Isle of Palms (50 page)

“You know what, Mr. Big Cheese?”

“What Miss, um, Midnight Rider?”

“I love the way you kiss me.” I held the bag of Doritos in the air. “Come! I’ve brought us a feast.”

“I was just gonna make some eggs. Want eggs?”

“Nah, thanks. I brought some wine too. Jim bought me a case of something he thought I’d like. It’s a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc—Fairhall Downs—whatever that is. Got a corkscrew?”

“Did you say
screw
?”

“Very funny and no, precious, I didn’t come over here on a late-night nooky hunt or something.” I ripped open the bag and took a bite of a chip. “God, these are terrible. Don’t eat them. I wanted to talk to you.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, pretending to be disappointed. He reached into the drawer. “Here. Hand me the bottle. Does this mean you don’t want to sleep with me anymore?”

“Good grief! Is that all men think about?”

“Hell, no! We think about football, wrestling, money, power—do you really think we’re all just a bunch of shallow bastards?”

“Yes, but that’s okay because at least we women know what they’re dealing with.”

“Ooooh! Ouch! Let’s go on the porch.”

The air was thick with fog. We couldn’t even see the dock.

“Is the boat out there?”

“You mean the Love Boat?”

“Good Lord.” I sat in the same chair I had before and Arthur handed me my goblet. “That was the most unbelievable night of my life.”

He took a chip from the bag and dropped the bag on the footstool. “It was pretty funny, the Coast Guard and all.” I watched him pop the chip in his mouth. “You’re right. These are disgusting.”

We were quiet for a few minutes, enjoying the mysteries of the night, and then I broke the silence.

“So, I’ve been thinking, Arthur.”

“Yeah? Whatcha thinking?”

“Well, I think we should be friends. I mean, I’m not saying we shouldn’t sleep together, but I think the main thing should be that we become friends.”

“Aren’t we friends already?”

“Yeah, but I don’t want us to not see each other because of this commitment thing. I mean, I get it. At first, I thought it was a little screwed up but then I began to understand. Anyway, what’s the difference? You’re just visiting here, you’re going to be leaving in August, and you’re right.”

“Getting involved with someone a thousand miles away is stupid, not to mention damn inconvenient.”

I felt my heart sink a little but plunged ahead. “Look, I figure if we just forget the whole
involved
thing, who knows? I mean, you might want to visit here again and need a couch. . . .”

“A couch? You’d make me sleep on the couch?”

“No, of course not, unless Emily was there. But I might want to go to New York sometime. It would be nice to know I could just call you and see you without the burden of some disappointment hanging over us.”

“I’m glad you’re telling me this. I really am. It was how I hoped you’d feel after you had a chance to think about it; I mean, I felt pretty bad about what I said on Thursday. I know it seemed, I don’t know, selfish or something.”

Yes.
Selfish
would be the word, Mr. Me Generation.

“Not at all,” I said. “Look, if you lived here things might be different. But you don’t, so this is what we’ve got.”

“What have we got?”

“We’re friends.”

“Right. Friends. Good.”

Well, don’t you know old Arthur gets up and pulls me to my feet and started moving on me. I’ll tell you, I was snickering inside so hard I couldn’t believe I didn’t burst out laughing. Instead I let him kiss me all he wanted. Yes, I did. He had a handful of my left breast and I loved that too. But then I decided either I was going to jump in bed again or I was going to give him something to think about. So, in the tradition of the classic southern tease, I let his temperature rise to the appropriate level and stood back from him.

“Arthur? You are so hot you make me feel like all I want to do is crawl all over you, but I gotta go.”

“Baby-boy, you are the sexiest man I have ever met in this world and absolutely hell to resist, but I have a teenage daughter who’s probably drinking all the booze in my house and I gotta get up early tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday, sweetie.”

“That’s right. I have to be in church by nine-thirty. Night, daarlin’. Let’s try to see each other this week, okay?”

“You working Monday? I need a haircut.”

“Yes, you do!”
Right after I braid your short hairs.
“Come by! No problem!”

I don’t know what
he
thought but all the way home
I
thought about him trying to sleep and I couldn’t stop congratulating myself. The first battle had taken place and the hard-hearted Yankee had been bested by the belle. Shoot! He didn’t know who he was messing with. There hasn’t been a southern woman born worth her salt who couldn’t bring a man around to her thinking by merely withholding her favors.

Waxing Eloquent

ARTHUR, with renewed desire, became more attentive and I saw him twice that week, beginning with the Monday he came in for me to cut his hair. Bettina bubbled all over him, saying,
I’m from New York too, ya know
—every other sentence, not understanding that Arthur still considered himself to be from Connecticut and therefore slightly more important. Now, that almost went completely over my head because Arthur didn’t realize that if you were from the Lowcountry, anyone north of Columbia was suspect. But he kept saying,
Actually, I’m from Connecticut,
and Bettina would say,
Yeah, well, same thing,
to which Arthur would reply,
Actually it’s quite its own place,
until I finally realized that Connecticut wasn’t the melting pot that Brooklyn was. I never thought about New York, Brooklyn, or Connecticut. Why would I? But Arthur wanted the rest of us to know that he was of another, more rarefied social stratum than Bettina. I thought it made him look stupid to think he had to point that out in the first place and I worried that he might insult Bettina. To her credit, Bettina was actually baiting him, trying to decide if he was worth my energy.

When he left she came over to me and said, “Connecticut. Big hairy deal.”

“Well, I guess that about sums up how you feel about him.”

“You got it.”

Lucy and I patched things up because I knew we had to and she was grossly unhappy that she had caused me so much anxiety. Daddy was calling her less and less and I knew she thought that her betrayal had caused it. For my part, being mad with Lucy was a little like staying upset at your dog for peeing indoors when it was pouring rain outside. The dog couldn’t help it and regretted it. What were you supposed to do? I told her I’d duct tape her jaw if I found it flapping around again. She took an oath.

“Cross my heart,” she said, almost breathless. “I’d rather die.”

“Okay. Don’t make me hold you to it.”

And Jim finally called about a week after he had left.

“Hey, you! I thought you’d never call! How was Ohio? Are you back in San Francisco?”

“Yeah, I’m home and it seems awfully empty. In a word, Ohio was horrible. Gary’s parents are completely destroyed by the reality that they’re going to live to bury their son. They were pretty nice to me—I imagine that Gary had told them that this illness was of his doing, not mine. When they saw that I really cared about him, they were more hospitable. But this is complicated by so many issues, you know?”

“Yeah. I can only imagine.”

“I called Hospice for them.”

“Is he that close?”

“You know what? I can’t tell, but he seems to be at peace about his death and I just figured that, from what I’ve read, that’s when things start shutting down. His parents aren’t handling it well at all. His mother is crying all the time and his father barely speaks. Hospice does all sorts of counseling and I really called them for his parents. Plus, I think Gary would benefit from the comfort of professionals.”

“Jim, I am so sorry about Gary.”

“I know that. I mean, I know he caused you some misery years ago. . . .”

“That misery was my fault, not his.”

Jim was quiet for a few minutes and I wondered what he was thinking. “You’re good to say that, Anna, in many ways.”

“I’m always here for you, Jim.”

“I know that and it’s helping me get through this. You know, I travel so much that my world has grown small and, outside of Gary, I have always been so grateful to have you and Emily and Frannie too. There’s just nothing like shared history.”

“You’re right. We’re another definition of family, I guess. Unlikely souls struggling together, separately.”

“Yeah, well, I’ll call you soon.”

Time moved on through July, measured by the flood of tourists and the incessant heat. The Isle of Palms sun boiled, scorching everyone and everything. The late afternoons brought dark skies, sudden downpours, and then the light would reappear until the sun set around eight-thirty.

David and Emily had their share of flaring tempers and then reconciliation, but for whatever reason, they were well matched as friends and as young lovers too. I had come to a place where I let her almost come and go as she pleased. It was wrong and I knew it, but each time I would say,
You have to use your own judgment,
she seemed to grow up a little more. That was the goal—to have her grow up as much as possible before Everett Fairchild came to town. I still hadn’t decided if I was going to do anything about it, when fate stepped in.

I hadn’t seen or heard from Arthur in awhile and I thought, Oh, great, we’re playing games again. It was the beginning of August, late one night, and I went over to his house. I knocked on the door and the dogs started barking. After a few minutes, a man in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt came to the door, scratching his head, obviously roused from his sleep.

“Can I help you?” he said, squinting to see if he knew me.

“Oh! I’m sorry! Is Arthur here?”

“No, he’s gone back to New York. Is there something I can do?”

I stood there for what seemed an eternity, lost for words. Finally I said, “No, that’s okay. I’m sorry I woke you.” I started down the steps and he called out.

“If he calls do you want me to tell him anything?”

“Yeah, tell him Anna’s not surprised.”

Now, given my state of mind, I thought I was pretty cool about Arthur just pulling up stakes and heading north. The weasel. He hadn’t even called. Well, maybe something had happened with his son and eventually he would turn up. Maybe not. I didn’t care. It’s a very telling thing about me—this art of quick recovery. But by the time you’re in your thirties, having traveled a sidewalk pockmarked with personal disappointment, you learn that life goes on. I knew there was a lid for every pot. Unfortunately, every lid I had found was a little warped or maybe I wasn’t the right pot. It didn’t matter because he was gone and a prolonged examination of his exit was a waste of my time. After all, he was living up to his promise of not getting involved. Besides, in his defense, I didn’t have enough information to make a judgment.

Without Arthur around to distract me—and this was after I had the good cry I will admit I had over being dumped—I began to focus my vengeance toward Everett Fairchild. The following week, Brigitte and I were working late, finishing with our clients around nine. Everyone else was gone and we were closing up the shop.

“Hey, you wanna grab a bite to eat?” I said.

“Why not?”

“I’m not starving, but I could go for something small. Wings?”

“Dunleavy’s?”

“I’ll follow you,” I said.

With that, we got in our cars and followed each other to the tiny pub at the corner of Station Twenty-two and Middle Street on Sullivan’s Island. Parking was a problem but we finally found spots and met up at the front door and eased our way through the crowd. We were greeted by Vicki, the waitress.

Now, you have to know her to fully appreciate the experience. Vicki, a vivacious buxom redhead with the map of Ireland all over her face, should have been working on the
Daily Show
. She was probably the funniest woman on the island and everyone loved her. And Dunleavy’s could be crowded, with lots of people standing between the tables watching any of the four televisions suspended from the ceiling, while yellow Labs and small children wandered in between them. Sometimes there was music but there was always fun to be had and where there was fun, Vicki was in the middle, directing traffic and taking orders at the same time.

We found a small table and parked ourselves, knowing that when she showed up we’d have to shout our order to be heard.

“What’ll it be, ladies?”

“I’ll have a Harp and a dozen wings—medium hot,” I said.

“I’ll have the Peel ’n’ Eat Shrimp and a glass of Chardonnay,” Brigitte said.

She took notes and said, “See that guy over there?”

We followed her gesturing and noticed a precious fellow a few years younger than all of us.

“In the blue shirt?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, “if he’s still here at eleven, I might—just maybe—give him the thrill of his life.”

“So would I,” Brigitte said, squinting in his direction. “He must be a tourist. Too starched.”

“Who cares?” I said. “He’s adorable.”

“Get on line, girls,” Vicki said. “I’ll have your drinks out in a second.”

How funny that there was a place in this most conservative society that women could talk about men like they had been talking about us for eons. We were kidding, of course. Not really.

Brigitte and I went through the wings, the shrimp, and a pile of Wet-Naps and finally the crowd thinned out so that we could talk and hear each other.

“So, Brigitte, I gotta ask you something.”

“Shoot,” she said.