The Hurricane Sisters: A Novel

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Y’all hungry?” Mary Beth said, breaking the loudest silence ever.

  Maisie blew her nose with a tissue from somewhere up in her sleeve. “Is there any gin in this house?”

  “No, I don’t think so. But there’s vodka,” I said.

  “Good,” said my mom.

  “Vodka’s fine,” Maisie said. We all stared at her. None of us had ever seen her drink a drop of anything except gin. “Hell, there’s a hurricane raging out there. We have to make do, don’t we?”

  And, to my complete surprise, we actually laughed.

  “And we’ve got food for a hundred,” Mary Beth said, spilling the beans.

  “What are you talking about?” Mom said.

  “Oh shoot, I guess there’s a little more to tell,” I said.

  “I’ll fix up a quick buffet,” Mary Beth said. “Ash? You want a glass of white wine?”

  “Well, maybe a little one will get my pulse back to normal. What do you think?”

  “There’s medicinal value in it,” Maisie said. “I need to call Skipper.”

  “Therapeutic too,” Mom said, dialing her home phone and handing it to Maisie.

  “I got this,” Mary Beth said and hurried to the kitchen.

  “Tell me, Ashley. What’s going on, baby?”

  “Let’s wait for Mary Beth,” I said.

  Very soon after, Mary Beth and I confessed the story of our parties while we nibbled on plates of shrimp salad and cherry tomatoes stuffed with mozzarella and picked at a platter of cheese and fruit. My mother’s eyes grew larger and larger until she finally burst out laughing. Maisie began to chuckle then too. My mother stood up and kissed me on the top of my head and she kissed Mary Beth on her cheek. She couldn’t stop laughing.

  “You think it’s funny?” I said. “I thought you’d disown me!”

  “Well, I’m torn between admiration for your cunning and ingenuity and by horror over who might have been here and come back in the night and murdered you in your bed!”

  “I know, right?” Mary Beth said. “We were lucky.”

  “Speak for yourself,” I said. “I was just almost murdered by a senator in broad daylight!”

  “He was just a state senator. It wasn’t like he was Fritz Hollings or somebody,” Maisie said. “But here we are in a hurricane, three generations of survivors!”

  “Here’s to the sister I never had!” Mary Beth said, holding up her glass to me.

  “And here’s to the sister I lost!” my mother said, raising her glass to Maisie.

  Maisie looked at us and said, “All right now. No more sadness. From here on in, we’re going to live life to the fullest! Life is for the living. Here’s to us, we’re the Hurricane Sisters!”

  “Yes,” I said. The Hurricane Sisters. I liked that. I liked it a lot.

  We all toasted one another and quietly acknowledged that something very special had happened that night. I guess it would be similar to how men say it is when they’ve fought a war together. In the trenches, or wherever it is that men go when they have to fight a war, there’s a bond they form. A bond that lasts forever and supersedes the stupid mistakes we all make. Because they lived and survived combat together, just as we had survived a literal hurricane and some long overdue but painful truth telling.

  Eventually, we walked out to the portico to check out the storm.

  “Looks like Melissa must’ve changed her mind and gone on up to Cape Hatteras,” my mother said. She sounded wistful but most of all, she was relieved.

  We were all relieved.

  The wind had died down, but the water was still crashing against the shore.

  “Skipper thinks we should probably all stay here tonight,” Maisie said.

  “What if Porter gets out of jail and no one believes me?” I said.

  “Won’t happen,” Mom said.

  “You’ve got witnesses,” Mary Beth said.

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’ve got a plan up my sleeve that will keep him away from you forever,” Maisie said.

  “What are you thinking?” I said.

  “Don’t you worry,” Maisie said. “But I’ll give you a hint. It involves a lady of a certain age, a llama, and a short trip on Highway 17 South.”

  No one wanted details. We didn’t want to ruin our own surprise. And we didn’t doubt the cleverness of Maisie’s idea one bit. After all, it was she who dubbed us the Hurricane Sisters, a team of clever girls who could get through everything as long as we stuck together and told the truth. And as to my mother? I had to admit, Liz knew what life was all about. Deeply and completely. The rest of us still had much to learn.

  EPILOGUE

  Liz

  It was the Saturday night before Thanksgiving. Bill Turner was taking Judy to Paris the next day to celebrate her fiftieth birthday. We joked with them that they’d have a hard time finding a turkey in Paris, but I don’t think they cared about that too much. They’d tough it out and dine on truffles, foie gras, and caviar instead in some gorgeous French restaurant like Le Taillevent or Lasserre.

  In any case, when the news broke about the Porter Galloway attack on Ashley, the Turners were the first people to come to Ashley’s defense. She took a leave of absence from work because of all the attention Galloway’s trial drew, a decision fully sanctioned by her father and me. We had wanted her to come stay with us downtown until it was all over, but she insisted on staying at the beach. She needed her space, she said. Reluctantly, we agreed but checked on her well-being and state of mind every day.

  The Turners were so upset they drove over to Sullivans Island where they found her in the cottage, painting like mad.

  “Binge painting is excellent therapy,” Bill said.

  Ashley, as you might imagine, was traumatized by the attack and a bit depressed. As predicted, she didn’t enjoy the negative attention the trial brought. The most debilitating remnant was that she was so disappointed in her own judgment. She had really believed in Porter’s integrity at one point and she had placed herself in a risky situation at another. She blamed herself for both and wondered when she could trust herself again. Still, she handled herself with a grace I didn’t know she had.

  “I didn’t do anything wrong,” she said.

  “You certainly did not,” I replied every time she said it.

  The irony was not lost on me that even with a career of learning about domestic violence—I was supposed to be an expert on the subject—I still had failed to spot the signs in my own daughter’s life. Even when they were staring me in the face and even when I was warned.

  Maisie and I had been in a similar situation that resulted in the death of my poor sister. Maisie knew Juliet was being abused because I told her, but she wouldn’t believe it because she had not seen it herself. And we paid a horrible, horrible price by not acting on the facts and our intuitions. This was the wound between us that festered for all these years. There was nothing to be done about that now except to try and forgive ourselves and each other.

  But back to my other point, the Turners were among Ashley’s first and strongest supporters. What the Turners didn’t expect when they visited her studio was to be astounded by Ashley’s work. To Ashley’s complete surprise, they offered her a show. She was happy for the first time in a long time. And we, Clayton and I, were so touched that I told them so.

  “Thank you for doing this for her,” I said. “Maybe this is just the thing that will bring her back to her normal self.”

  “That’s not why we’re doing this. Ashley deserves a show on the merit of her work. I wouldn’t even entertain the idea unless she did. None of us realized that your daughter has such an extraordinary talent,” Judy said. “Fresh and new . . . I just love her point of view.”

  Of course, Maisie, on hearing the news, piped up and said, “Well, I always thought so. I said so from the time she was this big
.”

  She held her thumb and forefinger just slightly apart in front of my face, to show us just how long ago she knew. I just wanted to pinch her, you know?

  When Clayton and I saw Ashley’s paintings all lined up against a wall, we were shocked. There was a series of palmettos and birds painted in bold and vivid colors, but her figurative paintings had a powerful emotional punch and were very moving. Even a little strange. Especially the one of Ivy, at least I thought it was Ivy, sitting all alone on the front steps of a big building. It made me want to sob because all I could think about was all the unnecessary pain we inflicted on one another. But that was buried in the attic of the past where it belonged.

  There was a very strange acrylic of a wolf dressed in a uniform with a wolf’s tail, hands, and feet. He was playing cards with a bunch of other wolves, and oddly, he looked familiar through the eyes. I didn’t know what the symbolism meant, but I was sure Ashley would tell me. And there was a portrait of a young woman on a balcony. Juliet. My sister. Except she was Ashley. Or was she? Then there was some kind of homage to The Birth of Venus that looked a bit like me and another of Mona Lisa except that the face was clearly Maisie’s. What did they mean? Well, Maisie surely kept secrets when she wanted to and she certainly considered herself to be all-knowing. Me? There was no question that I had been reborn. So had my marriage and in fact, the whole darn bunch of us had taken a huge turn for the better. I took it upon myself to be sure we stayed on the right track.

  So after weeks of planning, my entire family, including a fully recovered Skipper and of course Ivy’s James, were all gathered at the Turner Gallery for the opening of Ashley’s first exhibition. The Turners used their extensive mailing list and sent beautiful invitations to everyone they knew. I had invited Tom and Vicki and of course the Malcolms and the Karols.

  In less than an hour, guests would start to arrive. Clayton had offered to underwrite all the catering, which Mary Beth was hired to provide, but the Turners wouldn’t hear of it. They wanted to give Ashley a grand debut because they loved her. And they said she would always remember that they hosted the first professional show of her career. So contracts were drawn up; canvases were insured and transported, installed, and lit; and a catalog was produced with a price list. How the Turners determined the prices was beyond me, but it was amazing to Clayton and to me that they thought her smallest canvas could bring fifteen hundred dollars.

  “I’ve got my doubts about that,” he said.

  “What do we know?” I said.

  He shook his head in agreement.

  Despite our misgivings, we were, all of us, bursting with pride over the confidence the Turners had in Ashley’s talent and about the dignified way she continued to handle herself. She was fully emotionally prepared to enter the ranks of professional artists. By the way, Tommy Milano was at her side and had been a fixture in her life for quite a while.

  “We’re just friends,” she said. Nevertheless, she bought him a new bow tie with tiny pianos all over it. And any fool could see they were very fond of each other.

  I can’t tell you that the past few months were easy. Buckets of tears were shed, especially between Maisie and me as we struggled to bury our hatchets. But a new peace was forged at last, and things between us would be remarkably kinder for the rest of our days. I hoped.

  Just last week, we were on the portico of our house on Sullivans Island talking about Ashley’s show and the subject of Juliet came up.

  “For once and for all, you have to stop blaming yourself,” I said. “You talk to me about forgiveness? It has to start with you, Maisie. I’m sure Juliet doesn’t blame you or me.”

  “She was my firstborn child,” she said. “I lost my beautiful daughter.”

  The anguish in her voice had diminished over the years but the profound sorrow was still there. Her eyes, the color faded from her years, were rimmed in red and brimming with tears.

  “She was my only sister,” I said. “I lost my only sister.”

  Suddenly, she threw her arms around me and said for the first time, “I’m so sorry, Liz. I’m so sorry.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  “I should have tried to comfort you.”

  That was all I had ever wanted to hear her say.

  Needless to say, Clayton was a changed and better man. Retirement agreed with him. He decided he wanted to spend more time on the island and said that in the fall he was going to renovate the whole house.

  “It’s a sin not to take care of this old place,” he said. “Hey! Maybe next month Maisie can show me how to plant tomatoes. It would be nice to have tomatoes all summer. What do you think?”

  “I think she’d love to plant a whole vegetable garden with you,” I said.

  It would be a good project for him. He was as sweet as a little lamb and I’m so happy to report that he played golf with Skipper three times a week and with David and Steve on the weekends. Now I wouldn’t have to chase a stupid little ball all over the place for hours in the blazing sun. Thank you, Skipper. Really.

  But the best news of all was that Porter Galloway resigned from office and was rumored to be moving to East Africa on a mission sponsored by his mother’s church. His plan was to try and redeem himself and his reputation by becoming a member of the clergy. Please, I know. But he could only leave the country after he served a little time as a guest of the state. He made as many public apologies as he could until none of the press would take his phone calls. Apparently his hubris and violent nature were no longer news. All I cared about was that soon he was headed to the other side of the world, away from my daughter. I hoped he’d stay there forever. And just to be sure he stayed away, Maisie walked a llama down Highway 17. He could never reconcile with Ashley or, heaven forbid, try to marry her when her grandmother had such a loose screw. Especially if he had delusions about running for public office ever again.

  And, I have to say, my Ashley looked so beautiful at her opening. She was wearing a new dress her father and I bought her. It was a simple design, a deep blue lightweight wool dress. Maisie’s triple strand of pearls hung around her neck.

  “Jackie O would’ve loved this dress,” I said.

  “So would Audrey Hepburn,” she said.

  “Audrey Hepburn?”

  “Yes,” she said, quite seriously. “I’m closing my chapter on politics and politicians’ wives. I’m moving on to Hollywood and old film stars.”

  Now, who would blame her for that?

  We opened the doors at six and people drifted in, showing their invitations and giving their names to a pretty young girl with a guest list. By six thirty, the gallery was quite full. Among them was a young lawyer named Cindy Lue Elder. Ashley brought her over to introduce her to me.

  “I thought y’all should meet,” Ashley said.

  “Oh? Well, hello, Cindy, and welcome!” I said. “How do y’all know each other?”

  “I used to be the princess of denial,” she said, and when she saw my puzzled expression, she added, “I used to be involved with Porter Galloway.”

  “Oh, dear. Denial. Classic victim response,” I said.

  “Now I do legal work for a battered women’s shelter in Cleveland,” she said. “I’m just so glad Ashley is okay.”

  “So are we,” I said.

  Soon Ashley had been photographed by all the local papers and interviewed as well. Clayton was holding court in one room and Maisie in another, both of them going on about how Ashley inherited her talent from them. It really made me laugh. And Ivy? He was making sure that Ashley worked the room and didn’t miss meeting anyone who might be a potential buyer. His retail experience was invaluable that night because by the time we left the gallery for dinner at Charleston Place, every canvas but one was sold.

  “Which one didn’t sell?” I asked after we had toasted Ashley so many times it was just ridiculous.

  “The wolf,
” she said.

  “Give it to me,” Maisie said. “I’ll give it to Porter’s mother. I never liked her anyway.”

  “What?” I said. “That wolf was Porter?”

  I whispered Porter’s name for the sake of our family’s privacy. I was still afraid that if we mentioned him in public it would wind up in all the media.

  “Who else could it have been?” Tommy said.

  “That is so perfect,” Ivy said.

  “I love your family,” James said. “I mean love!”

  “So do I,” said Tommy. “Hey! Where’s Mary Beth?”

  “She’s cleaning up. She’ll be along soon,” Clayton said.

  “She’s a treasure,” I said and thought about how hard she worked at My Sister’s House.

  “Well, Ashley?” Skipper said. “It’s time to go bohemian, don’t you think?”

  “Paris?” she said, and her pretty eyes were filled with dreams once again. “Montmartre?”

  “You can’t afford . . . ,” Clayton said and stopped. “Wait. Yes, you can afford it. You made a small fortune tonight and you know what? If you run out of money, let me know. I’ll help you.”

  “I will too,” Maisie said. “Artists have had patrons throughout history.”

  I gave my mother a look.

  “What?” she said.

  “Nothing,” I said. Soon, Ashley wouldn’t need a dime from anyone.

  “I was thinking maybe next April?” Ashley said.

  “Should I sing it?” Ivy said. “Hmmm?”

  “Juliet would have loved Paris. I’ll have to paint for two.”

  April in Paris. Maybe I’d go with her, help her find a safe apartment in a suitable neighborhood. We could use a mother-daughter trip. And she was right. Juliet would have loved Paris.

  I looked around the table and marveled at how our lives had changed so much in such a short period of time. We were an imperfect family. I knew that. But at last we were on each other’s side, dug in with a new and more profound commitment. Our happiness was hard won, it was ours and I was determined to keep us whole. The world had not heard the last of this Hurricane Sister or of the others as well. We all still have a lot of noise left to make. You can count on it.