Queen Bee

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “And? What are you saying?”

  “Well, in our family, we have the opposite problem. Our father just walked out one day and never came back. And there’s not a day that goes by that Momma, Holly, and I don’t relive the sting of it.”

  “No, I’m sure it has had a huge impact on all of you.”

  “I think what I’m saying is that whether the family member is leaving the tent or joining the tribe, all the members of the tribe deserve deep consideration.”

  “Leslie, you’re the first person I’m telling. The boys don’t even know. I’m going to ask Sharon to be my wife. We’ll get married right here in my backyard the week after Easter. If she’ll have me, that is.”

  The news was going to break Holly’s heart, and the boys were going to be devastated. What could we do to stop this wedding from happening?

  “Wow. I don’t know what to say. It’s such a surprise. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re quite certain?”

  “I am very certain. She loves me and she wants to make me happy. What else could I want?”

  “Listen, Archie, I’ve never laid eyes on the woman. I’m sure she’s perfectly wonderful. Too bad she got to you first, is all I’m saying.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think you know exactly what I mean. Holly and I and even the queen want nothing more for you than to be happy. But we want the same thing for Tyler and Hunter. None of us would think less of you if you changed your mind or went a tiny bit slower.”

  “I hear you. I’ll think about what you’re saying. But Sharon and I knew each other before we knew each other, you know, in another lifetime. I think we’ve been together through many lifetimes.” He wiped his mouth with his napkin deliberately and placed it on the table, signaling the end of conversation on the topic. “Now, did I see a cake?”

  “Sure thing,” I said and got up to cut a slice for him. “So you believe in reincarnation?”

  “One hundred percent.”

  “No kidding. Wow. Well, I’ll have another glass of wine, if we have any left.”

  I put a plate with cake in front of him and put his dinner plate in the sink with mine. Things were not going as planned.

  I was out in my apiary singing to my bees, “Honey bee! You stung the heart of me . . .”

  Hunter and Tyler popped up, giggling.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You’re singing and dancing!” they said.

  “Go ask your daddy to play the Supremes for you.”

  Chapter Ten

  Holly Grabs the Mike Back

  I couldn’t believe what Leslie told me about last night. She grilled the hell out of him and laid the guilt on as thick as Momma likes her pimento cheese on a Ritz. Worse, Leslie couldn’t believe Archie was immune to her charms, however genuine they may or may not have been. The situation was a lot worse than I thought. No man, as far back as I could remember, had ever passed on ooh-la-la with Leslie. And, in my mind, I could see Archie heading to the chapel. I just knew it.

  I was in the yard, working my flowerbeds, and had already pulled enough weeds to fill a large paper grocery bag. That amount of volume was usually a whole morning’s work, but I’d done it in under an hour. I was in overdrive, and if I didn’t get a grip on myself, I’d be so sore tomorrow I wouldn’t be able to do a thing. I decided to stop. I made a note to buy Epsom salts at Publix when I went in to work, just in case I needed them later. God, I was turning into such an old woman.

  The water pans in my apiary were empty. I turned on the spigot and filled a watering can. Then I put it on the ground and went to my shed to put on my beekeeper suit. As much as I loved my bees, I wasn’t taking any chances. If they got a whiff of my pheromones that morning, they might panic and swarm.

  Archie was a lost cause as the object of my affection, but the boys weren’t. Still, if and when he did marry Sharon, it might be awkward to try and maintain the frequency of my encounters with them. Besides, the decent thing to do was to give her the chance to endear herself to them. She wouldn’t be able to do that if I was around all the time. I owed them all some space and time.

  I told my bees the whole story of Leslie and Archie and Sharon, and waggle dancing ensued once again. They were telling each other something, but it seemed different than usual.

  There were so many interesting things about bee communication within the colony. In the morning, they send out scouts for food sources. On finding it, they drink a bunch of nectar and return to the hive. On reentering the hive, the scout walks straight in, shakes her tummy like mad, and makes a buzzing sound with her wings. The duration of the dancing and shaking and flapping of her wings tells the others how far away the food source is. Next the scout regurgitates the nectar and it’s gobbled up by other bees, sort of like a wine tasting. I’d read somewhere that the scouts are also covered in the scent of the flower, which helps the bees know which flowers are the grand crus in the garden. It all makes perfect sense. In fact, life seemed to make more sense in the world of honey bees than in ours.

  “What am I to do?” I asked them. “She’s a truly dreadful woman of biblical proportions. I’m not kidding. She’s so definitely the wrong queen for their hive. I know I only met her once, but she’s so wrong for Archie and she’s going to absolutely ruin what’s left of the boys’ childhood. Wasn’t it bad enough to lose their mother? A stepmother should be a buoy, a source of strength, but also a chance for those little fellows to have more joy in their lives. Sharon is anything but joyous. The only consolation is that at least they’re just next door, so I can still keep an eye on things. But don’t worry. I’m going to be very careful around her. I’ve got to be. She would shut me out if she thought I was doing the least thing to undermine her position. I know that. What do y’all think?”

  They just buzzed all around me and then left me to forage. There seemed to be no solution.

  Momma had her appointment with Sharon that afternoon. Leslie drove her there, and because Sharon did not know Leslie or Momma from Adam’s housecat, she wouldn’t have recognized either one of them. I was coming home from work just about the same time they were returning from the city.

  “I’m going to make us a pitcher of iced tea,” Momma said.

  “Perfect!” Leslie said. “I’ll cut us a slice of cake.”

  “I’m starving,” the queen said.

  “Espionage is completely exhausting,” I said, thinking I was pretty clever for once. “How did it go?”

  The changes in Momma were remarkable. Since Leslie’s return, Momma had not fallen out of bed once. Even more remarkable, she was out of bed and dressed appropriately. Now she was making tea. Her life force had begun to flow in her veins again. She was in exceptional humor. Well, I knew why, of course. Since Leslie married and left home, Momma had been in mourning for Leslie, her clone. She had been depressed. Here’s the weird part. I didn’t mind Momma’s turnaround one iota. I’d much rather have her this way than how she had been in Leslie’s absence. God, we were such a peculiar family. Now we were engaged in sabotage like the Snoop Sisters. But hey, every family needs a project.

  I cut a lemon into wedges and took glasses from the cabinet. Within a few minutes we were recapping the afternoon.

  “So what did you think of her?” I asked them.

  “She’s an imperious so-and-so and I didn’t like her one bit,” Momma said. “She wanted to put veneers on all my teeth and give me a Hollywood smile. When I told her I didn’t need a Hollywood smile, she said, then, I should at least bleach my teeth, and I said what for?”

  “She’s not telling you the best nugget,” Leslie said. “She asked her if she had children and Sharon said, ‘That’s one pain in my neck I’ll never have.’ Nice, right?”

  “Oh, God, she doesn’t want children?” I said. “Don’t you think Archie needs to know that?”

  “Absolutely,” Leslie said. “But how are you going to tell him something like that?”


  “Leslie’s right,” Momma said. “But surely, he’s going to ask her how she feels about the boys at some point, don’t you think?”

  “You would think so,” I said. “You would think so. But I don’t know what to think anymore.”

  “It’s true,” Leslie said. “The whole world seems like it’s gone mad.”

  “Are you talking about Charlie or Archie?” Momma said.

  “Momma,” Leslie said, “Charlie isn’t mad, he’s just too odd for me. People should be free to do what they want.”

  “I know that, but he promised to love, honor, and cherish you in front of every last person I know on this island,” Momma said. “He should’ve told you.”

  “He’s still perfectly willing to do those things,” Leslie said. “As long as I’m cool with calling him Charlene and watching him pretend to be Cher or Liza or God only knows who.”

  There was a pregnant pause in the conversation.

  “You did the right thing, Leslie,” Momma said.

  I said, “Why Archie wants her is inexplicable to me. Carin must be turning over in her grave.”

  Everyone agreed. What to do? What to do?

  “So, Plan A was a bust. And what we learned in Plan B is too hot to handle,” Leslie said. “What’s Plan C?”

  “Plan C is to think about it and tomorrow we’ll come up with something,” Momma said.

  There was a lazy supper of whatever we could put together from last night’s dinner with a salad of tomatoes, greens, and red onions. Momma went to bed, Leslie and I cleaned up the kitchen, then we took a glass of wine to the porch.

  We sat in our usual rockers, toasted each other, and took a sip.

  “At some point in our unremarkable lives, one of us needs to take a course about how to avoid buying bad wine,” Leslie said.

  “Good idea. I just put a lot of ice in it and then it doesn’t taste so terrible.”

  “That was one thing Charlie knew. Wine, I mean,” Leslie said, and paused for a moment. “You know, I don’t think Charlie is really so, so odd. I mean, way down deep in his soul. I think he’s afraid of life passing him by or something. He wants a thrill. A big thrill. Do you know what I mean? There’s something about getting married, buying a house, and moving to the burbs of Cleveland, or anywhere like that, that can feel suffocating.”

  “I was all set to be suffocated, and nada. Ain’t happening.”

  “Domestic life just doesn’t ring his bells. Like, he thinks his life’s over. There are no more big choices at our age. You’ve made them. Now you have to wait for a promotion to do just what you’re doing, except more of it, for some stupid incremental raise. It’s a big fat snore.”

  “You think he really doesn’t mean to be a full-time female impersonator?”

  “I think he’s trying to be outrageous.”

  “Job well done,” I said.

  Leslie raised her glass to Charlie, in the darkness.

  “That’s what I’m thinking.”

  “Maybe. Are you going to hire a lawyer?”

  It was getting dark.

  “Not tonight. I’m going to take a walk over to Middle Street and do a pub crawl. Care to join me?”

  “Me? Oh, Leslie. No. No, thanks. Maybe some other time.”

  “I know. But no guts, no glory. Listen, I’m losing my mind staying home every night.”

  “I’m used to it. Anyway, you go have fun. I’ll see you later.”

  “Don’t wait up for me, babe.”

  Leslie went inside and came out a few minutes later. I could smell perfume, and even in the low light, I could see that she had applied a lot of makeup. And she had changed clothes. It didn’t seem right for her to go to the bars alone. I hoped she’d run into an old friend and have a good time remembering the things they did when they were kids or when they went on dates or whatever. She was lonely. I knew what loneliness tasted like. It was bitter, and you wanted to hide it because complaining about it made you look weak and pathetic. But I was used to it. I just called it leading a solitary life. I guessed that the shock of Charlie and the rejection of Archie were the springboards to a good case of forgetting about propriety and all the barriers of the world women endured, although Sullivan’s Island was more relaxed about those kinds of societal rules. Good for her! Good for her to get out of this house and out of her box and see what fun there was to be had on this old island, even if she had to go it alone.

  But I strongly disagreed with one thing she said. All the big choices about my life had yet to be made. There was a future out there that had yet to be lived, and it was waiting for me to find it.

  I checked on the queen and she was lost in the arms of Morpheus, snoring softly like a bear.

  After I washed my face and brushed my teeth, I climbed into bed. Maybe I should paint my bedroom walls a new color. I liked that really pale shade of celery green. Maybe even trim it with something besides cream. Like pale yellow? Or maybe I should think about wallpaper. I needed a change. My old mahogany bed needed new life. I didn’t even know where it came from. Some long-dead relative, I guessed. Maybe I should paint it, too? And I still had my desk from high school and the same old chair. Maybe I should try to get some money together for a new rug. Suddenly, my bedroom, which had always been my favorite spot in the house, seemed worn. I was feeling so restless that night, my mind still running a mile a minute. When was Archie going to pop the question to Sharon? When was he going to ask her how she felt about his sons? When was he going to tell the boys? How would they react? That was what I worried about the most. I knew they already had serious doubts about Sharon’s affection for them.

  I must have drifted off to sleep, but around five o’clock, just as the sun was beginning to light the eastern horizon on fire, I woke suddenly and decided to use the bathroom. The house was quiet, as the air-conditioning hadn’t kicked into its day cycle yet. The floors were drafty. I thought to myself, Someday, if I ever have any money, I’m going to insulate this place the right way, whatever that meant. Most of the original island cottages had no insulation at all.

  I threw a robe around my shoulders and made my way down the hall to the bathroom I shared with Leslie. The door was locked. Something made me look in her bedroom. There she was in her bed, fast asleep. So who was in my bathroom?

  Oh, Leslie, I thought, what have you done?

  I went back to my room and stood behind my door, peeking through a small opening. In a moment I had my answer as a man emerged, carrying his shoes and tiptoeing as quiet as a little mouse toward the kitchen door. I recognized him, but I didn’t say a word. He was a guy Leslie used to date before she met Charlie. I couldn’t remember his name. When the moment was right, I cleared my throat to mask the sound of him opening and closing the door. He turned around in surprise and I gave him a little wave. If he had awoken the queen, she would’ve kicked his butt the whole way to Charleston. And for as much as I thought it was trashy for Leslie to drag some guy home she hadn’t seen in a thousand years, I did admire her nerve.

  Over breakfast Momma said, “Did y’all hear any noise during the night?”

  I said, “I slept very soundly. I didn’t hear anything.”

  “Me, either,” Leslie said, lying through her teeth.

  “Well, I heard thumping—you know, da dump, da dump, da dump. You know, like, you know?”

  “Hmmm,” Leslie said and looked at me across the table, crossing her eyes.

  I nearly spit my coffee out through my nose.

  “Really?” I said. “Could be a mouse in the wall. Or a marsh rat. They always try to get inside when the weather’s about to change.”

  “Yes. And the next time I hear sounds like that I’m going to investigate them with my shotgun!” Momma said and looked at Leslie. “You might want to pass that along.”

  Hunter asked, “Why do bees buzz?”

  I said, “Because they flap their wings two hundred times per second! The flapping makes the buzz sound.”

  “They must be very tired at ni
ght,” Hunter said.

  Chapter Eleven

  The Boys

  I saw Archie in the driveway on Sunday afternoon. He told me that he’d asked Sharon to marry him. She said yes.

  “Well, congratulations,” I said politely.

  “Thanks,” he said. “You don’t seem very excited about it.”

  “I think it’s complicated. Have you told the boys?”

  “No. But I’m going to do that tonight over dinner.”

  On Monday afternoon, I was sitting on the front porch in the cool air reading the Post & Courier when I saw Tyler and Hunter coming down the block. Their backpacks were slung across their backs like Marley’s crippling chains. Their young shoulders didn’t seem broad enough to carry their troubles, and before they even reached my porch, I read the expressions on their faces and knew they were very unhappy.

  Before they reached me, I knew what they would say. They didn’t want another mother. Or anyone to try to take Carin’s place in any way whatsoever. I understood that clearly. Their point of view was valid. And that was the problem as it stood between them and their father. They didn’t want Sharon. Their father did. Sharon, in the best case, was indifferent to the boys.

  Leslie was inside sleeping off a hangover. I’d heard her slip in the house at sunrise. Oh, Leslie.

  And my mother, believe it or not, had baked cookies for the boys. Okay, they were just the slice-and-bake variety, but for her? This? Are you kidding? We might have been in the End Times. Even Momma, hard-hearted as she may have seemed, felt very badly for the boys.

  When the weather was nice, Tyler and Hunter walked the few blocks home from school together. And when Archie wasn’t home, they came to my house. It had been this way since Carin died. There was always someone home in our house, so they didn’t have to go into an empty house with no one to ask them how their day had gone. Besides, they were too young to be home alone. And since Sharon worked during the week, they would continue to come to my house after school at least until they were old enough to have a key. I hoped.

  At that point, because I knew the ball was in play with no chance of a time-out, I had some thoughts for them to help them get through the crisis.