Magnolia Nights

by Ashley Farley

  Some four hours later, she made her final stroke and set the pad of paper on the ground. She studied her work with a critical eye. She’d portrayed the tree not as it was now but as she remembered it from her youth—in full bloom in the springtime. The work was no masterpiece. It would appeal to no one except her because of what it represented—the pain and heartache from a time in her life so traumatic that her mind had blocked it out. The tree had opened the floodgates. Her therapist had warned her it wouldn’t be easy. She would need to remember everything. Now, more determined than ever, she would face her demons and then lock them away forever.

  It was dinnertime, but her stomach was too tied up in knots to eat. With Pixie lying spread out on the bluestone terrace beside her, she snacked on almonds and sipped Chardonnay until the sun dipped below the horizon. She went up to her room and changed into her nightgown, a gauzy white one that resembled the ones she’d worn as a child. She located a flashlight in the junk drawer in the kitchen and returned to the tree.

  On warm nights, for no other reason than to be rid of her, Ellie’s grandmother had allowed her to stay in the garden until bedtime. Even in the dark, she’d felt safer under the tree than in the house. What had she been so afraid of? Her grandmother’s menacing glare and harsh words? The sting of her wooden stick against her hands and bare legs? Of making a noise that would disturb her mother’s rest? Had she been afraid her mother would never get well? Or had she been afraid of death itself—that the hand of death gripping her mother’s neck would one day come for her, too?

  As she’d done earlier in the day, Ellie stretched out on the ground beneath the tree, but this time Pixie leaped onto her stomach, digging her moist little nose into her neck. The scent of magnolia blossoms in bloom, like sweet homemade lemonade, filled the air around her. Where was the fragrance coming from? The tree had long since bloomed out for the season. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply as she remembered the fleeting moments of joy she’d experienced here as a child. The drawings she’d made with the pencils and notepaper that Maddie smuggled out of the house for her. The imaginary friends she’d fabricated to ease the loneliness. The stories she’d dreamed up to suppress the feelings of hopelessness—fantasies inspired by her picture books where her handsome prince father rode in on his white stallion, scooped her up, and carried her to another part of the world, far, far away from her grandmother. She was allowed to have picture books—she remembered that now. Eleanor Pringle had been an avid reader, as evidenced by her crowded bookcases, and reading was the one indulgence she’d allowed Ellie. The scent of magnolia blooms vanished, and the rotten smell she recognized from her mother’s and grandmother’s bedrooms assaulted her nose.

  Her grandmother’s angry voice echoed in her ears, “Reading is a leisure-time activity. It’s good exercise for idle minds, but we must limit ourselves to one chapter a day.”

  Ellie had owned three books—worn copies of Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, and Snow White. She’d memorized the stories, knew every word by heart. But how? She’d never been taught to read. She was too young. Her grandmother had certainly never read to her. Had her mother read them to her at bedtime before she became ill? There was that feeling again, the sense that she was supposed to remember something important, something too monumental to ever have forgotten. If only she could find the rest of her mother’s journals. If there were more journals. There was one person who would know. Ellie planned to have a heart-to-heart talk with Maddie when she came to work on Monday morning.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Ellie

  Ellie stayed up well past midnight on Saturday tearing the house apart looking for more diaries. She searched every room except the attic and skipped that one only because the lone overhead light bulb was out. In a state of desperation, she ventured into her grandmother’s bedroom, placing a small chest in front of the door to keep it from closing while she was inside. She gave up when the rot and mildew stench chased her from the room. The house had seemingly been wiped clean of all traces of her mother.

  Exhausted from her efforts, she slept until nine the following morning. She slipped on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve lightweight sweater and went to the kitchen to make breakfast. She took her coffee and oatmeal, sprinkled with brown sugar and piled high with blueberries, outside to the terrace. While she ate, she skimmed the local section of the Sunday Post and Courier, which included the arts. She was eager to start her day so as not to waste such glorious weather with the sun glistening in the brilliant blue sky and the air so crisp and cool. She packed the provisions she needed for her outing in her backpack—acrylic paints and brushes, several bottles of water, and a pimento cheese sandwich for her lunch. With her canvas and easel tucked under her right arm and her backpack slung over her left, she strolled across the street to Battery Park. She set up shop and commenced working on her new project: the depiction of the homes on South Battery looking out from beneath the sprawling live oak trees in the park. She sketched her first layer with thinned raw umber. Her brush flew across the canvas with confidence for what she anticipated would be her best work yet. While she maintained reservations about moving here, as an artist, Charleston inspired her in a way San Francisco never had.

  Other than a fifteen-minute break to eat her sandwich around one, she worked straight through until four o’clock. When she finally lifted her head and stretched, she saw dark gray clouds moving in across the area and her neighbors along Battery Street scurrying in and out of their houses, packing their belongings into their cars and SUVs as though preparing to leave town. The hurricane, of course. The weather had been so pleasant, she’d forgotten all about the threat of a serious storm. She rummaged through her backpack and patted her pockets, realizing she must have left her cell phone on the kitchen counter.

  She carried the wet canvas to the house first and then returned for the rest of her things. Her phone was not on the kitchen counter but beside the sink in her bathroom upstairs. She had four missed calls from Bennett Calhoun and one from her father. She accessed the weather app, which forecast a 20 percent chance of rain for that night increasing to 50 percent on Monday. The video segment for the hurricane showed the projected path heading out to sea.

  She ignored her father’s call—he had been avoiding all of hers since she told him she was moving to South Carolina—and clicked on Bennett’s number.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you,” he said, omitting any pleasantries. “They’re predicting the storm will make landfall in Charleston sometime late tomorrow afternoon.”

  She lowered herself to the edge of the bed. “I just now saw the article in the newspaper, but my weather app is forecasting for only a slight chance of rain.”

  She heard the note of impatience in his voice when he said, “You can’t trust those weather apps. That’s what I tried to tell you the other night.”

  “I have zero experience with hurricanes, Bennett. What do you think I should do? Are you and Lucille leaving town?”

  “I guess you don’t get many of these type storms in Northern California,” he said in a softer tone. “We’ve decided to stay, as have all my children and many of our friends. You are welcome to move in here for a couple of days.”

  Ellie was quiet as she contemplated her dilemma. Packing her valuables in her rental car would take ten minutes and two trips—one for the magnolia painting and one for her suitcases. She had no interest in driving her rental car to Columbia and staying in a hotel alone. She was finally remembering the events from her childhood. Leaving the house now might hinder her progress. How bad could a little rain and some wind be anyway?

  “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll be fine here,” she said after a long pause.

  He let out an audible sigh. “All right then. But we’re right around the corner if you change your mind. I have some supplies you might need, including a portable television I use at tailgate parties. I’ll drop them off tonight before supper. In the meantime, if I were you, I’d haul buggy down to the Harris Te
eter while they still have bread on the shelves. There’ll be nothing left if you wait till morning. Be sure to stock up on batteries, candles, and bottled water. Fill your car up with gas on the way home. And stop by the liquor store.” He snickered. “If you’re anything like my family, you’ll want to have plenty of booze in the house.”

  Bennett was right. The grocery store was a mob scene with people crashing carts and throwing elbows as they frantically fought over the last of the hot items on the shelves. As she wandered the aisles of the store, uncertain of what one actually needed to survive a hurricane, she took note of what the other shoppers were purchasing. She already had milk and bread, good thing, too, since little of either was left. She bought canned goods, toilet paper, matches, raw fruits and vegetables that didn’t require refrigeration, the last three cases of an off-brand bottled water, an economy-size package of both C- and D-cell batteries, and several bottles of wine. She chose red because, if she lost power, she wouldn’t be able to chill the white. Congratulations, Ellie, she thought to herself. You’re thinking like a true hurricane shopper. She waited for thirty minutes in the long checkout line. As she approached the cashier, an employee announced a new shipment of bagged ice over the loudspeaker. The shoppers cheered, and Ellie told the cashier to add two bags to her tab.

  Bennett was waiting in her driveway when she returned home. He greeted her with a peck on the cheek and grabbed an armful of groceries from the trunk of her car. “I’m glad to see you were able to get ice. They were out when I went to the store earlier.”

  “They’d just received a shipment,” she said, following him into the house. “You can have one of my bags. I’m still not clear on why ice is such a hot commodity.”

  “You’ll know by the time it’s all over,” he said with a chuckle. “Keep your ice. You’ll need it.” He set his bags down on the counter. “Many liken the aftermath of a hurricane to Armageddon.”

  As they finished unloading the groceries from her car and the supplies he’d brought from his, Bennett painted a clear picture of what she should expect. “The power will go out, and because the modern world runs on electricity, everything will be affected. Whatever you do, don’t open your refrigerator or freezer until you have to. Let the cold air stay in. After a day or so, if your power hasn’t come back on, you’ll need the ice you bought to keep the perishable goods chilled in a cooler. I brought you one, by the way, in case you don’t already have one.” He removed an Igloo cooler from the back of his SUV. “Depending on the severity of the storm, trucks may not be able to get back into Charleston with supplies for several days, possibly even a week. People will need gas to fuel their generators, so gas will become scarce. Which is why I suggested you fill up.”

  On their last trip inside, Bennett set his canvas tote on the counter and one by one removed the items he’d brought: a portable TV, a battery pack to recharge Ellie’s cell phone, and two battery-operated lanterns. “Keep all your electronic devices plugged in so that when you lose power everything will have a fresh charge.” He plugged the television into the nearest wall outlet and fiddled with the antenna until he picked up the local news station. The meteorologist was reporting strong winds and high seas in Florida. He gave an overview of the timeline of the storm, pointing to a graphic that projected it would travel from northern Florida up the Georgia coast to South Carolina, making landfall in Charleston early tomorrow evening.

  “Fill your bathtub with water,” Bennett continued. “You may need it for washing yourself and flushing the toilet in the event we lose our water supply, which sometimes happens for a brief period of time after a storm.” Bennett went to her refrigerator and lowered the settings on both sides. “There now. That’ll give refrigerated and frozen foods a head start.”

  He turned to her. “Have I sufficiently frightened you into coming to stay with us?”

  “I’m not having second thoughts about coming to stay with you. But I’m having doubts about living in Charleston.” Ellie offered him a teasing smile even though she was dead serious.

  He squeezed her shoulder. “You’ll be fine here, Ellie; I promise. But if you decide to go, I wouldn’t leave tonight. The traffic will be horrible. Get on the road first thing in the morning, before the sun comes up.” He reached for the doorknob. “Call me if you get scared during the storm, and I’ll send one of my boys over to pick you up. But I’ll check on you beforehand.” He started out and turned back around. “Did you get your roof fixed yet?”

  Ellie shook her head. “They were supposed to start tomorrow.”

  “Call them first thing in the morning. Tell them to get over here and put a tarp on your roof. While they have their ladders up, have them close your hurricane shutters. I’ll have my son drop off some sandbags at some point during the day.”

  Ellie stood staring at the door for a long time after he left. She was way in over her head.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Ellie

  The roofers arrived on their own at seven o’clock Monday morning. Ellie answered the door in her bathrobe. She could see the wind swaying the oak and palmetto trees in Battery Park and the white caps on the harbor beyond. The hurricane was bearing down on them.

  “I was going to call you this morning,” she said to the crew leader, a scraggly-looking man who reeked of cigarettes despite the early hour. “I think we should put a tarp on the roof with this storm coming.”

  “My men are already on it. Do you want us to close your storm shutters while we’re here?”

  Pulling her robe tight around her, she walked with him to the edge of the porch. They craned their necks as they looked up to see three extension ladders propped against the gutters and a crew of men wrestling a blue tarp onto her roof. “Ain’t very pretty, but she’ll get the job done,” he said. “We’ll be back as soon as the storm blows over to get started on your repairs. Won’t be tomorrow, but the next day if we’re lucky.”

  “Do you really think we’ll recover from the storm that soon?” she asked.

  “No way of knowing for sure, ma’am. This hurricane is only a cat three. I’ve seen worse in my day.” He tipped his hat at her. “If that’ll be all, I have a long list of customers to get to this morning.”

  Ellie had changed into yoga pants and a sleeveless top and was perched on the step stool in the kitchen, picking at an egg white omelet and watching the hurricane coverage on Bennett’s portable TV, when Maddie arrived an hour later, her gray hair sticking straight out from her skull.

  “Storm’s a coming.” She closed the door but remained in her spot, her handbag dangling from her arm. “You planning to weather the storm here? Missus Pringle never left town. Said she had to man her ship. If her ship went down, she was going with it.”

  Ellie set her fork down and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Against my better judgment, I’m manning this ship, even though it doesn’t feel like mine to man.” She had a hard time falling asleep the night before from worrying about whether to stay in Charleston or go to Columbia. Around two in the morning, she told the voice warning her that staying was a bad idea to shut the hell up, and then she took a sleeping pill.

  “In that case, I need to get to the grocery. Is there anything in particular you need?”

  “I’ve already been to the grocery store, Maddie. I’m fairly well prepared aside from filling the bathtubs. Do we have any fat candles? The tapers were the only ones I could find.”

  “I’ll get them for you. I keep them in the garage with all the other hurricane supplies.” Maddie went to the pantry closet and hung her raincoat on the coat hanger she kept on the hook. She added her purse to the hook and shut the door. Smoothing down her hair, she said, “If it’s okay with you, Miss Ellie, I’d like to leave early today. The traffic is bumper-to-bumper coming into town. I suspect it’s gonna be worse going home. And I need to stop by the store to pick up a few things of my own.”

  “By all means, please leave whenever you need to.” Ellie drank the last of her coffee. “I was going t
o tell you not to come to work today anyway, but I couldn’t find your number written anywhere in this house.”

  “It should be in your gramma’s address book, top right drawer in the desk in the library. I’ll make sure it’s there before I leave today.”

  Ellie stood and walked her plate to the sink. “So you’re manning your ship as well, are you?”

  “Leonard and me . . . well, we don’t have nowhere else to go.” Maddie tied a white apron around her waist. “We live inland a ways. We won’t catch the brunt of the storm like you will here.”

  “Maybe I’ll come stay with you,” Ellie said absently as she scrubbed her plate and placed it in the drying rack.

  “You’re always welcome in my home, Miss Ellie. But there won’t be much room left with all our chilrun and grandchilrun taking up space.”

  “I was teasing, Maddie. Relax,” Ellie said, rubbing her on the back.

  “I do need to relax.” She fanned herself. “I’m way too worked up about this storm. Do you mind if I have a spot of tea before I get to work?” Without waiting for her response, Maddie removed an Earl Grey K-Cup and a mug from the cabinet above the Keurig and brewed herself a cup of tea. “I sure do like this fancy coffee maker, Miss Ellie.”

  “I do, too, Maddie. I like the convenience of brewing only one cup at a time. You’d be surprised at the variety of coffee and tea K-Cups they offer.” Ellie waited until Maddie’s tea was finished before making herself another cup of coffee. “Why don’t you bring your tea into my studio. I need to talk to you for a minute.”

  An alarmed expression crossed the old woman’s wrinkled face. “Oh Lawd! Did I do something wrong?”