Shem Creek (24 page)

“You think, you think, you
think?
Well,
good!
I’m glad you can think!” I said very emphatically, and I wasn’t even sure why. Suddenly, I was embarrassed by the way Brad and O’Malley looked at me. “Wha?” I delivered that
wha
in my best New Jersey trucker accent.

“Nothing!” O’Malley said and turned back to his work.

“Yeah! Nothing!” Brad said and walked away.

I knew they were smirking. Especially Brad. Even from the back of his head, I could tell that his cheek muscles were tightened into a smile.

“Oh, fine!” I said and went into my office, closing the door hard.

I buried myself in work for the rest of the day, answering the phone when it rang more than four times. Mimi called for Brad. She had found a doctor and the appointment was set up.

“This guy’s from Duke,” she said with the authority of a physician. “They’re the center for any kind of arrhythmia problem in the whole country. Anyway . . .”

She ran on and on, I thanked her and transferred her to Brad.

Gracie called in at the end of her school day. “Do I have to work today? It’s Lindsey’s last full day and we thought maybe we could go to the beach one last time?”

“Better check with Louise,” I said, “your behind belongs to her, you know.”

“Oh, hell, I’ll come in.”

“That’s up to you,” I said.

“Are you mad at me?”

I assured her that I was not angry with her but she could read in the tone of my voice that I did not approve of blowing off work for play when other people were depending on you.

Finally, the day ended and I said good night to Louise.

“Your girl going tomorrow?”

“Yeah, God, I can hardly believe it.”

“Why don’t you take the day off?”

I thought about it for a minute. I was considering committing the same crime I had discouraged Gracie from committing. “I’ll work half a day. I have to do the banking and all that stuff.”

“Yeah, okay. Hey, that contraption you and Doo-wayne ordered for the fish is coming in tomorrow.”

“Excellent!”

“Oh, yeah, and um . . .”

“What?”

“I didn’t get to see that Amy thaing. Spill it!”

“Ho from hell,” I said.

Louise’s eyebrows took a trip to the rafters.

“Young enough to be his daughter.”

“Humph,” Louise said, and her eyebrows went through the roof again.

She smiled at me and I thought about how much I liked her. Louise was a good woman.

The next afternoon, Mimi, Gracie, and I drove Lindsey to the airport. Considering that the car was filled with chatterboxes, it was almost silent. There was not the usual fighting over the music—the radio wasn’t even turned on. There wasn’t even the usual bickering from the girls about who sat where. We pulled into the passenger drop-off area and I got out to help Lindsey with her bags.

“I’ll park and meet you at the restaurant?” Mimi said.

“Perfect,” I said.

“I’ll go with Aunt Mimi,” Gracie said. When Mimi turned around to pat Gracie’s leg in affection, she added, “Well? She’s old! She might get lost!”

Mimi gave her a little slap and shook her head at me. “Who’s old?” she said through the window and pulled away from the curb.

Mimi was winning over Gracie’s stubborn little heart.

Lindsey showed her identification, checked her bags and got her boarding pass. “Let’s get a Coke or something,” she said.

As soon as our waiter placed our drinks in front of us, Mimi and Gracie appeared.

“Here,” Gracie said, dropping an armload of magazines in front of Lindsey. “Don’t say I never gave you nothing!”

“Good English, dumb ass,” Lindsey said.

“Up yours, you’ll miss me,” Gracie said, sitting and taking her menu. “I’m starving!”

Mimi said, “The only good thing about Lindsey running away from home—”

“I am not!”

“We know that, darlin’!” Mimi said and winked at her. “As I was saying . . . the only good thing is that Gracie won’t have anybody to cuss with!”

“Ha!” Lindsey said. “You should hear her and Alex!”

The inane conversation lasted through burgers, pie and the check, but that was normal for us. Chitchat, time passes and the dreaded moment arrives and leaves without us giving it more than a cursory nod.

“We had better go to the gate now,” I said.

I paid the check and walked arm in arm with Mimi, Lindsey’s tote bag slung over my shoulder. Gracie and Lindsey were in front of us.

“There’s nothing like sisters,” I said to Mimi.

“Look at them,” she said.

“Look at us! I mean, where would I be without you? Seriously!”

“It’s the truth! You’d be dead in a ditch for sure! But you know what?”

“What?”

“Gracie’s gonna miss her Lindsey.”

Mimi was surely right about that. I could see Gracie’s shoulders shaking and I thought they were laughing about something. In the next second, she stopped, Lindsey threw her arms around her and I knew she was crying. That was it. I ran to them, Lindsey started to cry and I was next. It was impossible for us not to be emotional, but crying in public was not on Mimi’s list of acceptable activities.

“Y’all! Get a grip!” she said, and started pulling tissues from her pocket. “People are staring!”

Her eyes were brimming with tears too. How could they not have brimmed with tears? We were going to be short one person in the daily body count until Thanksgiving. I was miserable!

“Baby? Come here!” I put my arms around her.

“How will you stand Gracie? You’ll murder her and have good cause!”

“Shut up, jerk.”

“Hush, Gracie! No. I won’t. I promise. You’ll see. Just go. Study! Make A’s! Make us proud!” I sniffed so loud the carpet ruffled. “I love you. We all do. So much.”

Lindsey shifted her tote bag from one shoulder to the other. She hugged Mimi and Gracie and then came back to me. She looked at me as though she was trying to memorize every detail of my face.

“I’m gonna be fine, Mom. Really.”

“I know.”

“I’ll call you tonight?”

“You better.”

We watched her go through security and walk halfway down the long corridor leading to the gates. She stopped, turned and waved to us. I blew her a kiss. She seemed so young to me. Mimi put her arm around my shoulder and Gracie put her arm around my waist. I stood there until Lindsey rounded the corner and was out of my sight.

“Let’s go home, Momma.”

Whether it was on purpose or not, Gracie called the Lowcountry home. It was then that I knew we were going to be fine.

MY house was so quiet that when the phone rang it sounded like a fire alarm. It was after ten o’clock and Lindsey finally called to let me know she had arrived safely. Fred and Patti had picked her up at the Newark Airport and taken her to dinner at Knickerbocker’s, a neighborhood haunt close to her dorm. Her voice crackled with excitement.

“So, I wasn’t really hungry, because I had just eaten with y’all, but I ate anyway.”

“I don’t want to sound like an old poop, but it’s almost midnight! I was getting worried!”

“Mom! It’s only like ten-fifteen or something!”

“Still!”

“Okay, sorry. I should’ve called you when I landed but we were talking and all. Anyway, freshman orientation is on Tuesday and classes don’t start until Wednesday, so tomorrow I’m gonna work in her store and make some
di-ne-rrro
. Monday, I’m gonna help her do inventory and come back here after dinner. Her store’s closed for Labor Day, right?
Hopefully,
my roommate, who I pray to God isn’t a raving
lunatic,
will show up by then and at least I’ll be unpacked and all, which is why I decided to stay here tonight. Patti’s gonna pay me ten dollars an hour! Isn’t that great? Oh! I am so psyched!”

“Yeah! It’s great. How are you getting back and forth to Essex Fells?”

“I’ll take the bus from the Port Authority. No biggie.”

“Lindsey! You be careful! The Port Authority is crawling with perverts and derelicts! It’s filthy! You have to wash the bottom of your shoes!”

“Mom! I’ve been taking the bus back and forth to New York since I was twelve!”

“You have not!”

“Yes, I have! So has Gracie!”

Well,
that
little revelation took ten years off my life. And, Patti sucking up to Lindsey was making me uncomfortable. Maybe I was a little bit jealous. Who knows? Better yet, who cares? About Patti, that is.

“Are you there? Mom?”

“Yeah, I was just thinking about something . . . .”

“What?”

“My thighs. I have to go on a diet.”

“No, you don’t. You’re fine. Most women your age look like, I don’t know, half-dead cows.”

“Great. I feel much better.”

“Stop! Where’s Gracie?”

“Out. She went to the movies with Alex, I think.”

“You think? What do you mean, you think? Mom! You’d better watch her, you know.”

“Oh, honey, she’s fine. But I will tell her you called. Oh, shoot! Do you have a phone yet?”

“Yeah, here’s the number.”

“What’s the deal on computer access?”

“The room is wired for ethernet and I’m just hoping my roommate has a laptop or something. If not, I can use the tech room. There’s a whole IT office and everything. Don’t worry.”

Don’t worry? I had a vision of Lindsey walking across campus after dark and getting killed—how’s that for don’t worry? I took her number and e-mail and she promised to call Gracie Sunday morning. We hung up and I decided to take a bath and go to bed early with a book. The good Lord knew it had been a very long time since I had indulged myself with a good long soak and even longer since I had read something besides the newspaper. Gracie’s curfew was midnight and I would stay awake long enough for her to come in and to see that she was all right.

I was up to my nose in bubbles, reading a book that had won some big award that was the most boring story ever written. Basically, this woman was in her house, looking out of her kitchen window, thinking about her miserable life and so far, in the first twenty-five pages, nothing had happened, except she worried about every single stupid thing that crossed her mind. If I had her life, I’d kill myself, I thought. I tossed it across the floor and added some hot water to the tub. If I had one secret guilty pleasure, it was turning the air conditioner way down low and then soaking in a bath hot enough to cook shrimp.

I had just leaned back and had closed my eyes when I heard a car crunching across the gravel outside. It was probably Gracie. Shoot, I thought, I wasn’t even wrinkled yet. Back in New Jersey, I would have let her cruise past the bathroom door and I would have called out a greeting. But because Lindsey had just left I thought Gracie would be happier if I got out and came to welcome her home.

I threw on my robe and opened the front door.

“I need a hand here!”

It was the voice of Alex. He was panicked.

I opened the screen door and saw Alex and a friend struggling to get Gracie out of the car. I nearly fainted from the sight of her limp body. He held her under her arms and struggled to pick her up. Her shoes were missing and her arms were thrown back.

“Oh my God! Oh my God!” I hurried down the steps to help him. “Gracie! Baby! What happened?”

“She’s okay and she’ll be okay,” Alex said. “Let’s just . . . here, Steve, take her feet.”

What was he saying? Gracie was
not
okay! Steve carried Gracie’s feet, and Alex had her under the arms. I ran up the steps to open the door, struggling to keep my bathrobe closed, talking the whole time.

“I thought y’all were going to the movies,” I said.

“We did, but everything we wanted to see was sold out.”

“How did this happen?”

“We met some guys from the football team at Millennium Music and they were going to a party . . .”

Gracie groaned and said, “Where am I?”

“You’re home, Gracie,” I said. “So, you went and there was booze, right? Am I right?”

“There was a
lot
going on,” Alex said.

I got the screen door opened and together we managed to get Gracie to the couch. I knelt down beside her and it took about one minute to see that there was more at work than liquor. “What else did she do, Alex? Tell me! You have to tell me!”

“I’m gonna take off, Alex,” Steve said, “I’ve got curfew. Y’all okay?”

“Yeah, we’re good,” Alex said. “Thanks.”

“Who was he?”

“A senior . . . Steve Michel . . . he’s a good guy. . . .”

“How did this happen? Tell me!”

“I don’t know, Ms. Breland! I swear! I don’t know! I was in the living room of this house and she went off with some guys and then I was watching a game on the tube. I went looking for her and found her in not very good circumstances and got her out of there and brought her home right away. That’s all I know!”