Pawleys Island

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “And are you doing okay now?”

  “I think so. Yes, I’m as healed as I guess I’ll ever be.”

  It was very late and the lone candle was almost melted away. We had begun our conversation with Julian in the armchair and me on the sofa and ended it with both of us, shoes off, facing each other on opposite ends of the couch. It was time to lie down and sleep, and we kept avoiding the topic, wondering how in the world to work it out without feeling weird about it.

  Finally, he said, “Well, ma’am, you’d better get off my bed unless you want to stay up all night.”

  I stood up and looked down at him. “I have a proposal.”

  “What?”

  “How about we sleep on the bed, on top of the bedspread and use the extra blanket in the closet to cover up? No hanky-panky, just sleep?”

  “Deal.”

  “Thank God! I’m sleeping already!”

  We crawled on the bed; I shook out the blanket and covered us up. Despite the month, the room was chilly from all the rain and wind. I curled up next to him with my head on his shoulder, and soon I heard little panda noises coming from him. Julian was asleep and I was in his arms.

  In the morning I woke up fully dressed and realized Julian had kept his word. I slept like I hadn’t slept in years. He was in the bathroom. The day had dawned, and despite the continuing storm, sometime during the night the power had been restored to the hotel. The air-conditioning hummed, and I was pleasantly comfortable.

  “Julian?”

  He poked his head around the corner with a mouth filled with toothpaste.

  “Yes, darling?”

  “Are you using my toothbrush?” He called me darling!

  “Guilty! Sorry!”

  “Oh, who cares?” Later, I’d dip it in bronze and keep it in my jewelry box.

  A few minutes later he sat on the bed next to me.

  “Abigail?” He took my hands into his.

  “Yes, Julian?”

  “Will you have dinner with me tonight?”

  “Of course I will!”

  “Are you going back to Pawleys this morning?”

  “Yes, I have to check my house. Do you want to drive up?”

  “I’d like that. Yes. I’ll try to get there before dark. And Abigail?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m staying the night.”

  “Okay.” I got up and opened my purse, found a card with my phone number and address and gave it to him. “Do you still promise to conduct yourself as a gentleman?”

  Wasn’t I coy?

  “That was last night, Abigail. Tonight could be very different.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not,” I said, lying through my teeth, smirking like Alice’s cat.

  I walked him to the door and I couldn’t tell you now if I was breathing or not. He opened the door, turned back to me, kissed me on the cheek and walked away. I closed the door and leaned back against it. Yes! Thank you, God! Yes! And then I had a horrible thought! Sleeping with him was one thing, but did he expect me to cook?

  SEVENTEEN

  STORMY WEATHER

  THANK heavens I had the presence of mind to stop at Whole Foods in Mount Pleasant on the way back to Pawleys. Let’s be honest, Pawleys might have been the center of the universe, but the food shopping options were slim. I picked up sourdough baguettes, three kinds of cheese, lots of fresh fruit, vegetables, fresh-squeezed orange juice, olive oil in an ornate handblown bottle from some teensy town in Italy that cost four times what it should have but if seen on my kitchen counter might make me look like I knew what I was doing, homemade sausages and chicken. When in doubt, cook chicken. I almost forgot wine. I didn’t have a drop of any thing in my house! Julian drank red. Merlot. They had about fifty kinds of Merlot. Oh, swell. Okay, I told myself, use your head. Buy the most expensive one and it can’t be too bad. I found something from California for twenty dollars and bought two bottles. Done.

  It was still raining and windy and little did I know but Hurricane Charlie was headed for Myrtle Beach, Pawleys and Litchfield. I kept thinking that Julian would call and cancel, and if he didn’t that maybe he should. But he was a big boy and if he really wanted to be with me, a little rain and wind shouldn’t stop him.

  That little bit of rain was falling at the rate of an inch an hour and the old windbag was blowing at around seventy miles an hour by the time I passed Georgetown. The closer I got to Pawleys, the worse the weather became. There was no way Julian was coming unless he didn’t have a radio or a television. I prayed that he didn’t.

  The other pressing issue on my mind was Rebecca’s children flying in from Maine. Rebecca probably wasn’t even worried, but I had a knot in my chest, thinking about them stuck in the Charlotte airport, or Newark, without a dime to their names to even call anyone. What if they got separated? What if they were hungry?

  By the time I got home at about three, finished bringing in all the groceries and dripping water all over Daphne’s clean floor, that mystery was solved. Rebecca called.

  “Hey, Abigail! Are you busy?”

  “Hey, yourself! Is the gallery open today?”

  “Sort of, but only because Huey wanted to make sure all the paintings were safe. I’m going home in about an hour. Listen! I have to tell you something that’s gonna crack you up.”

  “Go ahead! Crack me up!”

  “Sami just called me…”

  “They got in okay?”

  “Oh, yeah, they’re fine. Late, but everything’s fine. So, who do you think Nat sent to the airport to pick them up?”

  “No way! Charlene?”

  “Yep. So Sami calls me and says, Mom, who’s Charlene? And I said, Daddy’s whore. I said it just like that, really sweet and all, just like I was saying she was Nat’s sister. And she said, Is Daddy gonna marry her? And I said, Gosh, I don’t know; you’ll have to ask him. Then she said, Mom! I don’t want to live with her! She’s a pain in the behind! And I said, Well, Sami, that’s what you said about me too, isn’t it? Then she got real quiet, and after a few seconds I said, Are you there, Sami? Finally she said, Mom, this just isn’t gonna work. I mean, she’s embarrassing! And I said, Well, Sugar, I’m sure you and your dad can work this all out. After all, it was your decision to live with him, wasn’t it? Now tell me, how was camp?”

  “You didn’t say that!”

  “Yes, I did too! And, Lord, Abigail! She went on a rampage, whispering so that Charlene wouldn’t hear. She was still in the house, probably reading the hallmarks on the silver. She said she couldn’t stand Charlene’s accent, that she’s a low-class redneck, that she’s stupid, that she dressed like a teenager but all her clothes were at least one size too small, that she curses in front of them, that Evan couldn’t stand her either and on and on! I was dying to burst out laughing, but poor Sami was so upset at the prospect of Charlene in her life that I couldn’t!”

  “Unbelievable. Unbelievable. I still can’t get over the fact that he sent her to the airport in the first place! That’s the incredible thing!”

  “She said that Evan gave her some lip and Charlene said, I’m gonna tell yewr diddy! You don’t know my Evan. He’s got a mouth! Oh, my God! Nat has his hands full now!”

  “Isn’t it interesting that Sami called you to tell you this? I mean, another child might have kept it under wraps longer. But this is a good sign.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it will certainly be easier to persuade the courts to return custody to you.”

  “Listen, let’s not rush the custody thing, okay?”

  “Rebecca! You can’t leave your children with Nat and now with Charlene too!”

  “Abigail, let’s think about it for a minute. Charlene might be gross and disgusting, but I doubt that she’s going to place the kids in some physical danger. All she’s going to do is embarrass the living hell out of them.”

  “Rebecca! Wait! Your kids are still impressionable! If she’s around them all the time the next thing you know, they’ll be, they’ll be hillbil
lies! And Nat and Charlene carrying on right in front of their eyes? It’s immoral, for heaven’s sake!”

  “And so is two-thirds of what’s on television! Abigail! Listen to yourself! You sound like an old prude! You don’t think Sami can handle herself? She’s practically driving her new Mini!”

  “Rebecca!”

  “And Evan? He knows how to get around the block too!”

  “Rebecca!”

  “What? Abigail, my kids are very slick, and a week around Charlene will make me look very appealing. I’ll be getting the children back either in mediation or in court. If they can fly from Maine to South Carolina by themselves, they’ll be just fine for a while. I say let them go scratch their mad place for a few days. It won’t kill them!”

  “Scratch their mad place?” I started to laugh. I could hardly believe my ears! Rebecca wanted to teach her children a lesson, and it sure seemed like they needed it.

  “I gotta get out of here before my car floats away! I’ll call you later. What are you doing tonight?”

  “Tonight? Oh! Uh…I have a friend coming for dinner, at least I think so, but with this crazy storm and all, who knows?”

  There was a pause, and I knew Rebecca was suspicious.

  “Abigail? Are you having dinner with a man?”

  “You’re awfully nosy, Miss Rebecca, you know that?”

  “Ha! I knew it! Well! Good luck!”

  “Thanks.”

  Go scratch their mad place? I loved it!

  The phone didn’t ring and the phone didn’t ring and after I shaved everything, moisturized everything and got dressed in five different black outfits, I began to get nervous. Julian was probably coming. Maybe I should change the sheets? Was the guest room made up? Where should I tell him to put his things if and when he did come through the door? If I told him to put his stuff in the guest room, would he be insulted? I decided to set the table and then decided, no, better to check the guest room.

  Daphne and Byron had done a good job of making the old room look pretty good. My parents’ old bed was made up in all white linens and covered with their old quilt that I hadn’t seen in ages. She must’ve found it and washed it along with the ruffle-edged cottage curtains that actually looked new. It was amazing what a little soap and water could do.

  I turned on the bedside lamp and the room seemed comfortable enough. I put a bottle of Evian (which was now being purchased and consumed by the case, it seemed) and a glass next to the bed and a few blooms from my centerpiece in a bud vase. I thought, well, that should just about do it. The bathroom was clean as a whistle and I simply loaded the towel rack with fresh towels and put a new bar of soap next to the sink and in the shower. For a final touch, I hung a terrycloth bathrobe on the hook of the bathroom door and pronounced the room ready.

  Daphne had thrown out all the old magazines and catalogs that were stacked up all over the house, and as if by magic every room seemed larger. Yep, Miss Salt Air was looking very good for her age. I hoped Julian thought the same of me.

  It was six o’clock and time to set the table. It was curiously funny how for three years I hadn’t cared if the plates were chipped, if the silver was polished or if the napkins were pressed. Along comes Daphne, she snaps her fingers in every nook and cranny, and the next thing you know, I’m fussy! I’d like to say that I was calm about the whole night, but if there was a hurricane blowing outside, there was at least a wind advisory buzzing around between my ears. I set the table with the best china I had and lots of candles. After all, there was still the possibility of losing the electricity. By the time I had the flowers and glasses all in place, it looked, well, not too bad.

  It was six-forty-five and no sign of Julian. Stupid! I hadn’t taken his cell phone number! But if I had, I probably would have called him a thousand times and made a fool of myself. Damn it! I hated feeling so out of control! I decided to start cooking. If I waited for him to walk in before I started cooking, it would still take another hour to cook the chicken. And who knew? If the lights went out, we’d have no dinner at all, so it was definitely better to start cooking. Besides, hopefully we had better things to do than to stand around my prehistoric kitchen and wait for the chicken to surrender.

  I looked in the mirror one more time. I had mascara under my eyes. I’d have to remember to check that from time to time. And my lipstick was already gone. I reapplied it and put it in my pocket. But it made a bulge! I couldn’t have that! So I stuck my lipstick in the kitchen drawer and tried to remember to periodically check my lips out in the reflection of my toaster.

  I preheated the oven to four hundred degrees and told myself to snap out of it. I put the chicken pieces in a big Pyrex dish and drizzled them with olive oil and squirted them with lemon juice. Next I added fresh rosemary and a ton of salt and pepper. Then I laid the sausages in between them and sliced an onion over the whole pan, said a little prayer (Dear Lord, please make this taste good. Thank you, Lord. Amen.) and shoved it in the oven.

  Seven-fifteen. No Julian. I started slicing the mozzarella and tomatoes and opened a bag of salad. Lettuce on the plate, tomato, mozzarella, tomato, mozzarella, tomato, mozzarella and chopped basil over the whole thing, olives down the sides, sliced roasted red pepper here and there, marinated artichoke bottoms to the left and right, and voilà! A side dish!

  Seven-thirty. No Julian. Should I call the police? No. Wash the string beans. Get a grip. What if he didn’t show up at all? What if he got in a wreck? What if? What if? What if? BREATHE! Okay. It’s all good, I told myself. If he doesn’t show up, I’ll have chicken and salad and so what? So what? So what? I would fall apart and weep, that’s so what. And then, I told myself, life will go on. I took the string beans, nipped their bottoms and threw them in a pot, covering them with water, tossing in some salt.

  I walked out to my back porch to see if there were any headlights roaming around. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. It was as dark and depressing as it could be. My yard was filled with little ponds, and I would have frogs croaking for a thousand years. Maybe malaria. Typhoid fever. Maybe I needed to brighten up my attitude? But where was Julian? Many people had left the island because of the storm, but I didn’t think it was life-threatening, and besides, I had a date. Really? Where was he? I asked myself for the hundredth time.

  Ten minutes to eight. I could smell the chicken and opened the oven to give it a look. It was browning and probably needed another fifteen minutes. I sliced the baguette and put the pieces in a Ziploc to keep them fresh. I opened the wine, thought about having a glass and then realized Julian wasn’t coming.

  Who was I fooling? I turned off the oven and went into my bathroom. I was washing my hands, staring at my face in the mirror and giving myself the devil. Did you really think he would come? He’s a good-looking successful man who can have any woman he wants at any age! He doesn’t need an old hag like you! You must be delusional! The tears began creeping over my lids and I got so mad at Julian Prescott and at myself that I started to scream. Damn! Damn! Damn! What’s the matter with you? And damn you, Julian! Why do you hurt me like this? What’s the matter with me? Why do I leave myself open like this? Shit! Shit! Shit! I’m such a fool!

  I was so angry with myself. I, who had sworn off relationships and emotional anything, had succumbed to pheromones and carnal desire and vanity in the space of minutes. All it took was a chance meeting with him on the courthouse steps and one sexless night in a hotel room. I knew better and was acting like a smitten teenage girl anyway. Why hadn’t he tried to rip my clothes off last night? Because he didn’t want to, that’s why. I got madder and madder, and the fact that I had been such a fool made me even more angry. Damnit! I said as loud as I could. Oooh, just wait till I see you again, Julian Prescott! I am NEVER speaking to you again!

  The phone rang. I splashed water on my face, grabbed a towel and ran for the phone. It was Rebecca. Crap.

  “You busy?”

  “Oh! No. No, not at all. What’s up?”

  “Sami called me again. L
isten to this…”

  I listened and didn’t hear a word she said except that it had something to do with some transgression the children had committed that caused Nat to fly into a rage and threaten the kids that if they weren’t nice to Charlene there would be huge repercussions for them.

  “Sami was upset and I just said, Well, Sami? You’d better learn to live with them because this is what you wanted…is that a riot or what?”

  “Justice is sweet.”

  “What’s wrong, Abigail? You don’t sound good.”

  “Oh, nothing. My friend hasn’t shown up or called or anything and it’s getting late—that’s all. I’m okay. Just a little concerned.”

  “Oh! Well then, don’t let me keep you! He might be trying to call and here I am running on! I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay.”

  We hung up and I looked at my watch. Eight-thirty. Shit. I walked around my house screaming at myself. God, I was such an idiot! He didn’t try to screw you last night because he didn’t WANT to screw you last night! Why can’t you get that through your thick head? I was seriously embarrassed and feeling very low.

  Nine o’clock. Nine-ten. Then I saw headlights! Wonderful, beautiful headlights, blasting like the sun through my kitchen door, filling my house with glorious light, changing everything, and then I said to myself, Girlfriend? You ain’t got a stitch of cool in you. Jeesch! Calm down.

  I could hear his footsteps. Music! Oh, get over it.

  He knocked and I checked my face in the mirror—not too bad—and went to answer.

  “Hello! Anybody home?”

  “Well, look what washed up in the storm!”

  Julian stepped inside and proceeded to drip everywhere. He got out of his soaking-wet jacket and looked around for a place to put it.

  “You wouldn’t believe what the roads are like! Trees are down, limbs everywhere! I left Charleston at five o’clock!”

  “Here. Give me that.” I slipped into the guest bathroom and hung it up in the shower. “Don’t think a thing about it! I’ve just been cooking away and then the phone rang…”