THE SANCTUARY (19 page)

“Oh my gosh, I can’t believe you made this incredible cake just for us,” Sonya said.

“Don’t be silly. I’ve never baked anything in my life. Our family cook baked it, and I had it shipped here in a refrigerated delivery truck,” Liz told them.

“Oh, of course. How silly of me,” Sonya mumbled.

Lydia got out paper plates, and the group began to pile fried green tomatoes, crispy hushpuppies, succulent peel and eat shrimp with Lowcountry cocktail sauce (meaning lots of spicy horseradish sauce), and big slabs of Coca-Cola cake onto the plates. Meanwhile, Liz lined up the bottles she had taken out of her bag, mixed some of the liquids together, and poured them into tiny shot glasses she had also brought. She resembled a mad scientist creating a potion.

“I’d just like to make a suggestion. How about if we’re ‘Carolina Girls
For-e-ver
’! That means that we will never forget where we come from and that we’ll always be there for one another.”

“Forever,” Lydia agreed.

“Absolutely,” Sonya said.

“We don’t actually have to prick our fingers and take a blood oath, do we?” Jules asked.

“Careful, Jules. You don’t want to give Liz any ideas. Remember summer camp?” Lydia warned.

“Yes, I do! That’s why I’m asking. One blood oath in a lifetime is enough,” Julia responded.

“Hmmm. I’ll have to give that some thought. We do need some kind of ceremony, but for now, let’s just drink to us,” Liz said.

“What is it?” Sonya asked as she looked at the red concoction.

“I call them Woo Woos. They’re my very own creation, and a tasty one if I do say so myself. It’s a mix of vodka, peach schnapps, and a splash of cranberry. Now drink up.”

“Here’s to the Carolina Girls
forever
,” Lydia toasted, and they clinked glasses before downing the sweet, but oh-so-potent shots.

“Ever since that first Woo Woo, I loved your mother. There is no one more fun to be around—or crazier! You never knew what she was going to come up with next,” Sonya said.

“Like when she came up with that whole induction ceremony idea!” Julia yelled.

“Induction ceremony?” Grace asked, puzzled.

“Oh, I get to tell this one,” Lydia said. “Your mom got this bright idea that the CGFs needed to have an induction ceremony, but it was actually more like hazing.”

“Hey!” Liz protested.

“Ssshhh,” Lydia commanded. “Your mom told each of us to bring certain CK items to my dorm room. So we did as she said and met up at the dorm. Then she springs it on us that we have to earn the CK.”

“We’ll enjoy the food later. First, you have to earn it.” Liz handed out Woo Woos and sheets of paper. “It’s sort of a scavenger hunt meets truth or dare,” she explained. “When each of you finishes what’s on your list, we’ll meet back here and enjoy our Carolina Kit. The first one here becomes the reigning queen of the Carolina Girls. The last one to complete his or her mission will be the queen’s handmaiden for a month. Ready, Set, Go!” Liz yelled.

Twenty minutes later, Lydia was panting hard but was back in the dorm. Liz was sitting on the bed, sipping a soda and flipping through a magazine.

“Oh, you were the first to finish. I thought I won,” Lydia said naively.

“In a manner of speaking,” Liz said.

“What does that mean? Wait a minute. Let me see your list,” Lydia demanded. She snatched up the paper lying beside Liz on the bed. It read, “Assign stupid tasks to other gullible Carolina Girls.”

“Well, you did accomplish that, and you were first. Kudos,” Lydia said, collapsing with laughter.

The pair was still rolling around in a fit of laughter when Julia burst into the room holding a jockstrap. She had speared it onto a pencil to avoid touching it and stood waving the garment and pencil in the air.

“Never, I repeat,
never
again am I getting talked into doing something stupid by any of y’all ever again. I mean it! I had to go to locker number sixteen in the football stadium to retrieve this
thing
. As I was leaving, all the guys returned from practice just in time to see me stealing it. I didn’t know what to do or say, so I just took off. I ran all the way here. I can never show my face again. God, if John hears about this, what am I going to say?”

Liz fell to the floor laughing. Lydia joined her.

“What are you complaining about?” Lydia asked Julia when she finally stopped laughing. “Do you know what I had to do? I had to go to Thunderbirds and unplug the television during Monday Night Football. Then I had to turn and cluck three times, “I’m an ass-kicking chicken! I’m an ass-kicking chicken! I’m an ass-kicking chicken! It’s a wonder Liz didn’t make me wear the mascot outfit, too. It was bad enough clucking and carrying on like that silly mascot.”

“Oh my God. What did everyone do?” Jules asked.

“At first they booed me, of course, when I unplugged the television. Did I mention that it was
Monday Night Football
? After I finished my little gamecock dance, they applauded. And then I ran off the way here,” Lydia said.

Sonya showed up as Lydia finished her explanation. “Don’t answer the door if anyone knocks. I may have been followed,” she said nervously.

“Why?” Lydia asked.

Sonya opened her jacket and dumped out five bottles of condiments. “I had to ‘borrow’ these condiments from the cafeteria to fulfill my instructions. I think the woman at the cash register saw me. She may have called campus security. I don’t know, maybe I’m being paranoid. It’s not like I have a lot of experience pilfering hot sauce and pickled peppers. I tried to act nonchalant, but the second I exited the cafeteria, I ran all the way here.”

“I’m afraid it only gets worse, my friend. Since you were last with your list, you get to be in Miss Liz’s servitude for a month,” Lydia said.

They ate every bite of the Carolina Kit. All were ravenous after their ordeals. Everyone laughed when Lydia told them how Liz had bamboozled them.

“Hail to the queen!” Lydia pronounced.

“Hail to the queen!” Sonya and Julia chorused.

In response, Liz waved her hand stoically, like Her Majesty does when she faces the public. Lydia shook a cola can hard and then aimed at her.

“You wouldn’t dare drench your queen,” Liz said confidently.

Sonya and Julia watched with delight as Lydia popped the top and twelve ounces of soda spewed all over Liz’s bone-white cashmere sweater.

“That was the kind of stuff your mom was doing to us all the time,” Lydia said to Grace. But Grace wasn’t listening. She was too busy laughing and hugging her mom.

Seventeen

GRACE

“M
y mom’s sicker than she’s telling me, isn’t she?” Grace asked Sonya. They had made plans the night before to meet at sunrise to take photos. Grace was into photography and Sonya thought it might be a nice idea for Grace to have lots of photos for later.

Afterwards.
She shivered at the thought. Liz had been a part of her life since always or so it seemed. They had been through all the major rites of passage. And now Liz’s death would be their final one together. She pushed the thought into the farthest crevices of her mind. There would be plenty of time to grieve for Liz later.
Afterwards.

“Yes, Grace. Your mom is pretty sick, but I think you’ve already figured that out,” Sonya said, putting her arm around the girl.

“She told me she has cancer, but that she’ll be fine. She says she just needs to rest, but I know better. When Becca’s mom got breast cancer last year, she had to have surgery and go through all kinds of treatment that made her pretty sick until it was over,” Grace said.

“Well, there are all kinds of cancers and treatment options. Your mom is doing what she thinks is best.”

“What if she dies?” Grace asked, her chin quivering.

“Let’s not go there yet. Let’s just keep praying and hoping for the best,” Sonya said. “If anyone can beat it, it’s your mom. She has always defied the odds.”

“My mom did some crazy stuff back in the day, didn’t she?” Grace asked.

“Girl, you have no idea. But she also did some pretty amazing stuff that no one even knows about.”

“Like what?” Grace asked, stopping to take a photo of an osprey in flight.

“Like there was this one time during our senior year at USC. I was struggling financially and wasn’t sure that I was going to make it. You see, I was a scholarship student. My mother had been sending me some money to help cover the difference, and I had a job in the administration building as part of the work-study program. Well, my mother had to stop sending me money. She had her own financial stuff going on. So I got a second job and applied for every kind of grant and scholarship I could find. I worked and went to class during the day, and at night I waited tables at the Waffle Hut. I pushed myself too hard. I collapsed one day in the cafeteria. I was taken to the student clinic where I was advised to slow down or else something worse might happen. But I didn’t have a choice. If I couldn’t pay my expenses, I would have to drop out of school. Hard work is nothing to be ashamed of, but I just couldn’t bring myself to tell my friends that I had to work that crappy job. None of the CGFs knew, but somewhere Liz found out. She arranged for me to get this fake scholarship.”

“Fake?” Grace asked.

“Yeah. I had applied for a bunch of aid, but I knew I hadn’t applied for this one, so I did some checking and found out that the money was coming from your mom’s personal account. She was sharing the money her parents were sending her with me. Your mom never knew that I found out. She didn’t have to broadcast her good deed or have me say “thank you” because that’s not her style. Your mother plays it cool, but she has a heart of gold,” Sonya said.

“So I’m learning. I’m glad she took me on the road trip and that Julia arranged for me to come here this summer because I’m really learning a lot about my mother. She is pretty cool. I couldn’t wait to graduate and get away from her. I thought she didn’t care about me because she was gone so much. I didn’t realize that she worked so hard because she loved me so much. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but I never really thought of her as a person until lately. She was just Mom, you know?”

“I know. I remember walking in on my parents having sex when I was a kid and just freaking out. It had never occurred to me that my parents were people, too. It’s just fortunate that you’ve had a chance to realize that your mom is so much more than a parent. She is one of the most amazing people I’ve ever known. She isn’t afraid to go after what she wants. I’m still blown away that she raised you all by herself while achieving so much. Very few succeed in that field, especially women. She never asked for any help or got any special favors from anyone. And she managed to raise an absolutely incredible daughter while doing it,” Sonya said.

“Thanks. And thanks to all the CGFs for sharing your stories. I have learned just how wild and crazy and great my mom is. I don’t want to lose her now that we’re finally getting along and really getting to know each other as real people, you know?” Grace said, fighting back tears.

“I know, honey. I know,” Sonya said, hugging Grace and fighting back tears.

Eighteen

CAMP YEMASSEE

“O
h good, you’re back. I want everyone to meet me in the lounge in ten minutes,” Liz said as Sonya and Grace walked into the kitchen.

“Do you need some help?” Sonya asked, watching Liz moving slowly around the kitchen gathering things into a basket.

“Under control. Ten minutes,” she was humming a Drifters song as she exited.

They convened in the old stable in ten minutes as instructed. They found Liz seated in a chair that she had made some adjustment to so as to make it look like a throne. She was wearing the CGF robe and sash that Julia had made many years ago. She had arranged the chairs in a semi-circle facing her and on a stool in front of her sat a big box.

“Be afraid. Be very afraid,” Lydia advised everyone.

“Quiet!” Liz pronounced. “The queen has the floor. Take your seats!”

Everyone settled into a chair facing Liz.

“Good. I have gathered y’all together for a special celebration. I have assembled a Carolina Kit in honor of this event,” she said, tapping the top of the big box.

“Be afraid. Be very afraid,” Lydia repeated. They all giggled.

Liz held up her hand to silence the crowd. She held a sharp knife.

“Okay, I’m afraid. Very afraid,” Grace said.

Liz brought the knife down and in one fell swoop tore the packaging tape off the box. She made a big deal out of opening the box and examining its contents. Satisfied, she nodded and said, “As some of you may remember, on graduation night, I asked everyone to contribute some items for a time capsule. I have faithfully kept those items sealed in this box, which I safeguarded for nearly twenty years. As the walrus would say, the time has come.”

Liz reached into the box and pulled out a white napkin with lip gloss on it and a bag of large-sized marshmallows. “Does anyone recognize these items?”

Julia knew immediately. “Camp Yemassee! I can’t believe you still have this stuff.”

“This should be a good story,” Sonya told Grace.

“I found the marshmallows in the pantry and I just created the kissed napkin. They are symbolic, not the real thing. Why would I have a napkin and marshmallows from nearly thirty years ago? Get real!” Liz said.

“Julia and I met Liz at summer camp when we were ten or eleven,” Lydia said.

“Eleven,” Julia confirmed. “We were twelve when Sonya moved to Georgetown and Liz left for boarding school. Her family moved to Atlanta a few months later.”

“That’s right. The funny thing is that we didn’t want to go to camp. Our parents made us go. They said we’d learn a lot and have a lot of fun. The truth is they wanted to get rid of us that summer. My little brother had just died of leukemia, and my parents were grieving, and Julia’s mother was struggling with depression. Anyway, we got there, and it was totally lame. We were bummed that we would be stuck at this stupid camp all summer,” Lydia said.

“And then we met Liz,” Julia interrupted.

“Enough said!” Sonya screamed and Grace burst out laughing.

“You have no idea!” Julia said. “Everything happened that summer. We had our first kisses with some boys from Camp Kiawah. We put on Liz’s lip gloss and practiced kissing on these little napkins. So funny! We snuck into the dining hall every night and pigged out on ice cream. And Lydia produced a play. Remember that skit you did on the Yemassee Indian War? Liz pushed her onto the stage when she had stage fright so bad that she said she wasn’t going to do it. So Liz is probably responsible for igniting your interest in the theater.”

“And she talked us into stealing a canoe and paddling over to Camp Kiawah. We met our new ‘boyfriends,’ who built a little fire and toasted marshmallows that we commandeered from the mess hall, and Julia told ghost stories. We acted scared, and the boys put their arms around us and held us tightly. Before the night was over, we had gotten our first kisses. It was the best night right up until we got caught,” Lydia said.

“It was my fault. I didn’t tie up the canoe properly, and it drifted away. We had no way back to Camp Yemassee. One of the boys, Evan, offered to steal one of their boats and row us over to our camp,” Julia said. “But we got caught by a counselor, who called Camp Yemassee. The camp leader, Mr. Horton, came to get us in his motor boat. Boy was he mad! But he didn’t say a word. Just signaled us to get into the boat, and when we got across the inlet to our camp, he said, ‘It’s late. Go to bed. I’ll deal with you in the morning. Everyone, back to bed.’”

“We knew we were in big trouble,” Liz said.

“And still you wanted to do that blood oath, remember?” Lydia said.

“Oh yeah. She made us do it knowing how I feel about blood,” Julia said.

“I knew you could handle it after seeing how you handled yourself that night,” Liz said. “I remember taking out one of my hair pins and using it to prick my finger. I passed it to Lydia and Jules, and they did the same.”

“Friends forever,” Julia said, smiling.

“We fell asleep with our clothes on and slept like the dead until a voice barked, ‘Get up! You’ve overslept and missed breakfast. And Mr. Horton wants to see you right now.’ The counselor said as he yanked the covers off our beds. After he left, we realized that Liz was missing.”

“We thought that she was probably sitting in Mr. Horton’s office waiting for us, having already concocted some incredible tale that would exonerate us,” Julia said.

“Wrong!” Lydia said. “When we got there, Mr. Horton solemnly signaled for us to come in and close the door. He got right to the point telling us not to bother explaining. He assured us that he already knew all about our big adventure. We couldn’t believe it when he said that, ‘Miss Goldberg has already come forward. She admitted to being responsible. She confessed that she lied to both of you when she told you that a counselor had said it was okay to take out the canoe. She also admitted that neither of you had any idea she was going to that island. She said that she practically kidnapped the two of you. We take these things very seriously at Camp Yemassee. That’s why Miss Goldberg has been expelled.’

“‘Expelled?’ we asked in disbelief.

“‘Yes. She was put on a bus to Charleston, where her parents will meet her. I have been assured that she will be severely punished for her bad behavior. I had to notify your parents, as well. I explained what happened and assured them that you are both fine. They were very upset, understandably, but calmed down when they learned that you’re okay and that Miss Goldberg is gone. We’re going to call them in a few minutes. I promised your parents that they could talk to you. Before we do that, do you have anything that you’d like to say to me?’”

“I remember looking down at my bandaged finger. Friends forever. Liz had taken the blame to keep us out of trouble. We weren’t about to let her go down alone. Lydia and I confessed and were soon on our way home on a bus,” Julia said.

“I never knew that!” Liz exclaimed.

“Oh yeah. We couldn’t let you take the blame alone. Our parents were so mad at us for getting kicked out of camp,” Julia said.

“But that was the point! I took the blame so that only one of us got in trouble rather than all three of us,” Liz said.

“Sorry, but it doesn’t work that way. We took a blood oath. Even if we didn’t realize it at the time, we were the CGFs! Besides, one good thing came out of it. We never got sent to camp again,” Lydia said.