Plantation (24 page)

“Hey, Trip!”

“What?”

“Gimme the wheel! I know these waters just as well as you do!”

“Oh, fine!”

I took the wheel and pushed the accelerator forward, causing the front of the boat to pitch up high.

“You’re gonna scare the gators if you don’t kill us first!” he said under his breath. Trip had a habit of mumbling his opinions.

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“What?” I pretended not to hear him, but pushed the accelerator forward again. I could see him smiling from the corner of my eye. We both liked to race the river. It felt like flying, like you never had to stop, like it was yours. The river air was thick and delicious and it was going to be a beautiful day. “So, tell me about Mother, Trip. What’s really going on here?”

“She’s getting old, Caroline, that’s all there is to that.”

“She seems the same to me. I mean, she’s getting older, sure.

We all are.”

“Yeah, that’s true.” He looked down the river as we headed toward St. Helena’s Sound. He was deep in thought.

“Talk to me,” I said.

“Okay. Here’s the story. Believe what you want, but Mother did, in fact, try to shoot me. She knew damn good and well it was me in the yard. Who the hell else would it be? I’m here at least four times a week! She said she was cleaning the gun. Well, she probably was. But, by pure coincidence, I had just had a discussion with her a few days before about what her plans for her future were. She was plenty pissed about that too. Old Lavinia ain’t fond of taking advice from nobody, no how.”

I thought about what his words implied. That he was here all the time, that he wanted Mother to move out, that he wanted, and Frances Mae wanted, to move in. It made me sad, to think that Mother would be so angry that she would do something so foolhardy. Neither one of them had told me what was literally said, but it must’ve been pretty bad. Greed was a horrible thing. Fear was worse. I decided to remain silent and to see what he would say. We drove on for a while, nothing but the wake behind us and the sound in front of us. Soon, he spoke again.

“Caroline, you’re not here, so you don’t know how it is.

Mother has worn me out with her games. You saw her last night at dinner, how she went for the girls like a bull-dog? She’s mean as shit. And, Frances Mae might be a royal pain in the ass, but she is my wife and I wish Mother wouldn’t treat her like dirt.”

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D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k

“I thought she overreacted about saying grace. It wasn’t the nicest thing I ever saw her do. Seems like she doesn’t have much patience.”

“Patience? Let me tell you something, Caroline, when she was screwing the
landscape architect,
” he said, with plenty of sarcasm, “it was embarrassing enough. But when he dumped Mother and took it up with somebody else, she went nuts for weeks!”

“Hell hath no fury . . .” I said.

“Right, but even Mother knows you don’t drink booze on the quail buggy to the point where you fall off on your face.” He paused and looked at me, shaking his head in disgust. “If she can’t act right, then she shouldn’t be allowed to handle guns.”

“Look, Trip, I sure don’t disagree with that. And, I’ve been thinking about Millie. If something happened to her, Mother would surely have to make other arrangements. And I think she realizes that. But I don’t think we have the right to discipline Mother. She isn’t crazy; she’s angry. Very different. And, if I were you, I’d call before I showed up, just to be on the safe side.”

Now why had I said that? Because Trip’s side of the story had some merit? Or because my old anger toward Mother was so dark that it kept me from standing up for her? The tangle of issues that came with aging parents was something I had never considered. I didn’t want to deal with Trip and Frances Mae. Or Mother, face-to-face. But, it was what I had come home to do.

“And this business with Jenkins is just another indication that Mother’s completely off the deep end.”

“I’m still not sure of that, Trip. I’m just not.”

“Ask Millie if we both haven’t seen her coming out of his cottage at the crack of dawn.” Trip spat over the side of the boat, a symbol of his disgust.

Judging people made me nervous. I had lived a long time in a world of considering others and trying to overlook or to understand others’ frailties. If anyone looked that closely at me, God only knew what they could find.

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“This ain’t easy,” I said. It was the smallest of all olive branches I used to cool his smoldering. But it would buy me a little time.

“Let’s go on up to the Bait and Tackle in Skeeter Creek.”

“For what?”

“I gotta get me a Moon Pie and a cold RC if you want me to figure this out.”

Eighteen

On Dry Land

}

RIP and I rode the waters for another hour. I was ready to go back home then. He wasn’t telling me what he T was really worried about. Maybe Mother would tell me what was really happening here. The end of our morning excursion came about naturally when he decided to drop his hook in the water.

“I’m gonna see if I can catch some fish,” Trip said, “wanna come?”

“Nah, thanks, though, just drop me off at the dock,” I said.

Be my daughter
. The words were ringing in my ears as I jumped off the side of his boat and his dogs jumped on. I walked across the yard. Obviously, I was his daughter. Then I knew what Daddy meant was that I should act as he would if he were still here. In the flesh, that is. What would Daddy do? I asked myself this over and over.

Well, for starters, he certainly would not have been proud of P l a n t a t i o n

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the precise words I used on Frances Mae last night. That’s for damn sure. Daddy never looked down his nose at anyone in his whole life. That was Mother’s sin. And mine. I would try hard to change that, but Lord! Frances Mae was so déclassé!

Change!
I heard him in my brain. Okay, I’d make every human attempt to do that. Just my luck I had a dead father who spoke in sound bites.
Change!
There he was again. Alright, already! Jeesch. It was broad daylight and I was walking to the kitchen from the dock.

Well, if my daddy intended to haunt me, I could live with head noises. But if he showed up in a body, forget about it. I’d be home in New York before they knew I had left. The very thought gave me the shivers.

Daddy would’ve approved of the boat ride. It was good. I needed to find out what was on Trip’s mind and how he saw things. Everybody always had their own perspective on things.

Before I left my goal was to try to make everyone share one version of the truth. I would enlist Millie and Richard, and try to keep Daddy’s spirit going to monitor my progress.

It was nine-thirty, according to the kitchen wall clock. Trip wouldn’t be back until lunch. I thought I’d find Mother in the kitchen, but she wasn’t there. I immediately assumed she was probably fussing around somewhere in her shoe closet. That stinking shoe closet still gave me nightmares. When I was little she spent more time there than with me.

My own shoe collection was another Zen experience—all black. Loafers, one pair. Low pumps, suede and leather, one pair each; mules, black grosgrain; flat boots, one pair. Tennis shoes, one pair, white. Period. Good girl.

It dawned on me suddenly that perhaps my minimalist approach to shopping was the result of some episode of maternal neglect. And, whether it was real or imagined, it shouldn’t matter anymore. Suddenly, it didn’t. What a joke! How many other things in my life had I embraced because I thought Mother would choose the opposite?

That was too scary to consider.

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D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k I reached for the kitchen wall phone and saw the first line was lit. That meant she was working her jaw with somebody, probably Miss Sweetie or Miss Nancy, telling the tale of her Aubusson.

It was a good moment to have a private conversation with Richard. I went upstairs to use my bedroom telephone to call him.

On the way up the steps, it also dawned on me that at the first blush of self-realization, I ran to Richard. He answered on the first ring.

“Hi! What are you doing? Sitting on the phone?”

“Well! Sweetheart! Yes, I suppose I am! How are things down south?”

“Richard, you ain’t gonna believe what happened last night.”

I told him the story of dinner and the unfortunate dance recital and then, saving the best for last, the bit about Frances Mae’s bladder and Mother’s rug. Thinking it wise to do so, I left out the late-night visit to the graveyard, bringing Daddy back to life, and conjuring up spells with Millie. I also skipped the part about her remarks on Eric, half in fear he would agree with her.

However, we did discuss Millie’s eventual retirement and my ride on the Edisto with Trip. I could tell he was thoroughly appalled by Frances Mae’s behavior.

“What a foul person your sister-in-law is!”

“Excuse me, your family ain’t exactly rampant with royalty either, you know.”

“Sorry. Well, what’s to be done, Caroline?”

“I don’t know, I called you for your sage wisdom.”

“Hmm. Well, there’s no point in Trip and Frances Mae attempting to run Lavinia out of her house on the grounds of insanity. She can change her power of attorney with a one-hour visit to her lawyer, which I would certainly advise her to do.”

“Excellent point! Why didn’t I think of that?”

“Being brilliant is how I keep you loving me.”

“No, baby heart, that’s only one reason.”

“Good girl. And, I think it would be propitious to have a P l a n t a t i o n

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conversation with Lavinia about gun safety and make her promise not to drink and shoot.”

“Right. Propitious. Love that word. I think I’ll do that as soon as we hang up. So, Richard, do you miss me?”

“Passionately. When are you coming home? I need a woman.”

“Tomorrow afternoon. And, Richard?”

“Yes?”

“I would prefer if you would say, I need
you
.”

“I need you, Caroline. I want to throw you down! I ache for you. I want to rip off your panties! I die for you. I pine for you! I weep . . .”

“Oh, for the love of God, lemme talk to Eric.”

“Not home. Over at that kid’s apartment.”

“Okay, tell him I called and that I love him? He can call me tonight.”

“I’ll tell him.”

We hung up and I kicked off my shoes and crawled back under the covers of my unmade bed. I let my mind float while I mused about Mother, about Richard and the life I had chosen for myself. I used to think that I could never be happy anywhere but New York, away from Mother’s politics and protocol, away from Trip and Frances Mae. I began to fret that maybe those choices had robbed me of something larger.

The sheets were cool and my pillows were so soft, I could have slept again, except that Mother was at my doorway. She didn’t make a sound, but I knew she was there. I could feel her.

“Come on in, Mother,” I said, through closed eyes.

“If you need to nap, that’s fine. I just was hoping you’d talk to me.”

I patted the bed beside me and instead, she sat carefully on the end.

“So, Miss Lavinia, what’s going on with the Queen of Tall Pines?”

She loved that title and the corners of her mouth turned up in 1 9 2

D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k amusement. “Oh, Caroline, I don’t know. Golly. Let’s see.” She began by counting on her fingers. “I’ve got Daniel Boone for a son, that is, when he’s not being Perry Mason, an incontinent gold digger for a daughter-in-law, a huge house, an old lady with a sassy mouth for a manager, and I’m no spring chicken myself.”

“Not too bad,” I said, and smiled at her. I propped myself up on my right elbow to show her I was interested. “There are worse things. So Mother? Wanna tell me what’s really going on around here?”

She looked at me long and hard, understanding that she needed me as her ally and unsure of what had transpired on my boat ride with Trip.

“I was out with Sweetie and Nancy on the courses. We got a little tipsy and I tripped and fell off the quail wagon. I know it was irresponsible of us to drink and shoot and we have all made a pact to never do it again. Raoul and I are no longer seeing each other, but I want you to know I have not one regret about my affair with him. He was good to me, Caroline. I had fun. Period. I was upset when he dumped me for Martha, but I got over it.”

“Trip said you moped around for weeks.”

“It probably appeared that way to him, but he is always here snooping around, and it irritates me. I feel like they are plotting my demise, he and that horrible wife of his.”

“I won’t let them do that, Mother. Tell me, how is Jenkins?”

“May I let you in on a little secret?”

I held my breath and waited for her to confide that she was now sleeping with him. “Sure, I love secrets!”

“I’m teaching him to read! I go over to his cottage every morning and we practice. Don’t tell Millie, though. She thinks he’s literate because he’s handled all the money she gives him for feed and seed all these years. I don’t want her to know. Jenkins has been too good to this family to have him embarrassed. Wait here just a moment, I’ll show you his workbook.”

Relief waved through me like a flash flood. She was teaching P l a n t a t i o n

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him to read! Thank God. Hell, when I got my hands on Trip, I’d kick his butt. Mother came back in and opened the spiral notebook for me.

“Look, here is what he could do last fall.” She showed me a sample of his handwriting that was all jagged and sloppy. She flipped to the end of the book. “This was how he was doing in February. Remarkable, isn’t it?”

“Mother, you are remarkable!”

“Thank you, Caroline. I must say I’m pretty proud of Jenkins.

It proves that an old dog is never too ancient to learn a new trick, doesn’t it?”

I couldn’t help but lean over and hug her. “You are some girl, Lavinia, do you know that?”

“That’s Miss Lavinia to you! I’m still your mother!”

We smiled at each other. In that moment, I forgave her everything and just wanted to help her secure her future.