The Secret to Southern Charm

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

  Only, that’s where Caroline was wrong. An hour later, a very handsome young beach waiter was asking, “A fresh towel, Mrs. Beaumont?”

  Caroline unrolled it and, hiding inside, was a Smirnoff Ice. A hot one.

  The game of “icing” someone had been out of practice for years as far as I knew, but it was something my sisters and I used to love to do to each other. Like a champ, Caroline, perfectly coiffed and manicured, got down on one knee in the sand, popped the top, and chugged that hot Smirnoff Ice. She dramatically wiped her mouth—while Emerson howled with laughter.

  And then it happened. The thing I was afraid I was no longer capable of, the thing I thought I might never do again. As a laugh escaped from my throat, I realized that no one—and no Bellini—in the world could make me feel as carefree as my sisters.

  * * *

  A FEW HOURS LATER, back on the boat, my sister was saying, in typical Caroline fashion, “Girls, the beach walk was great, but we need a little Yogilates before we get going.”

  Emerson and I groaned. “No one wants to exercise after drinking on the beach all afternoon, Caroline. That sounds awful.”

  She was already setting up the mats on the bow. I gave Emerson a withering look. “Why?” I asked. “Why do we keep her in our lives?”

  “I don’t know,” Emerson said. “I can’t figure it out.”

  “It’s because you love me and you know I’m right,” Caroline said.

  “Damn it,” Emerson said.

  We were only into our second sun salutation when I noticed Emerson’s form looked a little off. Caroline must have noticed it too because she jolted up and screamed “Em!” right as Emerson collapsed to the bow, landing solidly on her right side.

  “Oh my God!” I cried, running over to her.

  “Did she pass out?” Caroline asked as we crouched around our sister, who had opened her eyes and was looking at us, confused.

  She tried to sit up. “No, no. Wait!” I said.

  “What is it again?” Caroline asked.

  “If it’s red, raise the head,” I said.

  “If it’s pale, raise the tail,” Emerson finished. No permanent brain damage.

  “She’s definitely red,” Caroline said, sitting Emerson up. “I’m so sorry, Emerson. I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault,” she said. “I think I’m just dehydrated.”

  I looked at Caroline skeptically. “I think we need to get you to a doctor just in case,” I said. Caroline nodded in agreement.

  “You guys, absolutely not,” Emerson said. “It’s hot, I haven’t eaten much today, and I’ve been drinking. I’m totally fine.”

  “I say better safe than sorry,” Caroline said. “We can get an Uber, run to urgent care . . .”

  “I said no,” Emerson said, taking charge.

  I ran into the salon and grabbed a water for her. As she sipped, she said, “OK. Yoga is over. Caroline, you go drive. I want to wake up in Savannah.”

  Caroline looked at me warily. “Emerson,” she said, trying again. “We are going to be out at sea. If you need help, the Coast Guard is going to come, and it’s going to be very dramatic.”

  “Is that what you want?” I teased. “A dramatic rescue at sea by a hot sailor?”

  She smiled. “No. I’m fine. I’m ready to get home. I miss Mark.”

  I shrugged at Caroline.

  “If you’re sure,” she said.

  “Totally sure.”

  Emerson turned over her water bottle, gasped, and threw it to the ground like it had suddenly grown fangs and bitten her.

  “What?” Caroline asked.

  “Are you kidding me? You’re feeding me water out of a number-six plastic? Have I taught you nothing?”

  I rolled my eyes at Caroline and said, “Yeah. I think she’s fine,” as Emerson chanted, “Five, four, one and two, all the rest are bad for you.”

  “I will get you nonpoisonous water immediately,” I said sarcastically as we helped Emerson up and into the air-conditioning. I handled the lines while the boat idled, and we were off again.

  It wasn’t until I went to go check on Emerson that I saw them. My heart almost stopped beating. Her cheekbone had a deep, dark bruise, and her arm was covered in what looked like a rash, but upon closer inspection was a cluster of tiny bruises.

  “Oh my God, Emerson,” I said.

  She shrugged. “You know I bruise really easily.”

  Caroline took a couple of steps toward us and gasped. “Emerson, that is not normal.”

  I agreed.

  She bit her lip. “I haven’t felt great lately. Kind of dizzy, and I’m always exhausted. Just walking up the stairs makes my heart race.”

  She pulled down the side of her bathing suit bottoms to reveal a huge red and purple bruise.

  Back at the helm, Caroline said, “Look, the moment we get back to Peachtree Bluff, you’re going to the doctor.” She paused. “In fact, James and I have to go to the Hamptons for a benefit. Why don’t the two of you come with us, and we can get you to one of our doctor friends?”

  Now my heart was racing for two reasons: There was no way—especially now—I could get on an airplane or face New York, neither of which I’d done since 9/11. And there was definitely something wrong with my little sister.

  Emerson shook her head. “No, no. I don’t want Mom to know anything is going on. I’m sure it’s nothing. I’ll just run to a doctor in Peachtree.”

  “And if it’s something more, I want you to be seen in New York,” Caroline said.

  “Fine,” Emerson agreed, exhaling. She looked at us. “Promise me,” she said. “Not a word to Mom. She has enough on her plate.”

  Caroline and I simultaneously put our three fingers up in scout’s honor.

  I hated keeping secrets from my mother. But we had done it before. One more time probably wouldn’t hurt.

  FOURTEEN

  scary small person

  ansley

  “We made it,” I said to James over my car’s Bluetooth speaker, as I was pulling out of Linda’s driveway in Athens’s charming Five Points neighborhood.

  “We sure did,” he said. These last few days had really brought out a different side of James. I was beginning to see him not as the slick, suit-wearing lawyer, but a family man capable of standing by my side when the chips were down—like when I was drowning in poop and finger paint.

  Against all odds, I had even managed to put a presentation together for Jack. “You should know that Jack’s coming by the house at three.”

  “So what you’re delicately telling me is to keep it clean?”

  I laughed. “Exactly.”

  It would have been more professional to have our meeting in my shop, but I wanted Jack to be in a home I had put my stamp on from top to bottom. And I knew it was childish, but after seeing him with Georgia a few nights earlier, I wanted him to remember what it was like for us to be more than client and decorator.

  At three on the dot, Jack walked through the front door, Biscuit licking his bare ankles with gusto. I snapped my fingers at her. “Biscuit! Stop that!”

  Jack laughed as he walked into the living room. I was sitting cross-legged on the floor surrounded by paint chips, wallpaper books, fabric swatches, and furniture catalogs.

  “Wow,” he said. “This is not what the other decorators brought by to show me.”

  “They aren’t as brilliant as I am,” I deadpanned.

  He nodded. “Clearly.” He paused. “Are the girls having fun?”

  “Oh, yes,” I said. “It was very, very kind of you to let them use your boat.”

  He sat down on the floor across from me. “How are they, Ansley? Are they OK? I want to do something to help. I really do.”

  I smiled at him, that familiar warmth running through me. He was such a kindhearted soul, a generous man. That was what had always drawn me to him.

  “Caroline is just going to have to feel it, I think. And Sloane . . .” I shook my head, hoping he didn’t hear the
crack in my voice. But he must have, because he scooted beside me and pulled me into him.

  “I want so badly to be mad at you,” he said. “I want to hate you for not giving me what I want. But then I think of all you’re going through and I understand you a little more. And I can’t hate you as much as I want to.” He kissed the top of my head, and a little laugh broke through my tears.

  “This is the least professional interview I’ve ever done,” I said.

  “Ansley, we both know I don’t know a thing about being a parent. But I know about you. I know they are your life, but don’t lose yourself in this.” I looked up into his earnest face. “Please.”

  “I’m trying,” I said. “That’s why I want to do this house so badly. It will help me focus my attention somewhere other than on Sloane and Adam and even Caroline and James. Their unhappiness is so consuming.”

  “How’s your mom?”

  I shrugged, and as if she heard him, she called from her room, “Ansley!”

  “I’ve got her, Ans,” James called from the kitchen. He walked into my mother’s room, saying, “Ansley is with a client. Remember?”

  As I was saying, “She seems better,” James walked in. “I’m sorry, Ansley,” he said, “but I think you’d better come in here.”

  I got up, and Jack followed me. Mom was looking around the room and glanced up at me when I came in. “What’s wrong, Mom?”

  I could tell she was confused. “Whose suitcase is that?” she asked, pointing to the corner of the room.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Whose suitcase?” she repeated.

  “Well,” I said slowly, “it’s yours, Mom. You’ve had it for like twenty years.”

  “It’s not mine,” she said indignantly.

  I looked at Jack helplessly. He rolled the suitcase to her. “See?” he said, pointing to the plate at the top of the suitcase.

  “Those are my initials,” she said.

  “Right.”

  “My initials, but not my suitcase.” Then she peered at Jack. “And who in the world are you?”

  “Oh my God,” I said. “Is she having a stroke?”

  “Ansley, for heaven’s sake, I’m not having a stroke.” Then she looked up. “Jack, why in God’s holy name do you have my suitcase over here? It belongs in the corner.”

  Jack looked concerned. I was sure I looked horrified. This was what I had been talking about for months now, what the doctors assured me was just old-age confusion.

  “Mom? Do you know where you are?”

  Now she really looked confused. “Darling, of course. I’m in the same bedroom I’ve had since I was a little girl at my parents’ house in Peachtree Bluff, which is now your house in Peachtree Bluff, much to the chagrin of your brother John.” She grinned at me. “And this is Jack, the man you have loved since you were a teenager but are too foolhardy to let back into your heart now.”

  Jack laughed. “She seems fine to me.”

  I sighed in relief. “Thanks, Mom. That’s great.” Whatever it was seemed to have passed.

  I wanted to take her to the doctor or at least call, but every time I did, they acted like I was this delusional woman who couldn’t accept that her mother was aging.

  “I’m so sorry, Jack,” I said when we were back in the living room.

  “It’s OK,” he said. “It’s hard. When that started to happen to my dad, it nearly broke my heart. The first time he didn’t remember who I was . . .” He looked away from me, and I wanted to wrap him in a hug and kiss him. It was one of those moments—not the first and probably not the last—that made me realize what Jack and I had had as kids was nice, but what we could have as adults could be so much more. He was different. I was different. But we still shared so many important things.

  “Before crisis strikes again . . .” I said, holding up a handful of swatches.

  Jack softened and put his hand up to stop me, the hostility of move-in day behind us. “Of course I want you to decorate my house, Ansley. That was half the reason I bought it.”

  I smiled coyly. “You won’t be sorry.”

  “I know I won’t be sorry,” he said. “I . . .” He trailed off, smiling. “Do you remember that night we fell asleep on Starlite Island?”

  I laughed. “Remember? Oh, I’ll never forget. And we woke up, and it was four thirty in the morning?”

  He nodded. “We paddled as fast as we could from Starlite back to the dock, and as we were running across the street, you stopped in front of my new house and said, ‘Man. That one could really shine in the right hands.’ ”

  That had been a perfect night, as so many of those young nights with Jack had been—besides the fear that my parents would wake up and kill me for spending the night out with a boy, of course.

  “That night, I remember thinking I would give anything to buy you that house, to live there with you and make it our own.”

  “Jack . . .” I said.

  He shook his head. “No, I get it, Ans. This isn’t me coming on to you. It’s just I could tell in the yard that I had hurt you, that you thought I didn’t remember. But I did. I remember.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  He smiled. “And, also, Caroline told me to buy it, and she’s a really, really scary small person.”

  Between my laughter I said, “Caroline told you to buy it?”

  He winked at me. “She had some notion that maybe you would fall in love with the boy next door.”

  All those years ago, I had. I had fallen in love with the boy next door—or the boy down the street, anyway. Sitting with Jack now, I had the feeling that maybe, just maybe, I could fall in love with the man next door too.

  FIFTEEN

  the brightness of the stars

  sloane

  November 28, 2010

  Dear Sloane,

  Even out here, in a dry desert that it feels like God surely has forgotten, the stars shine bright and the moon hangs low, and for a moment, between the gunshots and the shrapnel, the wounded soldiers and the innocent civilians lost in the mix, there is a moment, just a moment, that still feels like a miracle, that still feels like life can be beautiful and good. I’m convinced that these moments are what make up our lives, that the moments that are nothing short of miraculous are the ones that define who we are, that we will remember always. At least, that’s what I tell myself. Because I’d hate to think that I will remember the fighting but I will forget the brightness of the stars.

  All my love,

  Adam

  I PRAYED ALL DAY, every day that God would bring Adam home to me, unharmed. My faith was my sanity, and I wondered, not for the first time, how my mom survived everything she had without belief in a higher power. My faith was one of the greatest gifts I had. Because of it, I knew that even when I couldn’t quite see the end, everything would work out the way it was supposed to.

  That didn’t keep me from feeling utterly terrified and devastated, but it helped me put one foot in front of the other when I didn’t want to. That day, I wanted to. I could practically smell my children, feel their sticky little hands on my face, and hear their sweet, small voices, so filled with excitement and joy.

  When I walked through the door, my two boys flew into my arms so quickly that they almost knocked me over, giggling and covering my face with kisses. It occurred to me that, in a world where children’s laughter exists, all can never really be lost. I hadn’t even finished kissing them before I looked up and saw that Caroline had hung one of my paintings from the boat over the mantel.

  “It’s perfect,” Mom said. “It changes the entire room.”

  “Aren’t the grays so good?” Caroline asked.

  Emerson walked through the front door, canvases in her arms.

  “Sloane!” Mom gasped, admiring each one. “You should sell these.”

  I was going to say no. These canvases were too important to me. They were my heart and soul, all of my emotions draining out from my fingertips and onto the canvas. But then I remembe
red: I needed the money. This could be the answer to my prayers. It could get me out of the mess I’d made and help me start over. I picked up one of the canvases. Sure, these paintings may have helped bring me out of the darkness. But if I could let them go, I would be free. Not forever. But for now. “Not yet, Mom. I’m not ready. But soon.”

  Grammy walked in wearing a beautiful yellow pantsuit. Her hair was freshly combed and her makeup expertly applied with a steady hand, but I would never get used to seeing her with a cane. I didn’t like it. It made her seem old. I didn’t want her to be old. I wanted her to be young and so very alive. I wanted her to walk on the beach with us, take the boat over to Starlite Island. I wanted her to be immortal. As foolish as it seems, I almost believed she was.

  She hugged me and kissed my cheek. “We had so much fun with the boys, darling. They are precious.”

  Then she hugged Caroline. “And that James.” She paused. “I hate him much less now.”

  We all laughed as Mark burst through the door. Emerson jumped into his arms like she hadn’t seen him in months, kissing him passionately.

  “Darling, for heaven’s sake,” Grammy said.

  Mark backed away from Emerson, assessing her. “Why do you have on long sleeves?”

  Caroline and I shared a glance.

  Mark was studying Emerson’s face. As he said, “Oh my God, Emerson,” she pulled him out the door, and I knew he had noticed her bruise. I looked at Caroline again and she mouthed, “Doctor. Today.”

  I motioned toward the front door with my head, and Caroline followed them. She could handle that one.

  I had other things on my plate, namely paying my bills.

  * * *

  TEN MINUTES LATER I was sitting on the end of the bed, thinking about miracles. My dad always believed in them. Adam certainly did. And me? I did to an extent, I suppose. But, while a lot of great things had happened to me in my life, I wasn’t sure that any of them would qualify as a miracle. I mean, miracle is a pretty big word, something that defies logic, that defies explanation, something that you seemingly willed into being. But that was the only, single explanation for what was happening now.