‘Charleston?’
‘Carteret’s an old Charleston name. She said David wasn’t fit to bring up a child, and that was that. They duked it out in court and she won.’ She taps the page. ‘Which is how Lucy ended up down here.’
‘So you did know my mother.’
‘We didn’t, like, hang out with her.’ She sighs. ‘I’m afraid nobody did.’
Like a good student, she waits for his next question, but he is dead beat. Flat out of questions, he sinks into the down sofa cushions. The Florida room smells of cleaning products; so does nice Mrs McCall.
Finally she offers, ‘She didn’t hang with us. When we were little, it was the car and driver. Later she had her own car.’
‘She gave my mother the car?’
‘Oh, she gave her everything she wanted. Clothes. The car, when she was old enough to drive. Lucy was the only thing she had. It’s sad,’ Nenna adds without explanation, ‘they used to be so close.’
‘Lucy and her grandmother. What happened?’
‘She was your great-grandmother, I suppose.’ Smiling, she proffers the plate.
Deflection, so ladylike. Must be a Southern thing.
‘Another cookie? I’m famous for these.’
He is both grateful and sorry that she isn’t wearing perfume. For Dan, perfume is a distinct turnoff; this lady smells of toothpaste and fresh shampoo, which makes it harder to refuse. For the first time since the hospital he is aware of his body, which is waking up after a week of grieving.
Yo, Dude!
‘Thanks, but I’d better not.’
‘Do you have a girlfriend?’
He did but he doesn’t. Nenna doesn’t need to know. ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
‘Who?’
‘Lucy.’
‘Oh, Lucy. Everybody was in love with her.’ Nenna’s face turns into a mix CD, producing music from several different albums all at once. ‘We thought she and Bobby . . .’ She waits a beat too long, considering, before she buys him off with a smile. ‘But you never know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Hidden fires,’ she says.
Reporters know silence works better than a question. ‘Yes Ma’am.’
‘Oh please,’ she says. ‘We are way past Ma’am.’
‘About these hidden fires . . .’
‘You never know what’s going on behind people’s faces, do you?’
‘No.’
The pause that follows takes on a life of its own. He hears ice cubes dropping. Footsteps upstairs. The husband stomped out like Bigfoot yesterday. Must be Steffy. Wish she’d come down.
‘Something happened,’ Nenna says finally.
Keep your head down, Carteret. The best interviewers are invisible. ‘And . . .’
‘And . . .’
Repeat, so she’ll have to complete the sentence. ‘Something happened and . . .’
Generations of ice cubes drop before she says, ‘To be honest with you, we never really knew.’
This brings his head up fast. ‘Ma’am?’
‘Nenna.’
‘Nenna.’
She goes on, but in a new direction. ‘Lucy’s father went to Clemson, I think. Unless it was The Citadel. Either way . . .’
‘David Carteret.’ His next source. ‘Still in Charleston, right?’
‘We heard he died.’
Oh fuck
.
‘Suicide.’
Oh, fuck.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘I never knew him. It’s OK.’
‘Either way,’ she finishes, as if this explains it all, ‘he wasn’t from around here.’
‘I see.’ This is a lie. He will never understand this town.
‘I mean, he wasn’t one of us.’ Nenna pauses to regroup. When she goes on, it is about nothing he expected. ‘You know, Davis and I are what Fort Jude calls
having trouble
.’ She lets this float between them.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘You don’t know what it’s been like.’ She reaches for his arm, rethinks and laces her hands like a child playing
this is the church and this is the steeple
. ‘He fell in love with his first cousin. How obscene is that?’
Because he has noplace to go with this, he sinks the same old hook. ‘Did she have a boyfriend?’
‘Who, Gayle? Hell no. She’s already used up one husband, and she’s getting cranked up to dump number two . . .’
‘I meant Lucy.’
‘. . . Clueless Ed. Who knows what the law is in California. For all I know, she has Davis lined up to be number three.’ Nenna raises her head, looking at him until he softens and meets her eyes. ‘It’s my mistake, really. Davis wasn’t local either.’
The silence stretches so thin that he is obliged to ask. ‘Um, about my mother . . .’
‘I’m so stupid, how was I supposed to know? I mean, it’s practically incest, but how could I not see the signs?’ Now that she has his full attention she says, ‘I may have to divorce him.’
‘I see.’
Her voice lifts in a trill of discovery. ‘In fact, I think I will.’
‘Thanks, Mrs Um.’ He’s tired. They’ve been sitting here too long. Clumsily, he weighs exit lines. ‘I’ve wasted enough of your time.’
‘Oh, not at all.’ Nenna puts her hand on his so swiftly that he jumps. ‘You need more ice.’
‘Not really. I should go.’
‘It’ll only take a minute, and I’ll get more cookies too . . .’
‘No thanks. Really,’ he says, too late. Rounding the island that separates the territories of Florida room and kitchen area, she strikes for the interior, rattling utensils, foiling any attempt to shout goodbye and go.
Dan is alone, surprised by an unexpected message from his body.
Hi there
. Nenna’s too old, but the presentation is very nicely done.
Stop that.
There’s only one safe way to do this.
Get the fuck out.
He can’t, quite. He needs to go but now that the possibility is obvious, messages keep coming. Available. Coming on to you.
I have to get out of here.
As if she has powers and can hear him thinking, Steffy McCall slaps into the room on rubber flip-flops. Dead on target, she says, ‘You don’t have to stay just because Mommy says you do.’
‘How drunk was I?’
‘You were pretty disgusting.’
‘The shit I was, I don’t remember that.’
‘Do you remember anything?’
‘Not if I can help it.’ That grin.
Bobby sighs. ‘Right.’
Trailing Al Chaplin’s old sweats, which Bobby threw on him after the shower, Brad surges up from the sofa like Jabba the Hutt, all phlegm and bad odor. ‘Where am I?’
Bobby grimaces. ‘My house.’
With Brad, there is always the possibility that he will rise up and pound the shit out of you. Instead he blinks, belching, ‘What am I doing at your house?’
‘Beats the crap out of me.’
Some lame idea Chape had, that smug, privileged bastard, gearing up to remove his glossy nuclear family from the fiasco at the Fort Jude Club. Efficient, too. Chape couldn’t herd his nuclear support group into his Escalade and return them to the safety of their showy house with its gold bathroom fixtures and terrazzo floors until he processed certain particles. Hugging busty little Sallie like a kid with his squeeze at the senior houseparties, he turned and handed Brad off to Bobby with the condescending smile of a man who was born knowing how life works.
‘Best you take him. You people are supposed to be good at interventions.’
‘There’s a difference between intervention and garbage disposal,’ Bobby said, too late.
‘Carter will help you shovel him into the car,’ Chape said, propping Brad up against a surly teenager who looked too much like Chape.
‘But my car is . . .’
‘No problem. I had Marco bring your car in from the shack.’
Astounding, the man’s level of organization. He dumped Brad and that was that. Smart kid, Chape’s son came armed with one of the club shower curtains, ripped off a rod in the locker room, to keep the damage contained, and there was damage. It will be days before Bobby gets the smell out of the car.
Thank God his siblings left last night to go birdwatching in Homosassa Springs. With her life in tatters, Maggie loves to study anything smaller than she is, solemnly checking off creatures sighted against her guide book. It gives her the illusion that she’s getting a grip, which she isn’t. And Al? Al has nothing better to do. There’s a bar he likes in Homosassa, so he indulges her.
When he made it to his feet after several tries, Brad went padding out through the dining room without breaking anything, although it was close. If the gods are kind, Bobby will get shut of him and expunge all traces before they get back tonight.
The fat fuck is in the kitchen now, sticking his head under the faucet, Bobby knows the sound well enough. Then he hears the fridge door slam. He’s out there drinking Bobby’s seltzer straight from the bottle or orange juice out of the carton, smearing the opening with disgusting Brad-drool. Worse. Brad’s always been a backwash kind of guy, you didn’t want to drink after him, so he’ll have to throw everything out. Bobby waits a minute because he doesn’t really want to see it going down. He goes into the kitchen reluctantly. Brad doesn’t see him at first.
Then he does, with a resentful, ‘Oh, it’s you.’
Bobby shrugs. ‘My house.’ He shouldn’t have to explain these things.
‘And I’m here . . . why?’
‘Chape sent you.’
‘It figures. Fucking Chape.’
‘Chape is overorganized.’
‘That’s one way of putting it. And you brought me here after . . .’
Brad Kalen, thinking, is alarming, but Bobby isn’t about to help him out.
He stands there scratching his armpits like a monkey. Oook. Oook. After a long time he asks, ‘Who bailed me out?’
‘You weren’t in jail.’
‘Where was I?’
‘You don’t remember?’
‘Not really.’ Brad’s grin drips vestigial charm. ‘Where was I?’
‘The club. Engagement party for your daughter.’
‘Oh, fuck. Patty. I forgot her fucking party.’ The grin gets sweatier as he asks, ‘But hey, I made it to the party anyway?’
‘If you want to call it that.’
‘Is she still speaking to me?’
‘I wouldn’t.’
‘Don’t look at me like that.’
Bobby says grimly, ‘It’s the best I can do.’
‘Ug. I’m beginning to get the picture. So, the party. Um, did I do anything?’
‘It was pretty bad.’
‘Something I said?’
‘You weren’t rightly talking.’
‘What did I, flash my dick? Yack in somebody’s lap?’
‘You were out cold. You didn’t do anything.’
Brad blinks with that wide blue, innocent,
who-me?
look, he’s been getting by on it ever since first grade. ‘Then what was so bad?’
‘If you have to ask, I can’t explain it.’ Bobby isn’t really listening to this conversation. He’s weighing his options. Chape’s done with his personal
pro bono
renovation project and it’s clear Brad’s daughter isn’t about to come and get him, she probably never wants to see him again. Is there a removal service he can call, or is he going to have to shovel rank, disgusting Brad Kalen back into the car, which already reeks of him?
‘What the fuck happened?’
He says harshly, ‘You landed on the bandstand like a side of beef.’
‘I did?’ Brad’s face is working. He is casting around for ways to make the best of this, but the whole thing is too much, even for him. He tries for a smile. ‘But, hey, I made my appearance.’
‘If you want to call it that.’
‘So Patty can stop complaining. It’s not like I’m never there for her.’
‘You don’t want to know what Patty would say.’ Bobby would do anything to scrape that pleased, smug look off Brad’s fat face. ‘You know who dragged you in and dumped you, right?
‘Fucking Walker.’
‘Right.’ Funny how Brad gets this part so quickly. Is this what he does, pretend to forget things he knows, but would rather not remember?
Brad says heavily, ‘Walker Pike.’
‘So you did know.’
‘I do now.’
‘I’m surprised he didn’t kill you.’
‘Who, me? Why would he want to do that?’
Every muscle in Bobby’s face tightens. ‘After what you did.’
Brad bulks up, a monument to denial.
Stupid lout, Bobby thinks, as Brad’s shoulders sag into a simian slope and his head sinks into a mess of baggy sweatshirt and rolls of flesh. Fucking Neanderthal. Standing here in my kitchen all rank and foul. Even though they aren’t standing close, the hangover smell is strong enough to unpack its luggage and hang up its dirty underwear inside Bobby’s head.
Eighteen months sober, Bobby hates the feeling because he knows it so well. He hates the memories filling his kitchen; they came in with fucking Brad, he’s already knee-deep but they’re still pouring in. Overweight, drowsy and not exactly harmless – benign for the moment at least, Kalen scratches his belly under the sweatshirt and waits for the next thing. It’s like watching fruit rot. Bobby wonders how they could have been friends. If Brad’s folks hadn’t given him the motor bike, the car, the money, if they hadn’t let him throw those big parties when they were out of town and asked no questions when they came back, would he and Chape and the others have hung out with Brad in the first place? Would they have tolerated him?
Aware that his unwanted guest hasn’t responded, Bobby tilts his head and leans closer, trying to get a good look into those dull eyes. ‘Are you in there?’
‘Shut up.’ Brad is thinking. It is excruciating to watch. Awareness comes in stages. Finally he looks up. ‘Shit, he can’t still be mad about that old thing.’
‘He wanted to kill you after what you did.’ Bobby is listening hard. He waits for Brad to fill in the blanks, which he refused to do back then. ‘That night. After you guys rolled me out of the car. What happened, anyway?’
Whatever happened, Brad stonewalled Bobby then. He is stonewalling him now. ‘Shit happened.’ It’s his way of saying:
Nothing.
‘Then why did Lucy leave town before graduation?’ God he despises Brad.
‘Man, that was a hundred years ago.’ Looking briefly at his fingernails, Brad lifts both hands and scratches his head: the thick gold hair has gone dark, but he still has those spoiled-rich-kid curls. ‘Besides, we just got there, I barely had the girl’s . . .’
‘Don’t say it.’
‘. . . pants off. Well, I didn’t.’ Guilt makes him insistent. ‘We didn’t do shit.’
‘You would have, and Walker knows it.’ Bobby knows Brad is too stupid to grasp the relationship between the intention and the act: crazy night at the end of a bad week, they were all out of their mind on vodka, stoned and high on whatever else they were taking, wrecked by the pressure of last things. What would Bobby have done if he hadn’t been laid out facedown in the mangroves by the time it came down? What could he have prevented, that changed certain lives? He doesn’t know.