Tiles and Tribulations

by Tamar Myers

  14

  Buford folded his hands and looked at me under lids that had grown puffy over the years. What had once been a hunk of burning flesh was now a fluffy mound shaped only by an expensive summer suit.

  “I have a daughter, Abby.”

  “Tell me about it. I was there, remember? Eight hours of labor—no drugs—because I didn’t want Mama to say I’d wimped out. Thank God I wised up when Charlie was born.”

  “I’m not talking about Susan. I have another daughter. Heather.”

  I stared at my ex. Buford does not, never has had, a sense of humor. Still, we were living in an age of medical wonders, what with Rogaine, Viagra, and that new bra I read about that actually increases breast size.

  “Was it surgically implanted?” I asked in all earnestness. “Or does it come in pill form?”

  “What?”

  “Your sense of humor.”

  “I’m not joking, Abby. While I was married—and don’t get me wrong, I’m not proud of it—I had an affair.”

  The short hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I wanted to stand as well, but I wasn’t sure my legs would hold me.

  “During which marriage did you have this affair? I mean this other affair?”

  “My marriage to Tweetie. Heather is two.”

  My sigh of relief caused a candle across the room to flicker. Buford had cheated on a dead woman. Well, perhaps she hadn’t been dead then, but at least she wasn’t still around to mind. You might wonder what difference it made to me whom Buford cheated on, given that we have been long divorced. All I can say is that it did make a difference. Perhaps it boils down to this; to be cheated on once makes me a victim of Buford’s slimy nature, while being cheated on twice makes me a victim of my own stupidity. I would much rather be Buford’s victim.

  “Details,” I said.

  “She was an office manager in the law firm next to mine. You remember, White, Hammerhead & Lamprey. Anyway, she just told me last week that I was the father. Wait—” he took out a very flat and very expensive wallet—“here’s a picture if you want to see.”

  “I don’t.”

  He put the wallet away. “Somehow I didn’t think you would. But, Abby, just so you know, I plan to do right by this woman. I plan to marry her—give the kid a father.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “No, I mean it. I’m a changed man.”

  I saw the drinks waiter coming and waited to speak until he was through serving Buford’s martini. Having already ordered at my own table, I declined to place an order myself.

  “And O.J. Simpson is looking hard for Nicole’s killer,” I said when the coast was clear. “Well, I’ve got news for you, Buford. He isn’t going to find the killer unless he takes a mirror with him to the putting green.”

  “Are you trying to say you think I’m not capable of changing?”

  “Bingo.”

  “Well, I am, and I’ll prove it.”

  “Okay, okay, I believe you. Just tell me what this has to do with me.”

  “I need your advice, Abby.”

  “I think you should go ahead and have that vasectomy—the one you already claim to have had.”

  “I deserve that, Abby. I really was going to get one, but Tweetie changed her mind and said she might want children someday after all.”

  “Oh, you must be talking about vasectomy number two. Vasectomy number one supposedly happened while we were married.”

  He didn’t even have the grace to blush. “Abby, enough about us. I want to talk about Susan and Charlie.”

  “What about them?”

  “How do I go about telling them? Should I start with telling them about Loretta, and that I plan to marry her, or do I jump right in and tell them they have a sister?”

  It wasn’t until he said the S word that it really hit me. The tears poured out. Had I been sitting at my own table where I could see, although barely, that my appetizer was being served, I would have oversalted the food to compensate for my sudden loss of sodium. A sister! My children had a sister that was no part of me. For some strange reason that stung like a ton of salt on a skinned knee.

  But that was all neither here nor there. I had my children to consider. Who was I to deny them a sister, or for that matter, her them? Besides, it would be only a matter of time before they found out anyway—unlike most lawyers, Buford’s lips could sink a flotilla of ships. Where would I be then?

  “Start with Loretta, Buford. Then work your way up to their baby sister. But it’s going to come as a shock, no matter how you tell them.”

  “I know. I really just wanted to—uh, let you be the first to know.”

  In a weird way I understood that. Buford’s parents are dead, and he has no siblings. If sharks have friends, then he has a few, but I doubt if he ever shares personal news with them. I was still family to Buford; someone he felt a need to connect with at one of life’s pivotal moments.

  I found myself smiling. “Thanks—I guess. But don’t be surprised, Buford, if they take this hard.”

  He looked me straight in the eyes, and for a second I could see the Buford I fell in love with almost a quarter century ago. “Abby, I don’t know where things went wrong—with us, I mean. I wish—uh—well, I wish we could get it back somehow. You don’t suppose there is a chance? If this thing with Loretta doesn’t work out?”

  I slid to my feet. “Calista Flockhart will join Weight Watchers before that happens. Buford, because you’re my children’s father, and will someday be the grandfather of my grandchildren, I intend to be civil whenever we’re together in public. But I would sooner crawl in bed with Saddam Hussein and an open bag full of snakes than get back together with you.”

  He nodded, apparently not in the least bit surprised. “Anyway, thanks for the advice, Abby. It was good seeing you again.”

  I scooted back to my own table before the Warm Oysters on the Half Shell turned cold.

  The Rob-Bobs graciously allowed me to eat before grilling me. When they were quite through, and we’d all had dessert—Mocha Crème Brulee with Fresh Strawberries and an Orange Cinnamon Syrup—Rob turned to me.

  “You know, Abby, Bob and I aren’t quite as stupid as we look.”

  “Neither of you looks particularly stupid.”

  “Thanks. We’re at least not so stupid that we think you’re on a legitimate scavenger hunt.”

  The lunch, which had tasted so good going down, wasn’t going to taste very good on its way back up. “Whatever do you mean?” I said and batted my eyelashes.

  Alas, my feminine wiles were wasted on the guys. “Don’t play games with us, Abby.”

  “You’re not going to turn me in, are you?”

  “We ought to,” Bob boomed. Half the remaining lunch crowd looked our way.

  “But we won’t,” Rob said, “as long as you follow our rules.”

  “Anything.” Perhaps I’d spoken too soon. “What are your rules?”

  “Rule one. If you’re caught, you have to deny this conversation, or one like it, ever happened.”

  “Done.”

  “Rule two. As far as Rob and I are concerned, this conversation never happened.”

  “That means no details,” Bob bellowed. “We don’t want to know a thing. Because if anyone asks, we know nothing.”

  Rob patted his partner’s arm. “Finally, rule number three. If you get in over your head—that is to say, if it starts to feel at all uncomfortable—you bail out. Is that clear?”

  “Yah vo, mein kommodant.”

  “Abby, we’re not kidding around here. If you break these rules, we’re driving you straight back to headquarters. And Colonel Hogan won’t be there to bail you out.”

  I should have been grateful that they were indulging me. In fact, I should have been flattered, because clearly it was a testament to their faith in my ability to ferret out the facts. However, what I should have felt, and what I felt, were quite different things. To put it frankly, I was pissed. I felt patronized.

  “So Ab
by, do you swear?” Bob’s voice is so loud that I had no doubt the entire restaurant, including the kitchen staff, could hear. While some may have thought I was being asked to give my word of honor, others might well have thought I was being asked if I cussed. It was most embarrassing.

  “I swear,” I said through gritted teeth. “And I swear if you don’t lower your voice, I’m going to make a scene, the likes of which, you will never forget.”

  “Ooh, feisty,” Rob said. “Abby, if I were straight—”

  Bob’s glare cut him short. Lunch was over.

  Because I no longer needed to play games with the guys, I was free to rearrange the order of my visitations. Now, isn’t that a much nicer word than interrogations? At any rate, I decided to get the longest drive out of the way by visiting Thelma Maypole down on Kiawah Island. However, in order to do that, I needed her to call the gate and leave my name. Twice. Thelma Maypole must have heeded her own investment counseling, because she lived in the heart of this posh resort community about forty minutes south of Charleston.

  I needn’t have worried. Anyone who comes all the way into town for social contact such as the Heavenly Hustlers has got to be more lonely than a petunia in an onion patch. Thelma Maypole not only agreed to let me visit, but invited me to spend the night.

  “I have a spacious guest room,” she said. “Actually, I have three. Although one is primarily a sewing room. Did you know that Elias Howe of Spencer, Massachusetts, got a patent on a sewing machine in 1846? Of course, Isaac Merritt Singer improved on the design, and by 1860 there were over a hundred thousand sewing machines produced in the United States alone.”

  “How fascinating. But I’ll only be needing about a half hour of your time.”

  “Ah, the clock. The Egyptians, of course, made their famous water clocks, but the first mechanical clock, one that could strike on the hour, was made in Milan, Italy, in 1335.”

  “You don’t say. Speaking of clocks, like I said, I can’t stay very long.”

  Thelma sighed. She seemed genuinely disappointed. I allowed her to get over her disappointment by giving me directions and a not-so-very-brief history of Kiawah Island.

  I will spare you the history of the island, but feel compelled to deliver a short geography lesson. South Carolina coastal islands are not what typically springs to mind when one hears the word island. Forget Tahiti and Bora Bora. Forget even the Bahamas. Yes, our islands have plenty of palm trees, but they are as flat as a putting green and are not set apart from the mainland by large expanses of water. Tidal creeks and salt marshes help define many of our islands, so that it is possible to drive from one island to another and not be aware that one is actually island-hopping.

  We took River Road to Bohicket, passing under spreading oaks festooned with Spanish moss. The entrances to old plantations whizzed by, giving me just a tantalizing peek down allees of olive oaks and camellias as big as single-story houses. Beautiful as the scenery was, it seemed to take forever and a day to get to the bottom of Johns Island. Then we passed a small shopping center with a Piggly Wiggly and suddenly we were on Kiawah Island.

  I have to hand it to the developers of this island paradise. Apart from the golf courses, the parts of the island I saw were still lush and heavily wooded. The large, expensive homes were tucked between ancient trees, seeming almost to be part of the landscape.

  Thelma Maypole lived on Glen Abbey Drive, in a two-story cedar home that was all but lost among the trees. Like its neighbors, Thelma’s house was set a full story above the ground to protect it from tidal surges. The wooden steps that led up to the teak-and-leaded-glass door were lined with terra-cotta pots of impatiens in red, white, and mauve. I could hear, but not see, water splashing in a fountain nearby, somewhere under the trees.

  The Rob-Bobs had elected to walk to the beach, a short block away. Thelma, I’m sure, would have been delighted to meet them, but my friends were adamant about not learning anything more than they had to about my “case.” They agreed to meet me in Thelma’s driveway in thirty minutes. If I needed more time, I was to appear at the door and wave.

  If Thelma saw the Rob-Bobs get out of the car and stroll away, she made no mention of it.

  “I was afraid you might have gotten lost,” she said, as she opened the door. “The roads tend to wind a bit. But then you should see the road from the Granada to Almunecar. That’s in Spain, you know. It crosses the Sierra Nevada mountains, which reach a height of eleven thousand four—”

  “Sorry if it took me longer than you thought it would. It was such a beautiful drive. And speaking of beautiful, your home is exquisite.”

  I meant it. Thelma Maypole had good-quality furniture, but most of the pieces were not antique. It was the abundance of artifacts, some ingeniously displayed, that showed this was the home of a woman who had been somewhere, and learned something unusual in her spare time.

  On the expanse of wall opposite the fireplace hung a seven-foot silk uchikake, a Japanese wedding kimono. Since few Japanese women are that tall, the garment was obviously meant to be dragged, rather like a bridal train. This particular piece was red-orange silk, with black and white embroidered cranes, and a good deal of gold thread for accent. It was breathtaking.

  The contemporary Italian marble and carved mahogany coffee table, probably from Haverty’s, served as a display surface for a variety of objets d’art. The most interesting of these pieces was an unusually large tile set on an inexpensive easel, the sort you might pick up at Pottery Barn. The tile depicted a crude rendition of a monkey munching on a pomegranate.

  “I see you’ve been to Portugal,” I said.

  Thelma Maypole nodded. Her hexagonal glasses reflected the many colors and shapes around her, turning the lenses into kaleidoscopes.

  “I’ve been to twenty-three countries. I could show you my passport if you like—all those visa stamps. Did you know that to get into Albania—”

  “But you’ve been to Portugal?” I know it’s rude to interrupt. But isn’t it equally as rude to allow a longwinded person to wear herself out?

  “Ah, yes, Portugal. The last good bargain in Europe. A lot of tourists head straight to the Algarve, and the beaches in the south. But the Lisbon area has so many museums, so many treasures. We could have stayed there longer—skipped the trip south, if only Francis hadn’t been so stubborn.”

  “Francis?”

  “Dr. Francis Lloyd Whipperspoonbill.” She clapped chubby unadorned hands to bare, chubby cheeks. “Gracious me! I seem to have forgotten my manners. Would you care for something to drink?”

  “Tempt me,” I said. I was still satiated from my scrumptious lunch at Magnolias, and more in need of a restroom than anything else. Experience has taught me never to pass up a clean toilet, or a free beverage.

  “Well, let’s see. I have sweet tea, diet cola, orange juice, some claret—”

  “Claret,” I declared.

  While she fetched the wine, I checked out the powder room. It was unremarkable, except for the Luba carvings from Africa displayed casually on a wicker shelf. They were of the finest quality, and deserved a better venue. On the other hand, what better place to sit and contemplate a work of art?

  When I returned to the great room, Thelma handed me a glass. “As I’m sure you know, claret is just another term for any of the numerous wines from the Bordeaux region of France. Although originally claret meant a pale wine that was a mixture of red and white. That dates back to the twelfth century—”

  I should have my mouth taped shut, but I interrupted her again. “Cheers,” I said, waving my glass aloft. “Now, tell me about your trip to Portugal with Dr. Whipperspoonbill.”

  15

  She must have blinked behind the bizarre lenses, because the twin kaleidoscopes exhibited a flurry of activity. “Well, I wasn’t there with just him. The entire group went along.”

  “What group would that be?”

  “Why, the Heavenly Hustlers, of course.”

  “When was this?”

/>   “Two years ago in May.”

  “That would be before Mama joined.”

  She nodded. “Mozella would have been a wonderful addition to the trip. Francis—well, all he cared about was the beaches. Wanted to see if the ladies went topless, I suppose, like they do on the Riviera. Can you blame me for breaking off our engagement?”

  I swallowed more claret than I’d intended. “You were engaged to each other?”

  Thelma Maypole patted the gray wedge of hair on the left side of her head. “We were engaged for three years,” she said, then lapsed into uncharacteristic silence.

  I waited for her to continue. I couldn’t imagine a union between her and Dr. Francis Lloyd Whipperspoonbill. On the other hand, I couldn’t imagine either of them married to anyone else.

  “The institution of marriage,” she finally said, “has been found to exist in all societies, past and present. The ancient Romans recognized three types of marriage: one for the patrician class, one for the plebeians, and one for slaves. In patrician families the event was called confarreatio and marked by—”

  I raised my glass of claret. “To marriage!”

  She raised her glass as well, and took a sip. “Francis was fine with our engagement, but backed out of getting married.” She chugged the rest of our wine. “At the last minute. He literally left me standing at the altar.”

  “Oh, my.”

  She nodded, making me dizzy with the resultant light show. “At St. Michaels, no less,” she said, referring to one of the nation’s most historical churches, which happens to be in Charleston. The building was constructed in 1752, and George Washington, the Marquis de Lafayette, and Robert E. Lee all attended services there.

  “That must have been embarrassing.”

  “It was beyond embarrassing. We had eight hundred guests, including the governor of South Carolina. Francis is well-connected, you see. At any rate, there I was, having just been walked down the aisle by my daddy, who was ninety-two at the time, when Francis backed out. And like I said, I meant that literally. He walked backward to a side door. That’s the last anyone saw of him that day.” She laughed briefly. “Well, Mama and Daddy were raised during the Depression, and since Daddy was paying for the wedding—Mama’s been dead since ’eighty-three—we went right on with the reception, which was held in the Exchange Building. And then, because our tickets to Aruba were nonrefundable, I went on my honeymoon. With Daddy—well, not with Daddy, but you know what I mean. We had the best time, probably even better than I would have had if Francis had been along instead.”