Land of Mango Sunsets, The

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “It does look a little drab, but you know, Petal, you can cure a thousand problems with fresh flowers and good lighting. Let me think about it overnight.”

  The doorbell rang, and as Kevin left, Charlie arrived with his list.

  “Come in! Come in!”

  “Hi, Mom!” He gave me a hug and handed me the papers. “Can’t stay. I have to be back at the hospital at five-thirty in the morning.”

  “Not even for a cup of coffee? Darling? Why are you working so hard?”

  “You wouldn’t believe how many sick people there are in New York. Seriously! But I sure appreciate this and so does Priscilla. Thanks, Mom.”

  “I’m honored, Charlie.”

  We looked at each other then and I knew we were mother and son again. I was positive of it. Before I could weep all over him, he was gone.

  The morning brought bright sunshine, and that combined with two cups of strong tea with skim milk, a glass of hot lemon water for a diuretic boost, and the actual breezing through a late-week New York Times puzzle fortified me to call Charles. Kevin and Charlie’s opinions were sufficient to make me see that I simply had to extend the invitations.

  Probably because he heard from me so rarely, he may have thought there had been a death in the family and took the call right away.

  “Charles Swanson.”

  Not “hello, this is Charles,” or “Miriam, is something wrong?” Or even just “hi, Miriam.” I mean, he knew it was me because his dim-witted secretary had surely told him. Didn’t the intergalactic class of money warriors have their calls screened?

  “Hi, Charles, it’s Miriam.”

  “I knew that.”

  “Of course you did,” I said sweetly. My little dig at his pomposity went unrecognized and unrewarded. “So, how are you?”

  “Busy. What’s up?”

  Did he inquire about my health or my life?

  “Well, we have a family wedding, you know. Your son’s getting married the weekend after Easter?”

  “I’m aware.”

  Wasn’t he a sweetheart?

  “Come on, Charles. Be nice. There are details I thought you might like to know about so that you and Judith could make some decisions.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as, would you like to invite anyone to the wedding ceremony and reception? Such as, I’m giving a rehearsal dinner on Friday night at my house and would you and Judith like to come? That’s such as, Charles.”

  There was a brief silence from his end followed by a long pithy sigh.

  “Sorry, Miriam. I’ve just been under terrible stress. You are very kind to consider us and I will go over it with Judith and call you back.”

  I didn’t jump for the fish like a trained seal, but I did take it. After all, he was the one with terrible manners and a nasty disposition, not me. And he did sound terrible. Gee. Too bad.

  I got on with my program and spent most of the day refilling my favorite fountain pen. My handwriting wasn’t comparable to professional calligraphy, but it wasn’t bad at all. Charlie and Priscilla’s invitations were almost all addressed and ready to mail, except those I had set aside for Charles.

  Because of Charlie and Priscilla’s ages, my divorce and Charles’s remarriage, and because Priscilla’s mother was presumed deceased, we had omitted all parents’ names from the invitations. As much as I still loved traditional everything, even I had to admit that if the whole family was included, the invitations would’ve looked like a corporate organizational chart. As it was, they were simple and elegant.

  It occurred to me that I had been home a couple of days and had not heard from Manny. Liz had phoned to say that she was staying on the Island with Mother until the wedding, that Dr. George Durst, the island’s finest family practitioner, was seeing to her wounds, and was that okay with me? And that a dentist friend of his was going to complete her dental work for a huge savings. I said of course it was, and knew that half the reason was because she was crazy about my mother, who probably wasn’t feeling tip-top herself. If I knew Liz, that sling was gone and she was milking Cecelia.

  When another week passed and it was getting to the point of absurdity that I hadn’t heard a peep from Manny, Charles finally called me back.

  “Miriam? It’s me. Do you have a fax machine?” he said.

  I laughed. “Why on God’s green earth would I have a fax machine?”

  “Right. Why would you? Well, do you have an e-mail address?”

  “What do you think, Charles? That I spend my lonely nights in chat rooms? No, I do not have e-mail.”

  “Well, all right, then. I’ll messenger the list over to you. When you have calculated a per-person cost, let me know and I will reimburse you.”

  “Why? Are you inviting a thousand people?”

  “No. Sixteen. And I can expense it.”

  “Oh! Well, thank you. What about Friday night?”

  “I will try to be there. I’m not sure about Judith. She has some conflict.”

  What? Guilt? Was Judith uncomfortable to face me?

  “Oh, well, that’s fine. Okay, then, thanks.”

  As Kevin commanded, I got on the treadmill, but I set it up in front of the television and watched The View in the morning and Oprah in the afternoon. Each day those two hours flew by. Kevin and I took six tango lessons and we were getting pretty darn proficient. And, we found a great pair of shoes for me and dyed them to match the dress of my dreams.

  The good news was that I was almost eleven pounds thinner, and because Kevin insisted that I take a pill to sleep every night, and that I used whitening strips on my teeth, my face looked remarkably younger. Or more rested. Or something. But better for sure.

  I bought case after case of bottled water and drank so much of it I thought I might start growing gills. When I wasn’t mesmerized by the television while I hiked and hiked to nowhere, I had time to think about other things.

  Such as Judith.

  I decided she wasn’t coming Friday night because she didn’t want to play second fiddle, and that was fine with me. As it was, I would have to hire a team of psychics with sage smudge sticks to smoke out my rooms to get rid of Charles’s icky karma. I wondered what Judith was wearing to the wedding. Probably something wildly expensive that made her look like she was barely twenty. I knew she was almost thirty-five and I wondered how she was dealing with it. Hopefully, not well. If there was one thing a middle-aged woman knew that a younger woman did not, it was that you could trade on your looks for only so long. All the plastic surgery and personal trainers you could endure would only make you look good for your age. And while exercise might prolong your life and actually improve the quality of your health, eventually the Grim Reaper would nail you. Judith was still young enough to believe she was bulletproof. I was old enough finally to understand that quality of life went beyond good health, that one should consider other things such as integrity, kindness, and how one would like to be remembered.

  I had to confess, Manny’s not calling was making me suspicious and irritable. It was early evening on the Wednesday before Easter and just a little over a week before Dan, Nan, and all the others were to arrive. My excitement was building but my annoyance with Manny was, too.

  True to his nature and as proof of our long friendship, Kevin was working very hard to help me pull things into shape.

  I had picked up the silver coffee services, sets of flatware, gift wrapped them and had mine polished as well. Mine looked extraordinary on the sideboard of my dining room. In Charlie’s old room where the children would sleep were baskets of small gifts for my grandchildren—coloring books, crayons, and so on. All the old clothes had been hauled away, new linens bought and laundered and waiting on the beds.

  The museums of my boy’s childhoods were pared down and spruced up to look welcoming for Dan’s family so they would not feel like they were intruding. Even the bathroom got a little face-lift with new towels, and a complete disposal and replacement of old toiletries.

  Kev
in decided my lumpy chairs and faded sofa could be remedied by restuffing the cushions, and he was right. It made all the difference in the world. We gently vacuumed the curtains, rebunched the panels, stuffing them inside their lining with plastic dry-cleaner bags that no one could see, and then we readjusted their tiebacks. It made them look almost new. He polished the brass fireplace tools and the small brass fender, and the effect was amazing. The living room was beginning to sparkle. We threw out all my old magazines and stacked the coffee table with art history books and a long-ignored crystal bowl filled with handblown replicas of various kinds of fruit that had been stored away for years.

  And my garden? Now there was the serious challenge. I scrubbed each windowpane of the leaded-glass doors and Kevin removed the storm doors and took them to the basement. I raked and carried out bags of old leaves and garden debris. Who needed a treadmill? The sanitation workers deserved and would receive a generous tip from me. That was for sure.

  “I know just what this needs,” he said. “I’ll be back in an hour and a half.”

  Kevin brought home a small fountain to hang on the back wall that looked like it had just been dug up from some ancient Roman ruin and smuggled out of the country. While investigating where to put the electrical work, he discovered a line for one that had been in the exact same spot probably fifty years ago. The next day, my electrician came and tested it for safety and assured us there was no need to replace anything.

  “They don’t make anything now like they used to,” he said, and hooked up the whole kit and caboodle in less than an hour.

  Moments later we flipped a switch and the lion’s head graciously poured water from his mouth into a pool that recirculated it and brought it back to his precious little head.

  “Thank you so much!” I said, and thanked him again with a check. “Amazing.”

  “We need a koi pond,” Kevin said.

  “Don’t get carried away,” I said, and giggled.

  Later that afternoon, Kevin and a friend of his from the store carried in two small Charleston benches and placed them on either side of the fountain. They looked like they had been there forever.

  “Where in the world did you find them?” I said.

  “Flea market. I was just walking by and spotted them. Get this. Twenty bucks each! It would have cost more to rent a truck to deliver them, but my friend has a small van and he was free and so…”

  They were inexpensive because of their age and weathered condition. But old and weathered was exactly what I wanted, and I was thrilled.

  “They are absolutely perfect, Kevin.”

  “I know, right? Those benches were just waiting to come live in your garden, Petal. I swear they were.”

  Later on, he and his friend rolled in two enormous faux-cement planters, and placed them in the flower beds on the outside edges of the benches. They were filled with huge forsythia that with any luck at all would pop into bloom in a week. From my door to the fountain they poured bag after bag of fresh pea gravel, until the curved pathway looked right. Once I had trimmed up the boxwoods and azaleas and wiped down the table and chairs, I was stunned at the difference.

  “I wish we had taken before-and-after pictures, Miss Mellie, I could have sold a story to the Times.”

  “I’m exhausted,” I said.

  “Me too. So you go shower up. I’ll go do the same. Then let’s have a well-earned and celebratory cocktail in the garden with you wearing the dress. What do you say?”

  “I say, I’m so sick of steamed broccoli and bland fish I could scream. And if that dress doesn’t fit me…”

  “It will. Now go!”

  I showered and put on fresh makeup. Then I crossed my fingers, put on the foundation garments I intended to wear, and slipped the dress over my head. I zipped it up with ease and looked in my full-length mirror. I looked so good I hardly recognized myself. Well, not really, but the dumpy Miriam was gone forever and cool Mellie was alive and well. I slipped on the pumps and thought I was looking pretty fine.

  Kevin rang the bell and I raced to the door.

  “What do you think?” I said, and took a spin around.

  He slapped his hands on either side of his face and his jaw dropped. “Oh, dear mother of God and all the angels and saints in heaven! You look ravishing! Divine!”

  “Not too bad, right?”

  “Not too bad? How’s smashing! Oh, Petal, I’m calling John Barrett first thing in the morning. He’s got to do your hair and makeup himself. This is too amazing. Oh! I can’t wait to see the look on your stupid husband’s face!”

  In Kevin’s eyes, John Barrett was the king of hair in Manhattan.

  Because he hates to miss a thing, Harry had hopped out from the kitchen to see what the commotion was all about. He listened to Kevin refer to Charles, and, well, genius bird that he is, you know what he had to say without even hearing Charles’s name. We repeated Harry’s favorite Charles mantra with him and laughed like justice, revenge, and a pony under the Christmas tree had all arrived.

  “Let’s drink martinis!” I said. “You forgot to confiscate the gin and there’s vermouth in the cabinet, too. I’m going to hang this dress back in its bag.”

  “Probably a good idea. But let me have one more look.”

  I gave the skirt one more spin around, and he said, “It was so worth the pain and suffering, now, wasn’t it?”

  “Yes, yes, yes. But ugh!”

  I changed clothes and rejoined him in the kitchen, where he was just pouring out our drinks.

  “So, tell me. Have you heard from Manny?”

  “No. And I don’t know why, but I have a sneaking suspicion he’s going to bail out.”

  “Have you called him?”

  “Honey, ladies, even ladies named Petal Puss Mellie, do not call gentlemen.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  I DO, HE WON’T, AND SHE DOES

  Wednesday before the wedding, I was in the kitchen writing out place cards when Manny finally called. In a halting voice, he said some things had changed in his world and he would not be able to come to New York after all. Just like that. But I had suspected the call was coming and I was ready. Or as Manny himself would’ve said, I was loaded for bear.

  I said, “Well, darlin’? Are you sick in the hospital?”

  “No,” he said. “In the head, maybe. But no, I’m not in a hospital.”

  “Well, then, whatever could be the matter? Because I have never heard of a gentleman breaking a date with the mother of the groom four days before the ceremony unless they were in ICU on life support.”

  Scarlett O’Hara herself, live in the flesh, could not have delivered the line with more aplomb.

  “Mellie, I’m afraid I haven’t been completely honest with you.”

  “Manny, don’t worry about it. Just tell me what’s happened. We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  In the bug world, the female black widow spider weaves her web, catches a male, mates, and then devours him. Now we know why.

  “Well, it’s like this. You know Helen and I have been separated for many years.”

  “Yes. I know. I’m divorced too, you know.”

  “Well, Helen and I never actually got around to finalizing the divorce because frankly, well, she didn’t want to. Now she has threatened to do some pretty drastic things if I don’t give our marriage another chance.”

  Was he implying that she would commit suicide?

  “Then you simply must give it another chance! What choice do you have?” I actually believed him then.

  “And that’s the thing. I wouldn’t want her…my conscience can’t take it, Mellie.”

  “And neither could mine. Listen, don’t sweat it. We’re still friends.”

  “Do you promise? I am just so sorry.”

  “Of course! Thanks for being so honest with me, Manny. That means a lot.”

  We hung up and I stared up at the ceiling as though there was something written up there that would make me not want to break down and cry fr
om the anger I was feeling. I was nearly hyperventilating in a matter of minutes. It wasn’t from the anger I was feeling toward him. It was much deeper than that.

  I had known his divorce wasn’t final. I had found evidence of Helen’s presence in his bedroom. I had told myself that maybe I could lure him away from her if in fact he was still interested in her. I had even gone so far as to envision myself spending the rest of my life with him. I had rationalized continuing and growing and consummating the relationship with him eighty ways to hell and back. And here’s the ugliness and where evil was lurking all the while.

  I was no better than Judith.

  I was no better than the whore who had succeeded in stealing my husband. Never mind my grand scheme to make Charles jealous and fill him with regret that he had chosen Judith over me—the great show I had so carefully orchestrated to play out at the wedding had gone up in flames. Tango lessons and a great dress? A diet and white teeth? Who really cared about that? That was just some trivial matter of my own badly and irreparably bruised ego.

  This news from Manny pointed to something much more severe—a terrible and tragic flaw in my own character. When I saw so vividly that the thing I hated most about Judith was present in myself, I was filled with nausea and violent self-loathing. I did not know if there was a thing in the world I could do to make myself feel better except to forgive Judith and to ask her to forgive me for judging her so harshly. Could I do that? I did not know if I could.

  What I did do was keep myself busy, and given the amount of remaining details to be sewn up, keeping my mind occupied with other matters was effortless. And Mother, Harrison, and Liz were arriving that night.

  Priscilla’s aunt had indeed shipped the cake, and I had safely tucked it away in Liz’s refrigerator because, as you might imagine, hers was nearly empty. I had asked Liz’s permission and she had no problem with me entering her apartment while she was away. And knowing that Mother would be sleeping there, I gave it a good dusting and wiped down the bathroom and kitchen on Wednesday afternoon.