Beach House Memories (22 page)

“I’m getting cold,” she told him honestly. “Give me a minute to get dressed and I’ll make you some lunch.”

He cast a crooked smile, one she knew so well and that made her muscles stiffen. “Well, since you’re taking off that towel . . .”

She stepped back, putting out her hands, not wanting at that moment to be touched. “Stratton, the children are right outside.”

“We’ll be quiet.”

“I’m tired,” she said, trying to step out of his grasp. “And the porch doors are open.”

“I’ll close them.” He plucked at the corner of her towel to let it fall from her body to the floor. His cool hands slid along her naked skin from her waist, up her arms, then down her back as his lips found her neck.

“Wait, wait,” she said, pushing him back. She went to the
porch French doors and, reaching past the lace, closed them. Then she went to her bureau to retrieve her gin and tonic. She took a few good sips, feeling the coolness slide down her parched throat. A moment later, she welcomed the gin swimming in her veins.

Stratton was in his underwear and socks, having removed his pants. He was unbuttoning his shirt as he walked toward her.

Lovie closed her eyes and in a flash saw a tall, lean man in khaki pants, sandals, with his shirtsleeves rolled up over tan arms. She shook the image from her head just as she felt Stratton’s heavy weight against her and they tumbled back upon the mattress.

Ten

L
ovie rallied at the home front. After lunch, she packed a cooler and they all went to the beach for a family swim. She lay on her back, resting on her elbows under a big hat, and watched Stratton bodysurf with Palmer and Cara. Her husband lost his stiff town civility and became a fun-lovin’ Lowcountry boy out on the beach, the boy she’d fallen in love with. He needed to be here as much as the family needed him.

As the afternoon waned, Palmer headed north to the pier to see his surfing buddies and Stratton returned to the house to make a few phone calls. Lovie and Cara spent the remaining hours spread out on colorful towels and read novels, contented as cats.

When the girls returned to the beach house, Stratton had fired up the barbeque and was standing in front of it, nursing a beer and regaling Palmer with a speech about the art of barbeque being man’s work. Lovie enjoyed listening to the male voice out on the porch as she made potato salad, cold bean salad, and banana pudding. Cara, conveniently, had ducked out to Emmi’s house with a kiss and a promise to be back in an hour.

It was a relaxed evening, like old times. Without the pressures of Stratton’s job or the children’s school schedule, they
sat around the table and talked about their favorite television shows—Palmer liked
Hawaii Five-O
, Cara preferred
The Waltons
; their favorite movies—Palmer and Cara both loved
Blazing Saddles
, Stratton preferred
The Godfather
, and Lovie claimed no movie would ever beat
Gone with the Wind
. She glanced at Stratton across the table, leaning back in his seat, slightly flushed from beer. He seemed so pleased to have the family together again and said so, many times.

Later that night, they made love again, with more tenderness than that morning. As she fell asleep, Lovie listened to the cicadas singing outside her window and prayed that they’d get through this rough patch they’d been stuck in and find their way back to love again.

The following morning, she rose as the first pink rays of dawn broke the darkness, dressed quietly in her shorts and team T-shirt, and went to the kitchen to make coffee. Even though it was Sunday, it was nonetheless a beach patrol morning. Turtles didn’t know what day of the week it was. She was luxuriating in sipping coffee and reading the Sunday newspaper in peace when the phone rang. She lurched to grab it at the first ring so no one would be awakened. She heard Russell’s familiar voice and, as luck would have it, there were no nests reported.

“The turtles are all in church this morning,” he joked.

She’d laughed, feeling unusually happy to hear his voice but also glad, for once, that she had the morning free. She wrapped an apron around her waist and took stock of her kitchen. It had been a long time since she’d made corn cakes and bacon, but this morning she had the time and the fresh berries, and her mama always told her there was nothing a Southern man loved more than a hearty breakfast. Stratton, bless his heart, could make mistakes, but he was here and he was trying. So would she.

The days sped by quickly. By the time the fireworks exploded in the sky on the Fourth, Lovie thought that Stratton had slowed
down to island time. He was relaxed, easier to be with, even cheerful. The children enjoyed spending time with him when he was in this gentler mood and not the martinet seeking out their flaws. Lovie felt such hope that when the time came for him to go abroad, she actually regretted his leaving and worried how their marriage would survive these long absences.

When Stratton was gathering his papers from the desk, Lovie sat on the bed folding his clothes and putting them into his suitcase. She’d given him the expensive travel bag for his fortieth birthday and loved the smell of the fine brown leather. She wrapped his shoes in tissue paper and set them beside his toilet bag. Then she laid his folded shirts and underwear neatly on top of those.

“What date will you be back?” she called out.

“Uh, I can’t remember offhand. September something. I’ll call when I check my itinerary,” Stratton called back from the living room.

“September’s a long way away. The children will miss you.”

“Uh-huh,” he replied.

Lovie smoothed his blue silk tie with her palm. She began placing it into the slim zipper pouch on the side of the suitcase when her fingers ran against papers. Taking them out, she saw that they were Pan American plane tickets. Here was his itinerary, she thought, and opened the long journey agenda. He was going to five cities in as many countries. A busy schedule, she thought. She opened the second ticket, assuming it was for Japan. She was curious to see what cities he was going to. Tokyo? Kyoto?

She paused, confused. The cities listed weren’t in Japan. They were the same European cities and the same dates. Was it a duplicate? She looked up at the name on the ticket.
Ashley Cole
. Lovie went cold and slowly opened her fingers. The tickets fell open into the suitcase.

She felt numb, like they say one feels after being hit with a
bullet. A sting and then nothing. Then erupted a sudden fury and a hurt so scorching that her throat burned from holding in her tears as she stood there, immobile, staring with disbelief at the tickets splayed open in his suitcase.

She heard a noise beside her and saw through the blur of tears Stratton’s hand reach into the suitcase and grab the tickets. She heard his heavy sigh and waited.

“You’re reading too much into this . . .” he began.

She didn’t respond, refused to look at him.

“It’s not what you think. It’s strictly business. That’s all.” When she didn’t say anything, didn’t move, he tried anger. “Hell, Lovie, stop playing the role of the wounded wife. It’s ridiculous and beneath you. Ashley is my secretary. Nothing more. This is a big trip with a lot of business. I need her to
work
for me, hear?
Work
.”

Lovie turned and looked at him blankly. “Then why didn’t you tell me she was coming? Why didn’t you ask me to join you?”

“What? And leave your precious turtles for the summer?”

“Don’t you try and twist this around on me! This has nothing to do with turtles,” she shouted at him, losing control. “We both know what this is about.”

“It’s business!” he shouted back at her.

“Then go do your dirty business,” she cried. “Go on. Go!” She threw his tie at him. It landed gracelessly on the floor. “And don’t come back here. We were fine without you. Why did you have to come back?”

Stratton grabbed her shoulders and shook her so hard her head wobbled like an infant’s. He held her so tight his fingers felt like iron probes digging into her shoulders. They stared at each other, and for one moment, there was such anger in his eyes, Lovie feared he might strike her. He pushed her furiously away and turned and went to the closet to pull out his suit. “I can’t talk to you when you’re like this,” he told her.

Lovie walked from the room, rubbing her shoulders, and went to her refuge in the kitchen. She felt unsteady on her feet, so she bent and clutched the counter like her life depended on it. She felt if she let go, she’d either scream or go running back into the bedroom and start fighting with him again, demanding answers to all her other suspicions. But she couldn’t. He’d been drinking and his anger could be frightening.

She remembered the one time he’d struck her. Was it two years earlier? She couldn’t even remember what the fight was about. But she’d never forget the shock of the sharp sting of his palm across her face, or the shame. He’d apologized, bought her a gift, and took her to dinner. Later, he’d blamed it all on her for getting him so mad. He swore he’d never hit her again, and he hadn’t. But she knew the anger was there, simmering like a pot on the stove. She had to mind the heat.

He did not meet her gaze when he left. He stepped close and kissed her in a perfunctory manner, told her he loved her and that he’d buy her something very special in Japan. She listened to his hearty good-byes to the children and held herself rigid until she heard the roar of his powerful Mercedes engine disappear down the road.

After he’d left, she felt an inflamed jealousy and might have hurled dishes to the floor like she’d seen in movies, except that her children were home. She fed them a picnic dinner of leftovers and allowed them all the ice cream they could eat while she stared out the window, clutching her arms so tight her fingers left bruises. It wasn’t only because Stratton was traveling with another woman, a rather young but plain and common woman, she thought bitterly. She felt hurt and envy because he wasn’t going with
her
. His wife. She’d asked to go.

Finally, as the sun began to set, the children skulked off to their rooms, casting worried glances at her over their shoulders and whispering to each other. They knew something was wrong,
but she didn’t have it in her to reassure them, as she usually did after a family upset. She didn’t trust herself to open her mouth other than to say a shaken, “Good night, my darlings.”

Only when the house was quiet and the sky darkened did she feel the relief of the familiar steel wall of indifference begin to drop. She was quite skilled at this form of self-protection by now. She could shut and lock this imaginary door of apathy quickly. This wasn’t the first time she’d been suspicious that her husband was fooling around. She wouldn’t be the first wife of a successful man to suspect her husband was chasing skirts. After all, Stratton’s father was well known to have had a roving eye.

Lovie recalled something Stratton’s mother, Linnea, had told her one evening over sherry. They’d been talking about husbands in general, sharing congenial, even humorous gossip. Eventually the conversations had drifted to their own husbands, and along this vein, the mood had darkened.

“Successful men can have large egos,” Linnea Rutledge told her daughter-in-law. She was a slight, graceful woman with graying hair that floated like a nimbus around her head. Her voice, too, was breathless. She spoke slowly, enunciated each vowel and consonant. Lovie knew her to be kind, even otherworldly. Nothing seemed to fluster her. Largely, Lovie suspected, because she didn’t care about anything as much as she did the birds she studied and painted. She identified and painted birds with a passion that consumed her.

“I suppose they need this to succeed. Sometimes, however, a man’s ego demands more than any one woman can satisfy. It’s not love, my dear,” she hastened to add when Lovie had stiffened in protest. “Oh, no. Love is something quite different. Love and marriage are sacred. What I’m referring to is more . . .” Linnea had sighed, frustrated at finding the correct word. “More an easing of stress. A conquest, perhaps. Men are still such boys in this way. I’m sure there are many different reasons, but never love. So
sometimes, with husbands such as ours, it’s wise to look the other way if they have a . . .” Linnea lifted her chin a tad. “An indiscretion. It’s a passing thing. Inconsequential.
We
,” she said with emphasis, “are their wives.”

Linnea continued, “It is in our nature as women to be strong and yet yielding, like the palm tree in a storm. It bends but it does not break. This is our strength. Why we endure, and have for centuries through unspoken hardships. Southern women should never be brittle. And,” she said brightly, “we have so much, don’t we? Our children, our home, our full lives. And we have each other. We are the foundation of our family. Remember this, Lovie, and”—she sighed—“should suspicions arise, let them remain only that. Look the other way, toward your blessings.” She’d patted Lovie’s hand and said softly, “It’s easier. Trust me, my dear.”

Lovie had followed her mother-in-law’s advice. When she’d first married, she didn’t believe she could have contemplated such an arrangement. Her father had been kind, honest, and true. Lovie couldn’t imagine him ever having an extramarital fling. Or, for that matter, having the energy for one. He’d always worked so hard. But she also knew it was against his nature. Her mother used to joke how she could leave Michael in a room full of naked women and he’d not cheat. Dee Dee, for all her love of being social, was equally chaste. When she dressed up at night, she did so for other women, not men.