Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (18 page)

expensive linen Bermudas. Her brown alligator belt had a gold

buckle with her initials on it. She shook her perfect blond hair

and removed her sunglasses and smiled up to me on the porch.

“Hey, Miss Susan! How are you?”

What a phony, I thought. She thought she was Marilyn

Monroe or somebody. I shot a glance at Livvie, whose jaw was

locked.

“Fine! I’ll tell Momma y’all’re ’eah!” I called back. Passing

Livvie I muttered,“That’s Aunt Carol.”

“Humph,” she said.

The grown-ups had their night and we had ours. Maggie

had gone to her best friend’s house to spend the night. Timmy

was upstairs with Henry watching television. I hung around

with Livvie in the kitchen. She had tried to shoo me off to bed

several times, but I wasn’t moving. Her arrival that day might

have been the most important event of my life and I didn’t want

to miss anything. I was washing plates when she came back in

with a tray of crab shells.

“Humph,” she said.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Come on, let me guess.”

“Humph,” she said.

“Aunt Carol’s playing footsie with Daddy under the table

again?”

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“How’d you know that, chile? You ain’t supposed to be

knowing about that kind of thing at your age!” She was hon-

estly horrified.

“I know a lot more than I should,” I answered.

“Lawd, Lawd. I got to do a lot of praying on this family. I

can see that now.”

Six

First Dates

}

1999

HE following Saturday, Beth and I took a drive out

Highway 61 with a packed cooler and our camera.We

T planned to picnic at Magnolia Gardens and then tour

the house. As a little girl, Beth would imagine herself to be a

plantation belle, wearing hoop skirts and perfecting her curtsy. I

loved that memory and besides, I had had enough of work for

one week. My idiot boss, Mitchell Fremont, had taken a personal

shine to me and was driving me crazy.As a boss he was bearable,

but if I lapsed into a momentary daydream of him naked, it was

so repulsive it gave me the shakes. A plantation trip was the per-

fect medicine after a week of Mitchell’ s leering.

I pulled into Magnolia Gardens’s gate, paid the admission

fee and rolled down the long road to the parking lot.“Lock your

door, okay, honey?”

It was a perfect September day. The brilliant blue sky above

was so clear—not a cloud anywhere to be seen. The air was

not humid and the temperature was somewhere in the low

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113

seventies. Our feet crunched on the gravel as we ambled along

to the picnic tables.

It didn’t take long to unpack the sandwiches, low-fat chips

and diet sodas I had brought along. Suddenly, I was starving.

“Pickle?” I said, taking a bite from a kosher dill.

“Sure, thanks!” she said.“Why is it that eating outside makes

everything taste so much better?”

“Good question. I don’t know. But I do know that when we

cook on the grill at the beach, even hamburgers taste like heaven.

Chicken or tuna or half of each?”

“Tuna salad, please, just half. When do you think was the last

time they painted these tables?”

“Before the War of Yankee Aggression,” I said, smiling.

“Watch out for splinters.”

The sun was dancing through her rich, auburn hair and

once again I found myself saying a small prayer of thanksgiving

that she was mine.“Beth, you are going to be a beautiful woman,

do you know that?”

“I look like my momma,” she said and smiled at me.“I love

you, you know. A lot.”

“Baby, I adore you and you know it.”

“Yeah. I know. Hey, Momma?”

“What, darling child?”

“Did you and your momma ever go on picnics?”

“Well, yes we did, sort of. Once every year Stella Maris Church

had a big family picnic at Alhambra Hall. Old MC—we loved to

call Momma that—she’d make deviled eggs. Livvie would fry a

bunch of chicken and bake brownies. Of course, every year

Momma and Uncle Louis would fight about who made the best

potato salad.”

“Ukk. I hate potato salad.”

“Yeah, me too, but that’s not the point.You see, Momma put

olives in hers and Uncle Louis put onions in his. I think they both

added bacon fat to the mayonnaise. Can you imagine that? It’s a

miracle I’m alive from eating all that garbage! Maybe I should see

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a vascular man.What do you think? Oh, you should’ve seen us in

those days, three-legged races, sack races, all kinds of foolishness!”

“I think you’re a little bit crazy.”

“No doubt about it. Lunatics abound in the family history. I

am proud to continue the legacy, even if only on a part-time

basis. I do the best I can given the restraints of my life. If I didn’t

work in a library, I’d open a drive-through body piercing and

tattoo parlor and serve barbecue sandwiches to go.”

“You’re feeling full of beans today, aren’t you, Momma?”

“Yep. No doubt about it.Who wouldn’t on a gorgeous day

like this?” And I was. I had decided to put everything serious

out of my mind for a little while and take a well-deserved break.

“You know what? I wish I’d been a little girl when you

were. It’s so boring now. It seems like everything happened in

the sixties.”

“I think I probably romanticize the past, Beth, a lot. Old

people do that, you know.”

“You’re not old! Hey, can I ask you a personal question?”

“By all means.”

“Are you ever gonna go out on a date? I mean, are you and

Daddy getting back together or what’s going on?”

Wham. She had me now. I hadn’t told her anything about

Michelle Stoney and I had to decide then and there what she

was old enough to hear and understand. I plunged ahead, hop-

ing our good moods would soften the blow.

“Honey, Daddy and I have been separated for a while now.”

“Yeah, almost seven months. I can’t see him marrying Karen,

you know?”

“No, I can’t either. But I’m afraid I can’t see us back together

either.”

Her eyes began to fill with tears.“I know,” she said.“This is

so awful.”

“Yes, it is, but sweetheart, listen to me and think about this.

I know I’ve said this to you a hundred times since Tom left, but

be patient because it’s the truth. Sometimes relationships run

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115

their course and lose steam. Sometimes people get middle-aged

and get afraid of dying and do stupid things, not just men but

women too. A marriage can’t survive unless you recommit yourself

to it every single day.”

“You were committed,” she whispered.

Once again I found myself in the position of holding all the

aces. I had another opportunity to blow her relationship with Tom

to smithereens. I decided to shoulder some of the guilt instead.

“I was committed, Beth, but probably didn’t work at it hard

enough. I mean, I saw signs and ignored them.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, like Daddy was working later and later. And, when he

was home, he was glued to the television or worked in the yard

and we wouldn’t speak for days on end. And he lost twenty

pounds and started working out every day and got in shape.

Then, he bought those three-hundred-dollar Italian eyeglasses

and that was the beginning of the end.”

“Don’t you think you could’ve done something?”

Ah, she was going to blame me now. I took a long look at

her and then at a group of tourists walking by, thinking what I

would say.

“I don’t know, to tell you the truth. I mean, by the time I

finally faced up to what was going on it was too late, I think.

And you know what? I’m the lucky one. I have you and he’s got

her, right?”

“Yeah, sure, and y’all are gonna fight about money till the

cows come home.”

“No, sweetheart, we won’t. I hired someone to work all that

out for us.”

“A lawyer? You hired a lawyer? I can’t believe you did that!

You didn’t tell me this! When did you do this? Why didn’t you

tell me?” She was very upset.

“I’m telling you now.”

“Why, Momma? You don’t have to sue Daddy. He swore to

me he’d take care of us!”

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Tears were streaming down her face. A lawyer’s child knows

what divorce lawyers do. They landscape the graveyards of

marriages.

“Honey, I did it because I had to. Daddy has been having

some difficulty accepting the fact that he has to commit to regu-

lar financial support for us.You know that. Believe me, I waited

as long as I could. It was a terribly hard decision for me to make,

but I don’t earn enough to support us without some help from

him.You don’t think I’m relishing the idea of a divorce, do you?”

“No. I know you. You’d have walked through fire first.”

“Right. I hate lawyers and I hate change. But they’re a neces-

sity, especially in today’s world. My lawyer’s name is Michelle

Stoney. She’s going to work it all out. I don’t want to fight with

your father.”

Beth shook her head and sniffed. I handed her a tissue.

Watching the clouds swimming by, I thought about my conver-

sations with Michelle. I had asked her how it usually went. I

wanted to know if men in general took care of their families

because they knew they should or was compliance with support

motivated by fear of breaking the law. She put it in a rank nut-

shell when she said that women who get the best support have

the most obnoxious lawyers. It tells me that time marches on

and men who leave their families, for whatever reason they

leave, begin a new life.They have more children, they buy another

house, they join another club, and they fish in a different river.

They make new friends, find new restaurants, and go to new

places on vacation. Pretty soon, years pass and they can’t remem-

ber what it was like with their old family.

“Honey, it’s important while he still cares about me, not

you—this has nothing to do with you—for me and my lawyer

to make sure that we are provided for in a way that’s fair for

everyone. Do you understand? This is something I have to do

for you and for me.”

“If you think Daddy still cares about you why don’t you

fight for him?”

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117

“Daddy cares, but not enough for our marriage to be like it

should be. Do you understand, doodle?”

“He’s changed anyway, Momma.You probably wouldn’t like

him now. I mean, why he would rather be with Karen I don’t

understand.What’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing, honey, it’s just your classic midlife crisis along

with a willing, conniving, underhanded, immoral, big-breasted,

low-class blond. He was too weak to resist, I guess, and she set a

mean table.”

“I hate blonds.”

“Jonathan is blond,” I reminded her.

“Mom? Jonathan called me last night,” she said sheepishly.

“What? When were you gonna tell me this? My Lord, here

come all the secrets! Come on, let’s dump this stuff in the trash,

throw the cooler in the car and have a nice walk. We can plan

your trousseau!”

“Mom!”

Her exasperated
Mom!
was what we needed to put Tom

away for a while.

“Come on! Let’s go in the Barbados Tropical Garden!”

We entered the small building and were immediately trans-

ported to another climate. The lush plantings and trickling

water of the fountains created a tiny paradise.

“So, tell me what he said,” I said.

“Nothing. It was pretty stupid, in fact. He talked about ten-

nis and math and wanted to know if I’d done my French home-

work yet.”

“That doesn’t sound so stupid.”

“Mom! He’s gorgeous, but he’s seriously boring to talk

to.”

“Well, young guys are nervous when they call girls on the

phone. Just the act of dialing probably gave him a zit.” Safe, I

thought, he’s boring.Thank God.

“Actually, it probably did! He had this major goober today,

right on his chin.”

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“Now that’s power, when you can wreck a guy’s complex-

ion,” I said.

“Whatever. I know why he called me, though.”

“I thought you said he called about homework.”

“Nope. Homecoming.”

“What about it?” Uh-oh, not safe.

“The dance. I know he wants to take me, because Lucy told

me. She’s going with his friend Sonny.”

“Well, we’ll see.” I sighed, realizing we had reached another

hurdle. I guessed I’d have no choice but to jump it when she

pushed me.“Beth, look at this, have you ever seen anything like

this orchid?”

By chance, we had the indoor garden to ourselves.We wan-

dered slowly, looking at and smelling the blooms. I heard some-

thing and looked up. Someone had accidentally allowed a

peacock in the building and there he was at the turn in the path.

He spread his feathers and nearly scared us to death.We turned