I knew one thing—I was never having children. It was too much trouble.
“Good thing Momma’s in the hospital,” I said to the crowd, thinking myself pretty funny, “’cause when she hears about this, she’s gonna have a heart attack.”
“Now, Susan? Your momma doesn’t need to ’eah about this. ’Eah me, girl? She’s got enough on her plate.”
“We won’t say anything, Aunt Carol, I promise,” Maggie piped up quickly.
Even I started to tremble a little bit. “She ain’t gone hear it pass my lips,” I vowed to them. “Come on, let’s go home. Thank the Lord it’s raining, Henry, ’cause you don’t smell so hot. Don’t worry, Daddy won’t even notice.”
“Thank you, Marvin,” Aunt Carol said in a husky voice.
“You’re welcome, Carol. Glad I could help. How’s Louis?”
“Oh, Louis never changes.”
“Well, if he does, let me know. Can I give you a ride home?”
“No, thank you, Marvin. I’ll walk with the children.”
He winked at her and then offered his arm to help her down the ladder. Good grief. I looked at Maggie, who had missed the whole thing, and then to Timmy, who made a face to let me know he hadn’t. Henry was busy saying good-bye to his friends and I just wanted to get home.
Livvie told me later that Stuart Brockington had made it his business to stop by our house to let them know about Henry’s head being stuck. Livvie was on the front porch moving the hammock to safety when she saw him drop his bike in the yard. Aunt Carol and Livvie took his message, not believing one syllable of what he said. Mission accomplished, Stuart pushed his bicycle out of the yard and was gone. In the next moment, the alarm from the fire truck rang through the air. That was when they realized Stuart had told the truth.
“Where’s Mr. Hank?” Livvie had said to my aunt.
“In the shower.”
“Yes’m. You want me to go down there and take care of this?”
“No. It’s better if I go. Marvin Struthers is an old friend of mine. I can convince him not to tell Hank.”
“Yes’m. Thank Gawd for that. It’s good when a friend can be useful for something.”
“Can you wait till I get back to leave?”
“Yes’m, iffin you say so. You go on now, and I’ll call Harriet to have her boy come bring me home. Iffin Mr. Hank ask me, I tell him you gone for bread and milk.”
When we got home, the Island Gamble looked like it was ready for anything the skies could dump on it. All the shutters were closed, the porches emptied, the lights out. We went up the back steps and my daddy was in the kitchen with Livvie. He was eating a bowl of potato salad at the table. Livvie rushed to us.
“Mr. Henry, you come with me!” She grabbed Henry and took him back down the steps. “I’m taking him in the house the other way.”
We tiptoed in the house because we knew we had been out in the storm too long, or at least Daddy might think so. Lucky for us, he couldn’t have cared less.
“You children go find something quiet to do until the storm passes. Hey, Carol, I thought you went for bread and milk.”
“Oh, Lord! You’re right! But, you have enough, don’t you? The line at the Red and White was so long, I turned around and came home!”
Boy, was she a good liar.
Later, we were all upstairs playing Monopoly on the floor when Aunt Carol brought us a tray of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, some potato chips and a carton of milk with paper cups.
“Oh! Look at y’all! Y’all are such good children!”
“Gosh, thanks, Aunt Carol!” Maggie said, and put the tray down on the floor next to us. “Nothing else to do in this storm.”
“Just sit tight and stay away from the windows, okay? Call me if you need anything. I’m going on the porch with your daddy to watch the ocean.”
“Okay,” we said.
I looked over at Henry, who had completely recovered from scaring us all half to death. He was devouring a sandwich and stuffing potato chips into his little mouth, seeming pretty darn relaxed for somebody who almost got killed two hours ago.
Livvie had gone home and that was a good thing, because the National Guard Reserve was riding up and down the Island in Jeeps with bullhorns, telling everyone to evacuate and go to Moultrie High School in Mount Pleasant for shelter. I’d always thought that going to a shelter would be fun. They say the Red Cross came in and they gave you all the doughnuts you could eat for free. And you got to sleep on the floor in the classrooms. It would be fun to see what they do in public schools. You know, investigate the desks of Protestants and stuff like that. Anyway, we kept on playing for a little while and it started getting dark and the storm got louder. It was raining to beat the band and the wind was whooshing and howling like crazy. Just when Timmy landed on Reading Railroad—and wouldn’t you know I owned them all—the lights went out.
“Go get the flashlight!” I said to Henry.
“I don’t know where it is,” he said.
“It’s down in the kitchen,” I said.
“I ain’t going,” he whined, “it’s too dark.”
“Oh, good Lord,” I said, “I’ll go. Stop the game, and Maggie, don’t let them touch the board.”
“Hurry up,” she said.
“Jeesch! I’m hurrying!”
I went down the stairs, feeling along the wall because it was very dark. When I got to the kitchen, the flashlight wasn’t under the sink where it was supposed to be. I knew there was another one in the shed outside, but I didn’t want to go out in the storm. Then I thought about the great game we had going upstairs and figured, oh, what the hell, it’s just water. I went out the back door, across the back porch and through the screen door. The wind caught the screen door behind me and flipped the latch when it slammed and I realized I was locked out.
“Shit!” I screamed, knowing no one would hear me in all the noise of the storm. I ran as fast as I could to the shed. Sure enough, the big flashlight was there and it worked. What a break! I thought, and decided to go around to the front of the house and go in the front door.
I saw Mrs. Simpson was standing on her porch, with her hands on her hips, looking at our house, but she didn’t see me. I realized my father would give me a lot of grief for going out in the storm, so I sneaked up to the porch. I heard my father’s voice and the voice of my aunt.
“Oh, Hank! We can’t do this!”
“I had you first, Carol, don’t ever forget it!”
“Please, Hank! Shouldn’t we stop?”
I stopped dead in my tracks and the rain just poured over me. Whatever they were doing, I wasn’t supposed to see and I knew that. But I had to see. I had to know. I crept around to the corner of the house and climbed on the oil tank to peek at the porch and there they were. My daddy had Aunt Carol up against the porch railing pushing her butt with his hips. Her skirt was all scrunched up around her waist. All of a sudden I knew what I was seeing and I wanted to run away. Their voices got louder as Aunt Carol started screaming, “Oh, my God! Oh, God!”
This was just too much for me. Their voices howled around my head. I heard Mrs. Simpson laughing from her front porch. She had seen it all; I knew it. I ran to the back door, punched out the screen and unlocked the door. I stood on the back porch for a few minutes, trying to calm down. My ears were pounding. There was an old beach towel on the rack. I used it to dry myself off. For the first time in my life I wanted to throw myself on the ground and cry. There was no one I could tell this to, not even Maggie. I hated my father and my aunt from that moment on.
Eight
Hurricane Maybelline
1999
THE library closed at three the next afternoon because of the approaching storm, which was now officially classified as a hurricane and christened Maybelline. I had been spending any spare time I had going through microfilm of the Post & Courier stories covering the investigation of Daddy’s death from 1963. There were photographs of Daddy’s school building project, and of ot
her things he had worked on, like hospitals and municipal buildings. There were photographs of the scene of the accident showing the skid marks from the bridge to the marsh. But my eyes kept going back to the blurred photograph of his car when it was pulled from the mud of the marsh. Mr. Struthers was standing by the wrecker truck and Fat Albert was standing beside the driver’s door. Fat Al was wearing civilian clothes with those same regulation, police-issue, black shoes. Even in the old photograph you could see the shine. I decided to print it and blow it up to an eight-by-ten. I did and threw it in the file of other pictures I had been gathering for several months. I was anxious to get home, make sure Beth was all right and to secure the house.
My boss, the ever-optimistic-about-his-chances Mitchell Fremont, offered me a ride home and, against my better judgment, I accepted. A ride was a ride. It was raining sheets of water and if I had chosen to walk I could have drowned.
Through my office window I watched the wind dance and cavort with the palmettos, wondering if Mitchell’s toupee would stay on his head when we got outside. He came by my office and gave me the signal to go, leaving a blast of freshly applied Aqua Velva in the air.
I gathered up my things, putting the day’s newspapers and some folders into my L. L. Bean canvas tote bag, twisted myself into my raincoat like Houdini, and followed him out.
We were the last people to leave. I waited in the back vestibule while he set the security alarm. We fought our way through the elements to the car, him jangling his big, heavy, power-broker key chain, nervous and twitching, and me, head down, pulling my coat around me so I didn’t fly away. He clicked his remote button and the locks in his Chevy popped up with the blipping sound of a tiny spaceship.
“Get in!” he hollered.
“I am!” I answered him, thinking he irritated the daylights out of me.
I threw my things on the floorboard and struggled against the wind to close the passenger door. While I was fumbling around for the seat belt, he started the car, the windshield wipers and turned on the headlights.
“You gonna be okay at your house? I mean, can I do anything?”
“No, thanks, Mitchell. We love a little hurricane in my family. If I had thought this through I probably would’ve gone to the beach. I love sitting on the porch and watching the ocean go crazy. You know, boil some shrimp, get some beer…”
“You’re some kind of woman, do you know that, Susan?”
“Get over it, Mitchell.”
I looked at him in profile. Scary. No sense of humor. As we got to the intersection of King Street and George Street, I watched his fat, sweaty little hand travel like a tarantula across the upholstered bench seat toward my left knee. I crossed my legs.
“If you touch me, Mitchell Fremont, I’m gonna knock your teeth out.”
The hand retreated. “Susan, you couldn’t possibly believe…I was looking for my wallet. I thought I left it under the armrest.”
“Mitchell? Let’s lay our cards on the table. You have me at a total disadvantage. I work for you.”
“I thought you liked your job.”
“I do. That’s not the point. You’re always staring at me during meetings and following me around the halls.”
“I think you’re interesting. Is that a crime?”
“No. Look, you’re a nice man, I’m sure you are. But even if you were Cary Grant and single, I’m not ready for anything. You know? I’ve got my hands plenty full right now. I’m a single parent with an ex-husband who’s trying to drive me insane. I can’t take one more person coming into my life grabbing at me for something.”
“I didn’t grab you, Susan.”
“Right, Mitchell.”
I watched the windshield wipers go back and forth and tried to calm down. Had I imagined his hand? I knew I should tell him to kiss my righteous pink behind and quit. But I also realized that I should quit when it suits me, not him. “You’re right, Mitchell, you didn’t. Listen, I really appreciate the ride home in this weather.”
“You’re welcome.” He sniffed with indignance.
My patience was running on dust balls and it was a blessing for my many creditors that we arrived at my home quickly. If I’d had to drive any farther with this head-tripping little weasel, I might have had to pop him one to the right jaw. I made one last attempt to be pleasant.
“Okay. Take care then.” He didn’t answer me; he just looked over at me with this face of his that strangely resembled strawberry yogurt. Puffy. Puffy and sagging with no distinguishing lines of character. It was a great personal struggle to wave good-bye politely, but I did it, gritting my teeth, figuring, why make an enemy out of him now? I had bills to pay. The door of his car slammed in the wind and I ran around the back bumper and up my walk. I needed a glass of wine and a new career.
I opened the front door and stood dripping water all over my floor as I double locked and bolted it against the Mitchell Fremonts of the world. A familiar voice greeted me.
“Hi!”
I turned around to see Tom standing there with Beth behind him, smiling widely.
“What’s up?” I asked him and gave Beth a kiss on the cheek.
“Nothing. I just came by to see if you needed anything. They say the eye is supposed to pass over around seven-thirty tonight, so I thought maybe I’d come by, you know, bring dinner…I brought some steaks and a bottle of a pretty decent red wine, you know….” He smiled charmingly, crinkling his blue eyes, showing off his dimples. His dimples were a weapon all on their own—never mind his perfect pearly whites.
“Yeah, I know.” Any port in a storm, I thought, taking a deep breath. “Beth? Don’t you have something to do upstairs? Like homework?”
“I’ll go set the table.”
Beth disappeared into the kitchen—to be accurate, she floated down the hall. I could feel her mind overflowing with dreams of her mom and dad getting back together. Great, just great, I thought. Nobody except me knew that there was a tentative separation agreement on Michelle Stoney’s desk, waiting for Tom’s review.
I faced him. Now he had this boyish, mournful puppy look on his face. Not as bad as that skank Mitchell Fremont, but one mournful face per day is my quota.
“So what happened?” I asked. “Did your little girlfriend fly off to Sedona to sit on the vortex and meditate?”
“God, I love your caustic side, Susan. Truth is, I haven’t been with her for two weeks. I had some time, so I thought I’d check the third-floor windows for you. They always leaked. I taped them with masking tape all around the edges.”
“Masking tape? Now there’s a thrifty alternative.” I burst out laughing. “God, I’ll bet that’s attractive! So you’re not living with her?”
“No, I took a carriage house on Tradd Street last month. I just moved in actually. It had to be painted.”
“And while it was being painted, you had a spat and then rushed over here as soon as you could?”
“Something like that.”
The smile again. God, he was a beautiful man.
“To tape my windows.”
“Well, obviously they need to be caulked, but you need dry weather for that. I could come back another time and do it if you’d like.”
“Tom, bump the third-floor windows. You never expressed any particular concern about them before.”
“I’m concerned about you, Susan.”
“Right. What are you doing here? What really happened to Miss Close Encounter?”
I could smell my weakness. This man had broken my heart into zillions of pieces and it was lethal for me to stand in the room with him. It was just chemistry, I reminded myself. A simple matter of pheromones.
“She dumped me,” he said. “She went to a New Age convention in Charlotte last month and met someone. She says he’s her true soul mate.”
“Good grief.”
“He’s twenty-one years old.”
“Ouch.” My face muscles were convulsing and I chewed the insides of my cheeks so I wouldn’t laugh. I decided to
surrender the battle and be cautiously friendly. “Want a beer?”
“Sure. Anyway, I knew a long time ago it wouldn’t last forever. We’re too different, Karen and I. I’ve done a lot of thinking. She’s not half the woman you are, Susan.”
“What is it today? The low-pressure system?” First Mitchell, now Tom? All of a sudden I go from being this rejected, overweight, angry woman to an object of desire? I guessed I was on a roll. Hold the mayonnaise, I’m on a diet, I thought. My mind was spinning.
“What are you talking about?” he said.
“Never mind. Come on, let’s get a drink.”
I sashayed down the hall to the kitchen, Tom behind me. I could sense his eyes honing in on my newly sculpted backside like a Scud missile. Let him beg for it, I thought, and the answer will still be no.
“You look incredible, Susan. Been working out?”
He adjusted himself on a bar stool like it was the seventies and he was a young phallus. I reached into the refrigerator and took out two Bud Lights, twisting off the caps.
“Yeah, got a personal trainer, thanks to your generosity.” This could be fun. I hadn’t sparred with him in weeks.
“Very funny. Look, things have been tight lately, but I want to take good care of you and Beth, you know that.”
I poured his beer in a glass and handed it to him. I would have liked to believe him, I thought, I really would.
“We’re doing okay,” I said nonchalantly.
I began to search the drawer under the counter for some pretzels.
Beth came sailing back through, taking out my grandmother’s sterling flatware and horn-handled steak knives. They were tarnished to a deep blue from months of neglect. She raised her eyes to me, not breaking what appeared to be a self-imposed vow of silence.
“The polish is under the sink,” I muttered to her.
Wonder of the world, she laid the silver out on a towel and actually dug around in the bottom cabinet.
“Tom, why don’t we go to the living room. Maybe we can catch the news. I just want to run up and change my clothes.”