“Ah yes. The hair. It was, alas, a poor decision,” Beth said in a dramatic whisper, coming clean with how she felt about it for the first time. “But don’t say I admitted it, okay?”
“Not me!” Cecily said, chopping the ends off an onion. “So, let’s see now. My grandmother Livvie? Well, she was the most magical woman I ever knew, that’s all. She could charm the birds right down from the trees. In fact, I used to watch her do it.”
“Seriously?” Beth looked in the refrigerator and found six bags of prewashed lettuce stuffed together on a shelf.
“Yep. When I was a little girl I used to follow her everywhere. I can remember playing hide-and-seek with her in the rows of corn in her vegetable garden. Anyway, when she got tired of me chasing her around we’d sit on the front steps of her house with a glass of iced tea. All these little birds, wrens, I think, they would just glide down from the big oak and land around her feet. She would reach in her apron pocket and come out with a handful of seed or bread crumbs. Those little stinkers would hop right on her hand and take some. She would pet their heads and then they would fly off so another bird could come say hello.”
“Shut up! You’re lying, right?”
“Excuse me?” Cecily’s smile turned to ice. “Who you calling a liar? You must think you’re talking to a white girl.”
Apparently, there were some limits to Cecily’s humor and good nature.
“No, no! Sorry. It’s just a figure of speech. I mean, you’re fooling with me, right?”
“Not one bit.”
“Okay. You mean to say that untamed birds ate from her hands? Just like they were pets?”
“Only if she wanted them to.”
“Holy crap. Francis of Assisi, no less.”
“Amen. You’d better wash those tomatoes. Who knows where they’ve been?”
“Right.”
She was taking orders from Cecily the same way her mother said she took them from Livvie! History repeats itself, she thought.
They went on telling stories until they found a solid ease with each other. One thing was for sure. Cecily didn’t take to sloppy language. And Beth realized she should have known better than to assume that level of familiarity with someone she had just met. This was the South, not Boston, and Beth was borderline impolite. Besides, Beth thought, Cecily was probably thirty-five. Maybe older.
“So, you just graduated from college, is that right?”
“Yeah. I was supposed to be on my way to graduate school but I got hijacked into doing this.”
“I see. Humph. Well, what did you major in?”
“English lit. I want to be a writer.”
“Sweet. But you’re stuck here.”
“You got it. I’ll just have a life starting like a year from now.” Beth made a mental note to stop saying sweet because using the same terminology as someone Cecily’s age was just as pathetic as singing along to music in the grocery store.
“Lemme ask you something. You can tell me it’s none of my business if you want to, but why can’t you write while you’re here?”
“Well, I can, but it’s not the same thing as studying with serious academics. I mean, I’ll probably make some attempt to keep up with my journals and I still have my blog.”
“A blog. I see. Well, to my way of thinking, all blogs do is put all your thoughts out there for anyone to steal for their book or their magazine article. You’re just giving it away.”
“Maybe.”
“Ain’t no maybe about it.”
Beth knew Cecily was right, of course, but everyone blogged—everyone with too much time on their hands, that is. And there wasn’t any real reason why she couldn’t write while she was in lockup except that it just wasn’t how she had envisioned beginning her career. She wanted to submit her first manuscript with Graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop on her résumé. Stubborn. She knew it. Muleheaded and stubborn. But she also knew that platinum credentials would give her an edge in the world of letters and all things literary.
She threw the lettuce in the bowl, chopped cucumbers and tomatoes with a fury, and soon the oversized salad bowl was filled with enough roughage to stimulate the collective digestive system of Charleston County.
When the whole family had returned to the house and began pouring cocktails for one another, Beth brought Cecily a glass of wine. That is, after she had the requisite chat with every one of her relatives for a minute or two.
“I really shouldn’t because I have to work,” Cecily said.
“Oh, come on! Let’s toast to something!” Beth held her glass up in the air. “To meeting you and to the summer!”
“Cheers!” Cecily said, and then burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.”
Beth looked at her with her most suspicious face and said, “Come on. What’s up?”
“Okay,” she said, pointing to a platter on the table. “Did you make ham salad? Because I didn’t make ham salad.”
“What the…? Where did that come from?”
“Ham salad. My grandmother’s specialty, besides her world-famous egg salad, of course.”
“Which my Aunt Maggie makes too…um, wait! Are you saying what I think you’re saying? That these things just appeared out of thin air? Come on! Gimme a break!”
“All I’m saying is that I didn’t make any ham salad. Shoot, if she wants to come round ’eah scaring the liver out of people, the least she could do is fry the fish!”
Beth assumed she meant Livvie and she cleared her throat. Loudly and deliberately. “They’re all out on the porch. I’m gonna go get us a whole bottle of wine!”
“Will you take that platter with you and pass them around?”
Beth gave Cecily a thumbs-up, picked up the mysterious sandwiches and a handful of cocktail napkins, the ones she had stamped, thinking for a split second that her artistic efforts might go unused if she hadn’t seen them.
“Weird,” she said, and went out to the front porch wondering what kind of nonsense this was. Nonsense or not, Beth had goose bumps the size of jelly beans.
She left the aroma of fresh fish and onions and entered another world when she reached the ocean side of the house. The French doors and windows were opened wide and the breezy air smelled like rosemary and Confederate jasmine, which at that time of year was blooming in great tangled masses on fences and trees all over the island. It was the most beautiful window of time for a summer evening on Sullivans Island, after the heat of the day was broken and right before sunset. Perhaps a brief shower had come and gone, judging from the heavy dew on the lawn. I must have missed it, she thought, remembering that it was not unusual for rain to fall in the front yard and nowhere else.
She looked out toward the sunset. The radiant western sky was streaked with impossible colors, and the sun, blinding white in late afternoon, had become a massive fireball. It was so gorgeous she wondered how she had stayed away so long. Perhaps I should place a story here, she thought.
“Sandwich?” Beth said to Aunt Teensy and Uncle Henry.
“Thanks, sugar,” Teensy said, and took a nibble. “Ooh la la! Heavenly!”
You have no idea, Beth thought, but maybe not. “Uncle Henry?”
“He can have the rest of mine,” she said.
“Right,” Beth said, looking her square in the eyeballs, sending her a subliminal message that they all knew she was the Vom Queen. Gross. “Momma? Want a sandwich?”
“Sure. Mmmm! Ham salad? Did Cecily make this?”
“Nope.” She wondered if she had been on the receiving end of this kind of thing before. “They just appeared on the freaking table. Crusts off, the whole nine yards.”
“Don’t say freaking, darling. It implies you really meant to use the F word.”
“I did.”
Susan took a bite and then stared at her with the most peculiar expression, as what Beth had said finally dawned on her.
“What?”
“There’s only ever been
one person who could make ham salad like this.”
“Yeah, and she ain’t exactly dead, despite the facts.”
“Livvie. Some pretty strange things happen in this house, don’t they?”
“You’re telling me? At least I won’t get lonely while you’re gone.”
“You’re not frightened to be here on your own, are you? Oh, honey, I hadn’t even thought about that.”
“Right. No, don’t worry; I’ll call an exorcist if I have to.”
“Very funny. Just send Simon the bill.”
Maggie came over to inspect the platter. “Oh, good! I was so sure Cecily would forget all about this!” She took a bite and looked at the surprise on their faces. “What? I whipped up two quarts of this mess earlier today and cut up the bread too! Why in the world are y’all looking at me so funny? Have one, they’re pretty fabulous if I say so myself.”
“Here,” Beth said, handing the platter to her mother, “I gotta go strangle somebody.”
She took a bottle of wine from the bar and marched back to the kitchen, where Cecily was waiting, laughing so hard there were tears streaming down her cheeks.
“I’m going to have to kill you,” Beth said.
“Oh my! You should have seen your face! Oh! Goodness!”
“You must think I’m a gullible dumbass,” she said, although she was having a hard time staying angry with Cecily whooping like a crazy person.
“Oh, Beth, I’m sorry. I am. I just couldn’t resist. But that doesn’t mean this ’eah house ain’t haunted, and you know it too, don’t you?”
“Yep. I know it. Oh, just forget it,” she said, wondering how she could get her back.
Beth refilled their glasses and thought about the confounding truth of what she had just said. After all, years ago she had certainly seen Livvie in the mirror all through her childhood like many others had. And some unseen hand had most definitely turned down her bed the day that she arrived. They did hear things go bump in the night, all the time in fact, and the family’s possessions moved around from one shelf or table to another on a regular basis while the clock chimed when it wasn’t even wound. The bed in the room where her grandmother used to sleep was perpetually unmade no matter how many times they pulled up the covers, and a man who fit the description of her grandfather was frequently seen in the yard by neighbors, shaking his fist at the house. What in the world did these things mean? It would be an interesting topic for discussion when everyone got sick of talking about themselves. Which could take eons, she thought.
“How’s that flounder coming? Anything I can do to help?” Maggie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “Y’all getting acquainted?”
“I’ve got her number all right,” Beth said, smiled at Maggie, and hooked her thumb in Cecily’s direction.
“Now, just what do you mean by that?” Maggie said. “Come on, the buffet’s all set up, so let’s get that fish on the fire. We’re all about to swoon from hunger.” She began slitting the sides of brown paper bags and laying them on the table to drain grease from the fish. “Instant recycling!”
At the very least, they had to admire her endless ingenuity.
Eventually supper was ready and Maggie called everyone to the meal. There were nineteen of them if you included Lola, who was being passed around like a beanbag, loving all the attention, yelping only occasionally.
They held hands while Grant, who had flown in from California for the occasion with Maggie and Simon Rifkin, Beth’s stepfather of the uninvolved sort, led them in a short prayer.
Just as they were serving themselves from the steaming platters of fish, onion rings, hush puppies, covered dishes of grits swimming in butter, and a huge bowl of salad, the back door slammed. Her aunts Sophie and Allison Hamilton, exercise and fitness gurus to the southeastern United States, popped into the living room from the kitchen like two matching corks.
“Hello, hello!” they called out.
In Charleston visitors normally announced themselves with Hey, anybody home? But Beth guessed that in Miami, where the twins lived, they said things like Hello, hello! And probably Ciao, ciao!
At first glance, she couldn’t tell them apart. Identical twins were a curious phenomenon. Her aunts may have had the same DNA, but their personalities were polar opposites. Sophie was gregarious and generous, but Allison was sort of a haughty, humorless wretch. None of the family could say with certainty who was who until they began to speak, and that was how they knew the difference between them. They made their way around the room, offering more Hello hellos and dispensing polite hugs, back pats, and air kisses directed at cheeks.
While everyone was piling food onto their plates and looking for a place to sit, Henry offered them goblets of wine, which they both declined. They didn’t drink a drop of alcohol, which Henry said to anyone who would listen made them highly suspicious characters in his book. But to be frank, Henry was suspicious of social interaction with any nonimbibing human.
It was all Don’t you look wonderful! And Aren’t you excited about Paris, Susan? And Look at these boys! Aren’t they darling? And your girls, Timmy! My my!
Until Allison got to Beth.
She said, “Whatever on this earth has happened to you? The last time I saw you, you were just a little bitty bug. It was your daddy’s funeral, wasn’t it? That filthy rotten son of a bitch. Horrible man. Yes, it was the funeral. But you surely didn’t have all this and this! My word, honey!” Her accusing hand demonstrated she meant to remark on, yes, Beth’s breasts and, yes, her hair. It was as though her body was a dartboard and anyone who wanted to could just lob a shot her way.
“I really wish she hadn’t called him that,” she said under her breath, feeling nauseated.
“You shouldn’t call Tom a sumbitch, Allison,” Grant said, having caught what Beth mumbled. “It’s bad juju to speak ill of the dead.”
Grant was next to Beth and she was trying hard not to look at him so he wouldn’t see how upset she was.
“Oh, screw you, Grant,” Allison said, and pulled her hair up into a ponytail, holding it with one hand. “Like you all don’t do it all the time? Why is it so sticky here? I don’t remember it being this sticky.”
“It’s the real beach, Al,” Henry said, and rolled his eyes. “There’s no humidity in Coral Gables?”
“Oh, fine. Well, I was just saying that the last time I saw Beth she was only a little girl and now she’s all grown up. I mean, look at her!”
Every eye turned to Beth and she wanted to disappear. She felt like she must have been purple with embarrassment. God, she thought, I really, really hate her guts right now.
“What do you mean, Allison?” Maggie said. “That’s all y’all gonna eat? I think Beth’s grown into a perfectly magnificent young woman, don’t you, Sophie? Come on and let’s fix y’all a decent plate.”
Maggie had temporarily redeemed herself to Beth, but Beth didn’t know if she would ever feel all right about her Aunt Allison.
“I do. Don’t mind your Aunt Allison,” Sophie said. “The filter between her brain and her mouth appears to be malfunctioning.” Sophie popped a hush puppy into her mouth and watched while Maggie loaded her plate with meager portions—lady servings, she would call them.
“It’s okay,” Beth said.
But it wasn’t okay. Beth didn’t care so much what Allison thought about her, but she really, truly, seriously, and deeply minded that she unapologetically referred to her father as a filthy rotten son of a bitch. How many times had she asked them not to say terrible things about her father?
“I’ll get my own food, thanks,” Allison said to Maggie. “So what are the sleeping arrangements?” She scooped salad into a small mound on her plate and took a sliver of fish.
“Aunt Sophie can sleep with me,” Beth said, knowing it was the last available portion of a mattress. She was attempting to get back in the conversation without her anger showing.
“Fun! It will be like old times!” Sophie said.
“We
weren’t sure you were even coming, Allison,” Maggie said with a theatrical sigh, leaning against the table. “You never returned any of my calls.”
Was there a reprimanding tone in Maggie’s voice? Yes ma’am. Maybe she was sticking it to Allison on my behalf, Beth thought. Although she knew Maggie enjoyed giving Allison a little grief just on general principles.
“Oh, I see. Well, fine then,” Allison said, equally dramatically, sitting on a corner of the sofa eating her salad with her fingers. “I don’t have to stay here at all then, do I?”
“Actually, you and Aunt Sophie can have my bed and I’ll sleep down the island,” Beth said. “No problem.”
“Excuse me? You think I’m sleeping with my sister in the same bed? I don’t think so. What are we? Twelve years old?”
What a bitch, Beth thought. Allison was worse than ever. It wasn’t like her bed was crawling with cooties or something.
“Now, see here,” Henry said in his most authoritative voice.
“See here what, Henry? Oh! Are you warming up a little lecture for the occasion?”
Allison was on a roll.
The chatter stopped and everyone watched as Allison stood and locked her jaw, working up steam for one of her notorious snits, shifting her weight from foot to foot and crossing her arms so tightly that her fingertips left white marks wherever they gripped her upper arms.
Timmy cleared his throat and said, “Now, Allison, there’s no reason for anyone to get hysterical. I’m sure—”
“Shut up, Timmy. Freud’s dead, you know, and I’m hardly hysterical.”
Zing!
“I don’t think I really heard her tell my husband to shut up, did I?” Mary Jo said, piping up, evidence of a spine no one knew she had. “That’s not nice.”
“Let’s not be like this, Allison,” Maggie said, ignoring Mary Jo. “I’m sure we can figure something out. The boys have another house down the island and I’m sure they can make room. Mickey? Y’all got an extra bed down at Mary Ellen’s?”
“Um, I’m Mike now, Mom. Sure, Aunt Allison can even have my bed. No big deal. There’s plenty of room.”