The Hurricane Sisters (24 page)

I couldn’t expect Ivy to understand how critical my work was but it would’ve been nice if Maisie acknowledged I made a real contribution toward making the world a better place for a helluva lot of terrified people with nowhere to turn.

“I’ll think about it,” I said. “Well, I’ve got to get moving.”
Because this conversation had gone on long enough.
I stood up and went to the door and stopped, turning to face them. “Listen, I know y’all mean well. This is just so personal . . .”

“It’s okay, Mom.”

“It’s because we care about you, Liz. Just think about it, all right?”

Why did I feel like every time my mother said something like that that she was being disingenuous? She just sucked the soul out of me. And why did it
not
bother me that Ivy was a partner to this sudden gush of marital advice?

“Sure. I will.”

When I stopped at Ted’s Butcher Block and picked up steaks to cook on the grill for Clayton’s supper, it occurred to me that we probably ate more red meat than we should. But Clayton loved his steak and truthfully, I did too. And, when he came in from running around Manhattan all week, the last thing he wanted to do was go out to a restaurant. He was exhausted. Truth? So was I. So on Fridays we usually stayed at home and I’d prepare something simple. We went out on Saturdays. And he usually left for New York on Sunday evening. Sometimes if we had something we
had
to do that night, he’d leave at the crack of dawn on Monday. But it was odd that he was coming home consistently on Fridays and had been for months. In the dead of summer he always came home on Thursdays. At least he used to. That gave me a serious moment of pause.

After the butcher’s, I zoomed over to Whole Foods in Mount Pleasant for everything else I needed. Somewhere between the parking lot of MUSC and the parking lot of the grocery store, I began to hatch a plan. I was going to organize a dinner for him that would be so gorgeous it would astound him. And while he was busy drinking too much wine and overeating, I would look for any kind of nuance that might betray his secret, if he was keeping one that is.

On further reflection, I seriously doubted that Clayton was having an affair. His hair was thinning on his flaky scalp, he had a paunch and bad posture that came from too many client lunches and too much time at a desk, and his teeth were yellowed. Bleaching teeth would never occur to someone like Clayton. He would say it wasn’t manly. He squinted, he wore his reading glasses on top of his head, and he rarely wore anything other than a dark suit, a white shirt, and some kind of silk tie. He always had coffee breath and I had to remind him to clip his fingernails and his nose hairs. So let’s be honest about his pretty profile. Who would want him besides me? I mean, listen, I knew Clayton could be an obnoxious ass but he was
my
ass. I reassured myself again that Clayton wasn’t fooling around. It just wasn’t his style. When he would tell me about one of his friends stepping out on his wife, he’d say,
Can you believe him?
Then he’d call the guy a sleazy bastard. He knew a lot of sleazy bastards. Was it possible that my Clayton had become one too? No way.

At Whole Foods, after I picked up three bunches of flowers and everything I needed for a great salad, I worked my way through the cheese section, choosing two small pieces. They had so many choices it was always a bit of a conundrum to decide, but finally I chose a soft wedge with blue veins that was encrusted with crushed walnuts and a small block of an aged Gruyère that I’d serve with a special fig jam from some exotic place like Madagascar or Pasadena. They grew figs everywhere these days. Then I debated the merits of smoked Pacific wild salmon versus gravlax marinated in ginger and green tea and decided on the gravlax. More interesting and refreshing. By the time I got to the checkout counter with a fresh roasted chicken for my own dinner that night, I had convinced myself that Clayton would do no such thing. An affair was a tawdry business and beneath his dignity.

Later on at home though, while I dined alone with my prewashed lettuce, sliced chicken, and a healthy shot of vodka over tons of ice to console my restless mind, I was deep in thought. I was unnerved by Maisie’s and Ivy’s opinions, and I began to doubt my convictions. I told myself that I should listen to them. No matter how they acted, especially when they didn’t have their behavior in check, I knew they cared about me. And we were a family. A small but interesting collection of somewhat peculiar characters, but a family all the same.

They would not make me suspicious unless they had a good reason. And most of all, why would Ivy take the incredible step of telling his own mother that she had better go see what his father was up to if he didn’t already know something? Something that he had already told Maisie. That would explain why they confronted me together. I poured a small shot of vodka over a ton of fresh ice. The fact that he went to Maisie first and not me was very annoying and troubling. Why had he done that? Well, the obvious answer was that he thought he should. This running to Maisie business was long overdue for an intervention. It had to stop.

Was there anything about Clayton that really set him apart from other men? Was he a candidate for sainthood? Hardly. If his friends could fall victim to their fading prowess at a certain time in their lives, couldn’t he? And when was the last time we had a night of big-time ooh la la? Ages. Oh, Lord, I thought, not Clayton too.

Anything was possible, so the next day I did what any normal red-blooded woman would do. First, I called Tom and told him I needed the day off from work for personal reasons.

“No problem,” he said. “Vicki and I are entertaining the Malcolms tonight and I thought we might try to find another date with the Karols over the next two weeks.”

“I’ll make the call first thing Monday,” I said. “Thanks, Tom. Give my best to Annie and David. And Vicki, of course.”

Next, I begged my hairdresser to squeeze me in so I had my hair done and my nails too. Later in the afternoon, I showered, shaved my legs, creamed my skin, and sprayed perfume up one side and down the other. Then I put on a pretty summer dress and sandals. I turned on some music we both loved and arranged the flowers in a low bowl for the dining room table. I put one flower in a bud vase in his bathroom along with a fresh bar of his favorite soap. As a final touch, I turned down the bed and put on low lights. All this should give him the message that, yes, his wife had expectations.

The phone rang. It was Maisie.

“So we brought Skipper home. I thought you’d like to know.” She was irked. Well, two could play that game.

“Okay, good. Can I do anything?” I had forgotten to call them and it was nearly five o’clock. So kill me.

“No, thank you.
Ivy and I
have it all under control and
Ashley
is bringing dinner.”

“Well, that’s lovely. Tell me, how is Skipper doing?”

She began to calm down. Skipper’s well-being was all that mattered to her then (besides the number of her minions) and the relief in her voice was nearly palpable.

“Talking like mad with some hesitation here and there and walking just fine.”

“That is such wonderful news.”

“I haven’t prayed so hard since, well, when Juliet . . .”

“Me too, Maisie. It just wasn’t Skipper’s time, I guess.”

“Liz, it certainly wasn’t Juliet’s time either. You
know
that.”

I didn’t say anything for a moment or two and then I cleared my throat and spoke.

“Okay. Well, if I can do anything, you’ll call me, won’t you?”

“Yes, I will. Clayton’s coming in tonight?”

“Yes, and I’ve not forgotten what you said. I want to see how the weekend goes.”

“Fair enough. All right then . . .”

We hung up.
Fair enough?
What an odd comment. Did she really believe because she was suspicious of Clayton that I
had
to be suspicious of him too? Poor meddling Maisie. But this was more about Juliet than some diabolical need to control me. Juliet’s death was a terrible dark cloud that colored her every day, and her rage over losing her was always right there. She’d spent all her life since Juliet’s death looking for signposts that bore witness to her loss, and she pointed them out at every opportunity. And she laid the guilt on me with a thick impasto. Why did I survive and not Juliet? I tried to take it in stride. Some days were easier than others.

Clayton arrived around seven thirty. I heard the front door close in his signature style—the creak of it opening wide and three beats later, a gentle closure.

“I’m home!” he called out.

I put my best smile on my face and went out to the foyer to greet him. I was going to get to the bottom of this nonsense.

“Hi, sweetheart!” I said, as though we were newlyweds. “How was your trip?”

“Uh, you look nice,” he said and glanced toward the dining room. “We having company tonight?”

“No, just us. Would you like a glass of wine? I just opened a French pinot.”

He looked at me so strangely.

“Um, sure. Let me just put my things down and wash my hands,” he said.

“Great! I’ll meet you in the kitchen.”

On the kitchen counter, I had already arranged a platter of the gravlax with toast points and wedges of lemon, and the cheeses were on a wooden cutting board with slices of apple and some crackers. The open bottle of wine stood there too, next to two goblets. I could smell the potatoes as they baked in the oven. The colorful salad glistened with olive oil and lemon juice and the steaks were seasoned, ready to sear to a juicy medium rare on my grill pan. I poured a glass of wine for him and vodka over ice for myself. I squeezed two wedges of lime into my glass with a spritz of tonic water.

“No point in wasting too much tonic,” I said to the room.

Clayton ambled into the kitchen with the day’s newspaper tucked under his arm and surveyed the counter. He picked up his glass and tossed the newspaper into the recycling bin.

“Well, this is very nice. What’s the occasion? I didn’t forget a birthday or an anniversary, did I?”

“Noooo! I just thought we should have a romantic dinner and see where the night leads us. What do you think about that?”

“I think . . . I think, um . . .” He paused for a very long moment. “Why not? Cheers!”

Then I saw something in his eyes, something he was trying to mask. Some sorrow, some disappointment. The soft skin around his eyes crinkled more deeply than usual as he forced a smile. Maybe he was just very tired. I could feel him giving me credit for trying to make the evening intimate and special, and I knew also that he would prove to be a reluctant partner.

“Cheers! Welcome home.” I raised my glass in a toast and he immediately did the same.

“Thanks. How’s Skipper?”

“It’s unbelievable how well he’s doing and guess what? Ivy flew in to help! Isn’t that wonderful?”

“Really? Yes! That’s great. Well, maybe we should try to have a family dinner tomorrow night. What do you think?”

I wanted to say
, Why, because the last one went so well?
But I didn’t. I just said that I would call Ashley and Ivy and ask them what they wanted to do.

The conversation proceeded very nicely. We were very civilized with each other and very polite, but there was no tangible spark of anything sensual. So I didn’t object when he left the dinner table to open another bottle of wine. What was the point? We weren’t driving anywhere anyway. And the night had all but dissolved into a puddle of disinterest. At least on his part.

Let me tell you something you probably already know. It’s that second cork that should remain in the neck of the bottle. You can liberate one, but two bottles of wine for two people is one bottle too many. There was a reason the French bottled wine the way they did. Two and a half glasses was plenty of wine for two people to consume with dinner. But that’s not how it went with us. I had a cocktail or two. He had a glass of wine and then maybe another. By the time we got to the table, he had drunk most of the bottle and there was not much left for me. I didn’t want vodka with steak. So, pretending to be the gentleman, when in actuality he was feeding his habit of numbing himself with alcohol, he opened another bottle. Needless to say, the plans I had for the bedroom were a dismal failure.

Saturday morning I got up more determined than ever to discover what was going on with Clayton and to pull my family back together. So I called Ivy and Ashley and asked them to come to dinner at seven that night. They didn’t exactly jump at the invitation but they knew they couldn’t refuse, especially when I asked them to help me with their father.

“And, Ivy? Would you do a small favor for me?”

“Sure. What?”

“Would you say something nice in front of your father about the food tonight? Or about how I look?”

“Sure! Why’s that?”

“Because before I fly to New York and expose his secret life, I want him to know I’m still alive and viable. And I want him to see what he’s at risk to lose.”

“So you do think he’s up to something?”

“Yes. For no particular reason but I do.”

“No problem. Did you invite Maisie?”

“No. Frankly, I was just thinking it would be nice to have my children around the table without the running critique of my mother. But let’s keep that ugly detail between us, all right?”

“Sure,” he said. “I understand. She would probably say no anyway. She’s mooning over Skipper and fussing around trying to anticipate his needs like a love bug. She’s not ready to leave him home alone.”

“Okay, good, then seven?”

“I’ll be there.”

I called Ashley.

“Ashley? Do you have plans tonight?”

“Nope. What’s going on?”

“Well, I’d like you to come to dinner with Ivy and your father and me.”

“Sure. Where’re y’all going?”

“Actually, I’m cooking at your childhood home on Church Street. Remember that place?”

She didn’t even groan but I knew I had to stop being so sarcastic with my children. It wasn’t nice.

“You’re cooking? Wow! Mom, you haven’t cooked for us since like, Easter!”