“Yeah,” Jed said as he filled Rascal’s bowl with water and set it out on the deck. “Work has been crazy, but I think I can get out there this weekend. I was wondering if you and I might take Charlie fishing at the honey hole. And the girls too.”
“You don’t have to ask me twice,” Skeeter said. “Your boat ready?”
“Ready as ever.”
“Then I’ll call up the sitter and tell her we’ll be there first thing Saturday morning.”
“That sounds great,” Jed said. “I’ll see you then, Skeeter.”
“You bring the drinks, and I’ll have the live bait.”
“Got it,” Jed said as he hung up the phone, walked out to the deck, and plopped down in a chair beside Rascal, who came over for a long head scratch.
AFTER RUSTLING UP A LITTLE DINNER, SAUTÉED OKRA and tomatoes over orzo, he checked his e-mail only to find a recommendation from the fine arts site where he had bid on Julia’s painting.
“We’ve recently acquired another Julia Bennett,” the note read. He clicked on it and was delighted to find the image of three lumpy, ripe heirloom tomatoes on a kitchen windowsill. And just beyond the windowpanes, the live oaks framing the dock and the marsh. He tried to catch his breath. Now this was the Julia he could connect with. The Julia who saw the beauty of the natural world the way he did. The year on the painting said 1990. She would have been seventeen then, and he sixteen.
He glanced at the price, then put in a competitive bid. This was a Bennett painting he loved, and he would not regret putting down some serious money to own it.
CHAPTER 28
Julia
The next several weeks rolled by quickly, and Julia felt more herself with each day that passed. Aunt Dot had called to thank her for keeping the children and to tell her she was up and moving about with her new hip. Her mother had called several times to check in and to remind her that her old college roommate, Estelle Macomson, had a daughter who lived just outside of Budapest and here was her e-mail address. Simon called every other day, often with some exciting piece of news about Hockney sales, and Jed e-mailed once to say how much he had enjoyed seeing her and how he hoped her time in Budapest was fruitful and to please call him if and when she found herself back in the South Carolina lowcountry.
Julia never did hear a word from Marney. No thank you, no update on the kids or her health. She assumed that no news was good news, and she really had no desire to talk with Marney. But she would have loved to have heard something from the children whom she thought about and dreamed about regularly.
Budapest was one of Europe’s most vibrant and beautiful cities, with a storied history that involved everyone from the Celts to the Romans to the Magyars to the Mongols, and of course, the Ottomans. The people were truly a stunning and exotic blend of all of the cultures and conquerors that made their way through Central Europe over the last two thousand years or so. Many had smooth, tawny skin, chiseled jaws, large, slightly curved eyes with dark brows, blond or reddish-orange hair. Nearly everyone seemed confident and busy, well on their way to somewhere or someone.
But to what and to whom? That’s what Julia wanted to know as she sat and observed the pedestrians at the little portable easel she’d set up each morning in different parts of the city before heading to the university. At first she focused on the vistas with pedestrians making up a hazy portion of the foreground or background of places like the Chain Bridge, Parliament, the Jewish synagogue, the Old Castle. But she was quickly bored by the vistas that had surely been painted thousands and thousands of times by artists with a much deeper connection to them. So she turned to what she was most naturally captivated by: the people and the mystery of their lives. She couldn’t help staring at them constantly: an elderly man shuffling down the street with his two baguettes, one under each arm; a teenage girl, her tattooed hand in the back of her boyfriend’s pants pocket, the boyfriend’s triple lip rings catching the morning light; a middle-aged woman with graying hair and a settled face that was more beautiful, more youthful than she dared to imagine and how her expression turned from one of weariness to delight when she crossed an acquaintance on the promenade.
Julia looked into their faces as they approached, sometimes staring at them for whole minutes at a time before they felt her gaze and looked up. She would try to look away in time so they didn’t feel as though they were being stalked by some obtuse American, here today and gone tomorrow, though in many ways that’s exactly who she was. If she stared long enough, she could imprint the image on her mind and she would quickly turn and paint the subject as she imagined who the person was, imagined the dramatic arcs of their life, imagined their deepest longings or regrets. In that way she felt connected to them. No one could walk this planet without experiencing pain.
At first she found that painting the pedestrians helped quell the mysterious longing in her heart, but as the weeks passed, it almost made it worse, and she found that the more she watched others, the lonelier she felt. The loneliness was useful when it came to the art; it helped sharpen and define it. So she fed on it, the way she remembered Hemingway fed on hunger during his time in Paris when he couldn’t afford lunch, and she hoped against hope that she could create something fresh to ship home to New York. Some new way of defining who she was and how she saw the world.
One Saturday afternoon she was sitting on the edge of the Chain Bridge beneath the lion, just watching for that right person to trigger her imagination and fill her blank canvas, when her phone buzzed in her jacket pocket. It was a text with the name Jed Young on it, and it contained a photo. She clicked to open it and found an image of Charlie holding up an enormous spot-tail bass with a grin the size of Texas. And Skeeter was in the background, his old shirt splattered with pluff mud, clapping. Mornin’ trip to the honey hole, the text read.
She smiled at the image of the proud little boy and then at the letters that made up the name just below the image. Jed Young. She took a photo of her view from the Chain Bridge, including the edge of her easel, the lion, the Danube, and the Parliament building. Congrats to Charlie from Budapest, she wrote. And then, Thank you for taking him, J.
The text did not go through. She tried it several times, but it didn’t work. She had half a mind to fold up the easel, run to the top of Castle Hill where she was sure to have service, and call him. Maybe he was calling her right now, yearning to hear her voice the way she was his.
Her engagement ring was catching the afternoon light, and she blinked several times. I have to shake this, she said to herself. This is crazy. She deleted her response and went back to her easel and set out her paints. She was getting married in a few short months and whatever nostalgia or romance or whatever it was she had felt for Jed during her week at Edisto, she had to stamp it out. Ignore it. Seal it up.
She went back to her observing and was delighted to have the chance to take a long look at two young girls on either side of an older woman who must be their grandmother. They were making faces at one another as the woman pulled them along the bridge. One of them, the younger one, looked right into Julia’s eyes for whole seconds at a time. The look was a blend of boldness and pride. As if to say, Of course I am a worthy subject. Julia smiled at her and winked. The girl smiled back and nodded once. What a gift, Julia thought, and then she turned away and dipped her brush into the acrylic paint.
CHAPTER 29
Mary Ellen
Nate and Mary Ellen were driving up to Moncks Corner in his thirty-year-old Mercedes convertible to visit a woman named Charlene who raised Australian terriers.
“Well.” Nate gave a side-angled glance to Mary Ellen as they veered from Highway 17 onto I-26, the wind whipping her hairdo out of place. “This lady tells me their life span is twelve to sixteen years, so I figure this pet may very well outlive me.”
Mary Ellen chuckled as she tied an old silk scarf around her head. She’d come to enjoy Nate’s company over the last several months as he invited himself over to dinner with her and Jane Anne, o
r invited himself along with the Collateral Damage gang to the symphony or to try a new restaurant on upper King Street or even out to the Woodlands for high tea.
He was a good deal more well-mannered and interesting than Mary Ellen expected him to be, and he seemed to genuinely enjoy the company of ladies his age, though sometimes he got a little quiet at the end of the evenings and excused himself. Mary Ellen suspected he was missing his wife or missing Luther, and she never pried or pressed him on the matter.
“You’ll help me pick one out now, right, Mary Ellen?” He reached across the seat and patted her forearm gently with his speckled, weathered hands. “You’ve got a good eye and a good heart.”
“Oh, stop,” she said. She hadn’t owned a dog in decades and had no interest in such a labor of love. Her old and independent cat, Bad Girl, was all the pet she’d ever want this side of heaven.
“I mean it.” Nate squeezed her arm ever so slightly as the wind whipped his gray hair and his jowls back. “I trust your judgment.”
Mary Ellen looked out of the windshield as the setting slowly changed from urban to suburban to rural. Julia’s wedding was a few months away, and the thought had crossed her mind to invite Nate to come along with her. Just as a friend. A platonic escort. A neighborly companion. It would be so nice to have someone to accompany her.
“Why not?” Jane Anne had said when Mary Ellen brought it up on a walk around Colonial Lake last week. “Why the heck not, Mary Ellen?”
But she didn’t think she could muster the nerve. She just didn’t.
They pulled off the interstate and followed Highway 52 until they turned onto Cypress Gardens Road where they wound their way through remnants of an old rice plantation, catching glimpses of the swamp where cypress trees and knee stumps rose up out of the murky green water as if history itself had been preserved and pickled in the submersion. (Mary Ellen half-expected to see the Swamp Fox peer around one of the trees with his musket in hand, on the lookout for unsuspecting redcoats.)
Nate had his eyes on the winding road and turned abruptly by a crooked mailbox that read “Jeter.” Mary Ellen hung on tight as they bumped over the deep mud holes in the unkempt dirt lane before pulling up to a double-wide trailer on the river where there were three dog pens, one with an English setter, one with a couple of hounds, and one with a small litter of yellow Labradors.
A large woman in a faded tropical print muumuu alighted on the steps and cocked her head. “Here to see the terriers?”
“Yes.” Nate nodded and stepped forward to shake the woman’s hand as Mary Ellen made her way out of his car, straightening out her tweed skirt and pressing down on her hair after untying her scarf.
“I’m Nate Gallagher, Ms. Charlene, and this is my friend, Mary Ellen Bennett.”
The woman cocked her hip and put her fleshy fist on it. “You two are a sight.” She looked down her nose at Nate’s antique car, its underbelly caked in orange mud, and rolled her eyes. Then she turned and pointed her head in the direction of her den. “We keep the terriers inside with the poodles.”
Nate turned to Mary Ellen, who couldn’t mask the look of trepidation as her pumps sank into the soggy dirt of the front yard. He winked and put out his elbow for her to take. “Come on, Ms. South of Broad,” he said. “Don’t you enjoy an adventure every now and again?”
Mary Ellen took his elbow and walked up the cinder-block steps and into the house where numerous brown and apricot poodles were running in circles on the shag carpet floor. The house was surprisingly clean and fresh-smelling, so Mary Ellen wasn’t too concerned when the woman urged them through the den and down the hallway to where the four terriers were in a blue plastic swimming pool in a sewing room curled up one beside the other.
The woman picked up the largest one—about the size of a half-carton of eggs—and held him up for Nate to see. The rich brown puppy with pointed ears stretched for a moment, then rolled over and curled himself up into another C.
“They’re awfully relaxed.” Charlene wiped her nose with the top of her free forearm. “All of them. Very well adjusted.” Then she handed the pup to Nate before snorting down at the plastic pool. “Go on, Ms. Bennett. Pick up the one you like. I’ll give y’all a deal on two.”
Mary Ellen, in an effort to be polite, bent down and reached her hands toward the litter. She felt instantly drawn to the smallest one in the center and pulled him up and nestled him on her chest. He was so soft and warm, and she could feel his little heart beating beneath her manicured fingers.
A puppy. She couldn’t possibly take on a puppy at this stage in life. She’d have to leave him when she went to work, and she’d have to get up early and walk him, and she’d have to pick up his droppings all along the sidewalk, not to mention her pristine garden, stooping over with a plastic bag.
Nate stepped closer to Mary Ellen and lifted up the one he was holding in his hand. The little pup slept soundly as Nate moved his head from side to side and pulled on his pointed ears. Mary Ellen held hers up next to his, and hers half-opened his eyes for a moment, licked her hand with his warm tongue, and nuzzled against the sloop between her forefinger and thumb.
“He’s had his shots?” Nate turned to the woman in the muumuu.
“Yes, sir,” she said. “My cousin works at the vet in Goose Creek, and she gives us a good deal on all of that. Every one of these terriers is ready to go.”
Mary Ellen bent to put the puppy back down in the pool so she could get a good look at Nate’s, but when she did her little pup put his paws up on the side and started to whimper.
“He likes you, Ms. Bennett,” the woman said.
Mary Ellen took Nate’s pup from him to inspect. “Well, I’m really not up for raising a dog at this point in life.”
“Humph.” The large woman sucked her teeth. She was probably the same age as Mary Ellen.
Mary Ellen smiled her best Southern belle smile. “I’m just here to help Mr. Gallagher.”
Nate smiled her way and said, “Do you approve?”
She rubbed the scruff of the little puppy and nodded and Nate pulled out his wallet. “We’ll take him,” he said as the little pup in the pool continued to whimper.
ON THE DRIVE HOME, THE TERRIER IN A SEAT-BELTED cardboard crate in the backseat, Nate slid an old Buddy Holly CD into his stereo, spread his fingers on the wheel, and they both tapped their fingers along to “Peggy Sue” and “Crying Waiting Hoping” and “Everyday” as they drove down the interstate back to Charleston.
“That’s it,” Nate said as he pulled into the driveway.
“What?” she said.
He turned and nodded toward the backseat where two little black eyes peered out from the holes. “I’m going to name him Buddy.”
She took off her sunglasses and grinned. Music had a way of taking her back to an entirely different place as if shaving decades off of her life, and she felt transported to her long-ago twenties.
“Good choice,” she said. “I always preferred Buddy to Elvis.”
“Oh,” he scoffed. “No question about it. No question at all.”
Mary Ellen got out of the car with a spring in her step. It had been nice to get off of the peninsula, and it had felt wonderful to hear Buddy Holly again. She really ought to get one of those iPods everyone seemed to have now. She could load all of her old favorite songs on there and dance around her house and remember the days when her whole life was ahead of her, the days when her daddy told her that God had a future with her name on it and that it was full of hope.
“Well, I’m sure I’ll see you soon, neighbor,” she said as she turned and headed home, thinking of the music and the little puppy, swinging her purse from side to side. She wondered for a moment if she should drive back out to Moncks Corner and get the little fellow or if she should be so brazen as to ask Nate to accompany her to a wedding several states away.
She shook her head and untied her scarf as she muttered to herself, “Simmer down, old woman. Simmer down.”
“
Mary Ellen,” Nate called. He had taken the pup out of the crate and was letting the little fellow lick his jowls.
She turned around on the sidewalk and cocked her head as Nate ambled toward her, cuddling his new pup. His eyes didn’t look near so bulbous as they had when she’d knocked on his door to inform him of her shattered window a few months back. His face didn’t look near so whiskery.
“I’ve been meaning to ask you something?” He narrowed his white brow and a softness came over his eyes.
“What’s that?” she said.
“Well . . .” He looked up at the sky and shifted his weight to the other side. Then he nuzzled the pup beneath his neck and looked back to her. “My kids and grandkids are coming for Thanksgiving at the end of the month. Most of them, anyway. And I’ve got reservations for us at the Charleston Place Hotel restaurant.” He put the puppy on his chest and looked into her wide eyes. “Anyway, I was wondering if you’d like to come along. You know, sort of be my date.”
She chuckled a little nervously and patted down her windblown hair. She needed to make an appointment at Stella Nova for her weekly hairdo. He was looking right at her with his pale blue eyes, waiting for her response as she measured her smile.
“On one condition,” she said.
He cleared his throat. “What’s that?”
The words came out before she had time to weigh them. “That you take me back up to Moncks Corner to get that puppy this week.”
He laughed and nodded toward the car. “Let’s go right now.”
She clutched her purse and nodded. “All right.”
Then Mary Ellen walked briskly back to Nate’s driveway and hopped back in the passenger seat as he put little Buddy back in his crate and turned on the CD player again. “That’ll Be the Day” came on as they drove back down Savage Street and sang out loud all the way down Ashley Avenue toward the highway. Mary Ellen felt like a kid again as the fall breeze lifted her hair beneath her scarf while she belted out the first stanza:
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