Choosing Charleston

by T. Lynn Ocean

  His eyebrows rose in question. Yes?

  “I’ve got an angry daddy with a shotgun. You really don’t want to screw with me.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Through stinging tears I punched Cheryl’s number into the phone.

  “Can you come over tonight?” I asked without bothering to say hello first.

  “Carly?”

  “Jason has a truck, right? Have him come, too, and bring the truck.”

  She explained that Jason had just put the boys to bed and they were about to relax with a glass of wine and a pay-per-view movie on cable.

  “Bring the kids and the wine,” I told her. “They can watch television in the spare bedroom until they fall back asleep. And you guys can watch your pay-per-view movie tomorrow.”

  “You want us to come over to your house right now and drive the truck? Are you okay? Carly, what’s going on?”

  I didn’t want to talk about it over the phone, I said, and convinced her to load up her family and head my way.

  My next phone call was to a locksmith that advertised twenty-four hour emergency service. I could tell from the number of rings that the call had been forwarded from the business office to someone’s home and when that someone answered, he didn’t sound happy about going on a service call after he’d just gotten home from work.

  “You’re not locked out, then?”

  “No.”

  “You just need a house re-keyed?”

  “Yes.”

  “No problem. Someone can be there at seven in the morning. What’s the address?”

  The tears had dried up, leaving behind a runny nose. Not caring about social etiquette, I grabbed a tissue and blew loudly. “It must be done now. Tonight.”

  The line was silent.

  “There’s an extra hundred in it for you. Cash.”

  He agreed, I gave him the address and he promised to be at my door in forty-five minutes or less.

  Next I called a neighbor whose church was having its annual rummage sale in two weeks.

  “Remember when you called looking for donations for your church bazaar?” I said. “It turns out I do have a donation for you, after all. A bunch of stuff that should bring at least a few thousand dollars for your mission work. But it’s a one-time offer and it has to be picked up tonight.”

  Unfazed by such a demand, she said she’d get the church van and be at my house within the hour.

  While waiting on everyone to arrive, I busied myself throwing armfuls of my clothes and toiletries into suitcases and boxes. I hauled loads of stuff to my car and tried not to chastise myself for making such a rotten decision in getting back together with Robert. At the same time, I allowed myself to accept the fact that I wasn’t cut out to be a New Yorker. I was an outsider who didn’t want to get in. I couldn’t fully appreciate the sophisticated northern way of life or the dynamics of a twenty-four hour metropolis. I could work anywhere and I wanted to be in South Carolina with my family. My real family, who loved me. I was going home.

  I’d just made the last trip to my car when Cheryl, Jason and their two young boys arrived. After we got the kids situated in front of the Nickelodeon channel in the spare room, I told them everything that had happened, including why I’d taken off to Charleston just weeks earlier. I would miss them, I explained, but I was going back to my hometown for good.

  They’d brought their bottle of wine with them and while Jason opened it, Cheryl agreed to act as my power of attorney and take care of any matters regarding the sale of my house. I was so grateful that I couldn’t do anything but give her a hug.

  The locksmith pulled in shortly after and, apparently happy with his one hundred dollar tip, got right to the task of re-keying my locks without asking questions.

  “I guess this means Robert’s little dinner party is off, huh?” Cheryl said.

  When my friend arrived in the church van, I handed over plastic lawn bags stuffed with the contents of Robert’s closet. Suits, button-down shirts, silk ties. A variety of expensive shoes and belts. Three full length wool coats.

  Although Jason disagreed with my act of benevolence on Robert’s unwitting behalf, Cheryl was eager to pitch in. We helped load up two sets of golf clubs, enough shoes to fill two trash bags, a Bose stereo system and a pair of water skis. Three wristwatches. Several pairs of cufflinks, a Sony camcorder and an MP3 player.

  When we sat down to take a break, Jason refilled our wine glasses and Cheryl had a sudden thought.

  “Why did you tell us to drive the truck?”

  “Oh, that was so you can take my new wide screen plasma TV with you. I even have a tarp you can tie around it, just in case it starts raining before you get back. The Weather Channel says there’s a chance of showers tonight.”

  “We’re taking your new plasma TV?” she said.

  “It’s my gift to you,” I said. “Consider it your fee for being my power of attorney and getting this house listed for sale.”

  “Awesome! The kids are going to love it!” she said brightly.

  “I’m going to love it, too,” Jason said. “But I really don’t think this is a good idea Carly. Despite what the man has done to you, you shouldn’t give away everything he owns.”

  “I bought the television before we got married, so don’t feel bad about taking it,” I told him. “And as far as Robert’s stuff, it was either give it away for a good cause… or burn it all in a backyard bonfire. I figured the socially responsible thing to do was the former.”

  Jason shook his head, still disagreeing with what I was doing.

  “He came on to me once,” Cheryl stated matter-of-factly. “At our company Christmas party.”

  I was beyond the shock threshold, but her comment caught Jason’s attention.

  “What do you mean?” he said. “I was with you at that party.”

  “Right, but you took that call from the sitter, remember? One of the boys had eaten dog food and she was freaking out. You had to talk her down. And then you spoke with both boys, one by one, and explained that there was to be no more eating of dog food that night.”

  Remembering, Jason laughed before his expression suddenly hardened.

  “He hit on you while I was in the lobby on my cell phone talking to the kids?”

  Cheryl nodded. “I’m sorry, Carly. I didn’t say anything to you because I just wrote it off as Robert being drunk. I mean, damn. You guys were practically still newlyweds! And, before that night at the party, he was always polite and charming.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, standing up to get back to work. “It wasn’t your fault. He’s just an ass.”

  “I was getting some hors d’ oeuvres – those little bacon-wrapped scallop pastry things – when he came up and--”

  “Cheryl,” I cut her off. “Stop. It really doesn’t matter now.”

  “Yeah, it does,” Jason overruled me. “What did he do?”

  “He, uh… propositioned me I guess you’d call it. Made some reference to the fact that my husband was off playing ‘mommy’ and asked if I’d like to find out what it was like to be with a ‘real’ man. He said we should get together for a happy hour the next time Carly was working late. That I’d never had it as good as he could give it.”

  I sat down hard, the queasy feeling returning. I had no idea that Robert could be so forward, so blunt. There was no misunderstanding what Cheryl told us.

  Jason’s look was fiery. “Did he touch you?”

  “Of course not,” Cheryl said. “If he had, I would have told you right then. But I honestly thought he was just being an obnoxious drunk.”

  Motivated by the disclosure, Jason jumped up, ready to help. “Come on. Let’s get a move on! What else goes in the van?”

  We finished giving away Robert’s belongings at the same time the locksmith finished re-keying my doors. I thanked my friend for tackling the last minute pickup and she assured me the money from the sale of it would be put to very good use. But before the locksmith left, I had one more job for him. I w
anted him and Jason to move Robert’s pool table into the front yard. It would involve removing the massive wooden legs to get it through the door. But I knew he had the tools to do it. There was a stocked toolbox by his feet. Plus, I added another hundred to his tip.

  “But it’s going to rain tonight,” the locksmith argued. “The table will be ruined.”

  “Exactly,” Jason, Cheryl and I said in unison.

  * * *

  By the time I was tackling the stretch of asphalt between Pawling and Charleston just a week after making the same trip in reverse, I experienced an odd calm, as though my anger had been redirected into something useful. I was heading home – to my real home – and I was never going to let someone walk all over me again.

  In record time, I’d loaded up my car, given away Robert’s stuff and hit the road. Cheryl had my power of attorney paperwork, a new key to my house and the security alarm code. In my absence she could hire movers to ship my furniture to Charleston and list my house for sale.

  I also took ten minutes to write a letter of resignation to my firm expressing that I was grateful for the opportunity and support they had given to me. But due to personal circumstances, I was relocating immediately. Cheryl promised to deliver it the next day.

  With everyone’s help, I’d done it all and put myself on the highway in less than four hours, despite flashes of reservation about throwing away a good job, and a rapidly developing thunderstorm that threatened to make driving difficult. I probably should have waited until the next morning to get on the road, but the thought of spending another night in the same bed that Robert had used for sex with Corin was intolerable. I would have given it away, too, if the church van had been bigger.

  It felt good to be doing something other than sitting at home, and once I reached Interstate ninety-five and was speeding away from Robert and New York at seventy miles an hour, I knew I’d made the right decision.

  The drive was an opportunity to plan, to dream, to plot, to think about everything imaginable. And after I’d done that, and the rain had stopped, I meditated and thought of nothing at all except keeping my car between the lines. I played the stereo loud, stopped often for stretch breaks and wondered what the future held for me.

  Somewhere in Virginia, as it neared two o’clock in the morning, an attack of self-pity blindsided me. Anger and frustration battled for a dominant position in my thoughts and new tears pushed at the back of my eyeballs. I cried for twenty or thirty miles until one of Daddy’s life lessons filled my head. It was something he’d told me and Jenny over and over again growing up. Think about what you have, not what you don’t.

  I had enough savings to get by for a while without worrying about a job, even factoring in the mortgage payments I would have to make until the house sold. I had Cheryl, a good friend who I could count on to take care of things for me in Pawling. Although I wanted children someday, not having any in my current situation was definitely a positive. I had the freedom to go anywhere and do anything I wanted to do. I had a family who loved me. And I had some major attitude. I wasn’t going to put up with any shit from anybody, anymore. Certainly not Robert. And not Protter Construction and Development, either.

  I found a Hampton Inn in Petersburg as it approached three o’clock in the morning and when I awoke at nine, a plan was brewing in my head. By the time the Charleston city limits reached out to greet me eight hours later, I knew how I was going to help Daddy. The knowledge was exhilarating.

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I pulled into Mamma and Daddy’s driveway, I felt a delightful sense of connection, as though I hadn’t really moved away and my married days were just a bad dream. Instead of walking down the aisle of the small church on that fateful Saturday, I’d actually encountered a mysterious vortex. I’d been sucked through a door to another dimension in another place and been dropped into another life. But I’d come to my senses and found my way back through the vortex, to the place where I belonged. I knew there was still plenty to do, like file for divorce and get rid of Robert as fast as possible. But it just felt damn good to be home.

  A peculiar odor reached my nose at the back screened porch and it grew more potent when I walked in the house. It seemed to be a mixture of sandalwood and lavender with some orange and eucalyptus mixed in. Scents that individually would have been pleasant, but entwined, struck a chord of dissonance.

  Mamma was at the sink, washing fresh collard greens. She dropped them when she saw me.

  “Carly! What are you doing here? I told you that you didn’t need to come. Your daddy is fine. And your boss can’t be too happy about you taking off again.”

  Her hug was welcoming and warm and not at all admonishing like her words.

  “Did you fly in and rent a car? Is Robert with you? I could’ve picked y’all up at the airport.”

  “I drove, Mamma. I left yesterday and stopped overnight in Virginia. Robert’s not with me.”

  Her face was a tangle of emotion. “I’m so happy to have you back home for a while. But something’s wrong. What happened?”

  “I’m divorcing Robert. It’s for good this time. He’s a shallow, self-serving, immature man and I made a really bad decision in marrying him. I’ve resigned from the firm, quit my job. I’m going to put the house on the market for sale. I’m moving back to Charleston.”

  “You quit your job?” Mamma said, more shocked by my career path than my split with Robert. I guess she’d cleared the divorce hurdle earlier in the month. “You’re moving back?”

  I nodded.

  I mixed us each a Beefeater and tonic with a giant wedge of lime and told her everything that happened since I’d returned to Pawling with Robert.

  She hugged me and asked if I wanted a crab cake sandwich, leftover from yesterday. Southerners throw food at everything. Births, deaths, and all of life’s ups and downs that fall between. A full stomach makes happy times that much better, and makes rough times a bit more bearable.

  “I’ll just wait for supper. I haven’t had collard greens in forever,” I answered, crinkling my nose. The odor had grown stronger. “What is that weird smell?”

  “Oh, that’s an Aroma-magic Ionizer and Environment Enhancer,” Mamma said with a dismissing wave of her hand, sounding very much like my sister. “It’s in the living room.”

  She wore a long black cotton skirt with heeled sandals and a white sleeveless sweater. Only Mamma could cook in a lily white top, sans apron, and emerge from the kitchen unscathed by stains.

  “Your sister overnighted it. They’re going to start selling them on the show and she says no house should be without one. Aromatherapy is supposed to cure whatever ails you,” Mamma explained.

  She was only halfway through her first gin, but my glass was empty and I mixed myself another. I’m not a heavy drinker, but it had been a long and emotional drive.

  “Uh huh. So what’s ailing you?”

  “She sent it for your daddy, to relax him.”

  I searched for the odor-producing machine. It was sitting on an end table in the next room and resembled a humidifier on steroids.

  “It comes with an assortment of oil mixtures that you add to the reservoir, like ‘energy’, ‘love’ and ‘concentration’. What you’re smelling right now is ‘calm’. Jenny sent an entire case of ‘calm’.”

  “My goodness. She’s finally managed to brainwash you,” I muttered, returning to the kitchen.

  “I figure she went to the trouble to send it, we ought to at least try it out.”

  “So how’s it working?”

  “Your daddy says it was a waste of postage and that burning some fu-fu oil isn’t going to relax him. Although he is thinking about plugging it in outside, by the trashcan, to see if it’ll keep the raccoons away. They’re supposed to have a pretty good sense of smell, almost like dogs. He’s thinking that a bottle of ‘calm’ might chill them out enough to keep them from getting into the garbage cans.”

  “Speaking of dogs, where is Taffy?”

&n
bsp; Besides the smell, something had been bothering me since I’d come in and I just figured out what it was. I hadn’t received my usual enthusiastic canine greeting.

  “Probably in the living room watching television. She seems to enjoy ESPN.”

  “Taffy watches television?”

  “She does since your granny gave her a tranquilizer.”

  “Did Granny confuse her with Precious?”

  It made perfect sense to medicate Jenny’s growling excuse for a family pet, to keep from strangling it. But not Taffy. Taffy was a great dog.

  “No, your granny found the prescription for anxiety that I picked up for your daddy and she thought they were vitamins. She took one, too.”

  As if on cue, Granny pirouetted – literally – into the kitchen, before flopping down in a kitchen chair next to me.

  “Jenny!” she exclaimed, calling me by my sister’s name yet again.

  At least that much was normal.

  “Hi, Granny.”

  “Where’ve you been?” she asked, before pulling her dentures out of her mouth. “You’re almosth lathe for sthupper.”

  She studied the teeth for a moment before arranging them on the kitchen table in front of her. After rotating them a few times, she started playing with them, her spotted hands carrying them in a chomping motion as though they were eating an imaginary hotdog.

  “I think she may have taken two pills,” Mamma explained, shaking the giant collard leaves to drain off the water. “The prescription was for thirty. And now there are twenty-seven. So either the dog got two or she got two.”

  We watched Granny for a moment.

  “Probably she took two,” we said together.

  Hearing our conversation, Taffy ambled in to investigate. When she saw me, her tail wagged lazily, twice. Then she sneezed and plopped down by my feet. She explored my ankles for a few seconds with a cold nose before rolling onto her back to study the underside of my chair with great interest.