Read Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 Online
Authors: Dorothea Benton Frank
Tags: #Fiction, #Domestic Fiction, #General, #Sagas, #Women - South Carolina, #South Carolina, #Mothers and Daughters, #Women, #Sisters, #Sullivan's Island (S.C. : Island), #Sullivan's Island (S.C.: Island)
My hands were shaking.
“You need a glass of wine,” she said and poured me one.
“Industrial strength,” I said and took it into the dining room.
Maggie had outdone herself. Her dining room table had a low
and long centerpiece of Island wildflowers and Spanish moss
mixed with red grapes and lemon halves. All her china was blue
and yellow and matched the country French foulard printed
linens. Column candles of different heights stood on little plates.
I could tell even before they were lit that her balloon goblets
would shine in their light. I hoped I would too. I took three big
sips and felt better. Oh, what the hell, I thought and went out to
the porch to look at the beach.
It wasn’t long before Grant appeared and turned on some
music. Eric Satie’s incredible sonata floated through the air. Per-
fect, I thought, dreamy but not maudlin.
“How’s the greatest sister-in-law in the world?” he said.
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“Fine, fine, like a freaking cow on the way to slaughter.” I
gave the old boy a hug. He held me back.
“Well, you look really beautiful! What have you done to
yourself ?”
“I washed my hair. Amazing what a little soap and water
will do.”
“Yeah, you clean up good. Smell good too. Going hunting?”
“Bite me, Grant, I’m nervous enough as it is.”
He started laughing and teasing me. “Oh, what a girl! You
sure enough do know how to charm a fellow! Want me to refresh
your drink?”
“God, yes. Thanks. Wait, no. I have to drive and I’d better
pace myself.”
“Well, make up your mind.” God, he was so smug. I needed
to relax. Big time.
“Grant?” Maggie was calling.
“Coming right now, my love, my turtledove! Gotta go. Big
boss’s calling.”
Boy, they were all in some mood tonight. Grant was flitting
around like a maître d’ and Maggie was setting a “Styled by
Martha Stewart” ambush for this guy.
His car pulled up right below me on the gravel drive. Blue
BMW. Nice. Better than Tom’s Mustang. Augh! The door
opened and I was trapped. Maybe it was better this way. I saw the
top of his head. Hair. Another good sign. And then he got out.
Not bad. Five ten, maybe, dark hair, some gray, nice jacket. He
saw me and smiled.
“Hi!” he called out.“You must be Susan?”
“Yep, I’m Susan.” He came up the steps with a bottle of
wine in his hand. He was very handsome.
“I’m Roger Dodds.” We shook hands and I realized mine
was clammy.
“Roger Dodds. I used to date a guy named Roger. Dated a
Dodds too.”
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“Yeah?” He was still smiling. Good teeth. I realized what I
said sounded completely stupid, like I’d had a thousand lovers. I
only wished. He smelled good.
“That didn’t sound right, I meant—”
“Don’t worry, I know what you meant. Where’s Grant and
the Great?”
The Great?
Soon we were at the table and the evening was under way.
Roger was from Aiken, South Carolina; he was an oncologist,
specializing in women’s cancers. We talked easily about every-
thing from opera to duck hunting. He had lots of interests.
Loved to read, travel and cook.
“You cook?” I asked.
“Love to cook,” Roger said.“Does that improve my résumé?”
“By a lot,” I said.“I love to eat—does that help mine?”
Everyone laughed.
“Susan is murder in the kitchen,” Grant said, laughing.
“Oh! You like to cook too?” Roger said to me.
“No, she murders everything,” Grant said, way too amused
with himself. “I’m going to open another bottle of wine. Red?
White? Both?”
No one answered and he disappeared into the kitchen,
returning with two bottles. He opened them and poured another
glass for everyone. I was very relaxed. Very.
“So, Susan, tell me about Charleston.Your family has been
here a long time, right?”
“Lord, Roger, you’re only from Aiken.You could stand on
this house and spit on Aiken in a good wind!” I giggled, think-
ing I was pretty darn funny. “You probably know more about
Charleston than I do!”
Maggie cut her eye at me. True, it was not the most femi-
nine thing I could have said.
“So, you can spit too?” Roger said.“My God, the woman is
a virtual Renaissance wonder!”
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Another comedian, I thought. He and Grant should go on
the Comedy Channel.
“Roger,” I said, “only Charlestonians should suffer with the
true knowledge of our bawdy history. We prefer for foreigners
to think of us as mysterious.”
“Go on, this is
very intriguing,
” Roger said. “All guys love
bawdy history lessons.”
“Lord, Roger, you’d better look out now! My sister likes
nothing better than roaming the old historic plantations,” Mag-
gie said.
“She thinks I’m obsessed,” I said.
“Are you? I mean, some obsessions can be very interesting,”
Roger said.
Now what was that supposed to mean?
“I am not obsessed with anything, y’all,” I said, trying to
change the subject. “Maggie, dinner’s delicious!” Maggie had
prepared spicy shrimp gumbo and my favorite salad with water-
cress and little oranges with walnut oil dressing. I was having
a wonderful time. We all were. “Did you make these croutons,
Maggie? This is the best salad I’ve ever had.”
“You are the sweetest sister I’ve ever had,” she said. “Yep.
Made ’em myself.”
“You’re right, I am,” I answered.“You know, I’m not watch-
ing the time and I have to get home early tonight. Oh, no! It’s
already after nine!”
“How come?” Roger said.“The night’s young!”
“Young is the operative word. I left my young daughter
with two of her friends at my house in the city. God knows
what they’re up to.”
“Been there,” Roger said, with that parental, knowing look.
“Beth’s a good girl, Susan, I’m sure she’s fine,” Maggie said.
“Let’s have coffee and dessert on the porch, shall we? It’s such a
gorgeous night!”
“Call them,” Grant said, “see if you hear anything in the
background.”
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129
He got up and handed me a portable phone. I dialed the
number and they were all quiet.The phone rang six times.Too
long. Finally someone picked up.
“Hello?” It wasn’t Beth.
“Hi, who’s this? Lucy?”
“Um, yes, ma’am.”
“Is Beth there?”
“Um, she’s in the bathroom, Mrs. Hayes. Do you want me
to get her?”
“No, no. Everything okay?” There was complete silence
from her end. No music. No television.
“Yes, ma’am. All’s well.” She giggled.
“Okay, honey, just tell Beth I’ll be home around eleven,
okay?”
“Over and out,” she said and hung up.
I thought for a minute. Over and out?
“Great! You’re staying!” Roger said. “Come on, let’s help
Maggie clear the table.”
“No, I’m going.That child was drunk! I know it!”
“Drunk? Susan, you’re imagining things!” Maggie said.
“What did she say?” Grant asked.
“She said ‘Over and out’ when she hung up and Beth couldn’t
come to the phone because she was in the bathroom.”
“Go get your bag. We’ll take my car,” Roger said. “I raised
teenagers and I’ve seen it all. Maggie, Grant, thanks for a fabu-
lous meal. If we can come back, we will. Otherwise, we’ll call.”
We left Maggie standing in the kitchen with a bowl of trifle
no doubt made from homemade pound cake.
Roger opened the car door for me, I got in and before I
knew it we were through Mount Pleasant and over the Cooper
River Bridge. It was a good thing I had fastened my seat belt
because this joker drove like a bat out of hell.
“If I get stopped, I’ll tell the cops it’s a medical emergency.
Will you stop worrying? Roger Dodd’s here!”
“Okay, okay.”
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“So tell me, you work at the county library? Are you a
librarian? You don’t look like one.”
“Hey! That light was red!”
“Pink,” he said.This fellow, doctor or no doctor, thought he
was at the Indianapolis 500.
“Please don’t kill me, Roger.You may not have any reason
to live but I do.”
“Just relax.”
He made the right on Queen Street on two wheels and I
nearly fainted from fright. Road rage strikes the middle-aged.
As I staggered up the walk, a young man of about sixteen
opened my door to me.
“Just who are you and where is my daughter?” I said in my
famous mother voice.
“I’m Jonathan, Mrs. Hayes, and before you go in there I want
you to know this wasn’t my idea. I didn’t bring the vodka.”
“Go sit in my living room and don’t move,” I said and he
scampered like a mouse to the wingback in the corner. On my
couch were Lucy and another boy. Beth was nowhere to be
seen. Roger waited with the delinquents. I raced upstairs and
opened the door to her room.Two figures were in her bed obvi-
ously having some very enthusiastic sex. I flipped on the light
and a strange girl sat up naked as a jaybird.
“Just who the hell are you?” I asked.
“Charlene. Oh, God. Busted.”
“Get dressed. Both of you! Where’s Beth?”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I slammed the door closed and
went to my room. In my bathroom my little girl was hanging
her head over the toilet, throwing up.
“This is less than I expected from you, Beth,” I said with the
quiet fury of a mother superior. “Jonathan can’t possibly be
impressed.”
“Oh, Momma! I’m so sorry! I’m gonna die!” She was cry-
ing and gagging and leaned over the toilet bowl again.
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131
“No, Beth, you’re not going to die.Tomorrow you will
wish
that you had died, but you won’t. I’ll be back. I have some other
business to take care of.” Well, I’ll bet Roger’s impressed as all
hell too, I thought on the way down the stairs.
“I’m driving all of these young people home,” Roger said.
“Thanks, Roger. Mother of God, what a night!”
“Your daughter’s okay?”
“She’ll live,” I said, then looked around at the scene before
me. Lolita was still buttoning her shirt, smacking her chewing
gum. She smirked at me and I noticed a piece of metal in her
tongue.
“What is that in your mouth?” I asked. “Is that a tongue
stud?”
“What of it?” she said.
“It’s
your
tongue,” I said, disliking her more with each pass-
ing second,“but it must be hard to chew gum with that thing in
the way.”
“Not really,” she said, belligerently.
This was incredible to me. In my day, if you’d been caught
in the sack with some fellow, your parents would’ve marched
you either to the altar or to a convent.That would be after every
relative you owned had something to say to you about the road
you were paving to hell.
I looked around the room. Pizza boxes were on the floor,
along with half a bowl of popcorn, the remains of a bowl of salsa
and Coke bottles. No wonder Beth threw up. Jonathan stared at
the floor. Lucy and the other boy, who I assumed was Sonny,
stared at each other.
“You children go home. It’s enough for one night.”
“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Hayes,” Jonathan said.“This shouldn’t
have happened.”
“How right you are, Jonathan. Good night.” At least he
appeared sober. They filed out the door until the line ended
with Roger.
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“Hey, thanks for a wild night! We’ll have to do this again
soon.” He was joking. “Listen, lighten up. Didn’t you ever get
drunk when you were a teenager?”
“Of course! But I had the brains not to get caught,” I said.
“Too bad I didn’t know you then,” he said.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” I said. “Hey, Roger, thanks a
lot. I mean it.”
“Sure thing. Call Grant for me, will you, and tell him I’m on
a mission. I’ll call you next week.”
“Okay. Roger?” He turned and looked at me.“Drive safely.”
I closed the door and looked at my living room.Wrecked. I
looked up the stairs and heard no noise. She’s probably passed
out cold, I thought.
I started picking up all the plates and glasses and saw myself
in the huge floor-length mirror. My eyebrows were narrowed
and my jaw was set in frustration. I could see my father’s face in
mine and for a moment he was there. I could hear him whisper-
ing in my mind.
Give her the belt!
Never, I thought, go back to
hell where you belong, old man. In the next instant I could
sense Livvie and thought for a moment that I saw her in the
clouded glass.
She need her momma’s love.That child is a good child
.
I finished cleaning and putting away everything, called
Maggie with our regrets, turned on the dishwasher and went
upstairs. Beth was in her bed with her clothes on. I pulled the
quilt over her and wiped her hair away from her face. She stirred
and looked at me.
“I’m so sorry, Momma.” She began to cry.