Shem Creek (5 page)

The front door opened and Lindsey came outside, squinting.

“Need help?”

“Yeah! Thanks!” Lindsey’s ponytail was halfway undone and her shorts and T-shirt were sweaty and wrinkled. “Don’t tell me you just got up?”

“Yep. I’m just so tired, I went back to bed. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

“Here, take these. Salt air, kiddo. Best sleeping pill in the world. But you really shouldn’t stay in bed all day, you know.”

“Why not?”

Classic teenage response.

I held the door open to let her pass and followed her into the kitchen. “Because decent people get up and do something with their time, that’s why! Unless they’re sick. You’re not sick, are you?” I dropped the bags on the counter and put my hand on her forehead.

“Mom!
Stop it!
God!”

I ignored that remark. Long ago, I had become deaf to the objections of my children.

“You’re fine. Where’s Mimi?”

“Out getting her nails done.”

“Oh.” I stopped and dialed her cell phone but there was no answer. I hadn’t had a manicure in a thousand years. “Where’s Gracie?”

“At the beach. Where else?”

I started unpacking groceries and obsessing.
Gracie at the beach. Gracie swimming in water over her head! Sharks! Riptides! Jellyfish! My daughter’s dead body, white, bloated and stone cold, crabs eating her eyes from their sockets . . .
But, I was cool. “Did she say when she’d be back?”

“Dunno. Gotta ask the guys she went with.”

“Guys?”

“Yeah. We met some kids at Taco Bell and she went with them.”

“I don’t like it when she takes off like this, you know. She makes me nervous. What if they’re related to Charles Manson?”

“Who’s Charles Manson?”

“A psycho killer,
q’est-que c’est
.”

“Mom, you are so weird sometimes.” Lindsey started fishing through the bags, not really pulling things out, just digging around.

“Thanks, hon. Just what are you doing?”

“Looking for a snack. How come you never buy chips? And, whoa! You bought steaks? What’s up with that?”

I debated for a moment whether to tell her now or to wait until dinner as I had planned. I decided to tell her.

“Okay. Guess what?”

“What?”

“I got a fabulous job managing a restaurant on Shem Creek for more money than I make in New Jersey!”

“You heard me. We’re going back to Montclair as fast as we can, putting the house on the market and we are moving down here.”

“Holy shit! Are you serious?”

“Language, please. I am as serious as I have ever been. I’ve got a thousand and one things to do because I start work in ten days.”

“Gracie is gonna flip a shit.”

“Language!”

“Sorry. But she will. You know that,
don’t
you? I mean, I know you’ve been talking about it, but this is for real now. Mom, I can’t believe you actually took a job here!”

“Well, I did. Let’s put this stuff away and I’ll tell you all about it.”

Lindsey followed me around the room, not helping anything except the pharmaceutical industry that manufactures my anxiety medication.

“Momma, listen.
I’m
not moving here.
I’m
going to NYU. This isn’t about me. I mean, look. Okay. Whew! Damn! I’ll help you. I mean, I’ll go back to Jersey with you and pack up all my stuff . . .”

“We’re all going back together. I can’t pack up a lifetime of your belongings without you to sort through it all. . . .”

“You’re right. When do we leave?”

“Tomorrow. We’re driving.”

“Oh my God! Fourteen more hours in the car? Crap! We just did this. And then turn around and come back here? Just like that?”

“You always were the smart one, Lindsey! I’m thinking you can leave your winter clothes at Daddy’s and maybe he can keep some other stuff for us until I find us a house here. And, I can’t buy a house here until I know how much we’re gonna get for the house in Montclair, right? So, either we will stay with Aunt Mimi for a little longer or we can look for something to rent. Anyway, the most important thing is to get the Montclair house looking right to go on the market. That means . . .”

“Throwing out tons of shit!”

“Language! Really, Lindsey! But, that’s the general plan. We’ll probably put some stuff in storage for a while.”

“God, Mom! This is so depressing! I mean, I’m going to Montclair, coming back here, then going back to New York Labor Day weekend and starting school and you won’t be in Montclair for me to come home to on the weekends! I don’t want to spend my weekends with Daddy and Patti! She drives me crazy and he
is
crazy! You
know
that!”

Lindsey choked up and started to cry like I hadn’t seen her do in ages. I knew what was upsetting her—too much change in too short a period of time. She hated change. Always had. I put my arms around her and let her cry on my shoulder.

“Baby, listen to your momma. Everything’s going to be fine. This will all work out just fine. It’s the best thing for all of us. Right?”

“I know,” she said. Her voice was shaking with uncertainty. “I’ll just be the one in Daddy’s backyard, burying cash in coffee cans and counting Cipro for when the cloud of terror floats over from Manhattan!”

“Don’t worry, honey. I just know this is for the best. Your momma has never done a crazy thing in her whole life.”

She raised her head and looked at me, half smiling. “Well, you just did.”

“Thanks a lot! And you know that extra money I’m getting from my new job?”

“Is this the part where you buy me off? I need a Coke.”

“Yep! It’s for airline tickets. Get me a Coke too, honey. Diet, if there’s any left. Listen, Mimi says you can fly from LaGuardia to Myrtle Beach for under two hundred dollars. That’s ten trips, which I have to tell you I don’t think you’ll even want to take! Once you get into the swing of college you’ll forget about your old momma.”

She filled two glasses with ice from the door of the refrigerator and poured, handing me one. “Don’t say that, Mom. I know I can come
here
but I don’t like the idea of you not being
there
!”

“So, you want me to sit in Montclair and wait to see if you want to come home for the weekend?”

“Pretty much sucks, right?”

“Pretty much a little-girl-with-a-potty-mouth thing to say, sweetheart.”

“Ugh! I hate growing up! You want a piece of cake?”

“Sure, why not? A sliver, though.”

I looked around my sister’s kitchen, doing inventory. The sparkling clean white countertops and shining oak floors were beautiful. Her cabinets were white too, with paned glass doors. Old linen napkins with lace borders tipped over the edges of her shelves. Her cobalt glasses, all lined up in rows, were not chipped. Her red-and-cobalt patterned plates, all stacked, matched. Everything in the room and especially the pound cake on the footed platter sang of a happy life, an organized life. The appeal of it was becoming addictive.

The front door opened and closed and my sister had returned.

“Heeeey! What are y’all doooo-ing?” She sailed in the room singsonging and gave Lindsey a peck on the cheek. “Isn’t that cake the best thing you ever put in your mouth? I swear, sometimes they just
turn out
.”

“It’s like eating velvet!” I said with my mouth full. “Why didn’t you answer your cell phone?”

“Honey baby! I was getting my nails done! I can’t be fooling around in my purse with wet nails!”

“Aunt Mimi! Momma has some news!”

“Did you get the job?”

I nodded my head and Mimi started whooping and hugging my neck and then Lindsey’s.

“This is the best, best news! I swear! Oh, y’all! I am so thrilled!”

“Me too!”

Lindsey stood on the sidelines, shaking her head.

We carried on for a few more minutes and then we heard the front door open and close—very quietly. Gracie appeared in the kitchen, sunburned and wobbling. She was reeking of beer. There was a hickey on her neck the size of a prune.

“Waddup?” she said.

I was mortified and for my sister to see her behave this way was almost unspeakable. No one said a word. We simply stared at her. She must have decided she was too trashed to pass for sober because she turned to leave the room, holding on to the door for support.

“I gotta go to ma room,” she said, “I’m grounded.”

“This is one reason why we’re moving back here,” I said to no one in particular.

“You need a hand with
this
one,” Mimi said. “She’s as drunk as a coot!”

In the distance, as my young hellion ascended the stairs, we heard her lilting call in the music of the debauched. “Ah maight beeee shit-faaaaced, but Ah suuuure had fuuuun!”

“I’ll make a lady out of her if it’s the last thing I ever do,” I said.

“Good luck,” said Lindsey.

“It might just
be
the last thing you ever do!” Mimi said.

“Watch me,” I said with supreme confidence, seriously doubting that I could do a thing except to frustrate the hell out of myself. “The hopeless battle will begin as soon as she sobers up.”

“Two are stronger than one,” Mimi said, “I’ll help.”

Three hours passed and no word from my lovely younger daughter. No word, but plenty of snoring. Her snorts and grunts could be heard all over the hallway upstairs. Supper was ready and it was time for her to rise and join the living. Mimi and I passed each other on the steps.

“Want me to get her up?” she said. “She’s been sawing logs forever!”

“Yeah, I guess we have to,” I said. “Let’s go in there together.”

We opened the door and there was my Gracie, curled up in a ball under the sheet. Her breathing was soft and even. Part of me wanted to wake her tenderly and another part of me wanted to pull her hair out by the roots. I still had to get us all packed for tomorrow’s trip and she had yet to learn about our plans.

“She looks so innocent,” Mimi said, “like an angel.”

“
Angel
my big fat foot,” I said. “That’s Fred Breland’s child, not mine.”

“Humph to that!” Mimi leaned over her and shook her shoulder. “Gracie? Gracie? Sugar, it’s time to get up. Come on, now. Let’s go.”

Gracie groaned and rolled over, blinking her eyes and yawning. “Lemme sleep a little longer, ’kay? Close the door!”

“No way, honey, you’ve got to get up now,” Mimi said. “Supper’s ready.”

“Not hungry,” she said and rolled over again.

There was no reason for Mimi to be so nice to her. My temper zoomed to boiling. I threw back the sheet and pulled her feet to the floor. “Get up and go wash your face,” I said, “we’ve had enough drama from you. You come home trashy drunk and with a hickey on your neck? You will not embarrass me in front of my sister for one more minute! Move it!”

It would have seemed that the theater department should have closed for the day but as soon as we were gathered around the table (that would be champagne for three, thank you), the news of my job and our move became the topic of heated conversation.

“Well,
you
can move down here if you want to,” Gracie said, “but I’m not living around a bunch of rednecks.”

“Thank you, Gracie,” Mimi said.

“I don’t mean
you
, Aunt Mimi. You
know
that. Look, I love my life in New Jersey and I can live with Daddy. He said so.”

“Yo! You want to live with Patti?” Lindsey said. “Are you
nuts
?”

“Negative. No one’s moving in with Daddy and his wife,” I said. “The court awarded me custody and that’s how it is.”

“Mom? We’re gonna have a
big
problem here if you try to force me to do this. I’m not kidding!”

“A big problem?” I said with surprising calm.

“Yeah! A huge one! Here’s the line and here’s you!” She drew a line with her fingertip and then stabbed at a point on the other side.

I was not amused.

“Are you threatening me, Gracie?”

“I wish you wouldn’t use that tone with your mother,” Mimi said.

Gracie was pushing her food around the plate, seething with anger. Lindsey stepped in.

“Listen to your sister here, Gracie. Big deal. You get to spend the summer at the beach. You get the tan of your lifetime. You’re smarter than half the population here. You can dance with Charleston Ballet Company, which is
professional!
Let’s see if they teach modern dance. Who knows? You get to perform at the Gaillard Auditorium! In two years Juilliard will be licking their lips to have you!”

“Yeah, right,” Gracie said. “They left a message this afternoon.”

“You know, I am really not enjoying these implications about southerners. Northerners are no smarter than—”

“God! Why is everybody
so sensitive
?” Gracie said.

“I didn’t mean that the way it sounded, Aunt Mimi. I meant that Gracie is smarter
in the ways of the world.
”

“And, that’s the
problem,
” I said, unable to filter the sarcasm from my voice.

“Well, I am not moving here!” Gracie said, in a low voice. “And, that’s final.”

“You don’t get to pick
final,
” I said. “You’re a minor.”

“Never mind now,” Mimi said. “Look, I have an idea. Gracie? Why don’t you stay here with me while your momma and Lindsey make the trip to New Jersey? I’d like to spend some time with you and hear
your
side of things.”

Gracie looked at me and I could see her mind at work. Which was worse? Two days of endless driving on I-95 and packing your life in boxes? Or, five or more days at the hands of the Taliban—make that Talibelle? Tough call.

“You can stay if you want,” I said, with what I thought was a nonchalant delivery.

Gracie looked from one of us to the other and then, after what seemed like forever, she spoke.