Tommy’s tip jar, which was actually a vase, was jammed with one-dollar bills and even a few fives! He seemed pleased. Mary Beth was flitting all over the place with trays, smiling and seemingly having a blast. Our guests were watching container ships go by and taking selfies like mad. It was a very dramatic night.
I hardly knew anyone. Tommy and Mary Beth must have been passing the word in the last few weeks. I counted heads and we had a few more than fifty. And most people were well behaved, marveling at the sunset. I thought, Whew! What a relief! Well, there was that one unfortunate couple who locked themselves in the powder room.
I noticed that three women were lined up in the hall, waiting.
“How long has somebody been in there?” I asked.
“Like twenty minutes?”
“There’s another bathroom down that hall,” I said, pointing. “Not as nice but it works.”
“Thanks,” they said and wandered off.
I knocked on the door.
“Y’all all right in there?”
There was the distinct sound of muffled voices, giggles, clothes being zipped, and the toilet flushing and the water running all at once.
“Yeah,” a male voice called back. “I’ll be out in a minute.”
I waited and I waited and I waited. Then I knocked on the door again.
“Do you need a doctor?” I called through the door.
The door slowly opened and a guy with tousled hair and a very snide expression just looked at me and passed by. Behind him, a pretty younger woman appeared, looking discombobulated as all hell. I grabbed her arm.
“Oh!” she squealed.
“What’s your name?” I said.
“Amy.”
“Amy what?”
“Smith. Let go of my arm!”
“And who’s the guy you’re with?”
“Joe Blow.”
Joe Blow indeed. She didn’t even know his name. Or maybe he was a coke dealer.
“Yeah, well, don’t you think it’s pretty tacky to screw in somebody’s house who you don’t even know?”
She just stared at me as though she had every right to have sex in the middle of Highway 61 if the opportunity presented itself. How dare she?
“Get out, okay?” I said. I was blistering mad then.
“Really? Then I want my money back,” she said.
“Sue me,” I said. “It’s going to cost me a hundred dollars to fumigate!”
“You’re a bitch,” she said.
“That’s okay. You’re . . . you’re a skank slut! Now go get your skank friend and get out of my house!”
She gasped and stomped off. My heart was pounding so hard I thought my eardrums might explode.
“Hey, Ash?”
It was Tommy. He had stopped playing and was standing at my side.
“What?” I said, still thinking I might faint.
“Nicely done,” he said and patted me on the back.
“Thanks,” I said and went out to the portico to make sure I could still breathe. I inhaled and thought, Well, that was nice of Tommy to step up to my side, wasn’t it?
I spotted Joe Blow at the bar and took a bold stride right up to his side.
“Joe Blow?”
“Pritchard,” he said. “What’s your problem?”
“This is my house and you’re too much of a badass for me. I want you to get Amy and leave. Okay?”
He looked at me in disbelief. Then he pretended to be cringing in fear. What was the matter with people?
“Ooooooh! Amy? Is that her name?”
The music had stopped again. Tommy was watching and Ed the bartender was on point too. Joe realized that Tommy and his buddy Ed could totally kick his butt so he headed back inside. I watched as he grabbed Amy and made way to the door. She gave the one-finger salute as they left and I breathed a major sigh of relief.
“Another asshole,” Tommy said.
“Boy, you can say that again,” I said. “I think I’m gonna have a glass of wine now.”
I went back to the portico. Some people had walked out to the beach to get an even closer look at a passing cruise ship against the fading light. I thought then that I would never get used to how spectacular the sky was at sunset. Just because the sun was below the horizon didn’t mean it was dark. The remaining clouds in the sky changed colors every few minutes, from jagged streaks of deep-hued rose quartz to wisps of amethysts and under lights of transparent shimmering gold. All these colors were laid on top of one another, changing in their depth and shape every few minutes. No two sunsets were ever the same but they were almost always mesmerizing. I helped myself to a glass of wine and spotted Mary Beth passing hors d’oeuvres through the thinning crowd.
“What happened in there?” she said.
“Two jerks screwing in the powder room,” I said.
“Well, at least someone’s having sex,” she said and giggled.
I rolled my eyes, passing up another opportunity to nail her.
“Puh-leese! There’s a time and place issue here?” I smiled then. Poor Mary Beth. “Some people are so stupid!”
I felt a tap on my shoulder.
“Hey! Aren’t you Ashley?”
I turned around to see a really nice-looking woman dressed very professionally, like a doctor or something. You know, she was wearing clothes that inspire trust. And not too much makeup, except for concealer that was failing to mask some dark places around her eyes. But she looked good. I mean, there’s that fine line between looking like that bleached-blond red-lipped stripper/ho in the shoe ad on television and the kind of girl who’s contemplating a cloistered convent. What I’m saying is she was hitting all the right notes.
“Yes, I’m Ashley.”
“This is your house, is that right?”
“Well, it’s my family’s home.”
“What a view!” she said, adding, “Oh! Where are my manners? I’m Cindy Elder! Cindy Lue Elder. But my friends call me Cindy. Ever since I got out of law school, I dropped the Lue.”
“I know what you mean. I used to be called Ashley Ann but now I’m just Ashley or Ash. So how’d you hear about tonight?”
“I work on Senator Galloway’s staff and one of his aides picked it up on Twitter. I was at the Turner Gallery for his fund-raiser but you probably don’t remember me.”
“Oh! No, I’m sorry, I don’t.”
“It’s okay, I mean, uh, there was an ocean of humanity there. But what a coincidence!”
“Yeah, small world.”
She stared at me for a moment. It flashed across my mind that she might have had a personal interest in Porter and it was quickly apparent that she did because she seemed so nervous. And in that same moment of knowing that I knew, she recognized me as competition. She was at least thirty. Ticktock.
“Politics are impossible,” she said with a sigh of resignation.
“Come on, Cindy,” I said, “let’s get you a big old mai tai and a pile of meatballs.”
“I like you, Ashley. And I’m not even sure why.”
Later on when everyone had gone home we counted up the money. We gave a hundred dollars to Ed the bartender for two hours of work and seventy-five to the lady who cleaned up the kitchen. Tommy’s tip jar was his take and it had almost two hundred dollars.
“I think my waiter days just ended. Well, if I can get gigs like this anyway. Are y’all gonna do this again?”
I slid another hundred dollars across the table to him.
“Um, yeah,” I said. “You didn’t make enough for all you did. You didn’t know bouncer was in your job description.”
Mary Beth didn’t say a word and I had thought she might object.
“Wow, thanks!” Tommy said.
After expenses, we netted almost sixteen hundred dollars. And, best of all, we didn
’t get caught.
I called Ivy first thing Saturday morning.
“How did it go? Are you calling me from the hoosegow?”
“No! You big crazy! Ivy? It was a screaming success! And we made some serious bucks.”
“Fabulous! But speaking of the bank, you’d better open a new account.”
“Why?”
“Don’t the parental ones have access to yours?”
“Right! Jeez! But don’t worry, I have it hidden. You know what, Ivy?”
“What?”
“I’d make a terrible secret agent. I hate lying.”
“Me too. I think we’re not wired for social espionage.”
CHAPTER 8
Liz—Working It
It was Sunday afternoon. I had a case of the blues and I hated myself for giving in to them. It felt like weakness to succumb. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed like Clayton couldn’t wait to finish repacking his briefcase for New York and get out of here. Sadly, I knew it was not my imagination. His body language told me everything. He was consumed with a heightened level of enthusiasm I rarely saw at home. God, his excitement completely depressed the hell out of me. I felt like a bloodless hologram, fading into the woodwork, the paneling imprinted on my skin. But because there’s a side of me that’s like a puppy, I decided to be nice anyway.
“Would you like me to take you to the airport?”
He was organizing a stack of manila folders and looked up at me as though he hadn’t seen me in ten years.
“What? The airport?”
“Yes. The airport.”
“Oh, right, right. Uh, no, actually Walter is picking me up in a few minutes.” Walter Whaley, who owned Chauffeurs Unlimited, was Clayton’s favorite driver. He managed a weak smile. “What does your week look like? Busy?”
All it took was the slightest inquiry and I felt my blood begin to flow again. Just throw the old girl a bone.
“Well, I’m giving a dinner tomorrow night to try and find some new funding. I’ve been trying to get these two couples to the table for nearly a year. Now I have them both in one night. Pretty stressful. It’s not easy raising money these days.”
“Was it ever?”
He pulled the tab through the handle of his briefcase and it clicked into place in its lock. I had given Clayton that briefcase for Father’s Day a few years ago. It was Italian and had cost a small fortune. Clayton loved beautiful leather goods and I had wanted to make him happy. There was a time when his happiness was all that mattered. I wondered then for a moment or two which came first? Him not caring or me being sad?
I watched as he looked at himself in the mirror over the hall table. He was preening. For whom? Something was deeply wrong between us. He was so distracted and indifferent toward me and had been for some time. I mean, his indifference was one thing, but posing like a peacock was another.
“No, I guess not. But donor dinners are a good way to begin, especially if they’re smaller events.”
“Really? Why’s that?”
“Well, because people can talk about themselves a bit.”
He didn’t say anything. I just watched him neaten his collar around the lapel of his jacket.
I continued. “Listening to them helps me to figure out how important they want to be to the organization. I mean, they know why they’re invited. They’re not stupid. So I’m cooking for these folks. They finally said yes. Finally!”
I may as well have been reciting the Gettysburg Address in Portuguese.
“Well, that should be nice. I’m sure it will go well. I hope you’ve got some help coming. Save all your receipts.”
“I know,” I said. “I do. Actually, Ashley’s roommate, Mary Beth, is coming to help. And Peggy will be here.”
“Well, good. No point in wearing yourself out. Anyway, you can’t be much of a hostess if you’re in the kitchen all night. Is that a new dress you’re wearing?”
“No. It’s from a few years ago.”
“Well, why don’t you take yourself shopping? Buy some pretty new things for yourself? My treat.”
The doorbell rang. Walter had arrived.
“You’ll be home . . . when?” I said.
He picked up his bag and started toward the door.
“Thursday night late, if I can. But probably Friday. We’re taking a small Australian pharma public so I have to see how it goes. I’ll call you.”
“Sure. I need to plan my time, you know?”
“Don’t work so hard,” Clayton said and smiled.
“I’m just trying to make my life mean something, Clayton.”
He took a deep breath, stopped, and turned to say something to me and then hesitated.
“What?” I said.
“I just hate it when you talk like that. I mean, why couldn’t you go to work for something less controversial like, I don’t know, a library?”
We looked at each other then, right in the eyes. For the first time in ages. It was the old argument again. He hated my work. Men define themselves through their work. In Clayton’s Ozzie Nelson mind, women were supposed to have complementary careers if they had one at all. My career was a very messy business. Too many unpleasantries. Of course, in this day and age, not working was as ridiculous as it was impossible, especially when you’re married to a world-class tightwad. I’ve heard there are places in India where fat wives are a trophy, testimony to the man’s earning power, and the wife doesn’t work outside of the home. She has servants and she eats great mountains of noodles and other goodies like steamed buns stuffed with candied guava or papaya. Or maybe that was in Africa. No matter. I didn’t live in such a culture, and my husband’s ideas about women’s roles were as weird as Skipper’s llamas.
And besides that smorgasbord of neurotic delights, I’d have preferred to work as a ditchdigger than ask Old Moneybags for a new pair of shoes. He had some outrageous control issues, and for a long time now experts in my field have acknowledged that the need to have control over another human being was an example of abuse. In Clayton’s case I felt like it was just ego based. But maybe my work hit a little too close to home for him. Hmmm. It didn’t pay to overanalyze it. It was best to encourage Sunday to become Monday and just keep moving forward. Maybe I should go shopping and spend every dime of his that I could.
“Go on to New York,” I said. “Travel safely and call me, okay?”
“I’ll call when I can,” he said and I closed the door behind him.
No good-bye kiss. Not that I wanted one.
I’ll call when I can was Clayton-ese that meant he’d be calling when he felt like it, not because he missed me or even out of some sense of duty. He always left me feeling sad for the old us. But that old us had been gone for so long I couldn’t even imagine what that looked like. I decided to call Maisie.
“Well, he’s off to Yankee territory again,” I said, sounding like the dog died.
“Why should that put you in the dumps? He’s been commuting for as long as I can remember.”
“I don’t know. I guess sometimes I just miss being madly in love, that’s all.”
“Oh, snap out of it! You’ve got a dinner party to plan!”
“True. You coming?”
“Can’t. You know I hate those things. Anyway, I just joined a new Bunko group and our first meeting is tomorrow night.”
“Bunko? Mother! Aren’t you a little . . .”
I heard her gasp before I could even finish.
“Old? I’ll have you know that most people say I can pass for seventy any day of the week! And I was invited to join by a very nice divorcée Skipper and I met at the garden center.”
“Better watch out. She might have her eye on Skipper.”
“Sweet Mother! I hadn’t thought about that.”
“I’m beginning to think everyone has a secret agenda,
” I said, apropos of nothing except Clayton’s attitude. I had a mental flash of him bolting toward the bright lights of Manhattan, flailing his arms, running up the FDR like a madman. He must be having an affair. But guess what? I didn’t really want to know.
“I’ll get my hair done,” she said, “if I can find a salon that’s open on Monday.”
“That’s the spirit! Maybe I will too!” I said and we hung up.
Get my hair blown out? Maybe I’d have a manicure too. That was what I needed—some pampering. Affordable Pampering. It sounded like an Obama program.
My foul temper had practically dissolved so I decided to work on my table for the dinner party. I looked around my dining room and suddenly it seemed cluttered, like a grandma’s house. Where did all this old lady stuff come from? I must have had a dozen candlesticks on the sideboards and dining table. Too many tureens, too many tchotchkes. I had collected all these things and was saving them for my children who didn’t want them. Well, someday Ashley might like some of my things but Ivy? Probably not. He had more sophisticated taste.
So while I waited for Monday, I took the small table apart and added a leaf so I could seat my guests. My dining room was very small, as was the scale of my house. Most houses on Church Street were two hundred years old and built for smaller people with smaller possessions. I loved it because it was like living in a dollhouse and also because every room downstairs opened onto a terrace or a porch. And yes, I had one of those well-known Charleston hidden gardens with miniature specimen plants, an ancient handmade brick walkway, and a fountain in the center. The walls of my garden were trellised with Confederate jasmine and fig ivy. In the east corner stood an old live oak tree that produced enough Spanish moss to thrill the camellia and azalea bushes nestled below with some partial shade, protecting them from the lethal sun. But it was deep summer and very little remained in bloom then. Somehow the lack of color gave all the varieties of ferns a chance to take center stage because that was when my garden became more about different textures and variations of green. The only flowers were the water lilies in the fountain and the ones in my hanging baskets. On an ironic note, Maisie did not consider me to be a gardener. Isn’t that nice?