Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (25 page)

through while we watched the storm. Maybe. I doubted it.

I heard the back door close and knew he was outside in the

rain. I saw my neighbor’s garbage cans rolling down the street

and I worried about him getting knocked unconscious by some

flying object. I grabbed my parka from the front closet and

rushed toward the back door.

“Where’re you headed, Mom? I’m making salad.You’re not

going outside too, are you?” Beth looked up from the refrigera-

tor, where she was searching for a bag of prewashed lettuce—

the only kind I ever buy these days.

“Be right back, just want to grab our garbage cans before

they take off for Myrtle Beach.”

The door closed behind me and I stood on the back porch

assessing the weather. It was raining like it would never stop.The

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light of sunset had surrendered to the dark mask of Maybelline.

Her wind was howling like a wild beast.

“Build an ark,” I said to myself.“Repent, the end is near.”

An enormous branch fell from an ancient oak tree at the

edge of our property, missing my old car by inches, but slam-

ming into the hood of Tom’s new midlife crisis Mustang.There

it lay, like a sign from God, waiting for a claims adjuster. Tom

would now stay the night.

The storm reminded me of all the legendary hurricanes of

my childhood and, of course, the memory of my father and

aunt’s front porch rendition of “Singing in the Rain.” As soon

as I visualized them, I pushed the image away.

“Hurry yourself,” I said out loud. “This ain’t no time for

dragging feet.”

The screen door slammed behind me and I raced toward the

garbage cans by the storage house. One of the can’s rubber tops

sailed off into the wind like a Frisbee. A branch from my next-

door neighbor’s tea olive came crashing down into my rhododen-

drons. Good thing I quit pruning them years ago or the wind

could’ve carried that branch right through a window like a javelin.

I opened the shed and grabbed a handful of bungee cords

and a top from another can. It was not easy to fasten them to the

cans but I finally did and in haste I began rolling the cart that

held them back toward the house. Finally I reached the porch,

after struggling over every single hole in the yard, and with great

effort I got them up the steps. Beth came out to help.

“Go back inside, honey, you’ll just get soaked!”

“Mom, Dad’s closing the shutters! I could see him through

the kitchen window.Why don’t I do this and you go help him?”

“The shutters? Now?”

“Don’t ask me! He’s got the big ladder out!”

“Oh, dear Lord! Okay, I’ll go help him. Just pull this into

the laundry room.”

“Okay!”

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Although we stood next to each other, we had to shout to

be heard. I ran around the side of the house and found Tom

climbing up to the second-floor windows. On our old house, it

wasn’t much effort to close shutters. But it ought to have been

done several hours ago. My aluminum ladder was not the stur-

diest so I decided to be his anchor.

“The wind’s pretty fierce so I decided to close up this side

of the house.Too many trees next door. Can’t get the third floor

though.”

“That’s okay.They’re taped.”

“Right!”

I could see him laughing to himself as he climbed down to

move the ladder to the next window. “You’re beginning to drip,

Susan.You can go back in if you want to.This won’t take too long.”

“What? And leave you out here to kill yourself in the

yard? Honey, I need my alimony checks and I’m staying right

here.”

He smiled and jammed the ladder against the ground to

secure it.“The irrepressible Susan Hamilton Hayes,” he said.

He was so close I could smell his breath. He had brushed his

teeth before making this house call. Brushed his teeth and

bought steaks.

“Yeah. Irrepressible.That’s me. Get on up this ladder before

we make Beth an orphan.”

He climbed back up and unhooked one shutter from the

side of the house. He climbed down, moved the ladder, climbed

back up and unlocked the other. Then, as I held my breath, he

reached over and, leaning into the wind, grabbed the first shut-

ter and flipped the latch across both of them.

Finally the job was completed; we were drenched to the

skin.Tom collapsed the ladder and slid it under the house, which

took considerable effort as the ground was puddled everywhere.

I waited for him on the back porch. Hearing us, Beth came to

the door with an armful of towels and handed them to me.

“Get back inside, honey, I’m just waiting for your father.”

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163

“Oh, my God, it’s awful out here!”

“Go back in!” The door slammed. “And don’t say ‘Oh, my

God,’ please,” I said to the door.

I kicked off my squishing Keds, threw Tom a towel and

dried my face.

“Tom, thanks a lot. Of course, if the wind changes direction

on the back side of the storm, we’ll need to do the other side.”

“No way. Besides, the trees next door aren’t so bad. I

checked.”

“Did you see your car?”

“Yeah, bummer.”

My shirt was sticking to me and in the porch light Tom

could see the color of my bra through the wet fabric.

“Black?”

“Navy, and let’s go inside, I’m getting chilled.”

“Navy?”

“Get in the house, you old dog.”

Suddenly my kitchen seemed alive. Beth was smiling and

rushing all around putting supper together. A huge salad waited

in my mother’s hand-carved wooden bowl. Potatoes were baking

in the microwave and the broiler was hot. The seasoned steaks

waited in a Pyrex dish. Thick-cut filet mignon. He meant busi-

ness. The table was set with my best everything. Beth’s hopes

unnerved me.

“Um, I’m pretty wet,” Tom said. “I didn’t leave any clothes

here, did I?”

“Nope, not a stitch. Come on, I’ll give you a bathrobe and

put your wet stuff in the dryer.”

“Great. Thanks.”

He unlaced his shoes and put them on a newspaper on top

of the washing machine.

“Table looks great, Beth,” I said.“Thanks a lot.We’ll be right

back.”

“Oh, that’s all right! Y’all take your time.” She wiggled her

eyebrows at us. I cleared my throat.

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“We’ll be right back, Beth,” I said in my best parent voice.

Upstairs, he followed me to the bedroom door and just

stood there as I searched the closet for two bathrobes, finding

one terry cloth and one plaid flannel with ruffles. He chose the

pink terry cloth.

“Here you go. Go on in the bathroom and just hand me

your things through the door.”

“What? After fifteen years you can’t watch me undress?” He

was laughing at me and I knew it.

“Spare me the pain of your gorgeous body, okay? You belong

to yourself now, not me, remember?” I opened the bathroom

door, switched on the light and stood aside to allow him to enter.

“As you wish, madame. I won’t be a moment.”

“Just give me your clothes, alright?”

In a minute or so, out came his naked arm from around the

door with wet khakis, Izod shirt and socks. No underwear?

Then his fingers extended slowly from the door as he dangled

his orange Calvin Klein jockey shorts in midair. Orange? He

never wore anything but white when he lived here!

“Thanks.”

“Oh, no, thank you!” He replied from behind the door.

I took off all my clothes—so much for the temptress in navy

lace—wrapped the flannel robe around myself, gathered up all

the wet laundry and made a quick trip to the laundry room.

Passing through the kitchen, Beth perked up.

“What are you gonna put on now?” she asked as though she

was witnessing a soap opera in real life.“Your mascara is running.”

“Great.” I wiped under my eyes and glanced down at the

black streaks on my hands. “I dunno. Something dry. Be right

back.”

Having set the dryer humming, I hurried back upstairs,

towel-drying my hair for the second time in two hours. Tom

was still in the bathroom, singing “Stormy Weather” loud

enough to wake the dead. My hands were shaking. I needed to

calm down, and try to find the humor in this scenario. I realized

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165

everyone around me seemed to be the happiest they’d been in

months. Including me. O Lord help me.

What was I going to put on? Going through my closet, I

realized that almost everything was two sizes too big. I remem-

bered the black T-shirt dress I’d found on a markdown rack at

Loehman’s last month. It was a medium, and I’d bought it when

I was still a large, intending to lose weight into it. It was loose-

fitting, not exactly what you’d wear to make a man drool, but it

had a deep V-neck and Tom was a breast man. Pulling it out of

the bag, I slipped it over my head and, bingo, it fit! Let’s face it,

with a body of depreciating assets, I had to use what I had.

I went to Beth’s bathroom to use her cosmetics rather than

share the other bathroom with Tom.

This time I decided to let my hair just fall around my shoul-

ders and dry on its own. I couldn’t help but wonder, as I finger-

crimped my hair, what Livvie Singleton would have said about

all this. She’d probably have listened to me tell the story and

then she would have given me a piece of her mind in Gullah. I

could almost see her. She’d tell me,“Men ain’t what but old alley

cats looking for to spray they scent.” She’d hold up three fingers

to me and say,“Only have three things on they mind. One, they

stomach. Gotta fill him up.Two, they talliwacker. Got to let him

have he way. Three, they money. Don’t want to give nothing

’less they’s getting something back. That’s all, chile, that’s all.

Don’t expect much and you ain’t gone be disappoint.”

But how could I go through the night not expecting much?

I wanted him to tell me he was wrong.

“I’m going down to open the wine!” Tom called from

the hall.

“Okay! I’ll be down in a minute.”

Dinner had an element of absurdity to it. For openers,Tom

dined in my bathrobe, swaddled in pink terry cloth with

appliquéd chenille flowers. Just when I had him in the cross

hairs, everything conspired to a stay of execution.

We gathered at the table, which my ebullient daughter had

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set as though Pope John Paul II were coming for dinner. May-

belline was screeching outside like an undulating King Kong of

carnal desire, trying to blow down my front door. I was chewing

a steak for the first time in months while sucking up a large glass

of merlot and the object of all my pain, humiliation and anxiety

was sitting across from me looking like a refugee from a trans-

vestite after-hours club.

“So, Beth, how’s school?”Tom asked.

“Awesome,” she replied while passing the salad bowl.

“Translation?” he asked.

“All A’s on every test,” I interpreted.

“Fabulous! So you like high school, I take it?”

“Oh, yeah, it’s like I totally feel like, well, you know, a per-

son? I mean grammar school was so lame and in high school

you’re totally on your own. Like even my homeroom teacher,

Mr. Bond, tells me I’m extremely mature for my age.”

“How mature are you?” he asked, looking at me, probably

wondering if he should give her a lecture on birth control.

“Bond?”

“Oh, Dad! Please! Shaken, not stirred in the ninth grade? I

don’t think so. No, no. I think he means it’s good that I actually

do my assignments, show up for class on time and study for tests

and stuff.”

“As you should,” he said and added,“and as you always have.”

“Right, Dad.”

“And as you always will.”

“Yes, Daddy, as I always will, unless I want to go to college

with America Online and wind up on welfare.”

“That’s my Beth! No member of the Hayes family ever

accepted public assistance. Do your homework every day like a

good girl.”

Tom breathed a clandestine sigh of relief and the sides of my

mouth turned up.This was rich. In a mere six months, Beth had

gracefully transformed herself from little girl to young woman.

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He had missed it all. I had hoped reward would taste sweeter

than it did. I felt sorry for Tom for what he had lost.

“It’s like this all the time,” I said to him.

“Like what, Mom? What does that mean?”

Uh-oh. I had mistakenly pressed the wrong button. I had

forgotten not to refer to her in a way that required clairvoyance

for her full participation.

“Beth, my angel of perfection, each day you surprise me

with how truly wonderful you are. Just when I decide I’m fail-

ing you as a parent over something or other, you do something

to remind me how responsible you are. It’s a surprise to your

daddy too.That’s all. Part of us has you fixed in our mind as a lit-