Two
Miss Lavinia Would Like to Have a Word with You
1987
I am not going to New York City! Don’t start with me, Millie!”
“Yes, you are! I’m going, Trip and Frances Mae are going, and so are you! We ain’t letting Miss Caroline become Missus Caroline without us there to wish her well!”
Millie turned on her heel and flounced out, leaving me madder than a wet hen. “Just where are you going, Mrs. Smoak?”
“I’m going to pack your clothes, and if you don’t like it, that’s too bad, yanh?”
We had been in the kitchen when Trip called the house and told us that Caroline had called him and asked him to give her away. What was there to give away? She had run off years ago! How can you give away what’s gone? I told Trip that if he and Frances Mae wanted to go, that was just fine. I wasn’t going to budge from Tall Pines Plantation.
Frankly, I planned to spend Caroline’s wedding day dressed in black veils, communing with my dear Nevil’s spirit down at the family chapel. I would take a good bottle of champagne, the ’61 Dom Perignon, perhaps two, to mark the occasion and toast my daughter from the bluffs over the Edisto River. If she wanted to marry a foreigner she could do it without me. And, the ceremony was going to be in their apartment! Not even a church!
It was no kind of wedding, if you ask me, and they had not. No, they had not asked for my permission, my blessing, or cared one fig if I approved. She had been living in sin with that man for nearly three years, shacked up in that nasty little hovel she called an apartment. Now they’re living in a co-op on Park Avenue. How pretentious can you get? And now she calls herself a decorator. Well, la-di-da. All that money we spent to educate that girl at Columbia for her to wind up making some stranger’s curtains? My poor girl. If she had only listened to me.
Ah, well, I know she thinks I’m old hat, that I don’t know anything about life outside of South Carolina. Well, guess what? Neither does she! She thinks she can just run off to New York and marry the first tomcat who comes prowling around? She thinks she’s in love? She doesn’t know the first thing about love. Or men! She should’ve asked me about men. Hell, I could write a book. She’s marrying that old man? She’s marrying her daddy, that’s what.
I needed to talk to Millie. She had to stop this before it was too late. I’d make her put some of her fool voodoo on them or something. I waited until I thought Millie would be occupying herself messing through my things, and then I could go upstairs. Sure enough, by the time I fluffed my hair in the hall mirror and went up the stairs to my room, there she was with half my belongings spread out all over the bed.
“Damnation! Millie? Do you mean to make me fire you after all these years?”
Well, don’t you know the old biddy got that heat in her eyes and put her hands on her hips to me!
“Miss Lavinia? It’s a good thing Mr. Nevil done gone to Glory, ’cause iffin he see the way you act, it’d kill him.”
“Great jumping Jehoshaphat, Millie! You always say that! Think of a new line!”
“Okay. Try this on, Mrs. Plantation Owner of the Whole World. You don’t want to go ’cause you’re scared yellow that Caroline grew up behind your back and nobody needs you anymore. How’s that?”
I sat down on my dressing table bench and all my breath rushed from my chest. “You’ve cut me to the quick, Millie. How could you say such a thing? First my boy runs off and marries that vulgar trash after he knocks her up, and now my girl is marrying a foreigner. Where did I go wrong, Millie? Can you tell me that?” I felt sick in my heart. I truly did.
“Miss L?”
I didn’t answer her. I was checking my nerves to see if I could cry or not. Yes, I could, I decided, and I let the tears roll like a river, wailing like a baby. I did not do this to elicit sympathy from Millie, although it always helped.
“Miss L?”
I didn’t answer her again but got up from the bench and took to my bed, pushing the hangers of clothes to the other side and crawling under the spread. She knew it was time to leave me alone. She could pack my clothes later. She left the room, closing the door quietly. That’s right. I had decided to go to New York City. After all, how would it look if Millie went without me? And, I knew I couldn’t stop Caroline from marrying that man. She was a stubborn girl and I’d just have to let her make her mistakes.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying I was going to New York just for appearances. I knew it was my duty to be there and I have never shirked my duty. Ever. Not once. Okay, maybe once—after Nevil died and I was pretty hard on the children. But I didn’t realize at the time that I was in such a deep state of mourning. I was. I probably should have been medicated. But who knew about those things?
Hell, now that we had a—what was he? a psychologist or a psychiatrist? Well, anyway, now that we had some kind of doctor coming into the family, we could probably get all the pills we wanted! Maybe that’s why Caroline had agreed to marry him in the first place. The son of a bitch had brainwashed and then drugged her! Oh, merciful God! My poor daughter. I decided to call her.
The phone rang six times. No one home. An answering machine came on with Caroline’s voice just as cheery as could be. Hi! We’re sorry we missed your call. Please leave a message and we’ll call you back.Thanks. Why was she always apologizing? She had to stop that. It was a true sign of weakness and one thing the women in this family were not was weak. I would tell her so as soon as she returned my call, for which I was not holding my breath.
I closed my eyes again, thinking I might nap. Then, since I already had the cordless phone in my bed with me, I decided to call my dearest friend, Sweetie. She would tell me what to do.
“Sweetie? Listen up! I got trouble!”
“Whatever in the world is wrong, Lavinia? Have you been crying?”
“Certainly not! Allergies! Listen to me, damn it! Caroline is getting married in just weeks to that old man Richard fellow and I’m so upset with her I could just slap her face!”
“Lavinia? You listen to me, darling. Caroline is a grown woman and it’s time for you to be gracious about it. If she wants to marry this man, there’s not a single thing you can do about it. Not a single thing in this world!”
“He’s older than her by eleven years.”
“You were a hundred years older than Bob the UPS man and that didn’t stop you.”
“Well, aren’t you the sassy one today? Sweetie? Do you know he’s Jewish?”
“Why on God’s earth would that matter to a woman who holds Sufi ceremonies and has a five-foot statue of Shiva with ten arms in her bedroom?”
“I use it to hold my handbags and you know it. Nevil and I bought it in Nepal.”
“I happen to remember that you bought it from a Christie’s auction, dear.”
I hated her for her memory. “Whatever. Oh, Sweetie! My heart is so heavy! What am I to do?”
“What can you do? You pack your things, put a smile on your face, and get on a plane.”
“You know I don’t fly.”
“Then call Amtrak! You make sure Caroline has everything she needs. You have a word with Richard about his sincerity and commitment and then you wish them well. That’s all she wrote, sister.”
I sighed so hard into the telephone I probably messed up Sweetie’s hair. “Nobody needs me, Sweetie. It makes me so sad.”
“Get over yourself, Lavinia, and shape up. I need you to be my friend—exactly why on occasion, I wonder—and Caroline needs you to be her mother.”
Well, I guess she thought she had laid me out in lavender. “I suppose I’ll get Jenkins to drive me down to Charleston. Maybe I’ll have a facial and shop for shoes. That always resurrects my spirit. And, I saw in the Post and Courier that Bob Ellis is having a sale.” Yes, that would cheer me.
“Lavinia?”
“Hmm?” Her voice had a sharp edge again and I hated it when she reprimanded me. I truly did.
“Please don’t forget to buy them a gift!”
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She made me fume! “You know what, Sweetie? Some days there’s just no pleasing you! Good-bye!” I hit the End button and slammed the receiver on my mattress. Honest to God! Everybody could just go stew in their own juices. Yes, they could.
Please join us for dinner!
THE POST HOUSE
On Sixty-third Street at Park Avenue
Friday, February 25, 1987
Eight o’clock
Caroline Boswell Wimbley
and
Dr. Richard Case Levine
RSVP 212-781-4462
MISS LAVINIA’S JOURNAL
Millie and I have just checked in to the Pierre Hotel. She’s in the room next door.Trip and Frances Mae are arriving at five. My room is very satisfactory. I have a small sitting room and an ample bedroom.There is a lovely view of Central Park and I sincerely hope the muggers stay there.The little man who brought my bags to my room was very nice for a Yankee, although I think he was from somewhere else, like Turkey. Maybe it was Albania. He told me but I couldn’t understand a word he said. I gave him three one-dollar bills. He brought me ice. Come to think of it, almost everybody I have seen so far seems to be foreign. It must be sad for them to be so far from home. God knows, New York City is one noisy place! And what in the world are all these people racing around for? Somebody bumped into me at Penn Station and I thought they were trying to grab my purse! Turned out to be a woman my age—all in a dither over who knows what, but at least she had the good manners to apologize.
In two hours I get to meet my soon-to-be son-in-law. Don’t think I’m not going to give him the good “once-over” at least twice! At least there’s some Jack Daniels in the minibar.Think I’ll have a nip and a nap. . . .
Three
Make No Misteak!
MILLIE just called. It was so good to hear her voice and know that she’s here! Then I called Mother to see if she was all right and she said she had no complaints. I asked her if I had the wrong number and she told me I wasn’t funny. I asked her if she wanted to come over early and see our new apartment and she said she was tired and wanted to rest. I couldn’t blame her for that. She had just spent all night on a train.
I splurged and put everyone at the Pierre because then everyone was within walking distance of our apartment. Trip and Frances Mae were due to arrive anytime, and I was finally starting to get nervous. Richard should have been home at three; he promised he’d leave early. Well, I guess something came up.
I called the Post House to reconfirm our reservation for six people. I had extended an invitation to the rabbi, but he declined because he had to hold services on Friday night. Apparently the other rabbi was away for the weekend or something.
Our apartment was spotless. I could just see Mother running her hand over the mantelpiece and finding dust. Not this girl! All in all, I thought she’d be pleasantly surprised to see it.
Richard and I had bought this small two-bedroom co-op a year and a half ago, and Lord what a horrible dump it was then! Neither one of us had the money to hire a big decorator, so I took on the job myself. Well, actually, Richard had the money but didn’t want to spend it on something so philistine as decorating. Now, if there was one thing Mother taught me—like all normal daughters, I took ninety percent of everything she said and ignored it—Mother taught me never to apologize for trying to make the world a more beautiful place.
I just didn’t want to fight with Richard about money. It was something he seemed sensitive about. It was no big deal. Really. I just sat down and figured out how to decorate on a budget just about the size of an Oreo. I knew when Richard saw what I could do with those worn-out rooms, he’d be very proud of me. We spent our nights in unmarried bliss in my tiny studio while the work progressed. He gave up his apartment near Columbia to help cover the costs of the project.
I was focused on the job with all the intensity of a mother pigeon feathering her nest. They’re living in sin! I could hear Mother’s voice the whole way from the Edisto River. My mother’s friend Miss Sweetie would say, I thought they were living in the Village. Then Millie would say, Humph! That child ain’t capable of sin! So there was a lot of clucking going on while I renovated and the southern contingent waited to see what would become of our relationship.
Once again the doorman at our new building turned out to be a well of information. Through him I hired a fellow to gut the apartment back to the bricks. I had it rewired, restored the chimney, reinforced the floors, cut through the walls for air conditioners, built an entirely new kitchen, and redid both bathrooms. I bought most of the fixtures from Ikea and the appliances from Sears during their Fourth of July sale. Honestly? They looked almost as good as anything in Architectural Digest.
To save money on plastering, the walls of the living room were padded Sheetrock, upholstered in a slubby white rayon-and-cotton fabric that I found on Thirty-ninth Street for seven dollars a yard. The wall-to-wall carpets were textured ivory wool in a basket-weave pattern, found in huge remnants at ABC Carpet. The curtains were white sheers shot with silver metallic threads, looped around pewter finials—fabric from the bridal district of the garment center. If this seemed like a lot of white, it was, but I suppose I had this romantic notion of our life together starting as a blank canvas.
Last month when the major renovations were over, I began scouring the city for houseplants and put them in Chinese reproduction ceramic planters. I took lots of photographs and framed them in red lacquer with tan linen mats. The effect was cool and tranquil. I couldn’t wait until he saw it all pulled together. He worked like a maniac at all hours of the day and night and I ran back and forth to the apartment from my office to check on this and that. This had been going on for over a year. We hardly saw each other vertical!
I’ll never forget the day I gave him the grand tour. It was just three weeks ago. We hadn’t moved our furniture in yet. The only other furnishings were small things I had recently purchased. The carpenters had finally attached all the doorknobs and drawer pulls. The shower curtain was finally pressed and hung. I spritzed all the plants to make them shine and Richard rang the doorbell.
I opened the door and there he stood with a bottle of champagne and two paper cups. As we walked from room to room, we touched the rims of our cups and, smiling, he gave me lots of kisses, saying what a resourceful girl I was, how thrilled he was with everything. We ate Chinese food from cartons on the living room floor. At some point during the evening we christened the apartment by making love. I remember gathering up all our containers and putting the garbage bag outside the kitchen door in the service hallway. We turned out the lights and waited for the elevator. He turned to me and said, “You’re amazing, Caroline. Simply amazing!”
Can you imagine how that made me feel? He gave me such courage! Acting as my own general contractor had given me a new career. I learned so much about the practical placement of wall sockets, electrical needs, plumbing requirements, and how to get things done that I decided to become an interior decorator. I knew that Richard thought it was a pretty shallow way to make a living. He never came right out and said it, but I could tell by his tone of voice when he commented as I went over our renovation plans or fabric swatches with him. I didn’t care about that because I knew decorating was more fun than being the branch manager of the Bank of New York at Fifty-seventh and Third, which is what I had been doing after I finished my MBA.
Up until yesterday, I was still dealing with the man from California Closets about the way the bedroom cabinet shelves were hung. It wasn’t until this morning when the florist arrived and decorated the mantelpiece with flowers for the ceremony tomorrow that I started to get the shakes. I had been too consumed with organizing the wedding and taking care of the final touches on our apartment to allow myself to face the fact that I was really going to be married. Married to someone not of my family’s faith, of another citizenship, with an ex-wife and a toddler son. Someone my mother would no doubt disapprove of on sight. Yep. On sight.
Mother�
�s disapproval was the reason we were being married in New York and not at Tall Pines. I didn’t want to deal with it. We were just having a tiny ceremony anyway.
Frankly, I was surprised she made the trip. I knew it was Millie who convinced her to come to our wedding just last week, by train, of course. Mother refused to fly. My brother, Trip, was going to give me away and my sister-in-law, Frances Mae, probably wanted to take inventory.
I looked at my watch. Five-thirty. Where on earth was Richard? The phone rang. It was Trip.
“Hey! You nervous?” he said.
“Hell no,” I said.
“You lying?”
“Hell yes!”
We started laughing.
“Yeah, just you wait! That man’s gonna put the old leash on you! You’re gonna be slaving away for him! That’s what Frances Mae does!”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see about that. Your room okay?”
“Oh, fine, fine. Frances Mae has got her feet up; says her ankles are swollen from being in the family way. I reckon I’ll mosey on down to the bar and see what kind of riffraff I can find to keep me company around here. You want to come over?”
“I’d love to! I’ve been walking around this apartment going nuts, waiting for Richard to come home. You buying?”
“Yep,” he said. “Leave him a note!”
“Good idea! See you in ten minutes.”
I called Richard’s office and got his service.
“Do you know where I can reach Dr. Levine? This is his fiancée.”
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