I looked up at the cuckoo clock on the wall, its hands permanently stuck at 11:11 and wondered why we didn’t fix it or pitch it. It hadn’t worked since I was a child. But I hated moving or changing anything that Miss Lavinia had put in place.
Thirty minutes later, Trip walked in the back door, his hair still wet from his shower but combed perfectly in place. He dropped the morning newspapers on the table and Millie picked up
The State
.
“Morning!” he said, and gave me a hug. “I saw Matthew Strickland’s car here last night. Everything okay?”
“I thought I saw a bear,” I said without missing a beat.
“Really?” Trip said in all innocence. “We haven’t had bears around here in ages!”
Millie, whom I had always believed had a third eye hidden in the thick braid that encircled her head, had somehow missed Matthew’s arrival and departure. She shot me a look of surprise and then she sighed, with a pretty good idea of what had transpired last night.
“A bear,” she said, seeing right through me. “Girl, you are Miss Lavinia, more and more each day.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment,” I said.
“What am I missing here?” Trip poured himself a mug of coffee and ignored the possibility that I might have a romantic life. “Do you have any cream?”
“Nothing,” Millie said, shaking her head. “Second shelf on the left. You ain’t missing nothing.” The timer pinged. She put the newspaper down, grabbed an oven mitt, and pulled a sheet of biscuits from the oven, smiling because they were perfectly browned on top. With the deftness of a professional chef, she swept them into a linen napkin folded inside a sweetgrass basket and placed them on the table in front of Trip. “Just try to resist,” she said.
“Ah, Millie! You’re going to ruin my waistline.”
“Please. So what’s up with you today?” I said. I put a jar of strawberry jam and another of elderberry jam on the table with a plate of butter. “Do you want juice?”
“No, thanks. My day? Well, let’s see. This morning I’m going down to Beaufort to take a deposition at noon. Seems some stupid sumbitch, let’s call him Mr. Jones, thought his wife was screwing a friend of his, Mr. Smith. Turns out Mrs. Jones was just watering his plants, feeding his cat, and picking up Mr. Smith’s mail while he was away at a Bible camp trying to get over the fact that he had discovered his wife in flagrante with another woman, with whom she then ran off with to Calistoga, way out there in California. When Mr. Smith came home from Bible camp, Mr. Jones went over there to the house and shot him in the leg, only he missed, nearly amputating Mr. Smith’s jones, if you get my drift. Now Mrs. Jones wants a divorce and it’s pretty obvious to all parties involved that she actually did drink the Kool-Aid for Mr. Smith, but I hear tell Mr. Smith thinks she’s not Christian enough and he’s not interested in jeopardizing his ticket to the Pearly Gates. And Mrs. Jones is quite the delectable little morsel, so go figure. So that’s my day.”
“I’m a little confused over here,” I said.
“Me, too,” Millie said. “What kinda fool thing is all that?”
“There’s big money to be made when you mix up jealousy, infidelity, and guns. People are unbelievably stupid. So what’s on your agenda?” He stuffed a whole biscuit into his mouth, dripping butter down his chin.
“Gross.” I handed him a napkin. “The usual. But we’re looking at a deal with a big yogurt producer to provide their fruit, so we’ll see. It’s a private-label deal for Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club. Miss Sweetie is all excited. It would be Sweetie’s Yogurt and she’d have her face on the label.”
“Cool.”
“Very. So tell it, little brother. Did you talk to Rusty last night about taking the kids?”
“Of course I did.”
“And?”
“What do you think? I almost had to use the paddles on her.”
“Paddles? What are you saying?” Millie asked.
“He means heart-attack resuscitation paddles, right, genius?”
“Yeah. Millie? We got any eggs in the house?”
Millie, who was now perusing the obituaries, pushed her reading glasses down her nose and looked at him.
“You want scrambled, fried, or sunny-side up?”
“Any way you feel like making ’em. Thanks!”
“So, Millie and I have been trying to figure out a way to help you out of this
situation
and we’ve got an idea.”
“I’m sure,” he said with a trace of sarcasm.
His sarcasm was a sign to me that Trip was prepared to be annoyed over the meddling of two well-meaning women, but sarcasm and annoyance had no impact on his appetite as he buttered up his fourth biscuit and shoved it in his face. He continued.
“Look, I appreciate y’all’s concern, but Rusty ain’t having none of it. Okay? I take the kids, I lose Rusty. It’s a lose-lose. Not happening.”
“But what if you could get Frances Mae to sign new separation papers and you were free to marry Rusty within a year?”
Millie slipped a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him and he immediately took two huge bites.
“Thanks, Millie. These eggs are so pretty they ought to be on the cover of
Southern Living
magazine!”
“You’re right,” Millie said.
Trip turned his attention back to me. “Oh, sure. And how are we going to accomplish that? Should I put a pistol to her head and just tell her to sign on the dotted line?”
“No. And please don’t talk when you have a mouth full of food.”
“Thanks, Lavinia.”
“That’s
Miss
Lavinia to you.”
“Right. Well, let’s hear your brilliant idea because no tactic I’ve tried in all these years has worked.”
“You’re gonna use the old tried-and-true method. M-O-N-E-Y. Open your wallet, Trip. Money works every time.”
Trip may have been a great guy in many ways, but he was very, very tight with a dollar. In my opinion, there is very little more offensive than a cheap man.
Trip sighed deeply. “Did you hear that, Millie? My lovely sister wants me to spend even
more
money on Frances Mae’s shenanigans!”
“Yes, sir! I hear her giving you what for and I’m saying we don’t think you can afford
not
to pay for her nonsense.”
“Humph,” Trip said.
So far, Trip was unimpressed with our point of view.
“Listen, you’re going to give her that house in Walterboro and you’re going to give her a generous alimony settlement. And you’re going to tell her that she can have the girls back when she’s been sober for some period of time, which you’ll figure out. Then you tell Rusty to start planning a wedding.”
“I already give Frances Mae everything I can. And you forget I have a new swimming pool to pay for. And the landscaping. And the lighting. And the irrigation. And the outdoor grill and all that. And since my investments aren’t earning what they were, I’m taking every case that’s out there to keep the
Enterprise
afloat. I’m not made out of money, you know.”
“Who is? But what if you
stop
paying her? Just don’t give her another dime? She’ll listen then. What if—no wait—what happens
when
she gets caught driving drunk and goes to jail? And she
will
drive drunk again and she
will
get caught. And they have to put her in jail! It’s mandatory! All I have to do is make one phone call. Then you’ll get full custody anyway and she gets nothing. Not one dime! Zero! Bubkes! So, just tell her it’s all or nothing. Then we stage an intervention and off she goes to rehab, which I’ll research, and this time you lay down the law with her.”
Trip looked at me with the most incredulous expression I had ever seen on his face.
“What?” I said.
“Why didn’t I think of this?”
“Good question.”
“And you really think Rusty will go along with this?”
“Of course she will. She adores you. I think she will really try with the girls. Besides, she’ll be busy planning a wedding. All females love weddings and your girls will probably want to help. Well, they might.”
Trip still looked very uncertain.
“Trip, listen to me. This is the best of all possible worlds. The girls will be safe and out of danger. Frances Mae will no longer be a threat and she’ll get the help she needs. And Rusty, bless her heart, gets you, till death do y’all part. Now, why she thinks you’re such a prize is anyone’s guess . . .”
“Oh, thanks. And you’ll call Matthew Strickland?”
“It will be my pleasure!”
“This might actually work. Anyway, it’s sure worth trying. The one thing that has Rusty deeply concerned is the safety of the girls. I mean, if we take them and they don’t behave, there’s always boarding school.”
“That’s the spirit. I actually heard about a boarding school in Georgia where they make the kids dig up onions when they get into trouble and they have to recite Bible verses before they’re allowed to eat their dinner.”
“That could be just the ticket for my little scamps.”
“So you’ll talk to Frances Mae, then?”
Trip wiped his mouth with his napkin and stood. “Yes, I promise.” He gave me a kiss on the cheek and kissed the back of Millie’s hand.
“Ladies? I’m off to further the cause of justice. Thank you for breakfast, Mrs. Smoak, and thank you both for your excellent counsel.” He saluted us and left, slamming the door behind him.
“He’s such an ass,” I said to Millie, and picked up a piece of Trip’s fifth biscuit, popping it into my mouth. “Why he ever tore up those separation papers is anybody’s guess. He must’ve been crazy.”
“Humph. Call Rusty and invite her over here for lunch,” Millie said.
I looked at Millie’s face. Her eyes were in a tight squint and her jaw was clenched like a steel trap. “What’s wrong?”
“Something he said didn’t set right with me.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. But if he’s worried about losing her because of taking custody of his own flesh and blood, then as sure as my name is Millie Smoak, he shouldn’t be marrying her.”
“Lord in heaven! Millie, you’re absolutely right.”
“Humph. Usually I am.” She opened the refrigerator door and looked inside, taking inventory. She pulled out the remains of a roasted chicken. “How’s chicken salad?”
“Great. Waldorf salad?”
She nodded. “Sure enough, if I can find me a decent apple in this wasteland. When’s the last time we went to the grocery store?”
“I can go this morning. I was actually going over to Miss Sweetie’s anyway. I can stop at the Bi-Lo. It’s no problem.”
“You don’t worry; just go call Rusty. I’ll call our Mr. Jenkins and tell him to shake a leg. We both need a change of scenery. Too nice a day to be inside.”
Millie was getting about the business of reducing the chicken to bones and I went upstairs to my office.
Around the time Eric went off to college and I was thinking about what to do with myself, I redecorated a guest room that hadn’t seen a coat of paint or a new throw pillow in years. In between the windows, I put in built-in cabinets with glass doors across the top and shelves across the bottom. I still had not installed the lighting inside the cabinets but I would get around to it. I sighed, remembering the precious contractor who did all the work. He was Irish, complete with blue eyes the color of the sky and a brogue so thick he was almost impossible to understand. Michael was his name and we didn’t do a whole lot of talking anyway. Lord, he was amazing! I finally stopped seeing him because it was getting too serious and the last thing I wanted was another husband.
I decided to call him and see if he had a good electrician who could get the kind of lighting I wanted. I couldn’t remember his last name, so I wound up going through my files and found it right where I had left it, stapled to the folder that held all the invoices of the renovation. Michael Sullivan. How could I forget a name like that? It seemed that lately I was forgetting things all the time. It was probably nerves. Maybe a reunion with the contractor would be what I needed to put me back on track. I hesitated, knowing that the phone call would lead to “why don’t we get together” and I put the folder back, not wanting to reopen that can of worms. When a love affair was over, it was over.
I called Rusty.
“Caroline?”
“Hey, girl! Want to have lunch today? Millie’s making her fabulous Waldorf salad.”
“Absolutely! I’ve been working in the yard since the crack of dawn, hacking away at the bamboo with a machete like Indiana Jones. I’ll tell you what. Once bamboo gets going, it takes over.”
“I hear you! I’ve got to get on Mother’s roses, too. They’re a mess. If it’s not black spot, it’s aphids.”
“Maintaining a garden is never ending, isn’t it? What time?”
“How’s noon?”
“Great! I’ll hop in the shower and see you soon!”
I hung up and thought what in the world was wrong with Trip’s girls that they couldn’t see with their own eyes just how wonderful Rusty was? Didn’t they know by now that it was Rusty who bought every card and gift they received from their father? Didn’t they know that it was Rusty who made sure that every parents’ night, play, and recital they had was on Trip’s calendar in red letters? Hadn’t Rusty chosen Amelia’s and Isabelle’s cars? And arranged their insurance, all of their tuition payments, and everything else? She did all this, operating quietly in the background, not asking for or expecting a single word of thanks from them. Whenever we talked about the animosity of the girls, she always said that she took it in stride because she understood how problematic her relationship with Trip was for them to understand and reconcile. No, by anyone’s measure, Rusty was a wonderful woman whose sole purpose in life had become seeing about my brother’s happiness and well-being. He was lucky to have her and his hardheaded quartet of ignoramuses was lucky to have her working on their behalf.