by Tamar Myers
“Get out of my store!”
“Gladly!” I turned and marched out of Wooden Wonders like an only slightly larger than life toy soldier.
After dropping off Rob’s car keys—neither he nor Bob would speak to me—I headed for the bosom of the only friend who will never desert me. I headed home to Mama. First, however, I had another stop or two to make.
9
I much prefer back roads. During rush hour, I-77 is clogged with commuters, and at other times its still bumper-to-bumper traffic, thanks to all the tourists who try to sneak through Charlotte at “off” times. During the winter, half of Quebec passes through the city in search of a more hospitable climate. When, on those rare occasions, Quebecois wander into my shop, I insist that they speak English. I require the same from the hordes of Ohio and Pennsylvania folk headed for Myrtle Beach each summer. At any rate, on the back roads I see only Carolina plates, and the pace is much easier.
Charlotte and Rock Hill used to be separated by twenty-five miles of peach orchards, pine woods, cotton fields and the lovely little town of Fort Mill. The cotton fields are gone now, and only one orchard remains, just north of Fort Mill. But Carolina Place is as beautiful as shopping malls get, and on Route 21 there are at least three tiny bars and a wedding chapel tucked into the pine woods—just in case the mall doesn’t satisfy. South of Fort Mill, the pine woods are being felled in the interest of condominiums and cookie-cutter homes, which, county officials assure us, is a sign of progress.
Only the broad Catawba River remains unchanged, give or take a few dozen dams between its origin in the North Carolina mountains and Great Falls, South Carolina, where it mysteriously becomes the Wateree. The Catawba River is named after the Catawba Indians, whose reservation is located adjacent to the city of Rock Hill and who just recently opened a high-stakes bingo parlor on Rock Hill’s main drag, Cherry Road.
After crossing the Catawba, I made the first right onto Celanese Road and followed it to India Hook. Then I made the first left turn, into the neighborhood of Harlinsdale. Many of the residents of this exclusive enclave are nouveaux riches, and their homes are magnificent, if not ostentatious. The sight of these pretend palaces always leaves me panting with envy.
I knew exactly where Hortense Simms lived; everyone who was anyone in Rock Hill knew which house was hers. It was the one with the overplanted yard. Whereas most of her neighbors had four or five azalea bushes and a camellia or two, along with ubiquitous dogwood, newly rich Hortense was cultivating a jungle. She had dozens of azaleas and camellias and a forest of dogwood. Rumor had it that she’d gotten a Master Gardener’s certificate from the county extension office and was planning to introduce new plant material into the mix. Even worse than that was the rumor that Hortense herself was to be seen on her hands and knees weeding her azalea bed!
A meandering drive took me to a large paved circle in front of what can charitably be described as a pseudo-Italianate villa. Plaster lions guarded a faux marble stairs that led to an enormous lead-paned door. There was no doorbell that I could see, so I rapped, using a ring that hung from a brass lion’s mouth. Being a true daughter of the south, I would not have dared to show up at a bereaved person’s home without bearing an edible gift, so in my left hand I balanced a cake rescued from Harris Teeter. Before you gasp and accuse me of being a Yankee imposter, let me assure you that I had carefully removed the store wrapper and replaced it with aluminum foil. Only God and myself would be the wiser—and, trust me, whoever ate the cake would be so much better off.
Hortense surprised me by answering the door herself. I hadn’t expected a butler, mind you, but maybe a relative or a friend. After all, there were several other cars in the parking circle besides mine.
I thrust the cake at Hortense. “For you.”
She blinked.
“Because of your brother.” Okay, I will admit it. I am terrible when it comes to expressing condolences. I once—inadvertently, mind you—congratulated a neighbor when his wife died.
Hortense blinked again. The brave woman was struggling to hold back the tears.
“Thank you. Won’t you come in?”
“Uh—” I peered around her, through the foyer, and into a sumptuously appointed sitting room, as curiosity briefly triumphed over common sense, “—uh, I’m sorry, I can’t. Maybe next time.”
Then, realizing what I’d said, I fled down the faux marble steps to my car.
Rock Hill is where I was born and raised, and even if that were not true, I would still say it is a beautiful city—with the exception of Cherry Road. Unfortunately, Cherry Road is one’s first introduction to the city when coming from the north, whether by interstate or back road. Dave Lyle Boulevard, one entrance to the south, is far more attractive and has the Civitas statues, those four bronze ladies whose nipples were filed following a complaint from the religious right. But thanks to South Carolina zoning laws, Rock Hill is shaped like a jigsaw puzzle piece, and Cherry Road passes in and out of the city too many times to be tamed.
Fool that I am, after leaving Hortense’s house I drove down the untamed backbone of Rock Hill. Mama lives on Eden Terrace, two blocks west of Cherry Road, and I could have gotten off earlier than I did, but there is something therapeutic about exposing oneself to competing signs and urban discordance and then opting for shady streets and neat homes surrounded by well-kept lawns. Besides, I felt an overwhelming urge to visit that sleazeball Vincent Dougherty at his new business, the Adult Entertainment Center. I wasn’t going to tell him about Field of Thistles, of course. I merely intended to feel incredibly good in his presence.
Thanks to a zig in the road where Rock Hill zags, Vincent’s business lies outside city limits. A blue neon sign in the shape of a voluptuous nude flaunts a glass bosom that city fathers are powerless to do anything about. I had heard that the Adult Entertainment Center rented X-rated videos and sold sex toys—and quite possibly even sex itself—but that was all hearsay. Nonetheless, I parked so that my North Carolina plate was turned away from busy Cherry Road, and I waited for a break in traffic before darting into the tan, aluminum-sided building.
Two steps inside the inner glass door, a man with silver hair stopped me. “You a member, ma’am?”
“No, of course not!”
“Sorry, ma’am, but then you ain’t allowed in. Members only.”
“But I don’t want to rent anything—I certainly don’t want to buy anything. I’m just looking for Vincent Dougherty, the owner.”
Silver eyebrows narrowed. “You his ex-wife?”
“Bite your tongue!” I said, my dander rising. “This is business.”
Rheumy eyes gave me the once-over. “No offense, ma’am, but you’re a little small for that position. The ad said five foot five and taller.”
“I’m not here for a job, you idiot!”
Someone behind me chuckled. “You sure?”
“Vincent Doughtery!” It was him, as big as life and twice as ugly. That wild orange hair clashed horribly with a purple nylon shirt. He was wearing sunglasses again, and I noticed that this pair, at least, had green plastic frames. Clearly Vincent’s ex-wife, whoever she was, had ample reason to divorce the man.
“Do I know you?”
“No. But I know you. Your picture has been in The Herald more times than the mayor’s.” Mama saves the Sunday papers for me, you see. She’s convinced that someday I’ll move back “home.”
“Ah, but I do know you. You’re the one at the auction last night.”
“Guilty,” I said, smiling inside. “Man, how I love that painting.”
“Well, Miss…Miss Timberlake, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Come on back to the office. I’ll get you something cold to drink. It’s still real hot out there, isn’t it?”
The girl Mama thought she raised would have walked away backward, her index fingers crossed in front of her. The girl Mama actually raised decided to twist the knife a little. I followed Vincent Dougherty down a long, cind
er block hall, through a set of gray swinging doors, and then left through a door marked “private.” Thank God he didn’t close that one behind him. Had he done so, I would have bolted, or attempted to bolt. I can be rash, and I’m sometimes stupid, but I’m not brain-dead.
“Have a seat.” Vincent waved at an enormous black Italian leather couch, standing alone on a Berber carpet the color of his hair. There was no desk, no filing cabinets, not even a television.
“But where will you sit?”
“Ha! That’s a good one. Now sit.” He clapped his hands together like a sultan ordering his harem to dance.
I sat on the far end of the couch, on the very corner of the cushion. I kept my leg muscles tense, ready to spring into action. Even alone in the room, with the door barred, I would not have relaxed. The smell of feet and old sweat emanating from the leather made me want to retch.
“So, you’re happy with your painting, are you?”
“Delirious.” I wanted to shout that I had a painting worth ten million dollars, maybe more, and that despite a few alienated friends, I was happy, happy, happy!
“It would have gone good in this room, don’t you think?”
I stared at the pale yellow walls. It would have at that.
“Maybe.”
“So, you come here to sell it? Maybe make a little profit?”
“No.”
“So, why did you come here?”
Why, indeed? I should never have entered that den of iniquity. What was I thinking? I had to have been out of my mind. Maybe I was suffering from heatstroke and didn’t know it.
“Here.” I reached into my brown macramé shoulder bag, the one Mama made for me when I was in college, extracted one of my business cards, and flung it at him.
He reached for it. “What’s this?”
“My antique store. I also consult on decorating jobs. In case you decide you need a little work.”
He said nothing and seemed to be staring at me behind the reflective shades.
“Well, I heard that you had just opened this place,” I said, my voice cracking like a pubescent boy’s. “I decided it was worth stopping by, on the chance you hadn’t yet found a decorator.”
For the longest time, he said nothing. When he finally spoke, it sounded like his vocal cords were covered with slime.
“You came all the way from Charlotte?”
“Well, yes—but not just for this. My mama lives here in town.”
“I see.” He slid off the armrest and settled with a soft plop on the buttery leather. “Is she a pretty little thing like you?”
I was on my feet and out of that door in less time than it took Buford to have sex. I ran smack into the pot-bellied, silver-haired doorkeeper, but it barely slowed me down. The large stomach certainly didn’t hurt my head.
Once safely in my car, I didn’t stop until I reached Mama’s house. I know, I shouldn’t have run the stop sign at Myrtle and Eden Terrace, but as for that final stop light on Cherry Road—well, everyone knows that in South Carolina, a light doesn’t officially turn red until six cars have sneaked through yellow.
Mama opened the door the second I pulled up. She was wearing a frilly white apron over her full-skirted, pink gingham dress. And as she never opens the door naked, she was, of course, wearing white summer pumps and the pearls Daddy gave her on their anniversary preceding his death.
“You’re right on time, Abby. I just finished setting the table. We’re having fried chicken and potato salad, and there’s watermelon for desert. Or would you prefer chocolate cake?”
“Chocolate.” There was no point in asking how she knew I was coming. Mama claims she can smell the future.
Mama glanced at my hands. “Where’s the painting?”
“It’s at home. I hid it in the oven.”
“You what? Abby, everyone who knows you knows that you don’t cook. That’s the first place someone will look.”
“Thanks, Mama. Hopefully my friends won’t be trying to steal from me.”
“Speaking of friends,” Mama said, when we were seated, “what’s this I hear about you dumping all of them?”
“Mama! Did Wynnell call you?”
“As well she should, dear. She’s been your very best friend for years.”
“But, Mama, she’s greedy. She wants to profit big-time off my windfall.”
“I see.” Mama took a thimble-sized helping of potato salad before passing the bowl to me.
“Mama, are you on a diet?”
“Who, me? Oh, no, dear. I’m just practicing. Now, Abby, I suppose you think Rob was being greedy, too.”
“Most definitely. He wanted a million dollars. Can you believe that?”
Mama took a single chicken wing. “But that’s a million dollars of found money, dear. I mean, like you said, it was a windfall.”
“But it was a windfall into my lap, Mama. They’ve had windfalls and never given me a second thought.”
Mama barely brushed the wing against her lips before setting it down. “They’re your friends, dear. Balunda—that’s how you say ‘friends’ in Tshiluba. Anyway, from what I understand, even a 10 percent cut would be quite reasonable.”
“You’re on their side,” I wailed.
Mama recoiled as if she’d been slapped. “Why, Abigail Louise, how can you say such a thing? If you only knew what I went through to bring you into this world!”
I sighed. “Thirty-six hours of excruciating labor.”
“Don’t be cheeky, dear. My point is, I have always been in your corner, and will always be. Even when I’m in Africa.”
“Yes, but—Africa?”
“I’m going to the Congo as a missionary, dear. That’s why I’m learning Tshiluba.”
“Mama, you’re not serious, are you?”
“Of course I am, dear.” She glanced over at my piled plate. “I’ve been practicing in case there’s a famine over there.”
“You’ve been practicing starvation?”
“Don’t be silly, dear. I’m just eating less. We in the West eat far more than we need to keep body and soul together.”
That is undoubtedly true, but it was Mama’s mind that needed keeping together just then. “Is this official? I mean, have you talked to the bishop?”
“The bishop?”
“You know, the man with the big hat and shepherd’s crook? The guy who’s in charge of such things.”
Mama’s face looked like a fallen soufflé. “I see no reason why I can’t do it on my own.”
“But who will support you? Who’s going to pay your way over?”
She looked around at a house frozen in the fifties. “I could sell my things. If I have any money left, I’ll give it to the poor.”
“Vincent tried that, Mama. It didn’t work.”
“Vincent Dougherty was a missionary?”
I grimaced. “Not hardly. Mama, last year you ran off to become a nun. The year before that, you wanted to join the army. It’s obvious you’ve been at loose ends ever since Daddy died, and while that’s completely natural, it has been an awfully long time since then. You need to find yourself.”
“But that’s just what I’m doing, dear. And the self I’m finding wants to be a missionary.”
“Talk to the bishop, Mama. Will you do that?”
“Nasha.”
“What’s that mean?”
Mama squirmed. “Abby, I’m old enough to make my own mistakes.”
“Touché, Mama. You don’t want me meddling in your business, yet—”
She was lucky the phone rang. While Mama was off answering it, I put a plump chicken breast on her plate, a proper scoop of potato salad and a homemade biscuit.
When Mama returned, her face was glowing. “You’ll never guess who that was!”
“My sainted brother, Toy.”
“No, he called last year. Now guess again.”
“Aunt Marilyn?”
“Closer, but even better.”
“Wynnell calling to apologize?”
/>
“Wrong! And that’s three guesses, so I’m going to have to tell you.” She sat down and leaned across the table conspiratorially. “That was You Know Who.”
“But I don’t,” I wailed.
Mama frowned. “Not just any you know who, but the You Know Who.”
“You mean Priscilla Hunt? The Queen?”
Mama beamed. “None other! Oh, Abby, this is so wonderful. She’s invited me to dinner Saturday night.”
“As the main course?”
“Abby, don’t be rude. Do you know what an honor this is?”
I nodded. Mercifully, my mouth was full of biscuit. Not only was Priscilla Hunt the wealthiest woman in the parish, but she still had a husband. Within months after becoming a widow, Mama found her stream of dinner invitations drying to a trickle, and then, shortly after the first anniversary of Daddy’s death, nothing. After all, a widow is even worse than a fifth wheel. A widow is a reminder of one’s mortality.
“So, Abby, you won’t mind if I cancel our plans for dinner and go to Priscilla’s?”
“Not at all, Mama.” And then, worried that I might have sounded too happy for her, I added, “Besides, we’re having lunch now.”
Mama glanced down at her plate and saw the extra food. “Abby, you really do care about me, don’t you?”
“Of course, Mama.” I looked away so I wouldn’t cry. Wet, salty biscuits do nothing for my taste buds.
“Maybe Priscilla wants me to join her book club. It’s the most prestigious one in Rock Hill, you know. That has to be it! Why else would she invite me to dinner? She never once did that the whole time your Daddy was alive.” Mama’s face clouded. “I won’t be able to join, of course, because I’m going to Africa. Oh, Abby, what am I going to do?”
I patted Mama’s arm. “That’s the least of your worries. Mama, the woman is up to something.”
“Are you saying that I’m not good enough to be Priscilla’s friend?”
“Frankly, yes. I mean,” I hastened to add, “that you are good enough, but that she doesn’t see it that way.”
