by Lexi Whitlow
“Maybe you need to offer to pay a little more?” I offer tentatively.
He throws up his hands. “I haven’t even set a rate yet. This is just opening discussions with people. No one has made it past the phone call stage. I’d pay whatever they want if they’re decent human beings, but I’m not having a convict or drug user in my house, taking care of my kid.”
I might have a solution to his problem, but I’m not sure he’ll go for it.
“You know, I could probably help you out,” I say, looking away and picking up another glass to polish. “Maybe just ‘til you can hire someone real. You need a nanny. But if you’d be willing to have me come help out while you’re looking, I could do it.”
Jeb stares at me blankly for a lingering moment. He’s thinking about it, at least.
“You’d be willing to do that?” he asks. “What about Flo’s? How would you manage your schedule here?”
I shrug. “Since the summer help has been hired, they get the crappy lunch shifts now. Ronny’s moved my schedule to five dinner shifts a week, Wednesday through Sunday, four until closing. I have my days free. As long as you don’t mind me bringing my son along, I can make it work.”
He gives me a surprised look. “Can you do seven to three, Monday through Friday?”
I nod. “Yeah.”
“That’s perfect,” he says, as I detect a visible weight lift from his shoulders. “That’s better than perfect. Can you come meet my mother? She’s the one who gets to make the final decision, but I know she’ll like you.”
“Sure,” I say. “When?”
“Tonight? When Stu and I get back from Hilton Head. We should be back by five or so. I’ll pick you up here. Okay?”
I nod again. “I’ll meet you right here.”
“Perfect.” Jeb grins at me, showing me that handsome smile I haven’t seen since he got here. I missed it. “Perfect. You just made my week.”
Chapter 8
Jeb
It’s a nice boat. It’s a thirty-five-foot custom-built catamaran with nearly new, twin V-8, 350 horsepower Yamaha outboard engines, and a ten-inch draft. Its platform is flat and stable on the water, and just about perfect for oyster work. The owner had it built for pleasure fishing. It’s prettied up with polished teak and has a fancy stereo, underwater running lights, and a dozen other “amenities” I don’t need and can’t pay extra for.
Stu looks at it doubtfully.
“Six,” I say. “After a hull inspection.”
The owner scoffs. He’s dressed in a bright yellow Hilton Head Island Golf Club polo shirt and purple Bermuda shorts. He’s as big around as he is tall, and tinted pink with a lifetime of top shelf alcohol.
“I paid forty-thousand-dollars to have this boat built,” he says, appraising it from the dock. “She’s like a member of the family.”
The back of the vessel bears out his claim. Large script letters spell out “Vanessa’s Permission.” I suspect Vanessa is a former wife, judging by the condition of the flower garden we passed by on the way down to the dock. The guy’s place is nice in that gated community, cookie-cutter, vacation home sort of way, but it’s lacking a woman’s touch and has been for some time.
“That was twenty years ago,” I remind him. “I will admit, she looks good for a twenty-year-old boat.”
Stu walks forward, inspecting the condition of the cockpit. The seat is a bit worn and sun-cracked.
“Yeah, so here’s the thing,” I say. “The boat I buy is gonna be on the water every day, all day, working. Teak ain’t something I care much about. I’m hauling oysters and green shell, trolling the shallows at slow speed. I don’t need 700 horsepower. I need a working boat at a reasonable price.”
“Twelve and I’ll throw in the trailer,” he offers.
I have absolutely no use for a trailer. “Let me think about it,” I say, pulling a business card from my wallet, handing it over. I offer my hand, thanking him for his time.
Back in Stu’s truck, I halfway regret not countering. “It’s a pretty boat,” I say. “And I bet it would be fun to take out on the shoals, past St. Helena.”
Stu agrees. “But that’s not what you need a boat for,” he says. “You and I stay in the black by making sensible decisions. I wonder what that guy was thinking, paying forty-grand for a weekend party boat.”
“Some people have more money than sense,” I observe. My whiskey buzz has evaporated. Now, I just feel drained, dehydrated, and a little bit annoyed that I’ve wasted almost two hours looking at a boat I can’t have.
“It’s a terrible time of year to buy a boat,” Stu says, pointing his worn-out Toyota truck toward home. “Try again this fall, when the summer people start shedding their vacation complications. You’ll find a better selection and better prices.”
There’s wisdom in his thinking. “You’re probably right,” I admit. I’ve got my catamaran and six standard skiffs. That’s fine to get us through the summer. I’ve leased a new section of the ACE Basin on a creek near Brown’s Island starting in September. We’ll need a new boat – or two – to manage that, along with some new crew, but there’s time to work it all out. In the meantime, I’ve got more important claims on my attention.
“Maddie’s going to start helping with Emma,” I say. “She’s coming out tonight to meet Emma and Mama. I’m hoping she can start in the next couple days.”
Stu glances my way, then back at the road. “Won’t that be a little strange?” he asks. “I mean… You like her.”
I shrug. “I liked her, but she turned me down. This is business. She’s qualified.”
“Right,” Stu says, suppressing a smile. “Well, maybe it’ll work out. She is qualified, on a couple different levels.”
I let the remark go, focusing instead on the fact that Maddie offered; I didn’t ask. Stu’s the one who told me she was trying to save up for a place of her own, somewhere safe with a yard her kid could play in. If she can help me with Emma, and I can help her get there a little faster, then it works out for both of us.
We get back to Flo’s ahead of schedule. Pulling into the dusty parking lot at 4:30, I spot Maddie coming out of her camper with a small boy on her heels.
“Hold up,” I say to Stu. “Park it here.”
The boy, a little tow-headed sprite, is near tears. I can hear him begging Maddie not to go.
“I’ll be back soon,” she reassures him, dropping to her knees in the dust to look up at him. “I promise. I’ll be home before dark. If you have any trouble, Ronny’s just inside. I need to do this, baby. We need the money.”
The boy hangs his head in defeat as Stu and I watch.
“Now go back inside and stay put. You’ve got your book. The new one from the library. You love Percy Jackson. I won’t be long.”
The boy turns away, shoulders slumped, eyes downcast. It’s clear this is an exchange they’ve had many times, and it makes me sad.
“I know you like to get a bargain when you can,” Stu says, staring straight ahead at Maddie and her camper. “But do me a personal favor and pay her more than she asks for. She’s a girl who could use a streak of good fortune.”
“Yeah,” I agree solemnly. “You probably didn’t need to remind me.”
Maddie sees me exit Stu’s truck and comes our way, her posture humbled.
“Sorry about that,” she says. “Justin gets jealous when I take my off-time to do anything without him.”
“He can come with us,” I offer. “It’s fine with me, and Mama would love to meet him.”
Maddie shakes her head. “He’s okay,” she says. “He needs to learn that the world doesn’t revolve around him.”
Something tells me he’s got a firm grasp of that fact, already.
“I’ll get you back before dark,” I assure her. “Are you sure he’s okay?”
She nods nervously. “He’s fine. It’s a little hot in the camper, but he’s getting used to it. As long as I’m back by dark, he should be good.”
It’s a fifteen
-minute drive over the causeway and bridge to Maiden’s Island, then north, up Sam’s Point Road toward Blanc-Bleu. Maddie is quiet during most of the drive, but when the blacktop runs out and we hit sandy dirt, she perks up.
“You live in the swamp?” she asks.
I guess it looks a little like that to someone who’s never seen this part of the world. The farther we go down the dirt lane, the farther we go back in time. These maritime forests surrounding Blanc-Bleu’s entrance haven’t been touched in centuries. They conceal mostly derelict rice and indigo fields that ceased to be productive a hundred years ago. Spanish moss hangs heavy from live oaks that were already old when Portuguese and French explorers prowled the waters off St. Helena’s Shoals. Everything about this property is steeped in history.
“Jesus,” Maddie gasps, catching her first glimpse of Blanc-Bleu from a quarter mile off. “Is that where you live?”
“No,” I assure her. “No one’s lived there since my great-grandfather died. It’s a show-house now. People pay for the privilege of touring it, or getting married there, or family reunions. Whatever helps pay the bills.”
I try to see my family legacy through her eyes. To me, this is just home. To her, it must seem like something out of a movie or television show. Plenty of them have been filmed here.
“Mama and I – and Emma now – live in a house that used to be the plantation overseer’s cottage. It’s newer by about a hundred years, smaller, and a lot more comfortable that an 18th century plantation house without electricity or hot water.”
Maddie’s eyes grow larger and larger the nearer we get to Blanc-Bleu. She leans forward, craning her neck to see it as we pass by.
“That’s… that’s huge… and amazing,” she says.
I guess it is. It takes an amazing amount of time and money to keep it that impressive.
“Why is it built so high off the ground?” she asks, settling back down in her seat.
I pass a couple outbuildings, then slow down, nearing home. “My ancestors came to South Carolina from Santa Domingue – Haiti – which is prone to catastrophic hurricanes. South Carolina is no stranger to them either. They built Blanc-Bleu in the Caribbean style; high, above ground-level to survive storm-surge flooding; a shallow roofline to resist the wind; wide, wrap-around porches and an open floor plan to catch the breezes in the summer heat.” I look over at her as I put the truck in park in front of the house. “When it’s a hundred and five degrees in the shade out here, Blanc-Bleu is a comfortable eighty-two inside, even in the middle of August. The walls are sixteen inches thick, made of mud brick. There’s an ice cellar that’ll hold a block of ice frozen all summer long. It’s amazing the ingenuity they had, and how they applied it. That’s why people pay for the opportunity to just come and look at it.”
“Why don’t you live in it?” Maddie asks, gazing back at me, genuinely interested.
I smile. “It’s twelve-thousand square feet of 18th century, over-the-top luxury,” I reply. “It’s pretty to look at, but not so practical to function in. My great-grandfather was happy to live by lamp oil and cold-water baths. It’s cool in the summer but heating it in the winter is a bitch. The ceilings are eighteen-feet high, and the open floor plan that keeps it cool all summer, keeps it cold as fuck in January.”
Maddie smiles at me. “I bet you don’t tell the tourists that story,” she says. “I bet you let them keep their grand romances of what it would be like to actually live in a house like that.”
“I don’t tell the tourists anything,” I admit. “Mama’s in charge of leading them around, selling the romance of moonlight and magnolias. I stay out of it, just working to keep the place in repair.”
Maddie looks forward, taking in the much smaller, more modest version of Blanc-Bleu ahead of us. It’s built in the same style, but on a smaller scale. It lacks the grand ornamentation of the big house and it lacks the pretense. Instead of eighteen-foot ceilings adorned with intricate crown-molding and hand-crafted plaster medallions, it boasts some nice, simple woodwork and modest, twelve-foot ceilings on the first floor. The second floor is built to relatively modern specifications. It’s fully wired with indoor plumbing, thanks to my great-grandfather. If it hadn’t been, I think my father would have sold all of this off and moved to a house in town, depriving me of the opportunity of growing up here and inheriting all the obligation that comes with being a Ballentine.
“Let’s go in,” I say. “I want you to meet Emma, and my mother.”
Once inside, the only sound we hear is Emma crying. Mama’s got her on her shoulder, patting her back, trying to soothe her, but it’s hopeless.
“Mama, this is Maddie,” I call out over the deafening pitch of the baby’s peeling shrieks.
Mom gives me a curious look, struggling to hear me.
“She’s here to see about being the babysitter.”
“Babysitter!?” Mom cries, a hopeful expression brightening her face. “Do you have experience?” she asks.
Maddie smiles, reaching out for Emma. “Lots,” she says, taking the wailing bundle in hand. Without paying me or Mama much mind, she settles on a kitchen chair and rolls her t-shirt up to expose her belly. She strips Emma’s little shirt off too, unsnapping it, pulling it back. Then she presses Emma gently to her own pale skin. At first Emma shrieks louder, her hands trembling with frustration and fury.
“It’s okay baby,” Maddie says softly. “You’re safe right here.”
What happens next is nothing short of miraculous. In ten seconds Emma’s hands still, then relax, then reach out and touch Maddie’s flesh. She ceases whaling, dropping down to a whimper, then to just an occasional baby-pitched grumble, then to nothing. She turns her face toward Maddie, pressing in close. In another moment she’s completely quiet, breathing gently, curled up against Maddie’s bare belly.
Mama’s astonished. I’m no less impressed.
Maddie looks up, smiling sweetly. “She was missing skin-on-skin,” she says softly. “She needed something familiar, something warm.”
“She’s the baby-whisperer,” Mama observes with a smirk. “Where’d you find her? Do I even want to know?”
“Flo’s,” I tell her. “Where else?”
Mama regards the baby whisperer, carefully sizing her up. “Where are you from, darlin’? And more to the point, do you have a criminal record?”
Mama seldom beats around the bush.
“I’m from Indianapolis,” Maddie replies curtly, stroking Emma’s head. “I don’t have a criminal record, use drugs, drink to excess, or drink at all while I’m working. I’m a single mom raising a little boy, and I need a second job. You need a babysitter, so it should work out.”
Mama glances my way with one eyebrow arched. “She’s a firecracker,” she quips.
That is the general opinion of nearly everyone who’s met her.
“You take that sleeping baby up to her room and put her down,” my mother instructs. “She’s had her bottle and I just changed her diaper, so she should nap for a little while. When she’s down, you come back and let’s talk.”
Maddie’s face draws with question. “Which room?” she asks.
Mama almost rolls her eyes. “Top of the stairs, second door on the right. The one that looks like a nursery.”
When Maddie is out of earshot, Mom cuts her eyes at me. “You could have given me a call,” she says. “Let me know someone was coming over. Now she thinks I keep a messy house and Emma’s a fussy baby.”
“Emma is a fussy baby,” I reply. “And I thought you’d be happy.”
“You met her at Flo’s? How?”
I shrug. “She works there. Dinner shifts. Her days are free. Ronny likes her. Stu likes her.”
“Ronny likes every sad stray that’s ever crossed his threshold. What’s this girl’s story? Where does she live?”
My mother is relentless and judgy and understandably concerned with the well-being of her presumed grandchild, as well as the family silver and contents of her jewelry box. The
re’s no point in lying or glossing over the facts. She has a way of finding things out.
“She lives in a camper, which is mostly parked in Flo’s back lot. She’s between addresses.”
Mama takes a step back, her eyes rolling to the ceiling and back. “Oh, good Lord, Jeb. You’ve brought a homeless person into my house, to care for your daughter?”
Sometimes a man just has to put his foot down, even if it’s with his own Mama.
“Technically, it’s our house,” I say. “But more to the point, it wouldn’t still be our house if I hadn’t worked my ass off these seven or eight years to keep the taxes paid and keep a roof on it. If I’d played it like Daddy played it, we’d both be homeless. But maybe you could have called on cousin Clinton to help you out.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “Don’t speak that man’s name out loud in my presence,” she hisses dramatically, a tiny smile curling her lip. She pauses to think. “How long have you known this girl?”
“A little over a month,” I reply. “Long enough to get a decent sense of her character. She’s good people.”
Mama has questions regarding Maddie’s general habits around infant-wrangling, as well as some paperwork for social security and taxes. I make myself scarce for that portion. When I come back, they’re discussing money, and Maddie looks cornered.
“Honey, it’s a babysitting job,” Mama says condescendingly. “You don’t have to dress for work, and you’ll be taking at least two meals a day in my kitchen. That’s worth a great deal.”
“But… but… just the gas alone to get out here will cost me at least seventy dollars a week, and…”
“Is my mother dickering money with you?” I interrupt, breaking the tension. “She’s got a reputation in town for being cheap.”
