Land of Mango Sunsets, The

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  Kevin knocked on the door at seven that night.

  “The troops here yet?”

  “No, they land at seven-thirty. I’ve got a roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, string beans, and a tomato pie waiting. And a fruit pie. Apple. You’ll join us won’t you?”

  “Sure. What’s the matter? I can see you’re upset.”

  “Want a glass of vino?”

  “Oh, no. What’s happened?”

  He came in, closed the door, followed me to the kitchen, where I poured him a glass and refilled mine.

  “Manny called. He’s not coming.”

  “So that’s the cause of the crease between your eyebrows. Well, okay. Who cares? That means more tangos for me!”

  “Who cares? How’s this? He’s not sick. He’s getting back together with his wife, who he actually, well, he sort of implied-said she’d kill herself if he didn’t take her back.”

  “Holy crap, Petal. That’s heavy. Did she hear about you or something?”

  “Not unless she talked to the Sullivans Island Police Department.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, it’s just a ridiculous story that I’ll tell you sometime. Listen, Kevin, here’s why I’m so upset about this…”

  After I told Kevin what I was thinking and feeling and how I was no better than Judith, he strongly disagreed.

  “You know what? You’re wrong and that’s all there is to it. This guy led you to believe he was available, so you believed him. Even his friend and your mother approved, didn’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “You find a bottle of her pills. Okay, that might arouse some suspicion, but it was proof of nothing. I mean, you might wonder why she was taking them to begin with and could you catch something, but we can talk about that later.”

  “Very funny.”

  “Whatever. So you indulged in some daydreams about a future with him? Big hairy deal! I would’ve slept with him just for kitchen rights, the way you described it! And they were daydreams. You didn’t set up housekeeping with him, take his money, have children outside of marriage like a movie star, like that pig whore slut Judith.”

  “But I would have, Kevin, and that’s the point. I was ready to push Helen out of his life and move right in.”

  “I disagree. This is a very different situation.”

  “How is that?”

  “Because you got fooled by a liar, Petal. Plain and simple.”

  “No. I feel terrible about myself.”

  “Oh, suck it up, Mellie. I’ll bet you a thousand dollars that when you find out the truth, and you will, the truth isn’t exactly what he told you. You’re the victim here, honey. And I have a feeling in my gut that this guy is a practiced liar.”

  “I don’t know. You want to know the worst part? I didn’t even really love the guy.”

  “Oh, so what? Two adults were playing with each other. Look. It happens every day.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Quit pouting, go wash your face, and put on something nice. The South Carolina contingent is going to be here any minute. We’ve busted our fannies for weeks to make this a wonderful time and I wouldn’t let some horse’s ass named Manny ruin a minute of it.”

  “Manny is a horse’s ass,” said Harry, who was listening intently.

  “Don’t forget Charles,” I said to Harry, and laughed for the first time all day. “He’s still one, too!”

  Even Kevin laughed. “God, I love that bird.”

  I fixed my face, changed into a red cashmere V-neck sweater and gray Capri pants. I thought I didn’t look like I had been languishing in the throes of deep misery all day long. I spritzed myself all over with my favorite cologne.

  The doorbell rang and I glanced around my living room before I answered the door. Everything looked perfectly beautiful. I had put together a lush arrangement of flowers on the mantel over the fireplace and a long and low arrangement of flowers combined with fruit on the dining-room table.

  “Hello! Hello!” I said, and gave my mother, Liz, and then Harrison a hug.

  “How are y’all? I’ll take your suitcases upstairs,” Kevin said, and shook hands with Harrison.

  “Let me help you,” Harrison said. “You must be Kevin. You look really good, Mellie. What’d ya do?”

  “Nuuuthin’…”

  Nothing? How about cut my hair, waxed my eyebrows, got highlights, lowlights, whiter teeth, exercised like a maniac, lost a billion pounds…weren’t men incredible?

  They disappeared up the steps.

  “Lord! You got so skinny!” Liz said, in all innocence. “You been sick?”

  “Yeah, sick of being a plump matron,” I said. “Besides, you forget I have a date with the enemy this Saturday.” Honestly, sometimes Liz had a brain like a sieve.

  “Well, she’s gonna turn puce and paisley when she sees you, honey,” Mother said. “I haven’t seen you look this good in years.”

  “Thanks, but too bad I don’t care anymore. So how was your flight?”

  “Fine, fine,” Mother said. “Your house looks beautiful! What have you done?”

  “Just got rid of a bunch of stuff. And, Liz? No sling?”

  “Nope! That nice doctor said my lung is fine, my ribs are still a little bit tender, collarbone is fine, and look…” She pushed her hair away from the side of her face and the scar that had given all of us nightmares had all but disappeared. “Y’all can hardly see it, right?”

  “It’s a miracle,” I said.

  “It’s my aloe cream,” Mother said. “Works like a charm.”

  I kept thinking that my mother looked terrible. She was thinner and more drawn than I had ever seen her. But her spirits were so good that I didn’t want to mention it. We made small talk about all the wedding plans until the men returned and dinner was on the table. Finally, we got around to the subject of Manny.

  “Are you cool with him not coming?” Liz said.

  “Oh, definitely,” I said. “His wife must be some kind of a really wacky gal to threaten to kill herself if he didn’t take her back. At least that’s what Manny led me to think. Can I serve y’all some tomato pie?”

  Harrison, Mother, and Liz exchanged looks and I knew right then, without a shred of doubt, that Kevin had been right. I didn’t quite have all the facts. I just calmly continued the story as I knew it and hoped somebody would gather up the strength to come clean.

  “I mean, who knows? Maybe she ran around on him or something and couldn’t live with her guilt. Anyway, the whole thing is too much drama for me. The Willis family cured me of theatrics forever!”

  “Me too,” Liz said. “Gosh, Mellie, this is so, so good. I haven’t had tomato pie in ages.”

  “Thanks. I always like to eat comfort food when I get off a plane.”

  “I taught her how to cook,” Mother said. “She learned everything she knows from me.”

  Everyone had a laugh at that. Kevin asked if there were any family photos of me milking a goat and another round of snickers ensued.

  “Well, Miss Josie?” Liz said quietly. “You might have taught her a lot of things, but you didn’t teach her how to smell a rat.”

  The table fell silent. I glanced over at Kevin, whose eyebrows were somewhere in the range of the chandelier and still rising toward the ceiling.

  “Meaning what, Miss Alabama?” Kevin said in a flat voice, the kind that demanded a response.

  Liz blushed deeply and looked to Harrison and Mother for support.

  “Mellie gave me the goods on Truman Willis. Shouldn’t we tell her what we know about Mr. Sink So Low?”

  Harrison, ever the Honest Abe, cleared his throat and put down his fork.

  “Okay. Mellie? I’m gonna tell you what I found out about my so-called friend Manny.”

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  “Remember I told you that we had worked together in Charlotte?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he was in the commercial side of the business and I was in the corporate s
ide.”

  “In English?” Liz said.

  “We didn’t have a whole lot of contact with each other. And he came on board just around the time I decided to chuck it all. I’d see him around and he was pleasant, but we didn’t really have any business dealings. I thought I knew him well enough to support you to, you know, go out with him if you felt like it. I mean, there was no reason I knew of to discourage you from seeing him.”

  “We all liked him,” Mother said. “He surely seemed fine to me.”

  “So let’s cut to the chase here, y’all. The suspense is killing me,” I said.

  “He sucks,” Liz said. “Pardon me.”

  “That would be the finale,” Kevin said, in the droll voice he used when he was getting annoyed. “We’re still looking for Acts Two and Three.”

  “Well, Liz is actually right about that, but here’s how we found out. A few nights ago, I finally convinced my good friends here, Liz and Miss Josie, to go over the causeway after dark for dinner on Shem Creek. I had to do some heavy pitching, but they finally relented.”

  “We went to Shem Creek Bar and Grill,” Mother said. “I had those little crab cakes they make that are so good.”

  “And I had stuffed flounder,” Liz said.

  “Puhleeze!” Kevin said.

  “Patience, my man, we’re almost there,” Harrison said. “So, I got up to use the men’s room and who do I see in the corner booth?”

  “Manny and who? Helen?” Kevin asked.

  “Bingo. Anyway, he’s loving up on her in a way that I don’t think is appropriate to be doing in public and she’s all over him, too. So I go over to them and say, ‘Oh! Hello.’ Then I say, ‘Manny? Could I ask you to step outside with me for a moment?’ He says sure and excuses himself. We go out on the porch and I said something like, ‘Just what’s going on here? I thought you and Helen were all done.’”

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He hemmed and hawed around and finally it comes out that they’re getting back together because he can’t afford to divorce her.”

  “What?” I said, with slightly more volume and excitement in my voice than I would have liked. “He’s as rich as cream! That’s just some bull, y’all!”

  “Here’s kicker number one, Mellie. It’s all Helen’s money. I called an old buddy of mine the next morning who still works at the bank and asked him for the story on Manny Sinkler. Well, he laughed and laughed until I thought he was going to burst something and he finally calmed down and said it was about the biggest brouhaha he’d ever heard of in twenty years. Turns out Manny got fired for some huge impropriety that could have sent him to jail. He came to Charleston to sulk over his ruined reputation and career—because once you do the kind of thing he did, you don’t work in banking anymore.”

  “What did he do?” Kevin said.

  “There was very strong suspicion of insider trading, so the department head seized his computer, examined his hard drive, and guess what they found?”

  “Evidence of insider trading?” I said.

  “Nothing they could absolutely nail him on but enough to fire him. And, a drumroll, please, there were just a few too many visits to pornography Internet sites on the company computer. About sixty thousand, so the story goes…”

  Kevin stood, rapped his hands on the edge of the table like he was playing bongos, and roared with laughter. I was completely and totally astonished. And horrified.

  “What? Porn sites? The dog! Sixty thousand?” I said. “I can’t believe Manny did that!”

  “Manny is a horse’s ass! So is Charles!” Came the call from the kitchen.

  “Excuse me,” Harrison said, “but what the hell was that? It sounded like your voice coming from the kitchen!”

  “It’s my very smart bird, Harry. I’ll introduce you to him later.”

  “Did he actually say…”

  “Yes, he did.”

  Harrison chuckled and shook his head in disbelief. “Unbelievable. Anyway, they threw his—and forgive me for agreeing with Harry—horse’s ass out that very day and told him he’d better never show his face around any bank in the world or he’d spend the rest of his days in the pokey.”

  “Isn’t that incredible? I can’t believe Helen didn’t put a bullet right through his brain!” Mother said.

  Harrison said, “Helen’s too dignified for a cold-blooded murder, but she banished him to Charleston until she could cool down. She runs the family’s foundation—they made a huge fortune in textiles—and she thought eventually, when she got over the shame and embarrassment of what Manny had done, they could divide their time between Charlotte and Charleston. But she was more furious than she thought she’d be and so she made herself get busier so she didn’t come to Charleston too often. Manny got lonelier and he started running around. So she got wind of it and threatened to divorce him, and I think she cut off his allowance and was threatening all kinds of legal action.”

  “He’s lucky that’s all she was cutting off,” Liz said.

  I wiggled my eyebrows at Kevin and he covered his mouth and snickered.

  “So, apparently there was a recent showdown between them and Manny’s sworn on a stack of Bibles to behave himself. He seriously doesn’t want to be poor and doesn’t know how to be poor. Evidently Helen really loves him, although I can’t imagine why. This chicken is delicious, Mellie. Can I have some more?”

  There wasn’t anything to do except laugh and be shocked, retell bits of the story all through the rest of dinner and dessert, and then be stunned some more.

  By the time the dishes were all done and everyone was ready to say good night, Harrison was dragging his feet getting out of my door and up to Kevin’s apartment, where he was staying. In addition to everything else, Manny had never booked a hotel.

  “What’s on your mind?” I said.

  “I’m just really happy to see you again, that’s all. And I feel pretty stupid about the whole Manny affair…”

  “Do you think we could refer to it another way? Like the Manny business?”

  “Gotcha. Anyway, hopefully he’s the last low-down, lying, perverted, ’scuse me, horse’s ass you’ll ever have to endure.”

  There were those eyes of his again, casting a net over me from head to toe. I finally found my voice.

  “Wouldn’t that be nice? I guess I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Okay, then. Good night.”

  He leaned in and kissed my cheek. He smelled so good I wanted to lick him and felt that crazy fluttering thing traveling all through the southern climes. Let me assure you that in the entirety of all my days, I had never felt the urge to lick anyone. But Mellie was not Miriam, and Mellie, despite the recent hoodwinking, was determined to enjoy every minute possible of the rest of her life.

  The next afternoon, my arms flew around Dan, Nan, Mary, and Penn as they came through my door. Clearly, everyone had decided to put their best foot forward because their arrival couldn’t have been more joyous.

  Oh, I’ve miss you so, son! And I missed you, too, Mom! It’s so good to see you, Nan, you look just radiant! Guess why? Another baby? Yep, we’re due in December. What marvelous news! Congratulations! And look at my gorgeous grandchildren! Look how you’ve grown! Do I smell chocolate cookies, Grandmomma? Yes! They’re still warm and in the kitchen just waiting for you! Now, don’t be afraid of Harry, my bird. He’s in his cage, but don’t stick your finger in there. He’s very shy until he gets to know you! Oh! I’m so happy you’re all here!

  I got everyone all settled in their rooms and put together a plate of sandwiches for them. Mother, Harrison, and Liz came down to join us and the stories went on and on. The noise grew to such a level that I suggested they all take a trip to a museum for a couple of hours. The rehearsal and dinner was just a day away and I needed to get things organized.

  Liz said, “Why don’t I take y’all over to St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Rockefeller Center? I can show y’all the NBC studio where they film the Today show. How does that
sound?”

  “Cool!” little Penn said.

  “Can we go to the American Girl doll store?” Mary asked.

  “Well, that’s up to your momma, honey…”

  Harrison went with the crowd and Mother stayed behind with me, ostensibly to help, but I could see she didn’t have the energy for such a long walk.

  “Well, Miss Josie? I’ve got two hams to bake,” I said, “and ten pounds of potatoes to cook.”

  “Give me a potato peeler and a place to sit,” she said.

  “I cook them with the skins on. Gives them more flavor.”

  “Well, suit yourself, then. I’ll go have a nap. Those children wear me out!”

  “I’ll come with you. The hams are in Liz’s fridge.”

  I preheated my oven and followed Mother up the stairs, watching her moving so slowly, my heart heavy with concern over the effort it took for her to pull herself up each step, holding on so tightly to the rail. By the time we reached Liz’s apartment, it occurred to me that she might prefer staying downstairs in Charlie’s old room rather than deal with all these steps. Maybe the kids, if they were getting along with Liz well enough, wouldn’t mind sleeping on Liz’s pullout sofa. While I took the hams and balanced them on my hip, I asked her what she thought about that plan and she objected.

  “It’s because I keep moving that I keep moving, missy. Don’t you know anything about old people?”

  “It’s your call, Miss Josie. And you’re not old. I’m just thinking about you, that’s all. Get some rest and I’ll let you know when the games begin again, okay?”

  “Okay.” She stopped and turned to face me, resting her hand on the door to Liz’s bedroom. “I love you so much, sweetheart. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Of course I know that! I love you, too! You know that, too, don’t you?”

  She nodded, too weary for any more talking, and I left her. I left her and went downstairs and carefully put the glazed hams, scored and studded with cloves, in the oven to bake, knowing my mother’s death was near. Not tomorrow, but soon. Don’t ask me how I knew it, but if you did I would tell you that it was a Lowcountry thing. When you grow up on Sullivans Island, you know things. That’s all. Her slowing down wasn’t a sign of death, nor was a slow ascent of a flight of stairs. People could be forgetful, move more slowly, and take more deliberate steps as young as sixty and still live to be a hundred.