Think about it. If you spend ten years thinking you wish you could go to China, then there’s a good chance the experience would give your soul something it really needs. I’m not talking about people who say, Damn, I wish I could run away to China this minute. Running away never solved a daggum thing. In fact, real happiness is hidden in facing yourself, asking yourself what it is you really want out of this life and then being honest about it. By the way, you couldn’t pay me money to go to China.
I’m lucky because I
always
knew what I wanted. It just took one helluva long time to get it, that’s all. For me to be content and happy, I had to be on this particular island. I mean, I couldn’t breathe right anyplace else. I’m serious. I’ve asked other people who live here what they think about that and they actually agree with me. They don’t feel like they belong anyplace else either. And, my whole spirit is stronger here.
Naturally, I have a little theory about why that’s so. Islanders are their own species. We have to live near the ocean to stay in touch with our souls. Everything is amplified. The breeze is sweeter, the air is thicker, the sun is relentless, and the nights are more mysterious. God’s fingerprints are all over it and, before y’all go get your knickers in a knot, I know that you should go to church but I also believe you can talk to God anywhere. Especially on the Isle of Palms.
We’re not a bunch of shiftless pansies either. We’re actually a pretty courageous bunch, usually unafraid of anything that Mother Nature slings our way. Hurricanes? Big deal. This may sound crazy but for some peculiar reason we need to, no, we
have
to stand in front of the angry ocean right before a storm hits. When I was little my daddy, Doc, would say, Anna?—let’s go have a look at what the Atlantic is up to before the eye hits. We would stand on a sand dune and inhale enough salt to actually elevate our blood pressure. It was good for us. Evacuations? We usually stayed at home. Until Hugo. Then everybody threw up their arms and said, just why did we pay these hefty insurance premiums in the first place? If the hurricane was a real monster, we just packed up our precious belongings and the family photographs and got out of town. We’d let the old storm have her way for a day or two and then we cleaned up her mess. Afterward, we’d rock away the nights on each other’s porches, laughing and telling stories about hurricanes for a million years.
Islanders recognize something kindred in each other. Shoot, if I get a tourist in my chair and she says she’s from North Carolina I handle her one way . . . like a Yankee, but don’t let’s go around telling that, okay? But if she tells me that she lives in Wrightsville Beach, well, then she gets treated like an old friend.
Beach people love life harder than anybody else. We do! We have a tendency to be, well, slightly excessive in our behavior. You usually won’t see us eat one boiled peanut, drink one beer, tell one joke or get just a little bit of sun. So if you tell me you’re from a beach, I
know
who you are. Except if you’re from California where everything wiggles. See what I mean? Hurricanes don’t ruffle me, but earthquakes? Not me, sugar.
People who live on islands are generally unpretentious too. This is a quality that is greatly overlooked and undervalued by others. Look at all those people who live in New York. They have outfits for everything! They have jogging clothes, which aren’t the same as their workout clothes, which aren’t the same as their weekend clothes and, Lord have mercy on us, every stitch they own is black! Shoot! They probably blow out their hair to go around the corner to buy a newspaper!
I just couldn’t live like that. I mean, God bless them, they’ve had their trials for sure. It’s just that I don’t think life is supposed to take that much effort. Down here in the Lowcountry, we just prefer to take things a little slower and savor each moment.
Arthur says that in New York City dinner for two in a fancy restaurant can cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. You could spend a right good bit of money down here on dinner too. That is, if you wanted to drive to Charleston. Out here on this island, you’d probably have to wait twenty minutes for a table, if you went to a restaurant that took reservations (which they don’t), because we don’t like to rush people when they’re trying to have supper and enjoy each other’s company. Actually, most of us would rather stay home and eat what somebody caught that day along with a salad or something. Maybe it’s because of the heat, but our big meal is in the middle of the day, if we can manage that much time for dinner. But supper (which is called dinner elsewhere) is usually a smaller meal.
Island people aren’t like other people out there across the causeway and we don’t want to be either. We have our own style of everything and our own point of view. Living here makes you practical. I knew all along that my business would be recession proof. Go ask any woman you know. If it’s a toss-up between doing her roots and buying a dress, she’s getting her hair done before you can blink. And I knew, or at least I hoped, that my old clients wouldn’t mind coming over here from Charleston. Every last one came because when women find a hairdresser they like, they stick with them like white on rice.
And then there are the transplants. These days it seems like everyone I meet is from Ohio. All these folks moved here to live. I tell them, Look, sugar, you might not be able to become a Charlestonian until you’ve been dead for a bazillion generations. But! I say, you can become an islander and they seem plenty happy with that.
Attitude is everything in life, isn’t it? We are all capable of change. Even me. In the last six months, I found myself believing in the basic goodness of people again, and in the power of love and in miracles. You don’t believe in miracles? Well, when we’re all done here, come on by my house and see my yard.
I had somebody from a magazine stop by my house the other day. This fellow was a horticulturalist and a photographer for some magazine in Vermont or someplace like that. He wanted to know what kind of fertilizer I used. I laughed so hard I had to reapply my mascara. I said, Honey, I don’t use a thing except Lowcountry air and island magic! He shook his head and left, thinking I was playing with his head. But I had told him the truth. I never lie. Okay, I might leave out some facts but that’s different.
I’m sure you’ve heard all these stories about the South being haunted and people here talking to the dead and seeing ghosts. Bad news. They are all true. Every last one of them is true. Things happen here all the time that you can’t explain. That’s just the Lowcountry. When you get out to the islands, the weird factor accelerates. We don’t mind. We adore the bizarre and inexplicable as much as we treasure our eccentrics.
Every life has its share of trouble. Like Miss Angel says, every dog has his day but every cat has his afternoon. Miss Angel is my next-door neighbor and the neighborhood philosopher. She’s also a regular Edgar Cayce. I dream, but not like her. But don’t worry, we’ll get to her. There are a lot of people I want you to meet.
I wasn’t always content, you know. I went through some hellish suffering to finally love my life. But I never gave up hope. Like I said, it was my early years that were the worst. I had to go through them to understand what was worth fighting for and what wasn’t and I needed to learn how to just get along in the world. I guess the best place to start would be with Momma.
Do you need some more tea? Well, let’s get it now because I’ve been holding back the tide for a long time. I think all the failures and victories of my life have come together pretty nice—like a string of graduated pearls. I can talk about Momma now without being upset but, when I was ten? Honey, I would rather have taken a stick in my eye than hear her name so much as whispered.
One
Hearts of Fire
1975
THIS is what I remember. That day, all I could think about was getting home and riding my bicycle. In my ten-year-old
opinion, I had wasted the best hours of my day as a prisoner of the Sullivan’s Island Elementary School, in a hot stuffy classroom, on the receiving end of an education that I was absolutely sure was entirely unnecessary. It was late May and the temperature was already up there in the stratosphere.
Teenagers with surfboards and suntans crossed every intersection of the islands coming to and from the beach. Summer residents were already arriving in hordes and my vacation was overdue. I could barely concentrate on anything except going barefoot.
I climbed up on the school bus at two forty-five and rushed for a seat by a window, that is, a window that would open. It’s funny what the mind remembers and what it forgets. Like most girls would, I remember exactly what I wore. It was my pale yellow sundress, hand-smocked with green thread. I had on green sandals that matched. I was a major hot tamale in that dress. It was true. In the pecking order of my peers, I had the best clothes. Not the best hair (blond and thin) and not the best face (too pale—invisible eyebrows and lashes), but definitely the best clothes. I remember thinking that even though I had on my favorite dress that day, the humid weather and the proximity of summer vacation were making me cranky.
As I struggled to push the window open, I began to perspire. It just annoyed me that the adults in charge of our lives gave so little consideration to the comfort of children. Our desks were so hard on our bony little backsides, it was no wonder we squirmed around like our britches were spray-starched with itching powder. Weighted down by books, we were positive we would grow up with warped bones. The steaming cafeteria could clean your pores. Everything about life seemed worrisome and inconvenient. Even the paper towels in the girls’ bathroom had a chemical smell and were so stiff that you were better off just to dry your hands on your clothes, if you washed your hands at all, which, of course, I always did. Germs.
Worst of all, by May, the voices of our teachers were like unending white noise—just some droning yammer in the background. I’d had enough of the fifth grade and I knew one thing for sure. When I grew up, I was determined to change a few things about the slipshod way children were treated by the authorities.
That day, I was just all a-twitter recounting my juvenile list of complaints as I boarded the ancient yellow rattletrap to go home. The only good thing about the bus ride was Lovely Leon, the driver. He was so cute and he flirted with all of us girls. His longish straight brown hair was always in his eyes, which I found irresistible. We loved him and our little hearts danced when he winked at us. Leon was a senior in high school, but he finished classes at two o’clock and was hired to drive us home. Because I lived at the end of the Isle of Palms, I got to ride with him longer, as most of the others got off the bus sooner. Sometimes he would start with the furthest stop and work his way back. And that was what he did that day.
In the back of the bus, Eddie Williams (the first stop on his route) was giving Patty Grisillo (the third stop on his route) an Indian burn of Olympic quality. She was biting him on the arm. Hard. They were both screaming. Patty’s friends were whacking Eddie with their back-packs and Eddie’s friends were laughing and telling him to cut it out.
“Y’all are acting like a bunch of idiots!” Leon said. “Eddie? Get your butt up here and work the door! I’m going to the Isle of Palms first!”
The bus lumbered up Middle Street toward Breach Inlet at twenty-five miles an hour, moaning and complaining with every shift of the gears. Restless drivers passed us and we swore they would get tickets for passing a school bus. We made faces through the windows and hollered at the top of our little lungs at the disrespectful criminals who zoomed around us. They were merely further proof of the overall disregard adults had for children.
We crossed the bridge and headed for Forty-first Avenue, way up at the end of the island. Everybody was carrying on, despite Leon’s pleas to
Please y’all! Shut the hell up!
Somebody, Sparky Witte, I think, said, “Look at all the police cars!”
All at once, the bus became quiet. There was a huge commotion where I lived. Fire engines appeared behind us and Leon pulled over to let them roar past. They were from the Sullivan’s Island Fire and Rescue Squad. Must be huge, I thought. We followed them, going a little faster than before.
When we got to Forty-first Avenue, the police had blocked off the road. People were all over the streets. Leon didn’t know what to do, so he stopped and waited for a moment. I started to shake, afraid that whatever the trouble was, that it was happening at my house.
Leon got off and told us to stay put and be quiet. He walked over to a police officer and must have explained his predicament. He had a kid on the bus who lived on that street and what should he do? The police officer walked over to the bus with Leon, boarded the bus, and called my name.
“Anna Lutz?”
“Yes, sir?” I felt numb.
“Come with me, honey.”
I looked at this uniformed stranger with the gun on his hip and knew something terrible had happened. Lillian, my best friend, wanted to come with me, but he said,
No, just Anna
. It wasn’t a good idea, he said. Lillian started to cry and so did I. I still remember her crying and everyone saying,
Oh, no! What happened? Call us, Anna, okay? You okay?
I wasn’t okay. Not one bit. How could I be anything
but
scared to death? I walked with the policeman who introduced himself as Beau. He held my sweaty hand and carried my backpack for me. I knew something horrific was waiting for me. As we rounded the corner, I saw it all.
My house was surrounded by police cars. It frightened me so badly I wanted to run. I just stood there with this Beau person, waiting for someone to explain this to me. What did it all
mean?
Had my house been robbed? Did they get away? Did they steal all our stuff? Were there a bunch of bad guys still inside—was that why so many police cars were there?