Same Beach, Next Year

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  dedication

  For

  Victoria and Carmine

  And all the joy to come!

  epigraph

  “It is important to our friends to believe that we are unreservedly frank with them, and important to friendship that we are not.”

  Mignon McLaughlin

  “One measure of friendship consists not in the number of things friends can discuss, but in the number of things they need no longer mention.”

  Clifton Fadiman

  contents

  cover

  title page

  dedication

  epigraph

  prologue

  chapter 1: meet adam

  chapter 2: meet eliza

  chapter 3: eliza’s new friends

  chapter 4: eliza’s merry christmas

  chapter 5: adam’s merry christmas

  chapter 6: eliza and the unexpected guest

  chapter 7: eliza

  chapter 8: bonded

  chapter 9: eliza’s catching up

  chapter 10: adam

  chapter 11: eliza’s fury

  chapter 12: adam

  chapter 13: corfu

  chapter 14: adam

  chapter 15: eliza

  chapter 16: adam’s snake in the garden

  chapter 17: eliza

  chapter 18: back in corfu

  chapter 19: eliza

  chapter 20: eliza

  chapter 21: eliza

  epilogue

  acknowledgments

  about the author

  also by dorothea benton frank

  copyright

  about the publisher

  prologue

  isle of palms, south carolina, 2016

  The conversation that launched my need to tell you this whole crazy story actually came from our son Luke, who, like his twin, is practically an adult. Okay, they are adults. But only because of their age, which is still completely astonishing to me. How dare they grow up and make us, God help us, almost sixty? Some nerve.

  They asked us to come along with the Landers family, to spend New Year’s Eve 2016 on the Isle of Palms. Adam and I and our boys have vacationed with Eve and Carl Landers, their daughter, Daphne, and Eve’s mother, Cookie, for decades. We all love Wild Dunes and being together so much that we bought condos near each other and watched our children grow up to the music of the Atlantic Ocean’s changing tides and the squawking of thousands of generations of seagulls. In the early days, we drank enough white wine and various trending cocktails to float a container ship. Mai Tais. Stormy Weathers. Salty Dogs. Moscow Mules. And we cooked dinner together more times than I could count. We were better than best friends, which may have complicated things. Okay, it made things complicated in the extreme. But why wouldn’t you love who you love loves? It’s sort of like you are what you eat eats.

  Adam and I rarely, if ever, go to the beach in the winter. Well, maybe my husband takes a drive there occasionally to do repairs or to assess the havoc a renter has caused on the plumbing or to fix a leak. But generally, we stay away because the weather is freezing cold and I can feel the dampness in every one of my bones. I hate winter. But New Year’s was such an unusual request that we all agreed to go. And needless to say, Eve, Carl, Adam, and I were as thrilled as we always were to see each other. Honestly, any excuse to see each other would work, and maybe we are finally all old enough to admit it. Before I go any further I want you to know this wasn’t like that old movie Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice, the one where two perfectly nice married couples swap spouses. But boy, there was a moment when it could’ve been. And I’ll get to that steamy business later on.

  But for now, we have to begin at the beginning. Even though it’s New Year’s Eve and I’m on my way to a freezing beach. Save your fireworks for a little while and relax while I tell you how the saga of our epic friendships all began. And how we learned what matters. It might matter to you.

  chapter 1

  meet adam

  isle of palms, south carolina, 1994

  My fabulous wife, Eliza, has an opinion on everything, but she’s not from here, and it’s always been hard for her to get a grasp on what it means to be from the Lowcountry. So how can she explain the Lowcountry to you? She can’t. The pluff mud is in my veins, not hers. This whole business of Lowcountry versus the rest of the state of South Carolina goes back several hundred years. All you have to do is visualize Charleston, South Carolina, as the center of the universe. To know the Holy City is to love her, but to understand her might take several lifetimes.

  In the best of seasons, Charleston is a dowager queen, but still plenty sexy and sultry despite the centuries of her age. She charms the hearts and souls of legions of visitors, year after year. Tourists arrive in droves from all over the world, the same way they do to any other world-class destination. They come with cameras and guidebooks and restaurant reservations to witness Charleston’s illustrious history, her legendary beauty, and her unique way of life. These visitors confide to shopkeepers and guides that they are here just because they wanted to see what it felt like to be southern. Authentically southern. A Lowcountry daughter or son. They seldom leave disappointed.

  However, in the height of summer Charleston finds her ferocious core, breathing fire, bringing on swoons and foul moods. And, perhaps most interestingly—because Charleston is a port city—once home to more brothels than churches, her sweltering season invites and coerces every flavor of dangerous seduction. She plays with your soul and doesn’t care if you go to hell. You would return home to wherever you came from in a stupor. You’ve been kissed by the devil herself and someday you’d be back for more. Charleston is as intoxicating as she is addictive.

  Here is how our friendship with the Landers family began.

  It was July 1, 1994. Every detail of that day is as vivid as though it happened just yesterday. The temperature must have been close to one hundred degrees and the sun was unrelenting. There was not a wisp of a cloud in the sky. I was poolside reading a novel, with one ear cocked toward the background laughter and taunts of my young twin sons, and enjoying a well-deserved vacation. Having lived almost every day of my life in the Lowcountry, I was only too aware of the dangers of extreme heat, but I stupidly believed I was immune to heat stroke, melanoma, or seductive temptations. Despite pretty humble origins, I liked to think of myself as a gentleman. And, okay, maybe sometimes I was a little smug . Still, I was usually smart enough to know that peril is sometimes shrouded in complacency. For all I knew, or for all anyone knew, at any moment Lady Lowcountry might laugh and mock and challenge us by raising the temperature a few more degrees. With a smirk, she might stoke the humidity to such levels that we wouldn’t be able to hold a coherent thought. We could find ourselves walking down a sidewalk in the city, literally unable to go on. It has happened. As it was, my upper lip tasted of salt and the hair on the back of my neck was wet. I was on guard and ready for anything.

  Or so I thought.

  I glanced at my watch. It was only eleven in the morning. Every hound dog in Charleston County had surely claimed a piece of shade, including our old black Lab, Rufus, who was nestled under my lounger. Except for the occasional jumping fish in the surrounding waters, there was not a sound from nature to be heard. Even the bugs were taking a siesta.

  So, with an ear perked for my boys and an eye on the heat of the day, I was slathered in sunscreen and stretched out on a lounger, wearing blue swimming shorts covered in miniature smiling orange goldfish, just like the snack. I was relaxed and thoroughly engrossed in a legal thriller, and in a weird way, I liked feeling the heat bake my skin as though it was good for me.

  I’m getting some massive vitamin D, I thought and smiled.


  I was a mere twenty or maybe thirty feet away from the condominium we rented in the Wild Dunes Resort. But I didn’t hear Eliza’s approach.

  “Sweetheart? You know our lovely neighbor Mrs. Shannon from Aiken, who’s staying in the condo next door?”

  Faithful Rufus raised his big squarish head and gave Eliza and then me a questioning look. Seeing it was Eliza, whom he loved, and that this had nothing to do with him, Rufus put his head back down and resumed his nap. I looked up from my novel. There stood my wonderful wife behind her retro cat-eye sunglasses and under her enormous sun hat. Of course, I knew who Mrs. Shannon was. I had never seen a woman with more elective plastic surgery in my entire life. She was the one with a thirty-year-old head perched atop a sixty-something-year-old body. The stuff of nightmares. Eliza’s hands gripped her elbows across her gauzy striped caftan. The set of her jaw resembled one of those guys on Mount Rushmore. Bad body language. She was very annoyed.

  “Is something wrong, sweetness?” I said, hoping to lighten my wife’s mood.

  “Nice job watching the boys, Adam. Our little darlings tried to assassinate Mrs. Shannon’s miniature Yorkies with their fun new semiautomatic Super Soakers. She just had them groomed. She wants to sue us unless we pay for them to be regroomed. In cash. This minute. I didn’t go to the bank.”

  I considered the situation for a moment. I had definitely flunked her mandate to watch the kids.

  “Take what you need from my wallet and tell Heckle and Jeckle I want to talk to them.”

  She nodded her head and called out with exasperation, “Boys!” She caught their eye and hooked a thumb in my direction.

  They looked like a couple of textbook imps. I thought, Well, at least with my boys, what you see is what you get.

  Inside of a minute, my five-and-a-half-year-old twins were standing at the foot of my lounge chair with their water guns resting against their shoulders, like soldiers at attention. I could tell by their disingenuous expressions that there wasn’t even a smidgen of regret between them. Max had a deadly serious face and Luke was fighting back giggles. I removed my sunglasses and stared down my nose at them with the most authoritative look I could muster. I struggled to sound provoked.

  “I’ll bet you boys think you’re funny, don’t you?”

  “We thought they were rats, Daddy. We really did!” Max said.

  Max was the older twin, having burst into the world five minutes before his brother, Luke. Max was the wise guy of the family. Luke was the sweet one, always in cahoots with Max.

  “Uh-huh,” Luke said, bobbing his head in agreement.

  I looked over to old tight-as-a-drum-faced Mrs. Shannon and her little dogs, which were perched on her flabby lap as she dried them with a beach towel, fluffing their fur and cooing apologies. One of the little varmints wore a fake diamond collar and the other wore fake pearls. Are you kidding me? Both had their facial hair restrained with tiny rubber bands and wet ribbons, sad little bows that had come untied in the fray and hung down like overcooked strands of fettuccine. The dogs actually appeared to be frowning. They were ridiculous dogs, I thought, if you could even call them dogs at all. I’ve never been a fan of little yippers.

  I looked back to my boys. They were right. Sort of. When drenched, her tiny terriers absolutely resembled rats in black tie.

  “Did y’all apologize?”

  “Yes, sir,” Max said. “We sure did. They ain’t real dogs, are they?”

  “Of course they are, and you know it. And don’t say ain’t. It’s not nice to shoot animals or people with water guns. You boys know better. You should be shooting each other.” I realized how crazy that might have sounded to a passerby.

  “It was by accident, Daddy,” Max said, practicing his Academy Award acceptance speech for Best Actor.

  “I doubt it,” I said. “I was a boy once, you know!”

  “You were?” Max said.

  “I know. Hard to believe,” I said.

  “We thought that mean old lady was gonna hit us, Daddy!” Luke said.

  “No one’s going to hit anyone. Do you hear me? Now, behave yourselves or no Nintendo! Is that clear?”

  “We don’t have Nintendo. Momma says we aren’t old enough,” Max said.

  “I’m gonna be six soon,” Luke said. “That’s old enough.”

  “Not if your mother doesn’t think so,” I said. “But you boys cross the line again, no TV!”

  The threat of no television instantly sobered them. I was pleased with myself then, feeling I had successfully laid down the parental law.

  Max saluted and then Luke did the same.

  “Yes, sir!” they said.

  “All right, now get out of here and let me read my book! You leave those water guns right here. They’re in time-out.”

  “But it’s so hot!” Luke said.

  “We’re dying!” Max said, performing a dramatic, drunken, weaving and staggering walk.

  “Go jump in the pool.”

  They dropped their weapons on the ground and ran back to the pool. I watched them and thought that they were really good kids, just given to mischief. I sighed and took a long drink from my can of lukewarm Coke.

  I’d kill for a glass of ice, I thought.

  I reminded myself that if I had been paying attention, Mrs. Shannon’s dogs would be dry. But hell! Wasn’t I entitled to some downtime too? I’d been working my construction crews almost around the clock to get the new strip mall on James Island open by the Fourth of July. The stores had all opened by June thirtieth. Four days early! I was mentally and physically exhausted and very glad my father could watch the site office for me. I’d taken over the family construction business ten years ago and quickly quintupled its size. My father was extremely proud of that, and his approval meant a lot to me.

  I could hear the boys’ shrieks of laughter as they cannonballed and belly-flopped into the pool over and over again. Then the music became Marco! and Polo! as they bobbed underwater and jumped up as high as they could. They were having a wonderful time driving everyone else in the complex crazy.

  I was just starting to think about lunch. I looked up to see Eliza crossing the terraced area and coming toward me again.

  “Did your tummy start to growl yet?” she said.

  “Kill me. I’m predictable,” I said.

  “I love you being predictable. How do you feel about BLTs on toast with basil mayonnaise? The bacon is smoked with applewood.”

  “If I had a diamond necklace in my pocket, I’d give it to you.”

  “Really? You sweet thing!” Eliza giggled. “How many carats?”

  “A thousand.”

  “Then I’ll make homemade cottage fries too.” Eliza smiled and her dimples showed. “Lucky for you I packed my mandoline. And my fryer.”

  Eliza was a very serious cook who brought her own knives and other accoutrements with her on vacation. Including, apparently, her mandoline, which I had recently learned was not a stringed instrument but a gizmo with a blade used to slice vegetables so thin that you could see through them.

  I lifted my sunglasses and looked up at her.

  “You are the finest woman who ever lived.”

  “Ha ha! I love you, Adam Stanley.”

  “I love you too,” I said.

  And it was true. Eliza was an amazing wife.

  “I’ll bring a tray out in about thirty minutes or so. Pull our monkeys out of the pool in about fifteen. Good grief, would you look at them?” Eliza shook her head and laughed. “Should we feed the little snipers? Or should we make them suffer for their crimes?”

  We watched as the boys threw plastic rings to the bottom of the pool and dove in to retrieve them with the same frantic energy crazed dogs burn while chasing tennis balls. They were long skinny string beans, tanned to the hue of peanut butter, who could swim like fish. Their olive complexions, black curly hair, and blazing blue eyes were a result of Eliza’s Mediterranean origins. But they would grow tall like me. Their height belied their age, and pe
ople frequently assumed they were older than their five and a half years, expecting more from them than what they were mature enough to deliver. In other words, they caught a lot of hell.

  “We have to feed them. It’s the law. They’re just little rascals, that’s all. But they’re too tall to be tormenting dogs,” I said, delivering the family joke for the hundredth time. “Did you give our nice neighbor the money?”

  “Yeah. She’s a . . .” Eliza mouthed the word bitch. “Now we have to go to the bank. Okay, I’m gonna go fix our lunch.”

  “Hurry back. I’m going for a quick dip to cool off.”

  I’d always thought that renting a condo made much better economic sense than buying. I wasn’t a reckless man, with money or anything else. And I never invested in anything without tons of due diligence and consideration. But I also recognized that if this year’s vacation lived up to last year’s I might change that position and entertain the idea of buying something, sometime down the road. If I rented it out when we weren’t there, over time it would pay for itself. Maybe.

  I stood up, walked to the edge of the deep end of the adult pool, and considered my next move. Rufus remained behind, sleeping like the old dog he was. Dive in? Slip in? A gradual immersion in the shallow end? There were not many people around the pool, because most of them were either on the beach where it was considerably cooler and beyond the shouts of Marco! Polo! or they had already gone inside to escape the merciless heat.

  Perspiration was pouring out of me and the sun was blinding. I took off my sunglasses and put them on the edge of the pool. I dove in the deep end and for the first moments my body was shocked by the cool water. I wondered if that kind of cold shock could cause a heart attack. Yes, I was a worrier, but not excessively so. I surfaced, backstroked over to where my boys were standing in waist deep, and hoisted myself up onto the side of the pool.

  “Nice dive, Dad!”

  “Thanks! Whew! That felt great! Mom wants y’all to dry off soon. She’s bringing lunch down here for us.”