The Secret to Southern Charm

by Kristy Woodson Harvey

  She touched my hand gently. “Please let me do it while I’m still able.”

  I didn’t want to let her. I wanted to take care of her, to make this go away, to have her for years and years more. But that wasn’t the hand we had been dealt.

  “I’d like to go with you to the store after breakfast,” she said.

  “Are you feeling up to that?”

  She glared at me.

  Note to self: don’t ask Mom if she’s feeling up to it.

  “Great,” I said. “I’d love that. I know Leah would love it too. You can be our design assistant today.”

  She shook her head. “You design. I’ll wait on customers. I’ve always wanted to run a cash register.”

  I doubted she realized the “cash register” was now an iPad with a Square reader attached. But there was still that drawer that popped open and made the satisfying “ding.”

  “What else, Mom?”

  “What else what?” she called from the other side of the wall.

  “What else have you always wanted to do?”

  She peeked her head around the doorway. “Oh, let’s not do that. I don’t want to be one of those dying women.”

  I laughed. “You won’t. But if there are things you want to do, let’s do them. Why not? We have time.”

  She smiled at me and disappeared again. “I have traveled the world,” she called. “I have no desire to jump out of any airplanes, but I would like to ring a cash register.”

  I couldn’t imagine a dying woman’s request being any simpler than that. I heard the clang of the plates through the wall and could picture my mother serving eggs and bacon—for what could be one of the last times. How many times had she made bacon and eggs for me? How many times had I watched her, always perfectly dressed, scrambling eggs, and avoiding grease pops from the bacon? And now she was going to be gone.

  I wiped my eyes just as she reappeared. “I’m going up to get dressed and then I’ll drive you down to the store.”

  She crunched her bacon and said, “Ansley, my abilities have not completely deteriorated since I told you about the cancer yesterday. I am perfectly able to walk one block to your store.”

  * * *

  TWENTY MINUTES LATER, MOM was perched on a bar stool behind the counter of my store, Leah was teaching her how to use our point-of-sale system, and, despite my excitement over designing a pair of custom chaise lounges for Jack’s house, I could feel my eyelids starting to get heavy. As if he sensed my exhaustion from several blocks away, Coffee Kyle appeared.

  “Oh,” I said, practically running to meet him. “Bless you!”

  He laughed. “And to think, my parents wanted me to be a doctor, lawyer, or missionary. There’s no way those things could have been as satisfying as this.”

  He handed me a cup and I said, “Trust me, you’ll save far more innocent lives doing what you do now.”

  Kyle smiled. “Now, before you take a sip, you should know you three ladies are my guinea pigs. I’m trying to switch some of my regulars on to drinks with less sugar.” He looked at me pointedly and said, “Prevent cancer, all of that.”

  How did he know? I hadn’t told anyone except Sandra and Emily. But this was Peachtree Bluff. No one could keep a secret around here. Well, no one except for Jack and me.

  “I want the sugar,” Mom said. “If I’m going down, I’d like to go down with a mocha Frappuccino in one hand and a Hershey’s bar in the other.”

  We all laughed.

  “Just hear me out,” Kyle said. “This is my new latte made with unsweetened cashew milk, raw cocoa powder, cinnamon, a dash of chocolate stevia, and a touch of matcha tea and maca powder for added health benefits.”

  I was going to hate it. I knew it. Leah, Mom, and I took simultaneous sips. I was expecting a flat, thin latte with practically no flavor and that disgusting stevia aftertaste, but what I got was a cup of heaven.

  “This is my new usual,” I said. “Kyle, you are a genius.”

  Mom nodded. “Yeah. I’ll go down with this in one hand instead.”

  “It’s so creamy,” Leah said.

  I loved the authoritative air Kyle took on when talking about coffee, as if he were discussing a new species he had discovered in the Amazon. “I’ve been experimenting with homemade nut milks for a while now, and I’ve discovered that cashew takes on the perfect density for lattes. Macadamia does as well, but the flavor combination isn’t as good.”

  “Oh!” Leah exclaimed. “White chocolate macadamia!”

  Kyle laughed. “It’s in the works.”

  Mom took another sip and said, “You know who would love this?”

  “Oh, Emerson,” I chimed in.

  Kyle cleared his throat, the way he tended to do when he was nervous, and I could have sworn his ears reddened the tiniest bit. Oh my gosh. He had made this for Emerson.

  “I’ll have to get her to taste it when she gets back. When will the girls be back?” he asked with forced nonchalance.

  “Oh, they’re back.”

  He grinned. “Then I’ll take her one right away.”

  I felt bad for him, but maybe it was all in my head and I just assumed every man was interested in my daughters. But maybe that wasn’t the case with Kyle. In fact, when I said, “She’s probably at Mark’s,” he didn’t even flinch.

  “OK!” Mom said exuberantly. “Kyle, you need to buy something. I’ll ring you up!”

  “Mom,” I scolded. I turned to Kyle. “You don’t need to buy anything.”

  “Grammy, is this your first sale?”

  Kyle’s hair seemed even blacker today, his arms more toned, his jawline more defined. I wasn’t sure it was possible for him to get more handsome, but it seemed he had.

  “It certainly will be, darling. I’ve always wanted to work the cash register.” She scrunched her nose. “Well, not this newfangled contraption. But I suppose it will have to do.”

  Kyle shook his head. “The cash register in my coffee shop is from 1962. I’d be honored if you would help me out over there for a bit.”

  She gasped and put her hand to her mouth. “Well, if you don’t know how to make a lady’s dying wish come true, then I don’t know who does.”

  “Mom,” I scolded again. “The girls don’t even know yet.”

  “My lips are sealed,” Kyle said.

  I looked at my mother. “We have to tell them today.”

  Mom waved her hand. “Fine, fine. You’re such a bore sometimes, Ansley.”

  Such a bore. I guess I was. But there wasn’t much that was exciting about dying.

  Kyle carefully hoisted Mom off the stool and winked at me. “I promise I’ll take good care of her,” he said. “I’ll bring her back before lunch.”

  “Mom,” I said, feeling as if I were sending one of my girls off to school again. “Behave.”

  She turned and put her hand on her heart, as though she were offended. “Why, don’t I always, darling?”

  I shook my head. “No. No, you never do. Which is why I have to say it.”

  “Well-behaved women rarely make history,” Kyle whispered.

  And then they were on their way, Mom’s arm wrapped around Kyle’s, her other hand on her cane.

  For the briefest of moments, I just knew the doctors were wrong. There wasn’t one thing wrong with my mother. There couldn’t be.

  And, while Kyle had always been the adorable boy who brought me my coffee, this was one of those times when I couldn’t help but see him as something more.

  NINETEEN

  mother’s morning out

  sloane

  The boat trip with my sisters had done me a world of good. Coming home made me realize what a world of good Vivi did me. I had taken for granted over the past few months how much my sweet niece played with Taylor and AJ.

  Now, this afternoon, sitting in my bedroom that seemed to be getting smaller by the minute, I realized I needed to get out of there. Me. The girl who didn’t even want her children to go to school because she was so te
rrified something would happen to them and it would be all her fault felt like she needed a break.

  AJ was sitting on the floor arranging coins from biggest to smallest, and Taylor, whom I was trying to read to, was knocking over each of AJ’s stacks as soon as he finished them. AJ had made a particularly tall tower with probably fifteen coins. I was very proud of his motor skills. I thought Taylor was completely engrossed in a Shel Silverstein poem—until he wriggled in my lap, kicked out his leg, and the stack was gone. “Mommy!” AJ wailed.

  “Taylor, that’s enough,” I said, a little too forcefully. “I’ve had it. I’ve told you five times not to do that, and now you’re going to your room.”

  “Noooooo!” Taylor screamed, flailing on the floor. I grabbed him by one arm and one leg—I’d learned from experience that during a full-on tantrum, I couldn’t hold him the regular way. One arm and one leg made him madder, but it gave me a safe grip with which to remove him from the situation.

  I walked into his room, set him on the bed as gently as I could, and said, as if a mid-tantrum kid could even hear you, “You stay here until I tell you to come out.”

  I closed the door behind me, and the screaming continued. He’d calm down. Eventually.

  AJ was still stacking when I got back to my room. “Look, Mommy,” he said proudly.

  He had completed his task once again. “Good job, bud,” I said. “Now I want you to make a pile of change for me that equals one dollar.”

  He nodded.

  “One hundred cents is one dollar.”

  “Exactly,” I said. I wanted at least one member of the family to be good with money. I smiled thinking again of that zero balance and smiled even bigger when I realized that since my debt had been cleared, despite my stress levels with Adam, Emerson’s illness, and the kids, I hadn’t bought one single thing. Not so much as a juice box, which Mom was handling right now. It would be a good chance for me to build up our savings.

  Caroline walked into my bedroom, Grammy on her heels. “Well, hello there,” I said. “Did the screaming bring you up?”

  “Something like that,” Grammy said, looking around at the floor. The room was fairly neat, but AJ’s school things were spread everywhere. I thought again how much easier it would get when Taylor was three or four and could do work at the same time as AJ.

  I sensed an ambush coming, but I wasn’t sure what sort of ambush it would be. “So,” Caroline started, “I have the best idea.”

  “No,” I said.

  Caroline crossed her arms, looking hurt. “Not no,” she said. “You don’t even know what I’m going to say.”

  “Right,” I said, “but I can already tell I don’t like it.”

  Grammy laughed.

  I ran my hand through AJ’s hair while Grammy said, “Wow, AJ, I’m going to bring my change up here and let you sort it.”

  He lit up. “OK. That would be so cool. Wouldn’t it, Mommy?”

  I nodded and grinned at him. “Hurry up,” I said to Caroline. “I need to go get Taylor out of time-out.”

  “I was just thinking that our poor mother has hardly been able to work for months and the last month wasn’t able to work at all.”

  I wasn’t sure what she was getting at.

  “I thought it would be nice,” Caroline continued, “if we helped her at the store so she could get caught up on all her design projects.”

  I still didn’t say anything but eyed her warily.

  She continued, “I could run the store, you could paint a little.” She paused. “I thought we could market these cool live paint sessions with you, and it would really help sell your art.”

  “What a waste of your breath,” I said, getting up off the floor.

  “What do you mean?” Caroline asked.

  I walked toward the boys’ room and said, “I mean, I said ‘no’ to begin with. That’s still my answer, and everything in between was just a waste of breath.”

  Caroline leaned against the door jamb, arms crossed, as I knelt down in front of a now-calm Taylor. “Taylor, you were in time-out for not listening to Mommy. When Mommy speaks, we listen, and we always do what Mommy says right away.”

  The new discipline book I was reading said this was more effective for kids under the age of three than trying to explain why the exact behavior was wrong, i.e., pushing over AJ’s coin stack.

  “Do you have anything to say to Mommy?”

  Taylor nodded, his little lip stuck out. “Sorry, Mommy.”

  He hugged me, and I said, “Thank you, Taylor. You may go play now.”

  I was so relieved. Some days this routine took an hour because the child absolutely refused to apologize, and we’d have to keep repeating the cycle. It was exhausting. But it was working.

  When I got up, Grammy was standing behind me. “Darling,” she said gently, “I know you’ve been having some money troubles, and it’s time for you to stand on your own two feet. You need to be able to support yourself in case . . .”

  She trailed off, and I could feel the anger welling up inside me. “In case what, Grammy?” I paused. “There’s no ‘in case.’ Adam is coming home. Adam supports our family. That’s it and that’s final. I don’t want to hear about it again.”

  “No,” Grammy said, putting her hands on her hips. “I’m going to say this. I love you, Sloane. You’re a beautiful, talented, artistic bright light. It has bothered me for years that once you married Adam, you became this . . .” She paused, searching for the words, then finished, “this Stepford wife.”

  I gasped, and Caroline scolded, “Grammy!”

  The anger was rising in my chest. “How could you say anything negative about Adam at a time like this?”

  “Darling,” Grammy said. “I’m not saying anything negative about Adam. Adam is perfect. It’s you who’s the problem.”

  I wanted to protest again, as tears of humiliation sprung to my eyes. I wanted to fight her on this. But I knew she wasn’t wrong. I had lost myself, and I needed to do something for me—before it was too late.

  All the same, I was indignant as I walked back to my bedroom. Who was she to even consider that Adam wouldn’t come home? Of course he would. It was preposterous to consider any other scenario. Still, it would be nice to get out of the house a little bit more. And going back to work would get me to my savings goal much faster.

  I turned so quickly Caroline almost bumped right into me. “I will help Mom at the store, but I will not paint in public.” I was really enjoying painting. Loving it, actually. But it wasn’t time.

  Caroline put her hands up. “Fine,” she said.

  “That’s my girl,” Grammy said.

  Caroline squealed. “I’ve already signed the boys up for Mother’s Morning Out.”

  I looked down at my precious little babies on the floor, the babies who had never been cared for by anyone outside of their family—except for a couple of moms on post who, let’s face it, were my family too. How could I possibly leave them?

  Then AJ picked up one of my hair ties and flicked it at Taylor. Taylor started crying. I looked at Caroline. “When do I start?”

  TWENTY

  georgia girl

  ansley

  It was hard to believe that, only a couple of months earlier, Jack and I had been planning to take his recently renovated boat out on its maiden voyage. Together. I had been hesitant when he came back to Peachtree Bluff. Maybe “hesitant” was putting it mildly. More like terrified. I didn’t know what he wanted, but I did know he was the one person who had the power to ruin everything I had built with my children and devastate my relationships with them forever.

  Sure, Caroline and Sloane knew they came from a “sperm donor.” They knew Emerson was a miracle child, the only one who was biologically Carter’s. But they didn’t know their mother nearly died from a rare infection from her first Intrauterine Insemination, and that, from then on out, Carter wouldn’t hear of fertility treatments of any kind. Knowing they came from an anonymous sperm donor is quite diffe
rent from knowing their father is actually the man who lives beside them, their mother’s first love—or that he got her pregnant the regular way, not via a syringe. That was a lot of things not to know. A few of those things, namely that Jack was their biological father, I really wanted them to know. But in my time, in my way.

  That was why, I reminded myself for the millionth time, I could not be with Jack. I had been standing at his front door, holding my sketchbook for ten minutes, trying to gear myself up to go in. Biscuit was getting impatient at my feet, her little tail thumping on the wood of the front porch. She whined up at me. “I know,” I said. “But it’s complicated. You’re a dog. You wouldn’t understand.”

  Just then, the door flew open. I screamed, Biscuit barked, and I expected to hear Jack’s gasp, but that wasn’t what I heard at all. Instead, there was a second scream, one of the busty blond variety named after the state in which we currently resided. She was wearing a cocktail dress.

  People do not wear cocktail dresses at nine in the morning unless they are, as my girls would say, doing the walk of shame. “Oh, hi, Ansley,” she said, grinning at me like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

  My cookie jar.

  I was having trouble regulating my breath. I was trying to smile and make my face look normal. Did my face look normal? I looked down at Biscuit, who was looking up at me. She started barking in Georgia’s direction, which is how I knew once and for all that my face did not, in fact, look normal.

  Georgia had her clutch in one hand and a wrap in the other. I knew I should say something, but I didn’t know what.

  “I had a flat tire,” she said quickly.

  “How convenient,” I said under my breath.

  “What?”

  Her hair was mussed in the back—definitely sex hair.

  I could hear Jack’s footsteps coming down the hall, and I turned to leave. I couldn’t possibly face him. Not now. I should have been sad or heartbroken, but really, I was just mad. So, no, we couldn’t be together. I couldn’t have him. But I didn’t want her to have him either. It was a mature reaction.