Life on Sullivans Island was the polar opposite of life downtown. For example, like many other families, we set up sleeping porches. There were humble single beds with lots of pillows and old quilts that lined the walls of our side porches. The bottom half of our porch was shuttered for privacy and the louvers were opened to allow air flow. Eventually, after much pleading, Clayton had ceiling fans installed. May I just say that there were still days and nights when the heat was so unbearable, the humidity so high, and the air so still that we all felt like we could lie down and die, ceiling fans or no ceiling fans. It was like being Katharine Hepburn in The African Queen, minus the leeches, plus mosquitoes. Clayton didn’t believe in air-conditioning the beach house, saying it destroyed the whole point of having a beach house in the first place. On those dog days and nights, the fan’s paddles merely pushed around muggy hell. But for the normal hot night, sleeping on the porch was a brilliant solution to our sticky misery.
At some point in the night the tide would turn, bringing a breeze and the sounds of the waves hitting the shore and receding with a whoosh, which would lull us all into the deepest sleep I’ve ever known. Clayton was right. If the house had been air-conditioned, we would’ve missed all that.
We passed our days doing the same things our island neighbors did. A morning swim, a picnic lunch in the shade, a nap at home, and then back to the beach we went, moving like ducks in a line across the blazing white sand. Late in the afternoon, I would take the children home after hours and hours of building sand castles, looking for shells, and engaging in every other kind of game children played at the shore. Their skin was warm to the touch and salty to my kisses. Outdoor showers washed away the remnants of the day, and new freckles appeared like tiny trophies across the bridges of their noses and on their cheeks and arms. We’d have a supper of vine-ripened tomato sandwiches and iced tea and they were so tired from the sun that they’d be dreaming before they slept. Clayton and I would play gin rummy and enjoy an adult beverage while something like “Moonlight Sonata” or some Chopin streamed from our stereo. I’m telling you I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything. And believe it or not, Clayton feels the same way—about the old days and about the island. We were so in love with each other then. And it’s our mutual love for the Lowcountry that has been our glue in many of our dark moments. Well, maybe that’s overstating it a bit. But loving something together seemed to help.
I was driving across the Shem Creek Bridge, looking out at the few remaining shrimp boats to my right. I slowed down to stare. The water was deep blue and so calm and still. The boats against the bright clear blue sky were as pretty a sight as I’d ever seen anywhere, begging for a photographer to document their existence. They were a dying breed, those shrimpers and their boats. Most of the restaurants used farmed shrimp these days. And farmed fish. Heaven knows what the fish farmers fed their critters but I have always thought farmed seafood couldn’t be good for us.
Things change and not always for the better. Shem Creek had been a working waterway since the time of the Sewee Indians in the seventeenth century. Before the Civil War there were factories and mills on its shores. At one point ferry boats operated from there, taking people from shore to shore. But now the shrimp boats were docked there mostly to lend a decorative atmosphere.
Still, it was so lovely a sight. The water reflected the nets hanging from the trawlers’ arms in the same way so many shards of dull gray Spanish moss draped the arms of live oak trees all over the Lowcountry. The old creaking boats, weather-beaten but still proud doyennes, sported names on their hulls like Lady Eva, Miss Paula, The Winds of Fortune, and others. There used to be many more but the town fathers, in search of increased gentrification and an ill-conceived plan to allot docking slots, had driven the fishermen elsewhere to drop anchor. Still, even with the sparse population, I could feel my heart clench from the landscape’s unforgivable beauty.
It saddened me to think that by the time Ashley’s children were her age there would be nothing but neon lights and valet parking on Shem Creek. Her children might never know the simple pleasure of hearing and feeling oyster shells crunch underfoot or the smells of a fresh catch or have the thrill of seeing live shrimp dance on a boat’s deck as Mr. Magwood used to do for Ivy and her when they were so little.
He’d dump a bucket of live shrimp on the deck and Ashley and Ivy literally hopped, clapping their hands, eyes bulging and squealing with delight over the crazed and frenzied, desperate dance of the shrimp. Somewhere in our house downtown I had photographs of them on Mr. Magwood’s boat. I made a mental note to find them and frame them for Ivy and Ashley for Christmas. I wish I’d known years ago that the time would pass so quickly. I swear, you wake up one day and suddenly your best years are behind you. I try not to think about that.
I was at the causeway before I knew it, crossing the Ben Sawyer Bridge, wondering for the millionth time just who this Ben Sawyer person was and just what he did to have a bridge named after him. Probably he was the politician who got the money to build the bridge in the first place. Who knows? A decent politician? It’s possible. Anything is possible. I turned right and began the slow crawl down Middle Street toward my house at the end of the island.
The island was just waking up to greet the day. Joggers and their dogs were heading toward the beach, and young mothers and small children were enjoying breakfast on the porch of Café Medley. Someone from Dunleavy’s Pub was watering the window boxes while Jamie Maher was deep in conversation with a purveyor of adult spirits standing alongside a very large truck. Dunleavy’s Pub, the anchor of the business district, sponsored the Polar Plunge on New Year’s Day, an event that raised tons of money for Special Olympics. It was riotous fun. Clayton and I tried to go every year just to watch all the participants in their crazy costumes run into the freezing water. Then we’d walk along Middle Street where all the restaurants had set up tables right on the street and have a plate of hoppin’ John and collards for good luck. Eating collards on New Year’s Day was to ensure money in the coming year. Greens bring green? Hoppin’ John was a Lowcountry dish that ensured further good fortune. It was made of field peas and chopped onions cooked with smoked ham hocks. The watery juice from the pot of peas and onions, which we called pot liquor, was used to cook rice. Then, when the rice was tender, the peas and onions were combined with the rice. Was it delicious? No, it was earthy and nutty but not exactly delicious. However, it was traditional to eat it and Charlestonians were just superstitious enough to never change a tradition. This particular ritual was a good thing for a lot of reasons, not the least of which was that this particular one told you who you were. No one in their right mind would crave a bowl of hoppin’ John except the sons and daughters of the Lowcountry. Maisie always said that knowing who you were and where you belonged was one component of good mental health. I believed that too.
I drove on, passing SALT at Station 22 on my left, my favorite restaurant, the hill fort, the fire department, and the tiny building that decades ago housed Miss Buddy McGinn’s variety store. Every trip to the island was like looking through old scrapbooks. Finally, I came to the fork in the island at Stella Maris Church and stayed to the left, arriving at our driveway minutes later.
I pulled into the yard and turned off the engine. I knew that Mary Beth usually went to work late in the afternoon so I closed my car door gently when I got out in case she was still asleep. But there’s no doubt the air-conditioning unit whirring away in her room would’ve drowned out the noisy clunk. I looked up and thought the house surely could benefit from a coat of paint. And it was time to clean up the boots of all the palmetto trees. We never did install central air-conditioning but we put in a few window units at the same time we renovated after Hurricane Hugo, the infamous storm that packed a mighty wallop to the Lowcountry in 1989. Our old house withstood the storm but we lost all our windows and rugs and other furnishings from wind and water. We kept the piano for some reason I can’t recall.
Probably sentiment.
But folks have short memories, and they continue to come in droves to live on the islands, despite the erosion and storms. The new residents weren’t like us. They were from Lord knows where, hither and yon, showing up here with bulging wallets and driving the cost of real estate through the roof. Those people wanted central air, ice makers, and media rooms. We natives were reluctant to give in to things like going wireless and irrigation systems on timers, but eventually we probably would too. And if we didn’t, our children, who had already bought into the many vagaries of consumerism, surely would.
I walked across the yard, stopping to pick up palmetto fronds that had fallen from the trees. The yard and the entrance to our property were a mess. It annoyed me that the front steps were littered with beach sand and debris. They could have used a good sweeping. I thought, Good Lord, these girls live here for practically nothing. The least they could do is sweep the darn steps. The door was locked so I used my key and let myself in. I could hear Ashley rattling around in the kitchen.
“G’morning, sweetheart!” I called out.
“Mom? God, you scared me to death! I didn’t know you were coming!”
Was she telling me to call before I came to my own house?
“I brought donuts for you and Mary Beth. I was just thinking about you and decided to take a ride over and see you,” I said, going into the kitchen. I gave her a hug and a kiss on the head. She was wearing a pair of plaid cotton pajama bottoms and an old T-shirt looking more like a teenager than an adult. “You know, sometimes I just want to see my daughter!”
“Oh, well, that’s nice. Thanks! Me too! You want coffee?”
“Sure, but I’ll help myself.”
I reached in the cabinet for a mug and placed it on the counter, the counter covered in crumbs. Well, not completely covered. As though she intuited my annoyance, Ashley quickly dampened a paper towel and wiped them away.
“I made toast earlier,” she said, balling the paper towel up and tossing it in the overflowing garbage can. “I actually cleaned this all up last night.”
“Oh, honey! I don’t mind!” I poured myself coffee and opened the refrigerator looking for some milk. The refrigerator was stuffed with take-out containers and jars that were older than some of my shoes. “So what time do you have to be at work today?”
“Noon,” she said, eyeing me carefully. “I just woke up early.”
“Well, either that means you’re stressed over something, which is ridiculous,” I said, smiling, “or you went to bed early, and I can’t imagine why someone your age would.”
“Right,” she said and popped a donut in her mouth. “I’m usually up all night partying.”
I looked at her sarcastic face and thought, Oh boy, this isn’t going to be much fun. I came here bearing sugar and she shows no signs of sweetening up anytime soon. So either I could continue to be nice or I could take her on. Two could play at this game.
“Well, you may not be out having fun but you’re sure not sweeping the steps or cleaning out the refrigerator either, are you?”
“Mom? It rained like hell this week.”
“Please don’t curse. It’s common.”
“Whatever. You know that rain always messes up the yard. And I’m sorry the refrigerator isn’t squeaky clean. I was going to throw out a lot of stuff this morning. I got up early to do laundry and clean house. It’s not like I have a housekeeper, you know. And I work forty hours a week. Sheesh!”
She stomped out of the kitchen. I could hear her feet and in a few minutes she returned with a stuffed hamper of dirty laundry.
“Excuse me,” she said, squeezing past me to the laundry room. There was a little bit of twenty-three-year-old balsamic vinegar dripping from her voice.
“Want some help?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“Okay.” What could I say next? “So, babe? I need to talk to you about something.”
There was silence, except for the water filling the machine, and then she said, “I knew there was another reason you showed up.”
I heard the lid of the washing machine slam, and I could feel her annoyance radiate from the other room. Well, too bad, I thought.
I sat on a barstool at the counter.
“Come sit with me for a minute,” I said.
She sat down, pushed her hair back from her face, blew some air, and rolled her eyes.
“Okay, what’s going on, Mom?”
“Look, Ashley, you’re practically a grown woman and I know you don’t think you need any advice on anything . . .”
“No, that’s not it. It’s that I just wish people in this family told the truth more often. If you wanted to come over here to talk to me, why didn’t you just say so?”
“Maybe I was hoping the subject would come up naturally in the course of conversation.”
“Porter Galloway?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Maisie called you?”
“Yes, but please don’t tell her I told you.”
“Sure. Another secret. Look, Mom. Porter Galloway is a douche.”
“Really?” Douche? What did that mean beyond the normally accepted definition of a feminine hygiene product? Or in French, a shower?
“Yeah. He asked me to come meet him for a drink last night. So I went to the bar at Charleston Place Hotel expecting to find him there. Turns out he wanted me to come to his room. I was like, yeah, right. In your dreams, Senator. So I left, but I charged my glass of wine to his room.”
I knew she was telling me the truth.
“Good for you! How insulting.”
“I thought so too. He can kiss it.”
“Well, yes.” I searched her face. Her disappointment and annoyance were all over her. I didn’t blame her. “Men can be so stupid.”
“Yep. Mom? Don’t worry about me. I’m not stupid and I’m a good girl.”
I reached out and ran my hand down the side of her face.
“I know that, baby. Anyway, I thought I might take you shopping. You know, somewhere out there is a little black dress that’s slightly less lethal. I’d be happy to help you find it. We can make it an early birthday present?”
“Maybe sometime this week,” she said. “Thanks. So Maisie thinks my dress is dangerous?”
“Don’t you?”
“Maybe.” The tiniest of all smiles in Christendom crept across her face. “Anyway, say what you want about Porter, but he’s going places. I wouldn’t mind being the governor’s wife.”
“Governor! Darling, I think he’s got a long row to hoe before he gets that job. Although there is talk. And would you really want to be a politician’s wife? Politics are such a sordid business.”
“So is everything. He’s got to marry somebody, doesn’t he? Then I could paint all the time.”
“Baby? I think that price tag for your artistic freedom might be way too high. Besides, according to the papers, he’s showing no signs of settling down just yet.”
“I know. Maisie told me. Well, it doesn’t matter because he probably already forgot my name.”
“I’ll bet he hasn’t. I’ll bet you a new dress and shoes. Call me when he calls you.”
“You seem pretty sure about this. How do you know?”
“Because all men want what they can’t have. Every last one of them.”
“Well, I’m not holding my breath.”
“Listen to your mother. I know more about men than I care to divulge.” I laughed when I said that.
“You sound just like Maisie,” Ashley said and laughed with me.
“Lord, save us all. Listen to me, sweetheart, I just hope that when you do marry, that you are dead in love and that your lucky guy feels the same way about you.”
“I agree.”
“Love is the most important thing there is, Ashley. Love
, family . . . these are the things that matter; the things to cherish.”
“Who could argue with that?”
If nothing else transpired, at least I had made her laugh with me and peace was restored.
Shortly after that I left her and drove back downtown. She promised to sweep the steps and take out the garbage. And she promised to be more diligent about the house in general. It couldn’t be easy to be her age in today’s world. I thought about it as I passed over the causeway and through Mount Pleasant. Ivy was the one who rightly pointed it out. It couldn’t be easy at all.
CHAPTER 7
Ashley—Party On!
Another advantage of staying in the family beach house, besides the killer view, was that we had a tiny ancient cottage in the yard. My family used it for sort of a metaphorical purgatory—a way station between a yard sale (heaven) and the dump (hell). It was filled with abandoned junk, stuff you no longer wanted to use but you couldn’t bring yourself to throw away—old box springs, rusty bicycles, broken chairs that never got fixed, et cetera. I had no memory of it being anything other than what it was. At one point I had thought about fixing it up and renting it, but it was such a wreck and I had, as we all know, limited resources. Besides all that, I didn’t have the first clue about being a landlady.
Mom and Dad mumbled around and finally said they didn’t mind if I used the cottage as a studio so I configured it to suit myself. This meant the death of a million trees as cases of paper towels were squandered, many bottles of vinegar and cleaners were spritzed to their last breath, and the backbreaking work was done to haul ancient possessions and garbage to the curb. The neighbors must have thought we were total hoarders. Nasty!
Originally, the cottage was a kitchen house back in the days of the Civil War, or the Recent Disturbance, as Maisie liked to call it when she was feeling her years. It was pretty common for kitchens to be separated from the main house because they were always catching on fire from flying embers, badly maintained chimneys, and so forth. I could only imagine someone rushing from the cottage to the house in pouring rain or gusting winds, hanging on to a platter of pork chops for dear life! How stupid. I minored in American history and it never failed to blow my mind how awful it was to be a woman a hundred years ago, much less in colonial times.