The Land of Mango Sunsets

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  I waited for Charlie and Priscilla to arrive. They were late but only by twenty minutes. I was sipping a cocktail to calm my nerves and wishing the dinner was over with. The champagne I ordered was chilling in an ice bucket next to the table.

  A few more minutes passed and I started getting annoyed that I was being made to wait so long. Then a minute later, when I was just about to call Charlie to see if he was dead in a ditch, the headwaiter appeared at my table, to seat Priscilla and Charlie. Charlie gave me a tiny kiss before sitting down. With that little kiss, all the edges of my annoyance evaporated.

  “Sorry we’re a little late,” he said. “Traffic’s terrible.”

  “Well, that’s how it is,” I said, in a way that I hoped conveyed that it wasn’t a big deal to be half an hour late. “But y’all should try to get to the church on time on your big day, right? How are you, dear? Priscilla?”

  “It would be a terrible thing to be late to our own wedding,” she said, adding, “It’s nice to see you again, Mrs. Swanson.”

  “We’re not having a church wedding, Mom,” Charlie said.

  “Oh! Well, that’s just fine!” It was not fine, but was I there to object to anything? “Shall we have a glass of champagne to celebrate the happy news?”

  I looked around to the captain and he hurried over to pour. When we each had a glass, I raised mine to offer a toast.

  “To your happiness, Charlie and Priscilla! And, Priscilla? Welcome to my family, fractured and peculiar as we are. Cheers!”

  To my total surprise, they laughed, thinking I had made a joke. Given my track record in comedy, I laughed with them. Never mind that I offered a truth she would learn soon enough.

  “Thanks, Mom!”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Swanson.”

  Mother McCree, she was so serious. I thought, How will I endure a lifetime of this?

  “Priscilla? You’ve told your family, I assume? And they’re pleased, I hope?”

  “Oh, yes, ma’am. They are thrilled.”

  “Thank heavens for that! I can’t wait to meet them. So tell me, Charlie, have you spoken to your father? What did he say?”

  “Dad? You know him. Dad is so bizarre. Basically he said congratulations, that he and Judith would attend, but that he was completely uninterested in contributing to the expenses.”

  “Oh, goodness. Well, that wasn’t very nice. Did you ask him for a lot of money or something?”

  “No, I didn’t ask dear old Dad for a dime. I guess he just wanted to have his intentions understood up front.”

  “Oh. Well, that’s your father for you.” I turned to Priscilla. “Normally I don’t use profanity, Priscilla, but I think you should know that my ex-husband, Charlie’s father? He’s a horse’s ass. And tighter than a mole’s ear.”

  “Yes, ma’am. That’s exactly what I’ve been given to understand and it appears to be true.”

  I looked at her and smiled, thinking there was hope for our relationship after all. She smiled back and we established a bond roughly the size of a garden pea, but a bond nonetheless.

  “And your brother? You’ve spoken to him?”

  “Well, I left him two messages. Who knows with him? Maybe he’s in Hawaii? Why would he tell us anything? I’ll catch up with him at some point.”

  “Priscilla? Dan, my other son, lets months pass with no word. He’s a computer whiz, which means his people skills are almost nonexistent. But he’s a very nice nerd. Really.”

  “I’m sure,” she said, and smiled wide. “That’s how those guys are.”

  “I’m the one with all the personality,” Charlie said.

  Charlie was delighted by our pleasant conversation, and as the dinner went on, more champagne and then wine was consumed. Tight-lipped Priscilla became more talkative. I made a mental note to be generous with the alcohol when I was in her company.

  “Priscilla? Why don’t you call me Miriam? Mrs. Swanson sounds like a name that belongs on my mother-in-law’s headstone.”

  “All right. Miriam it is. And I should know this but I’m embarrassed to admit that I don’t. Tell me. Has your mother-in-law passed?”

  “Yes, she has, and let me tell you this—she couldn’t go fast enough!”

  “Mom! That’s terrible.”

  “So was she!” I said.

  Priscilla and I got the girlie giggles. I liked the sound of her laughter. I finally had a small inkling that we might do just fine together.

  “Well, kids? I don’t have nearly the resources as the old tightwad I divorced,” I said, throwing propriety to the wind, “but I would love to help with your wedding. In fact, I’d be honored. So why don’t y’all tell me what your plans are so far?”

  They looked at each other, breathing a collective sigh of relief, and the details came rolling out. As distanced as we had been from one another, my willingness to begin anew and their natural excitement was healing old wounds.

  “I have a friend who owns a loft in Tribeca that he rents out for parties,” Charlie said. “He said we could have it for almost nothing.”

  “And my uncle back home is a minister. He wants to fly up and perform the ceremony,” Priscilla said.

  “Oh! How lovely,” I said. “Is he a particular denomination?”

  “He’s a Rasta,” Charlie said with a perfectly straight face.

  I had such an adrenaline rush at the thought of Rastafarians marrying into my family that I nearly fell from my chair. I could see the pictures in their wedding album racing through my head. Not that I had anything against Rastafarians, and in fact, I liked Bob Marley’s music quite a lot. It was just a tremor I felt, not a full-blown earthquake.

  “Seriously?” I said as calmly as I could.

  “Your son is a terrible liar, you know. My uncle David is a devout Baptist,” Priscilla said, and gave Charlie an affectionate slap on his arm. “Stop! You bad dog.”

  “Her whole family raises ugli fruit and they sell them along the roadside from the back of their trucks,” Charlie said.

  “Stop!” Priscilla said. “Miriam, what am I to do with this man?”

  “Just promise me you’ll love him,” I said.

  “I don’t want to live one day without him,” she said.

  “That’s good enough for me,” I said. “So tell me. How many people are you thinking of inviting and how big is the loft?”

  We went through the decisions they had made thus far and what they wanted for their wedding sounded like fun. They wanted a traditional band to play during dinner but reggae music for cocktails. The ceremony would be performed on a skirted riser and then we would retreat for cocktails to another area of the loft. While we would enjoy drinks made of mangoes and yes, ugli fruit, some laced with rum and others nonalcoholic, and other Jamaican traditional food, the room would be transformed to a dining room with a dance floor. The dinner itself would be a buffet of Jamaican and American specialties. And their guest list was small, only fifty to sixty people, which, I knew all too well, would grow to one hundred before it was all over with.

  “Well, it sounds like it might get a little expensive,” I said. “Have you done a budget? Because you have to figure in invitations, postage, decorations, Priscilla’s gown…never mind the caterer and rentals and all that stuff.”

  “Mom? I told Priscilla that you’d been doing events all my life and we were kind of hoping you would help us figure this out.”

  “And I don’t have a mother to help me,” Priscilla said.

  Suddenly everyone in my world was a motherless child.

  I reached over and put my hand on top of hers.

  “Don’t you worry about a thing, Priscilla. It would be such a pleasure to help.”

  “How’s that girl, your tenant? Liz, right? How’s she doing?”

  “Much better. She’s seeing Dr. Imber on Friday afternoon and the oral surgeon on Monday.”

  “She looks like a nice girl and—”

  “Charlie told me about her,” Priscilla said, interrupting. “What a terrib
le thing! And how awful for you, too!”

  That was how dinner went. You would have thought there had never been an awkward moment or an unkind word between us, that Priscilla had grown up next door, and my ex-husband, Charles, was a jerk, oh yes, but that in the bigger scheme of the world, who had ever cared about that?

  When I arrived at home, I peeked in on Liz. She was sound asleep, so I quietly closed her door. I put my precious Harry in his cage and covered it. Then, after I changed my clothes, I went around, checking all the doors and windows, and slipped out into my courtyard for a moment. I had not picked up the twigs and other debris in some time and it was too early to think about doing that anyway. It was still winter and we would probably get another blast of snow before the season was all over.

  Long ago, maybe ten years or so, I used to come out here with a book to read or with my scissors to cut herbs to season my family’s dinner or to entertain friends with a cocktail or a glass of wine before we all went to the theater or somewhere for a bite.

  But now my garden was in a sorry state of neglect just like every other part of my life had been. It had always been so formal, with miniature boxwoods and topiaries, azaleas, and roses trained to crawl up the stone walls. I wondered how it would look with a thousand pink-and-ivory tulips growing everywhere like they were native to the space. I could almost see white hyacinths everywhere to sweeten the air. I wondered what a new pathway would add, one that led to a cozy bench and a tiny fountain with water that trickled like music. More possibilities for change were right before me.

  I pulled my bathrobe around me and looked up at the cold dark sky and around to other town houses and high-rise buildings. Lights were being turned off for the night, one by one. People were closing up their homes and going to bed, recharging minds and bodies for the challenges that lay ahead the next day. Suddenly I felt a part of things again. We were having a wedding and the dreaded dinner with my prospective daughter-in-law had gone very well. Exceedingly well, in fact. Charlie and Priscilla had not yet decided on a date, but if they married in the spring as they thought they might, perhaps it would give me time to bring my garden back into shape. I could invite their guests here for a postrehearsal get-together of some kind. It would be too late for bulbs that had not been planted, but I could bring in annuals for color and make it welcoming. I could put in bulbs the next October, and I would. I would have to ask Charlie what he thought about having a rehearsal dinner here. And Priscilla. Now I would have to ask her opinion, too. It didn’t bother me in the least. In fact, I looked forward to it because women shared an unspoken understanding about the importance of certain things. She had said she had no mother to go to, had she not? I wondered if her mother was dead or alive and made a note to ask Charlie so I could better understand what role I might play.

  I called Charlie in the morning and invited him to come have a look at the diamond for Priscilla’s ring. He said he would be there at noon.

  Twelve-fifteen the doorbell rang and he was there. Liz was watching an old movie in the guest room and was dressed in her sweatsuit. I was warming up some split pea soup from the deli—Charlie’s favorite—and checked my hair in the mirror before I opened the door.

  “Come in! Come in! It’s freezing out there!”

  “Yeah, it’s still as cold as the devil!”

  “Give me your coat, sweetheart, and go say hello to Liz. I’ll have lunch on the table in a few minutes.”

  “Sure. Liz?” Charlie called out to her. “How are you?”

  “How are you?” Harry repeated.

  I looked at Harry and stroked his feathers.

  “Miriam is happy,” I said. Then I repeated it, “Miriam is happy.”

  Harry cocked his head to one side and looked at me, paying attention to what I had just said. For him, they were old words strung together in a new way. I took Liz a tray and said to Charlie, “Soup’s on.”

  “Thanks, Miriam. This looks delicious.”

  “Good, hon. Call me if you need anything.”

  Over lunch I took my grandmother’s diamond ring from my pocket and put it in front of Charlie on the table.

  “What do you think?”

  “Oh, Mom! This is awesome! Priscilla is going to be thrilled! Now why do you think we should change this? I think it’s great just like it is.”

  It was a platinum Art Deco setting with the single round stone raised up on a little mound that was set with tiny diamond chips and filigree all around its sides. The mounting added importance to the stone and its effect was feminine and lovely, albeit old-fashioned.

  “You do? Oh, Charlie! I’m so glad you like it!”

  “Like it? It’s fantastic! Mom, Priscilla’s family doesn’t have two nickels to rub together. She’s the first one in her family to go beyond a basic college education. I mean, they’re very nice—her father runs a bed-and-breakfast and her brother runs a little grocery store. But trust me, nobody’s got a diamond like this.”

  “That’s fine, son. I’m thrilled that I can do this. So tell me. What happened to her mother?”

  He was quiet for a moment and then he said, “Well, they told Priscilla that she drowned, but I think her father caught her fooling around and took her fishing. Know what I mean?”

  “Priscilla told you this?”

  “No, but she’s implied it. The family line is that she drowned, but her friends claim otherwise.”

  “Have you met him? The father, I mean?” What? Dear God! My pulse began to race.

  “Yes, he’s a wonderful man, Mom. He’s not like a murderer or something.”

  “Well, if her father pushed his wife off a boat, he damn sure is a murderer!”

  “Mom. Be cool. I don’t want this to change your opinion. Maybe she slipped. Look, they live in a remote little fishing village outside of Kingston with no Coast Guard or anything…”

  I took a very deep breath. He didn’t want the fact that a possible murderer would be having cocktails in my rehabilitated garden bother me?

  “Let’s just tell ourselves that she slipped, then, okay? Or got caught in an undertow? But in any case, never go fishing with him, do you hear me?”

  Charlie started laughing. “God, Mom. When did you get so gullible?”

  I realized then that he had been pulling my chain. Again.

  “Was this a fishing trip with her Rasta uncle?”

  “Got it.”

  “You know what, Charlie? Your humor is decidedly worse than mine. So what happened to her mother?”

  “She just disappeared and that’s the truth. Priscilla was about five.”

  “Well, that’s awful. Never found her?”

  “Not a trace. This soup is great. Got any more?”

  “Sure.” I got up to refill his bowl. “Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

  “About what?”

  “People disappearing. There are thousands of people who just disappear every year. I mean, I think most of them probably fall off a bridge or move to another town and assume another identity, but all of them just can’t forget to tell their families that they’re leaving, right?”

  “Who knows? Alien abductions?”

  “Whatever. Just promise me you’ll take the ring to Corey to appraise it and clean it before you give it to Priscilla, okay? He’ll make sure the stones are in there tight and all that.”

  “Sure.”

  After we were finished and Charlie had his coat on to leave, I put the ring in a little velvet box and back in Charlie’s hands.

  “Thanks, Mom. This is incredibly generous of you, you know, and I just want to say…”

  “That you love me?”

  “You know I do.”

  He left and I thought that I would give him the world if I could.

  Chapter Thirteen

  THE MIGRATION BEGINS

  I was on the treadmill, thinking that walking to nowhere was a little bit stupid but that it did give me a chance to muse. Earlier that morning, Liz had put herself in a cab and gone to her appointm
ent with the plastic surgeon. I was glad that she felt well enough to go on her own, but I encouraged her to leave her things in my apartment, as the surgery she was facing would mean more painkillers and recovery time. Meanwhile, I was walking to nowhere hoping to speed up my metabolism, shed a few lbs, and gain slimmer thighs.

  I suppose I would have to admit that my reluctance to branch outside my tiny circle of people in my life had been passed on to Dan, my other son. Sometimes it seemed like he had all but disowned us. If I didn’t receive regular Mother’s Day cards and birthday cards, I would’ve thought it was true. But now that we had a wedding on the horizon, he was going to have to talk to me. Someone had to reopen the lines of communication and apparently the only way that would happen was if I picked up the phone and used it. Waiting for him to call was as bad as waiting for a soufflé to rise, not that I had ever had any luck with soufflés. So I resolved that I would call him as soon as my thirty minutes on the dang fool contraption had elapsed. As always, Miss Josie was right. It was up to me to keep my family together.

  I still owed Kevin the two hundred dollars for the idiotic machine and reminded myself to write him a check. Gosh, there was so much to do. I still had not called Mother to tell her about all the craziness of the past week or so, nor had I discussed with her the fact that Charlie and Priscilla had decided to tie the knot. I wondered if Charlie had called her and then decided I would have heard from Mother if he had. I checked my watch. I still had eleven minutes left.

  I would call Miss Josie myself, give her all the news, and ask ever so cleverly if she had seen or heard anything about Manny. How could I pose the question? So, how’s Harrison? How’s his stupid friend who never called me? No, that wouldn’t do. How about Gosh, I sure had a great time when I was last down there with that guy, what’s his name? That was better to be sure. I had a lot to learn about playing it cool. I glanced at my wristwatch again. Six minutes of torture left to go.

  I had promised Liz to take her to Sullivans Island, and if I wanted the advance discount price on the airline tickets, I was going to have to plan it. Obviously, I needed to discuss that with Mother, too. I added that to the phone-call agenda.