All the Single Ladies: A Novel

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  Carrie said, “I agree. At some point, we’re going to have to get focused on that. We’ve all been so busy!”

  It was true. We had been busy, but to be honest, I felt like we had to take our cue from Suzanne. If Suzanne wanted to spend an evening unpacking Kathy’s things and going through them, I’d be glad to help. She knew that, I think.

  “Miss Trudie? Did Suzanne and Carrie show you the pictures?”

  “No, what pictures?” she said.

  Carrie said, “We took pictures of some of the objects in Wendy’s living room. When Lisa picked up a letter opener that was on her coffee table, Wendy nearly died! She actually yelled at Lisa!”

  “What an odious woman!” Miss Trudie exclaimed. “She raised her voice to you?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” I replied. “I picked up the letter opener because it didn’t really fit the style of the others. And because it was filigreed gold encrusted with a large stone on the end of its handle. There was a magnifying glass that matched it.”

  “Oh! I’d love to see that!” Miss Trudie said.

  Carrie and I pulled out our cell phones and fiddled with them until we could find a picture of the whole collection on the coffee table.

  “See this?” I said, handing my phone to Miss Trudie. “That’s the one we’re talking about.”

  “Oh my!” she said. “I see what you mean! There is a very big difference between this one and that one. This one looks like it belonged to some bigwig, like royalty or maybe Donald Trump. That one looks like it came from a yard sale.”

  “And some of the others are nice, but not even in the same ballpark as this one, right?” I said.

  “Lisa? Do you think Wendy stole this from Kathy too?” Carrie said.

  “I don’t know, but I wouldn’t trust her as far as I can spit,” I said, and then thought better of my choice of words. “Miss Trudie? I don’t spit.”

  “Of course you don’t, sweetheart! It’s unsanitary and you’re a nurse!”

  “Plus it’s gross,” Carrie put in.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  Suzanne returned with the glasses and began pouring wine.

  “Just a drop for me. I have to leave in a few minutes,” Carrie said. “Well, not a drop exactly.”

  “Ahem!” Miss Trudie said.

  Suzanne looked at her. “Oh! I’ve done it again! I’m so sorry!”

  “Go!” I said. “I can pour!”

  Suzanne scurried back into the house for Miss Trudie’s olives. I suspected that the tumbler next to her seat was filled with gin. It was clear liquid for sure and I doubted that it was water. Suzanne quickly returned with a small dish of big pimento-­stuffed Spanish olives.

  “Thank you, dear.”

  “Here you go,” I said, and handed a half pour to Carrie.

  Then I poured a glass for Suzanne and for myself.

  “Cheers!” I said.

  They responded in kind and Suzanne said, “I’ve got to get to the bottom of this business with Wendy and Kathy’s things. It’s just not right. I know it in my bones.”

  “Well, I love y’all but I’ve got to go see a man about a future!” Carrie said. She drained her glass and stood. “Keep a light on for me. I should be home by nine at the latest.”

  We gave her a little wave and she left, wisely navigating the front steps with some caution considering the height of her heels.

  “Have fun!” Suzanne called.

  “Happy hunting!” I said.

  Carrie got in her car and closed the door.

  “She looks amazing,” I said. “And you have to admire her tenacity.”

  “That’s for sure. Watch her find some fabulous guy,” Suzanne said.

  “I hope she does,” I said, and looked out across the water. “This sure is a mighty pretty place.”

  The sun was slipping away and the colors of the sky were just as insane as they were most nights. There was a large cloud over the water. It wasn’t exactly cumulus. It was more like hundreds of huge cotton balls pushed together to make up a kind of openwork crocheted afghan. Streams of gold light slipped through the openings. The horizon itself was the reddest. As your eyes moved away from the sun, the whole vista seemed to be painted in diminishing shades of purple, rose quartz, and gold. It was stunning and mesmerizing at the same time. It wouldn’t be dark until almost nine o’clock and the scene before us would continue to change until then.

  “So, what do you think, Lisa?” Suzanne said. “Should we try going through some of Kathy’s scrapbooks or a box of letters?”

  “Why not?” I said. “George Clooney’s married, so I’ve got time on my hands.”

  Well, what do you know, I thought. Progress. It takes a little time for minds to meet.

  “We’ve got a bowl of peel-­and-­eat shrimp in the fridge,” Miss Trudie informed us. “When you girls get hungry.”

  “Sounds like a perfect dinner!” I said. “Thanks!”

  “I’ll go get a box,” Suzanne said. “The light is fading but we can still see well enough to look at photographs, don’t you think?”

  “Sure,” I said.

  Over the next hour, Miss Trudie went inside and Suzanne and I went through two photograph albums, sadly to no avail. There was nothing in Kathy’s pictures that was currently in Wendy’s side of the house. At least if there was, we didn’t recognize anything.

  “This is useless,” Suzanne said. “And I feel sort of like an intruder.”

  “It’s a little weird, I’ll give you that,” I said.

  “Let’s get a plate of shrimp.”

  “When in doubt, eat,” I said.

  We carried the albums and the wine into the brightly lit kitchen and I sat down at the table, continuing to flip through the pages. Suzanne was rumbling around in the refrigerator, pulling out lemons and cocktail sauce and, of course, a large mixing bowl filled with shrimp.

  “Where are the shrimp from?” I asked.

  “Simmons Seafood. They’re local. In fact, they swore to me that these babies were swimming yesterday.”

  “They look gorgeous!” I said.

  “Well, I’m no gourmet chef but I do know how to cook shrimp. Miss Trudie taught me.”

  “Can I help you do anything?” I asked.

  “No, thanks. This is more like an all-­you-­can-­eat-­of-­a-­single-­item snack than a serious dinner. Piece of cake.”

  She put plates on the table, poured the cocktail sauce in a small bowl, then added a plate of lemon wedges.

  “Voilà!” she said. “Let’s eat.”

  “Voilà!” I said, and giggled.

  We clinked glasses and got down to the business of peeling the little devils. The scrapbook was open and there were two pages of photographs that appeared to be from around 1970. An older woman, maybe Kathy’s mother or an aunt, was smiling in front of a Christmas tree. There were lots of pictures like that. I recognized Kathy as a little girl and as a teenager. But neither Suzanne nor I detected anything worthy of note. When we got to the pictures of a cemetery headstone I had to stop. I closed the album.

  “Okay! That’s enough!” I said.

  “What was it?” Suzanne said.

  “A headstone.”

  “Oh Lord.”

  “That’s too morbid for me,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

  Suzanne wiped her hands on her napkin. “Here, pass it to me. I’ll put it back in the spare bedroom and we can look through them another time. I completely agree. Too bizarre.” She got up and took the book across the hall, returning in seconds.

  “It is one hundred percent peculiar to take pictures of somebody’s grave unless it’s the Taj Mahal or the Great Pyramids,” I said. “And by the way, the shrimp are fabulous, Suzanne. So sweet and tender.”

  “It’s my one culinary claim to fame. Usually ­people rubberize them.
They boil ’em to death. The secret is to drop them in boiling water for just a minute and then pull the water off the heat. Wait a minute or two and try one. If it’s how you like them? Drain them in a colander and cover them with a pile of ice to stop the cooking. That’s it.”

  “What’s the seasoning?”

  “An Old Bay boiling bag, a lemon cut in two, and a heaping tablespoon of salt. That’s it. Not too complicated.”

  “Gosh, I think even I can handle that.”

  “Darlin’? Don’t you know you can’t call yourself a Lowcountry girl if you can’t fix shrimp!”

  “Do I have to cook grits too?”

  “Nah. But it helps. I’m always counting carbs unless we’re going out for pancakes, but when Carrie brought donuts all bets were off.”

  “Me too.”

  Basically that meant we tried to watch what we ate but not to the point of fanaticism. It was a statement expressing exhaustion with the world’s expectation of perfection in women. You can’t go gray, gain weight, get wrinkles, sag anywhere, or age in general. If you do you will be overlooked by the opposite sex, seated in the back of restaurants, ignored in clothing stores, especially at makeup counters, and deferred to on a regular basis. If you, at my age, found yourself in one of many chain stores like Victoria’s Secret or J.Crew, the salesperson automatically assumed you were shopping for someone else. So, you know what? Every now and then, girls like Carrie, Suzanne, and me ate the damn donuts and pancakes too. Go ahead. Live a little. Besides, I’ve done enough juice cleanses for all of us.

  Later, when Pickle and I were home watching television, my cell phone rang. I hoped it was Marianne. It was my mother, who rarely called me on weeknights.

  “Is everything okay?” I said, waiting for terrible news. “Is Dad all right?”

  “Oh, yes! Don’t worry! He’s fine. I’m fine, but I’ve had a phone call from the Smiths.”

  The Smiths were my mother’s friends who owned the house I was renting.

  “Oh no! Are they coming back?”

  “No, but their fifty-­five-­year-­old daughter just lost her job. She’s divorced and her husband isn’t exactly consistent with his alimony payments and she needs a place to live that’s free.”

  “How terrible! Wait. Does she want to live with me?”

  “No, honey, I’m afraid she wants the whole house to herself. You’re going to have to start looking for another arrangement. She’s taking over August first.”

  “Oh my God. Okay, okay. That gives me a month. Don’t worry, I’ll find something.”

  We chatted for a few more minutes and I tried to keep the rising panic out of my voice. Then we hung up and I looked at Pickle.

  “Bad news, baby girl. We’re gonna be homeless in thirty days. Where are we going to find a house at this price that isn’t a meth lab?”

  Pickle clearly had no idea. My cell phone rang again. It was Suzanne.

  “I just found Miss Trudie on the floor.”

  “Is she all right? Is she conscious?”

  “Yes, she said she doesn’t know what happened and she absolutely will not let me call 911. She is so pissed you can’t believe it.”

  “I’m sure. What do you think happened? Do you have any idea what caused the fall?”

  “No. But fortunately, she landed on carpet and I don’t think anything’s broken. I’ve asked her fifty times if anything hurt and she says she’s fine. But she’s so thin that I know she’s going to be sore tomorrow.”

  “Is she on an aspirin regimen?”

  “I think so,” Suzanne said.

  “Does she take Coumadin or any other kind of blood thinners?”

  “No, I’m pretty sure about that.”

  “Well, look, if you want I can hop in the car and come take a look at her. It’s no problem at all.”

  “No, but thanks. It’s almost ten o’clock and I’ve already put her to bed. She was very upset with herself for falling.”

  “Well, pride takes a beating sometimes, but here’s what I would do. I’d ice whatever she says might be hurting—­twenty minutes on and twenty off. Use a gallon Ziploc or whatever you have, but wrap the bag in a linen towel.”

  “Okay.”

  “And then listen for her. If she’s moaning, call 911. If she seems off in the morning? I’d toss all her meds into a bag, put her in the car, and take her to Dr. Durst on Sullivans Island. Let him make the decisions. By tomorrow she’ll know if she broke anything. Her bones will be talking to her.”

  “I just hope she didn’t crack her hip or something. But I have to say, she seemed pretty much okay. She was more shook up than anything else, I think.”

  “Well, thank the Lord. Listen, if you need me to come over, just whistle. Okay? I mean that!”

  “Okay, thanks. And thanks for your advice. I guess I needed to tell someone.”

  “Carrie still out?”

  “Yep.”

  “That Carrie!”

  “Gotta love her!”

  “Let’s talk tomorrow. I’m off, so if you want help taking her to the doctor, let me know.”

  But when sunrise rolled around Suzanne called and said, “She’s the bionic woman. She was up at six making eggs and bacon for us. You want to walk?”

  “I’ll be right over,” I said, and looked at Pickle. “Will wonders never cease?”

  Chapter 8

  It’s 4:20 Somewhere

  My dog raced me up the front steps of Suzanne’s house.

  “You can’t open it, Pickle,” I said in my I’m-­a-­fool-­for-­my-­doggie voice. “Only Mommy can do that.”

  Pickle responded with a frustrated yip and I knocked on the door. Moments later, Suzanne appeared and flipped the latch.

  “Hey! Good morning!” she said. “Come on in. I have to get my sneakers on.” She leaned down to scratch my dog behind the ears. “Hi, baby!”

  Pickle gave her a lick. I followed Suzanne into the house. Miss Trudie was in the kitchen reading something on her iPad and the television was on but muted. When she put her iPad down I could see it was the obituaries.

  “Hey! How are you feeling this morning?”

  “G’morning! I’m fine. Right as rain!” she said. “Well, look who’s here!” She held her hand out for Pickle, who tootled right over to give her a sniff and a lick. “You smell bacon, don’t you?”

  I was very relieved to see that she was all right.

  “Who died?” I asked. “Anybody we know?”

  “I was just checking to make sure I didn’t!” she said, and laughed.

  “Funny,” Suzanne said, tying her shoelaces. “Don’t even think about going anywhere.”

  “Listen, when you’re my age, you read the obituaries,” Miss Trudie said. “If ­people didn’t drop dead I wouldn’t have any social life at all! I never miss a wake. Of course, these days, most everyone I ever knew is already gone.”

  “Because you’re crushing the actuarial tables!” Suzanne laughed.

  “Where’s Carrie?” I said. “Is she coming?”

  Suzanne said, “She wanted to sleep in this morning.”

  “Oh! Okay! Well, let’s go, then.” I gave Pickle’s leash the smallest little tug. Poor Pickle. I could see that she was torn between a beach frolic and Miss Trudie’s lap with Lassie. She looked up at me as if to say, What to do, Mom?

  “We are going to get some exercise, young lady! See you later, Miss Trudie!”

  When we crossed the dunes I said to Suzanne, “So, are you going to tell me why Carrie is sleeping in this morning? Is she sick?”

  I unhooked Pickle and she went flying down the beach toward some other dogs, terrorizing several seagulls along the way.

  “Heck no! She’s still sleeping because I think she just got home.” Suzanne started laughing and so did I.

  “Well, that little tar
t!” I said.

  “I know. She’s a bad girl. I said ‘get up’ and she said, ‘Oh let me sleep!’ She must have really liked the guy or she would’ve been home hours ago.”

  “I’ll say,” I said.

  “She’s lucky Miss Trudie didn’t ground her,” she said, laughing. “Did your daughter ever stay out all night?”

  “Are you kidding me? Up until about a year ago my daughter was like a saint. She was a dream! Now we barely speak.”

  “Uh-­oh. Can I ask what happened?”

  I thought about it for a minute and then I decided to trust Suzanne with the truth. You can’t claim someone as a friend if you don’t trust them, right?

  “Oh Lord. Okay, I haven’t really told anyone this story because it’s difficult to frame it from my point of view without sounding like an old biddy. And it’s embarrassing. God knows, I wouldn’t want anyone at Palmetto House to hear it.”

  “I’m listening. You can tell me anything. I won’t say a word. I swear!”

  “When I tell you this story you are going to think there’s something seriously questionable about my judgment because this had to have sprung from my ex-­husband’s gene pool, not mine. If I had married anyone else in the entire world, she never would’ve done this.”

  “What? Is she in jail?”

  “No! Of course not. But she owns and operates a tour company in Aspen for visitors who want to experience marijuana. How’s that?”

  “What? Oh my God! I’ve never even heard of that.”

  “She doesn’t smoke it, so she says. Oh God. I did without nearly every pleasure in the world to put her through school, keep her healthy and safe, and keep a roof over our heads for twenty-­two years. She earned a degree in business from the College of Charleston that I completely paid for with just a smidgen of help from my parents and nothing from her father. Next, her father, Mark—­who, as you know, never called or sent money or remembered her birthday?—­well, he finds her through Facebook and tells her how much he loves her and wishes he could see her. At first, I thought, Well, it’s about time.”