Lowcountry Summer (20 page)

“Who? Yeah, hey. What can I do you for?” Pause. “What’s the charge? Aw, Gawd, Bubba! Did they give you a pair of pants at least? Jeesch! What’s bail?”

Some Bubba who needed pants was in trouble. Man with no pants? My curiosity was on high alert. Who was he talking to? There were at least twenty-two gazillion Bubbas in the Carolina Lowcountry and they were not necessarily of the Crimson Collar tribe. It could have been anyone. And why do southerners call some perfectly manly and refined men Bubba? Well, Bubba is usually a term of endearment, easily pronounced, and slapped on little tykes in their early years by their mothers so that the younger siblings can call their Big Bubba by a squishy nonthreatening name. Mommas also call their sons Bubba because they’re frequently named for their fathers to honor them. In Trip’s case, he was named for his father and grandfather, so he was a third, and the nickname is short for the triple III at the end of his name on his birth certificate. Fascinating, right? Probably not. Anyway, he sure was taking a long time on the phone.

I looked at him in concern, silently mouthing
what?
He gave me the two-minute signal with his fingers, indicating he would be off the phone momentarily. I nodded and kept quiet.

“Okay, okay. No, don’t worry. You can pay me back. I’ll be right there.” He closed his phone and looked at me. “What a world. Good thing I keep some cash in the house.”

“What happened?”

“That was Bubba Poole who just called. He was over at his girlfriend’s house when her husband came home and he had to jump out of the bedroom window in his altogether. He ran home through the woods with it swinging in the breeze and somehow, by the grace of God, no one saw him. But when he got to his house, his wife, Nancy, was standing on the back porch without her sense of humor. A disagreement ensued and then there was some altercation including some threats that were made against his manhood with a very scary large pair of garden shears, during which time he took flight once again and got picked up by Walterboro’s finest.”

“You couldn’t make this stuff up. But why is he calling you? You’re a matrimonial lawyer.”

“Poor Nancy. Nancy Poole’s one terrific lady. Pretty as a picture and sweet as pie. An unbelievable gardener, in fact. Hence the shears, I guess. Why is he calling me? Because this wasn’t Bubba’s first time up at bat and I can smell divorce in a gale wind the same way women can smell a shoe sale from fifty miles away. Besides all that, Bubba’s got more money than Croesus and a taste for danger. It will be lucrative as well as interesting.”

“Okay. Got it. So what about my nutritional thoughts? Can I go in there and do something drastic?”

“Caroline? You go in there and do whatever the hell you want in that kitchen. I couldn’t care less. Just remember those are my girls. I gotta go rescue Bubba.”

Trip was gone in minutes and I went into the kitchen to assess the battlefield. In the first place, the garbage cans were full. Dishes that had to have been from last week were stacked in the sink. The dishwasher was full but had not been run. There was grease all over the stove from the frying pans they had used to make their grilled cheese sandwiches. The more I looked, the more appalling the details became.

“Pretty messy, huh?”

I looked around to see Chloe with two plates in her hands. I took them from her but was hard-pressed to locate a spot to put them down. The countertops were covered with various open cartons, empty cans, balled-up paper towels . . . need I say more? It was probably the most disgusting kitchen I had ever seen, and if Frances Mae saw it in this condition, she’d go on a binge for sure. Say what you want about Frances Mae Litchfield, but she kept her house in pretty good shape, considering she had spent years living with young terrorists and an overgrown baby boy. I finally just put the plates on top of the refrigerator and sighed.

“Chloe? Do you want to help Aunt Caroline perform a miracle?”

“Sure!”

“Where does your momma keep the dishwasher detergent?”

She bustled around me and produced a box of Cascade from under the sink.

“This stuff?”

“Yep! That’ll do her!”

I filled the soap wells, closed the door, and turned on the dishwasher. It was so jammed full it could not have held another teaspoon. Then with Chloe’s help I pulled the plastic bags from the trash cans and tied off the tops. Some container had broken through the bags and leaked into the cans, which now smelled like something had died in there. As quickly as I could, I double-bagged them. This job was going to make me retch. I was sure of it.

“Can you put those on the back porch, sweetheart?”

“I can take them all the way out to the big cans, if you want.”

“Lord love ya, darlin’!” She was an ugly little duck to be sure, but her heart was in the right place. “Linnie? Belle? Where are you? Can you girls come to the kitchen now and give me a hand?”

Belle appeared with her dirty dishes in hand and Linnie was right behind her.

“What now?” Belle said, and handed me her plate and bowl as though I was the new housekeeper.

I reached out for Linnie’s dishes, stacked them on Belle’s, and shoved them into a spot on the counter.

“I want y’all to take these trash cans outside and rinse them out good with the hose and some big squirts of this.” I handed her a bottle of liquid detergent.

“Why me?” Belle said. “I’ve got homework to do.”

“So do I. Tons of it,” Linnie said. “Besides, that’s not our job.”

“Really? Whose job is it? Take a whiff,” I said.

They leaned over the rubber can, inhaled ever so slightly, and gagged.

“It’s unsanitary. Y’all made this mess, so let’s get busy and clean it up.”

They stood there and looked at each other and then back to me as though I had just crawled down the ladder of an alien spacecraft, deciding if it was worth it to defy me. They made a poor choice.

“Sorry,” Belle said, “I’ve got to go write a paper. Get Dad to do it when he comes home.”

“Yeah,” Linnie said. “Get Dad to do it.”

I was aghast. If I had ever spoken that way to Lavinia Boswell Wimbley, she would have blistered my bottom. But these two? Did they care? They spun around on their heels and started to leave the room.

“I don’t think so,” I said in my imperial-bitch voice. “Y’all stop right where you are and listen to me.” They stopped but did not turn to face me. “Turn around, please.”

They turned and looked at me with the most hateful faces I had ever seen on them. My heart was pounding in my ears. I was furious.

“Some things are about to change around here. First of all, we’re going to use some manners and have some respect for each other and show some respect for this home. If you continue to live in this squalor, you’re going to give yourselves E. coli. Nice people don’t live like this. Animals live like this. When I leave, this house is going to be clean, neat, and orderly. And you want me to tell your father to do it? Are you girls serious?”

“Um . . .” they said.

“He even works on a
Sunday night
so that you girls can have a nice house and all the blessings you have and that’s how you would treat him? He should come home and wash trash cans?”

“Um . . .”

Um, indeed, I thought.

“I think it’s time y’all started taking some responsibility around here. So either you can decide between yourselves who’s taking what job or I’ll decide for you. Do you understand me?”

“I was going to do the dishes later,” Belle said. “It’s no big deal.”

“Yeah, seriously!” Linnie said. “Why are you making such a big deal out of this? It’s just a couple of days’ worth of stuff.”

“How about this? I don’t like your attitude. You both have some nerve. And you know what? Your mother would pass out on the floor if she could see this place and hear the way you talk.”

I surprised myself at what I had just said. But it was true. Frances Mae may have been an insufferable gold digger, but it seemed we shared an affection for neatness and order.

Well, the mere mention of their mother struck the lightning rod of their guilt nerve. I could see an immediate change in their faces and in their body language. We went from arms crossed over the chest “Aunt Caroline is a coldhearted witch from the seventh circle of hell” to arms hanging like old baguettes “Aunt Caroline is probably right.” It was interesting that pushing the Frances Mae button had such a profound impact on them. Or maybe they had not thought I was serious at first, or they couldn’t envision me with a sponge, getting my hands dirty, doing real work.

“Okay, okay. Let’s go do the cans together and then you wash and I’ll dry,” Belle said to Linnie.

“Well, the dishwasher is still running, so why don’t we check out your laundry situation. After the cans are rinsed?” I suggested, and then realized they had no intention of moving beyond the kitchen. “You know, Rusty is looking for a housekeeper for y’all, but so far there are no takers. I’m thinking you girls will be out of underwear in a few days, so why not just take care of it now?”

“She’s right,” Linnie said to Belle as though I was invisible.

I
was
going to point out that it was impolite to refer to another in the room as he or she. It was right on the tip of my tongue. But you couldn’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear in one day, so I let it slide. They were poisonous enough as it was.

“Tell you what,” I said. “Do the delicate load first and then hang everything on hangers, regular clothes next, then sheets, and we’ll do towels last. How does that sound?”

“It sounds like four loads of laundry,” Belle said. “I’ll never get my paper written!”

I looked at my watch and saw it was almost seven o’clock. She was right. The wonderful thing about the approach of summer was that our part of the world enjoyed longer days, but more daylight was also easily translated into longer workdays.

“Okay, then just wash clothes tonight and we’ll do the sheets and towels another day.”

“Okay,” they said, and disappeared to throw their things, their dainty little thong bikinis that made me nauseous to look at them, into the washer.

“And the garbage cans,” I called out.

They returned, took the cans, and went outside to deal with them.

I immediately pulled another garbage can up to the refrigerator, opened the door, and gasped. What I found there is difficult to describe except to say that nothing, not one article in a bag, bowl, or container of any type would ever find its way to my table. They had yogurt so far beyond its expiration date it had reincarnated into another life. A milk carton on the second shelf in the back had chunks in it. The cheese had green patches. The bologna had turned white. The celery was limp. Here was evidence of Frances Mae’s illness galore. And, lo and behold, what do you think was stuck in between the ketchup, pickles, and mayonnaise on the shelves of the door? Red Bull. There had to be at least two dozen cans of the supercaffeinated energy drink derived from a lab. It had absolutely no nutritional value and it was on its way down the drain.

I stood there, snapping open the cans and pouring out their contents, when suddenly Chloe reappeared.

“Whatcha doing?” she asked.

“Cleaning out the fridge. What are you doing?”

“Linnie and Belle are gonna scream their heads off at you.”

“No. They’re not.” I paused for a moment, thinking of what to do if they did. “Why would they do that?”

“Because they drink that stuff morning, noon, and night.”

“Well, I think it’s very bad for people to ingest something like this and I want to keep them healthy, so I’m throwing out all the junk food and old stuff. Wanna help?”

“Nope. I don’t wanna get killed. I’ll be back.”

She skipped away. I knew at once she was going to find her big sisters and rat me out. I was right. Just as I had pitched the last package of greasy processed meat, it was pandemonium.

I could not tell you exactly who started the screaming, but I just stood there while my two nieces, whom I now believed to be in desperate need of a psychiatric evaluation, yelled and called me terrible names at the top of their lungs while Chloe covered her ears and ran out of the house.

“Momma’s coming back and she’ll fix you good!” Belle screamed.

“Momma’s gonna cut your stuck-up ass!” Linnie said.

“Your mother will do no such thing!!” I picked up my purse, looked at them calmly, and said, “Are you finished, ladies?”

They made some demonic guttural sounds and then gurgled to a close.

“Okay, here’s the deal. Your father and I strongly believe that eating processed food isn’t good for your hyperactive bodies, your wretched dispositions, or your mediocre academic performance. Red Bull does nothing positive to enhance those things either. It’s not even food.”

“But I need it!” Belle wailed.

“I’m sure. Addictive personalities run in families, you know. That should give you pause, kiddo.”

“You can’t stop us from drinking Red Bull!” Linnie said.

“With your father’s cooperation, we can minimize its use. At least in this house.”