Plantation (49 page)

He popped the cork, poured two glasses and handed me one.

“Cheers! Now tell me about your mother and why she needs Jack Taylor.”

“Shouldn’t we be inside?”

“In a minute. I hate crowds.”

“Me too. So here’s the story . . .”

I told him the history of Mother’s suspected melanoma and also about the lump on her rib. The whole time I spoke, his eyes never left my face. He was too handsome to be real. All I wanted to P l a n t a t i o n

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do was touch his hair to see if it was as soft as it looked. No wedding ring. Good sign.
What about Matthew, you little slut,
I asked myself, not giving a damn.

Originally, I thought he had brought me out here to check my hormonal waters for the tide, but from the morose look on his face I finally got it through my thick head that he was not in the phal-lic mode. When I stopped running my mouth like the Chata-hoochee, he put his glass of wine on the picnic table and pulled a cell phone from his pocket. He dialed a number and held his finger up to me—a signal not to speak.

“Jack? It’s me. Yeah, can you come out to the backyard? Sure.

I have someone I want you to meet. Bring a glass. Yeah. Okay.” He closed the phone and smiled at me. “He’s here at the party.”

“Oh. Good.” It was another poetic response that would take his breath away. “So, what do you think? About my mother, I mean? Are you married?”

It just slipped out. God, I was so uncool. What a jerk I was. He smiled at me.

“You know? I don’t think I even introduced myself ! I’m Simon Rifkin—your host for the evening. No, I’m not married.

I’m worse than married.”

The back door opened and a man, who I assumed was Jack Taylor, came down the steps with a beautiful woman on his arm.

“Hi, sweetheart!” Simon Rifkin, the one who didn’t call me an ass but should have, said. “I want you to meet my fiancée.” He said this to me, and extended his hand to her. “This is the woman of my dreams, Susan Hayes!”

He pulled Susan to his side and kissed her cheek.

“He only says that when he’s done something naughty,” she said and winked at me.

“And you must be Jack Taylor,” I said.

After hellos all around, Susan turned to me and said, “Now, do I know you?”

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

“No, I don’t think so,” I said, “I came with Matthew Strickland. You have a beautiful home.”

“No, I have a falling-down disaster of a home, but I have a beautiful man. I’m sure it’s my usual paranoia, but if I thought you were out here flirting with my man, I’d have to take those shoes right off your feet and put one of the spikes in your ear! Where did you get them? They’re fabulous!”

Her blue eyes twinkled and she smiled the entire time she spoke, but I knew she was serious about this guy Simon and I couldn’t blame her. I had an instantaneous admiration for her way with words. She probably carried a stick in the backseat of her car to beat the women off of him when they went out in public. I decided I wanted her for a friend. I sure as hell didn’t want her for an enemy. She also had an engagement ring on that was big enough to choke a Great Dane.

“What size do you wear?” I said. I looked down at my favorite mules and knew they were up for adoption.

“Gunboats, honey. I wear a nine and a half.”

“Jesus, me too!”

At this point, Simon had taken Jack aside. Jack’s face was serious too. He looked over at me when Simon stopped talking. Susan stopped talking too when she saw how serious Simon was.

Jack spoke first.

“Caroline?” He pulled his wallet from his back pocket, fum-bling through it. “Here’s my card. You bring your mother to me at eight-thirty Monday morning. In case you get there before I do, just tell Trudy, she’s my head nurse, that I told you to come. Don’t worry about your mother. That’s my job. Whatever it is, we will get her the best talent we have and take it from there, okay?”

“Okay. Gosh thanks, Jack.”

“Don’t mention it. This happens all the time.”

I looked at his face for the first time. There wasn’t anything remarkable about it, except that it was almost perfectly symmetri-cal. He had nice green eyes and blond hair mixed with gray and P l a n t a t i o n

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amazing eyelashes. Even though there was hardly a line on his face, I guessed his age at around fifty. No ring. He was also taking inventory of me. Not in a leering way like Josh or in a wave of testosterone like Matthew. Just a nice way. He was tall but not lanky like Richard. He was solid and looked like he had probably played football most of his life. When he smiled at me, I felt shy. For me to feel shy is a helluva thing. I liked him. Better yet, I trusted him.

Susan spoke up. “Um, y’all? We have a party going on?”

This woman did a
lot
of speaking up, I decided. When I left with Matthew and Eric at around eight, I positioned my shoes on the front hall table with a note.

Susan, great meeting you and Simon. If the shoes fit, wear them! Call
me for lunch! Caroline Levine 843-890-4499
.

“I’m sure there’s a good reason why you’re barefoot,” Matthew said.

“I like that woman,” I said. “We’d better get going.”

Eric slept in the car. He had enjoyed himself thoroughly. I had to promise to buy him this Sims game for his computer the next day to get him to stop talking about it.

“It’s like you’re God, or something, Mom! I swear it is so cool!”

“Don’t swear, Eric. It’s not nice.”

“But it is the most unbelievable game! Completely mind-blowing!”

“That’s nice, Eric.We’ll look for it tomorrow, all right?”

“But, Mom, let me just tell you one thing. I built this house, right?

And then—”

“Eric?”

He got the message. I looked over at Matthew as he drove the car, his face in a smirk.

“Boys,” I said.

“Boys are great,” he said and smiled at Eric in the rear-view mirror.

Later, after dinner at his house—grilled steaks and plenty of wine—we had a walk by the river, and then Matthew drove us home. Eric ran inside the house, slamming the front door behind 3 9 8

D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k him. I’d have to remind him not to do that. I looked over at Matthew and shrugged my shoulders. Matthew stood a safe five feet from me.

“Well, thanks for a nice evening, Caroline.”

“Oh, Matthew, it’s wonderful to see you again and I can’t begin to thank . . .” I tried the front door. It had locked itself.

“Not another word about your brother, okay?”

“Let’s walk around to the back door,” I said.

I went up the back steps and he waited at the bottom. He just stared at me. No moves, no kiss, no feels, no nothing. I was beginning to wonder if I should change my toothpaste.

“Okay, mister,” I said, and walked back closer to him.

He cocked his head to one side and said, “You want me to kiss you, don’t you?”

“Not unless you want to, Matthew.” Jeesch, I thought, is he studying to be a minister in his spare time? “Are we saving it for something? It’s perishable, you know.”

He obviously didn’t know what I meant, because he said,

“Wha . . . ,” and then, “Why don’t you just come here?”

Then, in a glorious moment of moonlight and pheromones, Matthew Strickland pulled me to him, laid his lips on mine, and went to work. Good Lord! I thought I had left the earth! He couldn’t have kissed like that in high school or I would have remembered! My knees were weak and my stomach fluttered. Sweet Jesus! What a man! I would have melted his clothes on Mother’s back porch, except that the kitchen light went on. We stopped and looked toward the door. It opened slowly and out came Mother’s broomstick with an alarm clock swinging from its end. Eleven o’clock. I started to giggle.

“Decent people need to be asleep!” came the voice from an unseen source.

I turned to Matthew, who was now practically eating his lips, suppressing laughter.

“Good night, Matthew, thank you for a wonderful time.”

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said, and walked away toward his car.

Thirty-nine

Mr. M.D.

}

ONVINCING Mother to get in the car wasn’t easy.

It required the full cooperation of Millie and Trip and C a big, fat slice of guilt. Eric’s tutors, “the family lovers,” were coming within an hour. Millie agreed to orchestrate their day. It was just one too many complications for me and I gladly took her help.

We were all gathered in the kitchen slapping together a little breakfast. Over coffee, toast, and scrambled eggs, Mother bickered with us.

“I don’t understand why in the world you think my body is your business! I’m perfectly content to live as I do and perfectly content to let y’all live as you do. And if anybody around here has the right to point fingers, it’s me, not you or you!”

“Mother,” Trip said, “look, I know you hate doctors. I hate doctors. But if you’ve got something growing on your rib and a 4 0 0

D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k big nasty mole on your back, don’t you think someone should look at you?”

“Not necessarily,” she said. “The whole problem with doctors is that, at my age, they will most assuredly find something wrong!

I’d bet my last dollar on that!”

“Oh, come on now, Miss L, you lost your mind or what?”

Millie said.

“If this was me, wouldn’t you make me go to a doctor?” I said.

“That’s different. You’re my daughter, Caroline. I couldn’t stand by and see anything happen to you.”

“Well, Grandmother,” Eric said, piping up from his plate, “I’m just really getting to know you, and even though I’m just a kid and you’ll probably tell me I’m out of line, I don’t want to stand by and see anything happen to you either. I love you.”

That clinched it. The room fell silent. All eyes were on Eric and he shifted in his seat, nervous that the big ax of the matriarch executioner was about to reshape his Abercrombie & Fitch haircut.

“Eat your eggs, son,” I said, hoping the moment would pass.

“It’s brain food.”

It didn’t, but the ax didn’t swing either. Mother rose from her place and went to Eric’s side in the gliding, graceful move of an Olympic ice-skater coming to the close of a gold medal dance routine.

“For you, darling, I will see this charlatan of a doctor. For you.” She kissed him on his head. “You dear, sweet, darling little boy,” she said to him in an audible whisper, and then to the rest of us, “Did you hear that? My grandson loves me! I’m going to dress.

We leave in fifteen minutes.”

She left the room with all the flourish that Loretta Young used to descend a staircase in the fifties. The swinging door, as alive as any costar, swooshed behind her on cue. Each of us stared at each other and shook our heads. The door swung back open and she poked her head inside, looking at me with an arched eyebrow.

“How old is he?”

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“Who?” I said.

“This doctor, of course. Is he handsome? Should I wear something exciting? A hat perhaps?”

“Mother? Please! Just wear something normal. A St. John knit.

It won’t wrinkle in the car. Yes, he’s very handsome.”

It was impossible not to smile. Mother had only wanted someone to tell her why she should submit to the intrusive eyes and prob-ing hands of a stranger. She hated doctors. But she sure loved men.

By eight–forty-five, we were in Dr. Jack Taylor’s office. He took her right in as though she were the queen. At nine-fifteen, he called us into his office while Mother dressed in his examining room. I was filled with dread. In the tradition of our family’s emotions, I wanted to dislike him and decided in advance that anything he said would be reexamined by a second opinion.

“Please sit down,” he said, motioning to the two leather occasional chairs in front of his desk.

While he shuffled through his papers, I looked around his office. It looked exactly as you would expect a male doctor’s office to look. His mahogany desk was nicked and dulled from years of abuse, but the top was neatly organized with a pen set, blotter, and pencil cup. His cards rested in an old clamshell, which had probably been painted and decorated by one of his children years ago.

His walls were covered with diplomas and citations and photographs of what appeared to be open-air-market people in Istanbul and Greece. He apparently liked to travel. And to read. In addition to bookshelves of reference materials on various skin diseases, he had a small collection of leather-bound old books—classics—

probably first editions. He treasured books. He couldn’t be all bad.

He made a few notes on his prescription pad and cleared his throat.

“I want you to take your mother to this clinic at the Medical University for blood work, when you leave this office. I’ll have my nurse make the appointment.” He cleared his throat and looked from Trip’s face to mine. “There’s nothing good to report.”

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“What does that mean?” Trip said.

“I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but I’ve been practicing medicine for twenty years and I can predict and recognize with certainty your mother’s condition and the prognosis.”

It still wasn’t sinking in with me—that Mother was seriously ill. “I’m sorry,” I said, “it’s early and I’m just not sure what you mean. Is Mother in danger?”

“Ms. Levine . . .”

“Caroline,” I said.

“Caroline,” he said, “look, the mole on your mother’s back is melanoma. No question about it. The lump in her side is almost definitely related to it. I’d say her cancer began to metastasize more than a year ago. She has all the classic symptoms—loss of appetite, loss of balance, numbness, and leg pain—the blood work will be the definitive clue. So I’d say, go get the blood work, I’ll rush the lab for results, and as soon as I know for sure, I’ll call you. In the meanwhile, I’m going to call my friend Jim Thompson—he’s the best oncologist I know—and tell him to open his calendar for us tomorrow.”

“Thank you,” I said, and a numbness crept through me. I didn’t even know what questions to ask. I looked at Trip and his face was a mask of shock.