Plantation (19 page)

“Why not?” said the miniature Barbie, who now took my brother’s arm, snuggled up to his side, and made the fatal mistake of taking the front steps before Mother.

I could see Mother’s nostrils fill and collapse. Her jaw remained firm and resolute. She would not let this crimson-necked slut from nowhere steal her baby. That was the first of our many miscalcula-tions about Frances Mae.

Frances Mae Litchfield and James Nevil Wimbley III were married by a justice of the peace in Florence, South Carolina.

Mother did not attend. Mother was not invited. Mother took to her bed for two weeks in the greatest of all southern swoons. Even Millie disappeared for a day or two. Trip took Frances Mae to Bermuda.

I was back in New York with Richard when Millie called to tell me I had a sister-in-law. We thought it was a perfectly scandalous event and decided to get married too. What the hell, I thought, after Frances Mae, Richard would look like a prince to the family. Wrong again.

The fact that time flew the Concorde did not escape me.

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D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k Frances Mae and Trip with their three daughters from hell were coming for dinner. Where had the years gone? And, Frances Mae was pregnant
again
. I looked at the clock. Six-forty-five. In fifteen minutes, their arrival would shroud Tall Pines with the first act of classic southern family dysfunctional drama. It was inevitable.

I opened the French doors in my old room and let the breeze come in. The river smells rushed in on a magic carpet and I took a deep breath. I sat right down on the floor in the lotus position in full view of the Edisto. The Edisto, majestic and musical as it slapped the riverbanks, made a little song for me as it had when I was a child. I closed my eyes and tried to empty my mind. It was good. I saw rushing waves of purple and green pulsating larger and then shrinking away only to be replaced by more floating waves of color. I was alone, in a beautiful breeze without a care in the world.

Somewhere in the distance I heard the door close, like the great jaws of Jonah gulping down a snack. And, like old Ahab, we would all bang around the belly of familial indigestion for the next few hours. I would rise to the occasion and not allow any of them to unarm me. Unarm. What an odd choice for my expectations of the evening! Boy, was I conflicted or what? Who knew? It could be fun. Maybe Frances Mae had had a lobotomy since I saw her the last time. Meow.

From the hall stairs I could see Trip pouring drinks in the living room. Frances Mae was shrieking in the hall powder room that one little witch of hers had put gum in another little witch’s hair.

“Tell her to go to the kitchen and get some ice from Millie,” I said. “Freezes it and then you can chip it off.”

“Ah, Caroline! Just in time!” Trip handed me a glass of white wine. “Let the healing begin.”

We clinked glasses and I sat on the sofa opposite Mother in her chair, taking a small sip.

“Thank you, brother, it’s good to see you.”

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“And you as well, sister. Don’t you think Mother looks particularly lovely tonight?”

I looked at Mother and she rolled her eyes. “Freshen my bourbon like a good boy and don’t try to fill my head!” Mother said.

Despite her feigned annoyance, she smiled at him. He was, after all, the family’s Christ child. He took her nearly empty tumbler, offered her a bowl of nuts, and she picked through them for the cashews.

Trip poured and Frances Mae burst in, her baby demons hiding behind her.

“Caroline! How lovely to see you!” she said, and I watched the muscles under her face twitch. Nerves. Who could blame her? I got up to greet her.

“Hey, Frances Mae! How are you feeling?”

“Oh, as well as can be expected, I imagine. My ankles give me such a fit! And my breasts are killing me! Girls, come kiss your aunt!”

Mother coughed at Frances Mae’s reference to her breasts.

As if on cue the girls ran away, out the front door and down the steps, slamming everything. Giggles and screams.

“They are so bad,” she went on. “I try, but your brother here just won’t switch ’em. When I was a little girl, my daddy beat the stinking slop out of me if I didn’t behave! I’ll go get them.” She smiled and left to fetch her, as she would say, “younguns.”

“Stinking slop,”
Mother said in a faraway voice. “How utterly picturesque.”

“What you mean, Mother, is how lacking in gentility, how unrefined?”

“Hey, y’all, let’s cut her some slack tonight, okay? When I go back to New York, y’all can autopsy me too,” I said.

They stopped and looked at me. It was an uncommon moment of support for Frances Mae. I felt a little sorry for her.

She had gained at least thirty pounds and her outfit, from a garage 1 4 6

D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k sale in a tacky neighborhood, teetered somewhere in fashion maternity hell. And, as usual, she had neglected to blend her lip liner, so that her mouth gave the appearance of a mackerel. I knew my thoughts were unkind, even mean, but, God in heaven! She stood out in such loud contrast to everything around her, I truly had a struggle to hold them back. I glanced at Trip, who read my mind. He took a long drink and turned to pour another for himself. He raised it to me and suddenly I was a little annoyed with him and with Mother.

“I’ll be right back,” I said, “I want to see my nieces.”

I opened the front door and looked across the yard. It was one of those Carolina nights that makes you glad to be alive. Low humidity. Beautiful intermittent breezes. The smells of flowers. I walked around the gravel drive to the left side of the house and toward the river, following the sounds of their voices. From the distance I could see Frances Mae straightening Amelia’s hair and rety-ing her bow. I stopped to watch for a moment. All three girls wore tea-length sundresses. My two little nieces, Isabelle and Caroline, had puffed shoulders and sashes. Amelia’s dress was different because she was, after all, thirteen. Nonetheless, the little girls had perfect blunt, chin-length haircuts, parted on the side, with a hank of their hair rubber-banded and tied over with a large satin bow. Except Amelia, who wore a headband. From where I stood, they looked like three lively angels, all innocence and light. I knew better.

The crickets were clattering away in the woods and lightning bugs glittered all around. Frances Mae had sunk into a lawn chair and put her feet up. She was trying her hardest, she always had. It wasn’t her fault really that she always said the wrong thing or did the wrong thing. And, to her credit, her English had improved and her accent softened. A little. Trip wasn’t complaining so why should I? No, Trip was just a challenge to his liver, that’s all.

“Frances Mae!” I called out, “I thought I’d come out here and watch Three Mile Island burn off a little steam.”

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“Oh!” She looked puzzled but glad to have the company. “I declare, Caroline. You look so thin and elegant. I just feel so fat and ugly.”

“You are not fat and ugly,” I said, “not even a little bit.” I put my hand on her shoulder and I saw her eyeball my wristwatch.

Exactly like Mother, she released a long sigh. “Is that a real Cart-tee-ay watch?”

“Yes. Actually, I bought this for myself for my thirtieth birthday.”

She looked longingly at it and then at me. “I don’t believe your brother would ever do something so grand for me.”

She sounded so sad that I almost fell for it. “Frances Mae?

You’re missing the point.”

“Oh, Caroline, I’m sure I am not missing the point. You may have bought it for yourself because you have a job. You have your own money. My job is to be a good mother to Trip’s children, a loving wife, and a good daughter-in-law to y’all’s mama. I love my job but the pay’s scarcer than hen’s teeth.”

“Well, we’ll have to put a bug in Trip’s ear for Christmas or something.” It was the first time I looked at the world from her point of view in maybe ever. But, I also knew that women who played the victim usually chose it through some passive-aggressive desire to illicit pity and admiration. At least that was what Richard always said. Maybe I’d been married to a shrink for too long. It annoyed me that she still hadn’t asked about Richard or Eric.

“Good luck, honey, he’s a wonderful man but he could squeeze the balls off a buffalo nickel.”

I winced at the thought of bovine genitalia. “Trip? Cheap?”

“Are you serious? He squeaks! Look at me! Do I look like the wife of a rich man? Why, Trip Wimbley spends money on three things—hunting, which includes dogs, fishing, which also includes dogs, and betting on football. If the washer breaks down . . . oh, Caroline, I know I shouldn’t talk ugly about Trip. He’s a wonder-1 4 8

D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k ful husband and I love him with my whole heart, but we are gonna burst out of our house when this baby comes. I can’t bring home a toothpick and find a place for it.”

I hadn’t been to their house in Walterboro for several years, but I could imagine that she was right. She obviously spent whatever money Trip gave her on the girls and their clothes. Their house had only three tiny bedrooms.

“Come on, Frances Mae”—I offered her an arm to pull her up—“we’ll call California Closets tomorrow. Tell Trip I made you do it.”

“Oh, my! Bless your heart! What a wonderful idea!”

“Thank you,” I said. “Now, let’s get those little tornadoes of yours up to the house and ready for Millie’s dinner and Miss Lavinia’s table.”

The girls came when we called them away from their game of swing the statue and followed us like ducks in the twilight. Frances Mae continued to coddle them, fussing over their appearances.

Suddenly, I realized she was probably petrified of Mother. And, of Trip. And not too sure about me.

“Let them go on ahead, Frances Mae; I want to ask you something.”

“Why sure, Caroline. Y’all girls go on now and wash your hands. I’ll be there directly.”

The girls slammed the door behind them and we stood on the porch. In the evening light she didn’t look or seem so dangerous. I only had one question for her.

“Frances Mae? If I ask you a question, will you give me an honest answer?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she said, a little defensively.

I ignored that and plunged ahead. “What’s really going on around here with Mother? Why do you think that my brother wants to put her in an assisted-living community?” She stared at me and then the horizon, which was blazing red with the final light of day. I could tell that she had waited for this moment.

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“Why, Caroline, what on earth are you talking about? I never heard such nonsense in my whole life!” She looked hard at me and all the old feelings of anger and hatred flooded her face. She turned to walk into the house, leaving me alone outside.

“I’d like to see him try it,” I said.

Hearing my threat, she stopped, turned back to face me, and smiled the knowing smile of an enemy. Then, like the serpent in the garden, she slowly slithered through the door.

M i s s L av i n i a ’s J o u r na l
Just a quick note—have to go to dinner—Nevil, can you hear
me? Pay attention!

Fifteen

Dinner Is Served

}

suppose because I was home, Millie was serving dinner.

As a general rule, Millie would cook something for I herself and for Mother and then go home to her cottage on the property. Or, Mother would cook for her. She had ceased to act as household help years ago and had become the estate manager, directing Mr. Jenkins’s attentions to the never-ending renovations and repairs required to keep Tall Pines in good shape. Millie had a lady originally from Mexico, Rosario, who cleaned house. Rosario’s daughter, Paula, did the laundry. Millie was also the Almighty Possessor of Mother’s checkbook, paying the bills and balancing her accounts. However, only Millie was allowed to dust Mother’s Meissen collection or polish certain pieces of silver. That wasn’t because Mother said so, but because Millie trusted no one else to do it right.

Millie ran a tight ship. She earned seventy-five thousand dollars a year with a package that included housing, a car, car insurance, full 1 5 2

D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k medical benefits, a golf cart, and cash bonuses. She was worth double every nickel she earned. I worried because she was obviously near retirement and then what
would
Mother do?

When Millie appeared at the living room door and announced dinner, we left our drinks and followed Mother to the dining room. I went last, taking Millie’s arm, whispering to her.

“Millie? We gotta talk.”

“Humph. Plenty, yanh? See me later, girl, hands too full now,”

she said and disappeared into the kitchen.

Mother stood at the head of our enormous mahogany table, waiting for Trip to seat her. After Mother was seated, he helped Frances Mae take her seat at Mother’s left and then I was seated at Mother’s right. Trip sat Amelia to my right, then Isabelle. He took Daddy’s seat after he seated Caroline next to Frances Mae.

We all waited for Mother’s cue.

“We need more men in this family!” Trip said, trying to be humorous about the amount of women he had the burden to seat.

Trip’s humor would never give him the opportunity to give up his law practice and go on the road. No, it teetered somewhere in between corn and sarcasm, sort of like Chris Rock in a real bad mood.

“Bread! Gimme a piece of bread!” Caroline said, in a loud voice.

“Caroline!” Trip said, “you know we wait for Grandmomma to begin.”

Caroline crossed her arms and pouted. Silence. Mother looked down her nose at her, raising her eyebrows and lowering her chin.

Classic “Miss Lavinia,” to show her annoyance. Mother took her napkin from the table, snapped it crisply, and draped it across her lap. Then, she shook her head sadly and with an audible sigh. The gesture spoke of Mother’s faith that anything springing forth from her daughter-in-law’s womb was just a hopeless case.

“Who would care for gumbo?” Mother said, lifting the lid from the tureen in preparation of filling the stacked soup plates P l a n t a t i o n