The Summer Girls (23 page)

“He couldn’t stop,” Lucille said. “He just couldn’t admit it.”

Mamaw leaned forward, cocking her head like a curious bird. “Sweet child, what can we do to help you?”

“Ditch the booze,” Carson said bluntly. Mamaw’s eyes widened, more from the vulgarity of her words. Carson smiled plaintively. “If you could please take away all the alcohol, hide it, do anything you like with it so I—we—can’t find it, I’d appreciate it. Just for a week, maybe more if all goes well. That goes for wine, too. If you serve wine at dinner, I’ll cave. I know I will. But if I eat my meals here and I don’t have alcohol around to tempt me, I’ll be able to really see if I can quit.” She rubbed her palms together between her knees, feeling clammy. “It’s not going to be easy. Just thinking about not drinking tonight makes me want a drink.”

“Consider it done!” Mamaw exclaimed.

“There won’t be a drop when you get back from work tomorrow,” Lucille said, her dark eyes gleaming like she was a woman on a mission. She glared at Mamaw. “Not anywhere. I’ll see to that.”

Mamaw narrowed her eyes, catching her meaning. Carson could see Mamaw working out in her mind if she could give up her nip of rum in the evenings.

“Who’s winning?” Carson asked in an upbeat voice, changing the subject.

Mamaw fluffed herself up like a queen and, with a smug smile, began shuffling the deck of cards. “I am, of course.”

“Today,” Lucille grumbled.

Carson was impressed. Mamaw dealt as smoothly as any croupier.

“How’s your job coming along?” Mamaw asked Carson as she dealt the cards.

“It’s fine,” Carson replied. “The tourists have arrived in force so my tips are good. It should be a good summer.”

“That’s nice,” Mamaw said in a distracted manner as she picked up her cards. Her fingers moved quickly, sorting her hand.

Carson took a breath, then began to play out the game of finesse that was in her mind. “Mamaw, speaking of summer . . . Do you know what would make my summer
really
great?”

“I don’t really know,” Mamaw replied in a distracted manner. “Something to do with the water, I suppose?”

Carson took a breath. “No. It’s kind of out there, so hear me through, okay?”

Lucille kept her eyes on her cards, but under her breath she muttered loud enough for all to hear, “Here comes the windup.”

“Well . . .” Carson began, ignoring Lucille’s tease. She leaned forward in the manner of a salesman. “My car, the
Beast, died today. On my way home from the beach. It’s been resurrected more times than I can count over the years, but this time it’s a goner. I think the cross-country trip done her in. At least it died here and not somewhere in the middle of the country.” Carson strove for levity.

“I hope you’ll remove that piece of junk from my driveway,” Mamaw said, looking over the rim of her glasses. “I don’t want Sea Breeze to become one of those white-trash places overrun with cars and kudzu.”

“I have someone coming by later this week to tow it away,” Carson assured her. “I got a hundred dollars for the carcass.”

“That’s good,” Mamaw said, her attention returning to the cards.

“So I was thinking . . .” Carson said, her toes curling beneath the table. “Would you consider . . . well . . . how about letting me have the Blue Bomber?”

Mamaw stopped arranging her cards and looked up, suddenly alert. “What was that?”

“I need a car, Mamaw, so I wondered, since the Cadillac is just sitting in the garage . . .”

Mamaw put down her cards and studied Carson’s face, her eyes narrowing shrewdly. “You want me to give you my car?”

“Not give,” Carson rushed to answer. “Unless you’re inclined to let me put it on my wish list?”

“I am not.”

“Oh.” Carson released a disappointed puff of air.

Lucille said under her breath, “Strike one.”

“You’re not helping,” Carson said to Lucille.

“I just calls ’em as I sees ’em,” Lucille replied with a slight shrug of her shoulders, still chuckling.

Carson looked at Mamaw pleadingly. “Would you let me buy it?”

“You have the money for it?”

“Not yet,” Carson replied, squirming in her seat.

“Strike two,” Lucille muttered.

Carson glared at her. “I’ve got a job and I’m making good tips,” she told Mamaw. “I’ll get the money.”

“When?”

“By the end of summer. Sooner, if a job from L.A. comes up.”

“So you
do
expect me to give it to you?”

Carson exhaled heavily with frustration. Yes, she was hoping her grandmother would give her the car immediately and let her work out the payment later. The car was just sitting in the garage most of the time anyway. She wouldn’t even miss it.

“What if I gave you a down payment now?” Carson cringed. It was embarrassing to not have any money, to have to borrow and beg at her age. “Say, a hundred dollars . . .”

“That will barely fill a tank of gas in that big ol’ car,” Mamaw replied. “Sugar, even if I let you buy it, you wouldn’t be able to afford the gas.”

“I won’t need a lot of gas,” Carson argued. “I only need the car to drive back and forth from Dunleavy’s. And I really love that old car. You know I do.”

Mamaw picked up her cards and began sorting them. She took her time, flicking the edges of her cards as she moved them. “I have a better idea,” Mamaw said at length.
“Since you’ll be here all summer and only need transportation to and from Dunleavy’s, you don’t need a car, either.” She discarded a two of clubs. “You can ride my bicycle. In fact, you can have it. Just think of all the money you’ll save on gas. And all the exercise.”

“A bike?” Carson exclaimed with disappointment.

“Strike three,” Lucille said as she picked up the card and discarded a jack of diamonds.

“What if it rains?” asked Carson, growing desperate as she watched the two old women calmly playing cards. “I can’t show up to work wet.”

“That’s true,” Mamaw said thoughtfully. She picked up Lucille’s card and re-sorted her hand. “I know!” she said, discarding a ten of diamonds. She looked back at Carson with eyes bright. “You can use the golf cart! It probably needs a new battery. And a good scrubbing. It’s been sitting in the garage unused for years, but it should still be good.”

Carson frowned and remained silent.

“Carson,” Mamaw said, sitting back in her chair, looking at her now with her complete attention. “I love you more than anyone or thing in the world. You know that, don’t you? As I loved your dad. But I made mistakes with him. I see that now. I made life too easy for him. I was always there to smooth his path. I should’ve made him ride a bike to work. Mercy, I should have made him get a job!”

“Amen,” muttered Lucille.

Mamaw reached out and cupped her palm around Carson’s cheek. Her eyes pulsed with devotion that couldn’t be denied. “My darling girl, I won’t make that same mistake with you.”

“Aw, go ahead,” Carson said, then lowered her eyes with a laugh of embarrassment. At the moment, she wasn’t joking. She’d worry about her soul later. Right now she was broke and needed a ride.

Mamaw patted Carson’s cheek in a gesture of summation, drew back, and picked up and sorted her cards with quick, snapping sounds. “That golf cart has a nice roof on top. It’s absolutely precious. Go on out now and give it a look-see.”

Carson’s sigh was mingled with a moan as she rose to go. She was arrested by Lucille’s hand on her arm. Carson wanted to jerk her arm away, she was so annoyed with both of the women. She glanced down into Lucille’s dark eyes, not sure if the woman was being kind or was about to deliver another zinger.

Lucille patted her arm with compassion. “I know this might seem like a strikeout now,” Lucille told her. “But, darlin’, you just scored a home run.”

T
he following few days there was a flurry of activity at Sea Breeze. Harper waited until her mother left for the Hamptons, then she flew to New York to pack up clothes and conclude her affairs with human resources at the publishing house. Harper didn’t think she would be gone for more than two weeks, and Carson believed her. Meanwhile, Dora drove home alone to Summerville to see to the many details of preparing the house for sale and to face the odious task of meeting with lawyers for her divorce. Despite her reservations, she’d agreed to let the women at Sea Breeze care for Nate until she returned.

The house seemed quiet with her sisters gone. Carson loved them, of course, but they were as yet hardly close. She lay on the iron bed, her arms folded under her head, and her thoughts turned back to those summers the girls had
shared at Sea Breeze. Back when Mamaw had called them her Summer Girls.

The many summers had been a hodgepodge of visits that continued from the time each of them was very young until they’d become teens. Initially, only she and Dora had spent summers together. Carson had lived with Mamaw in Charleston, and Dora, three years older than Carson, was invited to spend the summers with them from her home in Charlotte, North Carolina. Those early years were the best for the two eldest girls, long lazy summers of playing mermaids and painting on the veranda with Mamaw. Later, those years’ difference signified a lifetime when Carson was ten and Dora was thirteen. Then, Dora found her half sister annoying; she invited friends to Sea Breeze and Carson was excluded from their games.

It was a turnaround when Harper began coming to Sea Breeze at six years of age. She was so small and delicate, dressed like one of the Madame Alexander dolls she coveted.

The girls had spent only three full summers together, during which time there was an eight-year spread between Dora and Harper. Carson had been the link between the eldest and the youngest, the go-between, the popular one, the peacemaker. After Dora turned seventeen she stopped spending her summers at Sea Breeze. Carson and Harper spent another two summers together alone, which forged their bond. Where Dora loved playing dress-up and feminine make-believe games, Carson and Harper let loose their inner Huck Finns. They’d explored every inch of Sullivan’s Island and Isle of Palms, searching for the pirate treasure every child on the island knew was buried
somewhere
.

Like the Lost Boys, however, eventually they grew up. When Carson turned seventeen she got a summer job in Los Angeles and Harper’s mother purchased a house in the Hamptons. This marked the end of the Summer Girls at Sea Breeze.

A few years later, the girls came together again when Dora married Calhoun Tupper in a grand Charleston event. On the heels of the wedding came two funerals. Their father died young, at forty-seven, and soon after, their grandfather Edward Muir passed away. His funeral in 2000 was the last time all three girls were together. Now, all these years later, Carson wondered if Mamaw’s dream of reuniting her Summer Girls was just a romantic notion.

Carson’s gaze shifted to the elaborate portrait of an early Muir ancestor that hung on the opposite wall. Her great-great-great-great-grandmother Claire Muir wore an elaborate navy velvet dress trimmed with thick layers of white lace of the quality Carson saw in history books of queens and great ladies. Her thick, raven hair was swept up and adorned with rows of pearls. More pearls, long, incandescent strands of them, fell down past her generous breasts. When Carson stared at the face, the woman’s brilliant blue eyes seemed to be staring right back at her.

It had always felt like this, ever since Mamaw had moved the portrait from the main house in Charleston to Carson’s room. Carson looked into the eyes of the great lady in the portrait, remembering that day.

Carson had been in that awkward transition period between childhood and adolescence and fully aware of the awkwardness of her tall, gangly body, her big feet, and her
dark, thick hair. Not at all like her sister, Dora, with her soft golden hair and fair skin and breasts beginning to bud from her slender body.

Mamaw had knocked softly on her bedroom door and, hearing her crying, stepped inside the room. Carson had tried to control her sobs, but couldn’t.

“Whatever is the matter?”

“I’m so ugly!” Carson had cried, and began another crying jag.

Mamaw came to sit on the bed beside Carson. “Who says you’re ugly, child?”

“Tommy Bremmer,” she mumbled, and buried her face in her arms. “He said my hair was a rat’s nest.”

Her grandmother sniffed imperiously and said, “Well, if he’s a Bremmer, then he ought to know a rat when he sees one. But he doesn’t know one thing about girls. Neither did his grandfather. Now, stop sniveling, child. It doesn’t suit you.”

While Carson tried to settle her sobs, Mamaw went into the bathroom and returned with a damp washcloth. Carson closed her eyes and relished the feel of the coolness as Mamaw gently wiped the hot tears and snot from her face. When she opened them again she could breathe easier because her chest wasn’t so filled with hate.

“Muirs never cower,” Mamaw told her, sitting beside her on the mattress. She began tugging a comb through Carson’s long, knotted hair. “You’re becoming a young lady, you know.”

“Ow, stop,” Carson whined, wiggling away from the comb.

Mamaw persisted. “Beauty is our duty and sometimes
it hurts. We must be stoic. Now, let me have a hand at this magnificent head of hair you have.”