* * *
Pat’s answer to that question was simple: we were in love, we didn’t want to be apart, and we were too damn old to be traveling back and forth to see each other. Once my classes started back, the traveling would have to be all on his part again. He wasn’t in the best of health and the frequent drives to see me had about killed him. Plus there was the situation with his father, who’d be staying in Beaufort for treatment. Colonel Conroy’s stay would be divided between Pat and Kathy, but Kathy worked full-time so Pat would be the one taking his father most of the time. Our long-distance relationship was about to get a lot more complicated.
It would make more sense for me to move in with him than for him to move to Gadsden, Pat said. Only his earnest expression kept me from laughing out loud in sheer astonishment. Him in Podunk, Alabama, when he could be on a tropical island? Surely he wasn’t serious! Although the invitation to move to Fripp Island was certainly tempting, I couldn’t see giving up a great teaching job at a time when they were so hard to come by. I’d somehow lucked up and landed a teaching position over hundreds of other applicants, probably because I was a published author and could teach creative writing as well. The joke in my profession was, What does the PhD in English say on his/her first day on the job? Answer: Would you like fries with that? Or worse, what do you call a male PhD without a girlfriend? Answer: Homeless.
It wasn’t a good idea for me to give up such a hard-to-come-by job, I told Pat reluctantly. He scoffed, saying I could teach in South Carolina. He knew plenty of folks at the local colleges and could get me a position, if that’s what I wanted. My reluctance bewildered him. Where was my sense of adventure? Women always claimed to be more romantic than men, but obviously that was nothing but bull, he said in frustration. Couldn’t I give it all up for love?
Apparently not. I told myself I had better sense but the truth was, I was scared. Pat had been involved in two other relationships since he’d separated from his ex-wife, and neither of them had worked out. Suppose I threw caution to the wind and the pattern repeated itself? He had a way of disappearing on people, and if he did, where would I be? Answer: I’d be out of a job and in a strange place where I knew hardly anyone.
Nope. Wasn’t going to happen.
Even so, I began the 1997 fall semester back at my teaching job haunted by an image of Pat that I wasn’t able to get out of my mind. He’d invited Bill and Loretta to come to Fripp with me on Labor Day weekend, our last stretch of time together before my school year began. We’d had a thoroughly enjoyable time, but as we packed the car, Pat pulled me aside. “So you’re really going to leave me here all by my lonesome?” he said. I repeated what I’d told him before, that I felt it was best for both of us. If he still felt the same way at the end of the school year in May, then we’d talk about my moving there again.
“Go ahead then, break my heart. I knew you would,” he said, throwing his hands up in the air. It was so typical of him that I laughed and got in the car. As usual, it was impossible to tell if he was serious. Was he? Was I crazy to turn down a chance to be with the man I knew now that I truly loved?
As we pulled out of the driveway, waving, Pat stood on the porch and watched us, hands in his pockets. He looked so forlorn I could barely stand it, and I blinked to keep from boo-hooing. Eyeing me in the rearview mirror, Loretta gave me a sly smile. “Oh, girl, you got it bad, don’t you? And I think he does too.”
“I don’t know, Loretta.” I sighed. “Maybe. But how can I be sure?”
This time it was Bill, my former teacher, who caught my eye. My Alabama friends had another nickname for me, K.B. (Don’t ask.) “Aw, c’mon, K.B.” Bill snorted. “You know better than that. How can any of us be sure of any damn thing in this life? You love the guy, he loves you, and neither of you are getting any younger. If you throw that away, you’re nuttier than I thought you were.”
* * *
Pat and I were miserable apart, and we talked for long hours every night like a couple of lovesick teenagers. As much as I enjoyed teaching, my mind was elsewhere and I knew I wasn’t giving it my best. I felt bad for my students, which made me try even harder not to let my mind-set interfere with my job. But I was distracted, preoccupied, and troubled. Even worse, I had absolutely no idea what to do about it. All I knew was, sometime during our crazy, unpredictable journey together over the past couple of years, I’d fallen in love with a crazy, unpredictable man. It must have been the storm.
I was only able to make one trip to Fripp that fall, in October, a visit that Pat would tease me about for years to come and that would be added to his repertoire of stories about me. Pat collected stories in much the same way he collected books; he’d pull one of them out from time to time to share if he deemed it either funny or wise. During my visit in early October, Gregg and Mary invited us to go with them to a Citadel football game. Pat had been a fine athlete during his college career there. Lousy cadet, but good athlete, Gregg hastened to tell me. Unlike the affable, easygoing Gregg, Pat had a complicated relationship with his alma mater. After his novel The Lords of Discipline revealed some unsavory truths about the school’s hazing practices, Pat was no longer welcome on campus. Then he’d made matters worse by defending the first female cadet to attend, which caused an even bigger stink and made him more unpopular than ever. He even got a few death threats on that one.
My initial hesitation about Gregg and Mary’s invitation to the game was based on Pat’s response. “You love football, so let’s do it,” he said to me. Then he added, “It’s probably safe for me to go back now.”
Probably? Probably wasn’t good enough for me. During my previous visit, Pat had driven me around The Citadel campus, which was surreal, like entering the set of a movie. (The campus in the movie made from The Lords of Discipline was actually in England because the school wouldn’t allow it to be filmed there.) It was a formidable place. Scary even, if you’d read Pat’s book. Pat stopped the car, rolled down the window, and called out to two young knobs (freshmen) marching past us. “Hey, dumbasses! Great choice of schools you made. Love the haircuts.” I saw the moment of startled recognition on their faces, and they saluted him sharply. “Yes, sir, Mr. Conroy, sir. Great choice, sir! Thank you, sir!”
Pat pulled the car away laughing.
But our safety wasn’t my only concern about going to the game. “I couldn’t go anyway,” I wailed. “I didn’t bring anything nice to wear.”
It took Pat a minute to get it, then he groaned. “This ain’t Alabama football, sweetheart. Dressing up for a Citadel game means wearing a shirt.”
He was right about both. We were not only safe but welcomed, and everyone was in shorts, T-shirts, or uniforms, without a dolled-up sorority girl or preppy fraternity boy in sight. We had a great time tailgating with the Smiths and other former classmates of Pat’s, a rowdy bunch that made me feel like one of them. They descended on the food Mary and I brought like a swarm of locusts.
We filed into the stadium, where the atmosphere was even more electric with excitement and camaraderie. When the team ran out on the field, I gasped. “Those boys don’t look big enough to play football,” I whispered to Pat, who reminded me again it wasn’t the SEC.
Telling our story later, Pat claimed he could pinpoint the exact moment he knew for sure that he had to marry me. When The Citadel’s opponent lined up defensively, I grabbed Pat’s arm. “Uh-oh. They’d better watch out for a safety blitz.”
Pat turned to stare at me in astonishment. “Would you kindly repeat what you just said?”
But there was no need. I pointed to the field and winced when the quarterback was hit by the defensive safety so hard he fumbled the ball. “Yep,” I said with a sigh. “Safety blitz. I can spot ’em every time.”
A woman who could talk football, Pat said to Gregg. Where had I been all his life?
* * *
I came for Thanksgiving with the entire Conroy clan and met the folks who had already become mythical figures in my mind, having become ac
quainted with them by their portrayals in Beach Music. Pat had five younger siblings—his brothers, Jim, Mike, and Tim; and two sisters, Kathy and Carol. Their names, Pat often said, told you all you needed to know about the Irish Catholic imagination when it came to naming their kids. (He wasn’t even the only Patrick in the family: Jim was James Patrick, and the brother who died, Thomas Patrick.) It was an effort for me not to call Pat’s brother Jim by the name of Dallas, or the others by his/her character’s name in the book. Although I knew Pat had an on-and-off relationship with his sister Carol, the poet from New York, she was perfectly lovely to me, and told me that my southern drawl was a lot like her mother’s. I especially liked Pat’s sister Kathy, and the sisters-in-law, Janice, Terrye, and Jean.
It was a delight to meet Pat’s oldest daughter, Jessica, who looked like the actress Drew Barrymore to me; and little Elise Michelle, Pat’s only grandchild at the time. Another daughter, Melissa, was in graduate school at Georgia; Pat would take me to meet her later for one of her art shows. His two youngest daughters, Megan and Susannah, lived in the Bay Area of California where Megan had her first teaching job and Susannah was a junior in high school.
I’d find that all of Pat’s girls were artsy and free-spirited. Jessica and Melissa had graduated with art degrees; Megan had a degree in art history, and Susannah had published poetry. On one of our golf cart rides, Pat had told me about the time he took his father to Melissa’s graduation at RISD, the Rhode Island School of Design. Typical art students, the graduates paraded across the stage to get their diplomas mostly barefoot, and in various other degrees of undress. It amused Pat, their graduation speaker, but the colonel was so horrified he almost walked out. When Don Conroy, strict military man that he was, lamented the loss of values in American culture, he’d blame it on the way the younger generation was raised. Spare the rod, spoil the child, was his creed, making him a popular guest on conservative talk shows. Hearing his father dispersing child-rearing wisdom, Pat dubbed him the Nazi Doctor Spock.
But the time I found myself with the large and rambunctious Conroy clan, everyone was so welcoming that I forgot to worry about whether or not they’d like me. Before the weekend was over, Mike’s wife, Jean, a petite and perky kindergarten teacher, had pried my secret out. “I hope you’ll be coming back,” Jean said in her sincerely sweet way.
“I will,” I told her. “Soon.”
Something in my tone must’ve alerted her because Jean cocked her head and looked at me with a twinkle in her eyes. “Oh, really? How soon?”
I glanced around then shrugged, giving in. Kathy stood next to Jean and eyed me expectantly. They’d be finding out soon enough, though I hadn’t told my own family yet. “I’ll be here by Christmas, as soon as the semester is over at my school,” I told her. “Ah . . . actually, I’m moving in.”
Mr. Romantic hadn’t exactly issued an ultimatum, which would’ve certainly been more romantic. He’d simply said he’d be damned if he’d keep driving over to see me. Like it or not, I’d have to marry him. “But I don’t want to get married again,” I’d protested. Neither did he, Pat assured me. “You claim you were a lousy wife, and I definitely was a lousy husband” was his argument. “Both of us have made a fine mess of our lives. But I think I can get it right with you, King-Ray.” Then he had shaken his head hopelessly. “Besides, what else can we do? It seems that I can’t live without you. Goddammit.”
Trying not to laugh, I’d said, “You haven’t even asked me if I felt the same.”
He avoided my gaze. “Yeah. I was hoping you wouldn’t notice that part until it was too late.”
It was already too late. I think I’d known all along, we’d both known, that I would give up my teaching job and come to live with him when the first semester was over. Like so much else that had happened since we’d met, it felt inevitable, as though we were being swept along by a fate we had no control over. And it was happening fast. By that time, whether or not either one of us was ready seemed entirely beside the point.
Chapter 6
Wedding Bells and Other Mishaps
Pat and I were married sometime in late May 1998. Neither one of us could remember exactly which day. A few years later I asked Judge Alex Sanders, who’d performed the ceremony in the beautiful gardens of their house at the College of Charleston, where he served as president. His wife, Zoe, was my matron of honor and the only other person present. No one in either my family or Pat’s knew we were there, or that we were getting married that day. When I asked about the date, Judge Sanders shrugged and suggested I look on our marriage license. I had and found only the date we applied for the license. Alex shrugged again. “Seems like it was on a Sunday?”
We had reason for confusion. Everything leading up to that day, whenever it was, had been the usual Conroy drama. After a sudden decline that came on much sooner than expected, Pat’s father had died the second weekend in May. When I’d first moved in, I would’ve bet good money that tough old bird would beat the thing. When the family gathered for Thanksgiving, he’d appeared robust and hearty, despite his doctor’s grim prognosis of only a few months left. Cancer was no match for the Great Santini, I thought. Even in a weakened state he’d still been quite formidable, and despite myself, I came to love him. I believe he was rather fond of me too, though he could never express it. When he was still able to travel, he divided his time between Pat and me on Fripp, Kathy’s house in Beaufort, and his old apartment in Atlanta.
Sometimes the colonel would show up for a stay with Pat and me with a “hostess” gift he’d bought me. Inevitably Pat would tease him about how cheap it was. His father was unfazed. One time he brought me a tube of luscious-smelling hand lotion. “You steal that from one of your girlfriends?” Pat asked him.
“Nope,” his dad retorted. “I bought it at that place that sells women’s stuff. You know, brassieres and things like that. Victoria’s.”
“Victoria’s Secret?” I gasped. “No wonder it smells so good. Thank you, Don.”
Pat eyed his father suspiciously. “And what were you doing in a place like that, Dad—cross-dressing?”
For my birthday in February, the colonel presented me with a hideously ugly running suit of green-and-purple polyester that he’d purchased at the PX. My polite oohs and ahhs were drowned out by Pat’s shout of laughter when I opened the package. “I won’t even ask where you got that godawful thing, Dad,” he said, chuckling, “but it sure as hell wasn’t Victoria’s Secret.”
A good thing about the running suit, Pat was so afraid I’d wear it that he went immediately to Charleston’s finest ladies wear shop and returned with three new outfits for me. His note read Cassandra, light of my shadowy life, Pat.
The Great Santini watched ESPN with me, but Pat, he mostly ordered around. “Hey, fix me something to eat, pal,” he’d call out from his perch in our den. Pat would appear at the door, hands on hips, to glare at his dad. I learned not to meet his eye or he’d glare at me too. But he always complied. Neither he nor his father could ever put their hard-earned affection for each other into words. Pat showed his in the time-honored way: he prepared food, wonderfully heathy and tasty food, for his dying father. As much as his dad put up a brave front, his decline was unavoidable and difficult to witness. He walked by leaning heavily on a cane, and he tired quickly. But his appetite stayed good until the final weeks before his death, and I believe Pat’s cooking was part of the reason.
A lot of folks asked me what Pat’s father was really like, having seen the movie or read the book where Pat depicted their difficult relationship and his father’s abuse. Beneath the gruff exterior and rigid military bearing, Colonel Conroy could be quite a charmer. He had several girlfriends, lovely women in their seventies like he was, and was extremely sociable. Everyone said he was a great dancer in his day. He and Pat mostly joked around with each other, and he was easygoing with his other kids as well. He seemed to dote on the grandkids: Pat’s daughters, Jim’s two little kids, and Kathy’s teenaged son, Willi
e. But I never doubted for a minute Pat’s version of the father of his childhood. For one thing, Pat’s siblings verified it, but even if they hadn’t, my intuition told me all I needed to know. Despite the outward charm and affable demeanor, Don Conroy was one fierce old warrior.
* * *
Earlier that spring, Pat, his dad, and I had a really fun trip together, despite the dire circumstances that brought it about. Pat was driving his dad to the famed Duke University medical center for an evaluation to see if anything could be done about the cancer. Duke, MD Anderson, Sloan Kettering, the Mayo Clinic—these places hold the one thing that cancer victims so desperately need: hope. Often the hope isn’t even for a cure, but simply for a little more time. Unfortunately, neither Duke nor any other place was able to offer either one to Don Conroy.
Pat thought the road trip would be a good way for us not only to spend time with his dad but also to visit his buddy Doug Marlette, who lived near Durham. I’d met Doug but not his family, although his wife and I had spoken on the phone. I’d been a longtime fan of Doug’s work without ever imagining knowing him one day as a friend. A political cartoonist, Doug was best known for his syndicated cartoon Kudzu. He’d paid Pat and me a visit on Fripp the first of the year on his way to an event in Florida and admitted that he’d stopped by for one reason—to size up Pat’s new fiancée. I must’ve passed muster because he and I became fast friends. Eventually Pat’d tell the story of Doug’s first visit to us over and over because it had tickled him so much. A few years before, Doug had visited Pat on Fripp because Pat was so severely depressed after his divorce. No wonder, Doug observed; the house was a wreck. (No one ever accused Pat of being a neat freak.) After I’d moved in and Doug came by, he walked in the door and fell dramatically to his knees laughing at the difference. “Now this,” he said to Pat, “is what a home is supposed to look like.”
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