He grabbed me by the arm as I was reaching out to open the door, stepped in front of me, opened it, and held it for me.
“Just how long do you think we’re going to carry on this way?” he said.
“Until you get tired of me?”
“Uh-huh,” he said. “Not happening.”
He was alluding to that unpopular topic of commitment. Unpopular with me, that is. “Let’s not think about that tonight, darlin’,” I said as he followed me to the kitchen. “We still need to send Rusty off to heaven and get Trip back on his feet.”
“You’re right, but at some point . . .”
“I know. We’ll discuss it. I promise.”
I could feel his frustration with me in the tone of his voice. I mean, droves of women were out there on the prowl like big hungry cats, desperately looking to sink their claws into a husband, any kind of man, as though the acquisition of a man would solve all their problems.
“So Trip’s having a rough time?”
“Terrible.”
“Tell me what’s happening with him.”
“Oh, Matthew, just to look at him breaks my heart.”
“Poor guy . . .”
We talked and talked until the bottle was empty, I was out of words, and finally, as propriety dictated, and with certain reluctance, I pushed him out of the house. Rats, I said to myself as he drove out of sight. This was certainly a night I would have loved him to stay. I crawled into my bed thinking he was the sweetest man on earth and Lawsamercy, and he sure did have some beautiful lips.
By God’s grace we got to Friday. Rusty’s obituary ran yesterday and today. I was absolutely astonished and sickened that a whole life, especially the entire life of someone so vibrant, could be reduced to a couple of paragraphs. It was very depressing. But on a happier note, it was amazing how many of her old students from Walterboro and Trip’s clients and colleagues had called and asked for directions. I expected we would have a crowd, a sprinkling of sightseers included, because our plantation was rarely open to the public. Matthew had promised to dispatch a few plainclothes officers just to be sure some thugs didn’t try to make a fast getaway with the family silver. Millie and I were in my kitchen discussing it and she thought a discreet security detail was an excellent idea.
“You can’t never be too sure, ’eah?”
“Oh God, I hate to think like that,” I said. “Always suspicious . . .”
“Don’t be calling on God less you in prayer. How many times I gots to tell you that?”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Hush. Now, what are we doing about dinner?”
“Anything except ham. I never thought I’d say this, but I’m tired of it.”
“Me, too. We all gone start oinking soon. Then fish it is. Let’s cook right here. That kitchen they got over there ain’t no kinda kitchen.”
“I agree. Too small.”
“Humph. Like a little bitty tuna can is what. Maybe Eric and Amelia want to make hush puppies?”
“Why not? I’ll make a salad and cut up some lemons.”
“Do you see me blocking your way? Humph.”
“I’m ignoring that. We can eat in the dining room. The temperature is perfect and I don’t feel like dealing with the no-see-ums at sunset.”
No-see-ums rivaled the mosquito for the position of state bird. They were all but invisible ferocious little bugs that would devour you like piranhas. Well, almost. My daddy used to call them “flying jaws.”
Millie and I still had some energy to tease each other, but we were weary from all the meals we had put on the table since Sunday. Cooking for nine or ten people three times a day is exhausting. Even though friends and neighbors brought lots of dishes already cooked, they still had to be warmed, the table had to be set, side dishes had to be prepared, and then, when the meal was ended, it had to be cleaned up. “Well, it will all be over after tomorrow.”
“Humph. That’s when it starts all over again, girl. That’s when the true loneliness sets in on your brother and the struggle to go on begins. All them people gone come and keep him busy telling stories while they eat and drink and then that’s it! Gone! They all goes back to they own life, leaving him all alone. It’s always like that.” She looked in the freezer and took out two large plastic bags of fish fillets. “I hope this is flounder.”
“Me, too.”
“That’s the way of the world.”
“You’re right but he’s got his girls, at least. Amelia and Belle have been great. And at some point I imagine he’ll want to go back to the office. He’s got to.”
“I surely hope so. Well, let’s get them kids on the phone to come over here and help us old women make another meal. I’m gone get a big pot of grits going, too. When that Mr. Owen sees the grits, I want you to take a picture of his face, ’eah?”
“Got it! Wait! Who you calling old?” She cut me her eye and I had to laugh. I might not have been that old, but by that evening I felt every single one of my years. I called Eric, who was at Trip’s playing with his dogs and talking with his cousins.
“We’ll be right there,” he promised.
Over the next hour, there was a flurry of elbows and chatter as dinner came together. Our meal waited on the buffet in Mother’s silver serving dishes, piping hot and ready to go. Millie left the house to take a generous plate to Mr. Jenkins, which I knew really meant she was going to enjoy her dinner with him. They weren’t fooling anybody. I poured myself a well-deserved glass of wine and Trip seated me in my chair. I had just snapped my napkin open and pulled it across my lap when I heard an unfamiliar car arriving.
“Eric? Be a darling and go see who that is, will you? Millie’s out. Tell them we’ve just sat down to dinner, all right?”
“Sure,” he said.
I paused, waiting for him to return. I felt like Mother when she refused to raise her fork to begin the meal until she was good and ready, using her position as a weapon while Trip and I squirmed in hunger. But the truth was that a signal to begin a meal together was a good habit to have. It kept a meal from turning into a free-for-all.
The kitchen door swung open and there was Eric with the most peculiar expression on his face.
“What is it, sweetheart?”
“Guess who’s coming to dinner?”
He stood aside and my ex-husband, Richard Levine, entered the room.
“I should’ve called, I know . . .”
I stood, and Richard, with his most continental flourish, came quickly to my side, took my hands, and kissed me on both cheeks.
“Richard!”
“Yes, it’s me, darling. Do you have room for one more or shall I wait in the kitchen by the stove with a sandwich? God, you look magnificent! How can you look so well under these dreadful circumstances? Trip! Please! Don’t get up.”
Trip got up anyway and came to shake Richard’s hand, but Richard pulled him into an embrace as though Trip were his long-lost brother.
“Richard . . .” Trip said.
“I’m so terribly, terribly sorry about Rusty. You poor devil!” Then he scanned the rest of the table, smiling like Saint Nicholas, and turned back to me. “Do we have any scotch in the house?”
We? That was a very proprietary thing for him to say. We, indeed.
“Yes, I’m sure we do. Eric, why don’t you get another table setting for your father and I’ll pour him a cocktail.”
“No! Please! You sit! I’ve invaded your home at the most inopportune moment of the day! I insist!” He held my chair for me and I took my seat again. He leaned down and whispered, “Does the liquor still reside in the cabinet under the toaster in the kitchen?”
“Yes. It’s there.”
“I’ll be right back! Please! Everyone! Why don’t you begin.”
He was giving us permission to begin our meal? Every last person at the table was slack-jawed and I am certain my face was bright red.
“Yes,” I said, recovering, “let’s do begin. Fish and grits are no good cold. Trip? Wh
y don’t you help the girls . . .”
What a memory Richard had! Did he lie awake in bed in New York thinking about my liquor cabinet? Or was I so predictable that he knew I would manage Tall Pines exactly the way my mother had right down to where the booze was? And what nerve! I was so surprised to see him that I hadn’t had the presence of mind to get angry about him barging into my home. But a little inner voice, the same one that sounded like my dear Lavinia, told me that I would have that opportunity before the night was out. Yes, I would.
So that’s how dinner went, with Richard seated on my right, having pushed his chair in next to mine, asking me all about the strawberry business and every other thing he had no right to know. After his third scotch he began squeezing my knee under the table, which I kept swatting away, while he continued telling everyone how beautiful I was. Loudly. The older girls were snickering and who could blame them? Even Trip and especially Owen were thoroughly amused. But Eric and I were understandably mortified.
“Can I call you Uncle Richard?” Chloe said.
“Of course,” he said. “Although Caroline and I are divorced, which I guess might make me your ex-uncle Richard.”
“Does that make me your ex-niece, too?” Chloe said.
“Hush up, Chloe,” Amelia said, then turned to Richard. “She’s a chatterbox sometimes.”
Amelia was the only one of Trip’s girls with any grace.
“You can’t tell me to hush up! You’re not the boss of me!” We just looked at Chloe and hoped she’d take the cue anyway, but her awkward questions continued. “So is that why you never ever sent me a Christmas present?”
Richard laughed in a way that can only be described as a blustering guffaw, which caused Trip and then Owen to laugh also.
“Chloe!” Trip said.
“That’s enough, Chloe,” I said.
“So, what do you think of Aunt Caroline’s looks?” Linnie the devil incarnate said.
“Why, she’s ravishing! I thought I said that before.”
“About one thousand times!” Chloe said, giggling like a fool.
More snickers filled the air as Linnie goaded him and Chloe pestered him to the point that his patience began to wear thin.
“So, why did you and Aunt Caroline get divorced?” Chloe said.
Amelia stood up.
“That’s it! Chloe? Come with me!”
“Why? What did I do?”
Everyone at the table fell silent as we watched the big sister take the baby of the family in hand. Amelia led her into the kitchen, probably read her the riot act, and a minute or two later brought a much more subdued Chloe back to finish her meal.
Richard squeezed my thigh and I was so startled that I jumped.
“Cut it out, Richard,” I whispered, and pushed his hand away again.
If you knew anything about the history of my relationship with Richard, you’d know that I was pretty sensitive about activities carried out with hands under the table. One of the reasons he and I separated and ultimately divorced stemmed from a terrible incident where I found him with his ex-wife, Lois, in a restaurant. She was, please pardon the expression, um, how to put this? Okay, she was doing something to his you-know-what with her right hand under a linen napkin. Yep. And I caught them. Never mind the location of his traveling left hand, okay? I threw a glass of champagne in her face, called her a very unladylike name, dumped a pitcher of ice water on Richard’s withering willie, and suggested the sham of our marriage was over. After a whole lot of psychobabble from him on how I was too pedestrian to understand his needs and that it was just sex with Lois and not love and that he loved me even though he was coming home reeking of her stupid perfume . . . I finally said, you know what, Richard? Like my daddy used to say? This is some bodacious bullshit. Infidelity was infidelity, any old way you wanted to dress it up and slice it. Immediately following was a sunny dressing-down from him on how using bad language was so déclassé. I decided on the spot it was time to dump his sorry ass. That was ten years ago. I thought I had all but completely expunged him from my life except on the big issues with Eric, but here he was, desecrating Tall Pines with his drunk-ass presence and my knee with his drunk-ass hand, all under the guise of sympathy for Trip, with whom he had rarely shared a serious word in twenty years. Who was he kidding?
I heard the kitchen door open and close. Millie had returned to supervise the restoration of order.
“Excuse me for a moment, won’t you?”
Trip did the bounce, which is the act of lifting his bottom several inches from the seat without fully rising to acknowledge that a lady was leaving the table, as my father did for my mother in their day. Owen followed suit, and Richard, who saw no reason to do anything except pour another scotch, remained firmly planted in his chair because Brits only rose for the queen of continents. I hurried to the kitchen.
“What?” Millie said when she looked at me, and then she knew without me saying a word. “What? No! That man is here? Do I need to call Jenkins and tell him to get the pitchfork and chase him clean back to New York City?”
“Millie? Be cool. He’s Eric’s father. And he’s drunk. I think. But he’s staying. In the guest room. There’s not much we can do without making a terrible scene. I won’t have Rusty’s service marred by the asinine antics of my ex-husband.”
“I’m gone tell him hello. You stay put.” She went toward the swinging door to the dining room.
“I’ll do no such thing.” I was right behind her.
“Well! Do Lord! Looky who’s here! It’s my old friend Dr. Levine!”
Richard hurried to his feet. He wasn’t unsteady in the slightest. I would have fallen right on my face with that much liquor in me.
“Mrs. Smoak! You are as pretty as ever! How are you, my darling?” He took her hand and kissed the back of it. “Don’t you ever age?”
I saw her smile and get suckered in as he regaled her with his litany of lovely but completely shallow compliments. In the next instant, she got ahold of herself and her jaw went back to steel. “No, you are right. I don’t age. Thank you for acknowledging that.”
“Ah!” Richard said, not to be brushed off so easily. “Still the charmer, I see! Well, that’s good.” Then he quickly took his seat with his back to her.
He was the biggest boor on earth.
“Does anyone care for seconds?” I asked.
Everyone shook their heads.
“Pie might be good,” said Chloe.
“You don’t need pie. Dinner was great, Aunt Caroline,” Amelia said, taking her plate to the kitchen.
“Yeah, especially the entertainment,” Belle said, following her.
“I’m saying nothing,” Linnie put in, and scooted by, giving me the hand that said “talk to the hand.”
I’d had it.
“That’s probably best for everyone,” I said. The little snipe.
Linnie stopped, came back, and leaned down to whisper to me: “Nice husband, Aunt Caroline. You may think my momma is trash, but this guy is the biggest fucking asshole I ever saw.”
“You’re right, Linnie. Thank you.”
“What was that?” Trip said.
“She said she thinks you’re doing remarkably well tonight.”
“Well, thanks, Linnie,” Trip said. “Getting together like this with my family is good for all of us.”
Richard raised his glass to Trip in agreement and continued to try to dominate the evening.
“So, Owen! It’s Owen, isn’t it? Tell me all about yourself, old man! And, Trip? Why don’t we all go in the den and let the others clean up? I want to hear how you’re really feeling about this god-awful tragedy.”
Trip got up, I took his plate, and I walked to Richard’s side.
“Richard?” I whispered. “Go easy on Trip, okay?”
“My God, you’re a beautiful creature,” he whispered back. “Have I ever told you that?”
“Kiss my ass, Richard,” I whispered.
“Love to!” I heard him say,
and my skin crawled.
What had I ever seen in him? I mean, seriously! He always was an arrogant ass, but now he was a balding, paunchy, drunken, sexist, really unattractive arrogant ass, with those dreaded liver spots on the back of his hands and wiry hair growing in his big stupid ears. All my alarms began sounding in my brain. Danger! Richard was not being so ridiculously flirtatious with me for nothing and he had not come here because of Rusty. There was another reason and I was going to find out what that reason was. So far, all I knew was that his chances of seducing me were zero. Zip. Zilch. Nada. It was time to turn on the frost.
The men disappeared to my father’s den and I went to the kitchen with the others. Eric looked at up me when I came in, shaking his head. I could see he was distressed.
“Come here,” I said, and we stepped away from the others. “You okay, baby?”
“No. I am like totally pissed. I mean, like what’s up with Dad showing up like this?”
“I am just as clueless as you are, sweetie.”
“I mean, I haven’t heard from him in months. I make one lousy phone call to him to tell him about Rusty because I thought I should, and boom! He drops in like he was just in the neighborhood? And he’s flirting with you like that? I mean, do you want him to flirt with you like that?”
“Absolutely not.”
“I didn’t think you did. So, what’s he doing here?”
“I guess we’ll find out. But why are you so angry?”
“Didn’t you see the way he was acting? Completely bizarre!”
“Yeah, pretty strange.”
“He’s my father, you know? And he embarrasses me.”
“Baby, he doesn’t embarrass you or me. He embarrasses himself.”
“Whatever. He’s such a total jerk.”
“Don’t say that. He can’t help himself.”
“I’d lock my door tonight, if I were you.”
“Don’t worry, Eric. I’m a big girl and I can handle it. Come on, let’s get these dishes.”
I hoped there would be nothing to handle.
The kitchen was finally clean and I had managed to avoid any other confrontation with Linnie, who I think I surprised by agreeing with her assessment of Richard. But what could I say? She was right. She shouldn’t have said it, of course, but she was right. At least we agreed about something. Just as I folded my dish towel over the rack to dry, Trip came into the kitchen. He looked like he was a thousand years old.