The Girls of August (14 page)

As it turned out, I was wrong. Baby did not return until late evening, and she did
not bring back the food. To make matters more puzzling, she was gone when everyone
got up the next morning.

“Hallelujah. The little nut job is MIA,” Rachel said, stretching and stifling a yawn.
“Who’s for pancakes?” We’d gathered in the kitchen for morning coffee. It had become
a ritual.

“Not me,” I said. The nausea was threatening to creep back, and I was well aware
that I was tottering slightly. “I think I need some warm milk. Do we have any milk?”

Rachel looked at me sharply, her brow knitted with concern. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Sit down,” Barbara said. “I’ll make you some. How about I make it like I did for
my kids when they were little—with a little sugar and a dash of vanilla?”

“Sounds great,” I murmured, sliding into a kitchen chair.

Rachel pulled a carton of eggs out of the refrigerator, set them on the counter,
and then handed Barbara a gallon of milk. “You don’t have any kids still at home,
do you?” she asked.

“Just one. Steven. But he heads to Vandy at the end of the month. I’m well on my way
to being an empty nester.”

“God,” Rachel said, catching her breath, “they grow up so quickly, don’t they?”

Barbara, oblivious, said, “I’m scared witless about it. I mean, Steven is hardly
home anymore anyway with all his running around. But he sleeps at home. I like having
another person in the house.”

“And I guess Hugh doesn’t count,” I said, laughing.

“No, no he does not,” she said, pouring a stream of cold milk into the pan.

I looked at Rachel, tried to catch her eye to let her know I was with her, that
I loved her, but she was deep into her tough-as-nails persona. The only thing that
might have indicated what she had really meant by the no-kids-at-home comment was
the fierceness with which she scrambled those eggs.

The three of us sat on the front porch in the strengthening sunlight and sea breeze,
me sipping sweet warm milk and Rachel and Barbara eating eggs and sliced tomatoes.
We chatted about diets and face-lifts and how, for the most part, we were determined
to eschew both. Of course, Barbara had already lost a ton of weight, so an empty
promise about avoiding diets was easy for her to make.

I looked at the ocean—it was nearly translucent, like Caribbean water—and had almost
started to say, “I wish we’d gone someplace else, as pretty as it is here, because
Baby is just about the end of me. I’m worried sick about her,” when we spied her
heading toward us with nothing but her bikini bottoms on.

“Here we go,” Barbara said under her breath.

Baby had barely placed one foot on the steps when Rachel said, “Let me guess. Tan
lines.”

“Baby, where have you been?” I asked.

“Oh, just here and there,” she said, smiling. “There’s a lovely spot in the middle
of the island. I’ll take y’all there if you’d like,” and then she drifted into the
house as if she were a feather floating in a breeze.

“I swear to God,” Rachel said after she was out of earshot, “if this place wasn’t
hers, I’d call up Teddy and tell him to come get her.”

“And I’d pack her bags,” Barbara said.

“Well, we’ve only got a week to go,” I said, standing. I ambled to the far side
of the porch and gazed at the sun-dappled Atlantic. “Let’s enjoy ourselves, no matter
what. OK?”

I felt the urgency of my words so intently that I kept my back to the girls so they
would not see the tears that threatened to well and fall.

T
he rest of that day and the next were unremarkable. The weather remained warm and
still and so quiet that the July flies in the trees were loud as a choir. But odd
things kept happening…irritations and accidents that put Barbara, Rachel, and me
on edge.

Baby mainly steered clear of us; over the next three days her manic behavior seemed
to have turned into low, simmering hostility. Over lunch she told Rachel that she
should “lose the Yankee accent,” and when Barbara said during a Sunday-afternoon
ocean dip that she wondered if men needed sex more than women or if some were simply
genetically coded to cheat, Baby said, “Men cheat on women who deserve it.”

In lieu of slapping her, I slapped the water—it’s lucky she wasn’t within arm’s reach
or I might have grabbed her by the hair and yanked hard.

“Baby, that’s the most asinine thing to come out of your mouth yet,” I snapped.

“Oh yeah?” she said. “Look who’s talking.” And then she splashed out of the flaccid
surf and stomped up to the house, muttering to herself the entire way.

“What exactly did y’all say to her when I was laid up in bed?” I asked.

“Rachel told her that Teddy had a thing for blondes with money, that love didn’t have
anything to do with it.”

“You told her what! Why, Rachel, that’s just plain mean.”

“No,” Rachel said, her face hardening. “It’s the truth. Life is too short not to know
the truth.”

I was speechless. Rachel wasn’t a cruel person, but what she’d said to Baby was
cruel. No wonder Baby was making herself scarce. And by the stubborn expressions
on Barbara’s and Rachel’s faces, I knew it would be up to me to try to make things
right.

We spent another couple of hours at the beach and went back up to the house. From
the looks of the kitchen—a half-eaten sandwich and a mug of beer that had barely
been sipped—it was clear that Baby had taken off in a hurry, probably when she heard
us coming.

So that evening, over a dinner of gazpacho, chilled shrimp, and green salad, I said,
“Listen, I know Baby tries our patience. But we’re not mean people. So tomorrow,
no matter if it’s stormy or sunny, we’re going to walk over to the bay side and see
if we can find where Baby keeps escaping to, and what she does there. And we’re
going to be nice about it.”

“If she’s having an affair,” Barbara said, “Teddy deserves to know, even if we’re
mad at him.”

“Damn straight,” Rachel said.

“OK, fine,” I said. This was not going the way I wanted it to. “But we have no evidence
of any affair.”

“Yeah, right,” Rachel grumbled before pouring more wine.

Monday morning after breakfast, we put our plan into effect. Or at least we tried.
I sat on the hammock and grabbed my sneakers, which I’d left there overnight. I slipped
them on and stood up. The pain was instant and fierce. I cried out, but still the
bee trapped in my right shoe buzzed ferociously while it stung me. I kicked off the
sneaker, yowling, and the poor bee flew away, wobbly, as though it were punch-drunk.
With pain searing through my foot, I examined the shoe from heel to toe, fearing
that an entire colony had set up shop in there.

“A bee. It stung me,” I said to Barbara and Rachel, who were rushing out of the house
in response to my yelping.

In no time, my foot swelled up to the size of a small watermelon.

“How in the hell did a bee get into your sneakers?” Rachel asked.

“I don’t know.”

I waved my two friends off and hobbled into the house. It hurt, surprisingly badly.
I made a paste of aspirin and seawater that Barbara fetched for me—a poultice, of
sorts. The pain, but not the swelling, subsided just a hair.

Rachel, scowling with worry, inspected my foot. “It looks like you’ve been snakebit.”

“If it were a snakebite, I’d already be dead. Besides, I saw it. It was definitely
a bee.”

“It makes no sense. None at all,” Rachel said, glowering.

“I brought some Benadryl with me,” Barbara said. “Stay here. I’ll go get it.”

After an hour’s delay, determined not to let something as minor as a beesting spoil
our reconnaissance expedition, I said from my hammock perch, “OK, I think I’m ready.”

Barbara looked up over her interior design magazine and said, “You’re not going anywhere.”

“That’s right. Today we’re taking it easy. Gin and tonics at lunch. I’m cooking.
A nap in the afternoon. Tomorrow, we’ll see. But you, Mrs. McCauley, are going to
take it easy.” Rachel was a very effective drill sergeant.

By the time I fell into bed that night, my foot was sore but noticeably better. As
I dozed off, faint optimism soothed me. No more stomach flu, I thought. No more vomiting.
No more insect stings. No more nothing but a good time. Surely we could make that
happen.

And then, in the middle of the night, during a pretty decent dream in which Mac
and I were planting a seaside garden composed solely of giant ruby flowers, my bed
collapsed. Stunned, I spilled onto the floor, cracking my chin hard. Barbara and
Rachel came running in, their hair and pajamas and Rachel’s eye mask all asunder.

“What in blazes happened?” Rachel asked.

“Looks like the leg plumb broke off,” Barbara said, bending down and retrieving it.
“Baby!” she yelled.

“No use,” Rachel said, helping me to my feet. “She’s not here. You all right?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I said, confused because sleep still swaddled me, yet a part of
my brain was wildly awake.

Barbara studied the leg, frowning. “It’s just an old bed. And an old leg. It wobbled
loose. See?” She showed us the end that fit into the post. “It needs to be replaced.
That’s all.”

“Well, Maddy,” Rachel said, studying the leg, “you sure are having more than your
fair share of bad luck.”

“Where am I going to sleep?” I wondered aloud, looking at the lopsided bed.

“With Baby? She’s never there anyway.” Barbara started laughing.

“No. Bricks!” Rachel snapped her fingers. There’s a pile out by the Third Eye. We’ll
just stack them up and make a leg.”

That’s how the three of us found ourselves outside, in the dark, in our pajamas,
sifting through a spider-filled pile of bricks on a nearly deserted island in a dark
sea. Rachel was in charge, tossing aside two for every one we kept. Barbara and I
both had just about all we could carry when Babs whispered, “Ho-ly shiiit.” She pointed
toward the trees.

“What?” Rachel asked, bent over, rear in the air. We both followed the line of Barbara’s
finger and spied, in the cloud-shadowed moonlight, two amber eyes staring at us from
the cover of the hammock jungle. Whatever animal they belonged to let out a low,
slow growl.

We screamed, dropped the bricks, and ran. We stumbled up the steps and nearly flew
through the door, which Rachel locked and then flung herself against, as if the
animal sought to burst in.

“Oh my God,” Barbara said, leaning over, catching her breath, “that was a freaking
bobcat!”

“It sure as hell was,” I said. I had never seen a bobcat, but it seemed logical.

“Jesus.” Rachel jiggled the door handle, made sure she had securely locked it. “Is
Baby safe? Out there wandering around like a yard dog?”

Barbara started laughing. She flopped onto the couch and held her sides. “Oh God,
oh God, oh God!”

Rachel and I exchanged bewildered glances.

“What…if…,” Barbara choked out between guffaws, “Baby got…eaten by a…bobcat!”

I sank down next to her, suddenly convulsed. “Why, Teddy would be beside himself.”

“Yeah, poor tail-chasing Teddy,” Rachel choked, doubling over. “Here lies the third
Mrs. Teddy Patterson, mauled to death by a bobcat while she wandered a desert island
naked as a jaybird, in search of younger tail.”

We all guffawed and finally I said, trying to catch my breath, “It’s really not funny.”

“Oh, she’s all right. She’s holed up somewhere all safe and sound. Our Baby isn’t
a roughing-it type of girl,” Barbara said.

“You’re right.” I nodded. I felt the laughter die and remembered the intensity of
the bobcat’s eyes. So beautiful. So scary. As the adrenaline rush ebbed, a leaden
fatigue took its place.

“So, I guess it’s the couch for me.”

“Nope,” Rachel said, pointing at the bookcase. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of
books in the first place.”

“Great idea! We’ll get you back in the bed come hell or high water,” Barbara said,
tousling my hair.

And that’s what we did. We made a fourth leg out of books. I shimmied in
Jude the Obscure
between
The Birds of South Carolina
and a children’s book about a farting dog.

“This must be Baby’s,” Rachel said when she handed it to me.

With the bed level and secure, we admitted that we’d had enough excitement for one
night. Barbara and Rachel went back to their rooms. I snuggled between my sheets,
and when I closed my eyes and dozed off, my dreams were filled with wild, yellow-eyed
animals gazing at blue water under purple, moonlit skies.

I was soundly asleep, at peace with my dreams, when, deep into the night, a sharp
scream pierced my consciousness. In my groggy state, at first I thought all the animals
must be bounding through the jungle, a Tiger Island stampede, but as the layers of
sleep evaporated, I realized that what I was hearing was the sound of feet hitting
the floor. I switched on my bedside light, tried to get my bearings, and hobbled
out of bed and into the hall.

Barbara rushed out of her room, screaming, arms flailing, and slammed her door.

Rachel burst from her room, crying, “What the hell now!”

Barbara pointed to her bedroom with one hand and kept her face covered with the other.

“It’s horrible,” she cried. “They’re attacking me!”

“Nobody is attacking anybody,” Rachel said as she and I ran to Barbara’s room and
cracked open the door.

“Dear God!” I could barely believe my eyes. The window screen was gone. A huge swarm
of insects was pouring into the room and circling her bed in a black maelstrom. Some
of the bugs were enormous. We shut the door and pulled Barbara downstairs and into
the kitchen, where we examined the damage.

She had suffered a couple of savage bites on her face and many small ones all over.
She looked as if she had smallpox, chicken pox, measles, and leprosy. I sat her down
at the kitchen table and applied ice-filled washcloths to the bites. Rachel ventured
back upstairs to see if the screen was on the porch. She returned moments later
and retrieved the flashlight from the pantry.

“It’s in the fucking yard,” she said. “How did it get in the fucking yard?” She headed
for the front door.

“Watch out for the bobcat!” I yelled, and then tried to hide how freaked out I was
by plastering a silly grin on my face, because Barbara was badly shaken. The last
thing she needed was for me to lose it.

“Here,” I said, pouring her a glass of wine. “Drink this. Keep the ice on your face.
I’ll be right back.”

I ran upstairs to retrieve the calamine lotion I’d brought with me at Mac’s insistence,
but first I checked Baby’s room. She was gone and the bed hadn’t been slept in.

Something surely isn’t right here
, I thought as I returned with the calamine. “This stuff isn’t going to make you
any prettier,” I said, “but it’ll stop the itching.”

Barbara knocked back a healthy slug of wine. “I swallowed one,” she sobbed. “It was
a big one. I think it was a June bug.”

Rachel returned, carrying the screen. “I can’t imagine how it ended up out there.”

“Baby’s bed hasn’t been slept in,” I said, my concern deepening. Seemed like trouble
was befalling us all at once.

“Do you think she’s fucking with us?” Barbara asked, still trembling.

“I don’t,” I said slowly as I smoothed the calamine over Barbara’s bites. “Of course
not. She’s not a bee whisperer or a bobcat conjurer.”

“I don’t like this at all,” Rachel snapped.

“In the meantime, what do we do?” Barbara gingerly touched her swelling face.

“Well, I’ve shut the window in your room,” Rachel said. “So I’m going to go in search
of bug spray. I think I saw some in the vanity in my bathroom. I’ll crack open the
door and shoot the spray in, fogging the place. By morning they should all be dead.”

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “And Barbara, just bunk with me tonight. Me with my
swollen foot and you with your swollen face.”

Barbara nodded, laughing and crying at the same time.

“You two go on to bed, you limping, swollen fools. I’ll take care of this mess,” Rachel
said.

“You sure, Rach?” I asked.

“Shhh, not another word.”

I helped Barbara up the stairs and into my bed. The wine worked wonders. She fell
asleep in no time. I lay awake, listening to Rachel cuss (“Die, you damned bastards!”)
and to the hiss of the bug spray can she emptied into Barbara’s room. I heard her
wash up in the bathroom and then patter into her bedroom.

When I was sure all the crying and cursing and spraying had ended for the night,
I drifted back to sleep. And this time I did not dream.

The next morning, as the three of us sat around the kitchen table drinking coffee,
eating stale pound cake topped with thawed frozen blueberries, and watching Barbara
slather on more calamine, Baby waltzed down the stairs and into the kitchen. She
must have slipped in sometime after we’d finally gone to bed for the last time.

She looked at Barbara and then ambled over to the fridge, where she surveyed its
contents. I noticed her legs were scratched up to her knees.

“What happened to you?” she asked.

“Bugs,” Barbara said between swollen lips.

“A bee in my shoe,” I said.

“Hmmm.” She retrieved the milk and proceeded to pour herself a huge bowl of cereal.
“Teddy and I noticed they were bad this season. But, you know, if you keep the doors
and windows shut and turn on the overhead fan…”