Dear Carolina (28 page)

“You know I'd love for you not to work,” he continued. “But we might have to scale down our lifestyle a little.”

I sat up, and he laid his head in my lap. I hadn't ever wanted to tell Graham how much money Alex had left for Alex and me. For one, I didn't think it was relevant since I had decided that that money was for our son's future. Plus, talking about how much money your last husband made is sort of like talking about how well he made love: intimidating and unnecessary.

“I don't know why I haven't told you this before, but Alex is set for life and beyond,” I said, grimacing slightly. “Mother and Daddy have asked to pay for Carolina and Grace's educations, so we're good there. And I certainly make enough off the few design jobs I'm still doing to pay for the apartment and to keep us all clothed.” I rubbed his arm the way he liked and said, “So, basically, if you can keep our house up and running, which, obviously, you did for years without me, I think we're good to go.”

Graham closed his eyes and lay very, very still for a solid minute, while I braced myself like a shutter in a hurricane for his reaction. I was thinking that he knew when he married me that I made more money than he did, and that if he was intimidated by how much more, then that wasn't my problem. But then I looked into his serene face and saw the same heart of that kid I'd fallen in love with first, hardest, and last. And I softened. “Honey,” I said gently. “What are you thinking?”

He still didn't open his eyes, but a smile spread across his face. “I'm thinking how, for the rest of my life, now that I know my children are educated, I don't have one single worry in the world.” He pulled me on top of him, and I squealed. He opened his eyes, kissed me, and said, “I'd be dirt-floor poor as long as I got to sleep beside you every night, Khaki Mason.”

I couldn't have agreed any more.

FATAL FLAW

I always make my own beef stock. Lotsa folks, they cain't tell a homemade broth from one you buy off a grocery store shelf. But me, I like the hours a' boilin' and strainin' and dicin' and choppin'. 'Cause it's
perfect
when I get done with it.

That broth, if it taught me something, it's that I'd be okay in college. When I do something, I do it right. And that's what school's all about.

I was scheming on how I'd get to making my dreams come true while I was in The Shops at The Breakers not believin' my eyes was telling me some people'd pay what I make in a whole month for a sweater. I saw a book that caught my eye right quick.
Tiffany's Palm Beach.
It was all full a' gorgeous pictures a' gorgeous people lying by the pool and crystal-blue waters and houses that even Graham and Khaki's house woulda fit right inside. I got to thinkin' on them other parts of Palm Beach that we had driven through, them places where poverty lives and buildings fall and desperation pushes grocery carts right down the street.
It were all a part of Palm Beach. But it certainly weren't a part of
Tiffany's
Palm Beach.

Khaki, she was Tiffany. She couldn't near believe I'd want to leave Kinston. 'Cause my Kinston, it was trailer parks and drunk Momma and fightin' and Ricky trying to kill me and scraping by to have enough to eat. Khaki's Kinston, it was farmland and plantation homes and Pauline cooking dinner and the love of her life.

She and Tiffany, they don't see what me and those grocery-cart folks see.

My cell phone—the one that Graham called my “bonus”—it got to ringing. I weren't paying no attention, thinkin' it were just Khaki wanting to see if I could go to the Ocean Bar and get a bite. Alex, he'd be pointing at the clown fish swimming around right there inside the clear bar, saying “Nemo! Nemo!” And all them people'd be feeding their youngens thirty-dollar cheeseburgers like it weren't nothin'.

But that voice, it weren't Khaki's.

“Don't hang up.”

I couldn't have even if I'd tried. It was like my hand got superglued to the phone, one a' them senior pranks we woulda played.

“Before you say nothing, you gotta know I'm clean again. I'm real sorry for treating you bad when you brought your baby by.”

It was my momma, raspy voice and all. I got so sick I had to sit down right there in the hall. And then I got to figuring why: We had escaped by a hangnail. I cain't predict the future any more than I can change the past. But it were laid out right clear like one a' them picture books I read to you. If I hadn't give you up, if I had stayed workin' too hard for too little, being with men and working for bosses that treated me worse than an old shoe they tossed in the bin, this would be me and you in twenty years. Me calling you up, saying I were clean again, apologizing. You being sicker of my excuses than political ads in the fall.

My momma, she just kept on talkin'. “I reckon I oughta come by and we can have us a sit-down.”

I knew sure as pectin makes jam set real easy my momma wanted something. I cleared my throat. “I'm outta town. I cain't.”

She'd be wonderin' good where I was. But she didn't let on none. “That's all right. You just call your momma when you get home.”

“Momma, how'd you get this number anyhow?”

“How do you think it makes a momma feel when her own youngen don't even give her her phone number?”

“Momma, how'd you get my number?” I repeated.

“Well, I had to get me a new phone and all our numbers is on the same account so they give it to me up there at the phone place. So, come on, baby girl, you just call your momma when you get home from wherever you are.”

I could feel the anger risin' up in me, making my insides feel near on fire that my momma had got Graham feeling sorry for her and now he was paying for her phone. Some people'd say she didn't have no choice, but me, I knew better. Everybody on this green earth has a choice about taking advantage of the good people that never done nothing but love them.

But every good storybook character, they all got a fatal flaw, that thing that keeps 'em making the same mistakes over and over again. Mine is that I cain't stand to hurt nobody's feelings. Don't matter if you've broken my spirit like a wild horse, I'll keep lettin' you on back in. I cain't stand treating people bad because I know how it feels.

“Okay, Momma. I'll call ya.”

I hung up feeling near like my face was under water and I couldn't get no oxygen. Momma, she was like that x-ray scanner at the airport. She could always see right through when I was gettin' something like happy. And then, like one a' them pickaxes on the ice sculptures down the hall, she'd damn near tear me apart.

PLAYDATES AND PROSECCO

Sometimes something that has been a staple in your design repertoire suddenly changes without a moment's notice. It happens to me all the time. For years, every throw pillow I designed had the perfect, luscious, chunky fringe. Then, one day, I decided that the fringed look was over. Ditto stainless steel appliances.

So I guess it shouldn't have surprised me when, on that trip to New York, all of a sudden, forcing three tiny, tired children through the airport felt less like a luxury and more like child abuse. After a week in Palm Beach being off schedule, overstimulated, and schlepped from dinner to dinner, event to event, none of the three of you was in the frame of mind to battle a crowded airport or sit quietly through a plane ride.

You were intermittently crying in the stroller, Alex was whining as I practically dragged him to the terminal, and I was in a particularly snarky mood. “Who was it again who told Mother
we would be fine flying commercial? Wishing we'd taken her up on her offer of the jet now?” I snapped at Graham.

He rolled his eyes. I needed someone to blame for this state of affairs besides the person whose fault it was: mine. Despite my bad attitude, it was an incredible relief to have your daddy with me, hauling the rolling suitcase full of “plane emergency gear” I had packed. And, no, I don't mean parachutes. Blankets, toys, diapers, wipes, extra changes of clothes, antibacterial spray, pressure-reducing earplugs, snacks, sippy cups . . . You get the idea. Traveling with three children was a Herculean packing effort. If it had been an Olympic sport, I would have won the gold medal.

Since we were going straight from balmy Palm Beach to freezing New York, we had all of our luggage shipped. It cost roughly the same amount and saved what tiny portion of my sanity was still intact. The iPad was a close second in the sanity-saving department. Your daddy set it up on Alex's tray table, and y'all watched
Tom and Jerry
the entire time, fixated on the screen like children from
The Poltergeist.

When we landed at LaGuardia, you were strapped to me in the Ergobaby, sleeping more soundly than Daddy after a couple of beers. Grace was cooing in the Baby Bjorn and Alex was cruising through the airport, red Spider-Man sunglasses on, shirttail half out, as cool as a Popsicle from the ice cream truck. Despite the fact that I held my breath the entire flight waiting for the bottom to fall out, everyone had done remarkably well. Well, everyone except me.

I breathed a huge sigh of relief as the freezing air outside the terminal hit my face. I had gotten us a decidedly unstylish minivan with driver, but when we stepped outside, a familiar voice called, “Hey, baby cakes.”

I looked over and squealed as Bunny lifted her oversized
sunglasses with a red, lacquered nail. “What are you doing here?” I asked, noticing as I ran to her that my C-section pain had gone from broken bone to paper cut very quickly. Plus, much to my elation, the scar was low enough that it would be well hidden by even my teeniest bikinis.

“Oh my Lord, that man just gets more delicious, doesn't he?”

Graham leaned down to kiss Bunny on both cheeks. Bunny loved Graham almost as much as she loved Veuve Clicquot. Being from the city, I think she had this fantasy that Graham was like every sexy, strong Southern man she'd ever seen in a movie. As I looked at him, with Grace strapped to his chest, I realized that maybe he
was
like every sexy, strong Southern man she'd ever seen in a movie.

She stepped out of the limo, gave Alex a kiss on his hair, and peered at you and Grace. You were still breath-gaspingly asleep. Bunny tapped her manicured finger on her mouth and said, “Does it offend you if I say that Carolina is the only one who looks like you?”

I laughed. “Wait 'til she opens her eyes.”

Grace had your daddy's light blond hair and crystal blue eyes, while Alex was a little clone of his late father. You, on the other hand, were me made over. Aqua eyes, brown hair. It was eerie how much you looked like me even though I didn't give birth to you. Of course, my recent bottle brunette job did help the cause. Bunny kissed me again and said, “Well, they're gorgeous. All three of them.” Then she linked her arm through Graham's and said, “Your family is a little
Yours, Mine and Ours
rerun, isn't it?”

Graham looked over Bunny's head at me, which was quite a feat because she was one tall drink of water. He said, “Babydoll, where's our car?”

You started to gurgle, and Bunny said, “Don't be ridiculous. I paid your driver. You're riding with me, of course.” Bunny shot
a withering look at Graham and said, “So glad that you're
home
, Frances.” Bunny may have loved Graham, but she would always blame him for taking me away from her.

I was sure he ignored the remark.

I texted Kristin, who was already at our apartment waiting like a sequined girl for her prom date.

Bunny handed Alex a Spider-Man cupcake, and he started bouncing up and down on the squishy seat in excitement. Grace began to cry, signifying that the two-hour-and-forty-five-minute food window was rapidly closing. Bunny grabbed you from me, and, much to my delighted surprise, you didn't even peep. You snatched one of her extensions in between your thumb and forefinger and said, “Dada. Dada.”

We all laughed because Dada certainly didn't have hair like that. Over Grace's suckling noises, Bunny said, “So, in truth, I have a bit of a favor to ask.”

I readjusted Grace and said, “If you want me to keep your three children too, the answer is no.”

Bunny screwed up her glossy lips into a pout and said, “Oh, honey. I have people to do that. This is something serious.”

Graham looked at me incredulously, but I winked at him. Bunny, in regard to her children, was a grade-school boy with a crush. She couldn't act like she was sensitive and sweet even though they were the loves of her life.

She said, “I know you're so jam-packed with activities—”

“But your three-year-old son is sleeping on a mattress on the floor in a room with billowy white, silk curtains and Peter Rabbit painted on the walls.”

Bunny opened her mouth, but before she could speak, I said, “Check your e-mail, please.”

On the plane, I had sent Bunny a list, complete with photos, for Zeke's bedroom redesign. It included an entire wall of
tortoise-framed hunting dogs that were both childlike and mature, a pair of cane twin beds I'd found at auction, and Leontine duvets in a masculine monogram. Add the industrial-steel-and-leather toy chests for the end of the beds, the bleached-mahogany, eighteenth-century dresser, and a hanging rope chair, and it was a little boy's paradise.

“I didn't have a photo of the curtain fabric,” I said, “but, trust me, it's perfection.”

Bunny looked at Graham and said, “This woman raises your children and runs the world. She should be wearing more jewelry.”

Graham nodded. “Believe you me, I know how awesome she is. That's why I spent thirty-two years trying to pin her down.”

“You've only known me eighteen,” I said, readjusting my shirt and lifting Grace up to kiss her drooping eyelids. She was no match for the motion of the car.

Graham winked at me. “But I spent the first fourteen dreaming about you.”

Bunny nodded. “He's good, honey. He's good.”

Bunny dropped us off at our apartment, and we parted with kisses and promises of playdates and Prosecco. I threw open the door to our apartment and, as usual, the best part of coming home was the light that flooded through the floor-to-ceiling windows. It might have been a superhuman effort to get there, but it really can't be said enough: I absolutely adore Manhattan.