“Don’t talk to this guy,” he told me in a chiding tone. “Notorious radical environmental confrontationist.”
At that moment I would have done anything J.D. wanted and I was sure it showed all over my face.
The “notorious radical environmental confrontationist,” who happened to be from a syndicated press service, snapped our picture in what turned out to look like a lot more than a professional moment—read: lusting for each other like wild jungle animals in desperate heat—and the next morning it was on the front page of every paper in the state and many others across the country, including the national section of the New York Times. The headline read, Some Bull to Consider!
CHAPTER TWELVE
Catching Bull
You’re not going to like this,” Sandi said when I arrived at the office the next morning.
“What?”
She followed me into my office with a stack of newspapers and a mug of hot tea. “Louisa Langley has already called four times, J.D. has called twice, and there have been so many hang-up calls, you wouldn’t believe it. Like his Sparkle Wife thinks you answer the phone here and we don’t have caller ID? Jeesch!”
I flipped though the papers and saw one photograph after another that made it look like J.D. and I couldn’t find a bed fast enough. I broke beads of mortification just looking at the pictures.
“Bruton’s not gonna like this.”
“Oh yeah, he called, too.”
“Great. Let me see what the articles say…”
“Whatever. Doesn’t matter. A picture is worth a thousand words, you know.”
“Thanks for the tip. Hold my calls for about an hour, okay?”
“You’re the boss.”
I sat down to read:
Triangle Equity, a subsidiary corporation of ARC Partners of New York, has teamed up with Langley Development, the well-known real-estate developers of the Lowcountry of South Carolina, to execute one of the most egregious scams in recent memory. The pillage and plunder of Bulls Island all in the name of…what else? Greed.
Bulls Island, also called Bull Island, once home to the Seewee Indians, was named for Stephen Bull, an English mariner who realized its charms back in the seventeenth century. The island’s history includes pirates and Civil War blockade runners who found its coves and inlets to be perfect hiding places.
In 1925, a northern investment banker, Gayer Dominick, thought that having his own hunting preserve seemed like a good idea, and he bought the entire island. Whether it was the alligators or the bugs is unclear, but Mr. Dominick returned ownership to the Fish and Wildlife Services in 1932, under whose auspices it has flourished until now. Bulls Island has been called the Jewel in the Crown of the Cape Romain National Wildlife Refuge. But if this development is allowed to continue…
As I read on, I ticked off every negative thought anyone had ever had about commercial development. No remark was made about the inappropriate stance of the partners in the picture, but no remark was necessary.
Then I hit a quote from me that was a complete fabrication.
Betts McGee, originally from Charleston, who is the chief operating officer of Triangle Equity, questioned the morality of the project herself, saying it was a shame to see a place that was her childhood heaven come to this ruination…
“I never said that!”
My body temperature went up to at least a hundred and four. I dialed J.D.’s cell phone and he answered on the first ring.
“Betts?”
“Yeah, it’s me. Where are you?”
“Out on Bulls.”
“Seen the papers?”
“That’s why I’m out on Bulls. I’m hiding with Blackbeard in Jack’s Creek. We’re shooting craps with shark’s teeth.”
“You’re a riot. Do you know that?”
“My, ahem, wife doesn’t think so. Valerie was actually throwing stuff around this morning. Cups. Plates. A box of Honey-Nut Cheerios. Do you know how many of those little O’s can fit in one box?”
“I’m guessing here, but I’m gonna go with a lot?”
“Yeah. Mother’s raising hell, too, calling you a harlot. I just hate that. Women. So unforgiving.”
“You’d better look out. ‘Yo momma’ might be right.”
“Really? Is that hood speak?” He cleared his throat.
“Maybe.”
“Well, it’s still the best daggum news I’ve heard all day.”
“Yeah, you wish…”
“I do. What are you doing?”
“Right now?”
“No, tomorrow night at eight.”
“Oh, then! Putting on a French maid’s costume and waiting for you on a waterbed in Goose Creek.” Why did I say that? “What do you think I’m doing? Trying to figure out how to solve this PR mess in the papers today!”
“Why don’t you bring some lunch out here and we’ll figure it out together. And some bug spray. I’ll get one of the guys to pick you up at the dock and I’ll meet you at the Dominick House.”
“Okay. What do you feel like?”
Pause.
“Anything. Just come.”
We both knew his thoughts were soaked in mortal sin. Well, I was assuming his were, but mine? Definitely. He was probably just teasing.
“I’ll call you when I’m fifteen minutes away,” I said, and hung up. “See you later,” I said to Sandi, who stood in the doorway of my office, as I started packing up my briefcase. “I’ll be on my cell.”
“Where are you going?” she asked nonchalantly, knowing I’d been on the phone with J.D.
“I’m going to hell.”
“Oh, okay, and your sister called.”
“Tell her I’ll meet her there.”
“In hell? Well, not quite yet. She wants you to come to the house for dinner tonight.”
“Really? What time?”
“Seven?”
“Call her back and tell her I said okay, will you? Thanks.”
I passed Sandi, went outside, closed the door behind me, and started down the steps toward my car when realized I hadn’t asked the important question, so I went back inside.
“What’d you forget?” Sandi said.
“How did Cam and Joanie get along?”
“Like two walruses in a peapod.”
“Perfect. Well, there’s a lid for every pot, right?”
“I imagine so. See you later. What do you want me to tell Bruton if he calls?”
“Tell him that everything is fine. I’ll try to call him. Or he can call me on my cell.”
“Whatever you say…”
It didn’t take long for me to swing through Whole Foods in Mount Pleasant and pick up chicken salad in a pita, tuna salad in a pita, three bottles of tea, and two brownies. I had bug spray and sunscreen in Sela’s car and threw it all in a Whole Foods canvas bag. I bought the bag in an effort to appear green, wondering how many other things I could do to appear as though I was making an all-out, sincere, and knowledgeable effort to minimize my carbon footprint.
I raced to the ferry, grateful that the humorless lawmen of Mount Pleasant seemed to be occupied with other matters that afternoon. I tried calling Ben Bruton several times, but I had no reception or the call was dropped. Truly, it was just as well. All I could think about was being alone with J.D., having wild crazy hot steaming sex, and getting it over with so we could figure out how to have a professional relationship that did not include sex. I knew there were some flaws in the reasoning of that plan, but at the moment it seemed to be the only sensible course.
I slammed on the brakes as I drove over the gravel of the parking lot and came to an abrupt stop. My breathing was irregular, the back of my neck was sweaty, my eye was twitching like mad, and when I looked in the rearview mirror, I saw that my pupils were dilated. Dilated pupils without the object of my desire even present were frightening. I put on my sunglasses and got out of the car, doing emergency yoga breathing exercises to calm myself. Center! Center! Be in the moment!
All the wa
y down the dock, I chastised myself for having insanely Tantric erotic thoughts about J.D. He was married, I reminded myself. So what? said the imp on my left shoulder. Valerie was merely his fallback position, as far as the imp was concerned, but I also knew that calling her this was a horribly immoral position for me to take. But too bad, he was the father of my child, and I had never loved anyone else. This was a quagmire of self-deception, indecency, and rationalization the likes of which I had never experienced before. And there was no rule book to follow…well, not one I wanted to know about anyway.
As I hopped onto the boat and we made our way across the water, I decided that I would let J.D. be in charge of this nonaffair affair. He would set the pace. I was too crazed to plan strategy for a water-balloon fight, much less a total emotional collapse.
“Beautiful day, isn’t it?” said the captain.
“Yes, it is.” A beautiful day to steal a few minutes or an hour with someone you love.
“Mr. Langley says you’re from here.”
“That’s right. I moved away years ago.”
“Well, I’m sure you had your reasons, but I can’t understand why anyone would ever want to leave a place like this. This is as close to God as I think you can get on this earth. Just so beautiful, isn’t it?” He peered out over the water, pointing out an American eagle in flight that I had spotted as well. “Look over there!”
This lovely gentleman, this naturalist, was right about the heavenly aspects of the open water, the marsh grass, and so forth, but he had no clue that Satan himself was hiding all over the oyster banks, in the osprey nests, between the blades of grass, snickering patiently, waiting for me to surrender.
We docked and the captain helped me off the boat. I called J.D.
“Your caterer is here,” I said, trying to manage a lighthearted tone.
“Good. I’m starving,” he said, and I could feel the warmth in his voice.
“See you in a few minutes.” It was like I had never left him. All the familiarity, the easy camaraderie, was still there. I just hated it. I just loved it. For all the risks and dangers of seeing him again, he made me feel alive, alive in a way I had not felt in so many years I could hardly remember it. I had spent almost all my adult years resigned to fulfilling my responsibilities and all my passion had been directed toward our son and to our very support. And to weaving my cocoon of deception.
While I waited for the truck to pick me up I called Ben Bruton again. The call would still not go through. I thanked God because I wanted to talk to him about as much as I wanted to spend a spa weekend with Louisa and Valerie. Oh, and throw in Joanie, for the ultimate getaway experience. No, I just wanted to see J.D. and hear what he thought about the articles and the picture in the paper. And to smell him.
An SUV with a Langley Development logo on its side appeared from the thicket and in minutes we were bumping along the hard-packed dirt road.
“I’m Bill,” the driver said.
“I’m Betts,” I said.
“I know,” he said.
It seemed I had the Clint Eastwood of Charleston County for a chauffeur, which suited me fine, although I should have requested a cardiologist.
We came to a stop and I climbed out, taking my briefcase and tossing the tote bag over my shoulder, gathering up every shred of strength I had to appear cool. J.D. was there clicking away on his BlackBerry, sitting on a picnic table like the sun god on a Mardi Gras float. He looked up and waved at me. Could he have known that the afternoon sun would enshrine him in streams of majestic light? It was as though the hand of God were holding him high on display in a luminous monstrance. I took this as a sign to let my heart proceed.
“Hey, you!” I called out, blinking my eyes, and yes, the left one was still twitching.
“Hey, yourself! Need a hand?” He got down from the table and came toward me.
“No, I’m fine. How are you? Want to eat here?”
“Nah, let’s take my truck and go out to Boneyard Beach. It’s low tide. And I can show you where the second nine for the golf course will be.”
“Sounds good. Who’s designing it?”
“Rees Jones. He’s the best.”
“Jeesch. Even I’ve heard of him!”
“You don’t play golf, then?”
“Excuse me, but I’m not old enough for golf. It’s an idiotic sport. Besides, it’s not the best use of my time. Do you play?”
“You think I’d admit it now if I did?”
He got in his truck and started the engine. I just followed him and threw my stuff on the floor of the cab, and off we went. It still seemed odd that we did not embrace as old friends or shake hands as colleagues. But perhaps we unconsciously recognized that physical contact of almost any kind could be hazardous. It didn’t matter because you couldn’t fight fate. I could hear our sighs and groans approaching like a train from a nearby town, rolling down the inevitable track.
I tried to concentrate on other things, like the surprising amount of low-hanging branches that hit the windshield on my side, startling me, causing me to jump. J.D. laughed every time I did.
“I’m bringing gardening shears next time,” I said.
“You do that.”
Finally, we came to a stop and he got out. I was about to let myself out as well when I saw him there, ready to help me down from the high perch of the seat in his truck.
He took the tote bag from me and then my briefcase and put them on the ground. I had my right foot on a ledge and was trying to turn around so that I could find the ground safely while holding on to a handrail. It was a good thing I had worn pants that morning. And flats. There was no dignified way to climb down from a truck.
“You don’t need your briefcase out here, do you?”
“No, it’s too breezy, I think. We can go back to Dominick House to go over the papers, right?”
“I think so. If we need to.” He tossed the briefcase back in the truck and slammed the door.
Carrying lunch and a blanket he retrieved from the depths of the storage containers in the back of his truck, we climbed the natural berm that separated the land from the dunes, and right before us was the spectacular curiosity known as Boneyard Beach.
It should have been called the Eighth Wonder of the World. Hundreds of oaks and loblollies were spread all over the gray sand for miles like a spooky sculpture garden. Storms and erosion had left them all dead. Some were askew and some upright, in every position, bleached to a stark white by the intensity of the beach’s southern exposure and the heavily salted air. It was a surreal landscape.
“Well, this sort of puts our relative importance in the cosmos in perspective, doesn’t it?” he said, sweeping his arm across the expanse.
“I’ll say. It’s madness to think we have a say in the planet, isn’t it?”
He spread the blanket on the soft white sand and we sat.
“Yep. But that’s exactly what we’re trying to accomplish. Feed me.”
“Okay.” I unpacked the bag with what I thought was nonchalance, as though we had lunch alone on a blanket on an abandoned beach every third Tuesday. “Chicken or tuna?”
“Wanna go halves?”
“Sure. Tea?”
“What are my options? Is that French-maid thing you mentioned one of them?”
“Yeah, sure.” I lifted my sunglasses and rolled my eyes. “Look, J.D., that was a very inappropriate remark and I knew it as soon as I said it. I could make that same stupid comment to a hundred other guys I know and they would laugh it off. You? You’re still thinking about it. We’re in trouble here.”
“Why are we in trouble?”
“Because I’m thinking about it, too. Not the French-maid outfit, but you know, us in general.”
“Hmm. I think you mean us specifically. Well, that’s why Valerie was so pissed. She can smell trouble, and seeing you in action made her feel very insecure.”
“Seeing us in the paper made her even crazier, right?”
“Yes. The Langley women
were not pleased.”
But I was pleased that they were irked. So, shame on me.
We were quiet then, watching dolphins play in the water and pelicans dive-bombing for fish. After devouring my lunch, I decided to lie down and look at the clouds above us; surprisingly, so did he.
“Remember that game we used to play as kids? What does that cloud remind you of?” I said.
“Yep.”
We were lost in our own thoughts; one of mine was how absolutely lovely it was to lie next to him, even though we were not touching each other. He was probably thinking about how a certain cloud formation resembled his favorite dog.
“May I ask you a question?” I said “I mean, one that’s absolutely none of my business?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I hesitated for a moment and then said, “You and Valerie? Y’all get along all right?”
I heard him laugh, but it was an incredulous laugh, as though I had just asked a dying man what he was looking forward to.
He rolled over onto his side, propped himself up on his elbow, and stared at me. I could almost hear the wheels of thought turning of his brain, raking his thoughts together like a pile of leaves to present them to me neatly in a stack.
“If you asked me, ‘Do we get along all right?,’ the answer is yes. She drinks vodka like water, pretends to suffer from migraines, and goes from one doctor to the next collecting prescriptions for OxyContin. You can’t fight with someone who’s stoned out on drugs and alcohol all the time. So, technically, we get along. But that’s not what you’re asking, is it?”
“No. But that tells me a lot. Was it always like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you must have married her for a reason.”
“I married her because Mother wanted me to marry her. It was a long time ago. Anyway, after a number of miscarriages and other issues, whatever bloom there was is long off that rose.”
“You’re going to tell me that your mother made you marry her?”
“Not really. Of course not. I was supposed to marry you, remember? And after your mother died and you left, I just didn’t care about very much, outside of getting an education and somehow getting very far away from my family, a plan that failed miserably. Obviously. I even called you to see if maybe you’d had a change of heart, or something. Do you remember that?”