Pawleys Island

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  Shelby heard me and smiled.

  “My family was so happy until about a year and a half ago. I knew something was wrong with Nat. It was obvious that he wanted me out of our home, and I may have suspected that he had another woman—in fact, I did suspect it but I never had any evidence of it. I couldn’t prove it. But his whole attitude toward me changed, and he worked very hard to change the feelings of our children toward me as well. It got very ugly around our house. The uglier it became, the more depressed I got. Every time I would go online on the computer and I kept getting these pop-up ads to buy medicine online, so I thought I would. I would try taking something to see if it would help my depression. I thought that maybe my own sadness was sort of feeding his discontent. If I could get happy again…well, you understand, right? If a pill could improve my relationship with him, I was willing to give it a try.”

  “And how long did you take them?”

  “For about a week. They made me very out of it in the head and very forgetful.”

  “Like remembering to pick up the children from school?”

  “That only happened once during that time, but after that I just quit taking them. Actually, they made things worse because I was so ditzy that Nat screamed at me even louder and more often.”

  “I see. And what about the alcohol?”

  “Judge Shelby, you can ask anyone. I’m not a big drinker. I might have two or three glasses of wine at a party, and that’s only a couple of times a year. No one would ever accuse me of being drunk all the time. That’s just, well, it’s ridiculous.”

  “Fine, Mrs. Simms. I have what I need. You may step down.”

  Rebecca returned to her seat beside me. She was trembling. I squeezed her hand and said, “Good job.”

  Shelby cleared her throat.

  “All right then. This court awards full custody of the children and the house to Rebecca Simms, with the proviso that they begin family counseling immediately for a period of one year, the frequency of those visits to be determined by the family counselor. As to visitation, that is to be worked out between Mr. and Mrs. Simms to something that is reasonable rights of visitation—such as every other weekend, one month to Mr. Simms each summer, rotating annual holidays, etc.

  “Mr. Simms has forty-eight hours to vacate the family home. He is to take with him only his personal possessions—clothes, toilet articles—and further division of household property will take place in thirty days to allow a time period for the children to adjust to the changes.

  “Now, about money…”

  Judge Shelby awarded alimony and child support to Rebecca and one half of the interest in Nat’s business. Nat would also have the pleasure of the legal expenses. At the end of it all, Rebecca came away with almost sixty percent of their assets, which well covered the costs of Charlene’s Medical Mystery Tour. It was a generous settlement and we were thrilled.

  When Shelby was finished reading her decision, she stood to leave the courtroom, reminding everyone that interviews were to be conducted outside the building and to kindly vacate the room as there was another case on the docket in thirty minutes. People began filing out. It was hard to believe it was all over.

  I looked over at Nat and Albright. Nat was slouched in his chair, but Albright was on his feet packing his briefcase. I caught his eye and he came over to shake my hand.

  “Congratulations,” he said.

  His face was so sincere that I worked to disguise the pleasure I felt in the win.

  “Thanks.”

  Nat stood and came to Albright’s side. He looked down at Rebecca and snarled.

  “Well, I hope you’re happy, Rebecca. You’ve all but wrecked my life.”

  “I didn’t wreck your life, Nat. You wrecked it yourself.”

  Nat made a guttural sound of disgust and they walked away. I turned to her.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah. I just want to call Sami and Evan and tell them what happened.”

  “I can help you with that if you’d like.”

  “No, I’ll be okay. They are my children, after all. I just have to make them mine again. Hey, Abigail, thanks for everything. I could never see my way through this, but you did.”

  “You are entirely welcome. It’s nice when things work out every now and then.”

  Huey, Claudia and Jeff Mahoney were waiting for us, smiling and anxious to congratulate us. I assumed Byron had taken Miss Olivia back to the hotel.

  “What a grand day this is!” Huey said. “Your hair looks fierce, Rebecca.”

  “Oh, Huey!”

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  Mahoney took Rebecca’s arm, and Claudia and I took Huey’s.

  The steps were mobbed with television cameras and reporters. We worked our way through them as politely as we could, declining comments. The press conference was next.

  The hotel had cleared the furniture from the parlor and set up a table and chairs at the far end. By the time we arrived, the room was full. Rebecca told me that she had prepared a statement and when I asked her if she wanted me to go over it with her, she said, “No, I’m not sure I’m even going to use it. But thank you, Abigail.”

  Rebecca was shaky as she made her way to the microphone. I sat beside her at the table and waited for her to begin. Rebecca put her notes in front of her and took a long drink of water.

  “Should I just start?”

  “I guess so,” I said. “Whenever you’re ready.”

  “This is a little sick to me, you know.”

  “Don’t throw away your chance, Rebecca.”

  Rebecca cleared her throat, turned her notes over and said, “Good morning. You have to wonder what the world has come to when something like this becomes national news. It’s a little bit bizarre to me, anyway.”

  She paused and I looked around at the crowd of camera crews and reporters nodding their heads in agreement. But we all knew that they were just doing their jobs, churning the water so that Rebecca could ride the wave.

  “I know everyone has come here to talk about what I think about my ex-husband’s girlfriend and do I wish the judge had ordered half of her plastic surgery reversed. My life, her life and in fact, your life is not a reality show for the amusement of others. Think about it. What Charlene Johnson did was just another demonstration of what extraordinary things women do in the name of love. And that’s what we had in common—we loved the same man. And we can both do better than to settle for the kind of manipulation and embarrassment we have endured. Do I feel vindicated? No, I do not. I feel sad. I’m not opposed to plastic surgery, but I don’t believe any responsible doctor should dramatically change someone’s appearance unless their patient requests it because they want it—not because their boyfriend wishes they had a bigger bra size or their husband wishes they had a fuller backside. This whole country has gone a little crazy desperately seeking youth and beauty because eventually we all grow old. That’s life. And let me tell you something, I’d rather spend the rest of my life alone than one night with a man who thought that changing me would make him happy.”

  Rebecca reached in her purse and pulled out a foil-wrapped wet wipe. She choked up as she opened it, and sobbing, she began to scrub her face, removing every trace of makeup. There was a heavy silence as the cameras flashed.

  “Look,” she said. “This is me. This is who I am. Not the makeup. It’s inner makeup that matters.”

  Rebecca, her emotions now gone completely out of control, got up and ran from the room.

  It’s inner makeup that matters!

  Not bad, Rebecca, I thought as I picked up her purse.

  “You’re her attorney, aren’t you?”

  I began digging through the contents. “Yes, I’m Abigail Thurmond.”

  “Do you have any comment?”

  “Yes, I’d like to know if she has another wet wipe.”

  I found one, opened it and used it on my face as well. Cameras flashed, I got up, mustering my sense of humor and my pride and left
the room to find Rebecca. Huey caught my arm at the back of the room.

  “That was bloody brilliant, Abigail. Bloody brilliant. I’ll never use my bronzer again.”

  “Oh, God, Huey! You’re priceless!”

  I rapped my knuckles on Rebecca’s door and Byron opened it. Julian was there with Claudia and Miss Olivia. Rebecca was sitting on her bed against her pillows with her knees up to her chest, tissue box at her side, still weeping and intermittently blowing her nose.

  “I’m such a fool! Did y’all see what I did? I completely lost my cool in front of a zillion people! I had this chance to talk about a million things—anything! And what did I do? I washed my damn face! What’s the matter with me?”

  “It was phenomenal, Rebecca! You did great!” Claudia said.

  “No, I didn’t! I looked like an idiot! The entire country is going to be making fun of me for the rest of my life! I’m going to be that stupid woman who took off her makeup on national television!”

  “So what? You sent a message to women everywhere, Rebecca!” Huey said.

  Miss Olivia was sitting across the room in an upholstered armchair that was so big it made her appear tiny and withered. But her attention to the conversation was as sprightly focused as ever.

  “What do you think, Abigail?”

  “I took off my makeup too.”

  Everyone, including Rebecca looked at me and said, “Oh, my God! You did! You really did!”

  And then we started to laugh and laugh.

  “Well, at least I’m not the only national idiot!” Rebecca said.

  “Nobody’s a national idiot,” Julian said.

  The phone rang and Claudia answered it. It was Nat.

  “He wants to talk to you,” she said, handing the phone to Rebecca.

  “Hello?”

  “I don’t need forty-eight hours to get out of here. I’m leaving now. You can pick up the kids from school and have at it, Rebecca. I’ll come back and get the rest of my clothes this weekend. I’ll be staying with Charlene in Orangeburg. I made her bail and we made up.”

  “Fine.”

  “Fine? Is that all you have to say? Fine? How about thank you, Nat? Do you think you could choke out a simple thank you?”

  “Hey, Nat? How’s this? Thank you for getting out of my house?” She dropped the phone back in its cradle and looked at us. “I hung up on him.”

  “Well, that’s better than being hung up on him,” I said, thinking how clever I was. “Let’s get some lunch. I’m starving!”

  “I’ll come along,” Julian said, “but only if you girls put on some lipstick.”

  The great white shark that lives in the hearts of all women was poised to strike on dry land, and Claudia, Rebecca and I shot him straight lines of death rays.

  “It was only a joke! Jeesch! You’re all so sensitive!”

  With plenty of groans, the consensus comment was, “Very funny, Judge.”

  “Okay, I’ll buy lunch for everyone. Are we okay now?”

  “It’s a start,” I said. “It’s a start.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  HOME FIRES BURNING

  AFTER lunch, Claudia and I went back to Rebecca’s house with her. She hadn’t stepped foot in it since the day she walked out, and she had no idea what she would find.

  Where she lived on Tradd Street, on the tip of the peninsula, is the most historic and unique section of Charleston. Every few steps you passed a window box with flowers tumbling over its edges followed by a wrought-iron gate a few feet away. You peeked through the gate and behind it was a magical garden of clipped and shaped boxwood topiaries, azalea and camellia hand-pruned shrubs and specimen plantings of ornamental grass borders. Pyracantha and ivy climbed ancient walls of tiny handmade bricks and lead decorative pots overflowed with brightly colored geraniums and begonias. The whole area was so bewitching that you would find yourself longing to trespass just to dip your hot feet in a stranger’s fountain waters. Rebecca’s home was one of those, but her garden was hardly a nominee for “yard of the month.”

  We pushed open the heavy gate and Rebecca gasped. The flowers in her planters were dried up and gone to another incarnation. The grassy areas had not been mowed in several weeks. Her roses were spindly and filled with black spot. Forgotten bicycles and skateboards had been dropped and left, and the outdoor table was littered with fast-food cups and bags. The courtyard fountain sputtered and the water lilies were thick clumps of strangling overgrowth.

  “Oh, Lord!” she said. “My fountain is full of green gunk! And look at this yard! It’s a mess!”

  “These are all fixable things,” I said. “Don’t you have a gardener?”

  “Well, we did! Looks like he’s on vacation!”

  “Just call him,” Claudia said. “Nat probably told him to take a hike.”

  We climbed the steps and Rebecca stopped. Running shoes caked with mud were piled on the porch near the door.

  “What?” I said.

  “I don’t have keys!”

  “Let’s just try the door and see.”

  Sure enough, Nat had left the front door unlocked, and we walked right in to her center hall, as any robber could. On our right was her living room, and the dining room was on the left. I assumed the kitchen was behind the dining room and that a study or a guest room was behind the living room. There was a delicately curved flight of stairs to the second and third floor and a powder room tucked under the stairwell on the first floor. Rebecca went from room to room and disappeared into the kitchen.

  It was a classic Charleston row house, beautifully detailed, but to say it was filthy was charitable. Her house was desperately in need of dust cloth, vacuum cleaner and Windex action, followed by some big bowls of flowers and the smell of something good, like chocolate chip cookies coming from the kitchen. Rebecca’s children were going to be shocked enough as it was to find her there. It was obvious that we all needed to help her pull the house together.

  Claudia and I were trying to figure out what to do when Rebecca came bounding down the steps.

  “The dishwasher is full, the dryer is full of clothes, every bed is unmade and heaven only knows when the last time was they changed the sheets! There’s nothing in the refrigerator to eat, everything’s covered in an inch of dust, the bathrooms are gross…”

  “Rebecca! Get a grip, honeychile! I’m a full-service attorney and Claudia’s a full-service friend. We already got this nailed! She’s gonna fold the laundry and change the beds…”

  “I am?”

  “Yes, you are!”

  “I guess I am.”

  “And I’m commandeering the vacuum cleaner and the dusting. You tackle the kitchen and the bathrooms, and in the end we’ll divide up the work again, okay? Feel better? Gee niminy! I should’ve brought Daphne!” That gave me an idea. I dialed Huey on my cell phone and he picked up right away. “Huey? How much do you love me?”

  Huey, thank all the saints in heaven, loved me a lot. He was bringing dinner, doing a general grocery shop for the house and picking up fresh flowers.

  “What’s the children’s favorite dinner and dessert?” he said.

  “I don’t know. Hang on.” I found Rebecca in the kitchen, rummaging around the storage closet, pulling out all the cleaning supplies. “Hey! What do your kids like for dinner?”

  “Spaghetti, garlic bread, salad and chocolate cake. There’s no milk in this house or bread or anything!”

  “Stop whining! Get to work!” I went back to my phone. “Huey?”

  “I heard it all. Boy, she really has her bloomers all twisted in a knot, doesn’t she?”

  “Yep. So would you. You should see this place.” I walked back out to the hall where Rebecca couldn’t hear me. “Don’t worry, I’m billing Nat for our hours on this one too!”

  “Well, psychologically it will be very good for those kids to come home to a clean house. Am I right?”

  “Well, Claudia and I think so, or else we wouldn’t be rolling up our sleeves!”

>   The business of restoring order got under way. You couldn’t hear yourself think with the noise of the vacuum cleaner, the slamming of doors as Rebecca took bag after bag of garbage, magazines, catalogs and old newspapers outside. The flushing of toilets, and running water were the backup music for the old Motown music I had blaring from 102.5 on Rebecca’s sound system. Claudia and I were singing along at the top of our lungs, and even Rebecca joined in. We still knew all the words to “Stop! In the Name of Love!” and “My Boyfriend’s Back.” We sounded so terrible that I half expected all the neighborhood dogs to start howling.

  Claudia must have passed me fifty times with armloads of sheets and towels, the children’s laundry, and Nat’s as well. She stopped as she was carrying a laundry basket of Nat’s clean clothes upstairs.

  “This irritates the crap out of me,” she said.

  “What does? Did you say crap? Is that how doctors talk in Atlanta?” I giggled. I liked Claudia. She understood the value of well-used slang and she didn’t care what anyone thought about it either.

  “Yeah. Crap. All doctors in Atlanta say it. It’s required. Listen, I’m folding Nat’s panties like the son of a bitch is my husband and we’re going to Europe or something. Shouldn’t I just throw them in a suitcase and help get him out of here?”

  “Actually, that’s not a bad idea. Ask Rebecca where they keep the luggage.”

  “Third-floor attic closet. Already saw it.”

  “What?” Rebecca said, coming in the room.

  We told her and she said, “Why should I give him the luggage? I’ll never see it again!” She sailed out of the room bound for the kitchen and I looked at Claudia.

  “My goodness, Doctor Kelly. You have the oddest expression! What are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I should do something extra special for my girlfriend, that’s all.”

  I went back to my vacuuming and about fifteen minutes later, Huey walked in with six bags of groceries, dumping them on the floor in the hallway.

  “There’s more in the car,” he said. “Come help me before I drop dead. Whoo! So much pressure!”