Porch Lights (28 page)

“Hush! Someone will hear you! Yes, with Buster! Who else? The freaking milkman?”

“Oh, my heart! Oh, my God! How did this happen? Where? I swear to God! I can’t breathe! I have to sit down!”

“Stop! Keep walking. You’re drawing attention to us! If anyone heard us, they’d think we’re as crazy as hell. So remember yesterday morning I went up to Murrells Inlet with him?”

“Jackie told me. You’d better tell me every single
word
, Annie Britt. Don’t you dare leave out one thing!”

“I’m not! So, we went out to lunch at this crazy place called Drunken Jack’s, and it was pouring rain to beat the band, remember?”

“Remember the rain? Are you kidding? It was a good day to build an ark.”

“Truly! Well, since it was raining, we decided to get some Bloodys and fish po’boys. He had three and I had two, and we were completely snockered. I
never
drink vodka, as you know. Nasty. Anyway, somehow we got back to his rental house, but I knew I
had
to have a nap. He sure couldn’t drive back to the island without a nap, so we crawled in the bed. Before you ask, yes, there is a second bedroom, but the bed was covered with laundry, which figures. We took off our clothes, because who gets in the sack with all their clothes on? Then everyone would say, ‘Oh! It looks like you slept in your clothes!’ So we nodded off, and when we woke up an hour or so later, nature took its course!”

“Well, that’s interesting, but did nature take his
time
?”

“Yes, nature took his time, you nosy Nellie.”

“So was it, I mean, you know . . . would you do it again?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Annie Britt, don’t lie to me.”

“Okay, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Anyway, he’s staying in the guest room for as long as Charlie and Jackie are here.”

“I heard that from your daughter. May I ask why he’s in the guest room, you daggum fool? He’s your husband!”

“Because he snores like a beast.”

“Actually, I made Vernon sleep in our guest room when he snored. God, that man shook the house.”

“They all do. It’s amazing. Anyway, I wanted to tell you I know about Charlie’s cards. Jackie and I discussed the whole thing. Jackie asked Charlie, and he said the reason . . .” I told her Charlie’s explanation, and she nodded.

“Children just see the world differently,” she said. “And they react differently than we do. I’m really glad there was nothing more to it. What a sweet child.”

“Thanks but I’ll tell you what . . .”

“What?”

“That sweet child
really
doesn’t want to go back to New York.”

“Look, shut my mouth and call me Aunt Fanny, but I think she should stick around for a while too. At least one semester. But she tells me she already has a job lined up for herself at the Brooklyn VA.”

“She does?” I felt my heart sink.

“Yes. You know? I mean, why can’t she see that her loss is bringing the rest of her family back together again? It’s as plain as the nose on
my
face!”

“Because she’s a knucklehead. A truculent, shortsighted, self-involved knucklehead. And she’s so wound up in her own grief she doesn’t know what to do! Maybe her father can talk to her and get her to listen. I don’t know.”

“Well, if you give the old man a little more lovin’, I’ll bet he will!”

Deb started to laugh again, and so did I. In fact, we laughed off and on the whole way home. Who had ever heard of anything as stupid as hiding the fact that you’re screwing your own husband? It was one of those crazy family stories you hoped your grandchildren remembered to tell when you were long gone—under the right circumstances, of course.

I invited Deb to sit on the porch with me for a while. Charlie’s treasure hunt was set to begin within the hour, and I was aching for a cool drink. I was pouring iced tea for us, and Charlie came through the back door.

“Hey, Glam! Guster back?”

“I just came in myself. Haven’t seen him. Want a cold drink of water or iced tea? It must be a thousand degrees out there today.”

“Decaf?”

“Your mother and her decaf business! Don’t you know that all those children in China drink tea all day long and they wind up at Harvard and MIT?”

“Maybe I’ll just take water, then?”

“How about watered-down iced tea?”

“Sweet!” he said.

“Oh, honey, did you want sugar?”

“No, Glam,
sweet
means
awesome
.”

I handed him the glass. “Well, I’m glad you cleared that one up for me, because I never would have figured it out. That’s for sure. Miss Deb’s on the porch. Go say hello.”

“Sure! Then I’m going to wait on the back steps for the Greenville Three.”

“Sounds like a good plan,” I said, and a few minutes later I followed him out to the porch.

“Thanks,” Deb said when I handed her a glass. “So Charlie tells me he’s already buried his treasure. And that you helped him make a cryptogram like Poe’s. It sounds like an awful lot of effort went into this, Charlie.”

“Yeah, it did. But I think it’s going to be worth it. I can’t wait to see their faces when they get the cryptogram! Think I should give them a pencil?”

“Yes! Of course! Just make sure it has a big eraser!” I said.

We drained our glasses pretty quickly. Then, as I debated getting up to refill them, I heard the back door slam. I jumped. Buster knew how I felt about slamming doors. Maybe Steve did it. He probably didn’t know about me and slamming doors. In any case, the men were back.

“You might want to go see what Guster brought home, Charlie.”

“And, darlin’ child? Could you refill our glasses?”

“Sure!” Charlie took our glasses and went inside. “Guster?” he called out.

“In here, Charlie! Come see!”

“You don’t want to go say hello?” Deb said.

“You mean, get up again? I’m too pooped to pop. Besides, now that I’ve allowed him to enter the Magic Gate, shouldn’t he come to me?”

“Magic Gate? Oh, girl! You are too funny!”

Moments later, the door opened, and there came Buster with our tea, this time with lemon and sprigs of mint.

“Why, thank you, Buster! We are so parched! Aren’t you parched, Deb?”

“Like the Sahara,” she said and giggled.

“I’m going to be on the steps with Charlie and Steve waiting for the other kids. Want me to call you when they get here?”

“That would be perfect! I just need to sit for a few minutes. We walked quite a distance and in this heat? Mercy!”

“You just need fluids,” he said. “All right, then. You ladies hydrate.”

When she was sure that Buster was out of earshot, Deb said, “You collapsing camellia! You are so terrible!”

“Not terrible. Just naughty enough. And only some of the time. All women are a little naughty sometimes.”

“True. And he did bring us tea.”

“Because he wants to visit the Magic Gate again. What did I tell you?”

“Well, with Vernon gone, it’s going to be a helluva long time before anybody tries to gain access to mine.”

“Listen,” I said, thinking of how lonely my best friend was bound to be and soon, “the Gold Key in the Magic Gate is never a perfect fit, and at our age? The whole mess is overrated anyway.”

“Really? You really think so?”

“Well, darlin’? It was the first visit to the Gate in over a decade. We’re both a little rusty. But we laughed like hell and had a good time, so I guess who cares?”

“You do realize Jackie would have a stroke if she ever heard her mother talking like this?”

“You do realize that Jackie thinks her parents have plastic mounds where their genitals are supposed to be, like Barbie and Ken?”

“Oh, my God! You are so funny! Come on, let’s go wish Charlie happy hunting.”

Actually, the intimate encounter between the Golden Key and the Magic Gate had been as sweaty and exciting as it was twenty years ago. I didn’t want Deb to think she would be missing out. But truly? I had been shocked by the electricity of the event. Did I say that the right way?

Just as we arrived on the back steps, the Greenville Challengers screeched to a halt on their bicycles.

“You guys ready for the challenge of your life?” Charlie asked. He was so excited, his voice just bubbled with anticipation.

“Yeah! Bring it on!” they said.

“Okay! On the count of three, we swap maps! Ready? One! Two!
Three!
”

Paperwork changed hands, and moments later they were off, racing in different directions. Charlie had thought he would take the dogs, but in the last moment he agreed with Buster and Steve that navigating his skateboard with two frisky dogs on leashes might be too much.

“I told him he’d wind up hanging up in the branches of a magnolia tree!” Buster said.

“Or a ditch with a broken leg,” Steve added.

“Well, that surely did the trick! Shall we sit on the porch and have a cold drink?”

“Why not? It’s hotter than the hinges on the back door of Hell,” Buster said. “Come on, Steve, let’s get us a beer.”

And that’s how we passed the next few hours. Talking, telling stories, doing the island thing of just letting an afternoon pass with no thoughts of supper or what the next day would bring. Just as the tide turned and the island cooled down for the evening, Charlie came in with a whole bag of loot, mostly comic books and candy, but he had dozens of mosquito bites all over his arms and legs. It didn’t dampen his spirit one iota. He had solved their map, and he wondered if they had solved his.

“Don’t go anywhere, young man,” Steve said. “Let’s cover those bug bites with something so they won’t itch, you won’t scratch, and you won’t get some disgusting infection! I’ll be right back.”

“Yeah, please, ’cause I’m already itching like
craaazy
!”

Steve rushed over to his house and came back in minutes with a tube of medicated gel. “Here, just put dots on each bite and tap it in just a little.”

Charlie did just as Steve said, and soon he was making the sounds boys make to indicate relief.

“Awwwww! Gaaaaa! Awwwww!”

“Better?” Steve asked.

“I’m gonna live! Hey, Glam? Can we have burgers for dinner, and will you teach me how to make onion rings?”

“Sure! I’ve got a dozen burgers in the freezer just waiting to be wanted. And there’s a bag of onions in the pantry.”

“Yay! Hey, Guster? Will you take me down the island to see if we see them near Fort Moultrie?”

“Sure, let’s go!”

They left, and I turned to Steve. “I’ve never seen Charlie happier.”

“And why shouldn’t he be? He has an entire island for a playground and a chorus of adults who can’t do enough for him.”

“I wish we could talk Jackie into staying down here with us. Charlie sure wants to, but, well, Jackie has other ideas, I suppose.”

“I could talk to her if you’d like,” Steve said.

I replied, “And what would you say? I’m afraid she has to come to this on her own, Steve. That’s the kind of person she’s always been. We just keep trying to make her see by example and not so many words. She has an audio-processing disorder.”

“What the heck is that?” Deb said.

“It means she doesn’t listen to almost anything we say.”

Steve nodded. “I think I see that. So we have a difficult task ahead and not much time to accomplish it.”

“That sums it all up just right,” I said.

Jackie rolled in around seven thirty. We had the grill fired up, and Steve and Deb had commandeered the dinner with Charlie. Buster was bartending. Buster and I asked her how her day had gone. She said it had gone really well. Charlie bubbled over and over about his treasure hunt and how he really had those Greenville kids going and that he had to help them follow his map but in the end they all loved it and had a wonderful time, except for his bug bites but don’t worry, Steve took care of him. Steve poured her a glass of wine and handed it to her. How was your day? he asked. And she said, Great, just great. That’s wonderful, he said, really it is.

For the first time in a long time we just took our plates out to the porch and held them in our laps. It was the end of another scorching hot day, punctuated by a simple supper, laughter, goodwill, and all of it flavored with the salty breeze of the sea. I had not been so happy in years. Neither had the Salty Dog.

Chapter 15

“But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat.”

“Well, a kid then—pretty much the same thing.”

“Pretty much, but not altogether,” said Legrand. “You may have heard of one Captain Kidd . . .”

—Edgar Allan Poe, “The Gold-Bug”

Jackie

I
had to drag myself out of the bed the next morning, but once I got into the shower and stood under the water I started to wake up. A good showerhead is a gift from God. I toweled off and put on a clean pair of scrubs. It was already after six. I’d have time to make a cup of instant coffee in the microwave and then hit the road. I’d grab breakfast in the cafeteria at the hospital. To my surprise, Mom was in the kitchen, cooking.