Dorothea Benton Frank - Lowcountry Tales 05 - Pawley's Island

by Pawley's Island (lit). lit

  I was late getting dressed and gathering up other watercolors I hadn’t taken to show Huey the first day. It must have been ninety-five degrees and it was just early morning. The air was oppressive and the sun was a burning laser. Just a glance into its face made my eyes stream water.

  I decided to turn on the car and let the air conditioner run for a few minutes to cool it down, and then I would drive to work. The worst part of the car was that it had dark charcoal leather seats—a gift of torture from Nat. You don’t know what hot is until your bare legs have been stuck to dark leather seats in a car that’s been baking in the Carolina July sun.

  My steering wheel, not my seats, had been special ordered in beige leather because the standard one was black. Forget black steering wheels, unless you’re a criminal and want to have your fingerprints removed. Just like folks in Minneapolis preheated their cars in February, we precooled our cars in July.

  When the cars cooperate and start, that is. My car was as dead as Kelsey’s cow, whoever Kelsey is or was. Not a sound came from the dashboard area when the key was turned. I must have tried it ten times, and nothing. When I started to perspire and could feel that the hair on the back of my neck was already sopping wet, I gave up and ran back inside to make an air-conditioned call to the gallery.

  “Huey?”

  “Rebecca? Sweet angel? Are you on the way?”

  “Yeah, well, I was, but my car won’t start. I don’t know what’s wrong. It was fine yesterday.”

  “Listen to Uncle Huey. Don’t fret. Abigail is coming here in thirty minutes. I’ll call her to pick you up. And I’ll get Byron to see about your car.”

  “Oh! Thanks! Huey, seriously, thank you so much!”

  I hung up realizing I was on the verge of tears. It had been so long since anyone besides Claudia had offered to do anything for me that I choked up and wanted to cry. What did that say about my mental state? Pathetic.

  My cell rang moments later and it was Abigail, saying it was no big deal and she was on her way.

  “Precious place!” she said, when I opened the door.

  Precious? Where did she live? The Taj Mahal?

  Crisp described her manner and her dress. She was wearing black Bermudas, a starched white sleeveless shirt, a black alligator belt and a black-and-white visor in the tiniest check print. Although she had on black sandals, I suspected that somewhere in her car there were a pair of black-and-white golf shoes. I watched as she glanced at the row of photographs of my children.

  “Thanks. It belongs to a friend of mine from Atlanta.”

  “Three bedrooms?”

  “Yeah, and a great view of the ocean,” I said. “Come see.”

  I put my portfolio against the back of the sofa and opened the curtain over the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. We stepped outside into the breeze, and Abigail leaned over the rail.

  “Too bad we can’t bottle the air,” she said. “We could all retire tomorrow.”

  “Isn’t that the truth? This apartment is pretty far from the beach, but the view still takes my breath away. Especially at night.”

  “I’m sure. Well, we’d better get going. Huey My Love is waiting for his Coke.”

  “Coke?”

  I slid the door back and locked it, not that anyone was going to scale the building and burglarize the place.

  “Don’t you drink Coke for breakfast?” Abigail said with a laugh.

  “Uh, no. When I was a kid I did, if I could get away with it.”

  “Well, our Huey has a Coke for breakfast every day. Sometimes two. Only in little glass bottles.”

  I grabbed my portfolio and closed the door behind her. “Well, in this sweltering heat...”

  “Sometimes he puts peanuts in them and calls them lunch!” As we stepped into the sun, the heat hit us full force. “Whoo! Gonna be a thousand degrees today! And genius that I am, I’m playing golf!”

  “I never understood golf,” I said. “Especially in the summer... unless you’re in Scotland or something...”

  “You don’t play golf?”

  “Uh, no. A little tennis but that’s about it.”

  She just looked at me, shook her head and added my lack of appreciation of golf to the list of many things that I thought she and Huey intended to change about me.

  Sure enough, I spotted an expensive pair of black-and-white spectator, flapped and tasseled golf shoes in the backseat. Obviously, Abigail had money. Besides her Jaguar and no visible means of support, on the three occasions that I had seen her she had been dressed and accessorized to the hilt. I wondered for a moment why someone as together as Abigail was happy to trot around with Huey. Why wasn’t she married? Where did her money come from, and what was her house like?

  She blasted the air-conditioning, turned down the radio and backed out of her parking space.

  “I really appreciate this,” I said. “My car was fine last night.”

  “Glad to help! I’m stopping at Sam’s Corner. Want something? I’m dying for a sausage biscuit.”

  “Sure. Do you mind if I just wait in the car?”

  “No problem. Want a Coke?”

  “Diet?”

  “Sure.”

  I reached in my handbag to get a dollar and she stopped me.

  “Don’t worry about it. I’ll start a tab.”

  She smiled at me and disappeared inside the restaurant. Sam’s Corner. The parking lot was always crowded. I guessed all the locals got their breakfast there, The Eggs Up Grill or the Litchfield Restaurant. Unless you did fast-food drive-through, which was totally disgusting to me. I mean, there wasn’t anything in the world like McDonald’s french fries when they were right out of the hot oil. But breakfast? I’d rather go without than eat plastic cheese, rubber eggs and greasy sausage on a gummy biscuit.

  Abigail returned in minutes, and we made polite conversation all the way to the gallery. When we arrived, Huey was in a bit of a dither, arranging the sold paintings in stacks along the wall, taking notes in his book.

  “Good morning!” he said. “Did you bring your car keys?”

  Abigail kissed him on the cheek, and I handed him his Cokes and my keys. “Abigail bought you several since it’s so hot,” I said.

  “Bless you, angel!”

  He took the bag, disappeared into his office, where he kept a small refrigerator. I went to the framing area, where I thought I would be spending most of my day, unwrapped my sausage biscuit and took a bite. It seemed like a normal moment until I looked up. Abigail and Huey were staring at me.

  “What?” I said. “Is something wrong?”

  They looked at each other, unsure of where to start.

  “Spit it out, Huey,” Abigail said.

  “Okay, okay.” He took a drink, draining his first Coke of the morning.

  “Want another one? I’ll get it for you...”

  He shook his head. “Listen, Rebecca, sweetheart. My mother told me that you have a Ph.D. in psychology and that you have a husband and children in Charleston. And that your husband was given custody and the house. Are you in some kind of trouble? I mean, is there something we can do?”

  I was stunned. But Pawleys Island was no different than Charleston. People talked. I couldn’t even respond to him. I didn’t want to talk about it.

  “Listen to me, Rebecca. Byron is coming to pick up your car and take it to the garage where I get mine fixed. They’re very fair and do excellent work. I want you to come for dinner tonight. Come out, spend the evening with us and we will try to help you straighten this mess all out.”

  I was furious. My disaster was my disaster, no one else’s.

  “Rebecca?” Abigail said.

  “What?” My face was red hot.

  “You aren’t the first woman who ever had this happen to her. I’ll make you a bet.”

  “What?” I said again.

  “I’ll bet you my Rolex that your husband has a girlfriend and that’s why he wanted you out—so he could move her in. I’ll bet you
my diamond studs that he did this to avoid paying alimony and child support. And I have never met your husband, but I’ll guarantee you that he’s more arrogant than Donald Trump.”

  A girlfriend? Avoid alimony and child support at the expense of my relationship with my children? Would Nat do that? Would he? I had never thought of Nat as scheming or diabolical until that moment. Since I’d left, I had driven myself nearly insane trying to figure out why he didn’t love me anymore. But then maybe he did love someone else and I’d been too blind to see it.

  “What time is dinner?” I said.

  “Always at eight,” Huey said.

  “I’ll pick you up,” Abigail said.

  “Fine,” I said and I felt all the blood drain out of my face. “Thank you.”

  All kinds of things were spinning around in my head. I had come here to avoid gossip and now my problems were scheduled as the main topic of conversation for the night. Part of me was very angry—I didn’t want to relive the battles simply because they felt a need to know about them. I thought introspection was futile.

  They were meddling. I didn’t want to be the cause célèbre for a little group of people who had too much time on their hands. I just wanted to work, support myself and be left alone to paint. Was that too much to ask? Did a paycheck entitle Huey and then Abigail to the lurid details of my marriage? I never should have opened my big mouth.

  Four

  ABIGAIL SAYS, NOTHING COULD BE FINER

  s

  WHY I consented to play nine holes when the heat index was somewhere in the stratosphere was anybody’s guess. Maybe some optimistic sliver of my postmenopausal brain still thought I was a young girl and that a good sweaty round of golf in the blazing sun would be rejuvenating. But to tell the truth, the heat left me dizzy and slightly nauseous. The day had been hot and sticky like you cannot believe.

  Rebecca was on my mind as the hours ticked by. I knew she was smoldering from our prodding and I understood why. She thought her personal business was hers alone, and technically she was right. However, and this is the big however, she didn’t know us.

  There is so much to be said about power and its correct usage that it’s all but impossible to choose a beginning point for the discussion. But let’s just say this. I was not the kind of woman who could stand by with my mouth closed and watch a bloody crime unfold. And Huey was not that kind of man. We didn’t bring home kitties from the rain, but whenever we could stomp out a wrongful fire, we did. We dispensed plenty of unsolicited advice for the good citizens of our community who, believe it or not, actually thanked us. On occasion. Well, not often.

  There are all levels of transgressions that people commit against each other. In Rebecca’s case, it was one of two things. Either Rebecca had been so thoroughly demoralized by her husband that she had somehow been fooled into believing the courts had done the right thing. Or Rebecca was an unfit mother, a concept that we absolutely could not swallow. I was coming in on the side of bamboozle. The courts had made a terrible mistake, probably based on trumped-up evidence or hearsay or some campaign gone awry. Huey had taken the first step in helping her by giving her a job.

  We had liked her right away. Her talent was rather astounding. She fit a need in the gallery for a framer, and I would have advised Huey to give her a try, which he did before I could even articulate an opinion. As her employer, there was no reason why we—that is, Huey—shouldn’t know a little more about her. Despite its global fame, Pawleys Island was a small town. It would be better for her when the inquiring minds asked questions, and we knew they would, if we knew what to say. If someone new moved to Pawleys and Fate plopped them in the spotlight, as it had Rebecca, then the residents of Pawleys and Litchfield were going to want to know every detail about them.

  We were a little worried. For all we knew her ex-husband might be a lunatic. Pawleys Island was just a short drive from Charleston, and who could say what form his anger might take? People committed crimes of passion every day, and far-fetched as it may sound, Huey and I didn’t want to be caught in the middle of some risk to our personal safety—that is, if there was risk. Who knew? So the pragmatic side of us wanted to know and the humane side just wanted to be helpful.

  I thought about all this as Rebecca and I drove in near silence to Huey’s. She was on her guard, and so was I. I had a CD playing of Ella Fitzgerald singing great crooner music to try and put both of us in a social state of mind.

  “I think I would have enjoyed living in the forties,” I said, trying to lighten the air. “Life was so much more civilized.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, men were gentlemen and women were ladies. People were modest about themselves. I mean, they knew what they were supposed to do and how they were supposed to act. Life now is so, I don’t know, loose.”

  A pithy pause ensued.

  She finally said, “That’s true, but I don’t know if it was really any better then. There was polio and TB.”

  “Polio and TB? Heavens to Betsy, girl! What a thing to think of! What about the good things? Like the fashion? All those padded shoulders and platforms? And women worked in real jobs...”

  “And got pushed out of the workforce after the war. It just seems like we’re smarter today. But they did have great shoes. And cars.”

  I smiled and glanced over to her. She was smiling then. I said, “Love the cars, the clothes and the music. But I’m not sure we’re any smarter.”

  I could see her head swinging in my peripheral vision, weighing the question of our collective national intelligence.

  “Well, we’ve got technology. Yeah, boy. We’ve got technology in spades. But you’re right. We’re probably not any smarter. We’re just flooded with information that nobody knows how to use. God knows, we still have war. So how far have we really come?”

  “I always say that women should run the planet. Don’t get me started on the politics of war. It would be even more interesting if our elected officials actually had a voice. Instead we’ve got this cockamamy cabinet of old zealot farts running the bloodletting, but we could talk about them all night, couldn’t we? And here’s our turn.”

  I turned on to Huey’s road, opposite the entrance to DeBordieu. If I hadn’t known where the plantation was, I would surely have missed it.

  “Anyway, screw politics. I think about this stuff, probably more than you would guess. Our government is such a disappointment. All of them... this entire out-of-control testosterone thing... Let me tell you about Huey’s house.”

  “Holy hell!”

  The big house had just come into view. And it was a spectacle to behold, with its spreading wings and grand front stairs fit for the arrival of Queen Elizabeth herself.

  “Yeah, isn’t that something? That was Miss Olivia’s family home, but they don’t live in it anymore. The taxes were ridiculous, so they made it into a museum. See? There’s the parking lot for the tour buses. Huey and Miss Olivia have houses down the road by the river.”

  We continued to drive, my car crunching along the gravel road, and had yet to catch sight of Huey’s or Miss Olivia’s.

  “Good grief! How many acres do they own?”

  “Honey, around here we just say enough. But I think it’s around fifteen thousand.”

  “Holy hell!”

  “You said it, sister.”

  We finally arrived at Huey’s house and spotted Re-becca’s car, pulling in alongside of it. We were close to the row of boxwoods that served as the wall between Huey, his mother and the rest of the world. That may sound like a bit of braggadocio, but it was true. Once you rounded the long span of English boxwood hedge, time stopped and you found yourself light-years away from the gnawing panics of twenty-first-century living. It was not surprising that Huey had created such an oasis. His eighteenth-century gentleman’s spirit could never survive without a sanctuary for quiet reflection.

  I opened the car door and the humidity slammed me so hard it nearly took my breath away.

>   “Ugh,” I said.

  “You would think that by eight o’clock the heat would be broken,” Rebecca said.

  “We’ll be all right in a minute,” I said.

  As predicted, we rounded the hedgerow and the breeze from the Waccamaw washed us in cool waves of Japanese honeysuckle and sweet olive. It was going to be a beautiful night.

  I loved coming here and had always thought that Huey’s gardens were one of the best-kept secrets in the world. The terrace floor of ancient rose-colored handmade bricks was laid out in a basket-weave design, held together with a cracking mortar that allowed baby moss to creep through here and there. Around the edges at perfect intervals of twenty feet stood great lead urns planted with decorative grass climbing for heaven and asparagus ferns that dusted the earth. All of it waved in unison to the rhythm of the river’s breeze.

  Huey was standing by Miss Olivia, who was seated in one of eight wrought-iron chairs that surrounded the heavy glass-top dining table. The relentless sun had faded the magenta-striped cushions in the seats and backs of the chairs, but they were still cool and inviting. There was a centerpiece of pink hydrangea blossoms stuffed in a large cut-glass bowl. On either side of it stood oversized hurricanes, tall enough to ensure the glow of its columned candles.

  Off to the side, closer to the house, was another seating area with chairs and glass-topped end tables. Nearby stood the butler’s field table on which was placed a silver Revere bowl of cracked ice and silver tongs. Crystal tumblers and bottles of white wine in an oversized silver ice bucket waited on a round silver tray. There was bourbon in a decanter and Perrier wrapped in a linen napkin. Byron moved in the sidelines in his starched linen mandarin-collared jacket, coming forward to offer a cheese straw or a napkin or to refresh a drink.

  Whatever it was that Miss Olivia was saying, Huey’s face was filled with delight. Their affection for each other was so obviously genuine that anyone would have wanted to be a part of their lives.