“Glory! You’re right! Everything’s a racket these days, isn’t it?”
She took two tumblers from a cabinet and filled them with ice and water.
I looked around her pristine white kitchen with all the red accents and smiled to myself. She had certainly cornered the market on strawberry accoutrements. There were dishes, mugs, canisters, dish towels—you name it—all of them had strawberries on them somewhere. She even had a red Viking range with eight burners and two ovens. It looked like a big valentine centered on the back wall. In fact the entire kitchen was a kind of valentine, a love letter showing how important her kitchen was to her. I agreed with that position because I had always felt that as much as I enjoyed the drama of a gorgeous living room or the glamour of a beautiful dining room, the kitchen was the heart of a home.
Her kitchen was where we usually worked, all of our papers spread across her oversize trestle table. It was still early in the day and sunlight was pouring through the windows. I noticed a grouping of bird feeders outside on black wrought-iron shepherd hooks and I thought how nice it must be for her to sit across from the windows and watch the migrating birds come and go.
“That’s new, isn’t it? The bird feeders, I mean.”
“Yes! It is. Isn’t it just the perfect thing to keep me company? After Jake died last year, I decided I was too old for another dog and then I saw these on the Internet and thought, well? Why not?”
“Why not indeed? Now, let’s talk about inventory. It’s planned for next week . . .”
We talked about shrinkage due to expiration dates, breakage, and how much we had to write down for taxes for 2006.
“It’ll be a cold day in you know where before I insist on producing strawberry-pomegranate jam again. Remember how we thought all those little seeds would be a surprising burst of flavor? All those antioxidants? All people did was run to the dentist and write me letters of complaint.”
“Yeah. Way worse than raspberries. We couldn’t give it away. How much do we own?”
“I’m afraid to tell you,” Miss Sweetie said. We stared at each other for a few seconds and then she said, “Okay. Four hundred cases. That’s forty-eight hundred jars.”
“Holy smoke. That’s a lot. Maybe I can give them to Bobby Mack at a big discount and he can use it as a marinade?”
“Maybe we should try it as a marinade first?”
“I’ll ask him to send me a pork shoulder and I’ll try it tonight. Is that the worst problem we’ve got?”
“Yes, I’m happy to say. Other than this, it’s strawberry chiffon heaven around here! And, by the way, we’re very close to landing the Sara Lee account as well. Did I tell you about this?”
“No! Oh, Miss Sweetie, that’s wonderful!”
“Yes, it is! Even though I am supposed to be just a spokesperson, our head of sales drags me into everything. Anyway, they have a whole new line of low-fat muffins and our strawberries . . .”
Her eyes twinkled and she became very animated as she told me how Sara Lee proposed to market the muffins and how much revenue we stood to gain if we acquired the account. For all of her complaints about how it was time for her to retire, it was obvious that Sweetie’s was keeping her going.
“And, Caroline? I had a call from Nancy this morning about our bridge game this week. She was headed to Beaufort for a breakfast and she saw the billboards. Do you want to tell me what’s going on? Mother McCree! We had no idea Frances Mae was so, well . . .”
“Crazy?”
I felt the back of my neck ignite and my face was in flames.
“Oh, come on now.” She reached across the table and patted the back of my hand. “I know it’s none of my business, but if I can help in any way, you know how much I loved your mother and—”
“Miss Sweetie? Frances Mae is no Picasso and she’s always up to something awful, isn’t she? Such an embarrassment. But this time? She’s all done.”
“Whatever do you mean, dear?”
“That Trip is finally, pardon my language, beyond the fury of every devil in hell.”
Miss Sweetie gasped in false shock and said, “Well, it’s high time! I know this is none of my business but I have to tell you, your mother would not have liked this one bit. Nice people don’t hang their dirty laundry out in public.”
“No, you’re right. And I don’t like it either.”
On the way back to Tall Pines, my trunk loaded up with four cases of strawberry-pomegranate jam, my cell rang out with the theme song to Goldfinger. It was the music designated for only Bobby Mack and don’t ask why. I had not heard from him in ten days and the way my life went? Anything could happen in ten days.
“Princess!”
“I was just going to call you! Where’ve you been hiding, darlin’? I’ve been missing you,” I said, thinking now here he is and what am I to do with Matthew Strickland? Hide him in the closet?
“Just working like a fiend, that’s all. I was up in Hyde Park, New York, teaching a bunch of Yankee chef wannabe kids at the CIA how to make sausage and, of course, the most efficient way to finish a hog.”
“You mean, finish him off for good?”
“Ah, come on, pussycat. That sounds so harsh.”
“Booooobbeeeee?”
“Hmm?”
“Can you have someone bring me a shoulder of pork? Pleeeeease?”
“I can have someone bring you a shoulder of pork, and later on, I’ll bring another shoulder for you to lean on and cry about how you been missing your man. How’s seven?”
“Oh, Bobby! That would be so wonderful! I can’t wait to see you!”
We hung up and I prayed, Oh dear Lord, please help us get Frances Mae on a plane to California and Trip back to his house with Rusty and Matthew Strickland on duty at the other end of the county by six forty-five. Thank you Lord, Amen. P.S. Oh, and also with my hair blown out, necessary places shaved and moisturized, and Millie tucked away somewhere out of sight with Mr. Jenkins. Amen and thanks, again.
It didn’t seem like a lot to ask for from heaven given all the pious things I had done lately. Okay, perhaps I’m not exactly pious, but I had certainly given Trip’s kids lots of well-intentioned thought. I hoped that counted for something.
Trip arrived at three-thirty with his lawyer, who was a precious thing named Oscar Rosen. I saw no evidence of a wedding ring and filed that detail away for later, should Bobby and Matthew exhaust their talents or pitch their tents elsewhere. What was the matter with me, always planning my next liaison? Nothing. Because if I didn’t, who would?
By ten minutes to four, Millie’s mystery cake was on Mother’s buffet with plates, forks, and small linen napkins, and the silver tea service was ready to go.
“What’s in the cake?” I asked Millie in a whisper. “Can I eat it?”
“It’s a chocolate pound cake and you’d better have some! I’ve been baking all day!”
“But what’s in it?” Millie narrowed her eyes at me and I narrowed mine right back. “Besides chocolate, I mean.”
“You don’t be worrying yourself about that, ’eah? Just serve everybody a nice fat slice.”
Trip was pacing like an animal. The tension was building. Even Millie was nervous. Frances Mae was predictably late. The doorbell rang.
“Who the hell is that?” Trip said. “Coming to the front door? Who comes to the front door?”
“Religious and environmental fanatics. And on occasion, the authorities. I’ll answer it,” I said.
“Hold yourself together,” Millie said, and picked up the intercom and asked who it was.
“Mack Farms! Got a delivery for Miss Caroline!”
“It’s my pork shoulder. I’ll go get it.”
“What? You’re having a pork shoulder delivered?” Trip said. “Today?”
“Yeah, we got pig coming and going today,” I said, hoping a little levity might lighten Trip’s anxiety.
It did not.
At first Trip said to Oscar, “Stay with me, okay?” And then a minu
te later he said, “Why don’t you all wait here in the kitchen with Millie and I’ll call you when I need you?”
“Fine with me,” I said, trying to strike a sultry chord with Oscar and an acquiescent one with Trip. I unwrapped the roast and looked at it, plumping it with my hands like clay that would become a sculpture. Why I did this I have no idea, except to me, there was nothing more beautiful in the world than a pork shoulder. I dumped a bottle of the wicked strawberry-pomegranate jelly in a saucepan with some mustard, cloves, and brown sugar and turned the heat to low and the oven to 250 degrees. “But I think we should serve cake first, you know, so it doesn’t appear to be some kind of ambush, don’t you?”
“You’re probably right. Okay, then. Oscar? Change of plan. We’ll all be in the dining room when she arrives. I just hope she doesn’t expect me to be nice to her. It’s costing me another five thousand dollars to clean up her mess from this morning. There’s paint all over the damn place.”
It was twenty minutes after three when Frances Mae’s SUV rolled into the side yard at last. She got out, smoothed her shirt and hair, and moved toward the kitchen door, wobbling a bit.
“She’s in the bag,” I said to Millie, who stood by me as we both peeked through the kitchen window, standing just off to the side so that she couldn’t see us.
“Good,” Millie said. “That’ll make it easier for Trip to stand his ground.”
“You’re right. Lord, I hope he doesn’t lose his nerve.”
“Humph. What in the world has that woman got on her back today?”
The door opened and the room was filled with Frances Mae. There she was, inappropriately dressed in what appeared to be one of her daughters’ short skirts and a knit top. On a skinny teenager it would have been fine, but on her matronly figure it was too revealing and downright ridiculous. Millie’s eyes took a roll and so did mine.
“Hi, y’all,” she said.
“Hi, Frances Mae,” I said. “Trip’s in the dining room.”
“Okay,” she said, and left the room so quickly she could have been walking across hot coals.
“Her breath is a freaking fire hazard,” I said.
“Poor thing,” Millie said.
“You think so, huh?” I stirred my marinade, basted the pork, and put the roasting pan in the oven.
“Shush! I wouldn’t want to be her, would you?”
“No, ma’am, but you and I would never be her. Not for all the money in this world.”
I gave them a few minutes and then went to the dining room to cut and serve the cake. When I got there, Frances Mae was already eating an enormous slice in large bites, probably in an attempt to disguise the alcohol on her breath. For Frances Mae to make herself at home annoyed me beyond words, but then it wasn’t unusual for Frances Mae to break rank and assume the cake was hers to cut. She had all the manners of a goat.
“What were you thinking, Frances Mae?” Trip’s voice was drenched with irritation and he struggled to maintain a civil tone.
“What?” she said.
“Defacing public and private property?”
“What did the messages say on the billboards, Trip?”
“For me to come back to you and that my gorgeous Rusty is an F-ing whore.”
Suddenly Frances Mae’s face changed and she began to weep, not sobbing, but tears poured out of her eyes like someone flipped on a faucet. I was stunned. I looked at Oscar, who quickly offered her his handkerchief—I loved men who carried linen handkerchiefs—which she took and used to blot her face. What was in the cake?
Trip’s mood had suddenly changed, too, and he said in a softer tone, “Look, Frances Mae. You need serious help.”
“No, I do not.”
“You’ve been drinking today, haven’t you?”
“No.”
I couldn’t believe what happened next, but Trip produced a Breathalyzer from his jacket. “Then you won’t mind breathing into this little tube?”
“What? Why should I do that? And what are you doing with that thing anyway? Are you the police now?”
“Nope. But you’re an alcoholic and we all know it. Frances Mae? You’ve got to go into a long-term in-patient rehab program or you will never get off the booze. Like I told you yesterday, I’ll pay for the whole thing. All the arrangements are made. There are two nice male nurses parked in the van out back and they are going to take you there straight from this house. And just so you know, I could’ve had you committed to the psych ward at MUSC but I didn’t. You’re going to sunny California instead.”
She had some fight left in her.
“Screw you, Trip Wimbley. I ain’t going nowhere.”
“Yes. You are going, Frances Mae. In the meanwhile, I’m taking full custody of the girls and I’ll take total care of them. But here’s the deal: I want you to sign the divorce papers. I am willing to give you the house in Walterboro and this much money . . .”
Trip showed her the number on the paper, and by the look on Frances Mae’s face, she was immediately sobered.
Frances Mae straightened up and put on her best voice of self-righteous indignation. “I will never give up my children, not even for twice that much money.”
Trip was stunned. Frances Mae had been married to him for long enough to know that the first offer was a lowball.
“I’ll just be in the kitchen,” I said, and no one noticed as I left.
I mean, honest to God, I had no business being there in the dining room. So I stood with Millie on the other side of the swinging door, after almost knocking her out cold when I went in.
“Sorry!” I whispered.
“Where’d you think I’d be?” Millie whispered back. “Now, shush!”
We heard Trip say, “Oh yes you will because another DUI is going to put your butt in the hoosegow for a mandatory five days, maybe up to a year, and maybe up to three.”
Frances Mae must have turned her face to Oscar.
“And, excuse me, but just who in the hell are you?”
“I’m representing Mr. Wimbley.”
“Well, screw you, too, because I ain’t signing nothing!”
“Frances Mae? It’s rehab or jail. In either setting you can’t care for the kids. And you’ll lose custody anyway, so why can’t we just be civilized about this?”
In my mind I had already said more “holy shits” than I could count and Millie’s eyebrows were dusting the ceiling. I cussed in my head all the time. And sometimes out loud, but hopefully not too much.
But Frances Mae, whether she saw the soundness of Trip’s argument or not, was still having no part of his plan.
“Civilized? You call yourself civilized? I’d call you a snob maybe, a self-centered momma’s-boy philanderer living with a tramp, maybe. But civilized? No, I don’t think it’s civilized to offer me money to sell my children.”
“I’m trying to help you, Frances Mae. I’m trying to be generous here.”
And this was when the halfway coherent sister-in-law became possessed by the redneck from hell.
“Generous? Yew spent more money on all yewr dogs ’en guns ’en boats ’en who knows what in one month than you ever spent on me in all our years together!”
“It may seem that way to you, but let me assure you that I am not talking about just money here, Frances Mae. I don’t have to give you anything. I could let you just get another DUI and sue you for custody, which I would win in any courtroom in the land. It would be all over the papers and the girls would be mortified one more time. Is that what you really want? To mortify your children?”
A seeming eternity passed before we heard Frances Mae answer.
“No.”
“So, what I’m doing here is trying to handle this with a little compassion for you to get you the help you need and to help you avoid any more humiliation. You must admit that the things you have done were absolutely irresponsible. And to be honest, criminal, Frances Mae.”
“Humph. Well, that’s just fine because I don’t need no man to be reminding
me for one more second that I’m not good enough for this stuck-up family of yewrs. I’ll go to rehab and I’ll get sober, but when I come back, I want my girls.”
“Frances Mae?” Trip said. “Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it. So far there’s no evidence of your ability to stay off the bottle. Don’t you think you’ve embarrassed the children enough? Us all enough?”
What happened next was almost unbearable. Her waterworks went into overdrive and she began to wail.
“Oh God, why? You know I love yew, Trip. I love yew with all my heart and I’m gonna up and die without yew. Please! Won’t you come back home? Let’s try again, Trip. For the kids? Please give me another chance. I love yew so much. I’ll never drink another drop! All I ever wanted was to marry yew and have a family with yew . . . that’s all I ever wanted in my whole life . . . my whole life is yew and our kids. It is.”
“I know, I know,” we heard Trip say. “But it’s no good anymore, Frances Mae, and we both know it.”
I looked at Millie and she looked at me. We were both in tears hearing Frances Mae’s anguish and feeling how completely chopped to pieces her heart was. It was just awful.
“That cake ain’t working right,” Millie said. “St. John’s wort don’t agree with her.”
“Evidently,” I whispered. “Is she gonna be okay?”
“Oh, yeah. A few hours from now it’ll work its way out of her system.”
“Oh God! Please no!” Frances Mae cried, and then her sobbing began in earnest.
“I’m sure glad Mother didn’t live to see this either,” I said in a low voice.
“We’re saying that too often around here,” Millie said. “We need this situation fixed! Awful to hear and painful to witness, I know, but things got to change.”
Frances Mae must have signed the papers because about five minutes later we could hear Oscar say, “Okay. I think that does it.”
We moved away from the door as quickly as we could and tried to look busy. Sure enough, in seconds Frances Mae came sailing through with Trip.
She looked at me and said what she had probably longed to say for years.
“You know what? This house was supposed to be mine. But noooo. Your life was supposed to be mine! But noooo. When your marriage didn’t work out with that ugly nasty Jew shrink—big surprise, city girl—you came running home to your crazy-ass bitch momma with your tail between your skinny legs and y’all both ruined my whole life. Well, guess what? You ain’t seen the last of me, Caroline La-veen! No, you have not.”
Lowcountry Summer Page 7