The Girls of August

by Anne Rivers Siddons

  After Baby and Earl left, Mama B said, “All right, young lady, you feel like getting up?”

  “I think so,” I said. “And, I have to say, at the mention of okra and tomatoes, I realize that I’m starving.”

  “Good! Then let’s all head to the kitchen. You girls can help. And you, Madison McCauley,” she said, helping me to my feet, “can sit with your leg up. Like a queen bee.”

  And that’s how we spent our afternoon. Gabbing as if we’d all known each other forever. Mama B spouted orders with gentle authority and chopped okra with hands scarred by hard work. Baby behaved like a totally different person. She was respectful and low-key, and never once took off her beach cover-up.

  The question had been gnawing at me, so as we gathered around steaming bowls of white rice and okra and tomatoes cooked down with onions, garlic, salt, pepper, and some sort of hot spice I couldn’t identify, I said, “I just have to know something. How do y’all deal with Miz Baby over here running around the island nearly naked?”

  Earl looked up from his fragrant bowl of stew—he’d already dug into his—and began a slow, easy, rumbling laugh.

  Mama B didn’t look up. She simply broke some corn bread into her stew and said, “Around here we have none of that. Do we, Baby?”

  “No, ma’am,” Baby said. “Mothers…” She looked at us as though she were a prim schoolgirl and I thought, If she starts up with this mothers thing I’m going to stab her. Baby dabbed the corners of her mouth with her napkin, cleared her throat, and said in an angelic voice, “I never come to this side of the island without clothes on. It would be disrespectful. In fact, despite what you may think, I only occasionally skinny-dip. I am not,” she added, her face haughty and precise, “a nudist.”

  Rachel shot her the Death Stare. In response, Baby gave us back a dazzling smile and poured herself more tea.

  “You missed your calling, Baby,” Barbara said.

  “How’s that?”

  “You should have been an actress.”

  “That’s what Teddy says!”

  I shook my head. Actually, Baby was a stitch, and despite my reservations, I realized that I couldn’t help but like her. I took a deep breath. My stomach was calm and I was ready for some delicious Mama B food. I ate and ate, and with each spoonful I felt the health and warmth seep back into my bones.

  “Mmmmm,” I said, closing my eyes, letting the goodness of the food take hold, “this is absolutely delicious.”

  * * *

  After the lunch dishes were washed and put away, we determined that I was in good enough shape to make the trek back over to Tiger’s Eye. Mama B felt my face for fever and Rachel took my pulse.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine,” I said, waving them away. I felt stronger than I had in days, even with an occasional twinge from my run-in with the wild pig. And the Bonapartes had a grieving young woman in the house. They didn’t need a bunch of strangers underfoot.

  Baby, though, elected to stay behind to help out Earl and Sharelle. She told us that she’d miss supper but that she would be back later in the evening. As she kissed me on the cheek, I felt guilty for calling her out about her propensity to wear nearly no clothes. That had been small of me, and she had pushed back, rather properly, I thought. In fact, all afternoon she’d behaved as though she were a poster child for maturity, as if this family were her ballast.

  Mama B gave me salve for the wound and tea for the nausea. When we left, Barbara on one side of me and Rachel on the other, Mama B hugged each of us and then said to me, “You tell Mac I love him and that he best come see me. And you, missy”—she planted a kiss on my forehead—“take care of that child growing inside you. What a precious gift!”

  “Yes, ma’am, I will. I promise.” Next to my wedding vows, it was the most solemn pledge I’d ever made.

  * * *

  That night, under clear skies, we were treated to a most amazing meteor shower. Enchanted, Barbara, Rachel, and I gathered at the water’s edge, lolled in the surf, and watched stars streak across the sky even as the waves, building under the breath of another offshore thunderstorm, licked our legs. The saltwater made my pig wound, as we’d taken to calling it, tingle. But that was a small price to pay. The night air was sweet in our nostrils, the ghost crabs danced in the sandy distance, and above us the stars rained down. I felt blessed.

  With the exception of the occasional “Whooooa!” or “Oooooo!” we were silent, wrapped in the night’s glory, the three of us letting our minds wander as they would. I had actually closed my eyes, content to listen to the surf that reflected both the star- and moonlight, when Barbara said, so quietly her voice might have been part of the sea’s whisper, “I’ve left Hugh. He’s got an apartment. I’m keeping the house. At least for now.”

  For more than a ringing minute, I doubted what we had just heard. In fact, I was playing it over in my head, trying to convince myself that the wind was playing tricks, when Rachel, as usual, cut to the chase. “Are you going to be all right with it, Babs?”

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s just that I don’t really seem to know who I am anymore.”

  “You want to talk about it?” I asked, fear and sorrow weighting my words with heaviness. What a singular day it had been: full of discoveries, but this particular one in no way brought joy.

  “Not right now.”

  My impulse was to cajole her into spilling it all out, but would that do more harm than good? Should we let her keep it inside, where it might fester and burst? With her dead voice blocking out the surf song, I feared that life was changing so quickly that none of us really knew the others anymore. Perhaps the years were turning us into strangers.

  But then the sky full of star glitter bloomed over us again, and I thought, At least I know where I am. I’m in a warm ocean on a green island with stars falling all around me. Maybe that’s enough to start with. And I know that now there’ll be another of me, whoever I am.

  Why was I so certain, without any medical evidence, that Rachel’s nurse voodoo and Mama B’s inner vision were accurate?

  “Just because,” I whispered.

  “What?” Rachel asked.

  “Nothing.”

  I pushed up on one elbow. The pig wound pulsed, but not so much with pain; it just let me know it was there.

  “Listen, Barbara, you’ve got to talk to us. In fact, you’ve held it in way too long.” Now I thought I knew why she’d taken to the bottle with such dedication.

  “I think…I think I haven’t said anything because I don’t know how to talk about it. I mean, we’ve been married since I was twenty-two years old. He’s the only man I’ve ever—you know—lain down with. The only one. It’s like, I don’t know how to breathe without him.”

  Rachel let out a heavy sigh.

  “Who is it?”

  A star fell, its trail so long and vivid, I thought it might splash into the ocean. In fact, I wanted it to. I also thought that Barbara might not answer. But finally, she cleared her throat and began to speak in the same lifeless voice.

  “That new nurse. The one he hired six months ago. The one who is twenty-six years old to his forty-five and has the two-foot blonde extensions.”

  “Jesus,” I said, “shades of Baby.” First Teddy. Now Hugh. I felt my heart clench at the possibility of Mac’s ever leaving me. Especially now.

  “Yeah. But Teddy was single when he cradle-robbed,” Rachel said. And then, “How’d you find out?”

  Barbara’s bitter laugh cut through the wind like acid. “Our annual Fourth of July party.”

  “What?” I looked at her, not fully believing Hugh could stoop to that. “In your own house?”

  “Actually,” she said, staring past us, “it’s worse than that. Steven caught them.”

  “Steven!”

  I didn’t have to look; I knew Rachel’s eyes were flashing thunderhead blue as she said Barbara’s youngest child’s name. And I also knew that eighteen-year-old Steven, who worshipped the ground his father walked on and was o
n track to go to premed at Vandy, was without a doubt devastated.

  “Yes. He walked in on them in Kate’s old room.”

  “Where the hell was everybody else while this was going on?” Rachel asked.

  “The pool. Steven went looking for his dad because he’d left the burgers on the grill. They were burning. I swear to God, I can still smell them.” Barbara closed her eyes.

  Rachel and I remained quiet. It was as if we both sensed that after keeping this secret for so long, now that she was talking about it, the flood hadn’t yet abated. A night bird skimmed the water, disappeared in the darkness.

  “Steven knew something was probably wrong with a patient. Indigestion. Finger cut. A burn. Somebody in crisis. Who could have imagined that his father had simply decided to grab a quickie in his daughter’s bedroom?”

  Barbara’s voice thickened and this time I knew it wasn’t alcohol coating her words, but tears and disbelief.

  “Son of a bitch!” Rachel sat up and glared into the distance.

  “What are you going to do, Babs?”

  Barbara sighed again, as if this new world were too much for her.

  “I have no idea. With Steven leaving for Vandy, I will be completely alone. And angry. No matter what, no matter what I say or do or think about, I am angry. I feel like it’s burning me alive.”

  “Take him to the cleaners, girl,” Rachel said. “Nail it down.”

  “That’s not going to be a problem,” Barbara said. “But I don’t know if the kids are ever going to speak to him again.”

  “Well,” I said, staring at the sky, an odd mix of sadness and elation over what I thought my new life might become surging through me, “I hope he finds a way to win them back. Although right now I don’t think he deserves it.”

  “Neither do I,” she said matter-of-factly. “And in the meantime, I have ten more pounds to lose and I’m seeing a personal trainer. Hugh might be screwing someone young enough to be his daughter, but I’m not going to just roll over. I’m going to figure out who the hell I am and look damn fine while I’m doing it.”

  “Hear, hear!” Rachel said. She scrambled to her feet, filled our wineglasses, mine with fizzy water, before returning to her spot in the ruffled surf’s edge. “The future is one hell of an uncertain place. But let’s drink to it anyway.”

  Dark guilt swirled through me. My life was suddenly all roses. But not Barbara’s and surely not Rachel’s.

  “If you need anything at all, Babs, you let me know.” And then I slipped up and said. “You too, Rach. The minute anything comes up.”

  Rachel didn’t respond, but after a brief pause, Barbara asked, “Why would Rachel need your help?”

  I wanted to run. I wanted to cry. I wanted to scream. I wanted the fucking universe to be a kinder place. Not only had I almost gone back on my promise to my friend not to tell anyone about her illness, but because I’d brought it up, Rachel’s cancer was real again. Alive and bouncing like a hot red orb circling the three of us. But Rachel saved me.

  “I don’t,” she said. “Maddy’s just being nice.”

  “I see,” Barbara said quietly, and there was something about her tone—her quick acceptance—that made me think she didn’t believe Rachel. But she let it go. This was our time together, our magic August. And it was almost over. Just a few more days and we’d be off this island and back to our real lives and our real sorrows, and our real and hard-won joys.

  So the three of us, content to try to make the best of the time we had left together, stargazed in silence. Eventually the meteor shower faded to black and we were left with the ordinary stars, the ones that were fixed and eternal.

  “I think,” Rachel said finally, rising and stretching her arms overhead, “we should build a fire…”

  “And toast some marshmallows!” Barbara said.

  “I’ll go get them,” I said, struggling to get to my feet.

  “Oh no you don’t, Miz Pig Wound,” Rachel said, helping me up. “You stay out here and off that leg.” She looked down the beach. “Who knows? Maybe Baby will show up.”

  “At least we know what’s going on now,” I said. “Earl and Mama B are really nice people. I hope I get to meet the rest of the family one day.”

  “Shame about his baby,” Barbara said. She put her arm around me. “Don’t worry, Maddy. You and yours are going to be just fine.”

  “I don’t even know for sure,” I said, but I couldn’t suppress my grin. And then I said, rubbing my belly—I so wanted to have a bump—“I wish Baby would get back here. I mean, it’s lovely that she’s over there helping out and whatnot, but she shouldn’t be coming in so late at night.”

  “What could happen to her on this little island?” Rachel asked.

  “She could drown. She could fall and break something,” I said.

  Barbara said, the delight returning to her voice, “Can you imagine one of those tits broken?”

  “Wild pigs. We know they can hurt you,” I said.

  “Ah, yes,” Rachel said, heading up to the house. “Can’t you just see a terrified herd of pink piggies fleeing before those boobs?”

  We all laughed and Barbara pointed to the beach chairs that were just out of reach of the surf. “Sit. You need your rest.”

  And I did. It felt nice being looked after. Barbara made the fire and Rachel and I skewered the marshmallows. The flames crackled and popped and we all looked mythic, a bit enchanted in its glow.

  “Wind’s picking up,” Barbara said, staring into the flames.

  “Yep, looks like that storm might come ashore.”

  “They do every night. Almost,” I said.

  We poked our skewered marshmallows into the fire and when we could see the sugar starting to caramelize, we feasted. The creamy, slightly burned sweetness tasted like childhood. I downed three in a row. I still felt uneasy about Baby’s absence. Especially with wild pigs on the loose and a storm brewing. I was just about to say maybe we should go look for her, when we heard her call.

  “Hi, ya’ll! Is dinner over?”

  She stood at the end of the beach, her near-nakedness shining in the gathering dark, her cover-up slung over one bare shoulder. But I couldn’t judge. We were in our bathing suits too, except ours covered a whole lot more skin. Maybe, I thought, it was just a generational thing. Overhead, more thunderclouds were massing against the sky, and lightning forked from them, like the Devil tonguing the water.

  “What are you doing down there?” Rachel called, clearly annoyed. “Get over here. We promised Teddy we’d look after you. Remember?”

  “Oh, Teddy!” Baby giggled. But she trudged down the beach and joined us. “Oooo! Marshmallows!” She reached for a skewer.

  “How’s Sharelle?” I asked.

  Baby settled into her chair. “She’s OK. She was actually talking tonight.”

  “Maybe she needs a shrink,” Rachel said.

  “Nuh-uh. She just needs Earl.” Baby scrunched up her face, appearing lost in thought, and then, as if she’d decided she’d had enough tragedy for one night, said, “Hey! Why don’t we have a campfire sing-along? You know, belt out those old songs you’re supposed to sing around fires. Teddy taught me all of them.”

  “What songs?” Rachel asked, her disgust for the idea evident.

  “You know. Like, ‘Roll your leg over the man in the moon.’ And ‘The admiral’s daughter lives down by the water and she wants to steal your dinghy.’”

  “Not on your sweet life,” Rachel said.

  “Besides,” said Barbara, “it’s fixin’ to pour.” She looked out at the ocean. “That storm means business.”

  “It can’t pour before I toast me some marshmallows,” Baby said, sticking her skewer into the flames.

  “You’d better hurry,” I said, sticking mine back into the fire as well.

  Baby ate hers as if she hadn’t eaten in a month. She licked the sweet sticky stuff off of her fingers. “Mmmmmmm! Now come on, let’s sing!”

  I was about to say t
hat I couldn’t carry a tune in a tin cup, nor did I feel like warbling old college songs, when the sky opened up. The fire sizzled and went dark. Thunder bellowed and lightning struck so close the flash momentarily blinded us. Barbara screamed and ran for the house. Baby laughed with glee and followed her inside. Rachel walked with me, her arm around my shoulders. We walked as quickly as we could, and I couldn’t help but flash back to the night she’d considered ending it all.

  “You stay with us, Rachel. You hear me?” I said as we gained the front porch steps.

  But she didn’t respond to my question. She simply said, “Quick, quick. We’ve got to get inside.”

  * * *

  We looked like a quartet of drowned rats, but Baby, her long blonde hair matted against her breasts, looked particularly pathetic.

  “Oooo,” she said, shivering, “I’ve got to dry off and get into some clothes.”

  “Wonders never cease,” Rachel said, heading up the stairs. “Where’s Barbara?”

  “Changing into her jammies, I think,” Baby said.

  “That,” I said, shivering, “sounds like a plan.”

  We all retreated to our rooms. As I stripped down and dried off, the rain stuttered more heavily against the metal roof and a dankness suffused the house as if it might rain forever and ever and ever.

  I pulled my nightgown over my head, grabbed the towel I’d thrown across the vanity chair, and wrapped my wet hair in it. I looked like a sodden scarecrow but didn’t care. I thought about all that had transpired during our time on Tiger Island…Baby had been embroiled in a tragedy taking place on the other side of the island and had elected to act mysterious about her comings and goings without any good reason. Rachel was facing a death sentence and had at one point almost decided to take fate into her own hands. Poor Barbara had been dumped by Hugh and was drinking her sorrows away. And me? I just might be with child and an owner of some prime island real estate. If this isn’t the ultimate girls of August reunion, I thought, heading out into the hall to check on everyone, I don’t know what is.

  Baby’s door was open. I stuck my head in. She had changed into a pair of pajamas that had images of Donald Duck all over them. She was belly-down and sound asleep, and I imagined that at any moment she might start sucking her thumb.