Pawleys Island

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  This friendly tango continued until I proved myself to be more equipped to clobber him and to be just as stubborn as he was.

  “Tell your client to settle, Mr. Albright. At the end of the day, this battle won’t be worth it for him in terms of money or his reputation.”

  “Okay. What do you want?”

  “The house, custody, child support, a fair settlement of assets and alimony for life.”

  “Gee, is that all? You must be kidding, Ms. Thurmond.”

  “I’ve never been more serious in my life.”

  “Then get ready to go to court, Ms. Thurmond, and get ready to lose.”

  I hung up the phone and looked at it.

  “You son of a bitch,” I said. “We’ll see about that.”

  Daphne, who had been standing in the doorway probably taking notes, said, “Ooh! We better open a window quick!”

  “How come?”

  “Get the bad cunja outta ’eah on the next breeze!”

  When all the windows were finally opened wide and the sheers billowed out and up in the gusts of cool air, she turned and faced me.

  “That nice lady’s in trouble?”

  “Yeah, well, no. Divorce. Her husband’s a dirtball and his lawyer is an animal, that’s all. They don’t scare me.”

  “That’s good! Good! Good for you!” She swung her fist through the air, socking the jaw of an invisible opponent. “Go get ’em!”

  I had to laugh with Daphne. She was such a little wiry ball of energy—not really understanding what was going on but wanting to be supportive. How did that character Byron have such a fabulous little sister? Maybe Byron was fabulous too?

  Later, when I arrived at Huey’s and while we waited for Rebecca and Claudia to arrive, I took Byron aside and said, “I am totally in love with your little sister, Byron. She is exactly what I needed!” I handed him a check with his finder’s fee.

  He arched his eyebrows and said, “She’s my momma’s true pride. Someday my little sister is going to rule the world. Thanks.”

  “You might just be right!”

  Rebecca and Claudia finally came through the door, and Rebecca looked flustered. Huey took Claudia’s arm to take her to Miss Olivia for the introduction and the inquisition that was sure to follow. I turned to Rebecca.

  “What’s up? You look a little discombobulated.”

  “Nat called. He broke up with Charlene. He wants me to call off the dogs. He wants us to sit down without lawyers and divide everything down the middle. He said, You know I’ll be fair with you, Rebecca. Haven’t I always been fair?”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him that I didn’t think he knew the meaning of the word.”

  SIXTEEN

  RISING TIDE

  OVER the next days, some things improved and others did not. Huey, Rebecca and I were at the gallery talking about the September show. It looked like Tom Blagden, the award-winning photographer from Charleston, was going to open the season, and Huey was out of his mind with excitement.

  “Do you understand what this will mean for us? It’s huge! Huge!”

  “You’ll have to cater that one, Huey.”

  “You’re right! And press! We’ll have press everywhere! Goodness! We’ll need the right invitation! I mean, after all, the right invitation makes all the difference!”

  “Huey! Don’t worry about it!” Rebecca said. “I’ll take care of the invitations for you! There’s a new stationery store right…”

  Life was moving all around me. Huey was planning his season. Claudia was coming by before she flew back to Atlanta. Rebecca was becoming more entrenched in life at Pawleys. And I was the one with the shovel, digging Rebecca out of her hole that she found rather cozy. Everyone seemed to be making forward motion except me. I had stepped back into my past. Maybe it would redeem Rebecca; maybe I would learn something. I didn’t know then—only that we were too far down the road to turn back.

  Seeing Claudia had done Rebecca a world of good. There was simply no substitute for an old friend and all those years of shared history. She praised Rebecca’s watercolors, and naturally, Rebecca framed one for her as a gift.

  “You can’t give me this!” Claudia said when Rebecca gave it to her.

  “I think it’s the very least I can do,” Rebecca said.

  Claudia was thrilled.

  “Gosh, y’all, this has been the best vacation! But I guess it’s time to go home and lypo some fannies!”

  “What a way to make a living,” I said.

  “You said it. But then, after I do a hundred chins and noses for vanity’s sake, along comes a kid with a cleft palate and I’m glad I hung in there.”

  “Claudia goes with a bunch of doctors to Costa Rica every year and does free plastic surgery for kids who need it.”

  “Yeah, me and thirty men. You’d think I would’ve found a husband by now. I’ve got doctors coming out of my ears all the time.”

  “You’d never marry a doctor,” Rebecca said.

  “Why not?” I said.

  “Humph! They all think they’re God!”

  “So do lawyers,” I said. “And I should know.”

  “Yeah, but you’re one of the good guys,” Rebecca said.

  I shook my head, hoping Rebecca was right.

  Claudia gathered her things and said, “I gotta catch the shuttle. Rebecca, you ready to go?”

  “Sure.”

  “Hey, listen, if y’all get a date for court, I’ll come back for sure, and if you need me to testify, Abigail, just try to give me some notice.”

  I felt reasonably sure that we would never go to court. At that point I had enough incriminating information on Nat Simms to put him behind bars if it ever became public. Even if Nat wasn’t smart enough to realize it, surely Harry Albright was, but so far Harry hadn’t budged. I thought that they were still counting on Rebecca’s former weaknesses of character to carry the day, that ultimately she wouldn’t fight back.

  If dealing with Nat and Harry Albright wasn’t annoying enough, there was the weather to talk about.

  The storms brewing in the southern Atlantic Ocean were a national obsession and a regional migraine. A tropical depression, to which I was paying some degree of attention, had become Tropical Storm Alex and then Hurricane Alex with a category three rating and winds of one hundred twenty miles an hour. Behind Alex was Bonnie and Charlie, and before I knew what was happening there were so many sightings of the Gray Man that I imagined he was grinding trenches on the shores of Pawleys Island. Too bad he couldn’t charge overtime. He would’ve been the wealthiest specter beyond the veil.

  Ah, hurricane season! August was to be a month of hurricanes, disappointments and surprises.

  We had our hearing over Rebecca’s order of protection. All four of us were there. The judge asked me to define the terms of it, and while I could have used the opportunity to bring up other issues, I stuck to only those things relevant to Rebecca’s safety. I had taken Nat’s temper and Jeff Mahoney’s warning of it very seriously. We said that we wanted Nat to stay away from Rebecca, that he was not to come within five hundred feet of her and that if he had any business in the Pawleys Island area he was to give me forty-eight hours’ notice. The judge looked at Nat Simms in disgust, signed the papers and whacked the desk with his gavel.

  Deposing Nat was an exercise in frustration. Before a deposition, my obligation was to inform the opposing attorney of everything I had found during discovery, which of course I did by putting it in the hands of the U.S. Postal Service the night before, knowing Harry Albright wouldn’t receive it on time and that he would be forced to attend the deposition, as I was always fond to say, naked. Shucks. I should’ve used FedEx, but golly, counselor, I wasn’t thinking! So sorry.

  Albright reluctantly agreed that I could depose Nat in his office, and naturally, I took Rebecca with me. I told Rebecca to dress very conservatively, which she did. She was not allowed to say a word while I interrogated Nat, but I encouraged her to
glare. Albright sat quietly by Nat while a court reporter recorded everything. Like the interrogatory, Nat’s answers to my questions were sworn testimony and perjury would be punishable under the law.

  Nat lied like a cheap rug almost every time he opened his mouth. It went like this.

  “Mr. Simms, have you ever rented a hotel room with Charlene Johnson?”

  “No, I have not.”

  I sighed deeply and taking my time asked, “Then how do you explain two hundred receipts for motel and hotel rooms on your charge card statements over the last eighteen months?”

  “Ms. Johnson suffers from terrible headaches. She commutes to our place of business from Orangeburg. Sometimes it’s necessary for her to rest during the day. We would rent the room for her and deduct it from her salary. It’s just too far to drive back to Orangeburg, and apparently a nap makes her feel much better.”

  I looked at him and at Albright and wondered if they thought anyone in their right mind would believe his utter horse manure. Nat and Albright simply smiled the smiles of the foolhardy.

  “And did you ever visit her during these episodes of ill health?”

  Nat glanced at his attorney and then answered. “On occasion, I would stop by to check on her.”

  “That seems like an extraordinary measure for an employer to take for an employee who earns slightly more than minimum wage.”

  “We value our employees. Ms. Johnson has been on the team for almost seven years.”

  “I see. Have you ever had sexual intercourse with Charlene Johnson?”

  Nat stopped cold. It was time to play hardball. He looked at Albright for advice and Albright spoke.

  “On counsel of attorney, my client would like to exercise his right under the Fifth Amendment.”

  “Have you ever smoked marijuana with Charlene Johnson?”

  “I would like to exercise my right…”

  Well, well. Wasn’t Nat a quick study?

  “Have you ever hit your wife, Rebecca Simms?”

  “Never.”

  “Been violent with her in any way?”

  “Never.”

  “What about last spring at a family cookout where you smashed her face with a hot hamburger right off the grill?”

  “That was an accident.”

  “And more recently at Louis’s Fish Camp, a restaurant in Pawleys Island, where you pushed her off her chair?”

  “She must have been sitting crooked on her chair. I don’t know why she threw herself on the floor. Ask her.”

  Once again, very smug. Not amusing.

  “Have you ever taken a check that was given for a deposit on a car at your family’s place of business and deposited it in your own account?”

  The tone of Nat’s skin went from rosy Caucasian to chalk-white albino, and he turned to Albright, who asked for a recess of five minutes. Normally, I would have objected to a recess, but I had accomplished my mission, which was to let them know we knew exactly what Nat had been doing.

  When they returned, Nat exercised his Fifth Amendment right one more time, and then another and another. It was clear that Nat Simms was all done answering questions for the day. Any half-witted attorney would have immediately called and asked for mediation to try and reach a settlement. My phone was silent for the remainder of the day.

  The only fun I had was meeting Charlene face-to-face. Once again, Rebecca came with me, dressed like someone from the Ladies Altar Society and Charlene showed up looking, well, very inappropriate. Rebecca had fought me about attending this meeting, but I argued her into submission.

  “Look, Rebecca, I’ve been through this a hundred times, and I can tell you that it will give you the strength you need to fight Nat and win if you can look her in the eye and not flinch. She stole your husband, for God’s sake! Don’t you want to make her squirm?”

  “Making people squirm isn’t my thing.”

  It was true—that wasn’t Rebecca’s nature. That was a litigator’s trait. Like me.

  “Okay, then let me put this to you another way. She sees you. You’re classy; she’s cheap. At least she can go home and feel guilty!”

  “I think people like her use any excuse they can dream up to justify the things they do. She might feel guilty about snapping at her manicurist for cutting her cuticles too close, but she’ll never suffer a moment’s remorse about tearing a hole right through my life and the lives of my children.”

  “Still, if you look her in the eye with daggers, it might unnerve her and she may possibly give us something to use.”

  “Oh, fine. I’ll come.”

  During Charlene’s deposition, Charlene claimed her Fifth Amendment rights about a thousand times, which essentially means, Yes, I did the thing, used the drug, made the phone call you are asking me about.

  But she wasn’t very clever about it. When I said, “Have you ever had sexual intercourse with Nat Simms?” She replied, “Yes.” But when I asked her, “Have you ever had sex with Nat Simms in his marital bed at his home on Tradd Street?” she said, “I’d like to exercise my right to take the Fifth.”

  Rebecca’s face turned so red I thought she might lunge across the table and choke Charlene. I put my hand on Rebecca’s arm and finally got the reaction from her I sought. Rebecca began shooting Charlene hate rays.

  It went on.

  “Have you ever been drunk with Nat Simms?”

  “No.”

  “Have you ever smoked marijuana with Nat Simms?”

  “I’d like to exercise my right…” And she giggled while refusing to incriminate herself.

  In fact, the hyena giggled and snickered so much that her attorney, also retained by and paid for by Nat, had to reprimand her. Nat was clearly lying about the termination of their affair. It was as hot and nasty as it had probably ever been. Okay, I didn’t describe her ensemble and I can hear you saying, Hey! What was she…She was wearing one of those stretch tank tops at half-staff with a builtin bra, from which her synthetic orbs were well on display. Her jacket sleeves were too long and her skirt was too short, and I don’t care where you’re from, you don’t wear rhinestone-trimmed three-inch heels during the day if you ever want to be invited to join the Charleston Yacht Club. And most especially not with fishnet stockings.

  The night after Nat and Albright’s mockery of the law, Huey, Rebecca and I had dinner at my house. Miss Olivia was feeling a little under the weather and stayed at home to rest. The weather was getting worse, and low pressure sometimes affected older people, making them sluggish.

  Byron and Daphne had offered to cook for us, but the truth was that Byron had it in his mind to teach Daphne to cook and serve with a little panache. She was highly insulted that he thought he knew more than she did. All afternoon they had been in the kitchen fussing all around, bickering over garnishes and to doily or not to doily.

  We went out on the porch with our drinks to eyeball Mother Nature and to try to predict the impact of her next rage.

  The eastern sky looked angry. Low dark rolling clouds the color of coal crossed the horizon in warning of what was to come. The ocean was swollen, its rollers five times their normal size and banging the shore, fuming.

  “This Hurricane Charlie has me worried,” Rebecca said. “It seems like there are so many more storms this year than last year—one after another. What does this mean?”

  “Nothing, Rebecca dear,” Huey said. “It just means that we are finally having a normal hurricane season. We’ve just been getting off lightly these past years.”

  Daphne was passing a tray of broiled scallops wrapped in bacon. They were placed on the paper-doilyed bamboo tray in a semicircle with a small bowl of dipping sauce in the center.

  “This looks delicious, Daphne,” I said.

  “I hope so! That crazy brother of mine made me arrange them five times!”

  I took one, and she turned to Huey, who debated the plump juicy merits of each one before choosing.

  “So how goes the battle?” Huey asked, popping a scallop in
his mouth. “Anything new? I’ll have another,” he said to Daphne.

  “Now that Rebecca has been deposed, pretrial is Friday,” I said.

  “How did that go?” Huey asked.

  “Fine. It infuriated Albright because he couldn’t get anything of value from Rebecca,” I said.

  “Oh, Lord! Do I have to go to pretrial?” Rebecca said in a weary voice.

  “No, no. Just me and good old Harry. Should be a blast.”

  “And for the great unwashed like myself who’ve never experienced the joys of the courtroom, what happens in pretrial?”

  “It’s basically just a conference with the lawyers and the chief administrative judge to go over the details of the trial like how many witnesses do we intend to call, is discovery complete—that kind of thing. What they are really trying to do is figure out how much court time you need and to make sure the lawyers are prepared to go to trial.”

  “Ah! Well, that makes sense to me,” Huey said. “Save the taxpayers’ money and all that?”

  “Exactly!” I said.

  “Rebecca, dear?” Huey said. “How are you holding up?”

  “Very well. I finally got to talk to my children in camp.”

  “Mother McCree! When were you going to tell us this?” Huey said, his eyes expanding like a flounder’s.

  “Gosh, it only happened an hour ago, and I’m still trying to remember everything they said.”

  “Well, first of all,” I said, “how was the tone of it?”

  “I called Sami first,” Rebecca said. “She came on the line and I just said, Sami, what’s happening between Daddy and I has nothing to do with how I feel about you. I love you and I just want to know that you’re all right. Has camp been good?”

  “What did she say?” I said.

  “I could hear in her voice that she was becoming emotional. I think she thought it would be a big battle, but I decided that I would just tell her I loved her and see where it went from there.”

  “Boy, that was smart! And so?” Huey said. “She said?”