Isle of Palms

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  I love when people say that. Get a life. What is that stupid cliché anyway? (I think, if one wants to be taken seriously, one should avoid clichés like the plague.) Some guy cuts some other guy off in traffic. Get a life! the guy in the other car yells. Well, my father spends years in front of a television. So, get a life! I think to myself. Wouldn’t you know, this stupid get a life business finally got around to me. Thank you so much. Took long enough! My eyes got yoinked open in a most unceremonious and insensitive blast delivered by Jim and Frannie.

  Jim lives in San Francisco and Frannie lives in D.C. They’re my best friends in the world since forever. We were doing our monthly conference call last week and they gave me the freaking, red-suited devil. I made the foolish, self-indulgent, tiny mistake of complaining once too often about Daddy’s moodiness.

  “Anna? Girl?” Jim said. “You know, Frannie and I are so not ready for you to start your rag on Doc. I think it’s a little tired, you know? Like a lavender, glen plaid polyester pant suit.”

  “With a safari jacket,” Frannie said. “And shoulder pads. With epaulets.”

  “Oh!” I said. “O-kaaay.” I started feeling largely and understandably defensive. I mean, if I couldn’t take my troubles to my dearest friends, who could I tell?

  “Give it up! It’s worn out!”

  “Anna, Jim’s right,” Frannie said. “Look, you haven’t had a date in two years, that I know of. You haven’t been to the movies since when? I mean, do you even know who Cameron Diaz is?”

  “Yes, I do. But who cares?”

  “Look, hon,” she said, “and I mean this in the nicest possible way, it seems to us that when you come home from work, you piddle around in the yard, fix dinner, and go to bed, only to start the whole thing over again the next day! You’re acting like you’re sixty years old! Like me dear old granny from Waterford was fond to say, you need to dry your arse. Go have more fun, excuse me, any fun in your life and then your daddy wouldn’t bother you so much. Or us!”

  “Anna? You need to rise from your rut and never go back.”

  I exhaled my disgust at myself and my frustration with them. Dammit all to hell. I hated it when I was wrong. “Well, you’re right, all right? You both are. I know that.” I was chewing on the ends of my hair, a disgusting habit of mine, I suppose, but one I had found comforting since I was a kid.

  “Well, that’s a start. It’s just that I hate to see you like this, you know? We both do. Hell, Anna, Frannie and I love you!”

  “Listen to Jim. You need to move out of your daddy’s house, Anna, and you know it. It just ain’t natural for our generation to go through menopause under our daddy’s roof. It just ain’t becoming for a Magnolia to pale on the branch in daddy’s shadow.”

  “Ouch! Jeesch! Menopause! Of all the despicable and totally disgusting thoughts!” That would have been the old proverbial cold water sloshed in my direction. God. Reality truly sucks. Sometimes. “Frannie? Okay. You’re right. Listen, I know y’all won’t believe this but I’ve actually been looking for a house on the Isle of Palms. Sort of.”

  “What?”

  “Finally! Great God, woman!” Jim said. “Great God!”

  I could hear Jim sit up straight and Frannie’s gasp was powerful enough to blow any earwax I had right to the core of my brain.

  “Just be sure you’re having a guest r-r-room,” Frannie said, trilling her r’s. “Ocean view would be good.”

  “Dream on, but yeah, I’m looking. Maybe something will turn up.”

  “Sugar Pants, if ever there was a woman who deserved a beach house on that island, it’s you!”

  I giggled at Jim calling me Sugar Pants. I told them about how I had been combing the ads and how I had a real estate broker working on it. We all agreed that a house was essential for my relationship with Emily and for my own sanity.

  “God’s good, Anna, but now you’re tap dancing in a small boat! What if you actually find something? Old Doc will howl like a wild animal on a full moon!”

  “Well, he’s gonna have to howl. I also know that eventually I will find something and then what will I tell him?”

  “Girlie, listen to your ex-husband. You’re gonna tell him that I said you should do this and that Frannie said so, too.”

  “Oh, that will solve the whole issue!”

  I wished it would but we all knew it wouldn’t. Yes, Jim was my ex-husband and we will get to him soon. Suffice it to say that Jim was my closest and dearest love, despite the fact that his hormones had other plans for our marriage. Frannie was my most important girlfriend of my entire life. If it hadn’t been for her, my Emily would have been at some loser school instead of Georgetown University. Frannie was an alumna and a recruiter and one of the most powerful lobbyists in Washington. She had spearheaded and won Emily’s acceptance. Frannie and Jim were devoted and vocal feminists, believing that every woman should be able to stand on her own two feet. I had adored both of them since Momma died. They had saved me then, but I guessed they were a little weary of propping me up. I couldn’t really blame them.

  “I’m gonna do it,” I said. “I have a lot of money in the bank, enough for a deposit and I know I can get a mortgage. Hell, I’ve been working for Harriet for a billion years.”

  “If you need help, let me know,” Jim said.

  “Thanks, sweetheart, but I gotta do this on my own.”

  “However?” Frannie said, laughing.

  “Okay, I’ll holler if I can’t manage it, but I swear to God, y’all, I’m gonna do it.”

  “Just make sure it has a room for me. I wanna tell everybody in San Francisco that I have a house on the infamous Isle of Palms!”

  “Ocean view, please.”

  “I’m taking notes,” I said.

  That was it. I knew my days of assassinating Daddy’s reputation had ceased or else their respect for me would be compromised. That innocent monthly chat with Jim and Frannie lit the final and long overdue draggling string of my bloomer’s fuse. I emerged as a woman on a pyrotechnic mission.

  I was like an IRS agent, sifting and scrolling the ads and minding the obituaries every day—with the proper respect, to be sure. It was a known fact that this was how the “classic houses” on the Isle of Palms came onto the market. Sadly, somebody had to keel over and drop dead.

  If the deceased was over eighty, the odds were that the departed’s offspring already had their own brand-new beach houses with Anderson windows and Pella doors and were anxious to settle the estate by selling the well-worn family home. That was how I house shopped and I told myself that it wasn’t morbid or callous.

  My real estate agent, Marilyn Davey, kept me on the go. She called me every time she thought there was something in my price range. We would race out to see it and sure enough we would be greeted by the sellers shaking hands with the buyers. Every single time.

  “Damn it!” I could see her mouth the words from behind the steering wheel of her navy blue BMW. She would get out of her car and apologize. “I swear, Anna! We just got the listing this morning!”

  “It’s okay,” I’d say, “the right house will find me when the time’s right.”

  Apparently, there were a lot of people with the same plan I had, but I was still hopeful. Counting up my chits, I figured I was next in line for an intergalactic, multidimensional, karmic act of Divine justice to reclaim, at the very least, my rightful spot on the planet. Just gimme my damn house, okay? While I’d never been someone to believe in entitlements, I had come to believe that this time, I was entitled. I got gypped out of living on the Isle of Palms as a child, my daughter got railroaded into living with her grandfather because of my problems, and we had all endured enough.

  I didn’t want a big splendid house on the ocean, mainly because I knew I couldn’t afford a big splendid house on the ocean. Maybe fate would throw in splendor at a later date. Just a reasonable house would have sent me to heaven.

  At last, excellent news! Mr. Randolph Simmons, of the Isle of Palms, eighty-eigh
t years old, choked and died last week on a hunk of mustard pork barbecue at a family picnic. His children were playing touch football and thought he had a heart attack. When they realized later the Heimlich maneuver could have saved his life, they were aghast with shame and consumed with regret. Guilt worked for me. Mr. Simmons’s tiny house would suit me fine. I considered it a sign from God that I heard it in the salon at the same time Marilyn heard it from one of Mr. Simmons’s children. Affordable houses stayed on the market for about two seconds, because that kind of news traveled faster than Palmetto bugs in the kitchen when you turned on the lights. And, in a bizarre twist of fate, Mr. Simmons’s house was only a few houses away from where I had lived as a child. I made an offer and shook hands. Marilyn and I hugged and screamed like schoolgirls.

  Now I had to tell Daddy. I sweated it all the way home.

  First, I called my gurus for courage. I squirreled myself away in my room and dialed their numbers.

  “Jim? Hang on. Let me flash in Frannie.”

  “Hey!”

  “Hey, Frannie!” Jim said, “Okay, Angel Heart, spit it out! I’m out here tasting Merlots and we all know California grapes don’t hold forever!”

  “Yeah,” Frannie said, “I’m on the way out. Got a dinner at the Capitol for some jokers from Merrill Lynch.”

  “Okay. I have major news,” I said.

  “Doc find himself a bride?”

  “No such luck,” Frannie said, “that would undermine his chances for martyrdom.”

  I giggled. “No, Daddy ain’t found no babe, but I found a house!”

  Much screaming ensued.

  “That’s wonderful!”

  “Tell it and be quick! I got two seconds and then I’ll call you tomorrow for details.”

  “Well, I told y’all I was looking, ’eah? It ain’t no palace and it’s little, but I can afford it. And y’all can please help me figure out how to make it look like something?”

  “No problem. I’ve got so much stuff in storage, you wouldn’t believe it,” Jim said. “Is it on the water?”

  “Are you insane? But it’s two houses from the path to the beach, across from Wild Dunes. And it’s got a big yard, so I could add on at some point. But then there’s the kicker part.” Jim’s wallet lived in another world than mine and no doubt what he had in storage would be better than anything I could ever afford.

  “Lemme guess,” Frannie said, “Doc is gonna kill himself?”

  “Basically, yeah.”

  “Shit,” Jim said.

  “How should I break the news?”

  They were both quiet for a moment and then Frannie spoke.

  “He’ll understand, Anna, I’m sure of it.”

  “Anna, just tell him straight out and be sweet about it. Old Douglas adores you. We know that. Christ, it’s not like you wanna move to Patagonia or something!”

  “You’re right. Okay. I’ll do it. I’ll call y’all tomorrow.”

  “You’d die without us, you know,” Jim said.

  Frannie said, “If he gives you a hard time, I’ll be home tonight around ten.”

  “Thanks, y’all. Love you madly!”

  It was still light outside so I decided to weed the beds and deadhead the flowers until Daddy came home. Gardening was a kind of meditation for me. I would have my conversation with nature and the answers to my problems would always come. Now I needed to find words. First, I checked the chicken stew I had started that morning in the Crock-Pot and it smelled wonderful. It was thick and rich. When I lifted the lid the whole room was filled with the fragrance of onions and celery. That would put old Douglas in a good mood for sure. I picked out a mushroom, blew on it, and popped it in my mouth.

  “Damn, honey,” I said out loud to myself, “you ain’t fancy, but you sure ’nough know how to put the hurt on a bird!”

  I was relishing my extraordinary good humor and suppressing my nerves. Eventually I got myself outdoors and began yanking some grass intruders from the azaleas. Daddy’s car pulled up. My heart sank, knowing the moment of truth was nigh, like Daddy always said when my report card came. I had cut a handful of basil I was going to chop with tomatoes for a salad, and some parsley to garnish the stew. I walked over to greet him, forcing myself to smile.

  “Hey! How was your day?”

  “Hey, sweetheart! Let’s see,” he said, pulling his well-worn black leather doctor’s bag from the floor of the backseat of his sensible Buick. “Three cases of stomach bug, four ear infections, lots of DPT shots, and one appendicitis. All in all, an average day, I’d say.”

  He hadn’t noticed anything different. Good.

  I followed him into the house and began setting the table while he went through his mail. I watched as he began to reenact his daily routine, saying the same things for the millionth time. Odd. His words that had grown to a stockpile of irritants now seemed to spark some melancholy in me. I realized the day might arrive when I would miss hearing him say, I wish I had the money it costs to produce all the junk mail I throw out every day. We got any beer?

  “I wish I had the money it costs to produce all the junk mail I throw out every day. We got any beer?”

  I reached into the refrigerator and, after some digging around, produced a Corona Light. I drank Corona. He drank Beck’s. Corona was going to make him say Humph, sissy beer.

  “I need to go to the store,” I said. Next, he would ask about supper time.

  “Humph,” he said, “this is sissy beer. When’s supper?”

  What did I just say? See what I mean? Sweet but annoying. Maybe it would be a while before I missed the dazzling repartee we shared every night.

  I served the chicken stew over biscuits and we began to eat. Now he would ask about my day.

  “So how was your day? This is delicious, Anna.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “My day was the usual baloney with Harriet and the normal gossip with my clients. Did you know that Alex Sanders resigned from the College of Charleston? I heard he’s running for the U.S. Senate for Thurmond’s seat.”

  “Well, personally, I like Alex Sanders very much. However, if Thurmond can still frost a mirror, that’s his seat.”

  Strom Thurmond had been a U.S. senator since before we were all born, was a hundred, and it seemed like he would live forever. People would vote for him even though he fell asleep during Senate sessions. Tradition. It’s how Charlestonians were wired. No one cared if the rest of the country snickered. What the hell did they know? Not diddly about what mattered to us, let me assure you.

  “I think Sanders can win if he runs.” I wasn’t too sure about that but said it for a couple of reasons. One, I thought Alex Sanders was brilliant—not only as the college’s president, but he had shown himself to be a man of grace and integrity, something in short supply around Washington. Second, I was in the mood for change of any sort. Last but by no means least, I was using this little politico discussion to figure out how I was going to break the larger news to Daddy. “At least I’d like to see him win.”

  “Who knows? Personally, I think the guy who raises the most money wins, which is very sick to consider.”

  We fell silent for a while and then Daddy spoke again.

  “What’s on your mind?” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Anna, since you were a tiny girl, whenever you had something on your mind, you chew your hair.”

  I knew the longer I delayed the news, the more difficult it would be to tell him, so I just blurted it out.

  “Okay. I have something to tell you. I’ve found a house on the Isle of Palms and I think I’m going to buy it.”

  He sat up and looked at me as though I had just announced peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I didn’t think he believed me; in fact, I was certain of it.

  “Tell me this again,” he said and gave me his full and rapt attention.

  “I found a house on the Isle of Palms and—”

  “I thought that was what I heard.” He wiped his mouth with his napk
in and sat back in his chair, still staring at me. “Why, Anna? You don’t need to leave here. I mean, I thought that we had a pretty good arrangement, you and me. You were able to save money, buy yourself a nice car . . .”

  “That’s not it, Daddy. You know that.”

  “How would you manage? I mean, who’s gonna take care of all the insurance forms and all those kinds of things? You hate that stuff! And, who’s going to cut your grass and paint your window trims every year and unplug the garbage disposal and . . .” He stopped and got up from the table, putting his napkin down by the spoon of his place setting. “Fine,” he said. “Do what you want.”

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.”

  “Don’t be sorry. You’re a grown woman. I knew this would happen one day, I suppose.”

  He went outside to the backyard to stare at the water of Charleston Harbor. That was what he always did when he was upset. He’d go out there for a while and think through whatever was bothering him. This was different, though. Daddy was sixty-seven, near retirement. He might be worrying about getting old, getting sick, being alone. I knew these were terrible and dark thoughts for him. But the thought of growing old under Daddy’s roof was just as frightening for me. Was I wrong to want this for myself and for Emily?

  We had no other family on his side and I had produced only one daughter. College meant she was gone, really she was, and there was no promise that she would ever return to settle here. But I wanted so badly for her to have her own home to come home to and to see that I could accomplish this.

  I wanted to say to him that he could have a room in my new house for himself, but I knew that would only perpetuate the troubles that made me want to leave in the first place. I felt I had the right to live measuring up to my standards without a daily review of my shortcomings from another single person. Daddy couldn’t help himself. I knew that. The scars of immigration to this country and his marriage to my mother had made him exacting, overprotective, meddling, patriarchal, and unforgiving.

  I began to clear the table and rinse the dishes, putting them in the dishwasher. I wiped the table and the counters of crumbs and thought about all the times I had cleaned up meals in that house. There were so many memories that sprang just from the table. Thanksgivings, Daddy carving the bird, saving me the wishbone. The early days with Grandmother Violet and her Polish specialties she produced, attempting to fatten up Daddy and me. If I stopped and held my breath I could almost see our ghosts in the room with me then, moving, breathing, and talking. How many years had been spent around Daddy’s table? Emily’s birthday dinners of spaghetti . . .