We Interrupt This Date (22 page)

Mama appeared faintly troubled. “Oh, dear. Susan,
would you—“

“I’m on it.” I gathered the Chihuahuas and put them
on the porch, where they could vomit as much as they wanted, and I
could hose away the mess later. I returned with a wad of paper
towels and some carpet cleaner and took care of the rug. After I
washed my hands about six times, I marched back to Mama. This time
there would be no distractions.

“What did Philip want? And don’t tell me he was here
to see his long-lost daughter and his grandson. Something’s going
on and I need to know about it if you expect me to help you.” I
crossed my arms over my chest to let her know I wasn’t backing down
this time.

Mama sniffled and rubbed the end of her nose until it
turned scarlet. DeLorean wasn’t kidding about her coming across
like an allergy sufferer. Then she went quiet until I thought the
ticking of the mantel clock was going to make me scream.

DeLorean came in balancing the teapot and assorted
cups and saucers on a tray. She’d managed to find time to smooth
her hair and wipe the baby drool off her shoulder.

I poured us each a cup and turned to Mama. “We’re
going to sit here all night until you tell us. I can be stubborn,
too, Mama.”

“I did not ask for your help, but you seem to
determined to interfere.” She lifted her chin. “It is none of your
business, Susan. Or your sister’s. Or maybe it is. But since I am
staying in your house, and Philip says I have until Wednesday
evening and then he will be surely be back--well, I have decided to
tell you every detail of his latest scheme to send me to an early
grave.”

“Let me guess,” DeLorean said. She was still
hyperventilating. If the tea didn’t calm her, I’d probably have to
give her a paper bag to breathe into. “He wants money. Just tell
him no and be done with him. Honestly, Mama, he can’t force you to
give him money.”

“I’m afraid he can.” Mama worked her hands like she
expected to be petting a Chihuahua. She frowned at her empty lap,
and I wondered if she even remembered that the babies were on my
porch purging themselves.

A Mama-is-in-real-trouble gene suddenly kicked in and
my heart started skittering in my chest. If my expression was
anything like DeLorean’s, then anyone who saw us would offer us all
tranquilizers or a stiff drink.

“Suspense, Mama. Suspense.” I made come on motions
with my free hand. “Do you owe him alimony or half your possessions
or does he maybe have a video of you prancing around naked in front
of Reverend Whitfield and he’s threatening to put it on the
Internet?”

My mother owing alimony to the world’s worst deadbeat
former husband would be a real twist. But I was sure that if some
mixed-up judge had issued such an order, we could find a lawyer to
take her case and see that belated justice was done.

“Susan, there is no need to be flippant. I would
never prance naked or any other way with Reverend Whitfield,
especially not with a camera trained on me. He is married, after
all and I am a lady.” Mama stared over my head. A red flush spread
across her face.

“But alimony would most likely mean that there was
once a marriage and now there is a divorce. I’m afraid that is not
the case.”

“No divorce?” DeLorean nearly tipped over the teapot.
“You mean you and my father aren’t divorced? Why in the world would
you stay married to someone like him? Mama, he may be my father,
but he’s not a good husband. Get rid of him and move on.”

“No, dear, that is not what I mean.”

Wheels turned in my head. A thought formed on top of
a pile of other thoughts, flattening the whole pile with its
weight, and then I felt my eyes try to bug out of my head. DeLorean
was a fraction of a second ahead of me.

“You never married,” she said, speaking while I was
still trying to formulate a coherent response.

I bobbed my head up and down. Taking in that kind of
news was like finding out the pope was Jewish. “Mama that’s
impossible,” I added stupidly.

DeLorean held out her hands and gazed at them, as
though she’d just discovered her real identity. In a way, I
supposed she had. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she wailed. “Is he even
my father? Oh, God, the postman we used to have, that guy who
looked like a fat frog with glasses and wore postman shorts a
couple of sizes too small. He has hair the same color as mine. Tell
me it isn’t him. Please, Mama.”

Mama sent DeLorean the most withering look I’d ever
seen. “I will expect an apology from you after you are done hearing
me out, young lady.”

DeLorean shifted in her chair so much I wondered if
she’d sat on a pin. I braced myself for more hysterics, but she
managed to get a grip. The need for answers apparently outweighed
her need to emote.

“I always intended to explain, to tell you girls the
truth and yet the right time never arrived.” Mama sipped at her
tea. She still avoided looking directly at DeLorean. Maybe she
feared a death ray would shoot out of my sister’s eyes and nail
her. By now, I was fearing the same thing.

“How could you do this to me? Time doesn’t arrive,
like a package at the door or something. You schedule time. Don’t
you know anything, Mama?” DeLorean jumped to her feet and balled up
her fists.

She whirled and flounced out of the room like a
little kid who’d been denied a treat. I turned back to my mother
and raised an eyebrow. “I must say, I’m shocked.” Okay, I didn’t
mean to turn one of Mama’s pet phrases on her. Shock made me do
it.

“I thought Philip and I were married, Susan. I really
did. I mean, there was a ceremony, a cake. You remember, don’t
you?” Mama pleaded.

I’d gotten sick after eating three pieces of wedding
cake. Mama and Philip had left for their weekend honeymoon in
Savannah and I’d stayed with one of Mama’s church friends who’d
spent the evening complaining about the mess I’d made. “Uh, yeah. I
remember.”

“Philip insisted on getting married at his friend’s
home instead of at the church and I agreed; I thought he was a good
man and I did love him after all, and it seemed silly to refuse to
honor his wishes. Another friend who was a preacher performed the
ceremony, and it wasn’t until after DeLorean was born that I found
out the marriage wasn’t legal. His friend wasn’t a real preacher.
He was just an electrician who lived in a trailer somewhere around
Moncks Corner. I felt so stupid—and so humiliated. If I didn’t have
you girls, I don’t know how I’d have managed to keep on
living.”

“So he eventually told you it was all fake. You could
have married him when you learned the truth.” Although by then, she
knew what he was really like and would have known it would be a
mistake to keep him.

“Actually, Philip didn’t tell me. His wife did.” She
pulled at a thread on the bottom of her sweater and watched without
expression as half an inch of yarn unraveled and spiraled across
her front like tangled lavender hair.

I choked on my tea, dribbled it onto my blouse,
snorted it out my nose. “His wife?” When had my voice gone from
alto to a thin squawk?

“They were from Arkansas. Philip had sneaked out on
Lurlene a few years before he came to Charleston and met me, and
she wanted him back. I never did understand her motivation because
goodness knows, he is a horrible man. But I suppose she wanted him
around to wreak vengeance, not that I approve of vengeance, you
know that is not good Christian behavior. Still, a person can
imagine wanting to punish a straying man. I admit I entertained
some thoughts about exactly what I’d do to Mr. Beauchamp if I were
not a well-bred southern lady. And Lurlene was not a kind woman,
not kind at all. I certainly would not want to be mixed up with
Lurlene Beauchamp. My, the scene she created in our living room and
the language, you would have thought drunken sailors were loose in
the house. Thank goodness you were in school. Lurlene became truly
enraged when she found out about DeLorean. I really thought she was
going to rip me to pieces, but fortunately she came to believe me
when I insisted I hadn’t known Philip was married. As it turned
out, what he wanted was what was left of the insurance settlement I
got after your father’s death. I am very sorry to admit, he spent a
substantial part of my money without me finding out. But I am not a
cheating woman who will steal someone’s husband, Susan. At least
not on purpose.”

“Of course, you aren’t.” I gave her shoulder a
comforting pat. “Still, there’s no reason for you to give Philip
money. That’s extortion. Anyway, he isn’t even your husband, never
was, never will be.”

Poor Mama. She’d lived with her secret all these
years and it must have been killing her. Impulsively I leaned
forward and pulled her into a hug. Mama was never the hugging type,
but she rested her head on my shoulder and held onto me like a
barnacle clinging to a rock.

“Mama, I’m so sorry you got into all this trouble
with Philip. He’s nothing but a cheap con man, and you deserve so
much better. You’re a good woman, a person with solid values, and
don’t let anyone tell you different. I love you.”

She sniffled. “Thank you. Your understanding means so
much to me.”

I hugged her tighter and emitted a few sniffles of my
own. My mother was judgmental, a meddler and could be the most
annoying person on the planet. But when it came down to basics, no
one loved her offspring—children--more than Mama did.

“Let go now, dear. I can’t breathe.”

“Sorry.” I dropped my arms to my sides. “You don’t
have to live your life letting Philip harass you.”

“Don’t you see? He found out I am seeing Rhett and he
says he will tell Rhett everything. I will simply die if that
wonderful man finds out I am an adulterer.”

I whooshed my breath out and sucked in an even deeper
helping of oxygen. “You are
not
an adulterer. It wasn’t your
fault Philip was married to someone else and he lied to you about
his friend being a minister. And if Rhett doesn’t care enough to
understand that, then he isn’t the right man for you.”

“That is a very easy thing for you to say, miss. But
at my age, men of any kind, let alone a good man like Rhett, are
not easily come by. Under the circumstances, I can’t marry Rhett.
But I’m tired of being lonely. I do not want to end up like Edna
Vincent, bless her heart.” Mama whipped a handkerchief out of her
pocket and dabbed her eyes.

Edna Vincent was one of Mama’s friends. She’d gone
home from church one Sunday and dropped dead in her bedroom and no
one found her for four days. Her parakeet nearly starved to death
before Edna’s niece came by to bring her some pound cake and found
Edna’s body.

I got up and paced to the fireplace and back. “You
are not going to end up like Edna Vincent. And I’m pretty sure
Rhett won’t dump you if you tell him the truth, not if he’s the man
you say he is.”

“Pretty sure is not good enough. I’m not willing to
take that chance and end up permanently lonely.”
Uncharacteristically, Mama wouldn’t look me in the eyes.

“Mama, you are a good woman and I love you and I’m
going to find out a way out of this mess for you. I don’t want you
to suffer because of a worm like Philip Beauchamp.”

“There’s nothing you can do.”

I opened my mouth to continue the argument and Mama
raised her hand, stopping me cold. “Please ask your sister to come
back and let me tell her the whole story.”

“Sure, I’ll ask her, but I can’t make her
listen.”

I slogged upstairs to get my sister. I thought back
to the day Mama had told me and DeLorean that she’d changed her
name back to Marsh and officially changed DeLorean’s last name from
Beauchamp to Marsh. That would have been the perfect time for her
to tell us the truth, but instead she came up with the story about
how we would be closer as a family if we all had the same last
name. And we’d believed her for all these years.

After she found out about Mama’s faux wedding,
DeLorean would fuss for a few days and act mortally wounded and
then she and Mama would cry and say how much they loved each other
no matter what. I couldn’t wait. Until that event came to pass,
life at Susan’s was not exactly going to be fun and games.

I planned to sit around for the rest of the evening
and mope about Jack and try to puzzle out a solution to the Mama
and Philip drama. Then I decided to power up my computer to check
my email and rediscovered the packet Veronica had mailed me last
week sitting on my desk. I was sure she expected me to have all the
work completed when she called me again, probably tomorrow, and if
I hadn’t been so busy solving problems for my family all weekend, I
wouldn’t be so far behind.

Muttering under my breath at the unfairness of it
all, I settled myself in my office and sorted through the million
or so papers. Plans for the ghost tours. Copies of advertisements
along with lists of phone numbers of publications where I could
place ads. Lists and pictures of period furniture Veronica wanted
me to hunt up and buy. But nothing I could do until tomorrow,
except for writing up a script for a proposed tour of a Charleston
cemetery and the house and starting the work of penning the
brochure Veronica wanted about the Blackthorn House.

I didn’t get to bed until two AM thanks to my work on
the brochure, which I didn’t finish. In the morning I stumbled in
to work feeling like my eyelids were swollen to the size of lemon
wedges. If I hadn’t gotten up late, I could have put cucumber
slices over my eyes the way Mama is already recommending. But who
was I kidding? I would have needed to buy out the entire cucumber
sections at Publix and Piggly Wiggly combined to even begin to
reduce the swelling.

Patty was waiting at the door. As soon as she saw me,
she dragged me to the break room.