Reunion Beach

by Elin Hilderbrand

“They’re not social, that’s why.”

  “Even if they were, they wouldn’t come here.”

  “This is a very prestigious establishment. Look around, Pat. You can’t do better than this.”

  “So choose your judge.”

  Dottie waved her arms from left to right, including the tables and the length of the bar. “You take that half. I’ll take this half.”

  “Fine,” Pat said.

  Pat and Dottie split up to find the best judge. Soon, the clouds shifted and a new soul appeared in the entrance.

  “Where am I? Look at this place.” An attractive soul entered the bar. It was apparent she was pretty even though her ectoplasm was fading. A black chemise, pearls, and high heels were almost all that was left of her. She shoved her black horn-rimmed glasses up her nose and squinted. “Is this the writer’s bar?” she asked as she sat down. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll have a Pimm’s cup.”

  “A girl that orders a Pimm’s Cup is a true girl raised in the South. Is that you, Julia Evans Reed?”

  Julia spun around on her bar stool. “Dottie Frank?”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you think? I’m writing an article for Garden & Gun.”

  “I have a subscription! Everything that’s important or anything interesting that happens in the American South is in Garden & Gun these days. So what are you writing about?”

  “That’s a joke, Dottie. There are no more articles to write. No more books. This is the end of the line.”

  “Oh, right.” Dottie sat down on the stool next to Julia.

  “This is sort of a forced retirement deal.”

  “It’s so final.” Dottie sighed.

  “Yes, it is.”

  Dottie turned to face Julia. “I didn’t know you were sick.”

  “You didn’t? There was a post on Instagram. But evidently no one read it. Not one person. That just proves nobody reads the copy on social media. They go straight for the videos of double-jointed me doing the shimmy at a Boxing Day lunch at the River Road Country Club in Greenville. Nobody ever reads the captions even after you spend an hour and a half trying to come up with something pithy for the post. If you want to keep a secret, just put it in the captions on IGTV. I actually wrote exactly what was wrong with me, but I might as well have written, Help, I’m being robbed. I don’t know these people and they’re draining the liquor, because no one ever mentioned the post to me, but of course thousands liked it. Ugh. Like this is what I would like to say to them.”

  “I would have told everyone I was sick had I the opportunity. I appreciate sympathy. Pity should be an expensive perfume and it should have the scent of my neck,” Dottie said.

  “What are you drinking?”

  “Vodka because I don’t swell.”

  “You won’t feel anything going forward. I’m here ten minutes and know that for certain.”

  Pat joined the ladies. “Hello, Julia.”

  “Aren’t you shocked she’s here?”

  “Nothing surprises me, Dottie.”

  “Any luck finding a judge?”

  “Nope.”

  “Judge for what?” Julia asked.

  “A cornbread competition.”

  “I know more about cornbread than I do about any other subject. I mean it. I’ll be the judge.”

  “Pat, Julia said she’d judge. Where do we get the stuff? I need ingredients.”

  “The ingredients are in the kitchen.”

  Julia followed Pat and Dottie into the bar’s kitchen. Two long aluminum tables, one marked PAT and the other DOTTIE, were filled with the ingredients to make cornbread.

  Dottie clapped her hands together. “I like this already. Somebody already did the shopping. What fun!”

  “I’m getting to work,” Pat said seriously.

  Julia took a seat and watched the writers sift, pour, and stir. “Dottie, what’s in that recipe?”

  “Okay, start with an 8 × 11 pan. Grease it. Put your stove on 425 degrees. I’m taking ½ cup of cornmeal, 11/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 1 tablespoon of baking powder, ¼ cup powdered milk, 1 cup of sugar. Sift all that and set it aside. Whisk ¼ cup warm water with 1 large egg, ½ stick of butter melted, and a pinch of salt. Pour that mixture over the dry ingredients and whisk until lumpy. Add in a can of creamed corn and whisk it in until all the lumps disappear. Now, I’m pouring it into the pan. And now, into the oven.”

  “Interesting. Creamed corn?” Julia asked.

  “Do you have another use for it?”

  “Not really,” Julia laughed. “I guess creamed corn is to your cornbread what a can of onion soup is to every casserole my mother ever made since 1958.”

  “I’d say that’s accurate.”

  “Pat, how are you doing?”

  “I’m using a seasoned skillet. Throwing it into the oven at 375 to heat to temperature. I’m mixing 1 cup of all-purpose flour, 1 cup of cornmeal, ¼ teaspoon of salt, 4 teaspoons of baking powder, 2 sticks of softened butter, 1 cup of sugar, 4 large eggs. Altogether, beat it well. Then, you add a can of creamed corn.”

  “Hmm. Now you like the creamed corn where before you were turning your nose up at it. Suddenly everyone is on the creamed corn bandwagon.” Dottie sniffed.

  “Gonna try it,” Pat said as he stirred the ingredients. “Can’t hurt. Then add 1 cup of cheddar cheese, 1 cup of Monterey Jack cheese, 1 cup of smashed sweet mini tomatoes, 1 cup of diced green chilis, a shot of chili powder, you know a slight sprinkle. Pull the hot pan out of the oven. Throw in the mixture and back into the oven for an hour. Firecracker cornbread skillet style.”

  “I have a question for you all. In a place without time, how do you know how long to bake it?”

  “It’s done,” Dottie and Pat said in unison, lifting their cornbread out of the oven.

  “I think I’m gonna like it here. Instant Southern classics.” Julia smiled. “I have a lot of questions about this place.”

  “Ask Pat. He’s the old pro.”

  “Thanks, Dot.”

  “What happens when we fade away up here?”

  “Don’t know, Julia.” Pat smiled.

  “You’re getting awfully transparent.” Julia carefully cut Pat’s cornbread into triangles.

  “I have no plan,” Pat admitted.

  “No plan?”

  “None.”

  “Okay. Starting to understand what is going on here. Just need to develop some sort of philosophy to get through it.” Julia tasted Pat’s cornbread. “I loved life because I lived it with one goal, one purpose: to have fun. Fun is vastly underrated. It ought to be one of the beatitudes. Blessed be the funny because without fun, what’s the point?”

  “You’ll come to appreciate bliss,” Pat said. “It’s a deeper form of fun.”

  “Bliss. Well, you’ll have to convince me. I feel I know bliss. How do you top that first bite of a Delta-style lobster roll or the opening drumbeat of the Martin Luther King Day Parade in New Orleans followed by a beignet and chicory coffee? Or the way a pair of Manolos feel out of the box when you slip them on for the first time and it’s like they were made for you? I really liked living.”

  “So did I,” Dottie said softly. “And dinner parties and cookouts and new shoes and jewelry. Sorry folks. I did.”

  “Won’t matter after a while.”

  “Pat, keep saying it, maybe it will come true.”

  “You just have to be patient. Pretty soon, everybody you loved will find their way to you here.”

  “How do you know for sure?” Julia asked.

  “Because it’s already happened to me,” Pat said.

  “It has?” Julia sampled Dottie’s cornbread. She chews slowly.

  “It takes a while to find people,” Pat said. “There’s no rush. Eventually you will bump into every person you ever knew. And some you didn’t, people you wanted to meet, but never had the chance.”

  “I’ve been very social since I arrived, and I think it’s made all the difference in my transition. I mea
n, I just got here, or it feels like it, and who’s the first person I find? My bestie Pat. How crazy is that?” Dottie said optimistically.

  “There’s no adjustment, Julia,” Pat reminded her. “You will let go and when you do, everything will settle. Your troubles have no place to rest here. They’re just gone. It is a resplendent thing to be whole and healthy again. You won’t ever be sick again. That just wears you out. It wore me out anyway,” Pat admitted.

  “How was your passing?” Julia asked.

  “Mine was fast.” Dottie shrugged.

  “Mine was slow,” Pat admitted.

  “Mine was slow, too,” Julia said.

  “Neither choices are good,” Dottie said. “But both tracks get you here. I suppose that’s the point, isn’t it? To land where you’re supposed to be after you’ve lived. I was so frightened about all of it. And there was no need to be. When I was on earth, I’d have a come-apart thinking about dying and the afterlife. It seemed so frightening. In retrospect, I was trying to hold it all together so I wouldn’t frighten the people I loved.”

  “You seem to hold it together nicely,” Julia said.

  “That’s an illusion. Determination and a good girdle kept me upright.”

  “And straight-backed chairs. You told me they helped your posture.”

  “That’s true, Pat. My love of good furniture was a positive. I liked furniture so much I collected it even when I didn’t have a place to put it.”

  “What did you do with it?” Julia asked.

  “I hid it. Attics, basements, friends’ houses. Their attics. Their basements. I loaned out antiques like I was Mario Buatta, half in the bag at the Armory Antiques sale on closing day hoarding genuine ottomans from the Ottoman Empire. Do you have children, Julia?”

  “Thousands.”

  “You’re an Auntie Mame?”

  “Auntie Mirth.” Julia grinned.

  “I had a son and a daughter. Loved them both dearly. Did you have a best friend?”

  “I did.”

  “That’s what it’s like to have a daughter. In case you ever wonder.”

  “I’m traditional, Dottie. But I never wanted traditional things.”

  “Well, I wasn’t traditional so I surrounded myself with all manner of tradition. I thought it meant things mattered. Now I know they don’t. Not even the bestseller list.”

  “Dottie arrived here shortly after she found out she was number two on the Times bestseller list.”

  “Well that sucks.” Julia cut another square of Dottie’s cornbread and ate it.

  “I knew you’d understand. Number two! After all that! I mean I’m happy for the Crawdad lady, it was her first number one, you know, so I’d like to think I’m generous about it and happy for a fellow author.”

  “Only she had been number one for weeks. Months. Maybe a couple years.”

  “I know! Couldn’t she just move aside for ten minutes and let me be number one? I mean, if she knew that I was coming here, I bet she would’ve called the warehouses and said, ‘Hold the crates!’”

  “Would you have called the warehouse if you were in her position?” Pat asked Dottie.

  “Never.”

  “So there’s your answer. What’s so great about being number one?” Julia asked.

  “I wouldn’t know.” Dottie laughed.

  “You’re about to find out. Dottie, you win. Your cornbread is the best,” Julia announced. “It’s number one.”

  “It is?”

  “Simple. Tasty. Not too dry. Not too sweet. The can of creamed corn is blended just right.”

  “Thank you. You know, cornbread was a staple in my home and I got a lot of practice. And to be honest, if you add a can of creamed corn to the Jiffy box mix, it’s mighty close to scratch.”

  “How was mine?” Pat asked.

  “The creamed corn killed it. Too much going on and that’s from a girl who likes too much going on.”

  “Creamed corn doesn’t work with every recipe,” Dottie said breezily. “I’m sorry, Pat.”

  “I’m sure Kurt Vonnegut would like a piece. Take him a square of your number one cornbread. Congratulations, Dot. You deserve it.”

  “On my way.” Dottie picked up the platter and went back into the bar.

  Julia leaned across the worktable. “There was no cream corn in your original recipe, was there?”

  “Nope.”

  “You wanted her to win.”

  “Yep.”

  “You’re a good friend.”

  “No, Julia. I just didn’t want to hear Dottie carp about being Avis and trying harder for the rest of my eternal life.”

  Pat and Julia laughed.

  “Buy you a drink?”

  “Why Julia Reed, did you hear me talking about cheap writers who never buy a round?”

  “I might have, Pat Conroy.”

  “So you know about the postcards?”

  “What postcards?”

  “The ones from heaven.”

  “Oh, those,” Julia said and smiled. “You mean I have to write in this realm?”

  “Yep. But here’s the good news.”

  “I’m waiting,” Julia said.

  “No deadlines.”

  To: KSM

  From: Julia

  Listen here, baby sister friend, I don’t have any idea how much, or if any of this will get through, but eventually you will know it’s me, reaching out. I’m here. I made it. I’m on the other side. It is really pretty doggone fabulous here, even though I was skeptical at first, of course, because that’s just the way I am about anything that supposedly is built to last, including eternity. I had gotten to the place in my life where I wanted peace, and peace I got, with no concept of time. When I looked back over my life, the only time I ever cared about were those minutes between dressing up and waiting for the company to arrive.

  Sometimes I see shimmers of things. Shiny stamps. Or the red circle on a packing box from the mail machine over at The Reed Smythe Company. I miss our elegant little endeavor, but not because of the tables, glassware, and bits and bobs we sold. I miss hunting down the treasures we would sell and wondering if anyone else in the world would see the beauty in a medieval shaving cup. The shop was just another excuse to hang out, spend time together and laugh.

  Sometimes I hear things. Your children. My mother’s voice. My father’s laugh. Don’t look for me in sound. I never could sing very well and speaking from the great beyond always ends up sounding like Margaret Rutherford ordering a pizza during the reign of Queen Victoria.

  To that end—

  I will leave you messages in things. Okay, specifically books. If you pick up Dorothy Draper’s Decorating Is Fun, I have underlined a few good passages which I believe are essential to decoration and entertaining. Not that you need it. Not that you’d believe it. You are no more likely to wallpaper a room on your own than you are to give yourself a haircut. You’re a joy, all sunshine, promise and belief, which is what I loved about you. You could even be practical occasionally, which I never could be, not even once.

  You may recall a few years back when I left that rental car on the side of the road with the keys in it when I was on book tour. I was in Tennessee, not Nashville. Knoxville. I did a charity gig there under a tent. It’s all coming back to me. There was an auction of interesting items. Mint julep cups, rattan suitcases, and a painting of the United States flag on a handbag. I didn’t buy anything. I did my speech and encouraged the women under the tent to buy up all the stuff on the tables.

  The event was over. It turned dark and I was driving to the airport when the rental car filled with smoke. I couldn’t get the heater to turn off, so I jumped out because I was afraid the dang car would combust with me in it. I walked away from the smoldering car. I thumbed a ride to the airport lickety-split and the driver turned out to be a lovely man who got his start in coal, then coached high school football, and now was on his way to his mother-in-law’s for her birthday dinner. Great conversation about high school football
and concussions.

  About the car.

  I forgot to tell the publisher that I abandoned that heap on the side of the road. And then, around three weeks later, evidently the dang car had been sitting there that long, was stolen, yes, stolen by a gang of teenage boys, the Tennessee four I called them, who drove my rental car all the way to Mequon, Wisconsin, which was their second mistake (the first being grand theft auto). Anyhow, the poor boys decided Wisconsin was way too cold once they arrived, geography being a foreign concept to them they failed to realize that north means frigid, so they abandoned the jalopy in the return lot at the airport and took a bus back to wherever they came from, somewhere outside of Knoxville, Tennessee. But leaving the car did not atone for stealing the car in the first place until it did. Well, it all worked out when the rental car company admitted that the origin of the rental car was Hertz in Mequon. I cannot make this stuff up, and the little criminals had actually done them a ding dang favor after all. That’s a sidebar. Even the things we steal belonged to us in the first place.

  Love ya, Julia

  * * *

  To: Victoria Benton Frank Peluso

  From: Mom

  Honey, I see her. The baby. You named her after me? Are you out of your mind? What happened to Anastasia? Aurora? What happened to all those names of all those Disney princesses that you liked a lot and said they worked with Peluso? Italian queen Yolanda, and Italian movie queens, Sophia, Claudia, and Monica. They were stunning names. I do like Thea as a nickname. Don’t ever let them call the baby Dottie. It was a curse to have a nickname that came from the South and meant crazy.

  I always liked when Daddy called me Doe, like a deer. I thought it was romantic and autumnal and slightly musical as every song has that introduction, doe/doe/doe. You know what I mean. I loved deer, except that time I hit one on Pawleys Island. I didn’t even know they had deer on Pawleys Island. Trust me, they do. So, please drive slowly with high beams on when you’re over there. The story ended well-ish. The deer lived, fled the scene without a scratch, but the car looked like King Kong had wadded it up like a gum wrapper and threw it down on River Road. That’s when Daddy insisted that I drive an SUV or is it SVU, I can never keep that show with Mariska Hargitay and the style of that vehicle Daddy bought me straight. Well, Victoria, it’s one or the other. Figure it out. And when you do, lemme know.