The Hurricane Sisters: A Novel

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  Who else? The president of the United States?

  “Of course Clayton! He’s in town and on his way to my house because . . .”

  “He couldn’t get in my house,” she said.

  “Oh? Now it’s your house? Since when did it become just yours?”

  “Since Wednesday morning.”

  “Okay. So you want a divorce? Is that it? All those years together, he makes one stupid mistake and now it’s ‘good night, Alice’?”

  “Maisie? What else am I supposed to do? He went out, had an affair, and fell in love with another woman. Am I just supposed to forget what I saw, what he did, and what he said?”

  “If you want to stay married, you have to forgive what you saw and heard. Never mind what he did. You don’t have to forget.”

  “Forgive? Forgive, hell! You have to be kidding me!”

  It appeared that Liz was not yet prepared for reconciliation.

  “No, I am not kidding you. Liz, you have a decision to make. This is actually quite simple. Either you want to stay married to Clayton or not. That’s it. It’s as black and white a case as there could be. But at the very least you have to talk to him and hear what he has to say. You owe him a conversation and you owe it to yourself.”

  I heard Liz choke up and start to cry. It was only then that I realized how much pain she was in. She began to wail. Then I really didn’t know what to say.

  “Where are you?”

  I hoped she wasn’t carrying on like this at her office and making a spectacle of herself.

  “I’m at home.”

  That was a relief. I tried to make her laugh, which was the worst thing I could’ve done.

  “Listen, if you want him back you could really have some fun with this. You could make him grovel. You know, a trip to Paris? A cruise around the world? A door-knocker diamond?”

  Then she exploded at me.

  “Stop! You think that my family falling apart might be fun to put back together? You don’t understand! You never have! God! Isn’t there one person in this world who can see inside of my heart?”

  “Liz! Pull yourself together! Half the men in America screw around on their wives. At least that’s what Jon Stewart says.”

  I heard her sniff and then blow her nose, which is terribly rude to do when you’re on the phone with someone. But in this situation I overlooked it.

  “Jon Stewart is not a reliable news source. And I don’t care about half the men in America. Is Ivy there?”

  “No. He ran back to San Francisco this afternoon. James was arrested for wearing his Glass while driving or some fool thing. Before he left he told me to call taxis to take Skipper back and forth to see his therapists and send him the bill. Can you imagine? I’ll do no such thing. Anyway . . .” Frankly, I was so unnerved by her crying that I was out of things to say. She was too. She was just sitting like a lump on the other end of the phone. “Look, Liz, I just want you to get what you want. And I want what’s best for you. But I think you have to talk to him.”

  “I’ll think about it,” she said.

  “Okay. I just heard a car door slam. It’s probably Clayton. I hope he bought vermouth too.”

  “What? You asked Clayton to go to the liquor store for you?”

  “Why not? It was on the way.”

  “I’ll talk to you later, Mother.”

  She hung up. How about that? She called me Mother? And she was provoked over a bottle of vermouth? Well, she was always a little high-strung. I hurried to the front door no one ever used to let him in. Not that I was so anxious to have a cocktail but it was a quarter to five. Who knew how many happy hours I had left in this life?

  “Hello, Clayton!” I smiled at the poor son of a gun. He’d had a rough week and it showed. He had literal bags under his eyes, a terrible five o’clock shadow, and he seemed drawn, as though he’d lost weight. Why was it that men could merely think about losing weight and then they lost it?

  “Maisie,” he said in acknowledgment and dutifully kissed my cheek.

  “Come in, come in!”

  “Thanks,” he said.

  It might have been the first time Clayton had been in my house without Liz in decades. He stood there in the middle of my living room like he didn’t know what to do. Sit? Stand? Lie down on the sofa and tell me all his troubles?

  “By any chance, did you get vermouth too?” I asked, taking the bag from him. It had more than one bottle in it. “Thanks!”

  “No. You didn’t say anything about vermouth.”

  “Well, I’m sure there’s enough for tonight. Can I get you something?”

  “I actually bought a bottle of wine. Do you have a corkscrew?”

  “Of course! Come on in the kitchen with me.”

  He followed me to the kitchen. I dug around in my utensil drawer and found it.

  “Great,” he said and I handed it to him. “Nice apron.”

  I was wearing a retro apron Ashley bought for me at Anthropologie. It had black kittens all over it with a red ruffled edge and a big sash I tied into a bow in the back. It really was a hoot. And of course, I had on my single-strand pearls because the occasion called for something sedate. Somebody in this drama had to be glamorous and I decided long ago that it was going to be me.

  “Thanks!” I said. “It was a birthday gift years ago from my precious granddaughter.”

  “Nice. Ashley can be a very thoughtful young lady. So how’s Skipper? Is he awake? I’d like to say hello. Can I fix your martini?”

  “I believe that’s still my job!” Skipper said.

  We turned and there was my sweet Skipper in the doorway wearing khakis and a knit shirt and his loafers with no socks. He was adorable.

  “Skipper!” Clayton said and smiled. “How great to see you! I thought you were a goner!” Clayton hurried over and shook Skipper’s hand and slapped his shoulder. “You look fine! Really! Just fine!”

  “Thanks,” Skipper said and smiled. “I feel fine and I’m glad to still be here! You get your wine opened up and I’ll take care of Maisie’s daily double. Ha-ha-ha!”

  Skipper hadn’t changed in any profound way since the stroke, but he laughed even more easily than he had before and he seemed happier all around. I guess he was just plumb happy to be aboveground.

  Clayton pulled the cork of his bottle and poured a generous amount of wine into the goblet I handed him.

  “Cheers!” he said and took a big gulp.

  “I guess you earned this one,” Skipper said. “Maisie tells me you’re in a bit of a kerfuffle, that is, you and Liz, I mean.”

  “Yeah, you could say that,” Clayton said. “You sure could.”

  I took the olives from the refrigerator and put them on the counter next to Skipper with the toothpicks and quickly got the vermouth and bourbon from the liquor cabinet in the living room. I didn’t want to miss a word.

  “Well, let me fix this drink for my queen and a tiny drop for myself and I’ll tell you a story about getting my hand caught in the cookie jar. If I can survive a stroke and all the exercises I have to do with my occupational therapist, who might be trying to kill me, a cookie jar episode ain’t bubkes!”

  This was the most animated I’d seen Skipper since he came home from the hospital. Maybe it was just that men needed the company of other men. Not that Ivy wasn’t a man, but he was still very, very young. I decided to let them just talk and then I’d tell Clayton about my conversation with Liz. I filled the shaker with ice cubes.

  “I’d love to hear,” Clayton said. “I sure could use some advice.”

  “Oh, I’ve got plenty of that,” he said.

  Skipper shook my gin and vermouth in the shaker and even managed to put two olives on a toothpick. His fine motor skills were greatly improved. To tell you the truth, the olives were in a dish and they were large ones, purposely chosen to ma
ke it easier for him to handle. And this is how it was going to be until he regained all his faculties. He maintained his dignity because I was doing small things to pave the way for him. Just tiny mercies. He still needed a little more time. But he filled the martini glass I had placed there next to a tumbler for him and handed it to me without a problem. That small gesture that we would’ve taken for granted just two weeks ago seemed like a miracle now, and that his health was so improved made me so happy.

  “Here you are, sweetheart,” he said.

  “Thanks, angel,” I said, adding, “cheers!”

  I had also filled a small bucket with ice so he could make his own drink exactly how he liked it. Basically he drank bourbon on the rocks. Sometimes he threw in a cherry or some sweet vermouth. But since coming home he seemed to prefer it straight because he said the sting of the liquor in his throat reminded him that he was still alive.

  Clayton was sitting at the kitchen table and Skipper joined him. I opened the oven door and poked the potatoes with a fork. Not crispy enough yet.

  “Dinner still needs a little time,” I said. “Would y’all like some cheese and crackers?”

  “No, no,” Clayton said. “My appetite hasn’t been the best for the past few days.”

  “Understood. You look like the devil,” Skipper said and raised his glass. “Cheers!”

  “So talk to me, Skipper. Tell me what you were going to tell me.”

  Skipper took a drink of his bourbon and put his glass down on the table.

  “Ah! That is so good. Okay, well, it was a very long time ago. In fact, it was the summer after I graduated from high school. I got involved with a very sweet girl, sweet but a little wacky. Nancy was her name. She got pregnant so I married her. We weren’t passionately in love but I wanted to do the right thing by her. I didn’t even know what love was then. Anyway, I couldn’t find work that would support us and it was the height of the war so I joined the army and wound up in Vietnam. While I was there in the countryside around Hanoi I met another girl, a beautiful Asian girl, and I fell in love. I mean, I fell in love, Clayton—hook, line, and sinker.”

  “Skipper! You’ve never told me this story!” I said.

  “There was never a reason to until now, and I’m only telling this because I think it might help Clayton.”

  “Go on,” Clayton said.

  “It was just . . . well, I’d never met anybody like her before. Her name was Lien. I was completely knocked off my feet. She treated me like a god. And Nancy, my kooky wife back home, didn’t. Nancy didn’t write very often and all the other guys were getting mail from home almost every day. It was hard for me. And I was scared all the time. For all I knew Nancy had already run off with another guy. I was gone for a long time. Then Nancy sent me a letter saying that she lost the baby. I didn’t know if that meant our marriage was over or what. I was very young and stupid. But I wrote her and told her how sorry I was and that I hoped she was okay.”

  Skipper paused then, looking serious, as though he was reliving those days.

  “What happened?” I said.

  “Well, we, Lien and I, started sort of halfway living together and she conceived a child. Somebody in my unit must have told their wife in a letter because Nancy found out. I got a terrible letter from her saying she was going to divorce me. I was very upset. But then one day when I was out on patrol, Lien’s village was attacked and she was killed. She was six months pregnant. Her whole village was massacred.”

  “How terrible!” I said. “How terrible!”

  “Good Lord, Skipper!” Clayton said.

  “Yeah, it was horrible. I came home, got divorced, found out crazy Nancy had had an abortion and was running around like I don’t know what. I was so blown away by it that I never got into another serious relationship until I met Maisie. I was too terrified. It just wasn’t worth the pain.”

  “Gracious, Skipper, I’m so sorry,” I said.

  “I think I would’ve been terrified of another relationship too,” Clayton said.

  “The lesson in all this,” Skipper said, “is that the heart wants what it wants. But when you can’t have that person—in my case it was a fatal loss—you have to ask yourself some fundamental questions about yourself and the mess you’ve made.”

  “Such as?” Clayton said.

  “Such as how did you get in the mess in the first place and now that your mess is out in the open, do you want to clean it up or walk away?”

  “Oh, Skipper! I’m just so sorry!” I felt like crying for him.

  “I don’t know the answer to the first part, and I’m not so sure the second part is up to me,” Clayton said. “Did you talk to Liz?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I did.”

  To be sure, the irony of all this horrible discussion wasn’t lost on me. I knew perfectly well that Clayton had fallen in love with that whore Sophia in a way he had never loved my daughter and here I was attempting to encourage him to make up with Liz. And I was about to serve him dinner. I should have socked him in the nose.

  “Well?”

  “Clayton. She’s very upset. In fact, she wept this afternoon. I haven’t heard my daughter weep since her sister died.”

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her weep,” Clayton said.

  “I think you have to be nicer, Clayton,” I said. “Not that you’re not nice, but you’re not engaged. It’s always like you have one foot out the door.”

  “Yes, I can see how it would seem that way,” he said.

  “If you want her back, go to her,” Skipper said. “Beg her forgiveness.”

  “Beg?” Clayton said.

  “Yes, beg,” I said. “Her heart is broken.”

  “And it’s all my fault,” he said.

  “Time for dinner,” I said and got up shaking my head.

  “I understand that,” Skipper said, “but if you don’t go to her and beg her forgiveness, you could wind up empty-handed and empty-hearted.”

  CHAPTER 17

  Ashley—Bad Night

  It was Thursday night after work and Mary Beth and I were catching up with each other at the beach house on Sullivans Island. She had a catering job later that night after a concert and she was getting dressed to go to work. We were in her bedroom and I was sprawled on her bed watching her fix her hair and put on her makeup.

  “I told Porter I didn’t want to see him anymore but the truth is I’m dying inside. I miss him so bad.”

  “No, you’re not dying. You know, I love you like a sister but I don’t like him one little bit.”

  She was putting her hair up with combs and clamps. Little tendrils kept escaping but she looked good, like The Birth of Venus, the superyoung and supercute redheaded version.

  “You have to stop saying that all the time. Besides, he said he was sorry about leaving the way he did. He said I was being hysterical and I guess I sort of was.”

  “I worked with Tommy last night and when I told him you broke up with Galloway, you should’ve seen his face.”

  “Cookie Boy? Please!”

  “If you want my opinion, I think you’d be better off with Tommy or someone like him than Porter Galloway. Galloway’s too weird or something.”

  “No, he’s not. You don’t know him. Anyway, he wanted to have dinner tonight and I told him no.”

  “Good.”

  “Well, I said no because I’m not so sure I still love him after the way he acted last week.”

  “No shit! I walked in and found you lying in a pool of your own blood, passed out on the floor. You could’ve been dead for all I knew! And he left you like that? It’s like Ted Kennedy and that poor girl he left in the river!”

  “She died and I didn’t and Porter apologized like crazy. He was so upset. You should’ve heard him, Mary Beth. He said, ‘If I only had a chance to do it all over again, I would. Please forgive me,
Ashley, you know I love you!’ ”

  “He’s saying that because he wants to get in your bloomers.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. I don’t know if I’m ready for that yet. I’m just not so sure I can trust him, but I miss him, you know? But I just keep thinking that if I could see him one more time I might get him out of my system.”

  “Well, I sure wish you would. Get him out of your system, that is.”

  “I think I have to see him one more time to be sure.”

  “You just said that. Just watch yourself, Ashley, okay?”

  “Should I call him back and say yes?”

  “No. I wouldn’t.”

  The front door chime sounded, the one hooked up to the alarm system, and I got up to see who was walking in the house without ringing the doorbell. It was almost seven thirty.

  “Anybody home?”

  “Dad?” I said. I hopped off the bed and raced to the front door. “Hey! What are you doing here?” I gave him a hug. “What’s going on?”

  “Well, it seems that your mother and I have had a disagreement. Can I spend the night? Just one night. I’m sure we’ll have it all sorted out by tomorrow.”

  “Dad? It’s your house! Of course you can!”

  “Thanks, Ashley.”

  “Did you eat supper?”

  “Yes. I ate with Skipper and Maisie.”

  “Okay. Hey, Mary Beth! My dad’s here! Put on your clothes!”

  “Very funny!” she called out to us. “Hey, Mr. Waters!”

  “Hey, Mary Beth!” he called back.

  I knew immediately that Mom’s trip to New York had been a total disaster, especially because Dad was standing in the hall. But I wasn’t going to say one word to him about it. No, ma’am. My lips were sealed. I also felt that having Dad in the house was good because I could have dinner with Porter and he wouldn’t try anything stupid with my father around. Perfect!

  “Do you mind if I go out? I sort of had a date.”

  “No, no! Of course!”

  I went to my room and called Porter.

  “Hi, Ashley.”

  “Porter? Hey, did you make plans for dinner yet?”