Charleston

by Margaret Bradham Thornton

  Henry rattled the box. “Lures.”

  They followed a small path from the back of the house that took them through the land that was too sandy and salty for much to grow on except for a few scrub pines. They emerged into a cleared area on the back of the island.

  “Positive you don’t want to give this a try?”

  “I’ll watch,” she said.

  Henry tied a fly on the end of his rod and walked out until he was waist deep in the water. He anchored himself and then pulled the line out from the rod with one hand and cast with the other. He let the line run with the current and then followed the line with the tip of his rod. When the line had stretched way past him, he pulled the line back in and cast again. The line caught the late afternoon sun and for a brief second hung in the air. On the seventh cast, Henry jerked his rod and began reeling in a fish. It fought hard, but Henry was patient. He twisted his rod one way and then the other, and when the fish started to run, he let it go, and when it paused, Henry started reeling again. He wore the fish down within five feet of himself and scooped it up with the aluminium net he had clipped onto his belt.

  Henry brought the red drum ashore and cut a piece of vine from a tree and threaded it through its mouth and back through its gill. Its scales, iridescent in the water, were already beginning to dull and turn gray in the open air. Eliza watched without saying anything, and when Henry headed back to the water, she shifted her position several yards from the fish so she wouldn’t have to watch it expire.

  Henry returned within twenty minutes with another red drum a little smaller than the first. “This is probably enough, unless you are really hungry,” he said. Eliza shook her head. He looked up at the sky. The late afternoon clouds had already begun to scatter. “They don’t bite much after dusk anyway,” he added.

  They walked back to the house. Henry told her he was going to clean the fish and start the grill. “There should be some cold beers in the refrigerator. And if you could bring me a couple of plates. And some salt and pepper. There should be some candles on the kitchen table. Bring those and we can eat outside. There’s enough of a breeze to keep the gnats away.”

  They ate the grilled fish and drank the cold beer and were quiet between themselves. Eliza pressed her fingers in the soft dripped wax at the base of a candle.

  “You still do that.”

  “Do what?” she asked.

  “Play with the wax.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  She knew he was right.

  Henry stood up and took her plate and the two empty bottles. Eliza started to rise. He nodded. “I’ve got this, I’ll be right back.”

  She sat back in her chair and looked out at the sky. It was becoming streaked with deep pastel colors of lavender, pink, and blue in patterns that looked like the small streams of water left by the waves that ran down to the ocean’s edge. It was as if the sky were trying to run away from the evening.

  Henry returned with a light-colored blanket that had a red and green stripe on it. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go down to the water. We can sit on this.”

  “That looks like something from the West,” she said.

  “It does.” He turned it over and examined it. “Must be from my uncle’s ranch.”

  “Your mother’s brother?”

  “Yes, John. I can’t remember if you ever met him. He’s a bit of a recluse. He comes to Charleston maybe once every five or six years. He moved out to Wyoming straight from college and has been there ever since. Never married. Lawton must have brought it back last time he was out there.”

  “Don’t you have to get back for Lawton?”

  “No, he’s spending the night with his best friend, Sam Logan.”

  “George Logan’s son?”

  “Exactly, from Columbia. Did you know him?”

  “Not really. I was set up with him at some debutante party. Might have been Alexandra Lockwood’s.”

  “Could be. He married Alexandra’s older sister, India.”

  “He was a tennis player, wasn’t he?”

  “A very good one. Lawton and Sam play doubles together.”

  They walked in single file over the dunes. Henry spread the blanket on the sand and waited for Eliza. He walked to the edge of the ocean and watched for a while before walking back. “Tide’s just turned,” he said. “It’s coming in.” He sat down beside her. “Are you cold?” he asked.

  She shook her head and unfolded her arms and straightened them behind her. She stretched back and looked up at the sky. All the colors were fading fast—soon it would be dark. “So what did you want to say to me?” She hugged her knees and turned her head toward him.

  “A lot.”

  Henry pulled Eliza close and kissed her. She moved her hands over his shoulders and followed the ridges and dips of the muscles down his back to the old scar on his left hip. She still remembered the day years ago when he had snagged his skin on the corner of a boat’s windshield, diving to retrieve a lost water ski. She had forgotten nothing of Henry’s body, and he had forgotten nothing of hers. The ten-year gap, the distance of an ocean, had done nothing to who they were for each other. With Henry, there had always been a feeling of happiness that did not depend on what happened next.

  “You have always been able to get me to do things I’m not sure I should be doing,” she whispered to him.

  “I still don’t believe you,” he whispered back and adjusted his arms around her. “I know you better than that” was the last thing he said to her before they drifted off to sleep.

  A COLD WAVE RAN UP THEIR CALVES AND THEN RECEDED, and they both woke with a start. Henry shook his head. “Quick, here comes another one.” He grabbed Eliza’s arm and pulled her up. He reached down and took the corner of the blanket and stepped back quickly four paces, pulling her with him. The wave disappeared back down the beach.

  “What time is it?” she asked.

  Henry held his watch up to the sky. “Can’t really see, but it’s almost high tide, so it must be around two, maybe three.”

  “Did we fall asleep for that long?”

  “I’d better get you home.” Henry stood for a few minutes, looking out over the water. Eliza tried to see what he was watching, but all she could see was darkness that stretched the whole length of the beach with nothing to stop it.

  HENRY DROVE SLOWLY OVER THE CAUSEWAY IN THE DARKNESS back to a sleeping Charleston. It was as if someone had put a blanket over the day. The windows were down, and the air was fresh and soft and full with the salt of the high tide. Eliza pulled her long hair back and twisted it in a knot. She pulled her knees up and rested her feet on the dashboard and tilted her head on her hand toward the open window. As they drove up and over the James Island Bridge, it was as if they would soon be flying over the tops of the houses and pine trees beyond the marsh. The streets were empty except for one or two cars they passed headed in the opposite direction.

  Henry reached over and pushed the hair back from her face. “You haven’t said a word to me.”

  “It’s as if all of this doesn’t really exist,” she said, but what she was thinking was how strange and wonderful it felt to be alone with Henry. Somewhere, somehow, in all of the intense study and the hard work, she had lost some part of herself, and now it was coming back to her. It was as if something forgotten had been found. She closed her eyes for a moment to consider where she was. She felt as if she were looking at a detail of a painting that she knew well and finding the artist’s choice of line and color more intense and purer than she had remembered. She thought about that afternoon she and Henry had jumped off the Ben Sawyer Bridge. She remembered being perfectly balanced on the outside of the railing and looking down and concentrating hard on the ridges in the water below and at Henry, who was treading water and looking up at her. And she remembered that before she jumped she looked behind her, and she never understood why. And now she suddenly felt that if she dared herself to look over her shoulder, sh
e would see Jamie, and everything in front of her would disappear.

  She looked across the marshes toward the Charleston peninsula and the row of large houses along Murray Boulevard. Only a few still had lights on.

  “You know, I always dreaded the day my mother would call and tell me that you had married,” Eliza said.

  “You would have cared?”

  “I wanted to believe I didn’t, but I never let myself think so far.”

  Henry looked straight ahead and asked, “You still haven’t told me why Jamie didn’t come back with you.”

  Eliza braced herself. She could no longer avoid looking back. “I don’t know—I just got—well, I just wanted to slow things down. And then I suppose I got overwhelmed with the whole idea of living in England for the rest of my life. There was something so final about it all.”

  “What happened?”

  “I’m not sure really.” She dipped her head to look into the side mirror. There was nothing but darkness behind them. “But the idea of being with Jamie started to feel so foreign.” Eliza wondered if she were telling Henry too much, but she also understood that what had happened between them on Folly Beach had its own set of reasons and consequences.

  “Jamie is wonderful, but he never stands still, and he never enters a doorway the same way. And the idea of living the rest of my life in England was so disorienting. Watching everything that was familiar to me disappear.”

  Henry slid off the overpass down the ramp for Lockwood Boulevard.

  “I just finally told him I thought I should go to Charleston by myself—that I wasn’t sure we were right together—that I would be away for two weeks and when I got back we would sort things out.”

  “How did he feel about that?”

  “He told me I was making a mistake, that it wouldn’t be good for us. He had been planning to go to St. Kilda in July to begin work on a documentary. The National Trust had just given him the go-ahead, so he decided to start on it straightaway and not wait. He’s probably there now.”

  “But you decided to leave anyway.”

  Eliza paused and steadied herself. “I did.” She looked out across the marshes. “I can’t talk about this anymore.”

  He looked at her. She was still looking out the window.

  Henry followed Lockwood Boulevard as it curved into Broad Street. Within a few hours the Moultrie tennis courts would be blooming with young matrons in white tennis skirts and instructors tossing tennis balls to children who hopped to different places on the courts in their game of Around the World. But for now the courts and playground were gray and ghosted with nothing but the damp morning air.

  He continued down Broad Street past St. Michael’s Church. Eliza looked up at the clock on the steeple, but it was too dark to see the dial.

  “Henry, no more diversions.”

  “I know,” he said as he turned right onto East Battery. “I’m taking you home, I’m just going the long way. I remember driving home from Yale at Christmas and getting back here in the early hours of the morning. Before I went home, I used to drive around the city for five or ten minutes. Just enjoying the stillness of it. And coming from New Haven, where the snow had already started, the night air seemed so balmy, almost tropical. I used to love seeing the palmetto trees with the white Christmas lights strung in the fronds.”

  Henry turned down Atlantic and then onto Church. In front of Eliza’s house, he twisted the key to turn the Jeep off. He turned to face Eliza. He reached for Mrs. Vanderhorst’s envelope on the dashboard and handed it to her.

  “I am truly going to Savannah tomorrow to see the editor of our paper down there. I’ll call you when I get back. Anne called to remind me that she’s having a few people over for drinks tomorrow, including my cousin Louisa and her new beau. What do you think of stopping by and then going to dinner?”

  “How much risk is involved?”

  “Very little.”

  “Hardly any at all?”

  “Actually, now that I think about it—you’ll be with me—so none.”

  Eliza laughed and leaned over and kissed Henry good night. “Okay.”

  As she was turning the lock of the piazza door, Henry beat the palm of his hand against the side of his Jeep door. “Hey, Eliza.” She turned and looked over her shoulder. “I had fun tonight.”

  She paused before she pushed the door open. “Yeah, me too.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HENRY CALLED THE NEXT DAY. “SOUNDS LIKE I JUST WOKE you up.”

  “No, it’s fine. I have to get up,” Eliza yawned.

  “How’s your sunburn?”

  “I’m clearly being punished for staying away so long.”

  “Oh no. Well, don’t worry, I can think of ways to make amends.”

  “That’s precisely”—she laughed—“why I should be worried. I thought you had to go to Savannah today.”

  “I did. I mean, I’m here. I’m calling you from the office. Mother wanted us to come by before we go to Anne’s. I want you to meet Lawton. So I’ll pick you up at—”

  “That’s okay, really. I remember what happened the last time you offered me a lift.”

  Eliza sifted through her suitcase for something to wear. She wondered why she had chosen not to finish unpacking. Was she keeping open the possibility she might leave earlier than she had planned? She checked her watch—ten thirty. She knocked on Sara’s door to see if she wanted to have coffee with her. Eliza cracked the door, the curtains were drawn, and Sara, cocooned in her bed, was asleep. A standing fan purred in the corner. Eliza would walk up to Century Antiques to deliver the photograph to Mrs. Vanderhorst and then she would have the entire afternoon to correct, check, and double-check sixty pages of Magritte—her quota for Sunday and Monday—and to work on her essay and possibly even write her permission letters. She would delay sending her adviser her completed work by a day. She realized Henry hadn’t told her what time she should be at his mother’s house. She sat on the edge of her bed and called information for The Charleston Courier. “Mr. Heyward, please.” Eliza realized it was the first time she had ever thought of Henry as anything other than Henry. She asked his secretary to transfer her to the Savannah office.

  “Eliza, my love, you’re calling me to tell me how much you miss me.”

  “Not exactly. You didn’t tell me what time to be at your mother’s.”

  “Six thirty. You sure you don’t want me to pick you up?”

  “Absolutely positive.” Henry acted as if he knew exactly where they were going—like the other night when he led her through the darkness of the Roper House. But after all this time, how could he be so certain how she felt? Did he know her better than she knew herself? Eliza willed herself to concentrate on the present. With eight hours in front of her, she could visit Mrs. Vanderhorst and still make a serious dent in her pile of work.

  WHEN ELIZA STEPPED INSIDE, MRS. VANDERHORST LOOKED up from the magazine on her lap, adjusted the glasses on her nose, then clapped her hands against the sides of her cheeks. “Eliza.” She held out her arms. “My dear, what a delight. When Susan told me you had dropped by, I was so upset I had missed you.” Mrs. Vanderhorst held Eliza close and enveloped her with the soft scent of violets. Mrs. Vanderhorst’s dusting powder took Eliza back two decades and reminded her of a time when she and Weezie and Billy had helped themselves to the items laid out on Mrs. Vanderhorst’s dressing table. Mrs. Vanderhorst still wore her hair—now all white—in a French twist. “You look wonderful. Now tell me all about yourself. Dear, do have a seat. Mary Anderson just sent us all of her mother’s furniture.” She adjusted a chair next to hers and patted it for Eliza. “I’ve just made some iced tea with mint from my garden. Let me get you a glass, it’s awfully hot outside.”

  A middle-aged couple, marked as tourists by their permanently startled look and thick cushioned tennis shoes, wandered in and wandered out.

  For the next hour, Mrs. Vanderhorst learned all about what Eliza had been doing. Just as Eliza was telling her what she
might do next, a man with a camera hung around his neck entered and asked a question about a famille rose vase in the front room. Mrs. Vanderhorst stood up to assist him. Eliza reached into her bag and pulled out an envelope wrapped in white tissue paper.

  “Oh dear, everyone wants a bargain.” Mrs. Vanderhorst sat back down. She pushed a wisp of hair from her face.

  “I brought you something.” Eliza unwrapped the envelope and handed it to Mrs. Vanderhorst.

  Mrs. Vanderhorst’s hands trembled as she pulled the photograph out of the envelope. She sat looking at the photograph and then looked up and smiled at Eliza. “Oh, Eliza, I miss them so much.”

  “I hope it doesn’t make you too sad. Henry Heyward found a roll of film he had forgotten to develop. It was a day we’d all sailed out to the Morris Island Lighthouse. Eleven years ago.”

  Mrs. Vanderhorst shook her head and smiled. “You know, a day doesn’t go by that I don’t think about Weezie and Billy. William never got over it. Somehow he felt responsible for it all. He never said anything, but I could see him thinking sometimes, and I knew what he was thinking—if only he hadn’t taught them to sail and encouraged them to race in all those regattas. You know, there was nothing I could say to him. So we never talked about it. You and Weezie were such good friends. Good Lord.” Mrs. Vanderhorst reached over and patted Eliza on the knee. “Do you remember when Billy decided to teach the two of you how to drive that old VW Beetle.”

  “Of course. It was a yellow convertible.”

  Mrs. Vanderhorst steadied her head with the palms of her hands. “I was on my way home, and I saw these two little heads, one blond, one brunette, sitting in the front seat and another blond head in the back, and I thought, Oh my goodness, who could that be? and then I realized it was you and Weezie with Billy in the back. I don’t remember what I did, but I don’t think I told William. Billy had no idea that what he did was wrong. When you pulled up in front of our house, Billy was so pleased with himself for having taught two thirteen-year-olds . . .”

  “Almost fourteen.”