“She called you a whore, Rusty!” I said. “That’s unforgivable!”
“Look, in her heart she knows I’m okay. She’s just a kid, angry with the world. Come on, we’re letting this juvenile drama ruin Belle’s party, and besides, I’m hungry!”
Matthew nodded and looked at Trip, who was radiating love for Rusty’s kind heart. I was still pissed off in purple, paisley, plaid, and lavender, as we say around here.
We began walking back to the party and Matthew looped his arm around my shoulder.
“Come on now,” he said. “Let’s lighten up. This is a party for your niece, right? It’s a happy occasion.”
“So everyone thinks I’m an old prune, huh?”
“No one called you old, Caroline.”
I punched him in the arm, jokingly of course, and he slapped my backside. I really needed the balance he brought to my life. The question was, what did I bring to his?
T
HE HURRAH BROKE UP AROUND
six o’clock when all the graduates were obliged to return to their homes for supper and other, smaller family parties. All over Walterboro, marinated chicken and rib eyes sizzled on smoky grills, steaming casseroles were being pulled from hot ovens, prewashed salads were tossed, and celebratory sheet cakes, personalized with congratulations by the nice lady in the bakery at Wal-Mart, were being admired. I sighed in agreement with misty-eyed parents all around Colleton County, recounting the day and saying how nice was that Wimbley barbecue, wasn’t it nice? While they talked about Tall Pines and what they thought of all of us and all we had, they silently struggled to sort out the confusing emotions that came with their child taking another next step toward leaving the nest the same way we did. Family members hugged each other, mothers and fathers expressing their worries in whispers about how their children would fare at universities farther away than a day’s drive. What if Mary got sick? What if Johnny needed something? And what about those children not headed to college but to Iraq or Afghanistan? It made me quake with fear to think of Eric in uniform. I could already see the nightmares that would wake me up every night, drenched in sweat. No matter how hard I tried, I would be unable to erase the image of my only boy seriously injured. No, no. We were lucky, blessed beyond reason, to have our two and soon three children just under an hour away at the University of South Carolina. I was grateful to God and everything holy for that peace of mind. Every mother and father knows these things are true.
Matthew was on duty that night, so he left a little early, and the Wonder Boys, who collected a few phone numbers from some of the pretty girls, had been paid and gone on their way. Eric was outside cleaning the grill with Trip and Mr. Jenkins and putting all the foam noodles in the shed, placing the lounge chairs back where they belonged.
Rusty and I were still in the kitchen washing dishes and putting everything back in its place while Amelia and Belle dried what seemed like dozens of forks, knives, and spoons. Millie gathered up all the sopping-wet pool towels, wrung them out, and had the washing machine humming the soothing music of white noise as she folded another warm and sweet-smelling load right from the dryer.
Linnie was upstairs sleeping off the pot after hell rained all over her in the form of a very stern lecture from her father. I overheard it all from the hall outside her bedroom.
“Drugs are not okay, no way, no how!” he said. “I don’t care if it’s just pot and not meth or something worse. If you want the keys to your car back, you’d better turn yourself around immediately. No more sass! Do you hear me?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
She sure sounded sarcastic to me.
“And I expect you to apologize to Rusty for what you said. Is that crystal clear?”
“I’m sorry, Daddy.”
Really? How about not in a million years?
“Don’t tell me, tell her! Now you stay here until you’re fit company.”
“Sorry, Daddy.”
She didn’t mean a word of it.
I scurried to the hall bathroom because I heard him coming. He was so mad he didn’t even accept her apology. I surely didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping! Not with him in
that
mood! And, I wasn’t quite my mother yet, because let me tell you, she would have opened Linnie’s door and added her two cents to Trip’s! I didn’t.
Chloe was napping, too, having thrown up for the second time in just days, but this time from overeating. A bunch of Belle’s less enlightened classmates were the culprits behind her humiliation. Earlier in the afternoon, they kept giving her hot dogs and counting how many she could eat, egging her on. Then they started calling her Goat Girl, laughing and saying she’d eat any kind of garbage they put in front of her. Belle rose to the occasion and was furious with all of them and rightfully so, and told them to hit the road.
“I can’t believe y’all can’t be nice to my little sister? What kind of jerks are you?”
In a rare moment of big-sister love, she tried to impress on Chloe that she had to learn to think for herself and to learn to stand up for herself. So while poor misguided Chloe retched over a garbage can, Belle was heard pleading with her to grow up.
“Oh, Chloe, it’s okay. Listen, those guys suck. We should have invited some kids your age. You can’t be messing around with kids that much older than you, you know?”
“I want my momma! I’m sick!”
“I know, honey, so do I.”
I had not loved hearing that, but then I had to remind myself that Belle had graduated from high school without her mother there and she was probably feeling bad about it.
“I worry about that kid,” she said later on as we cleaned the kitchen. “What’s going to happen to her when I’m not around to watch her back?”
Had our Belle grown a heart and a conscience that very day?
“I had the same worry about you,” Amelia said, “but you managed.”
“I’m just saying she can’t count on Linnie like I used to count on you.”
“Yeah, Linnie is like beyond beyond!” Amelia said. “And she doesn’t have the greatest judgment about stuff either.”
“Listen, it took forever, but I finally came to the conclusion that it ain’t worth it to be a badass. I mean, what was I thinking all this year? Linnie will grow up eventually.”
So, our Belle had decided to grow up, too? Praise God! Two down, two to go!
“She was just trying to impress the seniors,” Rusty said.
“Humph,” Millie said, and changed the subject. “Poor little Chloe was so upset. Make me angry to see how them older children pick on a little girl. Ain’t right. You ’sposed to look out for the least. Says so in the Bible, ’eah?”
“I agree,” I said.
Rusty chimed in with, “Well, there’s some truth to all of what y’all say.”
“Like what?” I asked.
“Well, like Belle says, it doesn’t seem that Linnie is as concerned with Chloe’s well-being as I’d like to see either. I don’t know, I guess . . . look, Chloe is real sweet, but she’s a goofy little girl, you know? She’s lightning smart one minute and then in the next she’s all silly and desperate to impress anyone who will give her two seconds of attention. She needs to learn how to say no. I mean, she’ll grow past this awkward stage, I’m pretty sure about that. But right now she’s kind of a mess. I mean, the worst thing is to grow up to be a pleaser. You all know what I’m saying?”
And as though the Council of Satan had orchestrated it, there stood Chloe in the doorway. She was embarrassed again, although unsure of exactly why. It wasn’t that Rusty had really said any one thing that was unfairly critical of her; it was that Rusty had said anything at all. Rusty barely had the young highnesses’ permission to speak to them much less voice opinions. Chloe started to wail and I thought, Oh Good Lord, here we go again! Please bring this crazy roller coaster of a day to an end.
Millie took Chloe by the hand. “You just a little girl and it’s not your fault. Those big kids oughta be horsewhipped! Now come let Millie wash your face, ’eah?”
“Okay,” Chloe said, and sniffed.
I had only raised one son but it occurred to me then that I could raise ten lovely sons, one hundred beautiful sons, for the time and energy spent to raise one half-assed daughter. My mother had probably felt the same way, God rest her soul.
Later that night, when it seemed that reasonable order had been restored in Rusty and Trip’s house and in the world of all those girls, I was finally back at my house, sitting in the kitchen with Millie. Eric had stayed behind to play some games with the girls. Anybody playing video games that much couldn’t be too deeply embroiled in a hot affair, I told myself. Millie and I were exhausted. I was sipping on what had to be my nineteenth glass of iced tea for the day, knowing I’d be up half the night from all the caffeine.
“So, how was the actual graduation?” Millie asked.
“Dreadful,” I said. “As expected. They’re all the same. But listen. Want to hear something very strange?”
“Tell it.”
“I could have sworn I saw Frances Mae there. She was with a man. Right after the whole rigmarole was done and we were outside in the parking lot. This woman wearing big sunglasses climbed into a cab from Columbia. She looked just like her. Do you think she might have flown back just for the day? Is that even possible?”
“Chile? Anything is possible with that woman. Maybe she was there with a nurse or something. A bodyguard?”
“I’d bet anything that it was her. I mean it stands to reason. I wouldn’t miss my child’s graduation unless I was in ICU.”
“Me either.”
“Yeah, well, I’m embarrassed to say this, but I’m still hungry. What’s the matter with me?”
“Me, too. I don’t like no hot dogs. That ain’t food. You want me to see what we got?”
“Why not? I think there’s some leftover ravioli that Eric had yesterday.”
“Humph. That ain’t food either.” She went to the refrigerator and began to forage, pulling plastic containers out and pushing them across the counter. “All this needs to be thrown out. What are we saving this for? A hurricane? And what was I thinking we was gonna do about dinner? I should have taken something out of the freezer.”
“If I miss a meal I won’t die from starvation. It’s okay.”
But Millie was already reorganizing the contents of the freezer and had pulled out two large containers of soup.
“Okra soup or split pea. Pick one.”
“There are some chunks of ham in the okra soup, I hope? I need protein.”
“Girl? You gone off your rocker? Show me some okra soup that ain’t got no ham hock in it and that dishwater been make by a Yankee hand. Humph. Okra it is.”
“Okra soup sounds dandy to me!” I got up and preheated the oven to four hundred degrees. “I’m making corn bread.”
“You hear me complaining?”
“Nope.” I took eggs and milk from the refrigerator and a bowl from the cabinet. “So how did you like Little Miss Linnie’s behavior this afternoon? I knew she was up to no good. I could feel it in my bones.”
“Humph. You need to rely on them bones more than you do, ’eah? Bones don’t lie.” She put the container in the microwave and set the timer.
“You’re probably right. Did you hear that I gave her a good slap right across her face? It was only about a year overdue.”
Millie stopped in her tracks and looked at me like I had lost my mind. “You did
what
?”
I took a deep breath. There was no way I was going to take any grief about slapping
that
foulmouthed child. “Look, Millie. I never slapped a child in my life who didn’t deserve it, but this was too much. She was so out of control she called Rusty an
F
-ing whore.”
“What? What are you telling me? Please don’t tell me this.”
“Yep. In front of her father. She was down on the dock smoking pot with some of her friends, or rather Belle’s friends, and Matthew and I caught her.” I told her the rest of the story. “Trip was in a midair lunge, on the way to snapping her neck in two. I stepped in between them, thinking a slap from me was the lesser of two evils. I mean, Millie? What would you have done?”
“Law. I don’t like hitting and slapping. You know that, ’eah? Goes against everything I stand for. But maybe sometimes a chile needs something to shake ’em up. Specially that knucklehead.”
“You can say that again. Listen, Trip was so angry with her I might have saved her life. But I’m sure she hates my guts now.”
“Humph. Don’t worry about that. I put all kinds of Bach Remedies in them biscuits and I guess it don’t work on her.” She took two soup bowls from the cabinet and two large spoons from the drawer. “Got a mind like two mules.”
“Yeah, she sure does. Linnie is a big problem. Big problem.”
“I’m not so sure.”
“What do you mean?”
“That Linnie is just a young girl feeling her oats for the first time. By and by, she’ll come around. You’ll see.” Millie sighed deeply and then said in a low voice, “No, she ain’t the big problem.”
“Well then, what is?” Millie sank into a kitchen chair and patted the table. She meant for me to sit with her for a minute. “Let me just get this mixed and in the oven.”