“Good. So where do you want to start? Wanna have lunch or something?”
“Sure. Why don’t you come over here around noon and I’ll bring in some sandwiches. How does that sound?”
“Fine. Perfect. I’ll bring the blueprints?”
“I’ve got a set.”
“Okay, then. I’ll just bring corrections. See you at noon. This should be weird.”
“I’ll say.”
I could only hope that he had lost a few teeth. Or that he was paunchy and bald. Or that he had unbelievable, incurable halitosis. Maybe he had become a chronic nose picker, crotch scratcher…something! Anything!
Sandi stuck her head in the door.
“You know I listened to every word, but I could only hear your end of the conversation. How does he sound?”
“Halloween must be early this year because I’m scared to death. How’s my hair?”
“Not the best I’ve ever seen it. But there’s rain-forest humidity around here, so what are you gonna do? I mean, do you want him to think you had a makeover for the occasion?”
Really, Sandi was right. It was probably better for J.D. not to think that I had gone to a lot of trouble fixing myself up just to see him. I looked in the mirror and decided I didn’t look so bad for someone who had just stuck her tongue in a lightbulb socket. Fear and poor pallor appeared to travel hand in hand. My anxiety levels were swirling around the Space Station Mir.
“We gotta get lunch in here,” I said in rapid fire.
“Handled. East Bay Deli. Pastrami, corn beef, pickles, and cookies.”
“Great. Are they good? Because it has to be good. I mean, this is important.”
“They deliver. It’s the deli everyone around here uses.”
“Oh? Okay, then.”
“So, Betts? I have a flatiron and a whole set of Bare Minerals makeup, including lip gloss and mascara. You want to maybe fool around with it?”
“Um…”
“Gotcha. I’ll be right back. Go wash your face.”
I washed my greasy face and stared at my splotchy complexion in the mirror. For so many years I’d avoided J.D. so carefully…and now he was coming over for pastrami on rye? And then there was the fact that I had aged. Nearly twenty years. Did it show? Of course it showed. Just for good measure, I aged five more years on the spot.
When I got back to my office, there was a layout of war paint and the hair straightener was warming up. It was eleven o’clock. One hour until liftoff.
“Down here you can’t wear liquid foundation with any oil in it unless you’ve got lizard skin. But you should know that. Put that stuff in the bottle on first. It holds the makeup on your skin.”
“Gotcha.”
“I’m gonna section off your hair and flatiron the back for you. Then you can do the rest and I’ll show you how to use this stuff.”
“Fine. I think I’m going to throw up.” I couldn’t hold a thought in my head.
“Betts? I know you’re my boss and all, but I think I’m gonna throw up, too! This particular stress was not mentioned in my job reassignment. And I thought the part about the alligators was sort of crazy…”
“Sorry. I knew I’d forgotten to tell you something…”
Sandi ironed the back of my hair section by section until it appeared to have grown four inches. I had some serious frizz going on.
First, Sandi applied something all around my eyes called Well Rested, which was something I certainly wasn’t. But when I looked in her compact mirror, it appeared that I was. Okay, I thought, this might work. Then she brushed small amounts of a powdered foundation all over my face until I was blotch-free and my skin looked really good. Then came the contour and blush, eyeliner, and mascara, and voilà! Not a pore in sight. I looked about ten years fresher than I had when I walked in the door.
“We’re doing big eyes and a natural mouth, okay?” Sandi said.
“You’re the Svengali here, not me. Whatever you say is fine.” When we were all done, I looked in the large mirror over the mantel. “Well, this is quite the transformation! Where’d you get this stuff?”
“Stella Nova, right around the corner on King Street. They are like a one-stop shop for everything you ever wanted in your life to make you happy.”
“No lie?”
“No lie. Well, except shoes.” She started cleaning up my desk, smiling to herself.
“Right! Hey, Sandi?”
“Yes’m?”
“Thanks.”
“He’s gonna drop dead when he sees you, Betts. I’m telling you, dead on the floor.”
“Good.”
Lunch arrived, and Sandi was in the conference room setting it up while I pored over the newspapers, pulling out articles and letters to the editor protesting the proposed development of Bulls Island. The next thing I knew, I looked up to see J.D. walking through the door with an architect’s tube under his arm.
“Hey,” he said, and took a deep breath.
“Hey, yourself,” I said, and stood.
He was gorgeous.
“So are you,” he said, hearing my thoughts.
But wasn’t that how it had always been?
Our eyes were locked on each other’s face, our minds roaring backward over the years, looking for recognition, old affection, broken hearts, lost time…there we stood, waiting for the other to make some kind of mysterious first move, something that would turn anger to forgiveness, bring us together, make the job we had to do together possible.
It would never be. All the old memories, the dormant but still white-hot passion, the ache of wanting without having, burst into flames, and in just minutes, all these emotions raged like a blast furnace into a swirl of confusion. It was going to be impossible for me to stay away from him…and, I could see, for him to stay away from me. I had known the risk of being in J.D.’s company from the moment I had agreed to return to Charleston. I should have remembered that our attraction to each other was as powerful and predictable as the tides, as sunrise and sunset, as any phenomenon in nature. Actually, I had remembered this…but had foolishly chosen to test my own puny strength against it.
“Oh God.” I said. My body temperature was rising and I knew I was blushing every shade of red in the spectrum.
“What are we gonna do, Betts?”
“I don’t know what you mean. But if I did, I would say that we’re gonna tough it out. This is just business, J.D.” My eye began to twitch.
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
At that moment Sandi stuck her head in the office and said, “Lunch is ready. What would y’all like to drink?”
“Iced tea,” I said. Cyanide, I thought. And some strips of duct tape discreetly applied to my twitching eyelid would be good, too.
“Tea’s fine for me,” J.D. said.
We had not touched each other yet—no hug, no shaking of hands. Sandi, who had an expected smirk on her face, left to get our drinks and J.D. stood aside so I could pass through the door. I carefully avoided any contact with him as though he were covered in vines of poison ivy. But I could feel his breath as I moved by him and that was all it took for me to break a sweat.
It probably sounds crazy, but J.D.’s scent dropped me into a state of complete distraction with a silent plunk. It wasn’t exactly musk and it wasn’t sweet or salty. I assumed he wore cologne and it was probably one whose fragrances I had inhaled hundreds of times. But mixed with his body oils or skin, it made him smell like something else, something that could make me drunk. Insatiable. Blind. Irrational.
“What’s for lunch?” he asked, clearing his throat.
Trying to focus, I said, “Corned beef, pastrami, and a pile of op-ed pieces from every newspaper in the state.”
“Oh, that. Big pain in the behind. That whole ruckus, I mean.”
“Well, some of it may have merit,” I said.
“Maybe.”
We took a seat at the conference table and passed the platter of sandwiches back and forth, unwrapping them, taking halves
of each. We began to share lunch as naturally as we had ever shared anything—except the last nineteen years.
“Big maybe. We have to talk about everything, but first, tell me how Big Jim is doing. I heard he had a heart attack.”
“He did. But you know him, he’s fine, the moose. Thanks for asking.”
“And your mother?”
“Still mean as a junkyard dog, but mellowing somewhat around the edges.”
“Valerie?”
He looked over his right shoulder as if there might be someone else listening and then he looked back to me. He just cocked his head to one side and said, “She’s the same.”
“Good answer,” I said.
“Yeah, well, your eye’s twitching like a sail in a gale-force wind.”
“Shut up. You’re as nervous as I am.”
“Yes, ma’am. You’re right about that. And for good reason.”
“Amen. So, J.D.?”
“What?”
“Let’s talk about Bulls Island.”
“What do you want to know?”
“How’d you get it declassified?”
“Ask me something else.”
“So, the Langleys are still up to their usual games, huh? Working the system?”
“Tell you what. You can ask my mother to tell you the story. This was her pet project. I just make sure the buildings meet code and that the customers get what they pay for.”
“This is a little more complicated than that. You know what Bulls Island means.”
“Yep, I do. But that’s all changed. Right now we’re working with the South Carolina Department of Wildlife hunting down alligators, fox, and deer, and moving them over to Capers. And we’re working diligently to diminish the snake population.”
“Nice.” I shivered. “How’s that going?”
“Pretty good. But we really won’t know until spring when they hatch again.”
“Ew. Gross.”
“Your eye’s still twitching. You’re still afraid of snakes?”
“Screw you, J. D. Langley. No, I’m not afraid of anything…” My eyelid was acting like a strobe light from a cheesy dance club.
“Really?” He grinned in a most appealing and dangerous way that one hundred years ago might have left a young innocent girl to feel that her virtue was possibly compromised.
“Okay. Almost anything, but I wouldn’t want to spend ten million dollars on a home and then find a copperhead knocking on my front door.”
“Good point. Well, we’re keeping the loggerheads and over two hundred species of birds. And we’re dealing with a helluva lot of vandalism to the earthmovers and our ATVs.”
“I hadn’t heard about any vandalism…”
“So far we’ve been able to keep it out of the papers. No point in stoking the fires of the crazies out there.”
“You’re right, I guess. You’ll have to fill me in on that. Anyway, there are a couple of questions I’ve got about the comparative environments of Bulls versus Capers.”
“Like what?”
“Well, for example, does Capers Island have enough fresh and brackish water impoundments to support the additional reptile population?”
J.D. wiped his mouth with his napkin and was quiet for a minute.
“What? Did I just ask a stupid question?”
“Betts?” J.D. shook his head with such incredulity that I knew what he was going to say before he said it.
“What?”
“Betts? What’s this about? Did you go off to New York City to work in private equity with the biggest reptiles on the planet and come home a freaking tree hugger? What’s going on here?”
“I just worry, J.D. That’s all. No, I am not a freaking tree hugger, thank you, but I also know I won’t have my company involved in a project that’s in any way irresponsible.”
“Irresponsible?”
“Environmentally irresponsible.”
“Well, thanks for the clarification. Number one, we are not touching the impoundments and we are building no bridges. The chemistry of the water impoundments of Capers is identical to Bulls. Two, the contract is signed and the check has cleared the bank, so you’re in this, unless your firm wants a lawsuit. Number three, you come waltzing in here after all these years and you don’t know the first thing about me and how I work. I was a boy the last time you saw me…the time you walked out on everyone. My family may have a reputation for doing business in an unorthodox manner, but that’s not how I operate.”
“I apologize. I didn’t mean to imply—”
“Yes, you did. You did mean to imply…”
“It’s just all these articles…they say such terrible things.”
“Yes, they do, but let me tell you something, okay?” He balled up the wrapper from his sandwich and threw it on the table. “We’ve got more salt marsh and brackish water than we have uplands over there by almost eight hundred acres. Needless to say, there are more varieties of bloodsucking bugs than all the noodles in China. In addition, Bulls Island has the largest loggerhead nesting refuge outside of Florida…and I have a personal commitment to protect it. And to top it all off, we have nut jobs picketing at the dock by day and slashing our tires every night. Between you and me? I never would have touched Bulls Island. But Mother got her hands on it and it’s a helluva lot better for me to develop it than a pack of Yankees with no conscience!” He stopped and took a breath. “Now, do I have a partner or do I have an adversary?”
“Um, it appears that you have a partner who’s a half Yankee with a raging conscience. And her partner seems to have become a man with a formidable temper.”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at me. I had made him angry because I had not chosen my words well, and I had assumed that he was in it just for the money. I was wrong all the way around. The tension in the room was palpable.
“I guess you grew up okay,” he said. “Principles and all that.”
“You, too. I guess. You want a cookie? Sugar might sweeten you up.” How principled I was remained to be seen.
“No, thanks. Trying to quit.”
“Coffee?”
“Never touch the stuff.”
“Yeah, me either. So, let’s have a look at the plans, I guess, right? I’ll just clear this stuff up.”
He unrolled a stack of architectural drawings and I could tell he was looking around for paperweights to keep them flat.
“How about coffee mugs?”
“That’ll do ’er.”
I grabbed four mugs from the kitchen area and anchored the drawings with them.
“Okay,” he said, “first of all, we need a meeting with the architects, the contractors, and the wildlife guys to really examine the specifics, but to get started, let’s look at this aerial view of the island, because the natural geography presents some special challenges.”
“How big is the island? I mean, square miles?”
“A little under eight. But it’s about six and a half miles long. Anyway, in stage one of this, we’re only planning to develop about two hundred acres for private housing—single-family structures, two to an acre—and then a clubhouse, one small hotel, a golf course, a general store, and an emergency medical facility. The primary question, of course, is what to keep—I mean, whatever is of historic value should be kept, don’t you agree?”
“Of course. I mean, you’re talking about things like the Dominick House, right?”
“Yep, and the shell middens and the old fort and so forth. But most importantly, we want this to be as green a project as possible. We want hiking trails and nature trails and so forth.”
“Hey, J.D.?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
He looked up at me and I could feel blood rushing to my face again.
“This is very exciting. This project, I mean.”
“I’ve thought about this a lot, Betts. If we couldn’t build a life together for ourselves, at least we can build one for somebody else.”
J.D. was twisting my heart with almost ev
ery word he uttered. How was I going to make it through the next few months without falling in love with him all over again?
He gave me a broad outline of each area of the project and I began to see exactly how much time and thought had gone into every segment of the job—how to run power over there, sewage, freshwater—the problems of providing for basic needs had been carefully studied. When we got to the drawings of the golf course and the clubhouse, I could see that Bulls Island was going to be magnificent and that the Langleys’ intentions were that it would remain basically unspoiled in spite of development. But I had my suspicions still because people had a tendency to screw up the world no matter their good intentions, so why would this be an exception?
When it got to the point that we were becoming bleary-eyed from trying to take in the enormous scope of our work, J.D. suggested that we call it quits and I reluctantly agreed.
“I’m having dinner with my father tonight,” I said, standing next to the table as he rolled up the drawings.
He cleared his throat at my remark. He had not asked me anything about my personal life and he surely knew that I had not been in touch with my father or my sister.
“Your sister is as crazy as a mattress fulla bedbugs, you know.”
“You’re telling me?”
Somehow, we said good-bye. Somehow, we did this with professionalism and courtesy. But we both knew that it was a matter of when not if trouble would find us.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dirt on Everyone
He’s pretty fabulous,” Sandi said after J.D. left and my mental and emotional equilibrium had been partially restored. “If you don’t mind me saying so.”
“I don’t mind, and that’s the problem.”
“He’s married, right?”
“Yeah, to a complete nincompoop.”
“They got kids?”
“Nope.”
“Does he know that you do?”
She had guessed.
“Nope, and let’s keep it that way, understood?”
“Understood.”
“Sandi? Wonderful as you are? Indispensable as you are to me, especially now? Letting that news hit the streets would be an instantaneous deal breaker for us.”