Choosing Charleston Read online

  “As angry as I am, I was kind of thinking that neither one of us should be wanting a divorce. Marriage is supposed to be forever, right?” A long sigh floated out of my mouth as the debate inside my head raged on. Logic and emotion weren’t blending well and thinking about Robert was exhausting. But the mediator in me held on to a string of hope and wouldn’t let it go. “Regardless of what happens between us, I really do miss living here.”

  “Well, Charleston is wonderful.” She peered closely at me, mouth twisted to one side. “You didn’t pick up any of them weird northern habits did you?”

  My brows went up. “What do you mean?”

  “Like eatin’ those floppy pizzas. Who wants to have to fold a piece of pizza in half like a sandwich?” She shook her head. “And bagels. Northerners love their bagels. Was never a bagel shop in Charleston until a Yankee moved here and opened one up.”

  I laughed, a real genuine laugh. “Nope, I don’t like the floppy pizza either. But I do love a good sushi place.”

  “Who’s she?”

  Granny’s hearing was still off, but her mind was back and sharing a conversation suddenly meant so much more than it had in the past. I wanted to tell her so many things, ask her so many questions.

  “Sushi,” I repeated. “It’s fish and veggies wrapped in rice.”

  She made a face and shuddered. “I’ll take my fish fried, thank-you-very-much, with the rice and greens on the side.”

  We sat in silence for a few beats. I didn’t want the conversation to end. I wanted to get back to more meaningful topics.

  “Well,” I finally said. “If it doesn’t work out with Robert, I should move back here. I can be a professional mediator anywhere. That’s the good thing about what I do. No matter where you go, people always have disagreements!”

  Granny patted my hand. “You know Carly,” she began, then hesitated to figure out how to phrase her thoughts. “I know my mind is going. I know that, at any second, I’ll go back to that place where I live now. And the worst of it is, I probably won’t remember this talk with you. But I want you to know I love you, very much.”

  My throat got tight and it was difficult to make the next words come out.

  “You may not remember it, Granny, but I will. It means a lot to me. And I love you, too.”

  “I don’t want to be a burden to your mamma and daddy. I hate being helpless…” her words trailed off. “I have money, you know. Your granddaddy made some good investments before he died. I could afford to go into one of those, what do you call them? Assisted living houses?” She let out a thoughtful laugh. “I guess it’s done gotten pretty bad when you need assistance just to live.”

  I took her hand. “Mamma and Daddy would never allow you to live anywhere but here. In the family home. And you’re not helpless. You just can’t remember things. There’s a big difference.”

  “You think so?”

  “Absolutely. Besides,” I gave her my brightest smile. “You’re… happy. You’re funny. And you’re cheerful all the time. Even when you can’t remember a damn thing!”

  “I am? I don’t get mean or ugly like those books on Alzheimer’s say that some people do?”

  “Never. You’re always in a good mood and Mamma and Daddy are glad to have you here. They wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  I looked into her eyes, willing her to understand, to remember our conversation. She hugged me tightly for several long seconds. I didn’t want our time to end and was about to ask her if she wanted to go dress shopping when she spoke first.

  “Jenny! How’s that darling boy of yours?”

  “Fine, just fine,” I answered, grateful for the five precious minutes we’d shared.

  Chapter Five

  “Well, this week is just turning out to be a family reunion!” Mamma declared, raising her wineglass into the air. “Your granny, both my girls and all my little darlings here at the same time!”

  An hour before, my twin had shown up piloting a Lincoln Navigator loaded with a plethora of luggage and toys, her twin seven-year-old girls, her two and-a-half-year-old son and a white toy poodle with disposition of a junkyard Rottweiler. It snarled at everything within a five-yard radius of its quivering, fluffed up body. The pink bow attached to the top of its head by a brave dog groomer didn’t make it any more approachable. Like the rest of us, Taffy just ignored it. Granny declared that it needed a Valium. Either that, or a good ‘ass-whuppin’.

  “I’m leaving the bastard!” my sister told us through a mouthful of Mamma’s pecan pie. It was a declaration that didn’t mean much, since Jenny threatened to leave Stephen or quit the show every few months. It was simply her way of getting attention.

  “Watch your language around the kids, Honey,” Mamma scolded gently. “Now tell us what happened.”

  Jenny studied the ceiling, perhaps trying to remember why she had loaded up the Navigator and driven from Atlanta to Charleston. She was my size with dark brown eyes and shoulder length hair lightened to a near-white color. Despite the bleached look, she was a beautiful woman. That was, when anger hadn’t twisted her features into the expression of a venomous snake.

  We had just finished eating supper when Jenny and her clan arrived, unannounced. After a thorough round of hugs, Mamma immediately set to the task of feeding them. She always prepared more food than necessary. I think other families called them leftovers, but in our house, the remains of Mamma’s efforts in the kitchen were edible treasures.

  The twins happily accepted fried chicken, mashed potatoes and butterbeans while the toddler, Hunter, refused everything except a pile of whipped cream my sister had scraped off the top of her pie. She was watching her weight.

  “He told me I was getting fat,” she finally answered, biting into a forkful of pie. “He said the owners aren’t going to renew my contract if I don’t lose some weight. And my new haircut makes my cheeks look pudgy. And viewing audiences want youth, youth, youth so I’d better not let myself go!” A heavy tear popped out and dropped onto the kitchen table.

  Jenny was the host of In Home Now, a hugely popular Atlanta-based television show that aired in regional cable television markets across the country. A cross between a shopping show and a morning talk show, it specialized in the new, the trendy and the upscale. She and her on-air partner peddled everything from cosmetics to lawn equipment to cruise packages, while entertaining the viewers with witty banter and surprise guests. Her husband, Stephen, produced the show.

  Jenny hiccupped, then sneezed. Other people sneezed from pollen or freshly ground pepper; my sister sneezed from tears. I often wondered if she got her way with Stephen not because he couldn’t stand to see her cry, but because he couldn’t deal with the sneezing attack that would follow.

  “The bastard!” Mamma said with genuine sympathy. She and Jenny always had appreciated each other’s ability to exaggerate.

  The twins, Sherry and Stacy giggled at what they knew to be an off-limits word.

  “What is it about my girls that attract bastards?” Daddy asked the dogs. Taffy cocked her head and wagged her tail. Jenny’s dog picked itself up from Mamma’s tile floor and aimed a short growl of an answer at Daddy.

  “Basta, basta, basta!” Hunter said happily from his perch atop a booster seat that had come out of the Navigator along with half of Jenny’s household. From the looks of what she’d brought with her, it was apparent she was planning to stay a few days. I wondered what excuse she offered to the teachers for pulling the twins out of school. Because she was a television celebrity, Jenny could usually get away with things other parents couldn’t.

  “Bast-ard. It’s bastard,” Stacy corrected her brother’s pronunciation.

  “Basta!”

  “Now let’s everybody just quit saying that bad word,” Mamma interjected. “Nobody is a bastard.”

  “But you just said my daddy is a bastard,” Sherry, who was emerging to be the more logical of the twins, stated.

  “Basta!” Hunter repeated.

 
“Lord have mercy,” Mamma shot a ‘do-something’ look at Daddy, who was busy squeezing a lemon wedge into his iced tea. Obliging her, he set to distracting the kids with talk of going to Folly Beach and searching for shark’s teeth.

  Jenny polished off the last bite of her pecan pie with an angry flair and was distractedly chewing it when she suddenly stopped and gave me a long, questioning look.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s nice to see you too, Sis.”

  “Oh, come on. You know I didn’t mean it that way.” She plucked a stray pecan from the plate and nibbled it. “I’m just a little stressed. You would be too if you’d just driven from Georgia with a dog that growled at every passing car. And with a son who was trying to fart because he thinks the sound is funny. And with twins who fought over air space!”

  “She was breathing my oxygen,” Stacy pointed out.

  “I was not,” Sherry said. “You were moving onto my side!”

  “I was not! I was trying to get away from his stinky farts!” Stacy threw the accusation at Hunter.

  “Basta!”

  Mamma just shook her head and excused herself from the table to feed the dogs. Taffy, always appreciative of a good meal, ran to stand by her food bowl. The poodle growled.

  “That dog needs a Valium,” Granny repeated.

  “What is its name, anyway?” I asked Jenny.

  “Her name is Precious. She was a gift from Cam, for the kids.”

  “Uh huh,” I said wondering if there could possibly be a more ill-fitting name. Cam, Jenny’s co-host on In Home Now, must have given her the dog after one of their frequent spats. Though they were perfect on the air together, their off-air disputes were common knowledge among everyone on the staff. Jenny probably thought the dog was his way of apologizing and Cam was probably still laughing.

  “So what are you doing here?” she asked me again. “And where is Robert?”

  “I’m visiting. And he’s probably rolling around naked somewhere with Corin Bashley.”

  “Who’s Corin Bashley?”

  “His girlfriend,” I snarled.

  “You mean he’s cheating on you?”

  Not wanting to elaborate anymore on Robert’s unfaithful nature, I just nodded gloomily.

  “But you haven’t even been married a year!” Jenny reminded me, temporarily forgetting about her own problems by deciding that mine were much more interesting.

  “He wanted a new cow,” I explained.

  She cocked her head and frowned, not understanding. Apparently my sister didn’t watch the animal channel with her kids, or she would have known that a bull never mated with the same cow twice. His goal was to impregnate the entire herd.

  Surprising me, Granny chuckled. She got it.

  “Carly caught him fooling around with this woman in her own bed,” Mamma added in a stage whisper, having returned to the table after feeding the dogs.

  “The bastard!” Jenny dropped her fork.

  “Basta! Basta!” Hunter said happily.

  “Well, at least he didn’t tell me I was getting fat,” I said, but the sarcasm was wasted on my sister.

  “Tell me about it. Stephen is a pig,” she said with disgust.

  “Basta pig!”

  “Lord have mercy,” Mamma said.

  The cordless phone rang and Precious growled at it.

  “I’m gonna draw a bead on that poodle-dog,” Granny told us.

  I was closest to the phone and answered it.

  “Jenny, thank God you’re there,” Stephen’s voice rushed across the line and it was a mixture of anger and relief. “I’ve been calling everywhere. You’re not answering your mobile and I didn’t know where you went! You shouldn’t have left like that… I love you, Baby. You’re beautiful and you’re the best host In Home Now has ever had. Why didn’t you just tell me you were going to your parents’ house?”

  If everyone kept confusing me with Jenny, I was going to get a complex.

  “Hi, Stephen,” I said and got right to the task of sorting out their problem. “She said you said she was getting fat.”

  “Carly? Is that you? What are you doing there?”

  “Your wife asked me the same thing. After she said you said she was getting fat.”

  “I never said that! All I did was get us a health club membership. I thought she’d enjoy it,” he said, exasperation in his voice.

  “Hold on,” I told him and held the receiver against my stomach. “Stephen says he never called you fat. He simply got you a health club membership,” I said to Jenny, who was attempting to look disinterested even though she was obviously pleased that her husband had tracked her down.

  “Well, it’s practically the same thing,” she said after a pregnant pause.

  Daddy and Hunter had occupied themselves on the back screened porch, attempting to free a small lizard that had gotten itself trapped inside. Granny had busied herself at the kitchen counter clearing dishes. But the twins were still at the kitchen table and their small ears were soaking up the conversation.

  I pressed the phone back to my ear to talk to Stephen. “She says it’s the same thing. The club membership suggested you thought she was getting fat.”

  “But she’s the one who wanted us to join! It was her idea!” He muttered something unintelligible. “Let me talk to her.”

  I offered the phone to Jenny, who made a show of declining to accept it.

  “You can just tell him to forget it!” she said to me, but the volume of her voice indicated the words were meant for her husband. “I don’t want to talk to him. Let him go find some skinny woman to host his stupid show!”

  A bright green lizard skirted across the kitchen floor and found refuge beneath the pantry door. Hunter ran in after it.

  “Dadda basta!” he said, pausing to point to the phone before flushing out the lizard and chasing it back onto the porch.

  “Oh, good grief. Let me talk to him,” Mamma said. She took the phone and disappeared to the back porch to join Daddy, Hunter and the elusive lizard.

  After a silent debate as to which conversation was going to be more interesting – mine with my sister or Mamma’s with Stephen – the twins followed Mamma. The information they gathered from her end of the conversation would weigh heavily, like water that needed to be squeezed from a sponge, until they shared it with us. After all, they did have the Stone family genes in them. All the Stone women, beginning with the ancestors we’d tracked down as far back as the late seventeen hundreds, had enjoyed the pleasure of good gossip. My family history was rich with scandal and I, with a little help from Robert, was apparently going to carry on the tradition. But my sister could instigate trouble all by herself.

  “I’m tired of him taking me for granted,” Jenny told me.

  I nodded. Except for Granny and the dogs, we were alone in the kitchen.

  “He has no idea what it takes to be in front of the camera, day after day after day.”

  I nodded again.

  “It can be exhausting. You have to pay attention to every little detail. My hair stylist practically lives at the studio and I have to get a manicure every three days! And heaven forbid if I should let something slip on camera that could be construed as politically incorrect. We don’t want to turn off any potential shoppers,” she paused for a breath to add a disclaimer. “Of course, we don’t do live shoots all that often, unless we’re promoting a travel destination. So they can usually edit something out when they want to. But still. It’s a demanding job. All the people staring at you and asking for autographs every time you go somewhere. They want to know which food processor is really in my kitchen and if the Sensual Sack Pak herbal pills really work. There’s no privacy. None.”

  I kept nodding.

  “And I have to act like I really believe in all the stuff I sell. You know, like it’s such a good deal that the viewers are nuts if they don’t pick up the phone or go online right then and order? Of course, most everything we sell is a wonderful product. But,
still, it gets tiring because I have to be so enthusiastic about everything.”

  I nodded some more.

  “Do you think I look fat?”

  I almost nodded again before I realized what she had asked.

  “Of course not. And, even if you were, the American public would still love you. They want to buy stuff from a real person, not some anorexic pixie doll.”

  “So you do think I’m looking fat!” she accused.

  I tried a different tack. “How much do you weigh?”

  “One-nineteen,” she said without hesitation.

  “And you are five feet and nine inches tall, which means you could actually weigh a hundred and forty-five pounds and not be fat. In fact, you’re way too thin.”

  “You think so?”

  “Sure. You really could stand to gain a few pounds.”

  The twins burst into the kitchen to tell us the news.

  “Daddy’s flying here in his plane tomorrow,” Stacy said. “To talk some sense into Mama,” Sherry finished.

  As the producer of In Home Now, Stephen had access to several of the studio’s assets, including a Bombardier Learjet. My guess was that he would drive his wife, their kids and their stuff back to Atlanta, and let his pilot fly the plane back. Or, if Jenny really wanted to teach him a lesson about inadvertently calling her fat, she’d fly back and leave Stephen to deal with the growling dog, farting toddler and fighting twins.

  After absorbing the news about her husband, my sister harrumphed. Granny kissed us all goodnight on her way to the bedroom, but forgot she was going to bed and ended up dozing on the sofa. Precious rolled onto her side, passed some doggie gas, and growled at her back end. The lizard skirted across the kitchen floor, mere inches from the oblivious poodle and was followed by Taffy, Hunter and Daddy – in that order. Mamma placed the cordless phone on its charger, looked around at her family, shook her head and smiled. It was a smile laden with contentment.

  Chapter Six

  “Who’s been messing with the thermostat?” Daddy asked the household.

  In what must have been a latent automatic response from childhood, Jenny and I answered in unison, “not me!”