by Lexi Whitlow
“Sure,” I say, “I’ll go total it up.”
I beat a retreat just in time to pick up a four-top of fried oysters and shrimp destined for a table of tourists just in off the golf course. They’re sunburned over previously pasty white skin, reeking of aloe and coconut oil. One of the women is burned so badly she looks like someone spray-painted her entire body pink.
It takes a few minutes to get back to the computer to pull up Jeb and Stu’s bill. When I do, I see Stuart has returned, with company. A girl has joined them at their tiny two-top booth. She borrowed a bar stool and is sidled up so close to Jeb she’s almost sitting in his lap. She’s smiling broadly, leaning into him, hanging on his every expression.
I say she’s a girl, but she’s not. She’s a grown woman with long, straight, blond hair all the way down her back, and a perfect, Barbie Doll figure. She’s tanned – not too dark – and dressed in neat black shorts and a cute, crop-cut t-shirt with a ‘Bulldog Charters’ logo emblazoned across the back. Her wrists are wrapped in a stack of gold bangle bracelets and her diamond earrings look expensive.
I drop the check off at their table without a word, hearing her say, “I’m back for the summer. Too many tourists at Hilton Head. It’s so good to see you again, Jeb. It’s been too long…”
With that last observation, she wraps her soft hand, adorned with perfectly manicured and painted nails, around Jeb’s forearm. Every cell in my body recoils at the sight of her touching him. I can’t even stomach that she’s near him.
I’m jealous. I have no right to be. He asked me out and I turned him down.
“Girlfriend, that’s a daggers look if I ever saw one. What’s got your hackles up?”
I turn, Ally’s watching me while waiting with a stack of checks she needs to total up. She gazes past me toward the blond, hanging off Jeb’s arm.
“Nothing,” I say, stepping back so she can get to the computer.
“Nothing?” she observes, giving me a knowing grin. “You like him. I can tell. He’s easy on the eyes.”
He is that.
“I’m cut at ten,” Ally says. “Stu and I are going out. He’s taking me out on his boat.”
“He is?” I’m surprised. Ally is always talking about how full of shit all the guys around here are.
She nods. “He’s asked me a couple times, and I always said no. When he asked why I wouldn’t go out with him, I told him it was because white boys never want to be seen with a Mexican girl, they just want to fool around. He said it wasn’t true. I told him to prove it. The next day at lunch, he came in with his mother. He introduced me to her and told her he’d asked me out five times, and I wouldn’t go with him. His mother starts telling me all the reasons I should.” Ally smiles, “I never had a guy do anything like that before. I thought it was sweet. His mother was so nice to me. She didn’t freak out that I’m Mexican. She seemed okay with me.”
“Ally, you’re beautiful and the smartest girl in Beaufort,” I say. “Of course, she was okay with you. Stuart seems like an okay guy too. You could do way worse, trust me.”
She punches computer keys rapidly, plucking receipts from the printer, one-by-one. “I’m closing out my last tables and going home as soon as I cash them out. Keep an eye on them for me, if they hang around?”
I nod. “Sure thing. I’m here until the bitter end.”
It’s my night to clean the bathrooms. After the tsunami of people who came through here tonight, that should be more fun than a barrel full of monkeys.
A little while later I’m covering the bar for Ronny when Ally walks up to Stu. She’s changed clothes into cute shorts and a tight, clean t-shirt, freshened up, let her hair down, and put on a little powder and lip stick. She looks lovely, like a Brazilian Samba dancer; all long, strong legs and shiny back hair. It’s tough to believe that a girl so beautiful who is also so smart, thinks any guy wouldn’t want to be seen with her.
Stu is all smiles, grinning like a kid when he stands up to greet her. He slips his arm around her waist, says goodbye to Jeb and the woman he’s with, and moves to go. Just then Jeb stands too, gracefully moving behind his companion without touching her, and says, “It’s time for me to go too. Early day tomorrow.”
He puts out his hand to shake the woman’s. She looks confused and disappointed.
“Stay awhile,” she begs. “It’s early. We could go down to Luther’s and listen to a band, or just go walk the water front like when we were kids.”
Jeb slowly shakes his head. “I’m sorry, Deb. The oysters never stop needing me to do something with ‘em. Every day is up early. Plus, we’ve got the first wedding of the season at Blanc-Bleu next weekend and I’ve got a honey-do list as long as my right arm to finish to get the place ready for that, or Mama’ll kill me.”
The woman – Deb – smiles sympathetically. “That’s right, I heard you restored Blanc-Bleu. Got it on the Historic Register and everything. I’d sure love to see that old place again. It was beautiful, even in the sad state it was in when we were in High school. I bet it’s something now that you’ve brought it back to life.”
Jeb nods. “It’s nice enough. Mama’s pride and joy. It’s open for tours. You should call and schedule one. Mama would love to show you around.”
“I’d rather you showed me around,” she says slyly. “Your mama never did like me much.”
“She loves everybody,” Jeb protests. “She’s just a little feisty sometimes.”
Deb rolls her eyes. “Rose Ballentine is feisty like a nest full of hornets. She scared me to death when I was a kid.”
He grins at her. “She still scares me,” he says. “She keeps me in line, which is good. And that’s one reason I’m going to say goodnight. It was nice seeing you again. Enjoy your summer back home and give my best to your folks.”
He doesn’t linger. He makes his way out without pausing to speak to several people in the dining room who wave or nod, trying to catch his attention.
Deb watches him walk away, disappointment clouding her pretty, refined features. She’s just a couple yards away from me and I’ve got a perfect view of her long, tanned legs, her manicured toes, and the pale ring of untanned skin on her ring-finger, where a diamond or a wedding band used to be. She hasn’t been long without it.
I glance down at my own hand, recalling the narrow band I wore for so long. I never did sell the thing. I should. There’s no trace of its absence now. No telltale pale ring of untanned skin on my finger, and no regrets about shedding the thing.
A few seconds after Jeb disappears through the doors, Deb gets up from the table and makes her way toward an older couple seated at a four-top in the main dining area. The woman – obviously her mother – gives her an inquiring look. Deb shakes her head, looking down.
I was jealous of her a little while ago. Now I just feel pity. She didn’t come home to escape the tourists. She came home because her world is falling apart and she’s looking for familiar stability. I hope she finds it.
I’m reasonably confident she isn’t going to find her safe harbor in Jeb Ballentine’s arms.
Chapter 6
Jeb
Besides sorting and grading spat, checking bamboos in the shallows is about the most tedious oyster work there is. It’s spawning season, and I’m out here on the edge of the Spartina grass, up to my hips in water, pulling up bamboo poles set last year to attract wild oysters. It occurs to me as I slog through the water and mud, I spend way too much time thinking about the sex lives of bivalves, and not nearly enough time getting my own groove on.
Maybe it’s the heat, or maybe it’s just the natural flow of the seasons, but I always start thinking about sex—or the lack of it—when May comes around. I need to get laid.
“That’s a pretty one,” I say out loud to no one at all. The oyster is a good inch and a half long with a dark, hard shell and a deep cup. I pry it off the bamboo spike, tossing it in my backpack with twenty others just like it.
This is where selective oyster breeding
begins. I’ve seeded these waters with billions of farm-raised oyster babies, while the Atlantic Ocean contributes her random wild stock. I select the best from both, put them together in the spawning tanks back at the hatchery, and let them do their thing. In a few weeks, millions of microscopic babies swim into the nursery tanks for feeding and tender loving care. When they grow enough, sinking to the bottom of the tank, we collect them, sort them by size, and when they’re big enough, we put them right back out here into the Coosaw River to grow up. It doesn’t take many of oysters collected this way to make a lot of spat, but it’s a never-ending process. Every two weeks from May through December we spawn another brood. That way we always have oysters ready to harvest during the open season. The children of the oysters in my backpack will be on plates in the best restaurants in the country by September of next year.
This isn’t the easiest work, especially in this heat with the sun beating down on me. I dunk under the water to cool off, but it’s almost as hot as the sticky, humid air. There’s not even a breeze coming off the salt to cool things down. It would be easy to get a sunstroke out here. I slog back to the skiff to get my water bottle, chugging half a gallon in one long draw.
The upside to checking bamboos is it’s solitary work. I don’t have to hear the guys on the crew banter, or listen to bad rap music, or worse country music. I’m just alone with my thoughts and the peace of the wide-open estuary. There are way worse ways to earn a living.
On that happy note, my cell phone rings, proving there’s no genuine escape to the interruption of civilization. I pull myself up on the deck and stretch, reaching into the cockpit to grab it before it goes to voicemail.
“Hey Mama, what’s up?” I answer, seeing her smiling face on my screen before I take the call.
“You need to come home,” she says, her voice brittle. “I don’t care what you’ve got going on. You need to come home. Now.”
“What’s going on?” I ask. “Are you okay?”
“Come home. I can’t even tell you over the phone. You wouldn’t believe it.”
“Mom. What’s wrong?” Now I’m concerned. She never speaks to me like this.
“Just come home. I mean it.”
She doesn’t sound exactly angry, but she’s sure not pleased. When she’s smiling, pulling a joke on me or teasing, I can hear it in her tone. This tone doesn’t have a smile behind it. Something is seriously wrong.
“I’m on my way,” I say. “Ten minutes.”
If there was weather, I’d be worried a tree fell on Blanc-Bleu. If I heard sirens coming up Sam’s Point Road I’d halfway think there was a fire. I can’t imagine what’s happened to send Mama to the edge of her temper, but I’m interested in finding out what it is and fixing it.
It’s just a few minutes upriver to the docks by boat, and then just five more minutes to the house over the dirt path across the property. When I pull up in the yard everything seems fine. Nothing’s on fire or torn down. The horses out in their pastures aren’t rattled, so there’s been no bear on the property. (That’s happened once, and it was exciting. It set Mama right on the edge of her chair.)
I push open the front door, bounding in, calling out, “I’m home!”
Mama appears, popping around the corner like a Jack-in-the-Box, her index finger pressed firm to her lip, shushing me.
What the hell? Did a deer wander into the kitchen and lay down to take a nap?
She waves me toward her, her eyes imploring. “Son, you need to take a deep breath and maybe take a seat.”
I can’t wait anymore. I turn the corner into the kitchen to see what all the drama is about. The only thing I see is a big plastic car carrier with a baby tucked into it. The baby is sound asleep.
“Whose baby is that?” I ask in a low voice, my heart beating hard in my chest. There’s a sinking feeling at the very edges of my stomach. Babies don’t just appear, do they?
At least now I understand why we’re whispering.
Mama’s eyebrows arch high on her forehead. She dips into the pocket of her Blanc-Bleu staff jacket, producing an envelope, pressing it into my hand.
“Read that,” she says.
I don’t understand any of this. Why is she being so circumspect?
I pull a note from the envelope. The handwriting is large and loopy, a girl’s practiced script. It reads;
“Dear Jeb,
We weren’t together long, but long enough. Before you got tired of me (like I always knew you would), we made Emma. I decided to keep her because I loved you, and I wanted something to remember you by. That was a mistake. She’s just like you. She reminds me of you every single minute of every day, and I can’t do it anymore. I was never meant to be a mother, but you were always meant to be a father. You have everything. I have nothing to give her except a broken heart and all the resentment I hold against you.
I love her. That’s why I am giving her back. Take good care of your daughter. You’re all she’s got.
Don’t try to find me. I don’t want to be found. Ever. I mean that.”
“What the hell?” I croon into the air, re-reading the note. “What?”
In the carrier, the baby raises one tiny hand, splaying her finger out. She sighs, unaware, and goes back to sleep.
“This was in a little pouch tied to the baby carrier,” Mama says, holding out her closed hand for me to take something from her.
I lift my hand up, feeling a solid weight drop into my palm. When Mama removes her hand, I see my great-grandfather’s hefty gold class ring from the Citadel. He graduated in 1950, just in time to get sent to fight in Korea. When my father died I started wearing the ring, because ‘Papa’ – my great-grandfather – was the last Ballentine who cared about Blanc-Bleu or trying to keep the place afloat. He was a tough bastard who worked his tail off night and day to try to make the place pay for itself. He was also the first Ballentine to figure out how to make money from the water surrounding this place. He watched the poor people who inhabited this island walk out into the marshes every day collecting oysters and crabs, and he decided there was no shame in working hard for a living.
By the time I came along Papa was already old and beat down, and his grandson (my father) made fun of him for scrapping around in the mud for shellfish. Papa taught me a lot about scrapping and never giving up. I wore his ring every day for six years, then one day it disappeared.
I thought I lost it in the marshes.
I don’t even know what to say. I can’t process this. I peer down at the baby and all I see is a strange, slightly sun-pinked face that looks like a doll in a shop window.
“There’s something else,” Mama says.
She goes to the infant – I can’t even guess how old the baby is – and gently slips the edge of her little shirt down. On her shoulder is a small birthmark. It’s the color of port wine and shaped vaguely like the state of Virginia. I have one almost identical to it on my opposite shoulder, near the same spot.
“She got your eyes, too,” Mama says. “Not another human being alive on this planet has eyes the color of yours. It’s what made me fall in love with your daddy; those beautiful eyes the color of shallow salt water. That color green is Ballentine, and nobody else in the world.”
This is the craziest shit I’ve ever heard.
“Mama,” I say, hearing myself talking from miles away. “This baby isn’t mine. There’s no way. We need to call the police. Someone’s looking for her. She may have been kidnapped. Some mother out there must be frantic.”
Mama gives me a sad, resigned smile. “We do have to call the police,” she says, a gentleness in her tone I’m unaccustomed to. “A child has been abandoned, and that needs to be reported. But Jeb, no one’s looking for her.” My mama pauses and gives me a look. “She’s exactly where she’s supposed to be.”
Mama turns, lifting her phone to her ear. She calls the Sheriff’s department, explaining things the best she can. When she’s done, she comes back to me where I stand, staring vacantly at t
he sleeping infant.
“The Sheriff is sending someone out, and social services has been alerted. They’ll be here soon.”
Social services will take the child into custody and find a foster home for her. The Sheriff’s department will try to find the child’s mother. That’s what should happen. She can’t be mine.
The baby stirs, lifting her little arm again, her hand outstretched. He small fingers grasp the air, searching for something to cling to. Mama puts her finger into the baby’s palm. Her finger is instantly encircled in a surprisingly firm grip. The baby’s eyes remain closed, but she smiles, making a small, squealing sound in her throat.
“I remember when you were this age,” Mama says. “You used to do that, reaching out for a familiar thing to grab onto. You’d hold onto my finger tight like this, then drift off to sleep, still hanging on tight.”
I swallow, and the sinking feeling in my gut multiplies. Panic spreads through every reach of my body.
I don’t have a clue what to say.
“Do me a favor, son. Give Stu a call. Ask him to come over. Tell him it’s important.”
That sounds like an excellent idea, although I’m not entirely sure why.
By the time Stu arrives, social services is already here, checking out the baby, taking Mama’s statement, making notes.
“You’re freaking kidding me?” Stu asks, peering into the kitchen at the car carrier on the table and the assembly of county employees gathered around it.
“And it’s yours?”
What do I say?
“I don’t know. Mama thinks it is. And there’s some… I don’t know.”
I can’t even wrap my head around it.
I hand Stu the note left with the baby. He reads it twice, then looks up at me. “I know who this is,” he says. “It’s that girl from Connecticut who was here doing a graduate internship at the Wildlife Refuge for the Aquarium in Charleston. You guys only dated a month or so. You said she was getting serious fast, and you broke it off. She was a marine biologist. Remember her?”
