Bender pulled a tarp off some things they had stored right after they’d bought the place and stocked it for summer vacations. “Here are the deck chairs.” He carted one out the open garage door. He returned and kept doing that until he appeared with one large blue dolphin chair.
“Where did we get that?” asked Saphora.
It was a heavy thing, and he had to use all of his strength to lift it. “I bought it for a song from a beach shop down in Wilmington. It is my chair, if anyone asks.” He carted it out.
Eddie dropped the bag of shells onto the garage floor and ran into the laundry room.
“I’ll get the bedroom ready first if you need to rest,” said Saphora to Bender.
“I’ve got too many calls to make. Can you quiet Eddie down?”
The boy was singing in an elevated falsetto.
“He’ll respond just as well to you,” she said. She popped open the trunk. “Eddie, there’s a garden outside. Go see if the birdbath needs water.” She knew it would, and that would keep Eddie busy playing with the water hose.
Eddie disappeared into the house. He yelled out tribal noises from outside over a tire swing strung from the tree house. Saphora imagined once he got his bearings around the beach home he would spend most of his time out back.
“Don’t get the luggage. I’ll do it,” said Bender. He was just about to pull out the largest piece when he slumped against the car.
“Bender, I’ll do it!” said Saphora. She tried to help him, but he resisted and stood up on his own. He walked into the house, mad, muttering, but not so Saphora could understand. She was too tired to translate anyway.
Bender did not take to Saphora fussing over him. Even as a boy, his mother once said years before she passed on, if he had a fever he would get frustrated if she hovered. But he had always found comfort in allowing a hired servant to pay him all the attention he needed.
Saphora wheeled the luggage into the laundry room and then through the kitchen. The house had a dumbwaiter right next to the butler’s pantry. She tucked it all into the elevator and sent it upstairs.
She opened the pantry. Sherry had not beaten them to the house after all. It wasn’t like Sherry not to show up or call.
Bender had set up shop on the sofa and coffee table. “Let’s don’t go out for dinner, how about? All I need is coffee and a pastry. I don’t want people talking about this all over town yet.”
“Like anyone knows us, hon.”
“There’s still more testing, so what’s the use anyway until I know more?”
“Aren’t you supposed to radically change your diet?”
“Coffee and a pastry are therapeutic. Here’s cash. Go down to that grocer’s and get me some croissants and a bag of coffee.” He pulled out his BlackBerry and started phoning his assistant, Nalia. He made sure she understood she was to expertly hand off his surgeries for the next two weeks to his partner, Sam Werther.
Before Saphora left again, she said, “Does that mean we’re only staying here two weeks?”
He was already engaged in his business with Nalia but told her, “I told you already, Saphora. Don’t play games. I’m too tired for them.”
Saphora was examining the fresh tortillas in the ethnic food aisle when Sherry called. Her five-year-old son had come down with chickenpox. He had been exposed through his cousins who had come in the week before.
“What exactly is it Dr. Warren has?” she asked.
Saphora hesitated between the black beans and pinto beans. “It’s cancer,” she said.
Sherry was quiet. Her son was crying in the background. Finally she said, “Knowing Dr. Warren’s condition, I can’t bring any diseases into the house.” She kept apologizing until she was nearly crying. “They say pox can be carried in your clothes. And Malcolm’s so sick. I’ve never seen him crying and clinging like this. I just couldn’t leave him with his grandma.”
“I’ll manage. Truth be told, Sherry, I need to do something with myself. If I had you here doing everything for me, I’d be lost.” She wanted to sound sincere so as not to place guilt on Sherry. She wasn’t about to admit to Bender she was already feeling the pressure to keep the beach house as organized and efficient as Sherry would.
“I know how you hate cooking. This is awful,” Sherry said, and then said it again. “This is awful.”
“I’m not a bad cook. Why does everyone think that?” asked Saphora, laughing.
“Is he bad sick?” she asked.
“They did some tests at Duke. We’ll know more in a couple of days. Don’t worry. Bender is the comeback guy.” It wasn’t a total lie. Bender was known for his sporty zeal in his days playing on the semipro golf circuit. His happiest days had been at a tournament he won in Southern Pines. But he had gone on to lose the next tournament just short of the nationals.
Saphora was still holding a package of tortillas when she spotted a man tucking what appeared to be a can of oysters into his pocket. “Hold on, Sherry.” She managed to move in closer to see if his pocket was bulging. It was. She looked around to find the nearest clerk. But being in such a small town, she would be lucky to find one nearby in the middle of the afternoon. “I’ll be fine, Sherry. I’ll call you back,” she said.
The man rounded the corner, disappearing out of her sight. Finally she spotted a clerk whose name tag read Bernard Newman. He was pricing yellow cake mix on the end cap. She hissed, “Bernard, come here.”
When he did not respond, she hissed again. “Look, Bernard, over here!”
“You talking to me?”
“I’m Mrs. Warren, Bernard,” she whispered. “There’s a pickpocket in the store.”
“Did someone steal your money, Mrs. Warren?”
“Not a pickpocket. I mean a shoplifter, Bernard. I just saw a man put a can of oysters in his pocket.”
“Are you sure, Mrs. Warren? The only other customer in the store is a minister. I seriously doubt he’d steal a can of oysters.”
“I just saw him, I swear, Bernard.”
At that instant the oyster thief walked past Bernard. “Have you got any soup crackers?” he asked.
Saphora mouthed, “That’s him.”
The thief smiled at Saphora although he did not make direct eye contact.
“Do you mean oyster crackers?” asked Bernard.
“Sure, that’s what they’re called,” said the man.
That had to be a ploy. There he had oysters in his front pants pocket and could not remember oyster crackers?
“Little round crackers? You sprinkle them over soup,” said Bernard to the man.
“Do you have any?”
“Down aisle eight, Pastor.”
The minister disappeared, the bulge in his right pocket still obvious.
Saphora asked Bernard, “Aren’t you going to ask him what the bulge is in his pocket?”
“That’d be rude. Guys don’t ask other guys things like that.”
“I saw him do it, Bernard. He’s stealing oysters.” Now that she thought of it, it was the perfect crime. Who would accuse a minister of stealing and, of all things, something as high priced as oysters? “If you’re not going to say something, I will,” she said.
“Don’t you think God takes care of things like that, Mrs. Warren? I mean, if he did steal it, shouldn’t I give it to him anyway? Turn the other cheek?” He was playing her, it seemed, by the smirk on his face.
“He should know better, Bernard.” She decided right then that she was going to confront the thief. She left her shopping cart next to the ethnic foods and brushed past Bernard and around the corner. She passed aisles five and six, and then seven, until she nearly ran straight into the pastor coming out of aisle eight.
“Excuse me!” he said.
Before he could walk around her, Saphora said, “Excuse me. I’m Saphora Warren.”
Without waiting for any more details from Saphora, he said, “I don’t think we’ve met, have we? I’m Pastor John Mims, the pastor at First Community Church down on Church S
treet. Call me Pastor John. Do you attend church, Mrs. Warren?”
“Sure I do.” It had been a few years, but that wasn’t the point. “It’s just that I saw you put that can of oysters in your pocket.”
“Oh!” He laughed. “It’s this right hand of mine.”
“You blame your hand for stealing?”
“No. It’s paralyzed. I didn’t want to push a cart around for two items. So I shoved the oysters in my pocket.”
“You’re paralyzed?” All color drained from her face.
“It’s an old injury. I’ve learned to live with it,” he said. “I’m sorry you thought I was stealing. I thought I was the only one in the store.”
Bernard called from the checkout aisle, “You need any help, Pastor?”
“I’m fine, Bernard.”
By this time Saphora was feeling flush. “I’m so sorry, Pastor. I feel like an idiot. Will you forgive me?”
Bernard was actually laughing. The nerve of him!
“On one condition,” said the minister.
“Anything.” And she meant that. She prayed the linoleum would split open and swallow her whole.
“Next Wednesday night we’re holding a fund-raising dinner at the church for a children’s fund. Will you come?”
“I promise. I know how to find your church.”
“I’ll look for you, Saphora,” he said. He met Bernard at the checkout.
Bernard was smirking from behind the counter.
She mouthed, “You knew!”
She finished filling her cart and then waited behind a display of canned peaches until she saw Pastor John leave the parking lot. If she was lucky, he would forget about her and she would disappear into Bender’s cancer.
4
When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
HELEN KELLER
Gwennie’s flight ran late. Saphora stopped for a coffee and then parked in the pickup lane in front of the Raleigh-Durham airport. Just as the airport cop looked about ready to ask her to take a lap, Gwennie burst out the door lugging her bright red suitcase.
Her hair was swept up into a ball cap. She looked younger than the last time she came home. She was either thinner or just bare faced enough that Saphora could imagine her again as a twelve-year-old girl playing soccer. Gwennie played sweeper throughout her high school years for the Davidson girls’ soccer team.
Saphora met Gwennie on the sidewalk and helped her with her luggage. Gwennie hugged her, but it wasn’t her usual quick hug, her let’s-get-on-with-things Gwennie hug. She held on to Saphora until she was sobbing. Saphora relished Gwennie’s sudden need for her, never having wanted to let go of Gwennie from the day she packed up her small car and moved to New York.
“I got you a coffee,” said Saphora, drawing back to look closely at Gwennie.
“You look terrific, Mama,” said Gwennie, more quietly than her normal tone. “I expected you to be falling apart.”
“Have you had breakfast?” she asked.
“You know I skip it,” said Gwennie.
Saphora drove them to just outside the city limits, where she found an exit with a pancake house. “Well then, how about some comfort food before we head to Oriental?”
“If we’re going to cheat, it has to be chocolate chip pancakes,” said Gwennie.
Saphora agreed. Everything she said was making Gwennie cry.
Gwennie pulled off her ball cap. Her hair tumbled down to her shoulders.
“Your hair is red,” said Saphora.
“Some blond, some red. I couldn’t decide.” She combed it out as she pulled down the mirror in the visor to apply mascara.
They parked and went into the pancake house, where they were seated in a corner with a loudspeaker playing country music overhead.
“Have you gotten settled into your new place?” asked Saphora.
Gwennie had talked about buying a Manhattan flat near enough to the office that she could walk or ride a bike. When a small two-bedroom condo came open, she had called saying she was praying that God would help her close on it soon. She’d started attending one of those downtown churches where the pastor looked as young as Turner and preached in sandals.
“I’ve got a view over Manhattan. I’m painting it on the weekends.” She opened her purse and pulled out cardboard paint samples. “See?” She handed them to Saphora. Then she turned on her telephone and showed her a picture of her kitchen and then her bedroom. Sitting at her kitchen table was a young man, blond and tanned.
“Anyone interesting come into your life?” asked Saphora.
“I’ve dated a few guys. No one interesting. The guy sitting here is from across the hall. Bill is infatuated with me. He’s a plumber,” she said, but then added quickly, “not that there’s anything wrong with that. Don’t look at me like that. He’s one of those guys comfortable in a pickup truck. Dad would never approve.”
“Dad’s not going to be married to him.”
Gwennie had always sought Bender’s approval since she was four years old and playing in her first soccer league. Saphora complained that she was too young. She thought Gwennie would have more fun in a gymnastics center. But Bender wanted all of his children in team sports to hone them for the real world.
Saphora wondered if Gwennie would have wound up in a stiff Manhattan law firm if she had started out in ballet slippers instead of a jersey. She somehow thought she would have.
They finished up their breakfast and got back onto the interstate for Oriental.
“Your dad got his call from his doctor friend at Duke this morning, Gwennie.”
“Turner told me Daddy’s getting a second opinion.”
Bender was in the shower this morning when Jim called. He turned off the water and asked Saphora to hand him the phone. One arm came up onto the ceramic wall in the shower, his forehead resting against his arm, when Jim told him the tumor was the size of a peach.
“The tests in Davidson were right. There’s no new news,” she said.
Gwennie assimilated into a working mode. She pulled out her calendar and wanted to know the dates of his regimen so she could figure out when she could come back.
“His surgery is tomorrow.”
Gwennie said, “Then it must be pretty advanced.” When Saphora did not answer her she said, “This is devastating.”
It was hard seeing her cry.
Saphora lost herself in her thoughts on the drive back to Oriental.
She was making a mental timeline of when it seemed that she and Bender had taken different paths. Bender started cheating when Saphora was pregnant with Turner. He justified it by saying that she was not as interested in sex. But Saphora wasn’t disinterested in sex. Bender was just so—she didn’t know what it was, but he did not know how to woo her. The courtship had ended with the “I do’s.”
One night she could not get Turner to take to his feeding. She sat rocking near the only picture window in the apartment. The moon cast such a bright light that Turner came wide awake. He was such a giggly baby anyway. Saphora had attributed his early sense of humor to a high IQ. He played tricks, causing the milk to flow from her nipple and then drawing back and laughing when it sprayed his face.
Bender got up in the middle of the night to check on her and the baby, or so she thought. Instead, he wanted her to come back to bed with him. She told him the baby wasn’t finished eating yet. He was mad, as if she were using Turner as an excuse.
“Bender, it’s not an excuse. If I put Turner in his crib without eating, he’ll not go back to sleep.”
It was things like that, Bender had said, that let him know she wasn’t interested in him.
Saphora was not sure how many women he had consorted with over the years. But it had been at least two years since he had touched her. The other wives in their circle of friends comforted Saphora, saying it was best she look the other way. But she had become obsessed with believing in
something besides settling.
When Saphora pulled up the drive, Eddie was playing Frisbee in the front yard with the new boy he had met on the beach, Tobias. The boy had not waited long to drop by. A blue bike leaned against the house.
Saphora took one of Gwennie’s bags. Eddie was not accustomed to Aunt Gwennie, so he looked at her more as a curious stranger than a relative.
“Eddie, go and hug your aunt,” said Saphora.
“He doesn’t have to,” said Gwennie. She dug through a bag and pulled out a box. “I brought you a present,” she said.
Eddie bounded for her, hands extended. He opened the box as if he did not already have more stuff than he needed back in Charlotte in his room, each item representing a guilty pang from his mother or father for the separation Eddie lived between.
“It’s a bug holder,” said Gwennie. “Like, you catch a bug in the net, then drop it into the holder so you can watch it or feed it. One of the little bug house walls has a magnifying glass to watch it up close.” She shrugged, more for Saphora’s sake. “It looked educational.”
Saphora coaxed a “thank you” out of Eddie and then said, “Take it to the backyard and share it with Tobias.”
Eddie took off without an invitation to Tobias. So Saphora told the boy, “Go ahead and join him. I’ll bring you lunch so you can have it up in the tree house. Pizza or something.”
Tobias was much calmer than Eddie. He walked up to Saphora and put his arms around her.
Gwennie said she was surprised a young boy would pay so much attention to an adult. She introduced herself to him.
“I’m Tobias. My parents live about ten blocks away. I called first and Dr. Warren told me how to get here. I’ll go and play with Eddie. I’d love lunch in the tree house, Mrs. Warren,” he said. “Pleasure to meet you, Gwennie.” He tracked Eddie to the backyard.
The Pirate Queen Page 5