Isle of Palms (59 page)

“You, ma’am, have a kind heart and I appreciate this. How about if I call you tomorrow?”

“That’s fine. Really.”

With the tinkle of the front door’s bell my business day began. Bettina and Brigitte came in together. No makeup, hair in ponytails.

Bettina was talking a mile a minute about our party the night before. Brigitte was giving her minimal responses, like,
Um-hm, You know it, girl,
and the ever useful
You can say that again,
at which point Bettina would gladly repeat herself. We said hello (which is really
hey!
), made each other coffee, split my muffin all around, and then Lucy arrived.

“Y’all look like y’all been drug by a mule all through the ditches of hell!”

“At least we have a good reason,” Brigitte said. “What’s worse than looking like hell for nothing? When’s my first appointment?”

“Ten,” Lucy said. “I’ll keep the coffee coming! All of y’all are booked all day.”

“I look like death warmed over! Who’s got concealer?” I said. “Man. I look bad!”

“I need a spackle knife to fill in my wrinkles today!” Bettina said. “My legs are killing me!”

At nine on the dot, the door swung open and in the morning light stood Carla with two young male stylists from Harriet’s House of Hell and a shopping bag. She was smiling from ear to ear.

“All right, you party monsters, Carla’s here with reinforcements. This is Raymond and this is Eugene.”

“Carla? What . . . ?” I said. What was going on?

“When I told Harriet I was leaving, she got mad, they laughed, and she fired them. If you don’t need them today, you’ll need them by next week.” She opened her bag and pulled out an address wheel. “This is Harriet’s Rolodex. Where’s the nearest Xerox machine?”

Well, you could hear us laughing all the way to Columbia and maybe even Greenville.

By the end of the day, Eugene and Raymond were part of the family, Harriet’s Rolodex had been copied and secretly returned through a friend, Carla had booked enough appointments to keep me solvent for a year, and we all looked forward to bedtime like never before. I kissed them all on the cheek and left at the first available opportunity.

I pulled my car into my yard and got out. The side of my house was measured off with sticks and strings, which I followed around to the backyard, where they were measuring for the deck. But I hadn’t said anything about a side porch. At that moment, I didn’t care.

Miss Angel was sitting on the bottom step of her house, basket weaving.

“Hey!” she said. “I’m making y’all some more baskets!”

“Hey, Miss Angel! Good! We need them!”

“Okay,” she said, “you building a deck or what?”

“Yeah, looks like it, doesn’t it?”

“Your chile gone back?”

“Yeah, but not without a fight! Seems she fell in love.”

“Ain’t nothing like it, Miss Anna. Nothing like love in all the world.”

“You’re right. That’s so true! See you later!”

Somewhere in between two loads of laundry and the looks of intense longing I was giving my bed, the phone rang several times. Emily was safe in her dorm room. Frannie, who was out with Jake, called to say she would not be in that night. I ate a peanut butter sandwich and fell asleep before ten, deciding to fold the sheets another day.

The rest of that week and the next went by in a blur. Frannie returned to Washington, swearing she was going to figure out how to move back to Charleston and marry this fellow she’d known for all of five minutes.

“I’m not kidding, Anna, this Jake is something else.”

“Does he make you sweat?”

“Humph! I sweat just thinking about him!”

“Wow,” I said, and hoped she would.

On Saturday I worked late and got home around nine o’clock. My lights were on and somebody was in my house. I walked in to find Daddy and Lucy sitting on my couch.

“What’s going on?” Wasn’t this what happened when somebody died?

“It’s Emily,” Daddy said, “she’s . . .”

Before he could say another word I started screaming.
“What?”

“She’s home, Anna,” Lucy said. “She’s fine. She’s sleeping like somebody hit her in the head with a hammer.”

“What in the world?” I said and sank into a chair.

“She’s like you, Anna,” Daddy said and smiled, “stubborn as a mule. She called me this morning and I sent her a ticket. She hasn’t slept since the eleventh and she’s all wrung out. She’s quit school and wants to be here with us. And, she transferred to the College of Charleston.”

“What did you do? You can’t just let her . . .”

“Anna,” Lucy said, “before you get all upset, you should listen to what she has to say. It’s not just about David. It’s not.”

I knew that it wasn’t just about a boy or a boy she loved or thought she loved, but they were right. I knew I should listen to her side and I would.

“She says that she belongs here, Anna,” Daddy said. “You, above all people, should understand that.”

“I do.”

“She thinks you need her, you know, to help with the salon and all.”

“I can always use an extra hand,” I said, smiling.

“I let her in with my key,” Daddy said, “and Lucy said she thought we should wait here until you got home.”

“Yeah, so you wouldn’t yank her outta the bed by her ears and kick her butt back to D.C.”

“Thanks, I mean it.”

“We’re gonna go back to my house now. You want to come and have a drink with us?”

“No, thanks. I just want to . . . um, think for a while. Okay?”

Daddy stood up and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “She’s a wonderful girl, Anna; try to understand her. She’s got a beautiful heart.”

“Okay, Daddy. Thanks, I will.”

As soon as I closed the door behind Daddy and Lucy, I opened the door to Emily’s room. She was sleeping peacefully on her lavender sheets, her blond hair spread out over her pillows. I leaned over her bed and kissed her head.

“Welcome home, baby,” I said, in a whisper.

My heart was so full, I decided to take a look at the night before I broke down in tears. A change would do me good, thank you, Sheryl Crow.

The sand was cool under my feet and I walked for a while. I thought about the day and what it meant. I looked up at the stars in the sky and started remembering a flood of things—being a little girl, moving to Mount Pleasant, changing friends and schools, recovering from Everett Fairchild, having Emily, and marrying Jim. I’d dealt with so many things and never believed in myself. Maybe that was what Emily was trying to do—to find a way to control her own life and believe in herself.

Because of Jim and Frannie, Daddy, and even good old Lucy, my life had changed in every single way. And, let us not forget, there was a river of my own sweat involved. Emily needed me to do the same for her. In any case, despite the crazy world out there over the causeway, my life was good.

I thought about Jim. Jim was probably reading wine lists all over France and Emily was hopefully dreaming something sweet. Like Miss Mavis had said to me months ago,
the world has changed around me
. . . screw the outside world.

I walked on toward Sullivan’s Island, watching the light from the lighthouse scan around and around, flooding everything in wedges of gold light. I wondered what the future would bring. I decided to sit on an old palmetto log for a few minutes. Sifting cool sand through my fingers, I thought about all I had learned about myself, the people around me, and life in general. Living the life you wanted took a lot of strength, a little bit of vision, and definitely it took some luck. Good humor helped. Love made it worth the trouble.

I got up and stretched and looked up at the sky again. It was so breathtakingly beautiful, and immense, and thrilling right down to the tips of my toes. I began walking home, feeling ready to lie down and knowing I could sleep.

Tomorrow Emily and I would talk and I would find out what had happened to make her leave Washington. I was very inclined to keep her with me. Let’s be honest. She was staying with me for as long as she wanted.

When Jim came for Thanksgiving we would talk and finally get the business about her birth behind us, but I would not tell her it was rape. I would just tell her I had done something irresponsible. I realized then that maybe one of the reasons I had never told her the truth was because it was connected with violence. My sweet girl didn’t need to go through the rest of her life knowing that an unspeakable act of violence had brought her here. It was an unnecessary detail.

Before I crawled in between my covers, I checked on Emily again. She was sleeping without a sound and the breeze coming through her windows had the identical fragrance of the smell of the breeze from my own childhood.

It was true that I had a small house, a small salon, and only one child. At that very moment, I realized that it was important to know how much was enough.

Regroup

EMILY made her case and won. She would immediately begin classes at the College of Charleston instead of Carolina and no one argued with her reasoning.

“Look, Mom, I’m not going back to Washington. I watched all that 9/11 rerun stuff and it drove me nuts. I don’t need all that craziness in my face. I can’t concentrate. I could go to Carolina but then we’d have to pay for an apartment for me. That’s pretty stupid, don’t you think? Anyway, this is where I belong. I missed you.”

“I missed you too. I mean, the College of Charleston is fine but I think it really depends on what you want to major in, baby.”

“Mom? I know you’re going to think this is insane, but I want to be a writer and there are truly excellent—”

“A writer? You’ll starve!”

“I won’t starve. I’ll do fine. I’m gonna write sitcoms. And all the courses I need to take are right here. And, they have a new totally excellent literary magazine called the
Crazy Horse
and—”

“If you want anyone to take you seriously, you’d better stop saying
totally
and
excellent
.” Sitcoms? I hated sitcoms. Ah well, at least she didn’t want to be a doctor.

“Whatever. And they have more creative writing courses than anyone. Besides, you need me to help you anyway. And, I can see David on the weekends.”

I called Jim and found him. Jim thought the transfer was fine.

“Well, Anna, maybe this makes me a worrywart, but I feel better just knowing she’s out of Washington. I mean, I know she was completely safe there, but still. And, if she can’t sleep and can’t study, what’s the point?”

It was settled. Emily began attending classes, Frannie had Emily’s belongings shipped home, and even though there was no reason to ring the national alarm, we all slept a little better. There was just something about having your chickens in your own coop.

Over the next few weeks, I had dinner with Jack Taylor a few times and it looked like we were becoming something of a couple, which is to say I knew we were heading to the bedroom door and I knew I wasn’t ready.

I had also discovered that he was years and years older than I was. That didn’t mean anything except that—and I know this is going to sound shallow—I wasn’t in a hurry to find out what a fifty-something-year-old guy was like in the sack and, much more importantly, my little fling with Arturo had left me feeling slightly used.

Our most recent conversation on the topic of intimacy had taken place at Jack’s house the previous week. We’d been to dinner at Cypress—which is heaven on this earth—and went back to his place for a nightcap. We were standing in the living room and one thing led to another and the next thing I knew we were about to violate his Persian rug.

“I don’t know, Jack,” I said, “I just feel like we might be rushing into something for the wrong reasons.”

“I thought you cared about me,” he said.

“I do, but, you know, lately I’ve been thinking. I don’t want another relationship with someone that’s about what’s convenient and not about love. I don’t think it’s right to just, I don’t know, screw.”

He sat up and ran his hand through his hair. “It’s why Caroline and I didn’t last very long.”

“What do you mean?”

“Look, I’m a traditional guy. She really didn’t want a husband right now. I’d really love having a wife and maybe even another child. But, I guess I’m not like most men.”

Okay, this is when you decide I am permanently flawed and beyond rescue. Another child? I was looking at forty! Worse than that, Jack Taylor was a lovely man but without a single mystery left for discovery. Not that it was a crime, it just didn’t make for much of a challenge. Not that I wanted a challenge, but I wanted something he hadn’t shown me so far.

I didn’t go to bed with him that night and after that, he sent flowers twice and called me all the time. Holding out was paying off in some ways because what girl doesn’t like all the attention? The problem was that the man giving the attention just wasn’t the man of my dreams.

Then it happened. The last week of September, King Arthur and Excalibur returned to Charleston. It was late afternoon and we were walking on the beach and talking. It didn’t take long for the sun to set and the dog to howl. After so many evenings with Jack Taylor, he had remained a perfect gentleman. After ten minutes with Arthur, the poor guy could barely concentrate on anything except shaking the bacon. Frankly, I was still completely discombobulated around him and it made me mad that my physical body fought my commitment to avoid making the same mistake again.

As the nuns probably would have said, if they’d been acquainted with having the unholy hots—pheromones are unfamiliar with the boundaries of decorum.

But, Lord! The second he had arrived, I wanted him in the most urgent way. I had it bad for Arthur. Bad, bad, bad. Oooh! But,
but!
I didn’t let it show.

“I’m sorry I didn’t call you,” he said. “I got an offer from Citarella—a restaurant in New York. My old friend from Bouley, Dominique Simon, had taken a job there to sort of give them a fresh image and he needed a maitre d’fromage. Immediately. I just sort of took off and I apologize.”