’d never accept that Trixie was just as committed to inflicting personal pain as I was to reconciliation. Intellectually, I wanted to be nice to Trixie for Jim’s sake and I wanted her to have a place in Emily’s life. And, years ago, she had tried awfully hard to help me, so I owed her something.

She called later to accept. She asked if she could bring anything. Now we would be eleven. Maybe she could bring a chair.

On Wednesday, I sent Jim off with a list of things to do. Most of them were just silly errands to keep him out of the house so he wouldn’t know I had anything going on that night. Lowe’s called at three to say they were ready to deliver the furniture so Lucy and Emily took off for home to make sure it was in the right place, level with the ground, and wiped down with Fantastik. By the time I got home, the table and chairs were immaculate, the umbrella was raised, the hammock was hung, and the citronella torches were in place. It looked like I was having a party except for one thing—no word from Frannie. She was supposed to have arrived by four. Maybe her flight had been delayed. I asked Emily to call the airlines and check.

“Air traffic controllers delayed the flight because of some storm system that they think
might
get in the way, Mom. Nothing she can do about that.”

“Storm system, bull. It’s eighty-five degrees and clear as a bell. Probably a security thing.” We went outside and looked at the skies. Not a cloud in sight in any direction. “Well, let’s hope she makes it tonight.”

Lucy went home to shower and returned at six-thirty with an aluminum folding table to use for a buffet, hauled by David, who had taken a bath in some kind of loud cologne and couldn’t take his eyes off Emily, who had stripped the color out of her hair that afternoon and begged Brigitte to apply a platinum blond toner, which she did and finally Emily looked like Emily. In fact, Emily looked like she’d never left the Lowcountry, thus beginning a pronounced change in Emily’s appearance and attitude. Maybe the clothes she wore had been in her closet all the time, but she had on a baby pink T-shirt and white shorts, which were too short, but I said not one word about it. With all that swinging blond hair and those green eyes of hers, she looked her age and she looked pretty.

“You got a white sheet?” Lucy asked me.

“Toga party?” Emily said.

“No, Klan meeting,” I said.

Emily got this look on her face.

“Oh, for pity’s sake, Emily. She needs a sheet for a tablecloth! Go look in the linen closet!” Lucy and I exchanged looks of mock despair.
Adults are not allowed to make jokes that aren’t one hundred percent politically correct. Adults are not allowed to have a sense of humor that is counterpoint to the teenager’s. Adults should admit they’re old and boring and just go someplace and be quiet, except when teenagers need money, car keys, or rescue from any number of things.

“Kids,” she said.

Bettina and Bobby arrived with a covered pot, so hot that Bobby carried it with pot holders, rushing ahead of Bettina, who was fishing something out of her trunk.

“Hi!” I said.

“You gotta be Anna,” he said, “heard a lot about ya.”

“I’m so glad to meet you, Bobby. We love Bettina to death!”

“Nice place,” he said, nodding his head at my flower beds. “Where do you want me to put this?”

“Oh! Let me take it for you!”

“Nah. Too heavy,” he said, “I’ll just put it in the kitchen.”

Manly. Very manly. Whew.

“Got my CDs and my boom box,” Bettina said and whizzed past me on her wooden platform mules. “I brought eighties dance club music from New York!”

Well, I thought, there goes the shag contest. Guess I’m gonna have to learn how to Hustle.

Next came Brigitte with a huge watermelon, carved to look like a basket with a handle, filled with strawberries, cantaloupe, and all kinds of chopped fruit.

“Holy cow! Did you make this?”

“This is what a sporadic sex life does to you. Your freaking Martha gene rears its highlighted head and you start carving rosettes out of radishes.”

“I’m single and, lemme tell you, honey, I couldn’t make one of those if life and limb depended on it. But I can garden.”

“My point exactly,” she said, standing there with the watermelon balanced on one hip. She looked hard at the explosion of flowers that were all but growing up the sides of my house and into the windows. She turned to me with an arched eyebrow and said, “This place looks like the freaking Charleston Botanical Gardens!”