At some point during the meal, my father asked Bobby Floyd what he did for gainful employment.
“I’m a partner and a cannabis chef in a bud and breakfast in Aspen,” he said. “Basically I run the place and I have all these choice señoritas that do all the real work. I’m el jefe.”
“You’re what?” my father said.
“Yeah, I know. Cool, right? We keep the bong burning for you. Ha ha! You know like in the morning, I make this special granola? We call it wake and bake. It goes down smooth with a little Sativa strain and freshly brewed coffee. Then, of course, at precisely four twenty in the afternoon we offer cocktails and cannabis. Three different varieties. They’re all perfectly paired to each other.”
“Is that a fact?” I said.
“I read somewhere,” Paul said, “that people who grow pot in their homes sometimes blow up the whole house. Is that true?”
“Oh, man, I know exactly what you’re talking about. Bummer. Those guys are total idiots! You see, what they’re trying to do is to extract the hash oil from the bud. It’s not safe. Not safe at all. It’s butane vapors that are the problem. They build up, the walls start bulging, and then, boom! The whole place just blows. They think they’re like in Breaking Bad or something.”
He stood and threw his arms open wide and said, “BOOM!”
People were staring at us. I was a little drunk by then and no longer able to remain quiet.
“Bobby Floyd? You sure are one weird and loquacious son of a bitch,” I said quietly. “Why don’t you show some manners and take off your hat and sunglasses?”
“Bobby? Don’t you dare,” Marianne said. “Mom? You can’t talk to my husband like that.”
“You’ve made a mockery of marriage, Marianne. I don’t know what’s happened to you,” I said.
“Take me back to Wild Dunes,” my mother said to my father. “I can’t eat another bite.”
“Right away,” he said. “Lisa? Walk outside with us, okay?”
“Excuse me,” I said, and left with my parents.
“Wow,” I heard Bobby say. “That was intense.”
In the parking lot my father said, “Has the entire world lost their minds?”
“Looks like it,” I said.
“I don’t know what to say,” my mother said. “This is terrible! Terrible!”
“Me either,” I said. “Here’s the worst thing. I think that man married her for her ill-gotten fortune!”
“Let’s hope she has a prenup,” my father said.
“I have to go back inside. I love you. I’m sorry.”
Then, and this is perhaps stranger than having Bobby Floyd as a son-in-law, my mother threw her arms around me.
“I’m so sorry, Lisa! You don’t deserve this kind of disrespect. You are a good mother.”
Then my dad opened her car door, she got in, he closed it, got in his side, and they just drove away.
When I returned to the table Marianne and Bobby Floyd were gone. Somehow they’d left and I didn’t see them in the parking lot.
Paul was shaking his head and signing the check.
“We could’ve sold tickets to that,” he said.
We left and began the drive back to the Isle of Palms. I started to cry. Paul turned the car around.
“You’re coming home and spending the night with me,” he said. “This is too much for you to handle alone.”
“God, I love you, Paul Gleicher.”
I texted Suzanne and told her I’d see her the next day.
Around six in the morning my cell phone rang. It was Suzanne.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“It’s Miss Trudie. She’s dead. Apparently, she died in her sleep.”
“I’ll be right there.”
Chapter 17
Answers
We reached the Isle of Palms as quickly as we could. I wasn’t surprised that Miss Trudie had passed away, as much as I was saddened to know it happened. There had been so much turmoil in our lives lately, beginning with my homelessness. Then there was Marianne, her sorry excuse for a business, and even sorrier excuse for a husband, Bobby Floyd. Next there was my unforgivably rude reaction to him. I felt like weeping. And any chance I had of restoring my relationship with Marianne had completely unraveled when I said those horrible words. My heart was just broken into a million pieces. What had I done?
“I’m never going to see my daughter again,” I said in the car. “I ruined everything.”
“No, you didn’t, and yes, you will,” Paul said. “Wait and see.”
“Why couldn’t I keep my mouth shut?”
“I think if you hadn’t said something your parents would have. And believe me, Lisa, you only said what we were all thinking. Even me. That guy is bizarre. There’s no better word to describe him.”
“I’m not crazy?”
“No. You may be a lot of things but crazy isn’t one of them.”
“Oh God. I’ve lost my daughter for good now.”
“Lisa, listen to me, okay? What kind of a young man comes to Charleston, which is one of the most buttoned-up places in the country, to meet his wife’s mother and grandparents wearing what he had on, talking like he did, and acting like a stoner?”
“Someone who doesn’t care about convention or what his wife’s family thinks. And he wasn’t acting.”
“That’s right. He deserved a lot more than you gave him. I suspect he doesn’t care what anyone thinks.”
Probably including Marianne, I thought.
“And there’s poor Marianne in a pair of cheap jeans and a terrible shirt, looking as if she’s been camping in the woods. I mean, fashion was never her thing, but she used to care more about grooming. Do you think she really loves this . . . this man?”
“Babe? I’m sorry to say this but I think she’s in love.”
We pulled up in front of Miss Trudie’s house. There was an ambulance there and a couple of other cars.
“Her body is still in the house,” I said. “You stay with Suzanne, and I’ll go to the EMS workers. I’ll have them take Miss Trudie out from the back of the house. Suzanne doesn’t have to see that. It’s the stuff of nightmares.”
“Good call,” Paul said. “That’s the kind of image you can never get out of your head.”
Suzanne was standing on the porch. I hurried up the stairs to her. I could see she had been crying. Pickle was pacing the porch from anxiety and she was whimpering, trying to tell me what I already knew.
I put my arms around Suzanne and she began to shake with gulping sobs. Paul leaned down and gave my dog the attention she wanted. And needed.
“It’s okay, sweetie,” I said to my dog, and she gave me her famous worried look. “Oh God, I’m so sorry. It’s okay, Suzanne. I’m here. Paul’s here too. Go ahead, baby, let it all out.”
“The room was so still,” she said. “I knew she was gone before I even checked to see.”
“I know,” I said.
If I had a dollar for every time I’d put my arms around someone brought to tears over the death of a loved one, I’d be a very rich woman.
“I’m so sorry, Suzanne,” Paul said. “Miss Trudie was a great lady.”
Suzanne nodded.
“Thanks,” she said in a whisper. “Yes, she was.”
“I’m just going to go inside and see about a few things,” I said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Upstairs, I took a deep breath and went into Miss Trudie’s room. Her corpse was already in a body bag and on a gurney. It was a terrible sight but I knew it was only her remains. Her soul had already flown to heaven. At the risk of sounding like Carrie, I have to say there is nothing more dead than a dead person. I spoke to the doctor who was there and the EMS workers. They agreed with me that it was a more considerate plan to remove the body from t
he back of the house.
“No reason to further upset anyone,” the doctor said. “These things are hard enough.”
“I’ll go bring the ambulance around back,” one man said.
“I’ll show you where the door is,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said. “And I think that elevator is too small.”
“Just use the front stairs. I’ll keep her granddaughter out on the front porch until y’all are done.”
I showed him where to go downstairs. In the kitchen I pulled the chairs away from the table to give the EMS workers extra room to pass through. Then I started a pot of coffee and went back outside to Suzanne.
“How’re you doing?” I said. “We’ll have coffee in a few minutes.”
The driver got into the ambulance and started the engine.
“Where’s he going?” Suzanne said.
“I told them to go out through the kitchen door because you don’t need to see her.”
“You’re right,” she said. “Thank you. I was dreading that.”
“Did you tell them where you wanted them to take her?”
“McAlister’s in Mount Pleasant,” Suzanne said.
“Okay. Good. Have you called Carrie and Mike? Or Harry?”
“No. I decided to let them all sleep for a while. If I call them later on, the story will still be the same. And my sisters. It’s four in the morning in California.”
“I’ll go get us some caffeine,” I said.
I put three mugs, a creamer of milk, a sugar bowl, packets of fake sugar, and the coffeepot on a tray and took it back outside to the porch. I laid the heavy tray on the table and began filling the mugs.
“Here you go,” I said, handing a mug to Suzanne with the creamer and another to Paul and finally I took one for myself, stirring in a little cream. “So, from here on in, Suzanne, we just have to make a series of decisions.”
“No, we don’t. About six months ago Miss Trudie gave me a manila envelope. In it were all her plans for her own funeral. McAlister’s bill is already paid. So is her plot in Mount Pleasant Memorial Gardens. And her headstone. We just have to give them today’s date. She knew what music she wanted and she even wrote her own obituary.”
“Well, I’ll be darned.” I shook my head, smiling. “Isn’t that something, Paul? That’s so like her.”
“She was a helluva gal,” Paul said.
“The only thing she didn’t specify is what she would wear on the glory train. I guess she thought it would depend on the season. Right now I’m thinking we ought to run that aqua linen outfit she wore yesterday through the dry cleaners and bury her in that. She loved it so.”
“That color was beautiful on her,” I said. “I can take it to the dry cleaners and pick it up when it’s ready. And I can deliver it to McAlister’s too, if you’d like.”
“Okay. Would you?”
“Of course!”
“Then let’s do that. Do you remember what she said when she put that outfit on?”
“No—wait, yes! She said she felt like a red-hot momma!”
“Saint Peter’s going to say the same thing,” Paul said.
Suzanne called Harry at eight thirty. We didn’t want to stand there and listen to her side of the conversation. Paul and I went into the house to give her some privacy. A few minutes later she came inside.
“He’s on the way,” she said, wiping her eyes.
“He’s a good man,” Paul said.
We called Carrie and Mike at nine, figuring they’d be awake by then. One thing to know about downtown Charleston is that on Sunday mornings you don’t need an alarm clock. You can hear the peal of the church bells that ring from every quarter of the peninsula off and on all morning long. And, just as we thought, the newlyweds were up having breakfast in their room.
“We lost Miss Trudie,” I heard Suzanne say to Carrie. And then she said, “Okay, thanks.”
“They were awake?” I said.
“Yes, they’re coming over right now.”
Then, a little later, Suzanne called her sisters. They said they’d call her back as soon as they had travel arrangements confirmed.
“They’re going to want to stay here,” she said.
“Suzanne, that’s not a problem. I can stay with Paul. Paul, can I stay with you?”
“Of course!” he said. “And bring the princess too.”
“Thanks, baby. I’ll just change the sheets and clean up the bathroom.”
When Carrie arrived we explained the logistics of the bedrooms to her.
“And I guess I’m supposed to move in with my husband anyway, aren’t I?” Carrie said, and we laughed. “I mean, it’s a studio apartment but we can make do, can’t we?”
Mike said, “Of course! So there you go! Problem solved.”
“Yeah, but here’s the terrible part,” Suzanne said. “I’d rather be with y’all than them.”
“Oh, sweetheart,” I said. “I know just how you feel.”
I didn’t tell them that Marianne had shown up with an unacceptable husband or any of the details from the night before. When Suzanne wanted to know what had happened, she would ask. As deeply upset as I was, this was not the time to discuss it. Right now we had a job to do and that was to give Miss Trudie the send-off she had wanted and deserved.
Tuesday afternoon Paul and I met up with Mike and Carrie at McAlister-Smith Funeral Home for Miss Trudie’s wake. Harry was there wearing a dark suit. He looked properly somber and I had a thought then that I was happy for him. Maybe he had fallen into the same trap that I had by thinking that work was my only life, that there was nothing else for us. Both of us obviously needed more than what we had been pretending made us feel complete. I liked the fact that he was there for Suzanne. I could only imagine that it was the magic of love that had humanized him. Paul had certainly softened my heart.
The open casket was at the far end of the room flanked by two gorgeous sprays of flowers, and a blanket of roses was draped over the bottom half of the coffin. No doubt Suzanne or the others who worked for her had done the flowers. And there was a basket from Carrie and Mike, and another from Paul and me that we ordered from her studio. Whether Suzanne had arranged the flowers herself or not, they surely had her signature style. Later I would discover her sisters had sent nothing.
I hated wakes. I really didn’t want to see Miss Trudie’s body lying in a coffin. Intellectually I knew it wouldn’t be her anyway. But still. At every single wake I’d ever attended the body never looked like the living person. I would never have said, “Oh, she looks like she’s sleeping!” It was like I was looking at the shell of that person, which, in my mind, it was. But I always went up to the casket anyway, knelt on the prie-dieu, and said a prayer for the family and for the departed. But, believe me, I kept my eyes focused on the lid of the casket and fought the urge to look at the deceased. It was just way too creepy for me. And I never understood how open caskets were supposed to be a comfort to the family and friends of the deceased.
As I understood it, the next day there was to be a religious graveside service performed by an nondenominational minister. Miss Trudie had given up attending church when she was eighty-five. One afternoon not long ago we got on the subject of religion.
“I’d like to think that God will understand. And if He doesn’t, we’ll talk about it when I get there. If He wanted to see me in a pew every Sunday morning, He shouldn’t have given me arthritis. So sometimes I watch church on television and read my Bible. It’s the best I can do.”
I remember saying something like “Oh, Miss Trudie! I doubt that God takes roll call on Sundays. I think He’ll probably judge you on how much joy you gave others and how much love. That’s if He judges at all. If He’s got any wrath, I like to think He saves it for guys like Hitler and Saddam Hussein.”
“I hope so too.”
I remember how she smiled then. She smiled so peacefully.
I was standing beside Paul, so lost in a memory of Miss Trudie that I didn’t even see Suzanne approach with Harry.
“Hey,” I heard Paul say. “How’re you doing?”
“Oh, I’m all right, I guess. Come. I want to introduce y’all to my sisters.”
“Suzanne’s doing great. Considering,” Harry said.
Well, that meant something I was sure we’d hear about later.
Suzanne led Mike, Carrie, Paul, and me to her sisters.
“Y’all? This is Alicia and her husband, Giles. And this is Clio and her husband, Ben.”
“It’s nice to meet y’all,” I said. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”
Paul shook hands with the men.
“We really loved Miss Trudie,” Carrie said.
“Thanks,” Alicia said. “Suzanne tells us that old Gertrude really liked all of you too.”
I flinched when she called Miss Trudie that.
“Hey, how about the airlines don’t give bereavement fares anymore?” Clio said to Suzanne and Alicia, ignoring us. “Ben threw a fit.”
“Yeah, that’s why I didn’t bring the children,” Alicia said. “Giles wasn’t too happy about having to pay full fare either.”
“Wow,” Carrie said. “Bless your hearts, I’m sure that must be a terrible hardship for y’all. Is that why y’all didn’t send flowers?”
“We’re the bereaved,” Clio said as though Suzanne’s flowers were inappropriate.
I could not believe Carrie said what she said but the larger implication went right over the others’ heads.
“Well, we loved your grandmother too,” I said. “She was a wonderful woman who had an extraordinary life. How long will y’all be in town?”
Alicia was checking her e-mail on her smartphone, so her husband spoke up. “We’ve got a flight out tomorrow right after the reading of the will.”
Now we knew why they had come at all.
“So do we,” Ben said.
I had not even considered the will. The document that might put Suzanne on the streets. And me. Well, I was accustomed to my place of residence being fluid but Suzanne wasn’t. I knew she had to be worried about it. I looked in Suzanne’s direction and she slightly shrugged her shoulders.