Lowcountry Summer

  I was feeling pretty lucky then, to be surrounded by such great beauty, to have a little time for myself away from everyone and the insanity of the past few days. So Millie was upset with me for dating someone who was a walking heart attack? Baloney. She could say that but I knew she was more concerned with propriety than anything else. What did I care about propriety? Who was there to judge me? The squirrels? And if others did judge me, what did I care about their opinion of my behavior? Very little. I mean, I was living an authentic life, doing what I wanted. I tried very hard not to embarrass Eric, and I thought I did a pretty good job at that. The truth was that I was bored to death living out in the country, selling truckloads of strawberries and fooling around with a pig farmer here and an officer of the law there. I was so bored I had even momentarily considered the assets of a man whose nose twitched like something feral.

  Maybe I needed to think about a condo in Charleston. Perhaps I could find a new social life in downtown, become a volunteer for the museum or the symphony. I could raise money, run a gala, do some good in the world. Or I could get involved with the university in Columbia. Surely they had organizations for parents who were sort of miserable?

  What was the matter with me? Some days there weren’t enough hours to do half of what I intended to do and on others, like this one, I was like a rudderless boat floating down the river to nowhere. Oh, yes, I was going to see Bobby, but I also knew that his heart attack marked the end of our affair. It could be years before Bobby would have the courage to have sex again. Don’t ask me how I know this. Let’s just say that I do. In a few weeks we would have dinner. He would be apologetic after dessert and say that he’s sleeping more lately, since his incident, and that his doctor said he should take it easy, you know, not to do anything too athletic. But I knew that his doctor would have advised him to resume his life and not to worry. No matter. It was human nature to worry that if your heart had betrayed you once, it could do it again. So, if the choice was life without sex versus sex and possible death? No decision. I’d let him think it was his choice to end things, that he had fallen out of love with me rather than the horrible truth that he was frightened by his mortality.

  When I finally arrived at Bobby Mack’s bedside with an overpriced bouquet of flowers in a cheap glass vase and the New York Times tucked under my arm, the scene was exactly what I expected it would be. A couple of fellows from his business were there, standing up, getting ready to leave, when I pushed opened the door. There was my sweet guy propped up on pillows with an IV in his arm. His friends nodded politely and knowingly to me as they passed. I knew they would snicker like schoolboys once they were out of earshot. Did I care? Um, no.

  My spirits sank as Bobby’s eyes met mine. They said it all.

  “How are you, darlin’?” I said.

  “I cheated death, Caroline. For a man who cheated death, I reckon I’m doing fair to partly cloudy.”

  I put the vase of flowers and the newspaper on his bedside table and kissed his forehead.

  “Well, you look wonderful,” I said, and thought, Damn, I’m gonna miss this man.

  9

  Weekend Warriors

  WHEN FRIDAY ROLLED AROUND, RUSTY and Trip had yet to locate a willing victim to serve as housekeeper for the Walterboro residence. Neither Millie, Rosario, nor I had any leads either.

  “Maybe you’re not exactly offering an irresistible deal,” I suggested ever so gently to Trip over the phone.

  “You serious? I’m offering two hundred and fifty dollars a week, health-care benefits after six months, and a paid two-week vacation! That’s a bloody fortune just to keep house and fix dinner for a bunch of girls!”

  “What? No. It’s not a fortune. It’s right at minimum wage. Granted the health benefits are nice if she’s not suicidal in six months, but a two-week vacation is very standard stuff, Trip.”

  “Really? What’s minimum wage these days?”

  “Not much. Five dollars and eighty-five cents an hour. I think.”

  I heard Trip whistle, low and long. “Wow.”

  “Not wow. Miss Sweetie pays eight dollars an hour to our most menial laborers. A gallon of milk is like four dollars or something. You can’t believe what it costs to live these days.”

  “Five eighty-five? Still seems like a lot to me. I think I made two bucks an hour or less when I was in college.”

  “Um, m’dear? College was a long time ago, Mr. Wimbley. I think if you want anyone to take that job, you’re going to have to sweeten the deal by a lot.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Ain’t no maybe about it,” I said.

  “Well, I’ll be bringing Chloe out after school this afternoon and I thought it might be nice for you to come over and barbecue with us. The girls are coming, too. I’m gonna break in the grill! Her maiden voyage! Rusty’s got steaks marinating and I’ve got some Wahoo thawing. And as King of the Grill, I’ll even make you a julep. The julep of your life!”

  “Now you’re talking. What time?”

  “How’s six?”

  “See ya!”

  King of the Grill indeed.

  All week long, Rusty had entertained the United Nations of candidates in her kitchen and mine. In addition to leaving a dozen messages for Frances Mae’s old housekeeper, she’d spoken to women from Chile, Guatemala, Belize, Brazil, Portugal, Ghana, and even some from Romania and Croatia. It wasn’t like she wasn’t trying. Most of them only spoke a few words of English and none of them had legal papers for working in the United States. The one woman who was barely fluent only had to say, “Girls make too much laundry, too much hair in the sink,” and that instantly soured her interview.

  Rusty called and said, “I’m interviewing right here. I can’t be driving all the whole way out to Walterboro to show the house until I find someone who at least looks like a possibility. Do you blame me?”

  “No, of course not. Chances are you’d run into one of my darling nieces at home playing hooky anyway! I mean, who knows what they’re up to when Trip leaves in the morning?”

  “Not even an hour ago, Trip said the same exact thing to me. Frankly, I don’t like to think about it.”

  “Me either,” I said.

  “It makes my stomach hurt to know how vulnerable these girls are. I mean, I really hate to criticize, but they wouldn’t have such bad attitudes if anyone had ever been vigilant enough, meaning Frances Mae. A little guidance wouldn’t kill them.”

  “Well, Trip did have to show up at his office and make a living like most men do. And you know the old Chinese saying, right? Fish stink from the head down? They’re just like their mother. Well, not Amelia so much anymore or Chloe yet.”

  “This is our big chance, Caroline. You know, to undo some of the madness and show them how to behave.”

  “Oh my God! Does this mean I have to set a good example? I hate that!”

  We had a good laugh and I told her I’d see her at six.

  But as the afternoon wore on I had a growing anxiety that steadily crept toward a full-blown bummer. Frances Mae was gone away and their girls were coming here. I thought about my childhood and compared it with theirs. Maybe Trip had left their family household, and maybe he had a live-in girlfriend, but he wasn’t dead. Dead was final in a way those girls had yet to understand. Frances Mae’s nasty relatives went to the cooler on a regular basis, but they came back. And would any of them help Trip now? They barely spoke to each other! They had yet to find common ground.

  Her girls were clueless about the reality of growing up wondering what your father would have thought of you—would he have been proud? Would he have cried like a sentimental fool at your graduations, wedding, and when you put your first child into his arms? And did they know what was it like to live your whole life trying to please and to win the approval of a parent whose spouse’s accidental death shattered your world and the heart of your family into so many pieces that there was no repair?

  No. They did not. I did. But they did not.

/>   I tried to concentrate on going over sales projections for my strawberry fields for-fucking-ever business and finally admitted to myself for the first time that I didn’t give two shits about strawberries. I was feeling particularly uncharitable when the thought crossed my mind that Miss Sweetie’s longevity wasn’t my responsibility either. I got up from my chair about every ten minutes and walked around my desk. Why had I committed myself to this business in the first place? I knew that on some level of my subconscious mind I was trying to replace my mother with Miss Sweetie, but I also realized that was just impossible because there would always be only one Lavinia Boswell Wimbley. Ever. As much as Millie or Trip might rail that I was becoming her, I knew that I was a weak imitation and always would be.

  On the other hand, which would be the good-girl side of me, I did love Miss Sweetie. She was a dear lady. She had given my mother the benefit of her great friendship all her life and so much comfort in the end. I owed her something, but I didn’t owe her the rest of my life. Solving berry blight or mold problems wasn’t the thing on which I dreamed of hanging my life’s reputation. And when Miss Sweetie went to glory, did I want to spend the rest of my life worrying about jam and Sara Lee and breads and pies? No, I needed something larger and more important. I needed to live up to Mother’s reputation, to be truly bold and original. And how was I going to do that?

  The minute I began flogging myself, there came a rush of justifications for my present state and an appraisal of its worthiness. Holding together Tall Pines was a noble endeavor. I was carrying on a tradition that had begun in my family generations ago and there was nothing that exceeded the importance of tradition in the Lowcountry. And overseeing the berry business wasn’t really a bad thing either. It anchored me to Tall Pines and gave some structure to my day. I was able to honor my mother’s memory by becoming meaningful and more relevant to her closest friend. To be perfectly honest, in some odd way, just seeing Miss Sweetie’s face lessened the loss we both felt without Miss Lavinia and kept her alive at the same time. That did give me a certain amount of genuine satisfaction. Maybe I would get the girls to help me over the summer. Belle and Linnie especially. Maybe having some purpose would help them mature in the right direction. I didn’t know, but I did know that I was sliding into a lousy mood.

  I was missing my Eric then, and just as his face came to the forefront of my mind, the phone rang. It was him. The only thing, and I mean the only thing, that my ex-husband, Richard Levine, had ever been right about in his whole miserable insignificant life was Jung’s theory about the collective unconscious. Somehow Eric heard my heart pining for him.

  “Darlin’? Are you all right?”

  “Yeah, sure. Why?”

  “Well, rare is the occasion when you call me during the afternoon.”

  “It’s ‘rare is the occasion’ now? Mom? Are you channeling your mother again?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Mom? You sound totally bugged. What’s up?”

  “Well, lots of stuff. Uh, nothing. I’m not bugged. Actually, I’m fine. I’m a little concerned about the girls spending the weekend with Rusty and Trip, but other than worrying about their personal safety, you know, things like the house burning down or a knife fight with mortal wounds resulting in death, or some kind of terrorist explosion, I’m really fine.”

  “See ya in two hours,” he said.

  “Oh, no! Honey, that’s okay! I’m—we’re fine! It’s just like having Osama bin Laden for the weekend and worrying if loud noise might set him off, that’s all. I don’t want to mess up your weekend.”

  “Yeah, okay. See you in a few. Love you!”

  So that was it. Eric was coming to watch over my nervous system, which, even I had to admit, was growing a new network of tentacles complete with suction cups. Maybe it was a good thing, that he was coming home, I mean. Gosh, I surely was feeling goofed up. I decided to take a shower and blow out my hair. That always made me feel normal again. And I would find an opening in the conversation to ask him about his new woman!

  I went down to the kitchen for a bottle of water and there was Millie baking something and humming one of her gospel tunes of ancient Gullah origins.

  “Smells like sugar. You’re baking?” I said.

  “Yes, ma’am! Making oatmeal-raisin cookies for them girls. You know, a little something to welcome them.”

  “Humph. Should’ve made a devil’s food cake!”

  “You’re bad, ’eah?”

  “That’s why you love me!”

  I could tell she was smiling without her even facing me just by the way she shook her head.

  “And, I’m making chocolate-chip cookies for Eric.”

  “How’d you know he was coming home?”

  “Humph,” she said.

  Because Millie just knew, that’s how.

  It was almost four in the afternoon when I heard Trip’s big SUV roaring across the property. I wondered if he had Chloe with him and what kind of a mood she was in. Had she packed pajamas, play clothes, and toys? What if she didn’t have anything to occupy her time? Why hadn’t I thought to run to the drugstore and buy her some coloring books or something? A Barbie? I was a terrible, thoughtless aunt and I made a mental note to correct that.

  “Millie? What did we do with Eric’s toys—you know, the ones he played with when we first got here?”

  “It’s all up in the attic. Don’t you remember? We threw out the LEGOs and all the paper stuff like craft books. And we saved all the comics, them crazy Transformers, and his storybooks.”

  “I’ll be right back.”

  Because it was too warm that afternoon for a search through the attic, the first place I went was Eric’s room. A dozen or so model planes he had built from kits were suspended from the ceiling by invisible wires. His collection of remote-control cars was lined up on top of his bookcases, each car parked neatly at an angle like a miniature showroom of an exotic car dealership. My father’s field binoculars hung crookedly in their cracked leather case on the wall by the window, and Eric’s student telescope stood nearby. There was a Garfield piggy bank filled with pennies that served as a bookend to dozens of science-fiction paperback books from high school. He adored Robert Jordan and had read and reread every single word he wrote. Action figures, arms and legs askew in rigor mortis, reminded me of Eric as my little boy, so anxious to grow up and be somebody’s hero.

  Well, he was more than my hero; in fact he was my raison d’être! And he always would be. I had a thought then about how powerful the role a birth father figured in a child’s mental health and how that relationship or the lack of that relationship traveled with us all through our adult life. Eric had a father who couldn’t be pleased. If Little Harry Shit Bird aced his SATs, it was because he was a natural genius. If Eric aced his SATs, which he did, Richard would’ve accused me of spending a fortune on tutors. Some loving father he was.

  I had scant memories of my own father but I clung to them like a starving beggar. It seemed I was doomed to one unhealthy or compromised relationship after another because, and I would never admit this to a soul, I wanted what no one could give me. I wanted that bottomless empty place in me to be filled. That longing, that endless longing, to be quieted and soothed.

  And little Chloe had a father who no longer loved her mother. At all. In fact, her father loved someone else with such passion there was no cunja magic on the planet that could ever undo the spell. Nice variation on the refrain. How were those little childhood nuggets going to impact this poor girl as time went on? We all understood why Trip’s marriage to Frances Mae was intolerable to him. It had been intolerable to us! So, to make matters worse, Chloe probably suspected that there was something enormously unacceptable about her mother besides her raging alcoholism. Like what if her daddy left because he didn’t love her or her sisters, too? Father loves someone else; mother is a reject and so are the children. It was a nasty soup to place before a little girl and then to expect her to happily swallow it.

 
Sometimes something else would emerge to save the self-image of many children with problematic backgrounds. Like a musical talent, a gift for science or math. Perhaps they would be fortunate to possess extraordinary good looks. Chloe could lay claim to no such thing. That poor frizzy-headed cinder-block-shaped chubby body of a little girl was as homely as a mud fence. In addition, she had a surly disposition and no particular gifts to recommend her. Worse, she was a whiner, which to my mind was the most obnoxious habit a child could develop. What would we do about her? This would require serious consultation with Millie and new combinations of her herbs.

  In the meantime, there were others besides Chloe to consider. There was Belle and Linnie, and although Amelia seemed to have made great strides in college, all four girls were going to need vigilance and care. I needed to win their confidence! Yes, that would be the first step! I needed to teach them about what mattered to Wimbley women and to women all over the Lowcountry and to women of stature all over the world! Tradition! By golly! I would join forces with Rusty and Millie and together we would raise the sights of these young women, raise them to look at things they had never considered. I would open their eyes!

  I had no idea of how to begin, but without that consultation with Millie, I took my father’s binoculars and threw the strap over my shoulder. Chloe might get a kick out of learning about birds. Okay. Birding was a bit nerdy, but I also knew that knowledge was power. The first step to empowering Chloe would be to teach her about the natural world around her. She could ignore me, but she would learn all the same. Osmosis would rule.