The Hurricane Sisters

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Would I actually be working with abused women and children, because I’m not sure I could take it. I mean, let me rephrase that, I couldn’t take it. I’d cry all day long.”

  “No worries, darlin’ child, you’ll be answering phones, making phone calls, running errands, and setting up appointments. When you get your doctorate in psychology, you can decide if you want to get more involved with the cause. And I expect you will. How are your Internet skills?”

  “About the same as anybody my age,” she said.

  “Which puts you light-years ahead of me and Tom. Good. We have a website and a presence on all the social media sites too. You can help manage them. Here. Take this folder. It has all the information you need to come to work here. And Mary Beth?”

  “Yes?”

  “Tell Samir your aunt Liz said he should go to hell and stay there. Clayton and I will find you a nice young man.”

  “That would be awesome. Can I really call you Aunt Liz? And can I give you a hug?”

  “Oh, what the heck. But call me Mizz Liz, okay?”

  I stood up and she hugged me with all her might. The poor child.

  “Oh! And please don’t tell Ashley about what I said. I was just so worried. And here’s the thing. Right now they’re broken up? But by tomorrow they might not be. I just don’t want her to be mad with me.”

  “You secret is safe with me.”

  Wasn’t it sort of wonderful that I was able to look at Mary Beth’s situation and inside of an hour we’d hatched a plan to get her life moving in a stronger, more positive direction? Now I needed to do the same thing for Ashley. I wondered if there was any reason to worry for Ashley’s safety and decided there probably was not. All the same, something in the back of my head told me to be vigilant, not unreasonably intrusive, just vigilant.

  When Mary Beth left, I called Ashley.

  “Hi, Mom! What’s going on?”

  “Nothing too much. Just watching the new hurricane, Melissa. So far it’s not so scary. But it’s Noreen that looks to be a stinker. Maybe.”

  “Whatever. How’s Dad?”

  “Dad’s great. He’s here for a while. I thought maybe this weekend you might like to come home. Bring Mary Beth. We can have a hurricane party.”

  “Well, since my social life blew up again . . . how’s Saturday night? We can help you cook and clean up. And Mary Beth makes awesome eggs Benedict. Maybe we could do that for Sunday brunch?”

  “That sounds great. See you!”

  She had not said a word about Clayton and I wondered then if she even knew I went to New York at all. Was it possible that Ivy and Maisie didn’t blab it to the world? Well, stranger things have happened.

  CHAPTER 19

  Ashley—Tied Up

  When I wasn’t wallowing in despair and painting like mad, I was still furious with Porter. Just who did he think he was anyway? God’s gift to women? Well, he wasn’t. And he wasn’t going to tell me how to live my life anymore either. But the truth? He was really an idiot because I had loved him and I would’ve been so good for him. I had the perfect résumé to be the flawless politician’s wife. Maybe I was young and a little naive but the world loved a new fresh face, especially one with deep roots and a solid family to back . . . okay, maybe my family was from another planet sometimes. But basically, we loved one another, in spite of the things we did. Loving one another was the most important thing. And we weren’t that different from the rest of the population, really. Were we? Didn’t every family have at least one relative they wished they could stick in the attic? I liked to think of us as sweet eccentrics, evolving past our own quirks together, finding new quirks. Okay, I’ll admit it; if we were held up to public scrutiny, we might not show so well. But who does? Dad says only butt-kissing lightweights run for public office and that the real power in the United States is in the boardrooms and on Wall Street. He’s probably right. Anyway, it didn’t matter because I wasn’t seeing Porter anymore. Besides, I’m only twenty-three and I still just want to paint. Someday my prince will come. I was just really disappointed because I thought he already had.

  It was early Monday afternoon and the gallery was closed. Mary Beth and I were home, doing laundry and cleaning up the house. I had been in my studio all morning and went back to the house to do chores. Mary Beth was acting odd, like she wasn’t telling me something. It could’ve been anything. Maybe her hormones were giving her a fit. We had decided that, in spite of the hurricane that was hovering over the Virgin Islands, we were going to throw one more party that Friday night and then go out of the party business. Forever. I had over a thousand dollars in my shoebox and it seemed like that ought to be enough for a while. I’d just sit on it until we came up with a new scheme.

  “It’s too risky,” I said.

  “Well, it was fun while it lasted,” she said.

  “My mom, who suddenly has ESP,” I said, “thinks this stupid hurricane Melissa is going to give us a wallop on Saturday. She called me and she wants us to come over to her house to spend the night. She says we can have a hurricane party. I told her you’d make eggs Benedict Sunday morning.”

  I was folding towels and Mary Beth was scrubbing the countertops with a disinfectant cleaning spray and a vengeance. The whole room smelled like lemons. I loved the scent.

  “Sure. That sounds like fun, actually.”

  “Did you call Tommy about Friday?”

  “All taken care of. He’s superexcited about some expensive new tie he just bought from Ben Silver. Apparently it’s got itty-bitty martini glasses all over it. So he’s going to wear it Friday.”

  “That’s pretty sweet,” I said. “He’s a nice guy.”

  “Yeah, and he’s got Ed lined up to bartend, and I’ve got Ursula coming to help with the kitchen.”

  “Ursula? Is that her name? Really?”

  “No. I call her Ursula like the octopus from The Little Mermaid? Remember her? She has so many arms she can load the dishwasher in like ten minutes?”

  “That’s funny.” I laughed.

  “Yeah, well, anyway, I’ll go to Costco tomorrow and get everything.” She stood back from the counter and scrutinized it, looking for streaks. “This looks clean enough, doesn’t it?”

  “Gosh! The counters look brand-new! For real!”

  “Thanks! I did a booze inventory and all we really need for Friday are two liters of vodka. No biggie. And of course, we need white wine.”

  “I can come with you and help carry everything. I’m only working until six.”

  “I wish you could, but I’ve got a gig tomorrow night. Hey, have you heard from Porter?”

  “No. And this time I’m sure I won’t.”

  “Oh, yes, you will. He’ll turn up. They all come back, sniffing around until something else makes them stop, like another alley cat.”

  “Maybe, but I really don’t want to see him, Mary Beth. Not after what happened.”

  “Yeah, there’s nothing like date rape to leave a bad taste in your mouth about a guy. What a complete and total piece of shit he is. If you’d say something, you could put a stop to him, you know. You could do the world a huge public service and take him off the stage.”

  “Sorry, let somebody else do that. And listen, at some point I would’ve gone to bed with him anyway. The worst part was that we were so incompatible.”

  “Ashley, listen to me and listen good, okay? Don’t kid yourself. The worst part is that he forced himself on you. Beyond a doubt that is the worst part. And you know what? I’m glad you were so incompatible. You deserve so much better than him. I hope he’s out of your life. If he comes back begging, please don’t let him in.”

  “I know. I won’t. I just can’t bring myself to face what he really did to me. And here’s the extremely crazy part—some part of me sort of still misses him, Mary Beth. What’s the matter with me? I can’t help it.”
>
  “You don’t miss him. You miss what could’ve been. You were dreaming up a fairy tale for yourself but who knows? You might wind up as first lady of the United States anyway, if that’s what’s meant to be.”

  “It’s just such a disappointment,” I said.

  “I know. I told Samir to shove it too. I’m just too normal for him. He needs a freak, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.”

  “Bless his weird little heart,” I said. We sort of laughed then and some tension seemed to have disappeared. “What happened?”

  Mary Beth paused for a long moment and then she spoke.

  “Well, you’re going to find out anyway so I may as well tell you now.”

  “What? Tell me what?”

  “It was your mom who made me see how stupid it was to be wasting my time with him. I went to have lunch with her because of you, only because I was so worried . . .”

  “You did what?”

  “Hang on! Let me explain!”

  Here came the whole story tumbling out of her about how she went to see my mom and told her about Porter and all, except she didn’t tell my mom what happened the last time I saw him. I will never be able to call it what it was, maybe because it would paint me as a victim and I couldn’t stand the thought of that. At first I was really angry that Mary Beth told my mother the things she did, but then I heard new details about her family, things that I’d never known. And my mom, formerly known as the Impossible (one half of a very impossible duo), was getting Mary Beth off her derriere to apply to graduate school? And she was going to work at My Sister’s House? By then I was so proud of Big Liz I could’ve cried. So I did. I cried my heart out because Mary Beth was crying too. All the anxiety and bitter disappointment we felt had turned into a flood of tears. We just let it all go.

  “How come you didn’t tell her about what he did to me?”

  “Because she had an excuse for everything I did tell her.”

  “What? She did?”

  “Ash, even you don’t want to admit you were raped!”

  “I know. And I probably never will. To tell you the truth, I still don’t understand how you found the guts to tell her anything.”

  “Because I was scared, Ashley. Look, if you were really my sister, I would’ve told our mom what was going on. And you’re practically my sister, aren’t you?”

  “Of course I am! We’ve been sisters since the first day of college.”

  “And your mom is more a mother to me than my real one. She’s just up there in Tennessee letting my dad whale on her whenever he feels like it.”

  “That’s just so wrong. How come you never told me about your dad?”

  “Because I was ashamed, Ashley. And I guess when your family is so violent and dangerous you’re afraid to talk about it because it might make it worse. It was so terrible living in that house. The secrets! The manipulation! You can’t imagine how glad I am to be away from them. I still have nightmares all the time. And I probably will for the rest of my life.”

  “Oh, gosh. I’m just so sorry, Mary Beth. But you’re safe here.”

  “I know. But you weren’t safe. I just couldn’t stand by and watch it go on. You couldn’t see it but Porter is exactly like my father. Everyone thinks he’s so nice and all, but he’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. I never knew which one was in the house when I came home. It was so scary. And it’s the same thing with Porter. Everyone thinks he’s this saint but he’s not. I mean, Ash, Porter shows every single classic sign of being an abuser.”

  She went to her purse and pulled out some papers.

  “Read this,” she said, flipping through them until she found the one she wanted. “Your mom gave this to me.”

  The headline read, “Profile of an Abuser.” Porter fit every single characteristic. He claimed that he loved me at first sight, he wanted a commitment, he wanted to stereotype me into some female archetype from the 1950s, he was jealous and possessive, and he didn’t like my friends. On and on it went and I could find him in every line, especially the part about nonconsensual sex. And when I got to the part about the learned responses of the victim, there I was on every single line, especially the section about defending him.

  Now we really started to cry. I got a box of tissues and put it in between us on the kitchen counter. I pulled two and handed them to her and took two for myself. I had been headed into an abusive relationship and my dear friend who had suffered so badly at the hands of her own father had tried to save me from a similar fate.

  “This makes me wish I had the courage to stand up to him and tell him what I really think of him, you know?”

  “Well, maybe someday you’ll get the chance. At least you’re out of that screwed-up situation.”

  “Yeah. We’ve got to get your mom out of there, Mary Beth.”

  “I know, I know. Once I admitted to your mom how bad it was at home, it took on a whole different meaning. I couldn’t believe what was coming out of my mouth. I realized I was in denial about it all these years. Sort of like, if I didn’t ever verbalize it, then maybe it wasn’t true? And now with my brothers out of the house, my mother takes the brunt of all his anger. What’s the matter with me?”

  “I’m no better.” Somehow through all my sniffling and blowing my nose I said, “My mom will help her. She will. It’s what she does.”

  “She said she would.”

  “Then she will. Oh my God. My poor mother. Between my father’s stupid fling, and your stuff and now mine? I have to do something nice for her. I haven’t been thinking about her at all. I really haven’t.”

  “Maybe this weekend we could take her like a ton of flowers or something?” Mary Beth said.

  “Awesome idea. She loves flowers. If we spend fifty dollars at the Bi-Lo we can fill up the house.”

  “Awesome. Let’s do it.”

  We dried our eyes and hugged and went back to the business of planning Friday’s soiree and saying yeah and awesome. Life was already so much better.

  I worked Tuesday and Wednesday without much to report except that Dad had gone back to New York. He was retiring. He was also packing up the apartment and putting it on the market. I knew it was a good idea, but I was sort of sad about it for my own reasons. I liked the idea of having an apartment there that belonged to us. I was still hoping against hope that I’d be able to scrape up enough money to go and stay there for a few weeks. I seriously needed to see all the museums and all the galleries or else I may as well give up on being a painter altogether. Yes, I could paint commissioned portraits without the inspiration of other artists, but I didn’t want to be that kind of an artist. The very idea of it was depressing and made me feel like I’d always be a local amateur. The alternative was to open my own gallery and represent younger artists who made edgier stuff. That was my fallback. And I could show my own stuff from time to time.

  By late Thursday afternoon, the ocean was looking pretty crazy. Mary Beth and I were standing on the portico. The salt spray was stinging our faces, causing us to squint. The ocean was churning and roiling. And the color of the water was deeper, closer to black than blue. The charcoal sky was filled with fast-moving clouds and the wind was picking up, whipping all the palmettos and oleanders around like they were destined to take off and fly away. There was no question that a really nasty storm was coming to town.

  “Do you think we should cancel tomorrow?” Mary Beth said, trying in vain to hold her hair in a ponytail.

  “I don’t know. I mean, it might be exciting for people to see the harbor like this. It’s getting wilder, but I don’t think it’s dangerous, do you?”

  “Nah, but we should keep watching the weather.”

  “Call Tommy. See what he thinks.”

  “Okay,” she said, tapped his number into her phone, and walked back inside. “Hey! You got a minute?”

  My cell phone was ringing too, so I ran i
nside to answer it. By the time I got there it went to voice mail. It was Porter. I wasn’t calling him back.

  Mary Beth walked back toward me. I was standing just inside the room off the portico, watching the weather.

  “What did Tommy say?” I asked.

  “He said we should turn on Eyewitness News and keep it on. We both agreed that since we already have a dump truck’s worth of food, we should try to have it. But if they start talking about closing bridges, we should cancel.”

  “I think we should have everyone come in trench coats and dark glasses and call it a spy party,” I said. “Tommy doesn’t stand to lose anything except his tip jar. We’ve got a boatload of shrimp salad and it wasn’t cheap.”

  “You and your theme parties!” she said. “Why are you holding your phone? Who called?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  I shook my head. “No message either.”

  “What an ass.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “He sure is.”

  The rain started on Friday morning, right after I got up to go to work. I stared out the bathroom window while I was brushing my teeth. The yard was already starting to puddle. It seemed like the wind wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been yesterday. Still, in this kind of weather there wouldn’t be a single soul in the gallery that day so it was kind of stupid for me to even go in. It would be like stealing money from the Turners. I’d wait until nine and then I’d call and see what they thought. I pulled on a cotton sweater and a skirt. I’d need my rain boots if I went out. I wondered where they were.

  Mary Beth was in the kitchen making coffee.

  “Good day for the ducks, like Maisie says,” I said. “What do you think?”

  “I think it’s a mess out there. Let’s flip on the news.” She picked up the remote and clicked through a few stations until she found a local weather report.

  A very serious meteorologist with his shirtsleeves rolled up as if he’d been up all night spoke to the camera while the map behind him came to life. Various ribbons of colors moved across the coast, blinking and undulating like neon-colored snakes.