Sweet Home Carolina

Sweet Home Carolina

Patricia Rice

“Take that, Dr. Evil!” Amy Warren pointed a wooden spoon at
the currently offending appliance — her toaster oven. A small gray cloud of
smoke swirled upward from its frying innards, filling her stainless steel
kitchen with the acrid stench of burnt bread.

The microwave was already erratically blinking error
messages, and the clock on the stove had permanently hovered on twelve since
the day Evan had driven off with his tall, slender and gorgeous boss. But she
didn’t need either appliance to bake her special croutons.

“I’ll zap your sorry behind into the ether and back again,”
she muttered, referring to her uncanny ability to royally screw up electrical
appliances.

But it was really Evan she’d like to zap into infinity. How
predictable — the machine didn’t respond to her dire warnings any better than
the man. The toaster oven still smoked.

“If I could fix anything, I’d fix my damned life.” With
disgust, Amy used the wooden spoon to yank the oven’s cord out of the socket.

The wall phone rang and Amy grabbed it, praying it was her
Dr. Evil-Ex telling her he would be early and had time to pick up a new toaster
on the way up the mountain.

“Ames, sorry, but I — ”

No wonder she couldn’t fix anything. She lived in la-la land
if she still thought
Evan
would come
through. She crossed her eyes and looked down her nose at the overflowing sink,
hunting for a frying pan amid the clutter. “I trust you’re calling to say
you’re picking up ice cream, and you’ll be here on time. Josh has been waiting
for you all week.”

“I’m still at the office.” Losing his apologetic tone, Evan
quickly went on the defensive. “It’s a new job. I’ve got to show them that I’m
willing to do what it takes.”

“Evan, I have to be at the café in an
hour
. It’s Labor Day weekend, our last big moneymaker. There has to
be
food
available for tourists to
fling their plastic at.”

“My job is far more important than your sister’s little café.
Leave the kids with your mother if you have to.”

“The kids can see Mom any day. They need to see
you
.” Using a pot holder, Amy yanked the
charred croutons from the dead toaster oven. “How soon can you get here?”
Propping the phone on her shoulder and waving a towel, she attempted to clear
the air, literally if not metaphorically.

“I’ve got a dinner meeting this evening with some bigwigs
who want me to attend a charity golf tournament in the morning. Tell the kids
I’m sorry, and I’ll try again next weekend.”

Amy knew enough by now to recognize the lie in his voice.
There had been a time when she’d meekly told herself she must be imagining his
shallow selfishness. She no longer had to pretend that was true. “Tell me
another, Big Boy. Hot Mama have tickets for a theater opening tonight?”

“Dammit, Ames, I have a life down here! Just because you
want to hole up in the boondocks doesn’t mean I have to anymore.”

“Oh, and it’s my fault you had two kids and got stuck with
this monster McMansion and had a job that paid well and meant something to the
community when all you really wanted was to be a drone in the city, uh-huh.”

They’d had this argument so many times she could probably
recite it backward. Come to think of it, it probably
was
her fault that Evan had made something of himself. On his own,
he would still be droning his way up the corporate ladder, instead of
possessing an executive office. She dumped the ruined croutons in the trash.

“You’re getting bitchy, Ames,” he warned. “You’re letting
yourself go and reverting to your half-baked hippie days. Learn to play golf,
fix yourself up, and you’ll find another man to pay your rent. Don’t take your
frustration out on me.” He hung up.

Amy shoved an overlong lock of ash brown hair out of her
eyes and scowled. A year ago, Evan’s comment would have cut her to the quick.
She would have run to the mirror and stared at her flour-studded hair with
dismay and wept her heart out.

Today, she saw her ex’s mean streak for the ego trip that it
was. So, hooray for her side. She’d finally learned she’d spent too damned much
of her life caring what Evan thought. Why bother explaining that perms, highlighting,
and salon cuts cost more than two weeks’ groceries?

She despised perms and highlighting anyway, and she no
longer had to care what he wanted.

She glanced around for a working timepiece and heard the
grandfather clock in the foyer strike four.
Sugar,
shoot, dirty word
.

Refraining from cursing for the kids’ sake hadn’t broadened
her vocabulary, just made it more creative.

The phone rang again. She almost ignored the insistent
clamor, but years of worrying about her mother’s health had her grabbing the
receiver.

“Good news!” Marcy, the real estate agent, chirped. “I have
a terrific prospect who loves your location. I’m bringing them out tonight.”

Amy slumped against the counter. She had all but forgotten
the FOR SALE sign that had been in the front yard all summer. It had been weeks
since anyone had even looked at the house. She’d given up chewing her
fingernails at the thought of losing her beautiful home and started chewing her
thumb in fear of bankruptcy. She ought to be jumping for joy, but panic took
first place as she glanced around the chaos of the kitchen.

“What time are you coming?” she asked, turning on the hot
water in the sink and searching for the scrubbing pad.

“I’ll wait until you’ve left for the Stardust. Probably
around six. Make sure you leave all the interior lights on. I have a good
feeling about this one.”

Amy tried not to wince as she hung up the receiver, but her
stomach had just attempted a triple axel and plummeted to the ice. In an effort
to de-stress, she punched the under-cabinet CD player to pop in her sister’s
latest recording. The player opened, then immediately slammed shut before she
could insert the disc.

“Dammit, my next house will run on kerosene!”

She already had her next house picked out, a wonderful
cottage with character, not like this shiny mausoleum dedicated to a dead
marriage. She simply needed to persuade the mill’s bankruptcy judge to take
nada for it, and find a job that paid enough for her to fix it up.

Rolling her eyes at the fantasy, she resisted pounding her
head against the polished cherry cabinet and dialed her mother to make
arrangements for the children.

“Mommy, Josh is coloring on the walls!” Three-year-old
Louisa bounced in from the family room, where she was supposed to be watching a
video with her six-year-old brother.

Chunky and golden-haired like her father, Louisa reached up
for a hug, and Amy’s heart nearly split in two. Frustrated, she wanted to stomp
her feet and throw a tantrum. Instead, she reached down to give her girl a hug.

“Are we being a telltale?” she scolded gently, carrying her
baby into the family room, where, sure enough, newly rebellious Josh had drawn
stick figures in indelible red crayon on the apricot walls.

Reining in a cry of dismay, Amy closed her eyes and tried to
put herself into his child-size nines. He was smart enough to know his father
was skipping their visit — again. There was a For Sale sign on the front lawn
of the only home he’d ever known. And his mother was losing her mind. She was
certain that Josh, somewhere in his very bright brain, had a reason for
personalizing the walls.

When she opened her eyes again, he was scowling at her
mutinously.

“Is that your daddy?” she asked.

“No, it’s Tommy, and I’m going to punch him.” Which he
proceeded to do, intelligently wearing the boxing gloves Evan had given him.

“Tommy’s sad and acting out, just like you are.” She needed
to pick up toys, clear smoke out of the kitchen, and boil cinnamon to add a
welcoming scent to fool visitors into thinking this was a happy home. Maybe she
should light a cinnamon candle, burn the house down, and save herself the
effort of moving all these
things
that would never fit anywhere she could afford.

Of course, if not fitting in was the criteria, she’d have to
go up in flames as well.

Amy stuck her tongue out at the oil painting over the mantel,
where Evan’s golden image taunted her with its confident smirk. Perhaps the
painting ought to be the first thing to go up in smoke. That woman sitting
beside him, with the carefully highlighted, styled hair, the glossy lipstick,
matching manicure, and pearls, wasn’t her any longer. She didn’t know who that
woman was.

But the portrait of bright-eyed Josh and giggling baby
Louisa was too precious to destroy. She was such a sap for babies.

“You’ll have to clean off that wall before we go,” she said
with a sigh, giving up images of leaping flames.

She set Louisa down and patted her on her bottom, pushing
her toward the sticker dolls scattered across the hand-loomed rug. “Pick up
your toys so you can take them to Nana’s.”

Finding the strongest cleaning spray she dared let Josh use,
she handed the bottle and a scrubbing sponge to her son. It wouldn’t clean
crayon, but he had to be taught a lesson. She’d have to push the chair in front
of the wall later until she could fix it. Miserably, he took the bottle,
refusing to look at her.

Drawing on her experience as the kids’ short-order cook, she
returned to the kitchen and threw bread cubes into the frying pan, dousing them
with butter and basil.

So, what did it matter if she’d spent years of her life
carefully choosing paints and sewing draperies for this bloody McMansion,
locating the perfect antique pieces that she’d damned well refinished herself
so she could stay within her budget. They were just
things
.

Evan and the house weren’t the real problems here.
She
was the one she blamed. She’d wasted
a third of her life being the perfect wife and mother and housekeeper and had nothing
practical to show potential employers. She could point at her two beautiful
children and her lovely home, but how did that look on a résumé?

Losing her fight with tears, she wiped her eyes with the
back of her arm. She knew her anger had nothing to do with the loss of a house,
and everything to do with the loss of the self she’d thought she was.

Amy tossed the croutons, turned off the burner, and pulled
the chickens from the oven. The smoke alarm screeched in panic.

* * *

Stomach still churning over an hour later at the café, Amy
yanked the stuffed mushroom caps from the dead microwave and shoved the pan in
the oven with the warming chickens. “Fine, tough toadstools it will be.”

“Tough toadstools is the story of our life,” Amy’s sister,
Joella, half owner of the Stardust, said philosophically, tying on her
Star of the Stardust Café
apron over her
flashy red hostess gown. “You’d think someday, one of those toadstools would
have a pot of gold under it.”

As tall, blond, and flamboyant as Amy was petite, brown, and
wholesome, Joella studied the pots and pans simmering on the stove, and clucked
in disapproval. “No wonder you’re frying appliances. I know it’s Saturday, but
how many customers do you realistically think we’ll have?”

Amy spun a pot lid on her finger before dropping it on the
pot of creamed peas. “Not as many as you need to make a profit. Even I can see
the writing on the wall.”

Jo tsked sympathetically. “Evan didn’t send the support
payments yet?”

“Evan deserted the kids again this weekend.” Amy reached for
an onion and whacked it with her butcher knife. “I hate being a cliché.” Onions
gave her an excuse for tears, but she’d had her cry. Now she just wanted to
whack things.

“He was never there when you were married. The kids won’t
notice. It’s you I’m worried about. You walk around with a big black cloud over
your head. I don’t suppose you’ve talked to a therapist.” Jo slipped a flask
from her apron pocket, glanced furtively over her shoulder at their few early-bird
customers, and twirled the cap.