Pawleys Island-lowcountry 5 (8 page)

W
HEN
I walked into Jackson Hole, it took my eyes a few moments to adjust. The sun, catching the edges of the thousands of beer cans lining the ledge around the ceiling of the area, was throwing beams of corneal abrasion around like a Las Vegas light show. I had forgotten how delightfully tacky the place was, and I took a deep breath, anticipating a relaxed lunch.

Someone named Linda, wearing a diamond as big as a judge’s gavel, greeted me and showed me to the table. Things must be good in the cheap seafood restaurant world, I thought.

“Here we are,” she said. “I hope you enjoy your lunch.”

I could never figure out why these people who worked in all these restaurants that littered the shores of Shem Creek seemed so happy. If I had been forced to spend my days in a dump like Jackson Hole, I would have been the Zoloft queen. But what did I know? Maybe all the tourists were serious tippers, but I doubted that.

“Thanks,” I said, and before sitting down I gave Everett a huge hug. “How are you, Everett?”

There was Everett in khaki shorts and a knit shirt, and I had overdressed in a black linen dress. Was it my fault the dress codes of the world had fallen to something a notch above pajamas? But I realized I was something of an old fart so I brightened up to match his enthusiasm.

Everett was just bubbling over and couldn’t wait to show me what he had. “How am I? Great! You look fabulous! So tell me what’s going on with you? Where have you been?”

“Everett? I’m gonna give you the Cliffs Notes version of my horrendous story, and then we are going to move on to other more pleasant topics.” I took Everett through the chain of death, and he was completely surprised and somber.

“Good Lord, Abigail, I wouldn’t wish any of that on my worst enemy. I am so damn sorry.”

“Thanks. I know. But I’m okay, really—I mean, as well as anyone would be in my shoes. What can you do? Life goes on, right?”

“Yeah, I guess, but man oh man, that is too much.”

“It is exactly as much as I could stand without losing my mind, and believe me, there are still moments when, if I think about it all too much, I might still go insane. That’s why it’s good for me to get busy. So tell me what you found.”

“Okay, her name is Charlene Johnson,” he said, handing me a manila envelope. “And guess what? She works for Nat in his daddy’s business. Isn’t that a coincidence?”

“Bloody convenient too. Tsk, tsk. Why does it always happen in the workplace?” I opened the envelope and removed two folders. The first one held a stack of eight-by-ten black-and-white photographs. I began flipping through them. First there was a picture of them leaving the Bank of South Carolina on Meeting Street and another of them using an ATM machine at the Bank of America on Savannah Highway. Then there were pictures of them at Community Firstbank and Washington Mutual, and all I could think was, gee, they sure do go to the bank a lot. Not very romantic. At the bottom of the stack were a few pictures of them coming and going from the cosmetic surgery center on Calhoun Street. What was that about? Well, it looked to me like Charlene was just a regular girl in the first photograph but in the last one she had become Jessica Rabbit. Poor thing. Who would ever take her seriously?

I opened the other folder. They were grainy and some were slightly out of focus, but one thing was obvious. Nat Simms knew Charlene Johnson in the biblical sense, and we’re talking
in detail.

“How did you get this picture of them?”

“There’s a huge live oak across the street. I just shinnied up the trunk and positioned myself with my zoom lens…”

Before I could stop myself I said, “Looks like Nat positioned his zoom as well.”

Everett burst out laughing and I turned a thousand shades of red. “Abigail!”

“Sorry! Sorry! Sorry! I just couldn’t resist.”

That was the kind of joke I might have made with Huey, but never with someone from my professional life. Maybe I was mellowing after all. I continued to stare at the pictures, one after another, but I kept going back to one of them in the living room of Rebecca’s house. They were smoking what looked like a cigarette, but I knew it wasn’t a cigarette by the way they handled it.

“Everett? Let me ask you something. In your professional opinion, does this look like they’re smoking pot to you?”

“Yep. Absolutely. In fact, I could smell it across the street. I’d bet if I went back and hung around for a few days, I could figure out where he’s getting it or who he’s getting it from. I saw them getting high on several occasions, but this was the clearest photograph I had of them actually smoking. You say this guy got custody of their children?”

“For the moment.”

“Well, I don’t think family court would approve of this, do you?” Everett handed me another folder from his briefcase and grinned widely. “Take a look at this.”

I opened the folder and nearly fainted from what I saw. There was Charlene Johnson spanking Nat’s bare backside with a hairbrush. He was lying right across her lap. But not to worry, it wasn’t like Nat was naked. He was wearing a Clemson football jersey.

“I guess his panties got lost in the shuffle somewhere?” I was choking on laughter.

“He’s got issues,” Everett said.

“Uh, yeah!”

As the young waitress approached I closed the folder as quickly as I could.

“Hi! I’m Gracie and I’ll be your server this afternoon. I’d like to just go over the specials with you…”

Gracie was as cute as a bug and she chattered on with so much perkiness as though she could save our eternal souls from the flames of hell by convincing us to order the seafood plat du jour. The more she described the food the wider her eyes became. This was one very dramatic young woman.

“And if you’re
really
hungry, there’s the Captain’s Platter. That’s a
dozen
sautéed scallops, a
dozen
shrimp, two deviled crabs and a
whole
fried flounder. It comes with two sides. Personally, I’d get the red rice and the collard greens and ask for extra hush puppies, but then the fried okra is banging…”

“Whew! Gracie! Too many choices! I’ll just have the crab cakes and a side salad. How ’bout you, Everett?”

Everett ordered a fried fish sandwich with a side of fries. We both ordered iced tea and some crab dip to pick on while we waited for our entrees. The irrepressible Gracie swept away and I pondered youth being wasted on the young for a moment and then checked my watch. How long would lunch take to get here? Knowing I had the evidence to prove Nat was a skunk had left me absolutely ravenous.

Every now and then I would pull out the folder and sneak a look at the pictures. Everett would say,
Good, huh?
And all I could think about was Nat’s ass and the old saying about someone who was cheap—that they were tighter than a gnat’s…Well, you get the drift, I’m sure. Basically, I giggled my way through lunch, pausing every thirty seconds to thank Everett and to sneak another peek.

Cruising back to Pawleys, I fretted over how best to handle the kryptonite in the envelope next to me. Those pictures were so hot I could almost feel them radiating from the passenger seat. Rebecca would probably have hysterical fits when she saw them. It was one thing to think that your husband might, just
might
be fooling around. It was quite another to hold a photograph in your hands of your husband sprawled across the lap of his mistress, wearing a football jersey and getting his fanny spanked.
Naughty dog.
And, let’s be honest, Nat wasn’t just fooling around. He was doing drugs and engaging in what the courts would certainly view as unhealthy behaviors.

I had to consider the location for dropping the bomb. I couldn’t do it in the gallery and it didn’t seem right to invite her over to my place. I decided to call Huey.

“Huey?”

“Abigail! Where are you?”

“I just passed McClellanville. I had an appointment in Charleston today. Listen, I need your advice.”

“Uncle Huey is all ears.”

“I’ve got a stack of pictures in my hot little hands that would take the wind out of Johnny Cochran.”

“And I assume that these photographs are of Rebecca’s Rat?”

“And his paramour. Huey, I am not kidding, they are so gross and trashy that if Rebecca sees them she is going to die.” I knew I shouldn’t have said that. It was unprofessional. But it was out of my mouth before I knew it.

“Good Lord.” Huey was silent for a few minutes, and during that eternity I sighed for all the world. “What’s in them? I mean, what are they doing?”

“Huey, you know I can’t tell you that. I shouldn’t have said anything to you. You have to promise me you’ll keep it to yourself.”

“I am a paragon of discretion, Abigail. You have my word.”

“Thanks. I just want to know how you think I can handle this in the most sensitive way possible.”

“Well? You could always throw them away. I mean, you could just say that your fellow in Charleston didn’t turn up anything, couldn’t you?”

“I can’t do that. I just can’t.”

“Well, then, go by her apartment and just hand them to her and then leave. How’s that?”

“Too cowardly. God, Huey, this whole drama keeps rolling around in my mind. I mean, I only did this because I thought she got duped, not because she came to me begging for help. I honestly think that she thinks if Nat doesn’t want to love her anymore, then
fine.
And I agree with that, but I sure wouldn’t give up my home and family unless I was making a fully informed decision. Sometimes being right is the worst thing in the world. She’s going to hate me.”

“That’s ridiculous, Abigail. Rebecca thinks you’re the smartest and most elegant woman she’s ever met.”

“Well, at least she’s right about
something.
”

“Abigail! Hubris!”

“Sorry. Joke, joke. But let me make a little prediction. She’s going to blame me, Huey. I’ve seen it happen thousands of times.”

“The old shoot the messenger. You know, Abigail. This
is
rather a sticky wicket, isn’t it?”

“I love it when you do your Rumpole, Huey. Help me figure this out. Huey? Huey?”

The phone went dead. We had lost our connection. I tried redialing him, but I couldn’t get any service.

The dead zone. Huge sixteen-wheelers zoomed by, and it was all I could do not to be consumed by the fact that I was traveling the same piece of road that had claimed the life of my son.

When other people traveled Highway 17, heading north from Mount Pleasant, they thought of Boone Hall Plantation, Brookgreen Gardens, Hobcaw Barony or all the beautiful places to visit that give the Lowcountry its unique reputation of grace and splendor. In contrast there was the rustic home cooking of Seewee Restaurant, the great charm of the shops on the waterfront at Georgetown and all the seafood restaurants at Murrell’s Inlet. But I rarely thought about those places. I thought about my own agony.

I tried to move away from my dark thoughts, remembering that when I was a child my father would take me to the Hammock Shops at Pawleys just to swing and to have an ice cream cone. Even today I knew lots of people who would drive from Columbia or Greenville only to have dinner at Louis’s Fish Camp, then spend the night in a hotel or a friend’s condo, take an early morning walk on the beach, drinking in the salty air before leaving the fantasy. Oh, yes, Highway 17 meant something wonderful for many people, but not for me. I could feel my chest tighten with anxiety as I approached the strip of land where the accident happened.

In an act of emotional self-defense, I tried Huey’s number again and this time the call went through. I cleared my throat and sighed, collecting myself so that Huey would not detect my passing panic.

“Hi! Sorry. We got disconnected.”

“Abigail, listen to me. I have been thinking about this, and there are several ways to deliver the news to Rebecca. One, you hand them to her, say you never looked at them and walk away. She’ll know you’re a liar, but she’ll have the opportunity for a private nervous breakdown—but she might do something crazy. So I don’t think that’s what you should do. Two, you hand them to her and say something like,
Look, this is going to upset you. I can stay if you’d like or you can look at them in private.
I think that’s the best bet. And obviously, I think the best thing is to give them to her outside of work in a relaxed environment. Why don’t I invite her over for supper and you come too. Maybe the best way to do this will come about naturally. What do you think?”

“I don’t know, Huey. What if she’s embarrassed that we’re both there? Two against one?”

“Look. I’ll make myself scarce if it comes to her actually opening them. But I think she might benefit from a man’s perspective, don’t you?”

“I think you want to see the pictures.”

“You know it, sugar. I’m already drooling.”

I knew if Rebecca opened them she would show them to Huey at some point anyway. I mean, who were we kidding here?

“I just…I think…oh, fine. What time?”

The guillotine was hoisted, Nat’s head was on the block and he may or may not be revealed as the venomous skank he was, depending on the depth of Rebecca’s curiosity and the strength of her will that very night.

At seven-thirty, I pulled around Huey’s road, passing Miss Olivia in the backseat of her Mercedes Benz, driven by Byron. They waved and I waved back. I could see Miss Olivia asking Byron to stop, and so he did. I lowered my window opposite Miss Olivia’s.

“How are you this evening?” I said.

“We’re just running out to get a few more string beans! We’ll be right back!”

I nodded and raised my window, smiling to myself. Miss Olivia didn’t trust Byron to even choose string beans. In her eighties and she still thought she had to—well…what could you say? She was just a pistol.

I pulled in and parked. Rebecca’s car was there. Good, I thought, maybe she’s had a glass of wine and loosened up. As I got out of the car I looked up. Like the old man down at Mr. Marlow’s store used to say,
Low, looks like it’s making up a storm!
There was a storm coming for sure, and I was glad of it. Maybe it would wash away the humidity.