“Humph! I sweat just thinking about him!”
“Wow,” I said, and hoped she would.
On Saturday I worked late and got home around nine o’clock. My lights were on and somebody was in my house. I walked in to find Daddy and Lucy sitting on my couch.
“What’s going on?” Wasn’t this what happened when somebody died?
“It’s Emily,” Daddy said, “she’s . . .”
Before he could say another word I started screaming. “What?”
“She’s home, Anna,” Lucy said. “She’s fine. She’s sleeping like somebody hit her in the head with a hammer.”
“What in the world?” I said and sank into a chair.
“She’s like you, Anna,” Daddy said and smiled, “stubborn as a mule. She called me this morning and I sent her a ticket. She hasn’t slept since the eleventh and she’s all wrung out. She’s quit school and wants to be here with us. And, she transferred to the College of Charleston.”
“What did you do? You can’t just let her . . .”
“Anna,” Lucy said, “before you get all upset, you should listen to what she has to say. It’s not just about David. It’s not.”
I knew that it wasn’t just about a boy or a boy she loved or thought she loved, but they were right. I knew I should listen to her side and I would.
“She says that she belongs here, Anna,” Daddy said. “You, above all people, should understand that.”
“I do.”
“She thinks you need her, you know, to help with the salon and all.”
“I can always use an extra hand,” I said, smiling.
“I let her in with my key,” Daddy said, “and Lucy said she thought we should wait here until you got home.”
“Yeah, so you wouldn’t yank her outta the bed by her ears and kick her butt back to D.C.”
“Thanks, I mean it.”
“We’re gonna go back to my house now. You want to come and have a drink with us?”
“No, thanks. I just want to . . . um, think for a while. Okay?”
Daddy stood up and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “She’s a wonderful girl, Anna; try to understand her. She’s got a beautiful heart.”
“Okay, Daddy. Thanks, I will.”
As soon as I closed the door behind Daddy and Lucy, I opened the door to Emily’s room. She was sleeping peacefully on her lavender sheets, her blond hair spread out over her pillows. I leaned over her bed and kissed her head.
“Welcome home, baby,” I said, in a whisper.
My heart was so full, I decided to take a look at the night before I broke down in tears. A change would do me good, thank you, Sheryl Crow.
The sand was cool under my feet and I walked for a while. I thought about the day and what it meant. I looked up at the stars in the sky and started remembering a flood of things—being a little girl, moving to Mount Pleasant, changing friends and schools, recovering from Everett Fairchild, having Emily, and marrying Jim. I’d dealt with so many things and never believed in myself. Maybe that was what Emily was trying to do—to find a way to control her own life and believe in herself.
Because of Jim and Frannie, Daddy, and even good old Lucy, my life had changed in every single way. And, let us not forget, there was a river of my own sweat involved. Emily needed me to do the same for her. In any case, despite the crazy world out there over the causeway, my life was good.
I thought about Jim. Jim was probably reading wine lists all over France and Emily was hopefully dreaming something sweet. Like Miss Mavis had said to me months ago, the world has changed around me . . . screw the outside world.
I walked on toward Sullivan’s Island, watching the light from the lighthouse scan around and around, flooding everything in wedges of gold light. I wondered what the future would bring. I decided to sit on an old palmetto log for a few minutes. Sifting cool sand through my fingers, I thought about all I had learned about myself, the people around me, and life in general. Living the life you wanted took a lot of strength, a little bit of vision, and definitely it took some luck. Good humor helped. Love made it worth the trouble.
I got up and stretched and looked up at the sky again. It was so breathtakingly beautiful, and immense, and thrilling right down to the tips of my toes. I began walking home, feeling ready to lie down and knowing I could sleep.
Tomorrow Emily and I would talk and I would find out what had happened to make her leave Washington. I was very inclined to keep her with me. Let’s be honest. She was staying with me for as long as she wanted.
When Jim came for Thanksgiving we would talk and finally get the business about her birth behind us, but I would not tell her it was rape. I would just tell her I had done something irresponsible. I realized then that maybe one of the reasons I had never told her the truth was because it was connected with violence. My sweet girl didn’t need to go through the rest of her life knowing that an unspeakable act of violence had brought her here. It was an unnecessary detail.
Before I crawled in between my covers, I checked on Emily again. She was sleeping without a sound and the breeze coming through her windows had the identical fragrance of the smell of the breeze from my own childhood.
It was true that I had a small house, a small salon, and only one child. At that very moment, I realized that it was important to know how much was enough.
Thirty-six
Regroup
EMILY made her case and won. She would immediately begin classes at the College of Charleston instead of Carolina and no one argued with her reasoning.
“Look, Mom, I’m not going back to Washington. I watched all that 9/11 rerun stuff and it drove me nuts. I don’t need all that craziness in my face. I can’t concentrate. I could go to Carolina but then we’d have to pay for an apartment for me. That’s pretty stupid, don’t you think? Anyway, this is where I belong. I missed you.”
“I missed you too. I mean, the College of Charleston is fine but I think it really depends on what you want to major in, baby.”
“Mom? I know you’re going to think this is insane, but I want to be a writer and there are truly excellent—”
“A writer? You’ll starve!”
“I won’t starve. I’ll do fine. I’m gonna write sitcoms. And all the courses I need to take are right here. And, they have a new totally excellent literary magazine called the Crazy Horse and—”
“If you want anyone to take you seriously, you’d better stop saying totally and excellent.” Sitcoms? I hated sitcoms. Ah well, at least she didn’t want to be a doctor.
“Whatever. And they have more creative writing courses than anyone. Besides, you need me to help you anyway. And, I can see David on the weekends.”
I called Jim and found him. Jim thought the transfer was fine.
“Well, Anna, maybe this makes me a worrywart, but I feel better just knowing she’s out of Washington. I mean, I know she was completely safe there, but still. And, if she can’t sleep and can’t study, what’s the point?”
It was settled. Emily began attending classes, Frannie had Emily’s belongings shipped home, and even though there was no reason to ring the national alarm, we all slept a little better. There was just something about having your chickens in your own coop.
Over the next few weeks, I had dinner with Jack Taylor a few times and it looked like we were becoming something of a couple, which is to say I knew we were heading to the bedroom door and I knew I wasn’t ready.
I had also discovered that he was years and years older than I was. That didn’t mean anything except that—and I know this is going to sound shallow—I wasn’t in a hurry to find out what a fifty-something-year-old guy was like in the sack and, much more importantly, my little fling with Arturo had left me feeling slightly used.
Our most recent conversation on the topic of intimacy had taken place at Jack’s house the previous week. We’d been to dinner at Cypress—which is heaven on this earth—and went back to his place for a nightcap. We were standing in the living room and one thing led to anothe
r and the next thing I knew we were about to violate his Persian rug.
“I don’t know, Jack,” I said, “I just feel like we might be rushing into something for the wrong reasons.”
“I thought you cared about me,” he said.
“I do, but, you know, lately I’ve been thinking. I don’t want another relationship with someone that’s about what’s convenient and not about love. I don’t think it’s right to just, I don’t know, screw.”
He sat up and ran his hand through his hair. “It’s why Caroline and I didn’t last very long.”
“What do you mean?”
“Look, I’m a traditional guy. She really didn’t want a husband right now. I’d really love having a wife and maybe even another child. But, I guess I’m not like most men.”
Okay, this is when you decide I am permanently flawed and beyond rescue. Another child? I was looking at forty! Worse than that, Jack Taylor was a lovely man but without a single mystery left for discovery. Not that it was a crime, it just didn’t make for much of a challenge. Not that I wanted a challenge, but I wanted something he hadn’t shown me so far.
I didn’t go to bed with him that night and after that, he sent flowers twice and called me all the time. Holding out was paying off in some ways because what girl doesn’t like all the attention? The problem was that the man giving the attention just wasn’t the man of my dreams.
Then it happened. The last week of September, King Arthur and Excalibur returned to Charleston. It was late afternoon and we were walking on the beach and talking. It didn’t take long for the sun to set and the dog to howl. After so many evenings with Jack Taylor, he had remained a perfect gentleman. After ten minutes with Arthur, the poor guy could barely concentrate on anything except shaking the bacon. Frankly, I was still completely discombobulated around him and it made me mad that my physical body fought my commitment to avoid making the same mistake again.
As the nuns probably would have said, if they’d been acquainted with having the unholy hots—pheromones are unfamiliar with the boundaries of decorum.
But, Lord! The second he had arrived, I wanted him in the most urgent way. I had it bad for Arthur. Bad, bad, bad. Oooh! But, but! I didn’t let it show.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call you,” he said. “I got an offer from Citarella—a restaurant in New York. My old friend from Bouley, Dominique Simon, had taken a job there to sort of give them a fresh image and he needed a maitre d’fromage. Immediately. I just sort of took off and I apologize.”
“You’re a snake and you stink.”
“You’re so feminine.”
“Oh, bite me, Arthur. Why’d you come back to Charleston?”
“Because I realized I really was happier here. So, I’ll live on a little less money and maybe I’ll open a restaurant if I can find investors.”
He had not come back because of me. But! He had called me, hadn’t he? Didn’t that mean something?
“Wait a minute. Are you talking about committing yourself to something? Isn’t that against your politics?”
“Yeah, but my politics are evolving. I think I’ve been a Yankee long enough. Besides, I missed you, Anna. I kept telling myself that I didn’t care but at the same time, I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I couldn’t stop wondering how you were doing.”
This was good, very good, and I wasn’t about to tell him he’d always be a Yankee.
“Are you staying with Mike again?”
“Yeah, he’s really a great friend. You know what else? Today I was thinking that I hadn’t seen Mike in a million years and he gave me his house to live in for nothing while he was away. He’s been a better friend to me than I’ve been to you and I slept with you. I realized there was something really wrong with that.”
“Yeah, it’s why you suck, Mr. Introspection.”
“Excuse me, Miss Poetry, I’m trying to tell you something that’s pretty serious. Look, I want us to start over, okay?”
I looked at him. He wasn’t lying. Then the practical side of me took over. He wasn’t a doctor like Jack, he didn’t wear expensive suits like Jack, he didn’t drive an old Mercedes like Jack, and in fact, he didn’t even have a car. He used Mike’s. He was the Cheese Whiz, for Pete’s sake. If I married Jack—which I was pretty sure I could take it that far if I really wanted to—I’d be playing golf (God help me) and leading a perfectly respectable life of predictable everything. And, if I married Arthur, which I wasn’t sure would ever happen, I might get my heart trampled and in any case, I’d surely be working for a thousand years. But I’d be working for a thousand years because I loved what I did! And I didn’t need a man with money because I could earn my own. Therefore, if I wanted to pick a partner, I didn’t have to worry about whether or not he could support me!
“Well? Say something!”
“There’s nothing to say . . .”
“Really? Oh, God, come on!”
“Let me finish! There’s nothing to say except, Let’s go to Mike’s!”
“He’s home.”
“Give the man ten dollars and send him to the movies.”
Just call me Guinevere.
The return of Arthur brought the demise of my relationship with Jack, which even he knew was lacking something to make it work. It lacked chemistry and there’s no substitute for that. I just told him that I was seeing someone I had been in love with long ago and I had to find out where my feelings were.
He said, “Look, Anna, it’s all right. Give me a call if it doesn’t work out, okay?”
The next surprise was not far around the corner. Frannie called the second week of October and announced that she was moving back to Charleston.
“Fabulous!” I said.
“I’m so in love with Jake I can’t see straight.”
“Nothing like romance, ’eah?”
“You said it, sister. He’s been here three times, we talk on the phone all night—I mean, look, it might never be a marriage or maybe it will but if I don’t come back and try, I might be making the biggest mistake of my life.”
“What can I do to help?”
“Do you know a broker? I just put my condo on the market and I think I’m taking a job in Joe Riley’s office. I just have to negotiate one more piece.”
“You took a job in Charleston and I didn’t know this?”
“I know I should’ve called but I actually flew in one morning and flew out the same afternoon. The whole thing happened so fast. I saw the job opening on the web, called them up, I faxed them my résumé, and they said come, so I went. I’ve had it with this blooming rat race. What are you doing for Thanksgiving?”
“Making dinner for you and Jake?”
“Mashed potatoes?”
“Absolutely! If the Irish Goddess is coming, there will be great dunes of mashed potatoes! And, I’ll call Marilyn Davey for you. She just found these two friends of mine, Simon and Susan, a house in Wild Dunes. They’re getting married December seventh.”
“Oh, yeah! I remember them. She’s nice.”
“Yeah, I’m invited, doing everyone’s hair. You watch. I’ll go and sure as anything, I’ll run into Caroline on the arm of Jack.”
“Take Arthur and wear that navy dress.”
“Totally excellent idea. . . .”
“You’ve been spending too much time with Emily.”
“Bump you. Hey, you want to hear the latest on Doc?”
When I told her that Lucy and Daddy were all but living in sin, Frannie and I snickered like crazy.
But it was wonderful to see Daddy so happy. A few weeks later, Daddy and I were sitting on my new deck having a glass of tea, waiting for Lucy so that they could go out to dinner. He had brought me a turkey fryer, and we were going over the details of how to fry a perfect turkey. Apparently, this meant that he had decided that we were having fried turkey for Thanksgiving.
“I don’t know, Daddy. I mean, I know fried turkey is delicious, but all that oil? What if the thing turns over? Isn’t it dangerous?”
“No! It won’t turn over! Look here!” He showed me how it was weighted and then he said, “Oh, forget it! I’ll fry the turkey myself!”
“You are one cranky old codger sometimes, do you know that?” I gave him a kiss on the cheek and he smiled.
“Women!” He was quiet for a minute and then he said with a great sigh, “You know, Anna, it was probably a mistake years ago to ever have left the Isle of Palms.”
Really?
“It sure is great.”
“Just smell this air! I think I might love it almost as much as you do. If you hadn’t moved back here, I might never have met Lucy.”
“You’re really crazy about her, aren’t you?”
“She makes me feel alive, Anna. Alive in a way I didn’t even know I could. I’ll tell you this, but if you repeat it, I’ll call you a liar.”
“What?”
“She thinks I’m sexy,” he whispered.
I spit my tea across the breeze. “Euuuu! Gross! Daddy! Augh!”
“And your Arthur doesn’t think you’re sexy?”
“Touché.”
“Anyway, I’m going to ask her to marry me. Do you think it’s too late for an old man like me to find happiness?”
“No, that’s wonderful, but, oh, Lord! That will make Lucy my stepmother!”
Thanksgiving was in a week and that meant preparations were well under way. I had a theory about that particular holiday. It was open to everyone I knew who didn’t have a place to go. Maybe the fact that our family was so small contributed to the fantasy I had about a table filled with people. Probably. But over the years that tradition had fastened together the seams of many new friendships. Whoever was there took part. We all cooked together and it was always a day-long feast of food and football. And now, we would have a beautiful peaceful Thanksgiving on the beach, listening to the ocean.
One day at the end of the previous week, we were in the salon, discussing our plans for the holiday. My guest list was Jim, Emily, David, Frannie, Jake, Daddy, Lucy, Arthur, and, of course, Miss Mavis and Miss Angel. I invited Carla, Brigitte, and Bettina. Brigitte accepted and Bettina had wrestled with it and finally decided to take a week’s vacation and see her family in New York. Carla was going to her mother’s house.
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