The Beach House

Toy nodded, chewing her lip.

“Now I’m dog tired and want to go home to my beach house. Let’s not fret about this any more today. After all, we both have the summer to think about it. And what a summer. Cara is home again! Your little hatchling is coming soon, too! There’s so much good happening. What do you say? Let’s make it a summer to remember.”

The ladies of Primrose Cottage rallied around Palmer’s invitation with an excitement that surprised them all. It had roused them from the lethargy that had hovered in the house. Part of the fun of the day was changing from the usual casual beach attire to something a bit dressy. When Cara stepped into the living room, Lovie stopped tying the rosy silk scarf over her linen dress to stare at her.

“Aren’t you going to dress for dinner?”

Cara looked at her new navy sweatpants with the white racing stripe down the sides. She thought it looked rather smart. “I thought I’d wear this.”

Lovie didn’t speak for a moment. “For dinner?”

“Mama, we’re going boating.”

“You look like you’re going to the gym! You can look so smart and you have all those pretty clothes. Why not wear something with a little color? High heels and a smidgen of lipstick go a long way to making a woman feel good about herself. Southern women know this.”

Cara took a deep breath. “In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve spent the last twenty years in Chicago.”

“Caretta Rutledge, you were born a Southern woman and don’t you ever forget it. When you left Charleston, you may have put miles between yourself and your family, lost your accent and gained a couple of degrees and titles, but where does that leave you? Where are you from? Darlin’, you can’t travel enough miles or live enough years to ever lose your heritage. You carry that with you in your blood.”

“I see. Now I’m in for the steel magnolia lecture?”

A sparkle of hard-won wisdom flickered in Lovie’s eyes. “I worry about you, Caretta. You are a strong woman, true enough. But strength without flexibility makes one hard. Come September, when those fierce winds blow in from the sea, those hardwoods crack, splinter and fall. But the pliant palms are resilient and they bend with the wind. This is the secret of a Southern woman. Strength, resilience and beauty. We are never hard.”

Cara closed her eyes and counted to ten. “If I dress for dinner, will you leave me alone?”

Lovie smiled sweetly and adjusted her scarf. “Why, only dress if you want to, dear.”

Cara changed into her new long, cotton Hawaiian print dress and allowed her dark hair to fall down to her shoulders like a glossy mane. Gold hoops at the ears and brightly colored bangles at her wrist were her only jewelry, and to please her mother, she colored her lips with a glossy red.

“You look positively exotic,” Lovie said with an approving nod when she emerged a second time from her room.

Cara had to admit to herself that she felt deliciously at ease in the loose, flowing dress and more in sync with the island mood.

Toy dressed in a long black skirt and a flowing black jersey top that strained across her middle. She was morosely silent and retiring, reminding Cara of a Japanese puppet master cloaked in black, unnoticed on the stage. Toy was nervous about going to the formal house for dinner and gave a dozen excuses why she should stay behind. But Lovie had been firm that Toy was to join them or she wouldn’t go herself. When Cara tried to object, she was on the receiving end of a stern glance that told her Lovie was well aware of Palmer’s feelings for her companion and she didn’t care a single whit. Remembering her promise, she bit her tongue, then left a friendly message on Palmer’s answering machine to set the table for one more.

The weather did its best to lift spirits for the outing. Beautiful skies, low humidity and a soft, friendly breeze sent the three women on their way to Charleston. Being a balmy Saturday afternoon, no one was surprised to find the Ben Sawyer Bridge open for a long parade of weekend boat traffic. They took their place in the line of waiting cars and enjoyed the beat of oldies but goodies music pouring out of the open windows of the car ahead.

“Hey, that song is about your name,” Toy pointed out from the back seat. “Hear? Caretta, Caretta,” she sang along.

“That’s ‘Corrina, Corrina,’” Cara replied dryly. “Which would have been infinitely more cool than being named after a species of turtle.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t know. It’s an old song. Before my time,” Toy teased, flopping back against the cushions.

“It was before my time, too,” Cara muttered, trying not to laugh.

“You should be pleased and proud to be named after the noble loggerheads,” her mother said.

“I’m only pleased that you didn’t give me the full Latin name Caretta Caretta.”

“I wanted to but your father wouldn’t let me. Don’t laugh. I’m serious!”

“Then your middle name would have been Caretta, too?” Toy’s laughter pealed like bells and Cara shook her head, resigned to the fact that, from that moment on, Toy would call her Caretta Caretta just to tease.

Cara beat the tempo with her fingers on the steering wheel, thinking how easy the mood was between them now where just a few days ago it had been so tense. She and Toy had kept a polite but deliberate distance from one another, rather like two pugilists sizing each other up before the bell. As each day passed, however, Cara couldn’t help but notice how much work the young girl did around the house and her respect grew.

She turned her head to listen in on the rapid-fire conversation between Toy and her mother, who had turned around to face the back seat. Something about a marinade using sesame oil and garlic. The affection between them was obvious. Whenever those two were together they chatted away like magpies. Cara watched from behind her dark sunglasses with a twinge of jealousy. She never could be like that with her mother. Though they were trying hard, there was this deep current running between them that was too strong for idle talk and laughter.

The Ben Sawyer Bridge took its sweet time to close again but eventually they were off, over the river and across the wetlands to Mount Pleasant.

“We’ve got to stop for shrimp on the way,” she remembered, her eyes on the lookout for the turn off Coleman Boulevard. “Do you have any idea where this shrimp joint is?”

Her mother laughed lightly beside her. “It’s off Shem Creek. Just turn left at the next corner. I can’t believe you don’t remember all the times your father brought you there.”

“Selective memory,” she quipped, then turned off the main road. Moments later, Cara was lost in a winding maze of narrow roads in an old neighborhood with enormous oaks dripping with moss and charming smaller houses. She stayed to the right as Palmer had instructed, passed a row of enormous new houses on the creek, then went straight to a dead end with an old wood sign that read: Clud’s Shrimp Bait and Accoutrement.

It was a long name for nothing more than a small wood shack beside a few shrimp boats docked in the rear. Several burly men hauled shrimp from a large trawler, shouting to each other and laughing, seemingly oblivious to the three women in high heels and sun dresses as they stood at a plywood counter.

Cara walked around to the rear to drum up some service. It was a shining afternoon and everywhere she looked it was like a post card depicting an old Charleston industry. She could smell the pungent blend of shrimp, salt and sea in the air, and hear the water lapping, the boat thumping against the dock and the raucous call of gulls. She walked closer for a better view of the long, centipedelike riggings. Perched on the side of the trawler, like a model for a Wyeth illustration, stood a broad-backed shrimper in stained jeans, a red T-shirt and heavy, paint-splattered, sun-bleached boots. There was stubble on his tanned, weathered face and his brown hair fell along his brow as he bent over the nets. She was about to turn away when he swung his head around toward her.

Damn, it was the man from the bar. She knew he caught sight of her, too, because after a second his eyes crinkled in recognition and he smiled.

It was a rogue’s smile, full of tease, and she turned away sharply, the mocking laugh of the seagulls in her ears. “Of all the luck,” she muttered as she turned on her heel and headed back to the shack. Her mother and Toy were already collecting the shrimp.

“All set here?” she said, anxious to leave, pulling out her wallet.

“Your credit card is no good here,” her mother chided.

Cara pulled out some bills and laid them on the table, but her mother, with agonizing deliberation, counted out the coins from her purse to give the exact change. Cara cast a nervous glance out back. From the corner of her eye she saw the man on the boat heave himself over the side and deliberately make his way toward the ramp.

She reached into her purse to pull out another dollar. “Keep the change.” Then, linking arms with her mother, she led a hasty retreat with Toy bringing up the rear.

“I don’t see what the big hurry was all about,” her mother exclaimed, doing up her seat belt as Cara spun gravel and veered out of the parking lot.

“We don’t want to keep Palmer waiting.”

“Waiting? For heaven’s sake! It just isn’t polite to arrive right on the dot. Now you slow down a bit, Cara, and show your manners!”

Palmer Rutledge stood at the helm of his Boston Whaler, one hand firmly on the wheel of his powerboat and another wrapped around a beer as he grandly gestured, pointing out the new, expensive houses as they made their way up and down the Intracoastal Waterway. Lovie and Toy sat together on plush cushions under a canopy. Cara chose to sit at the rear in the sun. It was a lovely, sunny, splashy trip and Palmer was pulling out all the stops. Cara leaned far back on the padded deck chair, hung on to her cap and acknowledged his comments with a smiling nod.

More houses and docks bordered the winding waterway than she remembered and many more boats were cruising. When she was young, she and her friends could jump from the dock and swim across the waterway to a small hammock of land where they could stand for a bit to catch their breath before they swam back. To try that today would be as dangerous as crawling on all fours across a two-lane highway. The wakes of boats rocked them as they sped by, but it was all in good sport with lots of waves and smiles.

As beautiful as the houses and marshes were, she far more enjoyed just sitting back and enjoying the vision of her brother in his own element. Palmer was a Lowcountry boy through and through, in love with every square inch of land and every drop of water that made up this special place on God’s earth.

He’d been a restless boy. Mama had called him Palmer the Panther because of the way he prowled with a hungry look in his eyes. But he was older now and Cara thought the paunch over the rim of his Tommy Bahama trunks and the extra roundness to his cheeks attested to a certain degree of satisfaction with his life—and his penchant for biscuits and barbeque.

“Auntie Caretta, do you want some soda?”

Cara turned her head to see a prim Linnea standing wide legged before her, trying desperately to maintain her balance while serving a cold Coke in a Koozie in a ladylike fashion.