Same Beach, Next Year

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  I continued to smile and paid him for whatever it was I had chosen, hoping it wasn’t hemorrhoid medication or something to relieve some godawful thing like herpes. I didn’t need that bit to get back to Nicholas and by suppertime to Kiki. The thought of it put me in a lighthearted mood. Wouldn’t that be nice?

  I got home, unpacked everything, and turned the oven on to preheat, doing the conversion from Celsius to Fahrenheit with the help of Google. What did we do before Google? I said to the room, and adjusted the dial to 176 degrees. Then I opened up the Epicurious Web site and entered upside down cake in the search bar. And right away I found a recipe for clementine upside down cake.

  I got to work. There was only a hand mixer to help me cream the butter and sugar, but it worked just fine. Pretty soon I was pouring the batter over the sliced clementines and a bed of caramelized brown sugar and butter. In half an hour, my grandmother’s darling little house smelled like the citrus department in heaven.

  I checked my e-mail. There was something from Carl.

  Eliza, you had nothing to do with me moving out of the house. It’s Eve. She is so unbelievably self-centered and desperate for attention she did what she did and still doesn’t think she did anything wrong. Pathetic. Sad. Any word from Adam? Carl

  I answered him right away, although it was something like four in the morning in Raleigh.

  Carl, not one single word. Do you think they are together? Eliza

  He would not be able to answer me for several hours. And I knew it was a sign of weakness to ask the question, but I wanted to know the truth. Carl would not lie to me. Unlike my husband, who massaged the truth, but only when he needed to. That he ever uttered those words in the first place was without question the stupidest thing ever said by a man to his wife in all of recorded history. I should’ve given him a trophy.

  I checked the cake by touching the top. It felt firm. There were no toothpicks, so I broke a straw from the broom and dipped it into the center of the cake. It came out clean. I took it from the oven and put it on the cutting board to cool. After I put the cream all over my body, I dressed for the picnic, put the rest of the groceries away, and washed up the dishes. I hung the straw shopping bags on a hook by the door and thought that hook was probably there just for that reason. I’d bring one of the bags with me to gather herbs. Then I ran a knife around the edge of the cast-iron skillet and flipped the cake onto a large plate. It was beautiful, if I said so myself. In fact, I’d probably made fifty of that exact cake and they never turned out this well. It had to be the oven.

  Kiki and Aunt Anna arrived promptly at eleven. I’d always thought Europeans were perpetually late. I sure was wrong about that. I took the cake wrapped in foil with a knife and a handful of paper napkins and dropped it in one of my new bags, thinking how versatile it was.

  We all said hello and kissed cheeks, then Kiki took my bag and put it in the back of her car with the rest of the picnic, and off we went into the countryside to gather horta.

  We drove in the direction of Arillas, a seaside town an hour and a half northwest of Dassia. We passed under many canopies of pines and countless olive groves, through a half dozen tranquil and charming villages, before we descended down to our destination. I wanted to stop every ten minutes and just have a look to try and sear the landscape into my memory. But Kiki and Aunt Anna said, “Wait, wait. Wait until you see.” And of course, they were right. Arillas was breathtaking.

  “Gorgeous!” I said, thinking there must be a thousand shades of green and blue out there and the sandy beach was so white. Soon my phone was filled with photos.

  “Isn’t it something?” Kiki said.

  “Yes, it really is unbelievably beautiful.”

  We drove along the top of a cliff and parked there, where we could enjoy the panoramic views of the whole coastline. And there were picnic tables there in a grassy area for people just like us. We got out and Aunt Anna swept her arm across the whole sight before us, urging me to take it all in. I took a lot more pictures with my phone.

  We began to unpack lunch. There was a warm breeze, despite the time of year, and we were quite comfortable to eat outside.

  “So, Kiki? Is any of the furniture in Yiayia’s house hers?”

  “Eliza, you are sleeping in the bed where your mother was born, but of course it has a new mattress!” Kiki said and interpreted my question and her answer for Aunt Anna, who had a good laugh.

  I unwrapped my clementine cake and my aunt gasped and said something in Greek that seemed to be complimentary.

  “Thank you!” I said.

  “It’s gorgeous!” Kiki said. “Where did you buy it?”

  “Honey, I didn’t buy it. I made it!”

  “In that kitchen? With Yiayia’s old oven? You’ve got to be joking!”

  Aunt Anna had already cut a wedge and was eating it with her fingers. And even though she was moaning with delight and she had a mouthful, she muttered something in Greek.

  “Don’t pick on that oven. I think it’s got a little magic in it. What did she just say?”

  “She said, life’s short, eat dessert first!” Kiki said. “Maybe she’s right.” Kiki leaned over, cut herself a big wedge, and took a bite. “Omagawd!”

  “Good, right?”

  Eat dessert first. It was on T-shirts, cocktail napkins, greeting cards, painted on driftwood in every gift store in America for the last twenty years. And the saying had finally made its way to Greece. Maybe it started in Greece. Who knew? It didn’t matter if it was old or cliché, there was a lot of truth in it. I cut myself a piece of cake and joined them.

  “Yes, ma’am! You could be a professional pastry chef!” Kiki said.

  “I really love to cook and bake. Hey, do you think your friend Alexandros might let me in his kitchen before I go home, you know, to cook alongside him? I’m still dreaming about that meal.”

  “Are you kidding? I think that if you made him a cake like this he’d give you the keys to the place. I’m not joking, Eliza. This cake is that good.”

  We ate cake and leftover chicken cooked with lemons and creamy moussaka and picked on some marinated olives. There wasn’t a salad in sight, I thought. I’m going to gain a hundred pounds.

  After lunch, we repacked the car with our leftovers and locked it up. It was time to pick horta.

  “You’re going to have to show me what’s edible. I’ll probably pick out bad mushrooms and poison ivy!” I said.

  “No worries,” Kiki said. “I’ll show you.”

  We walked deep into the woods. The air smelled sweet, and it was a lot cooler under all the trees. For the next hour, we picked Neapolitan garlic, wild asparagus, wild mustard, and chicory. Soon, our bags were stuffed with greens. But with all the bending down and getting up I was feeling awfully tired. Exhausted, in fact.

  “I could lie down right here and sleep for ten hours,” I said to Kiki.

  “Jet lag,” she said. “It takes about a week, I think, to feel like you’re in your own skin.”

  “You know, I can’t just stay here forever. I wish I could, but I can’t.”

  “We wish you could stay too! I feel like I’ve found the sister I never had.”

  “Oh, Kiki! Me too!”

  And I don’t know what got into me at that moment, but I burst into tears. The next thing I knew, Aunt Anna had her arms around me, making sssh, sssh sounds to console me, and Kiki was giving me tissues to blow my nose.

  “It’s about your husband, isn’t it?” Kiki said.

  I nodded my head and the whole story came tumbling out. Kiki interpreted as I blurted out the facts, and by the end of it, we were all quiet.

  “It’s okay,” Kiki said after a minute. “He’s worried about getting old and dying. But I don’t think he loves her. He loves the memory of being young and the memory of her.”

  “Maybe.” I hadn’t thought of it that way.

  “Your life with him is reality. Not this silliness of pretending. Your Adam wouldn’t trade one of you for a tho
usand of her. Wait. You’ll see.”

  Aunt Anna said something in rapid-fire Greek to Kiki.

  “What’d I miss?” I said.

  “Old Greek saying,” Kiki said and giggled, covering her mouth with her hand.

  “What is it?” I said.

  “My mother says, when it comes to love all men are idiots.”

  I had stopped crying long enough to laugh.

  “They don’t just say that in Greece. It’s a universal truth.”

  chapter 16

  adam’s snake in the garden

  It was only seven thirty in the morning when Dad knocked on my door. The bed was unmade, but I had showered and shaved and dressed for work.

  “You got coffee?” he said.

  “Of course I do. I’ll pour you a cup.”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  I went to the kitchen and saw him walk down the hall toward the bedrooms. Why was he doing that? Maybe he needed to use the bathroom. I filled a mug for him, gave it a splash of creamer, and put it on the counter. Then I threw some bread in the toaster and took the butter out of the refrigerator. He reappeared and took a long drink.

  “You want some toast?” I said.

  “Okay, sure. Listen, son, I have to talk to you.”

  He climbed up on a barstool and I leaned back against the sink, steadying myself for some unsolicited advice.

  “Okay. Talk to me.”

  The toast popped up and I removed it, quickly dropping it on the cutting board. It was hot. I began to scrape butter across it and put a slice on a paper napkin for him. Now that I was maybe a bachelor, my goal was to never need to run the dishwasher more than once a week. I was going to conserve energy and save a little money.

  “It’s about last night,” he said.

  “What about it?”

  “Well, look, you’re a grown man and what you do is your own business.”

  “Thank you for that,” I said.

  “Eve didn’t stay here last night, did she?”

  “That’s a helluva question to ask. Didn’t you always tell me that discretion was the better part of valor? But no, she didn’t. Do you think I’m completely crazy?”

  He sighed heavily and said, “Women.” He folded his toast in half and took a big bite.

  “Agreed, but which women?”

  “Well, Eve was supposed to be staying with Cookie and she never came home last night. And when Cookie called her she didn’t pick up.”

  “She probably didn’t feel like getting read the riot act again. Maybe she drove herself over to Wild Dunes. Oh wait, she said she was going to check to see if Charleston Place had a room.”

  “So, you left her at the hotel then?”

  “I left her in the bar of the restaurant. Dad, please. What do you think?”

  “I think you have the wrong attitude, son . . .”

  “Oh, come on! I have not done anything wrong here. What the hell is the matter with everyone?”

  “Since when are you such a knucklehead? I am still your father and I want you to listen to me.”

  “Okay, I’m listening.”

  “Perception is everything. Finding you two together at Charleston Place and knowing the story about last Friday night, it looked like monkey business. No matter what you say you were or weren’t doing, it still looked like some monkey business was going on. I can tell you Clarabeth wouldn’t like it if I took Cookie out to some fancy restaurant without her.”

  “And from my vantage point, I wouldn’t be surprised if Cookie would pick up the check just to have you to herself for a few hours. Want a refill?”

  “Sure,” he said and granted me a sort of half smirk. “Thanks.”

  I filled his mug again and pushed the carton of half-and-half toward him.

  “I just don’t want to see you do something stupid and mess up your whole life, that’s all. Eve is a pretty girl and all that, but between us? Not much between the ears. She can’t even begin to measure up to a woman like Eliza. I think you know that.”

  I didn’t disagree with him.

  “Eliza thinks I lied to her.”

  “Well, if you did, then you need to do something to make it up to her. Lying is very bad for business.”

  I remembered then that Eliza had let me tell her the story of Friday night and I had left out the part about sleeping on the sofa. She had set me up knowing I would reveal the story only on a need-to-know basis. Omission of unnecessary facts was not the same thing as flat-out lying, in my book. When she nailed me on that detail I fessed up, didn’t I? And I apologized, didn’t I?

  “Dad? My conscience is clear.”

  I put my cup in the sink and looked at my watch. It was past time for me to go to work. Then I realized I’d need someone to do payroll for the week, because Eliza wasn’t here. Great. Thanks, Eliza.

  “Well, that’s good, Adam. One other thing. I hope you and your clear conscience will be happy together. If I were you, I’d be on a plane to Corfu. But that’s just me. If you want to have dinner this week, let me know.”

  He put his mug in the sink next to mine, turned around, and walked out.

  I could not remember a time in my entire adult life that my father had spoken to me that way. He had always had my back. His disapproval made my confidence wither a little. I hated it that he couldn’t or wouldn’t even try to bring himself to see things my way. In fact, I had a very strong suspicion that he believed there really was something sexual going on between Eve and me. He should have heard how I turned Eve down. I could have had her panties off in no time. I just really wasn’t interested in doing it. The timing was all wrong. Now, if Eliza wanted to play the wronged woman to the hilt, we’d see. If Eliza wants to do something crazy like file for divorce, I might give Eve a whirl. But it wasn’t likely that Eliza would be so rash. She had always been reasonable, except on a few topics I don’t like to think about.

  Go to Corfu? For what? I didn’t have the time for drama. No, I knew Eliza. It was better to let her live her dream. She’d be home in a few days, and if we still had issues to settle we would settle them like civilized adults, the same way we always did. I’d show her where she went wrong and she’d agree and we’d be okay again. That’s how a marriage is supposed to work. I’d forgive her for taking off and then we’d have a nice dinner. And then we’d have an epic night in the sack. Yeah, I was especially looking forward to that part.

  Well, I’m sorry to report that that’s not exactly how it worked out. Two weeks went by and I still hadn’t heard a word from her. I know, I know. I could have e-mailed her, but I was plenty pissed. I could stonewall too. What was she thinking? This was lunacy! Did she think she could just walk out on me and our family and resume living in another country? And then something terrible happened. Clarabeth tripped over the hem of her nightgown or bathrobe—it was unclear—and she fell down the long flight of steps in her entrance hall and broke her neck. She was carrying a tray of breakfast dishes because she liked to have her breakfast in bed. Dad called me right away.

  “There’s been a terrible accident!” he said. “Clarabeth fell down the stairs!”

  “Call 911, Dad! I’ll be there as fast as I can! Stay calm! Is she conscious?”

  “No. I think she might be . . . God, I can’t bring myself to say it.”

  “Don’t touch her, Dad. If it’s a neck injury, you might do her more harm. I’m in my car. Just hang on for a few minutes.”

  I raced there from Summerville, and for once traffic was with me. I got there in time to see a fire truck, an ambulance, and two patrol cars, with the lights spinning and doors left open. I moved through the crowd just as Clarabeth was being taken away with a sheet over her head. My poor father was sitting on the stairs with his head in his hands, weeping. I sat down next to him, put my arm around his shoulder, and gave him a good squeeze.

  “It’s gonna be okay, Dad.”

  “I know, I know, but I blame myself. I told her I’d bring the dishes down and she insisted on doing it hersel
f. I was in the bathroom shaving and I heard this horrible crashing sound and a thud and then silence. The most awful silence I have ever heard. Oh, God, I feel so terrible about this. I wouldn’t have hurt a hair on her head, much less be the cause of her death! Oh, my God! What have I done?”

  “Nothing, Dad.”

  “She had to wear those crazy slippers with all that marabou! I told her they were dangerous.”

  I could not and did not want to envision Clarabeth in chiffon and marabou. It hurt my brain. And where the hell was Eliza when I needed her? What would she have done if she was here?

  “She loved being glamorous. You know that. And Dad, her accident was not your fault; it was her time. That’s all. Come on now. Let’s call Cookie and tell her what’s happened. She’ll want to know right away.”

  So, he made the call to Cookie, who called Eve, who called Daphne, who called Carl. I called my boys, and then there was the matter of notifying Eliza. I wrote her an e-mail.

  Eliza, Clarabeth has passed away. Dad is bereft. Funeral is Friday. Please come home.

  Twenty-four hours later she was walking through the door. When she didn’t find me at the house, she’d called Dad. Not me. Dad. Dad, Cookie, and I were at Dad’s house for dinner.

  “Your car is parked in your garage,” Dad said to her, and he said something more I didn’t hear and then hung up. “She’s coming over.”

  “Fine,” I said. “It will be good to see her, I hope.”

  “Listen to your old man. Put a smile on your face and be nice to her. I don’t care how much you try to convince yourself that she’s in the wrong, she’s not. You are. And if you don’t want to lose her forever, stop acting like this.”

  “Let’s see how she acts too.”

  “Yeah, boy. Is that clear conscience keeping you warm at night?”

  I didn’t answer him.

  “Your clear conscience is going to bite you in the ass,” he said.

  I didn’t answer that either.

  We were in his den. I was watching the Golf Channel. Dad was reading the paper and considering a nap in the recliner. He was miserable, trying not to cry. What good would tears do?