“You cook?” I asked.
“Love to cook,” Roger said. “Does that improve my résumé?”
“By a lot,” I said. “I love to eat—does that help mine?”
Everyone laughed.
“Susan is murder in the kitchen,” Grant said, laughing.
“Oh! You like to cook too?” Roger said to me.
“No, she murders everything,” Grant said, way too amused with himself. “I’m going to open another bottle of wine. Red? White? Both?”
No one answered and he disappeared into the kitchen, returning with two bottles. He opened them and poured another glass for everyone. I was very relaxed. Very.
“So, Susan, tell me about Charleston. Your family has been here a long time, right?”
“Lord, Roger, you’re only from Aiken. You could stand on this house and spit on Aiken in a good wind!” I giggled, thinking I was pretty darn funny. “You probably know more about Charleston than I do!”
Maggie cut her eye at me. True, it was not the most feminine thing I could have said.
“So, you can spit too?” Roger said. “My God, the woman is a virtual Renaissance wonder!”
Another comedian, I thought. He and Grant should go on the Comedy Channel.
“Roger,” I said, “only Charlestonians should suffer with the true knowledge of our bawdy history. We prefer for foreigners to think of us as mysterious.”
“Go on, this is very intriguing,” Roger said. “All guys love bawdy history lessons.”
“Lord, Roger, you’d better look out now! My sister likes nothing better than roaming the old historic plantations,” Maggie said.
“She thinks I’m obsessed,” I said.
“Are you? I mean, some obsessions can be very interesting,” Roger said.
Now what was that supposed to mean?
“I am not obsessed with anything, y’all,” I said, trying to change the subject. “Maggie, dinner’s delicious!” Maggie had prepared spicy shrimp gumbo and my favorite salad with watercress and little oranges with walnut oil dressing. I was having a wonderful time. We all were. “Did you make these croutons, Maggie? This is the best salad I’ve ever had.”
“You are the sweetest sister I’ve ever had,” she said. “Yep. Made ’em myself.”
“You’re right, I am,” I answered. “You know, I’m not watching the time and I have to get home early tonight. Oh, no! It’s already after nine!”
“How come?” Roger said. “The night’s young!”
“Young is the operative word. I left my young daughter with two of her friends at my house in the city. God knows what they’re up to.”
“Been there,” Roger said, with that parental, knowing look.
“Beth’s a good girl, Susan, I’m sure she’s fine,” Maggie said. “Let’s have coffee and dessert on the porch, shall we? It’s such a gorgeous night!”
“Call them,” Grant said, “see if you hear anything in the background.”
He got up and handed me a portable phone. I dialed the number and they were all quiet. The phone rang six times. Too long. Finally someone picked up.
“Hello?” It wasn’t Beth.
“Hi, who’s this? Lucy?”
“Um, yes, ma’am.”
“Is Beth there?”
“Um, she’s in the bathroom, Mrs. Hayes. Do you want me to get her?”
“No, no. Everything okay?” There was complete silence from her end. No music. No television.
“Yes, ma’am. All’s well.” She giggled.
“Okay, honey, just tell Beth I’ll be home around eleven, okay?”
“Over and out,” she said and hung up.
I thought for a minute. Over and out?
“Great! You’re staying!” Roger said. “Come on, let’s help Maggie clear the table.”
“No, I’m going. That child was drunk! I know it!”
“Drunk? Susan, you’re imagining things!” Maggie said.
“What did she say?” Grant asked.
“She said ‘Over and out’ when she hung up and Beth couldn’t come to the phone because she was in the bathroom.”
“Go get your bag. We’ll take my car,” Roger said. “I raised teenagers and I’ve seen it all. Maggie, Grant, thanks for a fabulous meal. If we can come back, we will. Otherwise, we’ll call.”
We left Maggie standing in the kitchen with a bowl of trifle no doubt made from homemade pound cake.
Roger opened the car door for me, I got in and before I knew it we were through Mount Pleasant and over the Cooper River Bridge. It was a good thing I had fastened my seat belt because this joker drove like a bat out of hell.
“If I get stopped, I’ll tell the cops it’s a medical emergency. Will you stop worrying? Roger Dodd’s here!”
“Okay, okay.”
“So tell me, you work at the county library? Are you a librarian? You don’t look like one.”
“Hey! That light was red!”
“Pink,” he said. This fellow, doctor or no doctor, thought he was at the Indianapolis 500.
“Please don’t kill me, Roger. You may not have any reason to live but I do.”
“Just relax.”
He made the right on Queen Street on two wheels and I nearly fainted from fright. Road rage strikes the middle-aged.
As I staggered up the walk, a young man of about sixteen opened my door to me.
“Just who are you and where is my daughter?” I said in my famous mother voice.
“I’m Jonathan, Mrs. Hayes, and before you go in there I want you to know this wasn’t my idea. I didn’t bring the vodka.”
“Go sit in my living room and don’t move,” I said and he scampered like a mouse to the wingback in the corner. On my couch were Lucy and another boy. Beth was nowhere to be seen. Roger waited with the delinquents. I raced upstairs and opened the door to her room. Two figures were in her bed obviously having some very enthusiastic sex. I flipped on the light and a strange girl sat up naked as a jaybird.
“Just who the hell are you?” I asked.
“Charlene. Oh, God. Busted.”
“Get dressed. Both of you! Where’s Beth?”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I slammed the door closed and went to my room. In my bathroom my little girl was hanging her head over the toilet, throwing up.
“This is less than I expected from you, Beth,” I said with the quiet fury of a mother superior. “Jonathan can’t possibly be impressed.”
“Oh, Momma! I’m so sorry! I’m gonna die!” She was crying and gagging and leaned over the toilet bowl again.
“No, Beth, you’re not going to die. Tomorrow you will wish that you had died, but you won’t. I’ll be back. I have some other business to take care of.” Well, I’ll bet Roger’s impressed as all hell too, I thought on the way down the stairs.
“I’m driving all of these young people home,” Roger said.
“Thanks, Roger. Mother of God, what a night!”
“Your daughter’s okay?”
“She’ll live,” I said, then looked around at the scene before me. Lolita was still buttoning her shirt, smacking her chewing gum. She smirked at me and I noticed a piece of metal in her tongue.
“What is that in your mouth?” I asked. “Is that a tongue stud?”
“What of it?” she said.
“It’s your tongue,” I said, disliking her more with each passing second, “but it must be hard to chew gum with that thing in the way.”
“Not really,” she said, belligerently.
This was incredible to me. In my day, if you’d been caught in the sack with some fellow, your parents would’ve marched you either to the altar or to a convent. That would be after every relative you owned had something to say to you about the road you were paving to hell.
I looked around the room. Pizza boxes were on the floor, along with half a bowl of popcorn, the remains of a bowl of salsa and Coke bottles. No wonder Beth threw up. Jonathan stared at the floor. Lucy and the other boy, who I assumed was Sonny
, stared at each other.
“You children go home. It’s enough for one night.”
“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Hayes,” Jonathan said. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
“How right you are, Jonathan. Good night.” At least he appeared sober. They filed out the door until the line ended with Roger.
“Hey, thanks for a wild night! We’ll have to do this again soon.” He was joking. “Listen, lighten up. Didn’t you ever get drunk when you were a teenager?”
“Of course! But I had the brains not to get caught,” I said.
“Too bad I didn’t know you then,” he said.
“It’s a good thing you didn’t,” I said. “Hey, Roger, thanks a lot. I mean it.”
“Sure thing. Call Grant for me, will you, and tell him I’m on a mission. I’ll call you next week.”
“Okay. Roger?” He turned and looked at me. “Drive safely.”
I closed the door and looked at my living room. Wrecked. I looked up the stairs and heard no noise. She’s probably passed out cold, I thought.
I started picking up all the plates and glasses and saw myself in the huge floor-length mirror. My eyebrows were narrowed and my jaw was set in frustration. I could see my father’s face in mine and for a moment he was there. I could hear him whispering in my mind. Give her the belt! Never, I thought, go back to hell where you belong, old man. In the next instant I could sense Livvie and thought for a moment that I saw her in the clouded glass. She need her momma’s love. That child is a good child.
I finished cleaning and putting away everything, called Maggie with our regrets, turned on the dishwasher and went upstairs. Beth was in her bed with her clothes on. I pulled the quilt over her and wiped her hair away from her face. She stirred and looked at me.
“I’m so sorry, Momma.” She began to cry.
“Don’t cry, honey. Some lessons have to be learned the hard way. I love you. Get some sleep. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
I rinsed a facecloth with cool water, folded it and placed it on her forehead. I was pretty wrung out too. Turning out the lights in the hall, and pulling down the covers on my bed, I wondered what horrible battle lay ahead for me with the parents of the other children. It had been a gross mistake to leave them unsupervised. So much for perfect parenting.
THERE WAS NO sun when I woke up Sunday morning, but I knew it was late. I figured it to be around ten o’clock. Rolling over in bed I squinted at my clock radio. Nine-forty-five. Good guess. I washed my face, pulled my hair into a ponytail, brushed my teeth and put on a robe. I needed coffee in the worst way. Padding by Beth’s room I remembered that she’d probably need coffee too. I peeked in. At the squeak of her door hinge, she rolled over.
“I feel awful,” she groaned.
“As well you should,” I said. “Come on. Come on down to the kitchen and I’ll tell you about the night Aunt Carol got so crocked she almost fell off the porch.”
“Aunt Carol? The priss?”
This mildly piqued her interest. If I couldn’t make her see what a fool she looked like last night, maybe she could see it through Aunt Carol’s nearly legendary escapade.
“Yup. You’re not the only one in this family who ever crawled in the bag, you know. Family’s filled with legions of drunks.”
“Thanks a lot. Lunatics and drunks. Great. I’ll be right there.” She slowly sat up in her tangled covers and fell back again. “Oh, Momma, my head’s splitting!”
She was the granddaughter of Marie Catherine (a.k.a. Tallulah Bankhead) Hamilton.
“Got just the thing for you. A bacon cheeseburger. You need some grease, girl. And some carbs. I’ll put the coffee on.”
Somehow, with all the excitement of last night, I had neglected to watch the eleven o’clock news. I switched on the coffeemaker, tightened my robe and went outside to retrieve the morning paper. The front door complained as I unlatched the ancient locks. The sky was ominously dark blue. My bones predicted the approach of a storm. Glancing at the front page, I saw a small article about a tropical disturbance in the Bahamas. Well, it was September.
The door closed behind me and I met Beth in the hall.
“Momma, I’m so sorry about last night.”
“Sweetheart, every person on the planet gets at least one stab at the Knucklehead of the Year award. I’m just glad you were home, and you weren’t driving in a car. You know, if anything ever happened to you I don’t think I could go on living.” The thought of a phone call in the middle of the night from a hospital made my insides knot.
“Never again, I swear.” She leaned against my shoulder. “Jonathan probably thinks I’m a total, complete idiot.”
“Come on, let me pour you a cup of relief. Just remember, true southern ladies do not vomit on their first dates. It’s bad manners to get drunk and throw up and good manners are the moisturizer of life.” With my arm around her shoulder we made our way to the kitchen, crossing two thresholds at once. Another rite of passage, another day begun.
“Yeah, thanks for reminding me. I’d rather have a Coke if we have any. I’m so thirsty. And, Momma?” I looked up at her. “Please don’t tell Daddy about this.”
“Don’t worry. Hey, it’s you and me, babe. A thousand wild horses couldn’t drag it out of me.”
I poured a Coke and handed it to her. She drained the glass and I poured her some more. I reached in the freezer for a hamburger patty and the hydrator for a piece of cheese and some bacon. In minutes the bacon and the burger sizzled in separate pans. Beth held her forehead on the heel of her hand.
“Aspirin?” I put two before her with a small glass of orange juice. She looked positively green. “A shower would probably do you some good too.”
“Yeah, as soon as I eat something. God, Momma, you know what I can’t believe? I can’t believe you’re not furious with me.”
“I’m still kind of stunned, but that doesn’t mean that I won’t be furious later when I’ve had time to think about it all.” I turned the burger and the bacon, peeled the plastic wrap from the yellow impersonation of dairy product, and laid it across the meat. “Look, it could’ve been worse. What about their parents? I mean, I could be liable for a lawsuit, you know.”
“I’ll call them and see what happened.”
“Good idea.” I flipped on the tiny television on the counter. Across the bottom of the screen was a weather advisory bulletin. “Storm’s coming,” I said, “probably nothing, but you never know.” She had disappeared to the living room with the portable phone. I watched as a news bulletin came on.
“…located five hundred miles off the coast of San Juan. Winds approaching hurricane level, seventy-five miles an hour. If it continues to pick up force, this tropical storm could become a hurricane by tonight. Stay tuned to WCIV for all the latest updates….”
She came back, gave me a weak hug and went upstairs. I turned back to Beth’s breakfast, frying her burger in the old black cast-iron skillet, and wondered how many times I had held it in my hands. It was one from my mother’s kitchen, our version of an heirloom. One that had fried probably millions of eggs, and strips of bacon, patties of sausage, battered shrimp and fish, and grilled cheese sandwiches.
When Beth returned she was practically smiling. “No biggie,” she said. “Charlene’s parents were asleep when she got home and Lucy just went straight to bed too. Apparently, that guy you were with took them all out for coffee and a big fat lecture on alcoholism at the Pancake House. They were all pretty straight by the time they got home.”
Talking about it irritated me. She sensed it. She knew she was in trouble with me but it was a different kind of trouble from any we’d known before. This was her first major mistake. I didn’t want to make too much of it because I knew she was sorry, and I thought things had just gotten out of control. I made a mental note to call Roger and thank him.
“Storm’s coming,” I repeated, putting her burger on a plate and setting it before her at the counter with the bottle of ketchup.
“
Big one?”
“It can’t be much. Not yet anyway. The wind’s only around seventy-five miles per hour and that ain’t squat in hurricane history.”
“Weren’t Aunt Sophie and Aunt Allison born in a hurricane?” Her mouth was full as she spoke.
“Yep. Hurricane Denise. Winds over a hundred miles an hour. Very bad news. Wipe your mouth and I’ll tell you all about it, although I’m sure you’ve heard it before.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said.
She wiped and we were both glad to have the subject changed. I poured myself another cup of coffee and lit a cigarette, careful not to blow my smoke in her direction. I could tell her about her drunken Aunt Carol anytime—although I was not going to tell her about Aunt Carol and Big Hank. No, she’d never hear that one from me. I put my feet up on the bar stool next to her and began the tale of my sisters’ auspicious births.
“I was about your age. It was Thursday, September the twelfth, when Hurricane Denise blew through and when the twins were born. Livvie had been working for us for, oh, I don’t know, maybe six weeks?”
“And, your momma didn’t know she was having twins, did she?”
“Honey, in those days, they didn’t know anything! But my momma was awful big, I remember that.”
“Right.” She giggled. “What was it like at the beach? I would’ve been scared to death.”
“I suppose we didn’t have the good sense to be scared. The first thing we always did when a storm was brewing was fight for a good position on the porch and watch the ocean. You can’t imagine how the world changed as she made her way to the coast. Ever hear that old Billie Holiday song? Something about the ill wind blowing bad on me?”
“Who the heck is Billie Holiday?”
“I’d consider it a great personal favor if you wouldn’t continually remind me of my advanced age.” I raised my eyebrows at her. “Ah, yes. Well, everybody was getting ready for the big storm. The hardware stores were jammed with men buying plywood and the grocery stores had long lines of women pushing bulging carts of bottled water, bread, flashlight batteries and milk. Old Islanders like us grew up on tales of these storms. The warning signs were in our blood and handed down from generation to generation like family jewels. We shopped for the storm like it was any other day. Just normal battle supplies, you know?”