It was from Doug that I first heard the term “beauty disease.” “I see that you have the beauty disease too,” he’d said to me as he eyed the way I’d fixed up Pat’s Fripp house. After he’d explained it, it hit me that I’d suffered from the beauty disease all my life without knowing what to call it. According to Doug, you fell victim if you had an incurable longing for, and appreciation of, a beautiful setting. Some people could live happily in less-than-attractive or even squalid surroundings, while others literally sank into depression when forced to do so. “No wonder I never liked the part of South Alabama I was raised in,” I told Pat in a moment of clarity. “It’s ugly.” And it was true; I had always sought out beauty wherever I was and in whatever situation. With me, it was a deep longing, like the thirst for water. Finding myself in a spot of exceptional beauty, I literally drank it in. Thanks to Doug, I finally had a name for my affliction.
On the drive to Durham, Colonel Conroy and I had fun together, mostly by teasing Pat. We begged him to stop at a cheesy tourist attraction at the North Carolina state line called South of the Border. The place has corny road signs for miles to entice the weary traveler to make it a pit stop. For pure aggravation, Pat’s dad and I took turns reading the signs and laughing uproariously as though they were the cleverest New Yorker cartoons. “Chili today but hot tamale!” one of us would read, and Pat would groan. He agreed to stop there for lunch if we’d promise to shut the hell up. Although Pat and his dad thought their chili dogs were almost as good as the Varsity’s in Atlanta, I suspected my grilled cheese was Velveeta but dared not tell Pat. He would’ve said it served me right.
Doug and Melinda Marlette threw a big brunch for us at their stately historic home and invited three hundred of their closest friends. Among them were famous writers, journalists, musicians, and other big shots, too numerous to name. I hadn’t brought clothes for a party and felt self-conscious around the well-heeled guests. (A theme in my life!) In a treasured photo of me, Doug, and Pat, taken with UNC basketball coach Dean Smith, I’m wearing a plain white sweater with brown slacks, looking like Jane Eyre at Mr. Rochester’s fancy-dress ball. Whenever I was introduced as Pat’s fiancée to the party guests, I imagined they were wondering what on earth Pat could possibly see in such a mousy little schoolmarm.
No matter how I’d dressed I would’ve felt plain next to Melinda Marlette. Melinda’s one of the most gorgeous women I’ve ever known, and she has an equally beautiful spirit. When I needed a great beauty as an inspiration for a character in my second novel, The Sunday Wife, I knew immediately who my model would be. I don’t know if Melinda recognized herself, but Pat sure did. I was pleased when he asked me if my character Augusta was based on Melinda. Although Pat was a master at doing so, I’d never based a character on a real person before, and it’s much more difficult than it seems. It was strictly Melinda’s looks and vivacious personality I tried to capture, I told Pat; I knew that Melinda had better sense than my poor character, who came to a tragic end.
It surprised me to find that I wasn’t the only one at the party who felt out of their element. Although I’d seen Colonel Conroy hold court at several gatherings we’d hosted where he was witty and charming and always had a crowd around him, at the Marlettes’ brunch he kept slipping away to sit alone on a sunporch in the back. I nudged Pat, afraid his dad was unwell, but Pat shrugged it off. “Don’t let him fool you,” he said dismissively. “He’ll never admit it, but a literary crowd intimidates him. That’s why he’s hiding out.”
I fixed a couple of brunch plates, one for me and one for the colonel, then carried them to the sunporch. “So many folks came that Melinda’s brought out name tags,” I told him as I pulled a chair next to him and put my plate on it. “I’ll go get us some, but don’t let anyone take my plate while I’m gone, okay?”
To this day I don’t know what made me do it, but I suppose it was Pat’s claim that his father felt intimidated by the literati. I went to the table where the name tags lay in a basket and took two. On one I wrote the great santini. On mine I wrote harper lee, stuck it on, then returned to my chair. The colonel eyed me suspiciously as he placed his name tag on his red sports jacket, but he made no comment about my new identity.
As the crowd swelled, the sunporch filled up. Now that he was tagged and recognizable, the Great Santini attracted a crowd. Pleased, I turned my attention to the scrumptious brunch and was digging in when Colonel Conroy stopped me cold, my fork halfway to my mouth. I heard him say to the crowd, “Have you met my friend, Miss Harper Lee?” I looked up from my plate with my cheeks aflame. The colonel’s blue eyes sparkled with mischief, just like his son’s did when he was up to no good.
Before I could explain that it was just a silly joke, a woman knelt in front of me and clasped her hands together reverently. “Oh, Miss Lee!” she cried. “This is the greatest honor of my life. I have always dreamed of meeting you.”
Her friends gasped and joined in, cooing and exclaiming and carrying on about To Kill a Mockingbird while I sat there frozen in dismay. When one of them began digging through her purse for a pen, the colonel said sternly, “No, no. No pictures, no autographs. Thank you for stopping by, but Miss Lee needs her privacy. You understand.”
Practically genuflecting, the women hurried off in a flurry of thank-yous and excited titters. I heard one of them say she expected Miss Lee to be much older, but her friend whispered that with all Harper Lee’s money, she could surely afford a facelift or two. I ripped off the name tag and breathed a sigh of relief as soon as they were out of sight. Pat’s dad held out his plate. “If it’s not beneath the dignity of such a famous writer, how about getting me a refill? But no grits. I don’t eat that southern crap.”
I looked around nervously. “You think it’s safe? Those women are bound to tell folks that Harper Lee’s here. Oh God, why did I do such a stupid thing? Pat’s going to kick me out.”
“If he does, you let me know and I’ll brain him.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah, I hear you’re good at that.”
The colonel scoffed. “He’s always been a liar. Makes his living at it.”
I stood up and took his plate. “All writers do.”
“So I see,” he said with a snort. “All of you, nothing but a bunch of damn lunatics.”
* * *
There was only one time that I saw a flash of the old Santini, and it wasn’t a pretty sight. One of the colonel’s girlfriends came for a visit when he was staying with us on Fripp, and I prepared a nice dinner for the four of us. Pat had gladly relinquished the task to me. He’d opted out by saying cooking a nice dinner for his dad was a waste of time that he could spend writing. He’d learned that his dad had no culinary tastes whatsoever and actually preferred canned or frozen to Pat’s offerings of fresh and local. Since the colonel was a meat-and-potatoes guy (no surprise there), I fixed pork chops and gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and, of course, good old American apple pie.
Carrying food to the table, I missed the moment it happened, so I don’t know what tripped the Great Santini’s fuse or what exactly was said. Everything had been congenial when I called us to dinner and pointed out the seating arrangement. Just as I set the platter of pork chops down, the colonel turned to snarl at the girlfriend. Although I didn’t catch what he said to her, his tone was sharp and vicious sounding. A deadly silence fell over the table like a pall. Horrified, I sank into my chair by Pat, who froze in place. It was like a stab to my heart to notice Pat’s hands tremble as he picked up his fork. For a terrible moment, the tension was high and tight. I dared glance at Santini’s girlfriend, whose face flamed red in embarrassment. But slowly and with great dignity, she nodded at me and said, “Pass the pork chops, would you, dear?”
Conversation resumed and the tension dissipated, but I was visibly shaken. Later I snuggled up to Pat in bed but said nothing of the evening. He held me close and kissed my forehead. “Welcome to my life, kiddo,” he said with a weary sigh.
A big
birthday feast was planned for the Great Santini’s seventy-seventh birthday on April 4, 1998, and relatives from far and near came for the occasion. Most of them knew it’d be the last time they’d see him alive. He was released from the hospital just for the party, and jaundice had made him weak and yellowish. But he held court stretched out grandly in Pat’s recliner, clad in a hospital gown and draped with a plaid blanket. Because there were so many folks to serve, we’d gotten barbecue from town, supplemented by dishes I’d made and others that the guests brought.
I’d not only decorated the house with birthday banners and streamers but also made three birthday cakes. Colonel Conroy looked ghastly, but not surprisingly, he kept up a good front and was as entertaining as ever. The truth was painfully obvious to his kids, however, when he called Kathy to his side while the party was still going full swing. “Hey, Sissy?” he said to his youngest daughter. “You and the boys get me out of here without anyone noticing. Think I need to go back to the hospital.”
The Great Santini died almost a month to the day after the birthday celebration. Pat’s daughters, as well as his nephews and niece, were heartbroken by the loss of their beloved grandfather. It had both amused and peeved Pat and his siblings to see how their father had doted on his grandchildren, like every normal grandfather in the world. Where was the brutal man they’d known? I couldn’t answer that, of course, but I imagine that Don Conroy is not the only man who knew he’d messed up with his own children and looked at the next generation as a chance to make amends.
* * *
It was several days after his father’s funeral when Pat and I ran away to get married. One thing we knew for sure—we didn’t want any hoopla or publicity surrounding our wedding, so we didn’t tell anybody about it. Even I didn’t know about it at first (yet Pat called me Helen Keller?). He was always one for surprises, and it would take me years to learn to read him. Not that I ever did, but it got a little easier as time went by. After I’d come to live with him, I’d written Pat’s daughters and my sons a letter in an attempt to explain our insanity in joining forces at our age and stage in life. I hoped they understood it, I said in the letter, because neither Pat nor I did. Truer words have never been spoken.
Our marriage had come about as inexplicably as everything else in our relationship had. Sometime earlier that spring, we’d driven to Atlanta for Pat to give a speech. Instead of bypassing the downtown area as we always did when we drove through Augusta, Pat drove downtown and parked the car without a single word to me. I looked at him puzzled, then eyed the neighborhood. Was there a coffeehouse I’d missed? Had Pat decided we needed an early lunch?
“I’ve always wanted to look in this store,” Pat said after he opened the car door for me. Even more puzzled, I followed him into a jewelry store called The Raven’s Horde. Like most men I know, Pat detested shopping. It was hard to believe that he’d “always” wanted to look in any place except a bookstore, where he could spend hours. What he told the clerk at the counter left me speechless. “Hello, sir!” Pat said in greeting. “We’re looking for a couple of wedding rings. What’ve you got in stock?”
A couple of wedding rings? Oh, really? Then pray tell, when was the wedding? My invitation must’ve been lost in the mail. That Christmas when Pat’d asked me what kind of engagement ring I wanted, I’d told him I didn’t want one. My ex had given me one that I made him take back, and he’d been as baffled as Pat. I didn’t explain, but it went back to the only engagement ring I’d ever worn. My college boyfriend had proposed and proudly given me his grandmother’s treasured and beautifully set diamond. I wore it racked with guilt because the truth was, I didn’t want to marry him or anyone else. When I gave it back to him a few weeks later, the experience was so traumatic I swore to never put on another one. I never have.
As we stood at the jewelry counter, I poked Pat with my elbow, hard, but he ignored me as the clerk pulled out a black velvet tray. And in the midst of all those ordinary rings were two gold bands, one large and the other small, with exquisite engraving that appeared to be Celtic. “Let’s see those,” Pat told the guy.
Even to this day, I don’t know if the whole thing was Pat’s version of the ring-hidden-in-the-chocolate-mousse trick or not, but both rings fit us perfectly. “We’ll take them,” Pat said without even glancing my way. Which was just as well, since I was so astonished that my mouth hung open like a fool. Had he arranged it previously, or was it sheer coincidence? I’ll never know. Pat would only smile mysteriously whenever I asked, but never told me the truth.
More surprises were to come. As we drove off with the two ring boxes in my lap, I dared to ask him. “Ah, Pat? Is there something you want to tell me?”
When he glanced my way, his bright Irish eyes twinkled. “Nothing I can think of. Why?”
I motioned toward the boxes. “Oh, no reason. Just sort of wondering what I’m supposed to do with these.”
“Well, the smaller one, I put on your finger, and the bigger one, you put on mine. You know—‘with this ring I thee wed’ and all that shit.”
“Oh. And . . . ah . . . when might all this take place? Best I remember, we haven’t set a date.” The seriousness of his dad’s illness had made wedding plans seem frivolous, and we’d agreed to wait for happier times before planning anything definite.
He shrugged. “I called Alex yesterday to see when he could marry us. I’ll let you know when he calls me back.”
“Yeah. Might be a good idea if you did.”
* * *
After our wedding in Charleston we drove home to Fripp Island. Having done the with-this-ring-I-thee-wed stuff, both of us had our rings on. I kept glancing at mine to make sure it was real. On the drive to Charleston to do the dirty deed, I’d had a moment of anxiety. I looked over at poor Pat and thought, Oh my God! What are we doing? I don’t know this man. I have no idea who he is. And furthermore, I don’t even want to. I just want out. When I rolled down the window to get some fresh air, Pat asked if I was okay. Unable to speak, I stared at him in sheer panic. Surely he must be feeling the same way! Before I could let him off the hook, tell him that we were making a huge mistake and to turn the car around, he reached over and took my hand. Without taking his eyes off the road, he raised my hand to his lips, kissed it lightly, then said, “It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. Trust me.” And that was all it took to calm me down.
“We’ve got company,” Pat said with a grin when we pulled into our yard at Fripp after driving home from our wedding in Charleston. I spotted Kathy’s car immediately, but it took me a minute to register that the other car in our driveway—a beat-up rattletrap covered in bumper stickers—was my son Jake’s. I remembered then, something about this being the weekend he was driving his girlfriend from Charlotte, where they were both in college, to her home in Jacksonville. On his way back, he might stop by Fripp, he’d told me. Unbeknownst to either of them, by showing up unexpected that afternoon both Kathy and Jake had crashed our honeymoon.
Jake was on the beach and would’ve no doubt been oblivious even if he hadn’t been, but Kathy was another matter. To explain Pat’s wearing his best suit and me a lacy blouse and skirt—unusual attire for both of us—I told Kathy as nonchalantly as I could manage that we’d been in Charleston for an event. Then both of us scampered off to change clothes. When I returned to the kitchen in my shorts and T-shirt, Kathy had curiously opened the white box I’d left on the countertop, which contained the remains of the small wedding cake Zoe Sanders had baked and decorated for us.
Instead of just asking outright what the devil we were doing with a half-eaten wedding cake, Kathy pointed to me. “Oh my God! Let me see your left hand,” she demanded. When I obliged, she squealed and hugged me. Coming in from the beach at that exact moment, Jake wanted to know what all the squealing was about. “Welcome to the Conroy clan, Jake,” Kathy told him. The secret was out.
Chapter 7
A Room of My Own
Now that the deed was finally done and we’d commit
ted ourselves to each other for better or for worse, Pat and I settled into our new life together with each of us praying it’d be the former rather than the latter.
“Did we really do what I think we did this afternoon?” I asked Pat when I came into our room on our wedding night. We were alone; I’d told Jake he didn’t have to run off, but he’d left to stay with a buddy at the College of Charleston. Pat was propped up in bed reading as he did every night, and I pulled back the covers to join him, picking up the book I’d left on the bedside table. Not even one day yet and we’d already turned into an old married couple.
“Having second thoughts?” Pat asked without taking his eyes off his book.
“Nope.” I propped up beside him and turned to the page I’d bookmarked the night before. “You?”
“Nope.”
We read in silence for a few minutes, then Pat turned a page and said, “I love you, wife.”
With a smile I responded, “I love you, too. Want a bowl of ice cream? I got sugarless.”
Pat gave me a thumbs-up and turned another page. When I got to the door he stopped me, meeting my eyes for the first time that star-lit night of our honeymoon. “Wife? Put some hot fudge sauce on mine, okay?”
With a laugh, I opened the bedroom door. “Nice try, husband.”
* * *
It would soon become clear to me that Pat was not your run-of-the-mill husband, and I mean that in the best possible way. He didn’t question my whereabouts if I ran late or accuse me of running around on him. But even more important to me, he didn’t demand my undivided attention and devotion—which was just as well, since he wasn’t likely to get it. He had my devotion, but attention was another matter. Most of the time a writer lives in his/her own little world, creating plots and timelines and characters, which can cause problems in a relationship. It’s difficult to be intimate with someone whose mind is elsewhere. Pat had more than one relationship fall apart, he told me, because he spent too much time in his “other world” and not enough with his companion. Made sense to me since I was peculiar that way as well. Because of our peculiarities, sometimes I wonder if writers should only marry other writers.
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