Plantation

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “Not home. Over at that kid’s apartment.”

  “Okay, tell him I called and that I love him? He can call me tonight.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  We hung up and I kicked off my shoes and crawled back under the covers of my unmade bed. I let my mind float while I mused about Mother, about Richard and the life I had chosen for myself. I used to think that I could never be happy anywhere but New York, away from Mother’s politics and protocol, away from Trip and Frances Mae. I began to fret that maybe those choices had robbed me of something larger.

  The sheets were cool and my pillows were so soft, I could have slept again, except that Mother was at my doorway. She didn’t make a sound, but I knew she was there. I could feel her.

  “Come on in, Mother,” I said, through closed eyes.

  “If you need to nap, that’s fine. I just was hoping you’d talk to me.”

  I patted the bed beside me and instead, she sat carefully on the end.

  “So, Miss Lavinia, what’s going on with the Queen of Tall Pines?”

  She loved that title and the corners of her mouth turned up in amusement. “Oh, Caroline, I don’t know. Golly. Let’s see.” She began by counting on her fingers. “I’ve got Daniel Boone for a son, that is, when he’s not being Perry Mason, an incontinent gold digger for a daughter-in-law, a huge house, an old lady with a sassy mouth for a manager, and I’m no spring chicken myself.”

  “Not too bad,” I said, and smiled at her. I propped myself up on my right elbow to show her I was interested. “There are worse things. So Mother? Wanna tell me what’s really going on around here?”

  She looked at me long and hard, understanding that she needed me as her ally and unsure of what had transpired on my boat ride with Trip.

  “I was out with Sweetie and Nancy on the courses. We got a little tipsy and I tripped and fell off the quail wagon. I know it was irresponsible of us to drink and shoot and we have all made a pact to never do it again. Raoul and I are no longer seeing each other, but I want you to know I have not one regret about my affair with him. He was good to me, Caroline. I had fun. Period. I was upset when he dumped me for Martha, but I got over it.”

  “Trip said you moped around for weeks.”

  “It probably appeared that way to him, but he is always here snooping around, and it irritates me. I feel like they are plotting my demise, he and that horrible wife of his.”

  “I won’t let them do that, Mother. Tell me, how is Jenkins?”

  “May I let you in on a little secret?”

  I held my breath and waited for her to confide that she was now sleeping with him. “Sure, I love secrets!”

  “I’m teaching him to read! I go over to his cottage every morning and we practice. Don’t tell Millie, though. She thinks he’s literate because he’s handled all the money she gives him for feed and seed all these years. I don’t want her to know. Jenkins has been too good to this family to have him embarrassed. Wait here just a moment, I’ll show you his workbook.”

  Relief waved through me like a flash flood. She was teaching him to read! Thank God. Hell, when I got my hands on Trip, I’d kick his butt. Mother came back in and opened the spiral notebook for me.

  “Look, here is what he could do last fall.” She showed me a sample of his handwriting that was all jagged and sloppy. She flipped to the end of the book. “This was how he was doing in February. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

  “Mother, you are remarkable!”

  “Thank you, Caroline. I must say I’m pretty proud of Jenkins. It proves that an old dog is never too ancient to learn a new trick, doesn’t it?”

  I couldn’t help but lean over and hug her. “You are some girl, Lavinia, do you know that?”

  “That’s Miss Lavinia to you! I’m still your mother!”

  We smiled at each other. In that moment, I forgave her everything and just wanted to help her secure her future.

  “Hey, what about dinner tonight?”

  “Would you believe they are coming back?”

  “No!”

  “If I were Frances Mae Litchfield, I’d have my husband drop me off at the Hess station and I’d wait there! But, she called. Very penitent. Just a few minutes ago.”

  “Every word! I want every word!” I kicked off the covers and sat cross-legged, facing her. “Unbelievable.”

  “Caroline? Were you under my sheets in those jeans?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t you know they could have fleas or any number of unsanitary things on them?”

  “Sorry, Mother. Just tell me about Miss Thing’s apology and I’ll change the sheets later.”

  “Where was I? Oh! Yes!” Mother stood up and put her hand over her heart and looked up to the ceiling. “Well, she called and in that sickening little goo-goo, redneck voice of hers she said, ‘Mother Wimbley? I am calling to offer my most sincere apology for my behavior and my children’s behavior last night. I don’t rightly know what come over me but I sure enough did make a big old jackass out of myself and I am truly, truly sorry for it from the bottom of my heart! Can you find it in yours to forgive this poor sinner? If y’all will give us a second chance we will bring dinner to you tonight, so’s y’all don’t have to drive that dark road!’ What could I say? So, I said, ‘Bless your heart, Frances Mae, don’t think another thing about it!’”

  “Like Eric says, I’m gonna hurl chunks!”

  “My grandson talks like that?”

  I nodded my head.

  “He’s just like my Nevil! What a devil your daddy was!”

  “Gosh, let’s hope not.” She looked at me, obviously not understanding what I meant.

  “Call her back and suggest something simple like a barbecue on the grill. Y’all can eat on the verandah. The girls can run around like nuts and they’re not stuck at a table.”

  “What do you mean, ‘y’all’? We can have a round of sporting clays.” She was mentally filling a thermos with mint juleps.

  “No cocktails until the guns are put away, okay?”

  “Yes, you’re right, of course.” She narrowed her eyebrows at me. “You’re not saying that because of what happened with Trip, are you?”

  “Let’s just say that my husband had some advice for you to keep the hyenas at bay.” She waited for me to continue. “Gun safety, and, most important, change your power of attorney immediately.”

  “Oh, do you think so? Caroline, that really disappoints me. Truly, it does. Do you think they’d actually try to steal my house out from under me?”

  “No, but I think you need to send them a message that this is your house and that you’re in charge of your life, not them. And, by the way, I’m not speaking to her, so if she comes here trying to act like everything’s okay, count me out.” I rolled over and put the pillow over my head so I wouldn’t hear the lecture that would spew forth from Mother’s lips any second like a geyser.

  “What?”

  There wasn’t a pillow on the planet that could drown out Lavinia when she wanted to be heard. She jerked the pillow from my hands and threw it on the floor.

  “Now, you hear me, missy, we have forgiven her!”

  “Correction. You have forgiven her.”

  “Caroline Wimbley! You listen to me!”

  “Levine?”

  “Whatever. You’re still a Wimbley. I do not like to think that we can’t have this tiny family of ours together once a year without a world war. I am sure that whatever she said to you, she’s sorry now. And, Caroline, she’s pregnant.”

  “Mother, she’s always pregnant. Her ovaries do not excuse her tongue.”

  “Out with it! Tell me what she said! Immediately or I’ll go in the yard and cut a switch!”

  I just stared at her, debating whether to tell her, knowing she’d use it against Frances Mae as a weapon the next time she got under her skin.

  “I will do it! I’ll cut a thin little thing from the china-berry tree and sting the back of your legs with it, if you don’t tell me!�
�

  What was the use? If we were all going to share the same truth, I had to be a part of it too, not judge and jury.

  “She said Eric was retarded and everybody knew it.”

  Dead silence. Mother was flabbergasted. We just stared at each other until Mother finally said, “We know no such thing and she will apologize to you or she will never come in this house again.”

  “Good luck, you’re the one with the keys to her conscience, not me.”

  “I’m calling my attorney this minute,” she said, leaving my room in a great flourish.

  I hoped she would.

  I waited for Millie to come around to help me set the supper table, which the rest of the world called the dinner table. Trip went home to Satan’s sister and Mother napped. Lunch, which we called dinner, had been another feast. The entire house smelled like cloves. Millie had glazed and baked a fruited ham, slow-cooked collard greens in onions and fatback, fried okra in cornmeal, and stewed tomatoes, onions, and baby lima beans, and served it up on a nest of steaming, fluffy white rice. Every time I took another bite of meat, I scooped up a spoon of Mrs. Sassard’s artichoke relish with it. Needless to say, there was a basket of fresh corn bread on the table, which Millie refilled three times. I drank three glasses of sweet tea and ate so much I thought I might explode while Trip and Mother gave me the gears about being a vegetarian.

  “Yanh,” Trip had said, “have some more ham, missy, and tell me again how long you’ve been a vegetarian?”

  Mother giggled and so did he.

  “Shut up, you big creep, and just pass it, okay?”

  “Trip?” Mother said. “Be a good boy and pass the pepper vinegar to your sister for her collards. There’s not much fatback in there, Caroline. Just to flavor.” She giggled again.

  If Mother had called her lawyer, she never mentioned it. But her mood was so light, I assumed she had. Trip was busy bingeing and suspected nothing. Thank God for that.

  After lunch, I had time alone and walked the grounds, thinking. Okay, so it became apparent that maybe I wasn’t a devout vegetarian. Ham! Fatback! In a mere twenty-four hours, I’d realized that maybe I wasn’t a devout anything!

  Hated home with a passion? How come I called the bedroom where I slept my room? Why was I running the Edisto with Trip and bragging? About the purity of the water? The wildlife and vegetation? Rejoicing at the smells of the earth? Who forced me to marvel at the sunset last night?

  Student of yoga and Eastern religions? Hell, last night I was out with Millie on her golf cart practicing voodoo! Loving the memories of playing with her statues! Remembering the power of her herbs and spells! Agreeing to carry on her traditions!

  Happily married? Listen, I knew that in my mind I had been castrating Richard every chance I got. But I ran to him to hide from myself! I didn’t want to feel! I wanted to stay numb! What was the episode or series of incidents that had brought me to this?

  Normal? I was normal? Excuse me, did anyone hear me talking to the walls of Tall Pines or to my dead father? It was that lousy caul, that’s what. Maybe I had been duped by a membrane, tricked by the city lights of New York, held captive by a brain repair specialist. No, maybe, just maybe, I considered for a moment, it wasn’t Mother who was so bad. Maybe I was just afraid. Afraid I’d have to choose.

  By the time Millie arrived to help with supper, I had worked myself into a world-class snit. I had even jogged around the plantation instead of doing my yoga.

  Millie was outside wiping down the table. That table and all the furniture out there had been one of the smartest things Old Lavinia had ever hauled home. For years, we sat in the dining room in sweltering heat. When Daddy died, Mother redid the verandah with ceiling fans and the old wicker, which had belonged to some dead relative, was repainted white.

  Each piece of the wicker collection, a dozen or more in all, weighed a ton. They were heavily detailed with spirals and finials and where there was wood, it was hand-carved with ducks and marsh grass. The cushions on the sofas, chaises, and chairs were dark green to match the shutters of the house. The whole side of the house looked like something from a cover of Southern Living magazine.

  I brought out a tray of glasses and plates and put them on the glass top of the table.

  “Miss L laid up in the sack?” Millie said.

  “Yeah, God, and she’s snoring so loud you can yanh her all over the house!” Back for one day and I was already saying yanh this and yanh that.

  “She’s happy to have you home, girl. You know that?”

  “Nah, she’s just resting up to cut Frances Mae’s fat ass, that’s all.”

  Millie’s eyebrows shot up to heaven and she stopped in her tracks to look at me.

  “This I gotta see, yanh?” she said, smiling from ear to ear.

  MISS LAVINIA’S JOURNAL

  When I called my lawyer he gave me all sorts of excuses why he couldn’t make a house call. I said, Frederick? You be here in one hour or I’ll tell what I know about you all over Charleston! He likes to wear ladies’ undergarments. I found his personal profile at the Love@aol.com Web site! I sent him an e-mail as a joke and oh, Lordy, I thought the man would have a heart attack! Men are so stupid! Why in tarnation would a sane person put that kind of thing on the World Wide Web? Well, anyway, he came right over. . . .

  Nineteen

  Have a Nice Trip

  AT four-forty-five, I looked out the window to see a man driving a car pulling out of the driveway. I had not seen or heard him arrive. Outside, I found Mother on the front porch, waiting for Trip and Frances Mae to arrive, pacing back and forth, smoking. I went out to join her. It seemed to me that Trip spent a lot of his day driving back and forth to Walterboro.

  “I am not happy,” she said, tossing her cigarette into the hedges, which was not something she ever did.

  “I seldom am,” I quipped. I knew she was thinking about Trip and what Frances Mae had said to me. My remark caused her to give me a long stare, which I tried unsuccessfully to duck.

  “Well, then, shall we join forces? Misery loves company, you know.” We just looked at each other for a minute, mentally bonding, and then she spoke again. “I have made a decision.”

  “Well?”

  “We are going to have a little family meeting, Lavinia style,” she said.

  “Oh, Lord.” I shook my head.

  When Mother made a decision to stir the pot, others made soup; she made stew. Deep inside, I knew another wild night was about to unfold. I looked up at the sound of a car and, sure enough, here came Trip’s Ford Expedition loaded with dynamite—that is to say, his family. I started to go inside.

  “You stay put, Caroline. Never run from the enemy.”

  “Mother, I just don’t want another confrontation.”

  “Who are you afraid of, Caroline? Frances Mae or yourself ?”

  I swallowed hard and watched them pull up to the front and pile out. Time to face the bogeyman.

  “Mother Wimbley!” Frances Mae called out. “You look so pretty! I swanny you do! Is that a new dress?”

  The girls tumbled out, all in matching pink sweat outfits with matching satin bows in their hair, except Amelia, who wore a headband.

  “That will do, Frances Mae,” Mother said. “You girls go play in the yard! I want to talk to your mother and father for a few minutes.”

  Frances Mae’s insipid smile dissolved when she looked at us, and she shooed her girls away. Trip got the cooler of food they had brought and with his other hand he took Frances Mae’s elbow to help her gestating rotundity up the steps.

  Mother turned and went in the house. They followed her and I took up the rear. We entered Daddy’s study. Trip, arriving last after dropping the food off with Millie, plopped himself into Daddy’s cracked leather wing-back. Frances Mae lowered herself to the couch, every gesture a demonstration of her discomfort and self-sacrifice to populate the family. I sat on Daddy’s desk chair and Mother stood.

  “Now see here,” Mother began, “there h
as been too much innuendo and bad blood in general going around this house and I won’t have it. I am not dying, I am not crazy, and I am not incompetent. Also, Trip? I wish to inform you that I have changed my power of attorney temporarily and perhaps permanently.”

  Trip slapped his hand over his forehead. “Jesus Christ! Why, Mother? What has Caroline been telling you?”

  “Mother Wimbley! I just cain’t believe—”

  “Hush, Frances Mae,” Mother said, “I’ll get to you in a minute.”

  “I haven’t been telling her anything, Trip.” I was on guard now. Mother had changed her power of attorney through her own volition. I had never called her lawyers. She had.

  “Oh, sure,” Trip said. “How are you going to manage Mother’s affairs from New York, Caroline? Answer me that.”

  “Caroline doesn’t have my power of attorney,” Mother said, “her husband does.”

  “Good God, Mother! You brought Richard into this?” I was stunned.

  “Yes, indeed I did. It was all accomplished by fax machine this afternoon. One thing I have to say for Richard, Caroline, is that when called to task, he was more than willing to help me. Besides, after fifteen years, I’d say it was a pretty compliment to pay him, a way of making him feel like a full family member. He may not have been my choice for you as a husband, but at least I know he won’t throw me out of my own house.”

  “Good Lord,” I said, not knowing what else to say.

  I glanced around the room. Frances Mae seemed conflicted over whether to wither, die, or remain silent. Trip just stared at his knuckles. Mother looked smug and very in control. She had just lit a cigarette and she slowly blew smoke as she gave Frances Mae the dowager queen stare. Mother was having no problem choosing her words.

  “Now, Frances Mae,” Mother said, and after inhaling her cigarette twice, she stubbed it out in the bottom of her Waterford ashtray, “it seems that when I forgave you I didn’t have all the facts. You owe Caroline and me an apology for what you said about Eric last night. Trip? Are you aware that your wife called my only grandson a moron? That she said he was damaged in the brain? Thick as a post?”