by Rie Warren
Unfortunately I knew shit from shinola about interior design.
Taking one look at me as I shuttled stacks of paper back and forth, barely managing a tremulous smile at the personable popinjay, Augie had tsked me. “Oh, honey, she got you run ragged already? Let’s get you a cup of tea,” he’d stage whispered, “and I’ll treat you to a cocktail after we get this over with.”
A good twenty years older than me, August DuBose took me under his wing and managed not only to land Ginger’s account, thereby launching his third career as a much sought-after designer to the Charleston elite–he’d first been a carpenter of fine furnishings and secondly a solicitor, a true Renaissance man–the gay gad-about-town became my closest friend.
“And in your blue flowerbed?” Only family and close friends knew about the genesis of this part of the garden, started with bulbs of grape hyacinth last autumn. I was no Picasso, but I had my reasons for this blue hued homage to sadness.
Deflecting further questions, I concentrated on the centerpiece of the somber flowerbed.
Augie didn’t take the hint, musing, “Interview went well, then?”
“I don’t wanna talk about it.” I pouted.
“I can see it now. Y’all charmed them with your vocabulary and vulgar wit, didn’t you?”
“Actually…” I brushed off clots of dirt, flicking bits at him before fetching my sweet tea. “I got another interview day after tomorrow.”
“Lawdy, lawdy. That is a turn out for the books.” Standing up, he scanned me conspiratorially. “What you gonna wear, honey?”
“It’s always nice to see you have your priorities straight.”
“’Bout the only straight thing about me.” He winked. “Y’all can’t deny you’re a hot mess, Miss Shay. I seen you all gussied up, but right now? You’re a disgrace to your womanhood, and I ain’t takin’ you out like this.”
He strolled a full circle around me before laying in. “With your rich claret hair properly styled, your milky white skin, those strikin’ gray eyes, you could turn yourself out right nicely. Girl, with those tits...if I were into babes instead of boys, a whole lotta you is easy on the eye. You just gotta believe it.”
“Oh, I believe it alright, I believe you’re full of shit.”
“Y’all could be a glamazon, but instead you’re lookin’ like Priscilla Queen of the Desert, ’ceptin those drag queens had better clothes and makeup than you.” He opened the door for me.
I deflected his comment, with my middle finger. “Shut the hell up so I can get ready before Palmer comes home.”
Upstairs, I grabbed a sundress and continued to the bathroom. Turning on the shower and listening to the hot water clang its way into the old pipes until it burst out with a splutter, I flung open the small window–flung it all of three inches before it shuddered to a stop in the warped jamb–sat on the sink and lit a smoke. Palmer didn’t approve of me taking up this bad habit again, and he definitely didn’t like me doing it in the house. So I appeased him by smoking on the sly, freed by this harmless rebellion.
Showering and dressing, I turned the question over and over, like the pile of mulch I kept in the back yard. Why was I even tempted by Mr. Boone’s proposal?
Hmm, let’s see. Get a minimum wage job at Lowe’s pickin’ up shifts whenever I could, or have my panties seduced off me by a tall, dark and delicious sex god? Apply for a job with Doody Calls: Premier Pet Waste Removal Specialists, or shack up with the Golden Shaft? Yeah, scoop poop or make whoopee, that was the damn question.
Then I remembered Reardon’s expression when he’d told me I was free to leave. Beneath his delectable exterior there’d been loneliness in him.
Not that I was looking to be his savior. Hell no. He’d sooner turn to the so-called gentleman’s club of The Southern Belle before turning to the Southern Baptist or this non-southern belle for deliverance from whatever demons might chase him.
He could keep his skeletons in the closet. I’d do the same with mine.
I was digging out.
I was planting up.
I had an escape plan and now an offer.
The telltale rattle of Palmer’s truck intruding on my thoughts, I flushed my second cigarette down the toilet. Our vehicles were matching his and hers: Tweedle-Dee-Piece-of-Shit and Tweedle-Dum-Wheeze-and-Hum. Palmer’s truck bed was filled with debris from the job, his exhaust burping a litany of fumes. The Bulls Bay Marine Contractors decal was graffitied with road muck, pebbles sticking to it like barnacles.
I noted his heavy tread and his voice, low and sharp. He was tired and I bet the ranch he carried a brown-bagged beverage along with the remnants of his brown-bagged lunch.
He wasn’t always like this, my Palmer. He’d been a real heartthrob back in the day, a loving husband, interested in everything about me, in building our life. Pain and self-hate had destroyed him.
On the foot of the stairs, I hung over the newel post and peered into the living room. He lounged against the doorframe and Augie sat on the arm of the sofa.
Their silent stand-off threatened imminent detonation.
Brushing past Palmer to defuse the tension, I was caught off guard when he pulled me to his side, kissing my temple.
I bristled at his fake show of affection and his obvious pissing contest comment.
“Hey, babe, thought you were goin’ out with your girlfriend this evenin’.” He chuckled before he got to the very old punchline of the joke. “Oh, right, so you are. Hi, Ass-Auger.”
They’d always goaded one another. It used to be good-natured and amusing; now it was nasty and antagonizing.
“Palmer, please.” I stayed put, shooing Augie outside.
At the door, he shot back, “So nice to see you again, Palmer.” In an undertone he mentioned, “Maybe if you spent less time palming your dick, you could do right by your wife.”
I glared at Augie. I did not want them to do this now. “You. Car. Now.”
I remained pressed against Palmer when the door closed, my heart pounding in my chest.
“Sorry, Shay.” Unused to the feel of me so near, he shifted away. “Long day is all.”
“I didn’t mean to–”
He held up his hands, always warding me off. “No, it’s fine.” His lips turned down. “Just have fun tonight.”
Tears sprigged in my eyes. I blinked them back fast. “I won’t be late.”
“’S okay. I’ll probably sleep in the spare room. Got an early start tomorrow.”
If I’d hoped for a hug, a kiss, I would’ve been disappointed by Palmer’s taciturn send-off. But hope for us was long gone.
Down the overgrown walkway, I piled into Augie’s open top roadster and slammed the door. “Totally uncalled for, Augie.”
“If he’s gonna dish it out, I’m gonna serve it back, honey. Besides, you deserve–”
I interrupted. “I ain’t never getting what I deserve, so don’t. Please. Not tonight.” At his nod, I gripped his hand and joked, “Now how’s about we go get some fruits for the fruit?”
We spent the evening wandering around the Mt. Pleasant Farmers Market. Beneath brand spanking new barn-style awnings, we made from one end to the other. Almost everything in this formerly Podunk town had been prettied-up, made over into a suburbanite spread with pinpoint pockets of real folk dotted between. Snowden, Five Mile, Six Mile, the Old Village, were communities where the born and bred families of Mt. Pleasant hung on. Selling their sweetgrass baskets and yellow barbeque and fried catfish lunches by the side of the road.
A whole lot of Mt. Pleasant had been airbrushed by new money settling in. Not me. Growing up, we never knew a stranger. Easy-going, slow-paced, the smell of honeysuckle arbors and us kids yelling from one yard to the next...someone always had an eye out for us when it was still a front-porch culture.
We’d lived in the Old Village, at the mouth of the Charleston Harbor. My daddy a longshoreman at the docks, my momma had inherited our cottage from her grandmammy. Our small parcel of land was a Jussel
y birthright, something to keep in the family, right next door to my Mimi’s house. On the other side of us were neighbors whose family had been there since the Old Village was the original Greenwich Village, populated in the 1800’s. Though the area caught a fair sea breeze, it was never an enclave for the plantation gentry seeking relief from the threat of mosquito and malaria. Genuine people resided there, still did, amidst the stifling new rises of four story houses blotting out the riverside vista.
With my daddy’s accident, we’d lost our property, and Momma and I lost him. His chest was crushed by an ill-handled crate from an Evergreen cargo ship. My brawny, stevedore daddy–the man who’d set the sun on his able shoulders–was more dead than alive when we’d reached the hospital.
He’d opened his eyes when I’d touched him. “Shay.”
Sobbing, I’d grabbed his hands. “Daddy!”
He’d managed to turn his head to me, and into my ear he’d whispered, “Y’all take good care of your momma.” A trapped breath pinballed inside his torso. “You make good on yo’self. You’re almost a woman now. I’ll be countin’ on you, Tiger Lily.”
I’d been inconsolable when they’d pulled Momma and me off him to check his vitals. The inconstant bleep-bleep-bleep ended in an alarming high-pitched siren that still woke me up at night.
Daddy’s hospital bills bankrupted us, health insurance already on the rise. His funeral was paid on credit to J. Henry Stuhr. My momma became a broke single mother and a widow.
Me, fatherless.
Us, homeless.
Landowners no more. It was a hell of a thing to endure the end of my second year in high school, but at least I had Palmer.
We couldn’t keep pace with escalating Old Village property taxes at any rate, not without Daddy’s paycheck. Good thing Momma was frugal because she hardly had any time to mourn.
Grief was an old friend to me and Momma, one that kept on a-callin’. But that didn’t stop us Motte women from settling our skirts and getting on about our business.
Setting my sunglasses on my nose, I found Augie haggling over a punnit of strawberries, asking the vendor why he should pay the high price when he could head out to Boone Hall Plantation and pick them himself.
I called his bluff. “Augie, sugah, I do believe the only time you’re to be found on your knees is when you have somethin’ more filling than strawberries in your mouth.”
“I see you’re feelin’ spunky tonight, Miss Shay,” he managed between laughs.
“You’d know more about spunk than me, M’sieur DuBose.”
Marching me toward a fresh-faced vendor–the type whose cheeks shone like red delicious apples–he dared me, “I think he wants you to check out his produce.”
With a wink, I set off toward the youth selling tomatoes. He was every bit lovely: big baby blues, buff body, smiling widely at all who approached. “Evenin’, ma’am.”
Ma’am. Goddamn. Did I look that old?
“Or should I say Miss?” Oh, but he was a fast learner.
A perfect grape tomato in the palm of my hand, I asked, “How much are these?”
I turned so the setting sun shifted through my sundress.
The boy-man stammered. “Uh...yeah...two bucks a pint, Miss.”
Face flushed as pink as the sunset sky, the lad shifted from foot to foot, trying not to stare at my breasts.
Augie came over. “I think what you’re after are the heirloom beefsteaks. Nothin’ as small as a grape tomato is ever gonna fill you up.”
The King of Innuendo had met his Queen. “What would you suggest, darlin’?” I held a giant, striped globe in one hand weighing it against a tiny oval tomato in the other. “What’s more satisfyin’? A big, thick, beefy tomato, or a lovely, round juicy one?”
The boy lost his stutter to a bold grin. “Depends how big your appetite is, Miss.”
Augie stifled his chortles while I bought a pint of tomatoes because the young man was too cute to torment any longer.
Once we hit the road, Augie let loose. “Ooh, Shay! Did you see the look on that child’s face? I couldn’t tell if he was mortified through and through, or if he was about to jump over the stand to get to you.”
“Probably both. I tend to have that effect on men.” I spoke drolly, but couldn’t wipe the smile off my face.
At home, he walked me up the porch. “Good to see you so sprightly for a change. Y’all be sure to keep it up.” Kissing my cheeks, he added, “Call me after your second sitting. Call me if you need me.”
I heaved my shoulder against the ornery portal.
Before I got inside, Augie returned. He knew how hard the nights were. He squeezed my shoulders, then placed my hand over the steadying cadence of his heart. “You get some rest, honey.”
The sight of Palmer prostrate across the bare futon in the spare room, wearing threadbare boxers, snoring like a freight train, shored up my decision to become a cuckold.
He couldn’t even stand to sleep beside me.
He wasn’t the least bit attracted to me anymore. Night after night and day after day, he drove a wedge between us with turndowns and turn-offs. A human being couldn’t survive without touch.
Reardon was offering exactly that.
Personal Assistant? I could do it in my sleep.
Mistress? Well, I’d need a completely different skill set, one I hadn’t practiced for quite some time.
What if Reardon didn’t want me either?
What if I’d lost my knack?
Would he woo me? I wouldn’t recognize a romantic gesture if it slapped me upside the head, it’d been so long.
* * * *
The morning of my next meet, greet, and meep with Reardon, I shuffled to the patio with a cup of scalding coffee half filled with cream, still in a stew. “Romance, ha!”
The squirrels idled long enough to quirk their vermin heads at me before returning to their acrobatics.
I hadn’t been blind-sided by romance recently. Palmer’s gestures ran more cold than hot, and I could recount them all with an aching stab of pain:
Allowing only a mumbled, “Good,” when I inquired about his day over our quiet dinners.
Walking in on me surrounded by cried-out Kleenex, patting my back before showing me his backside leaving the room.
Becoming stiff as a corpse when I crossed the invisible boundary in our bed.
Anything remotely resembling intimacy toward my husband felt like a molestation misdemeanor.
Earlier in the summer, Augie and I had sat at the counter of The Drugstore with Adelaide, the Saltwater GeeChee proprietress of the downhome establishment. I’d known the woman since I was knee high to a grasshopper, having frequented the shop as a child, pushing handfuls of sweaty pennies across the shiny bar to pay for my Creamsicles.
Then as now, she had the same unlined, black-grape skin, the generous bosom creating a resting place for her folded forearms, the same deep hushpuppy voice.
Fountain sodas and crusts of thick egg salad sandwiches made from Addy’s secret recipe sat to the side while she had held court. “Mmm hmm, chile. What you need is some good lovin’.”
Augie had agreed, “Yes’m, Miss Adelaide, I do believe you’re onto somethin’.” He’d clapped his hands. “Y’all need a man who will treat you like a woman, spole you, and indoctrinate you into the finer points of fucking.”
Reaching across the counter, Addy thwacked him on the head with the handle of a broom practically attached to her hitting-hand. “Mr. DuBose, I’ll remind you to watch your cursin’.”
I sighed. “I already have a man.”
“When was the last time he acted like one, honey?”
“And that be the crux of it.” Addy had nodded.
It was just my damn bad luck Palmer came home for lunch before I scooted on my way to Reardon’s. I was in the bathroom primping, preening, and doing a final fret about my immoral, going-to-hell, so goddamn wrong decision when the front door banged and his shout rebounded, “Shay! Y’all here?”
<
br /> Downstairs, my husband sat at the kitchen table, drinking a noontime beer and eating a sandwich. The hazy sun from the windows imbued his rugged features and arresting goldenrod hair, reminding me of the playful dimples I never saw anymore.
Glancing away, I saw he’d made me a sandwich too. My will crumbled. Why couldn’t he be the man I’d married?
Then he opened his mouth. “Y’all are tarted up. Exactly who are you interviewing with?”
Tarted up? What about, “You turned out nicely, Shay?” Since I didn’t own any pasties or sequined boob tubes, I was dressed professionally–but not professionally.
“Can’t say, confidentiality clause.” I bit into the sandwich and swallowed over the lies spilling from my mouth. “It’s a PA job, like I did for Ginger.”
“Hmmf. You don’t say?”
“The person in question values privacy.” Queasy, I threw the rest of the sandwich into the overflowing garbage can he’d forgotten to empty the night before. “Anyway, it’s only two or three times a week, very flexible.”
“Don’t seem like much, hardly worth gettin’ outta bed for.”
Ain’t that the truth. Wait, huh? It wasn’t all that much at all, what with Mr. Boone’s obvious tastes for trysts.
Thinking fast, I concluded, “It’s a job share.”
“Makes sense, I guess.” He shoved the end of his sandwich in his mouth and washed the gooey mess down with the last of his brew.
Oh.
Oh!
Job share?
Oh, no freakin’ way.
Chapter 3
Bone Fides
By the time I got to The Tides, I was steaming mad. Job share? Oh, I had somethin’ to share alright. A piece of my mind, for starters. Reardon’s front door was propped opened, so I gave it a good hearty slam to make my entrance known. At least I tried to slam it. Figured it was one of those spring mechanisms, quietly snicking closed.
Searching for something to cause a commotion, I spotted a big vase resting on the entry table. I hefted it from hand to hand a few times, then whacked it onto the table…
