The Land of Mango Sunsets (9 page)

To even think about this was one of the biggest differences between living in any large urban area and living on an island—that you noticed what was going on with birds and tides and all these other aspects of life that never crossed your mind in a city. I giggled to realize that just around the time the crows were taking off to roost, I was having my first evening cocktail. Whoop-dee-do. Me, Harry, and the Famous Grouse. Some bunch of birds we were.

I remembered then that I had not asked Kevin about Liz. Well, if she had been carrying on with Truman Willis again, he would have brought it up. Nonetheless, I made a note to check on her nonsense the next time we spoke.

I thought again about serving on the invitations committee and how unfair the world was. All I wanted was to do something that made
me
happy for once, and I couldn’t even manage to wangle a desirable committee assignment. Maybe the universe was trying to tell me something.

I heard a car stop and looked up. It was Harrison. There I was with my hair twisted up into a clamp, no makeup, and my collection of haute couture was on vacation. I could feel my face turning scarlet.

“Well, good morning!” he called out.

“Good morning,” I said politely. I stopped working on Mother’s net and tied a big loop with string to mark the ending spot. “Mother’s not here.”

He was coming up the steps and didn’t even pause at the news.

“Oh. Well, that’s too bad.”

Those fiery blue eyes of his were boring a hole through mine, and I was embarrassed for no good reason except that it seemed weird for Mother’s boyfriend to be so familiar with me. I did not return his smile.

“I imagine she’ll be back soon. Was she expecting you?”

“No. I was just gonna take a ride out to Awendaw and thought you gals might like to come along. I have a friend out there with a big farm, beautiful land—raises pheasant and quail. All organically fed, of course. I thought y’all might like some for your supper.”

I hadn’t had pheasant or quail in ages and my mouth started to water at the mere mention of them. Against my better judgment, I leaped at the opportunity.

“I’ll leave her a note,” I said. “I mean, if you don’t mind my company without Mother’s?”

“I think I can behave myself,” he said. He narrowed his eyes and grinned.

“Very funny. I’ll get my jacket.”

“I’ll just wait right here,” he said.

I left him standing on the porch and hurried inside. I could feel my stomach flutter and the muscles in my arms cramped and relaxed. I tried to tighten my abdominal muscles as I passed the hall mirror and thought for a second that it made a significant difference, therefore I should do it all the time. Why was I so nervous? It was ridiculous. He was just a big flirt. All men flirted. They did it because they could get away with it and because they thought women reveled in their attention. Okay, I did, but I would have liked it much better if he wasn’t my mother’s boy toy.

I taped the note to the kitchen counter, and as casually as I could manage, I catwalked to Mr. Natural’s side. He took a deep breath and I followed him down the steps. He opened my door, I got in, and he closed it. As he walked around the front of his car I thought how nice it was to have a man see that I got into a car safely, or to open a door or hold a chair. I wondered if men in Ohio or Colorado engaged in these traditional kindnesses for the women in their lives. They probably did.

Driving out Highway 17, we talked easily about the day and his friend’s farm, and no matter how I tried to steer the conversation in other directions, it eventually returned to me.

“Tell me again why you’re living in New York,” he said.

“Well, because it’s where I’ve been for all of my adult life. I own a town house in the city, my son lives there, and you know how it is. You become a creature of habit. Besides, I love New York. I have my friends and my volunteer work. I can’t imagine where else I could go.”

“I understand. I can’t imagine myself anywhere else either.”

We were quiet for a minute, passing all the stalls of the sweetgrass basket weavers on the side of the road.

“Do you see your son often?”

“Oh, I guess once a month or so. He’s doing his residency in pediatrics at Columbia Presbyterian, so he’s very busy.”

“I see. Married?”

“No. But he has a pretty serious girlfriend who’s also a resident in pediatrics. My other son is married and lives in California. He does something with computers that, well, when he describes it, I get a headache and can’t remember a word he said. He and his wife have two little children who are very sweet.”

“I know that, but you don’t look old enough to be a grandmother!”

“Are you kidding? I was born old.”

“That’s what your mother says, too.”

“About me or about herself?”

“About you, Mellie. You’re way too serious.”

Before I could defend myself, he made a sharp right turn, and if there had not been a console between us, I might have landed in his lap.

“Almost missed it!”

“Yes, well…”

We drove down a very bumpy dirt road and it was all I could do to hang on. The car objected with such a clamor of squeaks and bounces that it was too noisy to talk. Finally, we stopped at a wide gate and he hopped out to push the call button.
Born old? Too serious? Had my mother said these things? Did everyone think that of me? Did he?

He got back in the car and the gate opened. We drove through slowly and continued for a mile or so down a live-oak-canopied dirt road toward a beautiful house at the end. It wasn’t grand like Tara but more like a traditional Lowcountry house—clapboard, red tin roof, huge porches with fancy pickets, rockers and hammocks, brick foundation, dormer windows, and brick chimneys on both ends. If the house was beautiful, the landscaping was breathtaking. Moss streamed from blooming camellias and more live-oak trees. Large azaleas flanked the front steps. Asparagus ferns stood on either side of the front door in blue-and-white ceramic planters. I guessed the main house was probably six thousand square feet. There were other buildings, too—a barn, stables, kennels, and a caretaker’s cottage. It was absolutely gorgeous and I was very glad that I had come along.

“Makes you want to start singing old Gullah spirituals, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah.” I shook my head in amazement. “This is spectacular.”

“Yep, that just about sums it up for me, too. This place has been in
Charleston Magazine, Southern Living, Architectural Digest—
you name it. Come on; let’s see if Manny is home.”

“Manny?”

“Oh, right! I didn’t tell you his name. Manny Sinkler. Old banking colleague of mine. He moved here about the same time I did, but as soon as the house was finished, his wife decided she preferred Charlotte. Manny says she’s never even spent a night here.”

“That’s awful. Poor thing. Are they divorced?”

“Now that you ask, I can’t seem to remember.”

“Well, certain personal habits can take their toll on one’s short-term memory.”

“Ah. I see. So, that’s it.” He got out of the car and came around to open my door. I stood up and he planted himself dangerously close to me. “Listen, if you and I are going to be friends, you’re going to have to be slightly less judgmental.”

“I don’t want to see my mother get involved in a scandal, Harrison. It’s that plain and simple.”

“I understand.”

But he didn’t. He stared at me and I could feel by the weight of the air between us that he was annoyed. It was similar to asking people who smoke cigarettes not to blow their smoke in your direction. They would divert their exhale but they were poised to deliver a great speech defending their right to kill themselves and you in the process.

“Now, aren’t we here for a reason?” I said.

The front door of the house opened and out stepped Manny Sinkler.

“Hey! Y’all come on in!”

It was the classic Lowcountry greeting and we hollered back, relieved to be spared an argument.

Hey! How’re you?

At first glance, Manny seemed like a fellow from the cover of
Field & Stream
—who may or may not have earned his fortune on insider trading? I mean, how did people acquire these fortunes? I guessed his age to be around fifty or so, thinning hair on top, and a bit of gray distinguished his temples. Despite a small paunch, he was boyishly lanky like the perennial tennis or basketball player. He was wearing khakis, loafers with no
socks, and a dark V-neck sweater over a white T-shirt. Not that it mattered to me, but he probably had a thousand girlfriends, all of them under forty. All of them experts in erotic delights of the
Kama Sutra,
with a healthy libido and a penchant to demonstrate. Oh, so what? I told myself. Your dancing days are probably over anyway.

We climbed the steps to the porch and Manny waited there to shake my hand, which I thought was very nice. He held the door open to the house and we stepped into the center hall, our eyes adjusting to the low light. On the right was a paneled study, furnished in red-and-gold chintz patterns and lots of framed photographs. On our left was what appeared to be a continuation of the study, as it was decorated in the same colors, but the walls were lined in bookshelves, crammed with old leather-bound volumes. Large club chairs, upholstered in ancient crackled black leather finished with brass nail heads, stood in a semicircle framing the fireplace. A beautiful old English walnut desk stood before the window. It was so inviting, I would not have even minded paying bills or doing taxes in such a lovely spot.

Manny and Harrison were chatting away about the various attributes of hunting dogs when Manny turned to me and asked something about how long was I visiting. I answered something inane like, well, I’ve been coming here all my life but I’m just down to visit Mother and I’m leaving in a couple of days because I have to get back to my very busy and very important committee assignments in New York. And my bird. Yes, Harry was waiting. Actually, I’m not sure what I said except that my response caused the edges of both men’s lips to turn up in an irritating grin, which confirmed to them that I had, in fact, no life. I could feel my scalp break into some annoying moderately sized perspiration episode, and I dismissed it to an overload of testosterone in the air. Not a lack of estrogen.

“I see. Well, come on back in the kitchen,” Manny said, “and let me get y’all something to drink.”

“Oh, I’m fine,” I said. “Well, maybe a glass of water?” Was I just the biggest idiot or what? At first I thought he meant something alcoholic and
the fact that I never touched a drop during the day kept me convinced that I was in no danger of an addiction problem. Except after funerals.

“Sure,” he said, and kept smiling.

I wanted to kick him in the shin, just a little.

I got over my aggressive thoughts when I saw the massive chef’s kitchen slash dining room slash family room combined with the smells coming from the huge, gleaming copper kettles on his stove—the whole scene was beyond any kitchen I had ever seen, except on the Food Network. He reached in the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of mineral water. May I just add that the said designer refrigerator had pale green beveled-glass doors and the visible contents were arranged like a gourmet deli?

“Harrison? You thirsty there, sir?”

“Sure. I’ll get glasses.”

This fellow Manny had to be a stockholder in Williams-Sonoma because every blessed pot, pan, knife, cutting board, display of glasses, and rack of plates in his kitchen looked like it came from a catalog spread.

“You cook?” I said. Another pearl of genius fell from my lips.

“Me? Oh, yeah. I love to cook. My repertoire has some limits, but I like to get in here and put stuff together.”

A man who cooked was nature’s greatest aphrodisiac.

“What’s in the pot?” I took the glass of water and said thanks, catching Harrison’s eye. He was still grinning and it was beginning to annoy me. But not much, really. It was just that I wasn’t accustomed to manly grins and was unpracticed in deciphering them.

“Quail stew. I belong to a supper club at church and once a month we have a sort of potluck get-together. Want to try some? You can tell me if it needs salt or pepper.”

“Sure! I mean, I’d be happy to help you.” Good grief! Why did I sound like such a pompous ass? But Harrison saved the day.

“Yeah, Manny, put some in this bowl so Mellie and I can make sure it’s not poison. You don’t want to kill all the Methodists in Mount Pleasant, do you?”

“Heavens, no,” he said good-naturedly.

I took one bite and thought, Well, I may never allow Manny to ravish me in the sack—that is to confess that the odds of my seduction were probably thin—but I was getting his recipe for quail stew. It needed pepper.

“So, why don’t you come with me?” Manny said.

I looked up in surprise, wondering whom he meant and what he meant. I must have appeared to be lost in another world because he repeated himself.

“To dinner? At my church? You, me, and about one hundred good God-fearing folk?”

“Great idea,” Harrison said. “I wanted to get Miss Josie out of the house—maybe take her to the movies tonight. It’s all I can do to get her over the causeway and this would be a perfect excuse. That is, if Mellie wants to go with you?”

I thought about Mother always on the island, seldom going downtown, Harrison’s sensitivity to recognize it, and then about how long it had been since I had a bona fide date, and took the plunge.

“Sure. Why not?”

What on earth would I wear?

I said good night to Manny with a bear hug that revealed certain attributes of his, and bumbling with embarrassment and excitement, I climbed the steps. He had smelled the wafting aroma of pot, too. We looked at each other, shook our heads, and he said, I’ll call you tomorrow. I thanked him, said fine, that would be nice, and I scribbled down my cell number on an old receipt from my purse. I didn’t know if this fool was going to go for a kiss or what, so I left him at the bottom of the steps on the turn of my heel. But there had been a definite connection, just as there had been with Harrison, and the thought crossed my mind again that I might have been a little bit depraved.

I tried to remember the last sexual episode I had and it had to have been three years, if you counted those including a partner. The first chance for anything in ages presented itself and I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. When I was a girl, there was only Charles who made it to home plate, as the young people say. And that was after he plunked a two-carat diamond ring on my eighteen-year-old finger and set a date. To be truthful, I didn’t ever think much of the whole mess. Sex, that is. It was hardly ever worth the shower. Hmm, I thought,
that
could be a clue to why Charles opted out of monogamy. Anyway, I knew that if Manny came back around when I was in town, eventually, a sexual opportunity would
arise
and I would have to decide.

“All right, children!” I said to Mother and Harrison. “The grown-up is home!”

They laughed, and stuffed shirt/blouse that I may have been, I laughed, too. I kissed my mother on the top of her head and gave Harrison a little punch in the arm. Wasn’t I fast becoming Miss Mellie Lighthearted?

“I’m going to bed, you bad kids,” I said. “It’s a school night.” And then I grabbed some paper and began my first journal since high school, when I filled pages upon volumes with skin problems, dreamy-boy crushes, and girl gossip. Now it would probably be collagen instead of acne, men instead of boys, and a pot-smoking mother—which I would perhaps mention in code in case my diaries were subpoenaed in the event of a bust.

I couldn’t sleep, and attired in that fetching terry-cloth robe, I decided to sneak down to the front porch and take my chances that the goat and chickens wouldn’t wail with mocking laughter when they saw me. I had heard Harrison leave, so no problem there.

The moon was full, the night was clear, and I could hear the ocean in the distance on the other side of the island. I heard footsteps and looked up to see Mother taking the rocker next to me. She pulled her jacket around herself a little tighter to keep warm against the damp.

“We’ve got enough rocking chairs to open a chain of Cracker Barrels,” she said with a smile.

“That we do,” I said. We were quiet for a few minutes and then I said, “Look at the moon, Miss Josephine. That old man is grinning down at us.”

Strange as it may seem, there was an elderly man’s hook-nosed profile covering the surface of the moon, cutting us a sly look from his left eye and smiling some cosmic all-knowing smile.

“Hmmph,” she said. “He looks like your father used to look when he would get away with a little murder.”

“I still miss him, you know?” I said. “I can’t help but wonder what he would think to see us now.”

“I think about him all the time. He’d be thrilled to see you and horrified to see my farm here.”

“You think so?”

“Yep. He would have hated this. But, so what? It’s my house now. Sometimes I think I can see him right out of the corner of my eye when I turn quickly.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. It’s like he’s been standing there watching me and I catch him. Or sometime when I dream about him, I can smell him. Even after I wake up, I can still smell him. He was a wonderful man. An acquisitive workaholic, yes, and he was too concerned with other people’s opinions, and yes, he was highly judgmental and shallow about appearances and so forth—”

“Mother! That’s terrible!”

“What?”

“Daddy’s dead, for heaven’s sake. You’re not supposed to speak ill of the dead. You know that. It’s in frightfully bad taste.”

“Well, excuse me, Emily Post. I lived under his thumb for enough years to say what I think to my only child on my own porch in the middle of the night. It’s not like I took out an ad in the
Charlotte Observer
thanking God for giving him a fatal heart attack!”

“Which you think would have been justified?” I couldn’t help but giggle, and when she heard me she chuckled, too.

“Listen, Little Miss Mellie. There’s love and there’s marriage, and after some time, they are usually two different things. We were married forever. When we were young and the pheromones were flying like mad, we were as passionately in love as any couple you will ever meet. But after so many years, you get over your girlish expectations and settle yourself
into what you’re willing to give each other. You honor your vows, to the greatest extent possible. And you learn to compromise.”

“A business deal? You make it sound like a business deal. Like you got gypped. Do you think you got gypped?”

Mother gave a great laugh at that, and in the dim light I could see her shaking her head and smiling. “Heavens, no! Oh my! No, no. I never got gypped. I loved your daddy. But, honey? He was not an easy man to live with. Did I get to do everything I wanted with my life? Who does?” She looked away wistfully and repeated, “Who does?”

“What would you have done that you haven’t?”

“I don’t know…” After a long pause she said, “Well, you might think this is crazy but I definitely would have learned the tango or traveled more or maybe I would have studied astronomy.”

“I can see you in a tango costume, Miss Josie. You would’ve been redhot.”

“Would’ve been…isn’t that the awful part?”

We were quiet again. Heaven knew that I had certainly never done with my life what I had wanted to do. I had never even had the chance to think about it. And Mother’s
would’ve been
comment was like a knife in my heart. So many years had passed for her, for both of us really, that there was a long list of things she would never do and a shorter list of things I would probably never do either. It was awful to admit certain dreams would never be realized.

“But I have you, Miriam Elizabeth. I’m oh so very grateful for that.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Yes, I mean it with all my heart. I would hate to come to the end of my life all alone. And knowing you has made it so much richer.”

The hour was growing late, but perhaps because my heart and my hormones had been given a stir, I wasn’t sleepy. It seemed to me that Mother wasn’t particularly fatigued either. We continued to rock as the thin clouds followed the moon across the sky. In a rare moment of unsolicited
affection, I reached over and put my hand on top of hers. Even in the darkness, I noticed that her knuckles were enlarged. Her hand seemed awfully thin and felt cold to me. For the first time in years, I thought about the fact that in all likelihood she would precede me in death. I couldn’t bear the thought of it. There were too many issues to settle, and besides, we hadn’t done enough living together.

“Are you listening to me?” she said.

“I’m sorry. My mind wandered. What did I miss?”

“I said, how was your date with Harrison’s friend? That Manny fellow. Was he nice?”

“Oh, well, it wasn’t exactly a date. He belongs to a church out on Highway 17 North, and we brought a quail stew he made as part of a huge covered-dish dinner. Lots of people were there—probably a hundred? Anyway, we didn’t talk much because we were pretty busy serving plates. I worked in the buffet line with him.”

“Harrison brought me some. It was delicious. But this man took you out to dinner and put you to work? I’ll tell you, this is some world!”

“Oh no, no. It wasn’t like that. Manny’s a really nice man—a great cook, for sure. Did y’all go to the movies?”

“No. Just for ice cream. And? Is there chemistry?”

“Mother? You drink a little wine and everyone seems more attractive, don’t they?”

“I imagine so. Are you going to see him again?”

“He said he would call but who knows? Next visit, maybe.” I sighed and said, “Oh, me! I almost hate to go back to New York tomorrow.” I didn’t tell her or ask her if she knew whether Manny might or might not still be married. I saw no reason for extreme disclosure.

“I thought you were staying another day…”

“Couldn’t get the flight, but I’ll be back. This is so pleasant. Gosh. There’s something so bohemian about being outside at this hour, don’t you think?”

“Bohemian? What on earth do you mean?”

“Well, you know…the world around us is asleep and we’re out here stealing the night. I haven’t been up this late in years!”

“You have a little courtyard, Miriam. Don’t you ever go outside at night to look at the moon? Wish on the stars?”

“Are you kidding? Somebody might hop over the wall and get me!”

Even in the blue light of deep night, I could see that Mother was incredulous. Her eyes were narrowed in such a way that she need not have said one word and she didn’t. Her face said, Why are you living like a prisoner, Miriam? A paranoid. But I didn’t feel like I was living like a prisoner. I was living the life, or the crumbs of the life, that Charles and I had built. Granted, the road I walked was potholed with sadness, but it was also rather satisfying at times. Besides, who didn’t have sadness? And fears?

Then Mother dropped the bomb.

“Tell me about my grandsons, Miss Mellie. What’s going on with them?”

I cleared my throat and thought for a minute. “Well, you know how it is. Charlie’s busy learning to save mankind from disease. Dan and Nan have their lives with their little ones. God, I swear, California just seems like another country sometimes.”

“Why don’t you go and visit them? I mean, it’s just a plane ride.”

“What? Whose side are you on, Miss Josephine? Aren’t the children supposed to come to the mother? I mean, when my boys were little, did you ever spend Christmas in New York with us? Noooo. You insisted that we come to Charleston, remember?”

“What are you talking about? I never insisted on anything of the kind.”

“You would always say, ‘Oh, why don’t we have Christmas together in our home? I just want to see my family together here one more time…’ What was I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know. But I was always glad you came. So was your father. It
was so nice to have the delightful squeals of little boys on Christmas morning as they found their Santa. I used to make them mountains of silver-dollar pancakes. I can smell the warm maple syrup. Can’t you?”

“Not quite. I mean, coming to Charleston was the kind of thing that couldn’t please everyone. Anyway, I think children should have their holidays in their own homes. If I had it to do over again—”

“What possible difference would it make?”

I tried to think of the right words before I answered her and decided to just put my opinion out there on the table for her to hack to death.

“Look, Mother, this may sound a little crazy, but here it is. Maybe the more memories children have in their own home on holidays, the harder it is to break family ties later on, do you know what I mean?”

“Do you mean to say that when they look back in later years they don’t see you as the matriarch? That they see me?”

“Yes, making it that much easier to walk away from me. And to not care.”

“Hogwash. Being home with us at Christmas and Thanksgiving and Easter gave you a chance to be a child again. Did you think about that?”

“But I never wanted to be a child, Mother. You know that. I hated being a child.”

“Miriam?”

“Yes?”

“That is the most pathetic explanation I have ever heard for why your children aren’t as attentive as you would like them to be. Seriously. It’s pathetic. And if you think children should celebrate holidays in their own homes, why don’t you practice what you preach? Go to California.”

“I’m not comfortable doing that.”

“Why not?”

“They’ve never asked me to come.”

“Oh, mol-asses! Since when do you need an invitation to visit your own children?”

“Well, Nan’s a little stiff.”

“Stiff? Holy moly, Miriam Elizabeth Swanson, if
you’re
calling her stiff, she must be in rigor mortis!”

“Oh, thanks. Summers here were good, though. Maybe I could coax them to come here for a visit. Probably not.” Was I really blaming Nan? And my mother?

“I’m having none of this,” she said.

She was provoked. I had caused it but it was time to have my say. Gently. Politely.

“Don’t be angry with me,” I said, taking small steps into the quagmire.

“Angry? I’m not angry in the least. Like my grandmother used to say, that’s all a lot of stuff and nonsense. Stuff and nonsense.”

The Queen of Denial had spoken again. The princess sang the chorus.

“Well, it just seems bizarre that the life you chose for me is the one you ultimately threw away.”

“What do you mean
chose for you
? You chose your own life.”

All my old anger began to rise like the rolling boil of custard left on a high flame.

“Mother? You can’t possibly believe what you are saying.”

“I most assuredly do!”

I could feel my breath quickening and glanced at my wristwatch. The hour had passed to talk about these things—too late in the night and too late in the game to change them.

“Are you going to answer me?”

“No, ma’am, I’m not. It’s almost morning.”

“Miriam? I want an answer from you and I want it now. I have been listening to you whine and complain since the day Charles left, and I will not go to sleep having you believe I am the reason for your troubles. You, my dear daughter, are the cause of your own troubles. Not me.”

That was a damn lie. In fact it was the most damnable lie to ever fall from her lips. But I wasn’t going to have an argument with my mother at
that hour over something I couldn’t change. She could say whatever she wanted to say. I knew the truth.