Plantation

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  Having turned off the outside lights, I stepped into the living room and caught my breath. Mother—wearing one of her more bizarre jeweled caftans and turbans—was sitting on the couch with Mr. Greer’s head in her lap. They were both snoring loudly.

  The remnants of their evening—a cocktail shaker, cut-glass tumblers, rubberized cheese, strawberry greens, crackers softened from the night air, wrinkled napkins, an overfilled ashtray, and a nearly empty fifth of bourbon—were all on the coffee table before them. I didn’t know what to do, so I left them and went to the kitchen to get a glass of milk and a sandwich. I was surprised again to see Millie there, reading a paperback at the table. She looked up at me.

  “What do I smell?” she said, looking suspicious.

  “Love Potion Number Nine, Miss Nosy. You waiting up to lecture me?” I stood before her with my hands on my hips, pretending to be defiant.

  “Humph,” she said. “Think I’ll save my breath. Your mother still courting that man in the living room?”

  “They’re both out cold, snoring like a couple of bulldogs.”

  “I don’t know what’s come over this family! Muss be the spring air.” Millie closed her book, stood up, and stretched. “Yeah, God! Shoulda seen your brother when he got a eyeful of that red-head! He ’bout drop to the ground.”

  “Rusty?” I opened the jar of peanut butter and took out a loaf of bread.

  “Didn’t that man feed you?”

  “Still hungry. So what about Rusty?”

  Millie raised her eyebrows with the full knowledge that I had not had a sufficient supper. “Left her sweater or some such fool. Came back. Trip got the door and that’s all she wrote. Gotta wake up Miss L. Gone have a crick in her neck and be cranky all day tomorrow.”

  “Let me do it, Millie.”

  “No, girl. You go on to bed.” Then she looked at me up and down from head to toe and sniffed in disapproval. “You gone sleep good tonight, yanh?”

  “Millie? Do you know how annoying it is to be around somebody who knows everything?”

  She cocked her head to one side, pursed her lips, and said, “Caroline? You getting to be more like Lavinia every day.”

  “That’s not nice, Millie.” Boy, if you wanted to get under my skin, that was all you had to say.

  “It ain’t good, but it’s true all the same. Go on up to your boy. I expect he’s sleeping but waiting for you all the same.”

  The swinging door whooshed to a close behind her. I took a drink of water and left the glass in the sink. Was it true? Like Mother? Hell no. Couldn’t be. I took the back stairs up to Eric’s room and peeked in. He was sleeping with a book across his chest. I removed his glasses, kissed his head, and turned off his light.

  In my room, I tried to think about what Millie had said, but I preferred to let my thoughts wander back to Josh—a much more pleasant topic. I’d think about Millie’s words tomorrow. Wednesday was another day. Fiddle dee dee, Scarlett, time to go to bed.

  Thirty-four

  Tripped Up

  Friday

  JOSH and I agreed to be pals. It was the best thing. Mother found my new friendship very amusing. She felt Josh’s hair and pronounced it sponge. Needless to say, she understood the point in a one-night stand—not that I had told her. Millie still thought his hair was an indication of a drug habit. Eric was too busy enjoying himself to have an opinion. Josh and I were just hanging out. Occasionally.

  Eric must have been born to be a Lowcountry boy, and had almost immediately immersed himself in discovering everything there was of interest at Tall Pines. When Mr. Jenkins wasn’t teaching him to cast a seine net, Trip—who had a curious new sprightly spring in his step—had him on the river. Mother taught him to drink sweet tea and enlightened him on the historical significance of our family’s illustrious history—Lavinia style, which is to say, greatly exaggerated and embellished. Needless to say, Millie taught him the names of her herbs and all the vegetation around our property. At least once a day Eric said, “Mom? This is hog heaven!” I was relieved and satisfied that he meant it and continued on with trying to settle us at Tall Pines.

  When the movers arrived yesterday, Josh, along with Millie, Eric, and Mr. Jenkins, helped me sort through the cartons. Actually, I realized we didn’t need very much. Eric wanted his toys and computer games and I wanted my books, music, and business records, but almost everything else was relatively unnecessary for the moment. All the collections of fifteen years of our life seemed unnecessary. It was strange that I felt I needed so little. All that excess would go into storage.

  “Good thing you have a barn,” Josh said.

  “Yeah, well, too bad this stuff can’t stay here. Too humid. All the pictures will curl and mildew.”

  It was true. Beautiful as Tall Pines may have been, everything needed some kind of climate control to preserve it. The barn was where the mission of consignment was conducted. We had a huge mess on our hands. Eric darted from the barn to the house and from the house to the barn, arms filled with comic books, plastic boxes filled with LEGOs, and his other treasures. Mr. Jenkins went back and forth to the house with the wheelbarrow, carrying the heavier things. Mother appeared every hour or so, shook her head, and clucked. “Still at it? My word, Caroline, you should have had a tag sale in New York!” Then, before she would leave, she’d shoot Josh one of her best Miss Lavinia come-hither looks. We’d both giggle like children when she was gone.

  “Mother is a flirt,” I said.

  “Dangerous?” he said.

  “Only when provoked,” I said.

  “I found a storage company that would pick up on Saturday, if you want to get this stuff out of yanh tomorrow,” Millie said, coming out from the tack room. “Just had them on the phone. They want to know how long you want them to hold on to your belongings.” She had a pencil pushed through her braid, her reading glasses on the tip of her nose, and a legal pad in her hands. “I told them I didn’t know but that I’d find out directly and call them back. Time affects the rate, you know.” Millie heaved a sigh—one that said, I don’t know why you are doing all of this; it’s a waste of your time and mine.

  “Time is money!” Eric said, piping in. “Grandmother says that. I guess she’s trying to teach me the significance of time more than money.”

  Not missing a beat, I said, “Well, darlin’, thank God she doesn’t have to worry about . . . what?”

  Everyone had stopped and was staring at Eric.

  “Significance?” Josh said. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “He’s smart like his momma,” Mr. Jenkins said.

  “That’s my boy!” I said and ruffled his hair.

  “Your grandmother’s right too, boy,” Millie said. “So, missy? What you want me to tell them? One month? Three months? Ten years?”

  “I don’t know, Millie. Let me think about it for a few minutes.”

  How long would I be here? Was my return to Mother’s home a statement of failure and surrender? Did I want to move down to Charleston? Perhaps eventually.

  No, it would take longer than a few minutes to decide my fate. I had toyed with the idea of staying the summer and moving in the fall. But at that point, I really wanted to see how the homeschooling thing would go for Eric and then make up my mind. I was rather enjoying being coddled by Millie and Mother.

  “Well, you bess make up your mind, honey, ’cause I gots to tell them something!” Millie walked away in a small huff. The huff wasn’t anything but Millie staking out her authority and a little teasing that I should use my brains and quit living in limbo.

  I knew she wanted us to stay. Forever. Yes, the coddling was nice. “Tell them I want space until I let them know,” I said, calling to her back. “Probably August, okay?”

  She stopped, turned, and looked at me, her face the mirror of displeasure. “We’ll just see what we see,” she said and turned again.

  Sometimes her psychic talents rankled my nerves. I let the thought pass on the breeze and turned my attention to
more pleasant matters.

  I was sitting on the floor of the barn, folding and stacking packing paper to recycle, looking like a perfect angel—considering the tone of Josh’s butt from a safe distance—turning into Mrs. Robinson, mentally treating the man like an object, but not putting out. So what? Haven’t women been objectified for eons? Goose and gander? Like a bolt of lightning came the thought that even if I wasn’t Lavinia, I was sure on the slick path to embracing her sexual politics.

  Josh was leaning over a carton of books, taking them out, reading the spines, flipping through the pages.

  “The Joy of Cooking?” he said.

  Knowing his deviant mind was thinking of the joy of something else, I said, “It happens to be extremely useful!”

  “You can tell a lot about someone by their books, you know,” he said.

  “Keep digging. The complete works of Balzac are in there somewhere, right next to Flaubert.”

  “The History of Textiles?”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Tibetan Book of the Dead, I worked as a decorator, you know.”

  “Right, and I respect that.”

  My alarms pinged. If Josh was going to start giving me grief about the shallow way I had earned a living, like Richard did, our friendship wouldn’t last long. I looked at his face to detect traces of sarcasm.

  “What?” he said.

  “My work—my estranged husband thought it was shallow and therefore I was shallow. I can’t take going through all of that with . . .”

  He was sensitive enough that he was able to understand immediately that making fun of being a decorator wasn’t going to hold much water with me. He came to me and took my hands.

  “Caroline. I don’t think you’re shallow. Frigid maybe, but not shallow.”

  “Thanks a lot, hot lips.” Those damnable gold flecks in his eyes were reflecting the afternoon light and I felt like a prude. A big stupid one.

  “In fact, I was going to ask you if you knew of a company that reproduced historic wallpaper. We have some water damage in the dining room.”

  “Oh.” I was further embarrassed for my fast judgment against him. “Sure. Scalamandre can do it. Just give me a swatch and we can FedEx it to them this weekend.”

  “Great. That would be great.”

  He was looking at me as though he pitied me. Pity? Yes, he was somehow sad and maybe disappointed that I was so spiritually tied to the earthly shortcomings—self-doubt, insecurity, flash temper, and the whole laundry list of human failings. I felt a little juvenile—certainly not on his plane of thought. And, I wasn’t. And, so what?

  I had considered myself to be pretty together when I was living my life with Richard in the narrow confines I had drawn for myself. My daily habits had centered around Eric’s needs, Richard’s needs, and my clients’ needs. Maybe what I had done was withdraw from challenge into denial. Maybe what I pretended was growth was in fact resistance of any deep introspection. After all, Josh hadn’t been anything but nice to me and I was still waiting for an ambush.

  I hadn’t meditated in nearly a month or done any yoga in just as long. It was really time for me to settle down and try to find my good habits again. Since I’d been home I’d done nothing but drink wine, eat animal fat, and screw Josh that one spectacular night. The rest of my time was spent making him think it was possible somehow that it might happen again. Not! Come to think of it, I was having more fun than I’d had in years. The downside was that as long as I continued this kind of behavior, I could no longer stand on Mount Superior. Oh, to hell with Mount Superior, I decided. What I needed was fun.

  It was strange that for all the belongings I had gathered like a pack rat over the course of my years in New York, I could leave so much in boxes and not care if I had them around me or not. Maybe that was a first step toward some kind of growth. All that really did matter to me was that I had Eric and I was away from the hell of Richard and Lois.

  I began unpacking another box. I looked up to see Eric skipping along. When he entered the barn, I saw him shoot a suspicious look at Josh. He saw that I had seen him do it and came to my side to whisper in my ear.

  “Mom? Can I ask you something?”

  “Don’t whisper, Eric, it’s not nice, sweetheart. Whatever you have to say to me I’m sure you can say in front of Josh.”

  He bristled. I had said the wrong thing. There were always going to be things that Eric would want to be private and I had just put him in the uncomfortable position of having to treat someone he barely knew as a confidant.

  He sort of looked at the floor and then back at me and said, “I was just wondering if you were going out again tonight with Josh. That’s all.”

  At least Josh had the God-given sense to stay out of the conversation at that point. He made himself busy with boxes on the other end of the pile.

  “Yes, I think we are, Eric.” Eric’s face fell a little. I could tell by one look that he probably wanted me to stay home that night. I put my arm around him. “Tell you what . . .”

  “What?” he said, as forlornly as though I had told him I was leaving for a month.

  “Mom’s been having some fun. And, admit it, you have too! Now, I know it’s hard for you to understand that Mom needs a pal to hang around with . . .”

  “No, I don’t! Everybody needs friends!”

  “Okay, good. I don’t blame you for wondering what’s going on and, in fact, I think you’re probably right that I’ve been gone a lot. So this is my suggestion—you don’t have to say yes—just think about it.”

  He looked at me and I melted just like I always did when he looked at me in need.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Tomorrow, you and me, just you and me. How about if we go on a trip all around Charleston on a boat and stop at Fort Sumter?”

  “Lunch too?”

  “Yep, and we rent movies and pile in the bed together and eat popcorn and drink Cokes and stay up late. How does that sound?”

  “Excellent bribe, Mom! I’ll take it!” He threw his arms around me and hugged me. I could smell his head—the sweat of a young boy who’d been running and was overheated.

  “Great! Now, unpack this box. We ain’t got all day and I’m already bored.”

  “No problemo!”

  Josh reappeared, carrying a picture frame. Before I saw it I knew what it was. Richard and me on our wedding day. Oh, Lord.

  “I never thought he’d look like this,” he said.

  “And he’d never think you looked like this!”

  We laughed—all of us together—Eric, Josh, and I; it felt good.

  “You know what?” I said. “I’m sick of this dusty barn and all this paper—how about I get a quick shower, Josh, and let’s drive down to your place, get that wallpaper sample, grab a bite, and then come back out here for the night? Wanna come, Eric?”

  “Nah, y’all go. Bring me a pizza?”

  “Guest room?” Josh said.

  “I should say so!” I said and shook my finger at him.

  Josh and I drove to Charleston on Highway 17 north in a comfortable silence, slowing down at the speed traps and then accelerating again. Every now and then he’d look over at me. In the failing light of afternoon, the Lowcountry once more took on a mantle of romance. The groaning sounds of the engine as he shifted gears, the tiny breezes and drafts of the sweet air of early evening—it was a subtle but unfailing spell. The mood was dreamy—a time for reflection and mind drift.

  I thought about Josh and how I was allowing him to take up space in my life—even as friends, it shouldn’t continue. On the other hand, I couldn’t see anyone suffering for my philandering around with this unlikely choice of a friend. I didn’t have much at stake in it besides the reprieve he offered from Mother, Millie, and Eric. Okay, it was cheap and self-indulgent. I admitted that. But right then, self-indulgent was what I needed. Boy, could I rationalize or what?

  We arrived at his home and without any particular ceremony, poured a glass of wine, snipped a piece of his wallpap
er, and dropped it in a plastic bag. I was putting it in my backpack when I heard him from the kitchen.

  “Do you want to go out, or stay in for dinner?”

  It was a warning dressed like a question. It required a certain amount of admission of involvement from me. It was one thing to hang around with Josh and his hair in private, but if I were seen on the streets of downtown Charleston with a man in dreadlocks, talk would follow. I thought about it for a second. Fact was that there were so many tourists in town and I’d lived away for so long that unless we went to the Yacht Club, the odds of me seeing someone I knew were small. If I chose a tourist spot, I could avoid the questions and stares.

  “Let’s go out,” I said, calling back to him. There, I thought, I’d jumped that hoop with ease. Didn’t make him feel uncomfortable; don’t have to wash dishes either. Also, once out of his house, I could avoid the call of the rack monster. Perfect.

  “How about SNOB’s?”

  Slightly North of Broad—SNOB—no good. Too many locals.

  “Magnolia’s?” I said. “I’m up for crab cakes.”

  “Fine. Magnolia’s it is.”

  It was seven-thirty and nearly dark. We decided to walk. In the shadows of crepe myrtle trees, to the sounds of slow-moving traffic, in the fragrance of jasmine, we strolled along the ancient narrow streets to dinner. It was a beautiful spring night, the kind you lived for in Charleston, that you tried to recall in the blistering heat of summer. Those nights justified living there; August made you pray for relief from the relentless and withering sun and humidity so thick you could reach out and grab it by handfuls. I remembered being a young girl as we walked along, remembering going to the Dock Street Theater with Mother and Daddy.

  Soon we arrived. Josh held the door open for me and I stepped into the low light of Magnolia’s. It was jammed with people, all dressed in their linen finery, ignoring the wrinkles the fabric invariably gathered like so much Spanish moss on a live oak. The noise level was formidable, the crowd obviously enjoying the hospitality of that popular haunt. The bar area was three people deep, small clusters of visitors from elsewhere, in light conversation, toasting this and that.