Dancing in the Lowcountry

by James Villas

  Chapter 15

  DEFEATED SOUL

  Since it was pouring down rain on Friday afternoon, Goldie drove the car to the Myrtle Beach airport to meet Tyler’s plane from LaGuardia and dropped Ella off at the curb so she wouldn’t get soaking wet and mess up her hair. Learning that the flight was delayed, Ella just suggested that they find a bar where she could sit down and have a relatively quiet drink while waiting when, out of the blue, she heard somebody on the concourse call her name. Turning around, she saw a rather exotic woman on the arm of a distinguished older man in a tan jacket pushing a cart with two expensive-looking leather suitcases and a couple of shopping bags.

  “Well, I don’t believe my eyes, Ella!” the other woman drawled dramatically, opening her arms for a big hug. “How in this world are you?”

  Her hair, dyed a luminous cinnamon, appeared to have just been fluffed at the beauty parlor, and, even with all the heavy makeup, the taut skin around the eyes and on the neck made it obvious to anyone that this was a face that had been subjected to various surgical procedures more than once. She wore a lightweight green suede suit with leather buttons on the jacket, a knotted gold bracelet, and an enormous diamond ring that only drew attention to her mottled, slightly gnarled left hand.

  At first, Ella didn’t recognize the woman. Then, studying her reconditioned face more carefully, she said, “Why, Naomi Chapman. How are you, dear?” embracing her cordially but guardedly. “And what in heaven’s name are you doing in this airport?”

  “Oh, honey, we’re on our way back to Atlanta,” she explained slowly, taking the man’s arm again and looking suspiciously at Goldie. “Ella, I don’t think you ever met my husband, Lyman Spangler. Lyman, this is Ella Dubose, originally from Charleston, and we knew each other years ago in Charlotte before Dennis died—back longer than I care to remember.” She let out a silly laugh. “I’m sure you’ve heard me mention the Duboses.”

  “And this is my companion, Goldie Russell,” Ella told her casually, patting Goldie proudly on the arm.

  “Pleased to meet you,” Naomi said, nodding her head.

  “So you’re still in Atlanta?” Ella asked.

  “Oh, heavens yes, honey. Couldn’t live anywhere else, especially since both the children and three grandchildren are there. Can you imagine? Anyway, after Lyman here retired—he was in real estate out in Buckhead—we bought this precious cottage down here at Tilghman Beach—oceanfront, five bedrooms, and, as I’m sure you know, Tilghman is still very family oriented and pretty private, with no honky-tonk, and no pavilion, and, at least so far—thank the Good Lord—no coloreds. We really love the place and usually have a few nice houseguests come down whenever life in the big city just gets too much.” She stopped only to laugh again and apologize. “Mercy me, where are my manners? I haven’t even asked what you’re doing in this airport yourself. And how is Earl, and those adorable children of yours? Are you still in that lovely big house on…oh, yeah, I remember, on Colville Road?”

  Ella explained patiently that Earl had died some years ago. Yes, she still lived in the same house and was down at the Priscilla on a little vacation. The children were all fine, and, in fact, she was waiting on Tyler to arrive any minute from New York. Naomi wondered if she had time for a quick cup of coffee so they could really catch up on each other’s lives, but when Ella said they were rushing to the gate to meet her son, Naomi gave her another hug, mentioned her married name again, and told her, made her promise, to call and come by the house for at least a drink anytime she happened to be back down in the Myrtle Beach area for any length of time.

  “Awful woman,” Ella snarled as she and Goldie were forced to head in the direction of the gates and forget about trying to find a bar. “Common as dirt. I didn’t like her in the old days, and I still don’t. So pretentious and unattractive. Her first husband was a very respectable gentleman, and I could never figure out what in this world he saw in that phony woman. Maybe I was a little rude, but all I wanted was to get away as quickly as possible.”

  Goldie laughed. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so critical, Miss Ella. She was just trying to be nice.”

  “What do you mean, woman?” Ella said impatiently. “Nice? You saw her. You heard the way she talks. She’s not worth our time, believe me, dear.”

  Proceeding to the waiting area at the gate, Goldie grabbed a Charlotte Observer at a concession, but Ella, commenting that the last thing she cared about during her vacation was reading about the horrors and corruption and violence in the world, settled into one of the uncomfortable chairs and took a small piece of needlepoint from her pocketbook. Although she couldn’t have been more worked up over seeing Tyler again, the first time since he was in Charlotte for Christmas, what was weighing heavily on her mind was the main reason she’d coaxed him to join her and the mission she’d mapped out in her mind.

  Repeatedly, she’d debated with herself over whether she was doing the right thing and how any revelations about his real father might affect their close relationship. But in the end her conscience still dictated that she simply had no right to continue living such a terrible lie and that this was something that had to be resolved before it was too late. Not that Ella had ever been really that righteous and religious, despite her active involvement in the church. Her faith had always been steadfast and consoling, but it had also been a very private, objective matter based more on the moral principles it taught than on any mighty inner strength and promise of pearly gates it might provide. Unlike most of her more zealous Catholic friends, conditioned to expiating guilt as a necessary step on the rocky road to salvation, Ella perceived her own guilt as a normal problem, with no religious overtones, to be tolerated and confronted realistically when the right time came.

  As to exactly when and how she would broach the critical subject, she’d mulled over every possibility imaginable and ultimately came up with a plan to drive down to Charleston with Tyler, visit Jonathan’s grave in Beth Elohim cemetery, and, as straightforwardly and undramatically as possible, inform him of the truth over lunch, maybe at Henry’s. That she’d not been to the grave herself since that sad day of the funeral all those years ago was a daunting prospect she knew she’d find disturbing, but if the venture proved to her son just how serious she was about correcting, even at this late date, a deceit that might help explain a good deal about his personality and life, it would be worth any nostalgic suffering she herself might be forced to endure.

  The moment Tyler came through the gate, the first thing Ella noticed was that he seemed to have lost weight and his hair was less luxuriant than before. Unlike the majority of other casually dressed men deboarding, however, he was wearing his customary tailored dark blazer and silk necktie and carrying a handsome leather-trimmed garment bag over one shoulder, so even though Ella thought for a moment that he felt much too thin when he hugged her tightly, then the grinning Goldie, she was certain there wasn’t a thing wrong that plenty of wholesome Southern food wouldn’t remedy. Little could she have known that, after hearing from the oncologist shortly before leaving that the most recent blood-cell count was less promising than one had hoped, Tyler had considerably more to be worried about than just weight loss.

  “Y’all didn’t have to come all the way to the gate, for heaven’s sake,” he told the two ladies, his arm still around his mother’s waist.

  “Well, to tell you the truth, honey, we hadn’t planned to,” Ella admitted, “and we had to do some real sidestepping. Do you remember that Mrs. Chapman in Charlotte—Naomi Chapman, married to the bank president? Well, I never cared much for her, and, of all people, we would have to run smack into her with her new husband right here on the concourse. Of course, nothing would do but for her to want to get chummy again, so we made up a big excuse about rushing to meet you, and…Lord, she’s the crudest and ugliest woman I ever laid eyes on.”

  Tyler chuckled. “Now, now, Mama, you know people can’t help it if they’re ugly.”

  “I know she can’t help it,” Ella
huffed, “but, as my daddy used to say, she could at least stay home.”

  Both Tyler and Goldie roared with laughter as he pulled his mother closer and exclaimed, “Mama! You never change.”

  Driving back to the inn, Ella was excited as she told Tyler all about the inn, and the dining room, and Riley, and the interesting Northern family they’d met and would probably have drinks with before dinner. He’d notice, she emphasized with outrage in her voice, that Myrtle Beach had changed disgracefully since he was last there, but the Priscilla was still delightfully old-fashioned, and she’d booked him a nice oceanfront room down from hers, and the mobs hadn’t yet arrived to ruin the fishing, and lots of traditional seafood houses were still around. Tyler, who did feel an emotional contentment being back around familiar sites and smells and thick accents in the region where he was born, pretended to be as animated as his mother, but so reduced was his energy after the hassle of airports and delays and the flight that all he really wanted to do once they’d arrived at the inn was lie down, regain his strength, and try to figure out what all his mother had on her mind.

  Since it was still too wet to sit on the porch, everybody met in the lounge for cocktails except the two boys, who were playing video games in a remote room for children off the lobby. The Marianis, duly impressed and a little nervous to be in the company of a celebrity author, paid most attention to Tyler and were relieved to find that he was just as friendly and down to earth as his mother.

  “So, Dad says you’re not married up in Manhattan,” Sal said carelessly.

  Tyler took a sip of his daiquiri, then cracked a sly smile. “Well, not legally.”

  For an instant, there was dead silence at the table. Then, when Elizabeth popped her husband’s shoulder reproachfully and said, “Sal, you’re such a dope,” everybody burst out laughing.

  “Honey, would you please behave yourself around these nice Yankees,” Ella told Tyler, holding a cigarette up for Edmund to light.

  “Watch your language, Miss Ella,” the older man teased before turning to Tyler. “Maybe you’d better remind your mama that the war’s been over for a good century, and that there really is life above the Mason-Dixon Line.”

  “Maybe you can finally convince her,” Tyler cracked, wrapping an arm tenderly around his mother’s shoulder.

  “Why, I don’t know what you two are talking about,” Ella said smugly.

  “We understand that you and your friend have been to Paris,” Elizabeth broke in just as the waiter placed a small bowl of pickled shrimp on the table and asked if anybody was ready for a sweetener. “Sal and I have always wanted to go to Paris.”

  “Oh, listen,” Ella exclaimed suddenly as she turned her head to look at the piano player and smiled. “Jo Stafford. ‘Long Ago and Far Away.’”

  For a few moments, everyone remained silent till, finally, glancing at the others, Tyler said warmly, “Pull out of it, Mama,” and added, “In case you haven’t noticed, my mama is a hopeless sentimentalist.”

  “I’m nothing of the sort,” she grumbled, turning back. “I just happen to appreciate a little decent music—not this junk you hear everywhere today.”

  “I’ll second that,” Edmund said, raising his glass to Ella.

  “You were going to tell us about Paris,” Elizabeth pursued, pushing her glowing sandy hair back over an ear.

  Although nothing irked Tyler more than having to relate abstract impressions of places and events with which others had little way or reason to identify, his skills as a novelist allowed him to do just that when necessary. Consequently, and out of courtesy, he drummed on a while about where he and Barry had dined in Paris, and the museums and galleries they revisited, and a concert they attended, and the city’s inimitable light that never ceased to mystify him.

  “I hear they’ve got some pretty raunchy nightclubs over there,” Sal said.

  Tyler tried not to frown. “Not our scene. Sorry, but you’ll have to get somebody else to tell you all about the tits and feathers.”

  “Tyler!” Ella exclaimed, slapping him on the leg while the others roared with laughter. “When you were young, I’d wash your mouth out with soap for saying things like that. Have you lost all your manners?”

  But it did please Ella seeing her son get along so well with the new friends, just as nothing could have made her prouder than watching Riley’s reaction outside the dining room to Tyler when the two shook hands again for the first time in many years and began to banter.

  “Lawsy me, Mr. Tyler,” Riley gabbled, “last time I saw you was when Buck was a calf, and now they say you’re in high cotton up there in Yankeeland. Umm, umm, I do say.”

  Laughing, Tyler grabbed his thin arm and squeezed it. “Well, Riley, they tell me you’re still managing to rule the roost here just as you always did.”

  “Oh, get on with you, Mr. Tyler. They gotta have somebody to keep these good folks full and outta trouble, and I reckon I’ll be around till they carry me out feet first. Umm, umm. And this hair sho can’t get no whiter.”

  “Too many late nights chasing those fillies, I bet.”

  Riley leaned over in spasms of laughter, his whole fragile body shaking. “Get on with you, Mr. Tyler. If that was only half-true, these ole bones would probably be in better shape—I can tell you that. I reckon you left yo missus back up North.”

  “Which one you talking about, Riley?”

  The head waiter buckled over again as if his sides would split, then pointed at Tyler’s midsection as they moved toward the dining room. “I can tell you one thing, Mr. Tyler, and that’s that they sho don’t feed you too good up there in New York City. But, yessir, we’ll take care of that right off the bat.”

  Once inside the gracious room, which was at least half-full and quiet, Riley, dressed in his usual neat tuxedo, resumed his more dignified demeanor as he led the three to a choice table overlooking the water, leaned down as if to reveal a secret, and whispered, “You folks might want to give serious thought to the okra fritters and crabmeat casserole this evening. Uh-huh.”

  Both Ella and Goldie took the recommendation, but Tyler, who had no real appetite, ordered only a shrimp cocktail and salad with the excuse that the wretched lunch on the plane had left his stomach a little queasy. Since he didn’t feel at ease discussing serious family matters or even his and Barry’s trip to Paris in front of Goldie, conversation revolved mainly around what the two women had been doing all week and the friendship they had developed with Dr. O’Conner and his family. Of course, Ella was discreet about her budding attraction to Edmund, but such were her glowing appraisals and compliments every time she referred to him that it didn’t take Tyler long to suspect that his mother might actually be involved in a little innocent romance with the doctor. When he glanced over at Goldie, she simply winked at him.

  As usual, Edmund dropped by the table after the meal to ask if he could twist a few arms to join him for a cordial in the lounge, explaining that Elizabeth and Sal had decided to turn in early with the boys since the weather was still so rotten. And, as usual, Goldie thanked him in her retiring way, then declined on the grounds that there was a program on TV she wanted to watch. Ella had hoped that Edmund could get to know Tyler better, but, having studied her son’s pale complexion and vapid eyes during dinner, she couldn’t have been more solicitous when he announced that he was really beat after a hectic week and the flight down and would have to leave tonight’s carousing up to the “younger folks.” As a result, Ella and Edmund were once again left to exchange more stories and memories and, at times, to be relatively intimate, and while she was tempted at one point to relate the true story about Jonathan Green and the reason she’d pressured Tyler to make the trip down, her troublesome secret was still much too personal and deep rooted to share even with this remarkable man who no doubt would sympathize and offer to help.

  Although Tyler himself did feel lousy while he undressed and swallowed a handful of pills, he had already drifted back under the wistful spell of the Lowcoun
try and, as the mild sea air and sound of breaking waves stirred his senses, opened himself up to disparate memories of youthful days much as his mother was prone to do. Almost instinctively, he could remember romping alone through tall sea oats in pursuit of hermit crabs while his father and brother pitched ball on the beach. As if it were only yesterday, he could feel his mother’s soft hand as the two of them walked along the wet strand looking for unusual seashells, and smell the faint stench of pulpwood mills while crabbing with the family near Georgetown, and hear the strange Gullah lilt of old black basket-women selling their handicrafts at lean-tos along the road at Pawleys Island. And, he realized, there was still something enchanted about this isolated region so haunted by the ghosts of its glorious and withered past, something that beckoned to the defeated soul and offered a mysterious solace that was as soothing as muted thunder over the horizon announcing a warm summer rain or a breeze whistling through the giant fronds of a palmetto.

  Chapter 16

  IMPERFECT BOND

  On Saturday, the sun returned as brilliant as before, and, after a good night’s sleep, Tyler not only felt and looked better but had enough appetite at breakfast to eat scrambled eggs, a couple of buttermilk biscuits, and even some grits. Not wanting to push his luck, however, he rebuffed his mother’s plan to put in a morning of surf fishing and asked if they could simply relax on the porch and catch up on things while Goldie tried her luck with one of the rods. True to her sartorial form, Ella was now dressed in shocking pink linen slacks and a silk paisley blouse, while he wore a more practical pair of white duck shorts and a green short-sleeved shirt that exposed his ashen arms and legs.

  “I was glad to see you eating a decent breakfast,” Ella said. “You look like you’ve taken off a little flesh.”