Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (2 page)

a beautiful, pastel-colored garden, with a stream of gray and pale

blue silk water running down its center.As a child the scene had

seemed so real to me that I could imagine myself there, climbing

the garden wall of stone and pale green ivy and then wading in

the water.

The front was pieced together from tiny swatches of fabrics

to form flowers, birds, trees and shrubs. She had probably col-

lected those swatches for years. The back of the quilt was now

ivory silk, blind-stitched over its original backing of cotton.

Hundreds of tiny French knots gave the quilt texture and

dimension. Its fragile state was so urgent; it should have been

2

D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

mounted as a wall hanging for the sake of preservation. If there

was one thing that Charlestonians did it was to preserve. But,

I couldn’t retire it as an art object. I preferred to wrap myself in

its cool folds, wondering if my grandmother—the one I had

scarcely known—was trying to tell me something.

I turned in our ancient, creaking bed—my parents’ bed—

solid mahogany, with carved shafts of rice decorating each of its

four red patina posters, a symbol of long-gone plantation crops.

We had once grown the most desirable rice in the world in

Charleston’s rice fields—Carolina Gold.The bed was a souvenir

of the past.

I remembered the day we had carried it into the house in

pieces, up the steep stairs from the front hall to our bedroom—

Tom and I—and together we had assembled it, fitting the neatly

labeled pegs in just so. There was not a single nail in it—only

handmade pegs. We had just bought our house then—an old

Victorian in the historic district of downtown—and my sister

had insisted that we have the bed as a housewarming gift.

My mind moved on. I tried to convince myself that the

gentle, rhythmic snoring of my husband was in fact the sound of

the tide coming in on Sullivan’s Island.The sounds of the Island

had never failed to help me fall off to deep sleep. But that night

no amount of imagining or remembering brought the rest I so

desperately sought.

It had been well past one o’clock when I finally got to bed

and I twisted and turned until past two. Somewhere around then I

kicked off the covers and opened a window. At that hour the city

noises of Charleston had at long last given up to near silence,

except for the occasional foghorn from the harbor or the lone car

engine revving up and flying away from a red light. The car’s

driver—probably a college student—knew no one was around to

stop him at that hour.

As I raised the sash, the night air rushed through my win-

dow, causing my curtain sheers to billow, and my bedroom air

became damp all at once. Damp and slightly chilled. I should

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

3

have recognized the smell of impending disaster, but I didn’t. I

hurried back to bed and when the alarm failed to wake me at

six-thirty, I woke in a panic at seven.

The day began in a whirlwind of petty grievances. Beth

didn’t like the cereal I put out for her and whined about it as

though I were trying to feed her poison instead of a bowl of

healthy fiber. Tom couldn’t find his favorite cuff links and

accused me of being nosy for rearranging his jewelry tray. I had

done no such thing. Who had the time for that sort of house-

keeping? Rearrange his jewelry tray? What a joke that was. I had

barely had time lately to remember my name. He had probably

left them at the gym, I told him.

Half apologetic for his foul humor,Tom took our daughter

to school so that I could get to my office at the Charleston

County Library on time. Even he knew I had to make a major

presentation that afternoon at work.“Good luck!” he called out

on his way out the back door.

I had been up late working on a proposal for the South

Carolina Electric and Gas Company. It was pretty much a done

deal, but I still worried. I got paid to worry. I raced to work like

a madwoman. I couldn’t be late. An ugly side of government

employment involved time-clock punching and score keeping

at an obsessive level. If you were fifteen minutes late, your salary

was docked. Absurd. I had two master’s degrees, but if I was

fifteen minutes late for work, eyes rolled, eyebrows arched and

the bookkeeper had a smug moment of glee. Where had
they

been at one in the morning? Forget it. It wasn’t an argument

worth the blood pressure.You see, I’d learned. Pick your battles

carefully.

Anyway, I felt like a plate spinner. Remember those guys on

television?
The Ed Sullivan Show
, I think—some Russian fellow

who had twenty plates on flexible poles, all spinning at once

over his head. That was my life. My daughter, Beth, was one

plate—her academic career, her social life, her complexion and

her compulsion to spend. Oh, she spun all right. My husband,

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D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

Tom, was another—spinning somewhere out of my direct line

of vision. The house was another—threatening to fall down

around my ears. It was always something—a broken pipe, a leak-

ing gutter—and it was my job to see about it all. Tom was too

busy. Or whatever. My sex life was another plate.That one spun

backwards, along with my wallet plate—slightly cracked. Don’t

ask. I just kept thinking that soon, things would be better—as

soon as I got to the bottom of the paper on my desk, filled out

all the health insurance claims, as soon as I did this or that.

I should not have been in the least surprised to discover,

when I made it to the library, that I had left the support materi-

als for the charts at home. Well, I thought, I could put a Band-

Aid on that one too. Instead of lunch, I’d just fly home as fast as

I could, grab the papers and fly back in time for the two o’clock

meeting. It wasn’t a big deal—just a mosquito bite in the

scheme of things.

I gave my diskettes to our development department secre-

tary, who swore up and down that it was no problem to print

the graphs on sixteen-by-twenty paper for the easel. I blew her

a kiss and ran back home at around eleven. If I got back by

twelve, it would give me two solid hours to assemble everything

and go over it again.

It was a gorgeous South Carolina morning. I don’t know

why, but I was struck by the clearness of the sky—all that blue.

So beautiful. I raced down Meeting Street, passing all the tourists

crossing the streets, thinking how pleasant it was to live in a place

that everyone wanted to see.And Charleston is no cheesy resort.

She is noble and grand. People came here to learn, to be

enriched. Of course my enthusiasm was tempered by the natural

reserve with which Charlestonians have the good fortune to be

born. No, no. During Spoleto Festival, we do not drive down

Murray Boulevard blowing our horns and swilling beers like in

the football towns. Heaven forbid. We open our gardens and

serve iced tea with mint sprigs to total strangers, treating them

like favored friends.

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

5

I was thinking about all this graciousness and hospitality, and

singing “Sixty-Minute Man” along with the radio, as I swung

into my narrow driveway on Queen Street. I didn’t even slam my

car door, but left it open, intending to stay only long enough to

get what I needed. I was already bounding up the steps to Beth’s

room (somehow the family word processor had migrated there)

when I heard the voices. I stopped dead. Someone was in my

house. Someone was in my bedroom!
“Oh, God!”
I heard a

distinctly female voice cry out.
“Oh, my God!”
Was it Beth? Was

someone hurting my Beth? It sounded like someone having sex!

With my heartbeat loud in my ears, I sneaked back downstairs as

fast as I could and grabbed the fireplace poker. I was shaking all

over. I didn’t know whether to call the police first or try to stop

what was happening myself. I stood outside my bedroom door

and listened for a minute. My box spring was creaking and

groaning.

“Ride me! Yes! My tiger!”

Then an all too familiar voice said,“I’m gonna give it to you

like you want it! Tell me you want it!”

“Oh! Yes! Please!”

It took me about one split second to realize I was about to

confront some major bullshit. My heart sank. I could’ve walked

out of there and maintained my dignity, but oh, no. Not me.

Something made me open the door. The tiger—whose bare

backside faced me—was none other than my husband, Tom.

The female he rode—whose ankles he held high in the air

while she clung to my headboard—was the chemically

enhanced and surgically improved young woman who ran the

New Age bookstore on St. Phillip’s Street. I stood there in the

doorway with the poker, anger rising like a geyser, waiting for

them to realize they had company, thinking for a split second

that a poker was a rather Freudian and humorously named

weapon to have at the moment. I cleared my throat as loudly as

I could when it was clear my husband and his love puppy didn’t

have a clue. She was the first to react.

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D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

“Tom!” she screamed. “Stop! My God!” She scrambled to

cover herself with
my
sheets.

He turned around to face me and started screaming,“What

are
you
doing here?”

“I live here,” I said. My voice sounded weak.“I forgot some

papers.” I couldn’t move.

“Well, go get them,” he said, “and close the door!” He

sounded cold and foreign. Not like the man I had shared the last

sixteen years with.

His dismissal finally infuriated me beyond reason. “Get out

of my house,” I said,“both of you.” I crossed the room and raised

the fireplace tool over Tom’s head.They were suddenly horrified

and begged me to put it down.They scrambled to the other side

of the bed to escape, caught in the sheets, knocking a lamp from

the end table, sending it smashing to the ground.

“Please, Susan! I can explain! Don’t do this!”Tom was plead-

ing with me and, thank God, I heard him. I would’ve hit them

both, bashed their brains in. I dropped the cast-iron poker to the

floor and began trembling. I’d never hit anyone in my life and

suddenly there was a raging murderer inside of me.

“Get out,” I said to her in a low voice. My heart pounded so

hard I thought I might have a stroke. She slipped out of the bed,

naked and wet with perspiration, her blond hair all matted in

the back from her tiger ride. Her dark pubic hair was shaved

into a heart shape.“Who do you think you are?” I hissed at her.

“You’re not even a real blond!”

“Go downstairs, Susan,” Tom said, “try to pull yourself

together.”

“Really?” I said. “Pull myself together? You’re in my bed

with this slut and I should worry about how I
behave
? This bitch

is screaming ‘Ride me like a tiger!’ and
I
should compose
myself
?

I’ll tell you what, Tom Hayes.You get that cheap whore out of

my house and get your ass dressed and downstairs in five min-

utes. If you can’t give me the apology of your life, I want you out

of this house today. Is that clear?”

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

7

I didn’t even know if he answered me. I slammed the door

so hard behind me that it thundered all over the house. I don’t

remember going to the kitchen, or lighting the cigarette I found

myself smoking a few minutes later. I heard the front door close.

Silence. I waited for Tom to appear. Silence followed by silence.

I went back to the foot of the stairs.

“Tom?”

He was gone.

I called my office after some time and apologized, saying

that I had become ill, asking my boss to do the presentation. My

illness wasn’t a lie. The room spun around me as I fed the sup-

port material for the presentation through the fax in Tom’s

study. I pulled the sheets and pillowcases off our bed and flipped

the mattress. I got a sponge and wiped down every square inch

of my bathroom and dusted every surface in my room. It wasn’t

until I put the linens in the washer that I began to cry. I saw by

the kitchen clock that it was afternoon—it was two-thirty. Beth

had cheerleader practice and she wouldn’t be home until five.

What would I say to her?

I debated calling Tom’s office but before I could think of

what to say, I heard the front door open again. In a matter of

seconds I turned to see Tom staring at me. I knew I looked

horrible. My eyes were all swollen and red. Somehow the

favorite dress I had chosen to wear to work now seemed

frumpy and dowdy. I stood there in my stocking feet. I felt a

run growing by my big toe on my left foot—it ran right up the

front of my leg. I had to wear black pantyhose today? It came

to me in a rush that my nails were chipped and my hair hadn’t