“Okay, thanks. Speaking of tonight, what do you think I should do with my hair?”
“Lord, that hair! Wash it and pull it back in a bun. It’s too hot and humid for anything else.”
“You’re right.”
“Anyway,” Cecily said as she put the salt back in the kitchen cabinet and picked up her bag, “it looks more professional. For business and all.”
There was a pause in the conversation as Cecily reinforced her opinion that Beth was maybe ten percent delusional in her grasp of the truth.
“Right! Business! Hey, thanks for all this stuff, Cecily! You’re the best!”
Cecily started down the steps and turned back to face Beth. “You’re right, I am.”
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” Cecily said.
“Do you think my Aunt Maggie is clairvoyant or something?”
Cecily looked at Beth long and hard. “Yes, but no more so than anybody else with plough mud in their veins, and mainly when it comes to this house. But, you? This ain’t no business of mine, but somebody’s got a date! Yes ma’am!” Cecily laughed then and it was clear by the singsong of her high pitch that she meant to make Beth laugh too.
And Beth did laugh, for the rest of the afternoon in fact, but in between those small bursts of laughter, she wondered about Max Mitchell and what he was thinking.
By the time quarter to seven rolled around, Beth was a scatterbrained bundle of nerves, wandering from room to room, talking to herself.
“Okay, it’s just dinner. No biggie. Right? Right. Okay. I’m cool. No problem.”
She decided to turn on some music, but as she rifled through the huge stack of CDs, she honestly couldn’t decide what to play. If she used her own music that she had upstairs, he probably wouldn’t know any of it. Worse, she couldn’t remember what her aunt and mother had played when she was six, which would be music from his era.
“What about the Beatles?”
The Beatles were always safe, she thought. Or the Stones. But there was no Beatles music to be found. Or anything by the Rolling Stones.
“Shoot! They took everything worth a crap with them to California!” There was, however, a Johnny Cash Greatest Hits and something from Pottery Barn that described itself as retro cocktail music.
“Cocktail music. Good. This is good.”
After a minute or two of unsuccessful starts, she managed to get the stereo playing and she adjusted the volume. Then she realized she had not prepared anything for cocktails and felt a rise of panic.
“There’s wine in the refrigerator. For goodness’ sake, Beth, get it together!”
Rushing to the kitchen, she swung open the door of the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle of white wine whose stick-on price tag was still attached.
“Thirteen dollars. Okay, not too cheap. This is fine.”
But for her Uncle Henry, Beth’s family lacked a serious focus on things like great wine or the other trappings of an epicurean’s existence. She reached for a can of generic-branded salted nuts and an unopened bag of Goldfish from the cabinet and dumped half into two small bowls. She placed two wineglasses with everything else on the counter with some funny paper cocktail napkins anchored under the nuts. Her aunt and mother loved the character Maxine and thought all the cartoons of her were a riot. Beth wasn’t so sure about that as her humor ran in other directions, but she was pleased with the small offering of drinks and snacks she had pulled together. It was surely better than nothing and it seemed very appropriate to offer her dinner companion, business or not, an adult beverage before going out for the evening.
“Seven on the nose,” she said to herself. “So where is he?”
Beth looked out the kitchen window. No sign of Max. Maybe he was lost. Maybe he got caught by the drawbridge. Maybe he had a flat tire or a wreck. She had his number but didn’t want to call him. After all, it was only just seven. He didn’t know it would take half an hour to get to downtown, did he? No, probably not. He didn’t even know where they were going! She went back to the living room to check herself out in the mirror one more time, pulling at the hem of her dress and checking her teeth, even though she had brushed, flossed, and used the Water Pik, adding mouthwash to it the way her dental hygienist did. Beth decided she looked pretty good that night and not at all like a kid just out of school.
She wondered if she should light candles and just as quickly she dismissed the notion.
“Candles? I might get raped!”
Then she had a fit of giggles. She was so nervous it was difficult to swallow, much less think straight. She decided to let the ocean breezes work their magic. The heat of the day was broken and the air on the porch was thick and delicious. That’s what she would do. She would tell him hello, pour him a glass of wine, take him out to the porch, and tell him a little bit about the house and its history.
“All set,” she said to the thin air, as though the house was coaching her, and reapplied her lip gloss for the umpteenth time.
She looked out the kitchen window again. Still no sign of Max. It was now seven-fifteen. Her heart sank. Was she being stood up? Did he think this was a joke? God! She was so stupid! He wasn’t coming at all! She could feel the perspiration of humiliation on the roots of her hair and the back of her neck. She checked her cell phone for missed calls. Nothing. Actual tears began to well up in her eyes.
“What’s the matter with me?” she whispered to herself.
Beth checked that Lola was still in her crate and then positioned herself in the doorway to the porch so she could let the breeze reset her thermostat and listen for Max at the same time. Then she became annoyed. If he was going to be late, why hadn’t he called? If he had to do something else that night, he could have canceled with her, couldn’t he have? She told herself that it didn’t matter to her except for the inconvenience of blowing her evening, so why had he not just picked up his cell and used it?
“I mean, it’s not like I want to marry this guy or something!” she said to the mirror.
Seven-twenty.
“Men!” she said, thoroughly exasperated. “I’m such a jerk.”
Beth was ready to turn off the lights and lock the doors, but that would have been a worthless move because it wasn’t even dark yet.
The phone rang and she rushed to answer it.
“Beth? Hey! It’s your mother!”
“Mom! Hey! How are you?”
“Missing my baby girl. Hey, Aunt Maggie said you got two jobs! Congratulations!”
“Thanks! They don’t pay jack, but who cares?”
“It gives your life structure and that’s good.”
“Oh, Mom. That’s so anal.”
“Please! Don’t say—”
“Okay! Got it!”
“Honey? Are we in a poopy mood?”
“No. I’m fine. Really. I’m fine.”
“No you’re not. What’s wrong?”
“Oh, I met this guy and we’re supposed to be having dinner and he’s like totally late and I hate dating. Don’t you remember what this was like?”
“Yep, men stink but we love the smell. Remember I used to say that all the time?”
“Yeah, I should ask Aunt Maggie to do it in needlepoint for me.”
“Anyway, he’ll show. Don’t worry. Now is there anything else…”
After a few more minutes and telling each other they loved each other three times, they hung up.
Beth was still furious with Max. She decided to put the wine away, turn off the music, and turn on the television to CNN. In her mind, there was no longer any reason for him to think this was anything more than an appointment. If he showed up at all, that is.
“I hate him!” she said.
Beth had misplaced the remote control, and after scouring three rooms for it, she gave up the search. She bent down to the dark shelves that housed the equipment that operated the cable box, the television, and the DVD player, trying to figure out which buttons did what. She pressed a few of them and
suddenly there was an explosion of static so loud it completely startled her. She jumped, causing the cord of the floor lamp to catch her heels, tripping her, bringing the lamp to a crash landing. She felt herself careening backward to the floor with nothing to grab to save herself from the fall, biting her lip, and hitting her head in the back of her skull so hard that she thought it must’ve been cracked.
“Oh my God! Ow, ow, ow!”
She felt the back of her head and looked at her hand to see if there was any blood. Thankfully, there was none.
“Hello? Are you in there? Hello? Beth? You okay?”
Max Mitchell was in the house, standing over her and offering her a hand to disentangle herself from the wires and rise from her unfortunate sprawl.
“Crap!” she muttered. “I didn’t hear you come in!”
“Sorry I’m late. Are you okay?”
“Oh yeah, I’m fine. Just fine. Just the klutz of the world, that’s all. Thanks.”
“Sorry I’m late,” he began again. “Here, let me turn this off.”
He pressed one button on the stereo and silence followed.
“You’re a genius.”
“I wish! Anyway, I was on a conference call with my partners that ran on and on and then it was that bridge…”
Beth, now standing, smoothed out her dress and looked at him curiously, wondering how he had the nerve to just let himself in.
“Anyway, just as I was about to knock on the door, I heard this huge crash and the frantic voice of a young lady calling out for her Maker, so I let myself in…”
“To rescue me?”
“Yeah, that was the plan.”
“Wow,” she said. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
“Sure, that would be nice. Did you know your lip is bleeding?”
“It is? Gross.” Beth put the back of her hand to her lip, and sure enough, there was a streak of blood. “I’ll be right back.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I think my pride took the most damage here. Help yourself. The wine’s in the fridge.”
Beth went to the closest bathroom and examined her lip in the mirror over the basin. The wound was in the center of her lower lip but very small. She swished her mouth with water and then with mouthwash, which stung. She hoped her lip wouldn’t inflate like a balloon.
When she returned to the kitchen, Max handed her the glass of wine he had poured for her.
“Damage report?” he said.
“Not bad. I just hope I don’t wind up with a lip like a sock monkey.”
Max laughed and said, “Hold a cube of ice on it and it won’t swell.”
“Oh, forget it. It could’ve been a lot worse. Come on; let me show you our zillion-dollar view of the deep blue sea.”
“Yeah, I’d love to see that.”
They stepped out onto the porch and into paradise. The Atlantic Ocean rushed before them, unrelenting eastern winds whipping the silver stacks of so many small waves to the western end of the island. It was as though the water was in a race with itself, in a panic to imprint the beach with its high watermark. The white sand raced from the dunes across the yet unwashed beach in fiery torrents, leaving ever-changing serpentines carved in its path. The sky was moving toward the deep shades of early night, changing by the minute, the horizon painted in the rich hues of mangoes and plums.
Beth looked over at Max, whose gaze was fixed on the massive power of the landscape before him. Neither of them had taken a sip of their wine. She raised her glass toward him and he did the same.
“Cheers,” she said. “Here’s to meeting you.”
“Thanks,” he said, and touched the rim of her goblet with his. “You too.”
They drank and Max looked back out across the dunes at the beach.
“You grew up here?”
“Pretty much. The house has been in our family for like a hundred years or something. It’s really my mother’s childhood home. But when I was a kid, I was over here all the time, and now that my family is all over the place, I’ve got the keys.”
“Wow! You’re a lucky woman! I wonder what a view like this is worth in the market?”
“I don’t know, but my great-grandfather bought the property for, I don’t know, a thousand dollars or something. It had the eight rooms that are the central part of the house but over time they added on for new babies. You know, good Catholics? Having kids to populate the Army of the Lord?”
“Are you a good little Catholic?” Max smiled at her.
“Are you?” Beth had no intention of discussing religion or politics.
“I don’t like to talk about religion,” Max said, surprised that she had turned his question around.
“Me either. Do you want another splash of vino?”
“What I’d like is to spend the whole night looking at this view.”
“Yeah, you don’t have an ocean in Atlanta, do you?” Beth was enjoying giving him a bit of a hard time. She was ready to leave for dinner but Max seemed to want to linger. Remembering her Aunt Maggie’s warning about men in the house, she knew she needed to move him along. He was thirty-seven, after all.
“No ma’am. Got the Chattahoochee and a pretty nice lake nearby, but there isn’t anything to compare to a whole ocean.”
“Right. Well, I’m thinking we had better get going or we’ll blow our reservation. And hey, have you had a look at Charleston Harbor?”
“Not in a while. Did they change it?”
“Yeah, right. They haven’t changed a thing downtown since the seventeenth century, which is the whole point. Maybe after dinner, I’ll show you around?”
Max nodded and then looked at his watch. “Wow! It’s almost eight.”
“We’re really late! Should we call the restaurant?”
“I’ll do it. Where are we going?”
Without a care about the money he was wasting by calling information instead of using a phone book, Max dialed Fulton Five restaurant on his cell. In a very authoritative voice he informed them that the Hayes party of two was en route but delayed because of a terrible automobile accident. Just as Beth was absorbing the fact that Max had just told a gratuitous lie, he smiled at her and said, “All taken care of.” Okay, she said to herself, he throws money around and he tells a convenient fib. So what? Beth preferred to overlook these small shortcomings and just enjoy his company. Maybe, she thought as they drove to Charleston, he’s nervous, and that would be a good sign.
Walking through twinkling lights and trellised vines in the winding courtyard of the restaurant, Max once again held his hand close to the small of her back. Should she trip or stumble he would be able to keep her from falling.
“This is very charming,” he said. “Very charming.”
“The food’s supposed to be really delicious too,” she said. Normally Beth might have said, It’s supposed to be totally hardcore, or The tiramisù is seriously fabulous, but that night, acutely aware of their age difference, Beth was making a conscious effort to bridge that gap. And Max could feel that it was important to Beth to be taken seriously.
Inside the restaurant they were led to a table in the far reaches of the small dining room, right under a window to the street. The room was washed in the soft glow of candles and small chandeliers that bounced light from the brass fixtures and chartreuse walls.
“It’s like a jewelry box, isn’t it?” Beth said.
“I love it! It reminds me of a place I used to go in New York, down in the Village.”
“Greenwich Village?”
“Yeah. This atmosphere is very authentic. Excellent choice, Miss Hayes.”
“So far, Mr. Mitchell.”
Without using a wine list, Max ordered a bottle of Barolo. This impressed Beth very much even though she entertained a fleeting thought that a Barolo might be related to footwear.
“You do drink red, don’t you?”
“Of course,” she said, laughing, thinking she was glad it wasn’t footwear.
“Wha
t’s so funny?” he said, smiling at her.
The waiter poured Max a small portion to taste and Max nodded his head.
“Nothing,” she said. “I have this goofy sense of humor sometimes.”
“Oh,” he said, “you know what? I’ve been thinking about you all afternoon.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
They took the menus and the waiter placed a tiny dish of olives and a basket of warm bread before them. Beth picked at a piece of the bread’s crust, wishing she could read his mind. It wasn’t that she wanted him to be seriously interested in her as an object of intimate affection; it was that she wanted to know if he was interested. At all. Then she quickly realized she was playing a game with herself and told herself to snap out of it.
“Gosh. So, Mr. Mitchell,” she said, resuming the journalist posture, “tell me. Where are you living?”
He looked up and smiled at her.
“Well, I’ve got a furnished condo in Mount Pleasant. For the moment, that is. It’s not a place I’d brag about to you. I’m thinking I might actually buy something here and stay for a while. The whole Lowcountry thing is pretty hypnotic. Very different from Atlanta.”
“I’ll say. Life around water has a very different pulse beat.”
“That’s an interesting observation. Why do you think that is?”
“It’s all about ebb and flow. The tides affect everything.”
“You’re probably right. Like the moon.”
“Exactly.” He was looking at her so sweetly. It felt like she’d known him forever.
The waiter reappeared and recited the specials.
“Do you know what you’d like to have?” Max asked, staring at Beth, pleased again to be in her company.
Beth looked up at the waiter and said, “Do I want the papardelle all’Anatra or the tagliatelle Bolognese?”
“I’d go with the papardelle myself. Would you like a small salad with that?”
“Sure. Thanks.”
“And you, sir?”
“I’m thinking the sea scallops.”
“Salad?”
Dinner was ordered without a lot of hurrah, and with the wine to warm them, there was more heat growing at their table than there was in the kitchen. Beth continued to ask Max trivial questions about where he went to school (Georgia Tech), did he play sports (tennis), and why had he never married (unsatisfactory response).