We Interrupt This Date

by L. C. Evans

  “Philip insisted on getting married at his friend’s home instead of at the church and I agreed; I thought he was a good man and I did love him after all, and it seemed silly to refuse to honor his wishes. Another friend who was a preacher performed the ceremony, and it wasn’t until after DeLorean was born that I found out the marriage wasn’t legal. His friend wasn’t a real preacher. He was just an electrician who lived in a trailer somewhere around Moncks Corner. I felt so stupid—and so humiliated. If I didn’t have you girls, I don’t know how I’d have managed to keep on living.”

  “So he eventually told you it was all fake. You could have married him when you learned the truth.” Although by then, she knew what he was really like and would have known it would be a mistake to keep him.

  “Actually, Philip didn’t tell me. His wife did.” She pulled at a thread on the bottom of her sweater and watched without expression as half an inch of yarn unraveled and spiraled across her front like tangled lavender hair.

  I choked on my tea, dribbled it onto my blouse, snorted it out my nose. “His wife?” When had my voice gone from alto to a thin squawk?

  “They were from Arkansas. Philip had sneaked out on Lurlene a few years before he came to Charleston and met me, and she wanted him back. I never did understand her motivation because goodness knows, he is a horrible man. But I suppose she wanted him around to wreak vengeance, not that I approve of vengeance, you know that is not good Christian behavior. Still, a person can imagine wanting to punish a straying man. I admit I entertained some thoughts about exactly what I’d do to Mr. Beauchamp if I were not a well-bred southern lady. And Lurlene was not a kind woman, not kind at all. I certainly would not want to be mixed up with Lurlene Beauchamp. My, the scene she created in our living room and the language, you would have thought drunken sailors were loose in the house. Thank goodness you were in school. Lurlene became truly enraged when she found out about DeLorean. I really thought she was going to rip me to pieces, but fortunately she came to believe me when I insisted I hadn’t known Philip was married. As it turned out, what he wanted was what was left of the insurance settlement I got after your father’s death. I am very sorry to admit, he spent a substantial part of my money without me finding out. But I am not a cheating woman who will steal someone’s husband, Susan. At least not on purpose.”

  “Of course, you aren’t.” I gave her shoulder a comforting pat. “Still, there’s no reason for you to give Philip money. That’s extortion. Anyway, he isn’t even your husband, never was, never will be.”

  Poor Mama. She’d lived with her secret all these years and it must have been killing her. Impulsively I leaned forward and pulled her into a hug. Mama was never the hugging type, but she rested her head on my shoulder and held onto me like a barnacle clinging to a rock.

  “Mama, I’m so sorry you got into all this trouble with Philip. He’s nothing but a cheap con man, and you deserve so much better. You’re a good woman, a person with solid values, and don’t let anyone tell you different. I love you.”

  She sniffled. “Thank you. Your understanding means so much to me.”

  I hugged her tighter and emitted a few sniffles of my own. My mother was judgmental, a meddler and could be the most annoying person on the planet. But when it came down to basics, no one loved her offspring—children--more than Mama did.

  “Let go now, dear. I can’t breathe.”

  “Sorry.” I dropped my arms to my sides. “You don’t have to live your life letting Philip harass you.”

  “Don’t you see? He found out I am seeing Rhett and he says he will tell Rhett everything. I will simply die if that wonderful man finds out I am an adulterer.”

  I whooshed my breath out and sucked in an even deeper helping of oxygen. “You are not an adulterer. It wasn’t your fault Philip was married to someone else and he lied to you about his friend being a minister. And if Rhett doesn’t care enough to understand that, then he isn’t the right man for you.”

  “That is a very easy thing for you to say, miss. But at my age, men of any kind, let alone a good man like Rhett, are not easily come by. Under the circumstances, I can’t marry Rhett. But I’m tired of being lonely. I do not want to end up like Edna Vincent, bless her heart.” Mama whipped a handkerchief out of her pocket and dabbed her eyes.

  Edna Vincent was one of Mama’s friends. She’d gone home from church one Sunday and dropped dead in her bedroom and no one found her for four days. Her parakeet nearly starved to death before Edna’s niece came by to bring her some pound cake and found Edna’s body.

  I got up and paced to the fireplace and back. “You are not going to end up like Edna Vincent. And I’m pretty sure Rhett won’t dump you if you tell him the truth, not if he’s the man you say he is.”

  “Pretty sure is not good enough. I’m not willing to take that chance and end up permanently lonely.” Uncharacteristically, Mama wouldn’t look me in the eyes.

  “Mama, you are a good woman and I love you and I’m going to find out a way out of this mess for you. I don’t want you to suffer because of a worm like Philip Beauchamp.”

  “There’s nothing you can do.”

  I opened my mouth to continue the argument and Mama raised her hand, stopping me cold. “Please ask your sister to come back and let me tell her the whole story.”

  “Sure, I’ll ask her, but I can’t make her listen.”

  I slogged upstairs to get my sister. I thought back to the day Mama had told me and DeLorean that she’d changed her name back to Marsh and officially changed DeLorean’s last name from Beauchamp to Marsh. That would have been the perfect time for her to tell us the truth, but instead she came up with the story about how we would be closer as a family if we all had the same last name. And we’d believed her for all these years.

  After she found out about Mama’s faux wedding, DeLorean would fuss for a few days and act mortally wounded and then she and Mama would cry and say how much they loved each other no matter what. I couldn’t wait. Until that event came to pass, life at Susan’s was not exactly going to be fun and games.

  I planned to sit around for the rest of the evening and mope about Jack and try to puzzle out a solution to the Mama and Philip drama. Then I decided to power up my computer to check my email and rediscovered the packet Veronica had mailed me last week sitting on my desk. I was sure she expected me to have all the work completed when she called me again, probably tomorrow, and if I hadn’t been so busy solving problems for my family all weekend, I wouldn’t be so far behind.

  Muttering under my breath at the unfairness of it all, I settled myself in my office and sorted through the million or so papers. Plans for the ghost tours. Copies of advertisements along with lists of phone numbers of publications where I could place ads. Lists and pictures of period furniture Veronica wanted me to hunt up and buy. But nothing I could do until tomorrow, except for writing up a script for a proposed tour of a Charleston cemetery and the house and starting the work of penning the brochure Veronica wanted about the Blackthorn House.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I didn’t get to bed until two AM thanks to my work on the brochure, which I didn’t finish. In the morning I stumbled in to work feeling like my eyelids were swollen to the size of lemon wedges. If I hadn’t gotten up late, I could have put cucumber slices over my eyes the way Mama is already recommending. But who was I kidding? I would have needed to buy out the entire cucumber sections at Publix and Piggly Wiggly combined to even begin to reduce the swelling.

  Patty was waiting at the door. As soon as she saw me, she dragged me to the break room.

  “Rough night? Yes, of course. I did your cards before I came in this morning. You are overburdened with responsibility and someone you care deeply about does not understand your need to martyr yourself so you can buy your family’s love and approval to keep them from disappearing into the ether.”

  “I’m not in the mood, Patty.” I wished I could roll my eyes, but knew the puffy lids would prevent that kind of flex
ibility. “Honestly, where do you get this stuff? And don’t say from the Universe because the Universe doesn’t make a habit of conversing with me. Though a case could be made for me martyring myself, I am not buying anyone’s love and approval. And nobody needs a deck of tarot cards to know I have responsibilities. Now move out of my way so I can get to my office.”

  “It’s not your office anymore, remember? La Brenda has moved in, taken command, and redecorated in a style that will make you swear you’re in the middle of a magazine shoot for cutesy dens of the South. Come on, take a minute and tell Patty all about your latest troubles. Odell called in late, so we’re safe.”

  “Oh, why not? Bring me a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you anything your cards haven’t already revealed.” I snared a crooked folding chair and plunked myself down.

  Patty brought the coffee and hopped onto the counter. She sat next to the microwave and stared down at me. “Okay, give.”

  “First of all there’s my sister DeLorean, her baby, and her golden doodle.” When Patty looked puzzled, I told her it was a designer dog, a poodle-golden retriever cross. I gave her the condensed version of my sister’s arrival, waited for her to make sympathy noises, and launched into an account of Christian’s trip home with Trinity in tow.

  When I finished, she said, “Wow, you poor thing.” She slid off the counter and I waved her back up.

  “There’s more. Jack was supposed to take me out Saturday night, but no one gave me the message, so he ended up eating dinner at my house, which was not fun, thanks to my family butting in. Next day Mama sprained her ankle and now she and her two Chihuahuas are living in my family room. Jack took me to see his new place. I’m sure he either wanted to tell me he has feelings for me or that he wants us to be best buddies the way we used to be. But I’ll never know since my sister called at the crucial moment having hysterics about a family emergency and I had to go straight home, which did not endear me to Jack. Upon arriving home I discovered that my mother’s ex-husband is not her ex-husband since her marriage was not legal and he was or is married to someone in Arkansas named Lurlene. But he is still trying to extort money from Mama by threatening to tell her new boyfriend that she is an adulterer.” I left out the part about Veronica’s packet of work that I hadn’t finished.

  “I knew it!” Patty put her hand over her heart. “You should have seen your card layout. Total and complete chaos all around your family and your love life.”

  “Patty, I have no love life.” I spaced the words out for emphasis.

  “But the cards say you do.” Her hair started to slip sideways and she passed her hands over the top of her head to adjust it. One of her hair clips sprang loose and flew across the room just in time to pop Odell across the nose as he opened the door. I hauled myself to my feet and picked up the clip, which had ricocheted off Odell to bounce against the microwave and land next to the coffeepot.

  “I believe this is yours,” I said, handing it to Patty.

  “Thank you much.” Patty reapplied the clip to a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her face. She pasted on her fake “I really do care about the customers” expression, saluted Odell, and did an about face.

  Odell finished turning purple and waving his short little arms and asked me what did I think he was paying me for. Skipping the salute, I made tracks for my ex-office.

  I refrained from telling Brenda that the chintz curtains on the window and the posters of puppies and ducklings cavorting in meadows under a guardian angel infested sky were not something a normal person would have chosen for office décor. I settled myself in the new visitor’s chair she’d installed in front of the desk. She seemed to have the work well in hand. I reached for a stack of invoices and she snatched them out of reach.

  “Umm,” she said, patting the bun at the back of her neck. “How should I put this?”

  “You took a secretarial course where you learned everything there is to know about running an office and you can handle the work without my input?”

  “Exactly.” Her pupils had shrunk to the size of BB’s and I knew she didn’t like the little dig about the secretarial course.

  I followed Patty’s example and quickly forgave myself. Went her one further and decided to sin no more. It was not Brenda’s fault she was the female version of her Uncle Odell.

  With little to do except stare at Brenda’s posters while she worked and ponder where I’d gone wrong in failing to get Jack to understand about my family, it was a long morning. Patty came dancing into the room at lunchtime, asking if I wanted to go out for lunch. She suggested soup and sandwiches.

  “Sure.” I would have gone along even if she’d opted for roast groundhog.

  “I have the answer to all your problems,” she said when we were settled on opposite sides of a table at Quiznos. “You’ll feel a lot better if you don’t have quite so much to deal with.”

  “It’s okay, Patty. The main thing is finding a way to get Philip off Mama’s back. As for the rest of it, it’s all pretty much business as usual. I can’t remember a time when my family wasn’t mixed up in one mess or another and it’s been my job to pitch in. I’m rescue central, you might say.”

  “I do say. Definitely.” She tilted her head and squeezed her eyes into slits at the same time. The effect was one of odd angles and slightly off kilter features. “As for your mother’s ex whatever, did you know you can go on the Internet and look up anything you need to know about people? It so happens that I have a subscription to a people finder site and I get three free searches a year. Since I only used one so far, I looked up this Lurlene person he’s supposedly married to. Got her number for you.” She fished in her purse and drew out a crumpled paper.

  My eyebrows struggled, trying to rise. Thanks to my still puffy eyelids, they failed. “How do you find time to get any work done?”

  “It’s all in how you schedule your work day.” She winked and pantomimed tapping away at a keyboard, surfing the Internet, something she could do only when Odell wasn’t around.

  “So you think I should call this woman and ask her to rein Philip in, maybe come to Charleston and haul him back to Arkansas hogtied in the trunk of her car? He’d just show up again like a stray dog that won’t go away after you feed it. Mama would never be safe.”

  “Hey, if you want him out of the way permanently, I know people.” At my shocked expression, she laughed and said, “Kidding. The Universe would not condone.”

  I drummed my fingers on the table. “You know, what he’s doing isn’t legal. I could contact a lawyer.” The only lawyers I knew were my real estate attorney and my divorce attorney, both elderly gentlemen who likely didn’t take on extortion cases, but I could ask them.

  “Why bother with a huge legal expense? Find out where he’s staying, go over there, and tell him you’re turning the matter over to the district attorney if he doesn’t leave your mother alone. Then threaten to call Lurlene and get him in really big trouble.”

  “I don’t even know if they’re still married, though I suppose I could call her. But how do I find out where he’s staying? Am I suppose to consult the cards?”

  Patty shook her finger at me. “Don’t make fun of the powers. All you have to do is dial information or call around to area motels and see if he’s checked in. Of course, you’ll have to trick them into telling you.”

  “Hey, good idea. I’m left wondering how you come up with all this cloak and dagger stuff.”

  “Experience. Don’t ask me about my ex-husband; even the Universe would prefer that he existed in another dimension.”

  When we got back to the shop, Brenda cornered me and thrust a pink memo paper into my hand. “I’m going to lunch with my uncle and I’d rather you didn’t disturb anything on my desk while I’m out.”

  “You don’t have a thing to worry about, Brenda. I promise.”

  She shot me a doubtful look and then scuttled out to join Odell in his SUV. I peeked out from between the chintz curtains until they turned the corner
at the end of the block. Then I looked at the memo. It was a message from Veronica asking me to call her. I figured using the phone didn’t count as disturbing Brenda’s desk. And sitting in what used to be my desk chair probably didn’t count either.

  Veronica picked up on the third ring. “Susan, have you had a chance to look over the packet I sent you?”

  Thank God, I’d remembered. “I’ve already started.”

  “Super. I don’t have a spare minute. I thought we wouldn’t be ready for at least another three weeks, but my contractor told me the work’s ahead of schedule. It’s going to be ready in a few days and then I want to have the house decorated as soon as possible. I know that’s short notice, but I need for you to get that advertising in gear and start buying the furniture I listed.”

  Oh, right, a list that specific—civil war era couches and beds, two tasteful oil painting at least six feet by eight feet, countless little chairs, tables and knickknacks—Susan was going to produce on command. I pictured hours spent traipsing the sidewalks of Charleston, practically living in antique shops to get the exact items. But I could understand her rush and besides, the sooner she got the ghost tours started, the sooner I’d be moving on with life after the pawn shop.

  “I can get going on the advertising.” I’d leave Brenda to her work and go in the back to use my cell phone. I’d tell Odell that Brenda was doing a great job and didn’t need me. He’d probably let me go, but an extra two days pay wasn’t going to amount to much when it came to paying my bills. “The antiques might have to wait a day or so.”

  “Don’t wait too long. I tell you, this new firm is moving at the speed of light. I’m sure you’ve heard of them. They used to be owned by the Lenley family.”

  My heart did a flip. The exact thing Jack had said to me a few days ago in The Pie Plate. Pieces clicked into place, making me feel dense for not having realized sooner.