Well, don’t you know, little Chloe, who was never first for anything (except to be in line to get beat up with the ugly stick), sprang from her chair with her plate, rushing to the buffet.
“Wait, honey, let me help you,” I said, intending to remove the lids of the warming dishes. I knew they would be hot to the touch.
But no; hell, no. There was not a stitch of obedience in that child’s makeup, no urgency to heed the words of an elder, and no sooner had she lifted the top of the dish than she immediately burned her hand, and the whole business, the lid of my grandmother’s antique silver dish, came crashing to the floor with a spoonful of eggs. It all landed on the Nien rug that had graced the floor since John C. Calhoun came here to duck-hunt. Okay, maybe that’s not quite accurate, but didn’t I tell that child to wait?
Rusty jumped up from her seat and rushed to Chloe, who was screaming from pain whose severity was highly exaggerated, let me assure you.
“Let me see your hand, sweetheart,” she said.
Rusty said it so sweetly that Chloe’s howl was instantly reduced to a whimper and she unfurled her fingers. This was momentous. Rusty had soothed the little beast. For the moment.
The dining-room door swung open and Millie whooshed in.
“What happened?”
“It’s all right, Millie,” Rusty said. “I think Chloe was surprised by the heat of the lid; but it’s all right. She’s not burned. But let’s put some ice on it anyway, okay?”
Rusty said this to Chloe, who nodded. Millie picked up the lid, placed it by the side of the dish, scooped up the eggs in her hand, and took the spoon to rinse it. The three of them disappeared into the kitchen to administer some TLC, making me slightly ashamed of my judgmental self, that part I had obviously inherited from Mother. It was genetic, you see, not my fault.
“Well, I could eat a horse,” Eric said. “Mind if I serve myself?”
“Of course not, darling! Help yourself! Girls? Y’all, too! Let’s not let one little snag ruin the whole meal. Chloe’s fine!” I smiled at them all, hoping I sounded like a loving caring aunt, knowing I was a disingenuous, judgmental stinker of a witch who only wanted to slap Linnie and Belle across their silly faces for what they had done to insult my brother and Rusty, who would be a much better stepmother than either of them deserved.
Everyone fixed a plate of food for themselves and I waited until last, hoping Rusty and Chloe would rejoin the table, but they did not. I decided not to remark on this but fervently hoped in the other side of my heart—that part that was not the judgmental stinker of a witch—that Rusty was in the kitchen making some headway with Chloe. Life would be so much sweeter if we could only just get along. And if everyone would just behave themselves. The way I wanted them to.
Finally, I took my place, spread my napkin across my lap, and lifted my fork. Linnie and Belle had not waited for me and in their haste they were already scraping up the last bits of grits and eggs from their plates. Trip cleared his throat, which was his way of letting his two middle daughters know their poor manners were a disappointment to him. They didn’t even give Trip’s disapproval a moment’s notice.
Amelia said, taking her first bite, “Don’t mind them, Aunt Caroline. They can’t help it.”
“Well, dear, hopefully we can teach them some manners by Christmas,” I said.
“What’s happening Christmas? Mom, this is so good. Can somebody pass the biscuits down here?” Eric said.
“Well, I haven’t had the chance to discuss it with my brother yet, but I’d like to give a ball in Amelia’s honor.”
“What? Why?” Amelia said.
“To present you to our friends as a young lady, a young woman ready to take her place in Lowcountry society.”
“I’m gonna
F
-ing puke,” Linnie whispered to Belle, and they both giggled.
“I heard that,” I said. “If you need to excuse yourself, you may.”
To my utter surprise, Linnie and Belle actually straightened up. I guessed I had a formidable way every now and then.
“I don’t know if I’m up for all that,” Amelia said. “I don’t even have a boyfriend to take me. Who would I dance with?”
“Nonsense,” I said. “You’ll dance with Eric. And your father.”
Belle and Linnie were about to fall from their chairs in laughter and from elbowing each other.
“I’m sure you think this is all a riot,” I said, “but let me tell you, it will be a gorgeous night and we’ll all have lots of fun.”
“Basically,” Eric said, “it’s just a dinner dance. It’s fun. I went to Miss Nancy’s granddaughter’s deb ball last year. She came out with St. Cecilia’s in Charleston. Now, that was an anthropology experiment.”
“If she doesn’t want to . . .” Trip said. “Besides, I never joined St. Cecilia’s you know.”
“What? What’s the matter with you, Trip Wimbley? Every woman in this family for the last hundred years has been a debutante! Except me because I was in New York with Richard that year. I’m aware you never joined and I think we all know why.” The minute the words were said I regretted them.
Trip looked at me in a burst of anger. For the first time in a long while he was deeply provoked with me. I had stepped over a line I was not entitled to cross. We could rag on Frances Mae all we wanted to in private, but it was never all right to put her down in front of his girls. The truth was that Trip was entitled to be a candidate for the St. Cecilia’s Society but he had never tried to join because Frances Mae Litchfield was so unsuitable. In all likelihood, he would have been rejected, Mother would have been mortified, and the whole thing would have had disastrous repercussions for the next hundred years. And I also knew he was about an inch from reminding me that I had been living with Richard and intended to marry a Jewish man nearly twice my age and that was the real reason I had skipped the deb experience with the Charleston crowd.
“Caroline?”
“I’m sorry, Trip. Let’s just say it wasn’t right for us at the time.”
“That’s more like it.”
“Anyway, all that was aeons ago and who cares? We don’t need St. Cecilia’s. I can rent the ballroom at the Francis Marion Hotel. I’ll invite everyone, we can have a beautiful dinner and fabulous music, and we’ll all have a marvelous time! Don’t you think it sounds like fun, Amelia?”
Amelia. Poor Amelia. She might as well have had a target painted on her forehead once she was in my sights. I was already redesigning her appearance, promising myself to be subtle about it, remembering how fragile a girl’s confidence could be at her age. I couldn’t imagine her thoughts and I wanted to give her some time to see the wisdom of my proposal, knowing she’d come around. As we know, of all of them, Trip’s whole brood of Halloween-scary offspring, she was the one for whom I had the highest hopes of making a suitable marriage and a successful life.
“Um. Sure. Probably,” she said. “I mean, it’s awfully nice of you to think of doing something like that for me. Really it is.”
“Well, you’d meet lots of nice young people your age and that can’t hurt. Maybe we’ll fly to New York for a dress. How does that sound?”
Amelia was very surprised by even the mention of something in her honor, much less a trip to New York.
“Shoot, I’ll go with you, Amelia,” Eric said. “I can go see Dad and my half brother.” I gasped a little and Eric laughed. “I haven’t seen him in two years, Mom. Might be nice to check in? You know, see if Harry has won a Nobel Prize yet?”
“We’ll see,” I said.
“I’ve never been to New York,” Amelia said. “Could we go to Radio City and see the Rockettes?”
Amelia was interested and I was so glad! Whoever knew that she had the slightest desire to see the Rockettes? And if Eric went along, it would be more fun for her. Most important, what other dreams did Amelia have?
“Absolutely! And we can go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Guggenheim, and hear an opera and see a ballet . . . why don’t you go online when you have some time and do a little research. You tell me what you’d like to do and I’ll try to make it happen.”
“Wait a minute,” Belle said. “Wait just a minute! How come she gets to do all this stuff and we don’t?”
“Do you really want me to answer that question in front of your father?” I said with my sweetest smile.
Trip ignored me but the air became suddenly heavy, as though devils were rising from between the planks of flooring and oozing from the corners of the walls.
“Maybe not, Belle,” Linnie said, giving Belle big eyes and a push on her arm.
“I think I’m gonna get some more grits, if that’s okay. How about you, Mom? Can I get you something?”
“No, thank you, sweetheart,” I said, and then looked back at Belle and Linnie, giving them the flambé hairy eyeball, a variation which I had just learned from Millie.
Just then the door opened and Rusty and Chloe were back to rejoin the table. Chloe had three large Band-Aids across her palm. She plunked herself in her seat and whispered to me with her eyes stretched as big and wide as two saucers.
“I’m really getting a puppy, Aunt Caroline! Don’t tell, okay?”
“Okay!” I winked at Rusty, who winked back at me and smiled. With her other hand, Chloe continued eating a biscuit Millie must’ve given her.
“What’d we miss? Is there anything left for us?” Rusty said.
“You didn’t miss a thing,” I said, “and there’s enough left for Beauregard’s army!” It was then I remembered to do what I had intended to do in the first place. “Linnie? Belle? Amelia? And you, too, Chloe . . . did your daddy ever tell you about the time that some of Sherman’s army, who were obviously lost, came to this house during the War Between the States?”
“What?”
they all said together.
“She means the Civil War,” Trip said with a laugh.
“
She
is the cat’s mother and I mean the War of Yankee Aggression! Well, here’s what happened and every word is true. Every single word!” Okay, maybe not.
W
E WERE IN THE KITCHEN,
just Eric and I, packing a small cooler of leftovers for him to take back to school. Somehow we all made it to Sunday afternoon without bloodshed and only minor squabbles. Tomorrow would mark Frances Mae’s absence as one week. We had only seven weeks left to shape up Trip’s girls. I shuddered at the thought of her return.
I told Eric that after yesterday’s breakfast and today’s dinner, I imagined that staying with Rusty suddenly held more appeal for the girls than enduring an endless history lecture from me. He did not disagree.
“You went on for like an hour, Mom.”
“I did? Yeah, I suppose I did. But you know the details of our past are very important. It’s essential for those girls to understand who they are and where they come from. Otherwise, how can they plan some kind of a future for themselves, you know, give themselves something to aim for? I’m just trying to expand their horizons.”
“Right. Actually, Mom, Linnie and Belle are thinking of majoring in political science and then joining the diplomatic corps when they graduate. Belle thinks she wants to be an ambassador to somewhere in South America; Peru, I think. I heard them talking about it.”
“Heavens! I hope you’re kidding!”
“I am.”
“Well, that’s a relief.”
I heard him chuckle.
“Very funny,” I said, smiling to myself.
“Can you imagine those two running embassies?”
“No. I cannot fathom.”
“Man, I used to think that I had a lot of growing up to do, but those two?”
“Baby, my mother used to always say that every flower blooms in its own time.”
“Weird.”
I smiled and glanced at Eric’s grinning profile and thought about how close he was to adulthood. The outside world was beginning to close ranks around him bit by bit. It wouldn’t be too many years before I would need him more than he would need me, but I was very determined never to be a burden to him or anyone. That much was certain. Was it his youth that made me think about my own advancing years? I wasn’t that old. I wasn’t washed up yet. I was still in the game. Wasn’t I? And who was his girlfriend?
Amelia was coming to pick up Eric soon. He’d be back in his dormitory at Carolina that night and I wouldn’t see him again for a week or so, which at that moment seemed like an unforgivable amount of time. How often during his life had I wished I could just freeze-frame us just as we were? How the years raced by like a thief, stealing my son’s youth. The first thing to go were his little-boy freckles. They had all but vanished, erased by the sun’s bronze patina on his cheeks and nose. The next thing I knew, he sounded like a man. “Mom?” became “Mom,” that one syllable resonating with a base thud. Then I turned around one day and saw that he had grown peach fuzz above his lip and on the sides of his face. On and on it went until he towered over me and melted my heart every time I heard his man voice say, “I love you, Mom.”
“I just hate for you to leave, Eric.” I couldn’t help pouting.
“Yeah, me, too. But you know I’ll be back as soon as I run out of clean socks.”