The Land of Mango Sunsets (6 page)

“You’re right, of course. Oh, Kevin! This is too much. I think I need to get out of here, go to Sullivans Island. Maybe the salt air will clear my head.”

“I think that’s an excellent idea.”

I was organizing my clothes for my South Carolina trip, and despite what I knew about her husband, Truman, I wrote a note to Agnes Willis inviting her to see the Blass collection. Subtlety had not worked on the prissy old bitty, so I sent the ticket straight to her in a flowery message. Flowery message? Ah me, sometimes I just crack myself up even if others fail to value my humor. Too bad I wouldn’t be able to afford a button of Blass.

Speaking of fashion, Kevin was helping me with my wardrobe, which was futility personified, as there was no
wardrobe
required on Sullivans Island. It was casual in the extreme, unless we ventured across the causeway and downtown to the Holy City. But, truth be told, once night set in, I was never anxious to leave the island. Who knew what magic might come to us once the stars came out? Mother and I might find ourselves twinkling and young in the smitten eyes of an old salt and a retired jillionaire (guess who gets which one?) who would spout poetry and feed us a seafood stew made from their catch of that very day. Everything was possible after sunset when the mists rolled in.

“Why are you packing these dreadful things?” Kevin held my old sneakers aloft in their Ziploc bags as though they were petite dead skunks.

“Oyster roast. Those are my oyster-roast shoes.”

“Dear Petal…you’ll never snag a man in these nasties.”

“I’m not looking to snag a man. Nor am I looking to ruin a good pair of shoes with oyster liquor! You don’t understand…”

“Enlighten me.”

He dropped the bags on the carpet and crossed his arms, waiting. I started to giggle knowing that my description of an authentic oyster roast would strike Kevin as vile.

“Well, in the old days when I was Miriam the Younger, you would have a gathering of people in their worst clothes, standing around a smoldering, smoky pit, partially covered with a piece of sheet metal. On top of the metal would be a pile of oysters wrapped in soaking-wet burlap sacks. When the oysters begin to steam open they would be scooped onto your table with a shovel. The table is usually a piece of plywood or an old door on two sawhorses with a garbage can on the side.”

“Stop. This sounds perfectly disgusting.”

“It gets worse. Then, wearing a workman’s glove, you pry them open with an oyster knife.”

“Wait! I’m getting a vision! Martha Stewart is arriving in a police helicopter to stop the madness!”

“She probably should. Anyway, you use the same muddy knife to scoop the slimy devils out and into your mouth. The oyster liquor drenches your shoes, little by little.”

“Hence the Ziplocs.”

“Correct. Then you chase it with a soda cracker and take a swig of beer or something.”

“Miriam, darling, I just cannot see you doing this. Sorry.”

“Well, nowadays they bring in someone who steams them and delivers them to your table. It’s become pretty antiseptic, I’m afraid. As bohemian as the old days sound, I still hate all this gentrification.”

“I agree. It’s suspect. Are you sure you want to take these pants?”

He referred to my flannel-lined jeans that had seen better days.

“Yeah, it gets damp at night. I like to walk the beach. Anyway, I’ve been going to oyster roasts all my life. If they didn’t taste so fabulous, I wouldn’t go.”

“Still sounds horrible.”

“Right? But it’s not. Listen, some bubbas use the hood of their pickup truck as the grill! They put it back on the truck the next day.”

“Shut! Up! Do you actually
know
people who do that?”

“Of course not. And if I did, do you think I would tell you?”

“Well, it’s just going to be Harry and me while you’re gone. Right, buddy?”

Harry had waddled into the bedroom.

“And that harlot on the second floor. Do you know what Liz did yesterday?”

At the mention of her name, Harry whistled and we shushed him.

“Please! There’s no telling!”

“She took my catalogs from Victoria’s Secret, the Walker’s Warehouse, and a number of other places.”

“That’s a little strange.” Kevin picked up a red wool turtleneck sweater and stuffed it inside a weathered denim barn coat that was lined in red plaid. “What do you think?”

“Let’s pack it. So, I marched myself upstairs, and what do you think she answered the door wearing?”

“Her altogether?”

“Just about…I said, ‘Listen, Liz? Do you know that tampering with the mail is a federal offense? And, why don’t I wait right here while you go put on some pants?’”

Kevin laughed. “So what did our little pole dancer say?”

“She did not know it was a federal offense and she did not put on her pants.”

“Well, JMJ, with a little crucifix over the M!”

“You can say that again. But here’s the bad part. She said, ‘But I didn’t think you would be interested in lingerie or exercise clothes.’ She was right, of course, and I thought, Well, that’s another cause of my trouble, isn’t it? It made me plenty mad with her and with myself.”

“Well, honey, you and I have talked about this. Realizing these things is good. It’s healthy. The question is: What-do-you-plan-to-do-about-it?”

“Oh, Lordy. Well, I think I’m going to lose a little weight. Or attempt to anyway. I have actually been thinking about belly dancing or kickboxing and I can’t decide. Either one might put me in the hospital.”

Kevin sat down on my bed, grinning and shaking his head. “Petal? Petal? Why don’t we start with something kinder and gentler, like walking?”

“It’s terrible outside. Ice everywhere? I could break my leg! Or something else!”

“Like a nail! I’m going to buy you a treadmill…”

“Be serious. I don’t have room in here for another toothpick.”

“They make one that folds down and slides under your bed.”

“I despise treadmills!”

“Well, Miriam? Precious? Mother used to always say, pride knoweth no pain.”

“Oh, hell’s bells.” I let a tiny expletive slip. “Buy the treadmill and I’ll pay you back.”

A few days later I was at thirty thousand feet, en route to Sullivans Island. Although I was landing in Charleston, I never thought of it that way. The island was my destination, as was my mother’s side.

All it took was a trip to the island to remind me that my boys were not close to me, but I still had blessings. Kevin was so dear and generous to offer to take care of Harry. And to help me pack. And to buy me an instrument of torture that, when used properly—the exercise guru Tony Little himself guaranteed it—would tighten up my, excuse me, buns and lower my cholesterol at the same time. Well, we would see about that part. And I had not heard from Agnes Willis nor had I breathed a word to anyone about her husband, Truman, banging the brains out of Liz Harper, pardon me again, Resident Ho. He had been there the night before I left—at least I assumed it was him as the bouncing and thumping had a familiar ring. I had turned up a CD of Pavarotti singing
Tosca,
filled the tub with bubbles and my ears with cotton. It was only partially successful.

The plane began its descent. We circled to land as though the pilot couldn’t spot the airport’s landing strip. Why they always did that I could not conceive, but I can tell you this—the circling reminded me to have my anxiety attack. I white-knuckled the ends of the armrests, squeezed my eyes closed, and begged God to let me live. Once we landed and the door opened, I regained normal breathing and my composure. I picked up my bag on the Jetway and went in search of a taxi.

And though it was the dead of winter, it was probably fifty degrees outside and the sky was as blue and clear as it could be. It felt like a July heat wave compared to the gray-skied and bitter New York I had left behind.

The polite but thankfully not chatty driver of the clanking taxi van played gospel music and sang along in low tones, tapping the steering wheel in time with the rim of his wedding band. I relaxed a little more. We drove along Route 526 East, which was especially beautiful. Here and there were lovely patches of marsh and short docks rooted in glistening
water. Natural creeks cut the marsh grass in serpentines from the Wando and Cooper rivers. Pelicans swooped down on unsuspecting brim and drum, gobbling them up for snacks. Birds of prey circled, their keen eyes zeroing in on rabbits and squirrels, which all went about their innocent daily business in the thicket unaware that death was on the way.

The small patches of remaining forest surrounded yet another housing development that seemed to have popped up overnight like Jack’s beanstalk. Rows upon rows of nearly identical slapdash houses were ugly and cold-looking. There were no trees above six feet to be seen and the minimal shrubs of boxwood and azalea were uniform. There was no shade where children could play, no charm in the development’s layout, and no neighbors who would have known one another for more than a year. Some developer was getting filthy rich, poor people were getting cardboard houses with mortgages they couldn’t afford, and the Lowcountry was being raped between the eyes. This was one topic on which Mother and I always agreed. Developers had all the conscience of a hungry predator.

As we rounded the corner at the Piggly Wiggly and Royall Hardware, I began to relax. I had not visited Sullivans Island in almost a year, and filled with anticipation, I welcomed the fact that I could leave my worries behind for a few days.

When the cab stopped in the driveway on Raven Drive, I could hardly believe my eyes. What had Mother done? The whole front yard that had been home to flower beds was now fenced in behind a wall of bamboo. Did I hear chickens? Was that a nanny goat?

I paid the driver, dropped my suitcase at the base of the steps, and went to have a look. There was my mother, Josephine, with a hoe in her hand, hacking away at the earth. I gasped so hard you could have knocked me over with the flick of a finger. Hearing the car pull away, she turned and spotted me.

“Well, hello, hello! It’s my big-city girl! Welcome back to the Island!”

As you know, in our family’s opinion, all others held no merit.

“Mother!”

We hugged and then hugged again.

“Come, come. I have lunch waiting for us!”

“Mother? What in the world are you doing? The yard? Are you becoming a farmer?”

Mother threw back her head and laughed with a sound so young I could hardly believe she was twenty-something years older than I was. She grabbed my roll-on bag as though it was empty, while I, ever the pitiful weakling, struggled under the weight of my duffel bag, hoisting the straps to my shoulder.

“Well,” she said, “it’s kind of an experiment to see…”

“What?” We climbed the steps to the porch. “If the gentrification police can lock you up in the pokey for running an unauthorized e-i-e-i-o? Doesn’t the town have ordinances prohibiting, um,
goats
?”

Mother laughed again. “No, they actually don’t. And she’s pretty special. Cecelia is a Nigerian dwarf.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Let’s get you inside and I’ll tell you all about it over lunch.”

“Okay. Good. I’m famished. The porch looks good.”

“Thanks. I re-covered the cushions on all the chairs.” She ascended the steps with no visible effort, sailed through the house and up to the second floor, never pausing for a breath, and dropped my bag at the foot of my old iron bed. “I’ll see you downstairs.”

I listened to my mother’s feet padding down the long hall to the steps. She had her own clipped and energetic rhythm. There was something so reassuring about the sound that I almost choked up with tears. Her fading footsteps used to be calming and now their sound was an emotional trigger? What was the matter with me? Maybe it was the same for everyone, I told myself. You came home, middle-aged, a marital discard, and therefore a social liability, and your widowed mother—albeit a hippie who would absolutely mortify you in most circles—is waiting for you.
Okra soup is simmering for your lunch and the fragrance makes your heart swell. In that moment, you find yourself wanting to relive your childhood, to be young, innocent, and free of guilt.

In your old bedroom is the quilt, the same one your grandmother and her friends made just for you when you were a little girl…all that predictability in coming home, that there was a time when you could depend on the fact that you were wanted, missed, welcomed, and really loved by someone who knew you and loved you despite your flaws.

Was I still? Yes. I was.

I sat on the bed for a moment and ran my fingers over the little squares of floral, striped, and checked cotton. If I was possessed by things like fountain pens and thank-you notes, how obsessed were my presumably female ancestors and their friends who executed these miniature stitches, each of them placed at perfect intervals? How many dresses, blouses, and kitchen curtains had they saved, cut in small squares and triangles, hemmed, and laid out in a star pattern to create this quietly magnificent work of art? How many people had worked on it? Two? Six? Ten? Were they all friends? Were quilts sprung from a sense of friendship or boredom or necessity?

These days women got together to drink wine and invest money—not that I had a problem with that. Women should absolutely have their own money and wine is a good thing. But what did they really achieve? There
was
something sacred about a quilt that a bulging bank account and getting looped could not rival.