Return to Sullivans Island (5 page)

She looked out toward the sunset. The radiant western sky was streaked with impossible colors, and the sun, blinding white in late afternoon, had become a massive fireball. It was so gorgeous she wondered how she had stayed away so long. Perhaps I should place a story here, she thought.

“Sandwich?” Beth said to Aunt Teensy and Uncle Henry.

“Thanks, sugar,” Teensy said, and took a nibble. “Ooh la la! Heavenly!”

You have no idea, Beth thought, but maybe not. “Uncle Henry?”

“He can have the rest of mine,” she said.

“Right,” Beth said, looking her square in the eyeballs, sending her a subliminal message that they all knew she was the Vom Queen. Gross. “Momma? Want a sandwich?”

“Sure. Mmmm! Ham salad? Did Cecily make this?”

“Nope.” She wondered if she had been on the receiving end of this kind of thing before. “They just appeared on the freaking table. Crusts off, the whole nine yards.”

“Don’t say
freaking,
darling. It implies you really meant to use the F word.”

“I did.”

Susan took a bite and then stared at her with the most peculiar expression, as what Beth had said finally dawned on her.

“What?”

“There’s only ever been one person who could make ham salad like this.”

“Yeah, and she ain’t exactly dead, despite the facts.”

“Livvie. Some pretty strange things happen in this house, don’t they?”

“You’re telling me? At least I won’t get lonely while you’re gone.”

“You’re not frightened to be here on your own, are you? Oh, honey, I hadn’t even thought about that.”

“Right. No, don’t worry; I’ll call an exorcist if I have to.”

“Very funny. Just send Simon the bill.”

Maggie came over to inspect the platter. “Oh, good! I was so sure Cecily would forget all about this!” She took a bite and looked at the surprise on their faces. “What? I whipped up two quarts of this mess earlier today and cut up the bread too! Why in the world are y’all looking at me so funny? Have one, they’re pretty fabulous if I say so myself.”

“Here,” Beth said, handing the platter to her mother, “I gotta go strangle somebody.”

She took a bottle of wine from the bar and marched back to the kitchen, where Cecily was waiting, laughing so hard there were tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I’m going to have to kill you,” Beth said.

“Oh my! You should have seen your face! Oh! Goodness!”

“You must think I’m a gullible dumbass,” she said, although she was having a hard time staying angry with Cecily whooping like a crazy person.

“Oh, Beth, I’m sorry. I am. I just couldn’t resist. But that doesn’t mean this ’eah house
ain’t
haunted, and you know it too, don’t you?”

“Yep. I know it. Oh, just forget it,” she said, wondering how she could get her back.

Beth refilled their glasses and thought about the confounding truth of what she had just said. After all, years ago she had certainly seen Livvie in the mirror all through her childhood like many others had. And some unseen hand had most definitely turned down her bed the day that she arrived. They did hear things go bump in the night, all the time in fact, and the family’s possessions moved around from one shelf or table to another on a regular basis while the clock chimed when it wasn’t even wound. The bed in the room where her grandmother used to sleep was perpetually unmade no matter how many times they pulled up the covers, and a man who fit the description of her grandfather was frequently seen in the yard by neighbors, shaking his fist at the house. What in the world did these things mean? It would be an interesting topic for discussion when everyone got sick of talking about themselves. Which could take eons, she thought.

“How’s that flounder coming? Anything I can do to help?” Maggie appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. “Y’all getting acquainted?”

“I’ve got her number all right,” Beth said, smiled at Maggie, and hooked her thumb in Cecily’s direction.

“Now, just what do you mean by that?” Maggie said. “Come on, the buffet’s all set up, so let’s get that fish on the fire. We’re all about to swoon from hunger.” She began slitting the sides of brown paper bags and laying them on the table to drain grease from the fish. “Instant recycling!”

At the very least, they had to admire her endless ingenuity.

Eventually supper was ready and Maggie called everyone to the meal. There were nineteen of them if you included Lola, who was being passed around like a beanbag, loving all the attention, yelping only occasionally.

They held hands while Grant, who had flown in from California for the occasion with Maggie and Simon Rifkin, Beth’s stepfather of the uninvolved sort, led them in a short prayer.

Just as they were serving themselves from the steaming platters of fish, onion rings, hush puppies, covered dishes of grits swimming in butter, and a huge bowl of salad, the back door slammed. Her aunts Sophie and Allison Hamilton, exercise and fitness gurus to the southeastern United States, popped into the living room from the kitchen like two matching corks.

“Hello, hello!” they called out.

In Charleston visitors normally announced themselves with
Hey, anybody home?
But Beth guessed that in Miami, where the twins lived, they said things like
Hello, hello!
And probably
Ciao, ciao!

At first glance, she couldn’t tell them apart. Identical twins were a curious phenomenon. Her aunts may have had the same DNA, but their personalities were polar opposites. Sophie was gregarious and generous, but Allison was sort of a haughty, humorless wretch. None of the family could say with certainty who was who until they began to speak, and that was how they knew the difference between them. They made their way around the room, offering more
Hello hellos
and dispensing polite hugs, back pats, and air kisses directed at cheeks.

While everyone was piling food onto their plates and looking for a place to sit, Henry offered them goblets of wine, which they both declined. They didn’t drink a drop of alcohol, which Henry said to anyone who would listen made them highly suspicious characters in his book. But to be frank, Henry was suspicious of social interaction with any nonimbibing human.

It was all
Don’t you look wonderful!
And
Aren’t you excited about Paris, Susan?
And
Look at these boys! Aren’t they darling? And your girls, Timmy! My my!

Until Allison got to Beth.

She said, “Whatever on this earth has happened to you? The last time I saw you, you were just a little bitty bug. It was your daddy’s funeral, wasn’t it? That filthy rotten son of a bitch. Horrible man. Yes, it was the funeral. But you surely didn’t have all this and this! My word, honey!” Her accusing hand demonstrated she meant to remark on, yes, Beth’s breasts and, yes, her hair. It was as though her body was a dartboard and anyone who wanted to could just lob a shot her way.

“I really wish she hadn’t called him that,” she said under her breath, feeling nauseated.

“You shouldn’t call Tom a sumbitch, Allison,” Grant said, having caught what Beth mumbled. “It’s bad juju to speak ill of the dead.”

Grant was next to Beth and she was trying hard not to look at him so he wouldn’t see how upset she was.

“Oh, screw you, Grant,” Allison said, and pulled her hair up into a ponytail, holding it with one hand. “Like you all don’t do it all the time? Why is it so sticky here? I don’t remember it being this sticky.”

“It’s the real beach, Al,” Henry said, and rolled his eyes. “There’s no humidity in Coral Gables?”

“Oh, fine. Well, I was just saying that the last time I saw Beth she was only a little girl and now she’s all grown up. I mean, look at her!”

Every eye turned to Beth and she wanted to disappear. She felt like she must have been purple with embarrassment. God, she thought, I really, really hate her guts right now.

“What do you mean, Allison?” Maggie said. “That’s all y’all gonna eat? I think Beth’s grown into a perfectly magnificent young woman, don’t you, Sophie? Come on and let’s fix y’all a decent plate.”

Maggie had temporarily redeemed herself to Beth, but Beth didn’t know if she would ever feel all right about her Aunt Allison.

“I do. Don’t mind your Aunt Allison,” Sophie said. “The filter between her brain and her mouth appears to be malfunctioning.” Sophie popped a hush puppy into her mouth and watched while Maggie loaded her plate with meager portions—
lady servings,
she would call them.

“It’s okay,” Beth said.

But it wasn’t okay. Beth didn’t care so much what Allison thought about her, but she really, truly, seriously, and deeply minded that she unapologetically referred to her father as a
filthy rotten son of a bitch
. How many times had she asked them not to say terrible things about her father?

“I’ll get my own food, thanks,” Allison said to Maggie. “So what are the sleeping arrangements?” She scooped salad into a small mound on her plate and took a sliver of fish.

“Aunt Sophie can sleep with me,” Beth said, knowing it was the last available portion of a mattress. She was attempting to get back in the conversation without her anger showing.

“Fun! It will be like old times!” Sophie said.

“We weren’t sure you were even coming, Allison,” Maggie said with a theatrical sigh, leaning against the table. “You never returned any of my calls.”

Was there a reprimanding tone in Maggie’s voice? Yes ma’am. Maybe she was sticking it to Allison on my behalf, Beth thought. Although she knew Maggie enjoyed giving Allison a little grief just on general principles.

“Oh, I see. Well, fine then,” Allison said, equally dramatically, sitting on a corner of the sofa eating her salad with her fingers. “I don’t have to stay here at all then, do I?”

“Actually, you and Aunt Sophie can have my bed and I’ll sleep down the island,” Beth said. “No problem.”

“Excuse me? You think I’m sleeping with my sister in the same bed? I don’t think so. What are we? Twelve years old?”

What a bitch, Beth thought. Allison was worse than ever. It wasn’t like her bed was crawling with cooties or something.

“Now, see here,” Henry said in his most authoritative voice.

“See here
what,
Henry? Oh! Are you warming up a little lecture for the occasion?”

Allison was on a roll.

The chatter stopped and everyone watched as Allison stood and locked her jaw, working up steam for one of her notorious snits, shifting her weight from foot to foot and crossing her arms so tightly that her fingertips left white marks wherever they gripped her upper arms.

Timmy cleared his throat and said, “Now, Allison, there’s no reason for anyone to get hysterical. I’m sure—”

“Shut up, Timmy. Freud’s dead, you know, and I’m hardly hysterical.”

Zing!

“I don’t think I really heard her tell my husband to shut up, did I?” Mary Jo said, piping up, evidence of a spine no one knew she had. “That’s not nice.”

“Let’s not be like this, Allison,” Maggie said, ignoring Mary Jo. “I’m sure we can figure something out. The boys have another house down the island and I’m sure they can make room. Mickey? Y’all got an extra bed down at Mary Ellen’s?”

“Um, I’m Mike now, Mom. Sure, Aunt Allison can even have my bed. No big deal. There’s plenty of room.”

“Thanks, honey. That’s real sweet of you. Know what, Maggie? You are just as condescending as you were twenty years ago. It doesn’t matter. I have to be in Columbia tomorrow anyway to review the vitamin clinical trials with Geoffrey. I’ll just drive up there tonight and then no one’s inconvenienced.”

Beth was standing there taking it all in. Allison struggled to say she was leaving as calmly as she could, but anyone could see she was about to blow a major, major gasket. How could the family treat their most famous relative so casually? Did they forget to roll out the red carpet for the Second Coming? Uncle Henry had money but her aunts Allison and Sophie were famous in capital letters, at least in this neck of the woods. For once, Beth agreed with Maggie—Aunt Allison was an egomaniacal pain in the butt. But it was just as true that her Aunt Maggie did egg her on.

“You just do what you want to do, Allison. You know what’s best for you,” Maggie said in the most patronizing voice she had in her repertoire. “I don’t.”

“There you have it!” Allison said a little too loudly. “It was good to see y’all even if it was so very, very brief. You coming, Sophie?”

“Oh dear. Oh shoot. No, I think I’m gonna stick around, Al. I’ll meet you in Columbia Monday if that’s okay with you,” Sophie said.

“Oh? And just how are you going to get there if I’m taking the car?”

It was a stupid question, Beth thought. There were any number of ways Sophie could get to Columbia, including hitching a ride with Uncle Timmy since he was headed to Charlotte early Sunday with his clan.

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll work it out,” Sophie said, and gave her twin a pat on the arm. “Anybody want a glass of cold water? I’m going to get myself one.”

“I’ll take a beer if you’re buying,” Timmy said.

“Sure. Come on, Al. I’ll walk you out to the car,” Sophie said.

Sophie Hamilton was the Smoother, but then she had dedicated her years to ironing the wrinkles out of Allison’s life.

As they left the room, you could feel the party spirit fizzle because of Allison’s hissy fit. Beth slipped away and back into the kitchen. She had lost her appetite anyway. Too much angst. Cecily was leaning against the sink, picking at her plate of food. Beth looked out the window and watched Allison’s animated rant and Sophie reaching out to calm her at least five times.

“My entire family is crazy,” she said. “My aunt needs a slap across her Botox face and ten milligrams of something to chill her out.”

“I ain’t saying
nothing,
” Cecily said.

“You don’t have to,” she said. “I think this crowd needs dessert. Something to sweeten them up. What have we got?”

The microwave pinged and Cecily put her plate down to retrieve whatever was in there.

“One step ahead of you.” She showed Beth the Pyrex dish of peach cobbler.