Shem Creek (32 page)

“It doesn’t really matter. I just hang around with Alex anyway. And in classes, the girls are okay. And, academically I’m a little ahead in some subjects and behind in others, so I have a little catching up to do.”

“Well, do you like Wando?”

“You want the truth? School sucks wherever you go.”

“You just want to dance, right?”

“Yeah, but that’s not all I want.”

“What else do you want? A sports car? A million dollars?”

“That would be fine, but that’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking that I want to see you happy like this for the rest of your life.”

“What?”

“Look, you may not know it but everybody else does. You’re the happiest I have ever seen you in my whole life. That’s why I quit complaining about being here.”

“What are you saying?”

“I am saying, Mom, that I would put up with anything to see my momma this happy.”

“Yeah, but if my happiness comes at your expense, I can’t be happy.”

“Ma! Stop! I’m a teenage girl and all teenage girls are a pain in the butt! Now go to bed! We have to get up early in the morning and I don’t want to see you dragging around like an old dog. I love you. I do.”

“I love you too, honey. Good night.”

I gave her a kiss and a hug and she hugged me for the longest time I could remember her hugging me in years. She got down under her covers and I turned out her light. I went to the door and turned back to look at her again. I loved her so much at that moment I thought my heart would burst.

THEY say that danger lurks behind complacency and I say, oh, go needlepoint that on a pillow and sit on it. Oh, yes, Louise said things like that, making reference to the devil banging on your door if you neglected to send him an invitation to your party. She believed that bad things happened in threes and that you could predict rain by the shape of a new moon. If it was a bowl with its edges up, it was holding water. If the bowl was tipped, it spilled rain.

I would have to agree that generally, most people who were born and raised in the Lowcountry believed in something more than what they heard in church or learned in Sunday School. Too many inexplicable things happened and were reported by perfectly sober, intelligent and reasonable people. There was the story of the Gray Man of Pawleys Island, the story of Alice and the Summerville lights. The Lowcountry probably had as many ghost stories as the Tower of London.

Gosh, I remember when Mimi and I were kids, there was a girl in her class who swore her house had a death knock. If there was a knock on the front door three times and no one was there, someone in the family would be laid out at McAlister’s Funeral Home within the month. Even her mother said it was true. We would beg her to let us come spend the night but I regret to report that we never heard anything except crickets.

For myself, I believed that my dreams processed all my daily stress and happenings and let them go. But, I was becoming suspicious that maybe there was more meaning to them. The concept of collective unconscious was intriguing to me, that you could somehow inherit the experiences of all your ancestors or all of humanity and that your dreams were filled with symbols that could tell you something, if only you knew how to break the codes. I had no clue on the codes but I knew there was something larger.

It had never been enough to only believe in what could be proven by science. Apparently, it wasn’t enough for a lot of people, or how could you explain the bulging parking lots in the many churches every Sunday morning? If you asked the average churchgoer what kept them in the pews, they might say that weekly services kept them in step with the goal of righteous living and reminded them that they had a community to which they belonged. And, of course they went to church in an attempt to connect with whatever their concept of God was.

Gracie told me I seemed happier than I had ever been and I thought that I knew why. With all the difficulties her young life seemed to attract, for the first time in years I was finally in step with her. I liked it very much that I knew more about her now, even though I did not always like
what
I knew.

The distinct pace of the Lowcountry had reset my clock. I had found a community of people where I felt at home. I had a job that was all about making people happy. But I loved my job best when the day ended, and the customers had long gone home to their beds. I would climb up to the sunset deck on the excuse of double-checking the battened hatches. I would stop for a minute to feel the breeze, have a nightcap of salt air and marvel at the enormity and astounding beauty of the skies overhead.

I was not an unusual specimen. Any morning or evening all year long, people paused to watch streaks of jewel-toned opalescence of color scream across the sky, sighing and remarking at the magnificence of nature’s outbursts. Visitors, residents and natives alike never took these things for granted. You did not dare. Mother Nature’s spoiled inner child could read your thoughts. If you ignored her she would slam the Lowcountry with a storm so great that it rattled your teeth, or weather so hot that you laughed at the face of hell. No, we were all well advised to nurture a
generous
respect for Mother Nature’s nature.

A healthy imagination naturally resulted from living in this tiny corner of the world. It was commonplace to spend some time looking for signs or warnings from nature about what was in your future beyond the weather. The old man had returned to my dreams and while his dour expressions were worrisome, I could not carry his chains in addition to my own and those of my daughters.

It was Sunday morning. Gracie was over at Alex’s house allegedly studying. He was supposed to be tutoring her in Spanish and she was to help him with a poster for some history project.

Mimi was at my house, measuring for curtains, when I answered the phone in the living room and took it out on the balcony. It was Gretchen from New Jersey.

“Hey! What’s going on?”

“I got an offer for your house!”

“What’s the offer?”

“Four ninety-five!”

“What? Woo-hoo! I can’t believe it! Gretchen! That’s wonderful!”

“Time for a yard sale? I have these girls who can organize it for you. . . .”

“Yes! By all means. Good Lord! I have to come back and take out what I want, right?”

“Yes, and the sooner the better. This couple wants to close by the end of October. They don’t think they will have a problem selling their co-op in Manhattan—the market’s very hot right now because of interest rates and all. But, one thing, there’s a problem with the roof,” she said. “My Sandy got up on the extension ladder and he says the flashing around the chimney needs to be replaced. The good news is that if his guys do the work it’s not going to cost you an arm and a leg.”

“That roof has been leaking since the day we bought the house. Fred had at least ten different companies look at it. Does Sandy really think it’s just a flashing problem?”

“Linda? If Sandy Prater says it’s a flashing problem, then that’s what it is. How old is the roof anyway?”

“Probably twenty years or more.”

“Probably time to replace it but you know what? Let the next owner do it. Just fix the flashing. I mean, the buyer isn’t asking you to replace the whole thing.”

“Yeah, if I put up gray tiles, they’ll want beige.”

“You’re absolutely right.”

“How much does Sandy think it will cost?”

“I don’t know; I’ll have to ask him. But we could take the offer contingent on you paying for the repairs. What do you think?”

Four ninety-five! Four ninety-five! That was all I could think about. Holy Mary. It was a fortune.

Gretchen went through all the details I needed to know for the moment and we said good-bye.

I went back inside to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, adding some cubes of ice. My mind was racing. Was there anything in that house that I needed? The furniture was old, the pots and pans were old, the rugs were worn out, and the linens were practically rags. There wasn’t a lamp in the whole house I was emotionally involved with or a table or chair that I missed. Old Mr. Epstein’s furnishings suited me fine. I knew I needed to go through the house again just to be sure, but I was almost certain that beyond the things I had brought with me, I could leave the rest behind. The cost of moving everything would probably exceed the value of it. Besides, none of what I had would fit in this little house. If and when I moved, I would buy what I needed to fit the new space.

“I’m thinking a pretty chintz for your bathroom window and the sliding glass door in your bedroom,” Mimi said, coming in. “You know? Something cheerful! Who was that on the phone?”

I held my hand across my heart. “Four ninety-five,” I said.

“For what? Four ninety-five what?”

“Four hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars for the house in Montclair!”

“Lord have mercy! Mother McCree! Linda! Honey, I was gonna take you to GDC and buy remnants but now we’re going to Southeastern Galleries! Four hundred and ninety-five thousand dollars! That’s almost half a million!”

I did not make the smart-ass remark on the tip of my tongue but said instead, “I gotta sit down, and GDC is perfect. I can find everything I want right there!”

“Why, with that much money you can buy a gorgeous house and furnish it too!”

“Yeah, but I shouldn’t spend it all. I should save some of it, right?”

“Except that you’ll have to pay capital gains taxes. And why in the world would you want to give all that money to the government? Don’t they have enough?”

“Well, I can’t think about that right now. Anyway, for the moment I’m very happy right here in this little spot.”

“Maybe we should go to a spa! You know? Get wrapped up in seaweed and mud and sweat out our toxins?”

“That’s disgusting!”

“We could get massages. Oh! Wouldn’t you love to have someone rub your back and feet? What have you got to eat? I’m starving!”

Massages? I didn’t want some stranger putting their hands all over me. Too weird. Doctors were bad enough.

“Let’s go out,” I said. “I’m in the mood for a burger.”

“Great! Now that you’re rich, you’re buying! Let’s take my car.”

“Yeah, and after lunch we can buy me a new one. My poor Blazer has eighty-three thousand miles on it.”

“Save it for Gracie and get something nice for yourself—maybe a convertible!”

I stopped to lock the door behind me and thought about myself in a convertible. I suddenly realized I had never envisioned myself in something sporty like a Mustang or another car with any kind of pizzazz.

“You know what? You’re right! Let’s go to Poe’s Tavern over on Sullivan’s Island and we can pick up Gracie on the way back.”

I had yet to visit Brad’s house other than picking up or dropping off Gracie and Alex. There was no reason that I should have gone inside. It was important to keep my professional distance, and if Amy’s reappearance at the restaurant was an indication of how well I was doing, I was not doing very well. Although, technically, Louise was the one who had burned Amy’s card. Fat lot of good it had done. She called Brad all day long anyway.

Amy did not count Louise and me among her treasured friends and we didn’t care. Brad merely thought our attitude was amusing. And most importantly, to our mutual delight, we could tell that she was driving him a little crazy.

We arrived at Poe’s and were seated right away. The bar area was crowded and most of the tables were filled. We sat for a moment, reading the menu and commenting on Edgar Allan Poe’s short life.

“He used to live on the island, you know,” Mimi said.

“Um, I know that,” I said.

“Well, you’ve been gone a long time. I thought you may have forgotten. He wrote ‘The Gold Bug’ here, you know.”

“Um, I know that too.”

When she spoke to me like that, I wanted to reach across the table and smack her. Isn’t that awful?

“What’s it gonna be, ladies?”

“I’m gonna have the Tell Tale Heart Burger,” I said, “with a side of Edgar’s Drunken Chili.”

“That’s with a fried egg, Applewood bacon and cheddar cheese. And how would you like that burger prepared?”

“Medium, please, and mayonnaise on the side.”

“No problem. Coleslaw, potato salad or French fries?”

“Fries. Show me no mercy.” I handed the menu back to her.

“And for you, ma’am?”

“I’ll have the Pit and Pendulum burger with fries too.”

“Medium?”

“Perfect,” she said.

We ordered iced tea and as soon as it arrived, the gossip began to flow. In the next minute, our waitress put the chili in front of me and I all but dove right into the bowl. With the news from Gretchen, I was suddenly ravenous. The day was hot and humid, but fortunately we were sitting in a small booth, in the back of the restaurant under a ceiling fan where it was a little cooler.