Page 46 of The Guests on South Battery
“We’re so happy to have Jayne as a member of our household,” my mother said, her tone reminiscent of the opera diva she’d once been. “I hope you were there for some exercise, too.” She let her gaze slowly roam up and down Rebecca. With a frosty smile, she said, “It’s been lovely seeing you, Rebecca. Please give my best to your mother. Tell her that it’s been too long and we must have lunch together soon.”
“I’ll do that. Actually, I might want to come, too. I’ve been following my friend and former colleague Suzy Dorf’s column on the history of some of these wonderful houses we have here in Charleston—kind of obsessed, really, which makes sense, since the story of Melanie’s house will be making my husband famous—so of course I’m fascinated with Jayne’s story of how she acquired the Pinckney house. My mother swears that she thought you and Sumter Pinckney were a serious item, but Melanie says I was mistaken. Just imagine—that it could have been yours if that were true. It’s just such a fun coincidence that Melanie’s nanny now owns that same house!”
She smiled and I was happy to see a smudge of pink lipstick on her front teeth. None of us mentioned it.
“Anyway, Mama said she could be mistaken—that she was probably just thinking about when you moved up to New York to start singing and then Sumter moved there a couple of years later. She said my daddy—who knew Sumter from their days at Porter-Gaud—ran into you together when he was up there on business.”
Only the flare of my mother’s nostrils showed any indication of how annoyed she was. “Of course I saw Sumter when I was in New York. He was my best friend’s older brother and he was kind enough to take me to dinner a few times so I wouldn’t feel lonely. We might even have seen a play or two until my career took over my life. They were a lovely family. Now, if you will excuse me...” She turned her back on Rebecca and walked to the back of the store, where bins of underwear were sorted by color, none of which was white.
“Yes,” I said. “We have a lot of shopping to do before the twins wake from their nap....”
Jayne, having finally found her composure, looked at Rebecca. “You have lipstick on your teeth. But you might want to leave it there so people will have something else to look at besides that silly contraption on your chest. And whether you know it or not, you’re giving a bad name to people who really need a support animal. Think about that the next time you strap your little marshmallow dog into a baby carrier.”
Realizing there really wasn’t anything else to say, I gave Rebecca a small smile and wave, then followed Jayne to the back of the store to join my mother. When I was sure we were out of Rebecca’s sight, I gave Jayne a high five, and not just because she’d put Rebecca in her place, but also because I was gratified to know that she could, in fact, speak in coherent and well-thought-out sentences.
I was in a better mood as we continued the search for padded bras that also lifted and smoothed, but there was something Rebecca had said that kept pecking at my brain like a moth around a lightbulb. Something about coincidence, and how Jack was a firm believer that there was no such thing.
CHAPTER 16
Ilaced up my sneakers and slid on my sunglasses just in case anybody recognized me during my first attempt at running. Sophie had volunteered to come with me, but I’d declined, saying I was a big girl and could do it myself. The truth was that I was going to do something I’d seen on the Internet—interval training, a mixture between running and walking. Or what I liked to call survival. I’d skimmed over most of the article with its boring mentions of how many minutes should be spent doing each, deciding I would just stop when I got tired and walk until I felt like running again.
As a last thought, I grabbed General Lee’s leash, rationalizing that if I gave out from pure exhaustion, I could blame him and stagger home. I thought about bringing Porgy and Bess instead because they would have more energy, but quickly dismissed that idea because walking them was an exercise in gymnastics and frustration, since they appeared to be allergic to walking in a straight line and also seemed hell-bent on either crippling or killing me by constantly crossing their leashes and running in opposite directions.
General Lee gave me a look of apprehension as I began moving my legs at a pace that was slightly faster than a walk, but much slower than whatothers would refer to as a run unless one was a turtle. He soon caught hold of the idea and kicked up his speed, his short furry legs practically prancing. He actually appeared to be smiling. I had no idea how old General Lee was, since I’d inherited him with the house, but he was way too old to be outpacing me as I struggled to keep up. A couple of coeds with College of Charleston shirts darted past us, ponytails flying, making me feel like another reptile entirely—one that was related to the turtle but now extinct.
By the time I reached South Battery, I was convinced I would drop dead of a heart attack, and stopped, planning to turn around and go back home, feeling I’d done enough exercising for the day. But when I started walking in the direction from which we’d just come, General Lee yanked suddenly on the leash, yapping frantically. I turned to see what he was barking at and spotted a large, fat cat perched on the garden wall of the house opposite. Without my glasses, it was hard to tell, but as I approached, General Lee now in full attack mode, I could see the flap of skin that covered the empty eye socket, and the one green eye staring at us intently, the tail teasing us with its long, leisurely sway.
Just as we reached the curb in front of it, it jumped to the ground and ran down the sidewalk away from us. General Lee yanked on his leash so hard that it slipped from my hand, and he began chasing the cat. It was still early enough that there wasn’t a lot of traffic on the street, but my dog couldn’t be trusted off-leash. If it were diagnosable in dogs, I was pretty sure he had ADD; his ability to be distracted by pretty much anything that moved or made a noise was enough proof for me.
“General Lee, stop!” I shouted to no effect. “Come,” I tried, as if in his entire life he’d ever actually heard and listened to that word. “Treat!” I said instead, knowing that was the one word that might actually register. It didn’t. I had a sharp pain in my side before I realized we were heading to the Pinckney mansion.
I watched the cat run up the outside steps and disappear through the open front door, General Lee close on its heels. I stopped at the foot of the driveway, bent over double, and dug my fingers into my side in a futile attempt to get the pain to stop.
“Melanie?”
I opened my eyes at the sound of Sophie’s voice, but I lacked the energy and the oxygen required to straighten. I saw Birkenstocks and the bottom of a purple gauzy skirt with rainbow-colored elephant heads splattered like vomit all over the fabric. I let my gaze slide behind her to the Dumpster, where I spotted the backside of a man leaning over to lift something, his jeans slipping far past where they should be. I clenched my eyes shut again. “Is that Rich Kobylt?”
“He’s helping me remove the cast-iron tubs from all the bathrooms. What are you doing here?”
I straightened slowly, the pain gradually lessening. “I was running after General Lee, who just ran inside the house chasing that black cat.”
She looked confused. “I didn’t see a cat, but I did see General Lee, who was running a lot faster than I’ve ever seen him move.”
“Yes, well, the cat is apparently a lot faster than he is.” I looked behind her to where I saw Rich and another man lifting a claw-foot tub up a ramp that led into the back of his pickup truck, another three tubs waiting next to it. “Why aren’t those going into the Dumpster?”
Sophie looked as if I’d struck her. “Because these can be refinished. They’re solid cast iron! Do you know how much those would cost today? Besides, you’re the first one to admit that all the buyers these days are looking for old stuff that looks new—and with the modern bathrooms we’re putting in this house, these will be perfect.”
I looked at the tubs, with so much of their porcelain paint chipped off that they looked like brown-and-white cows. “I’ll have to trust you on that one.”
Rich noticed me and walked over, pulling up his pants as he approached. I wondered if I left an anonymous gift of a belt on his driver’s seat, whether he’d wear it. “Good morning, Rich.”
“Mornin’, Miz Trenholm.” He jerked his chin toward the house. “Your dog’s gonna have some trouble catching that cat. I’ve tried a bunch of times, but he’s a fast ’un. None of my team can, either. Course, they claim they didn’t see him, but that’s only because they don’t want to be bothered. They’ll be bothered all right when that cat dies somewhere in the walls and starts to stink. Ever smelled that before?”
I almost said that I had, and worse, too, but chose instead to focus on his bumper sticker, which had the numbers 0.0 in a white oval. “What does that mean?”
“It means I’m more sensible than my wife and value my knees more than she does. She’s a marathon runner and has a sticker that says 26.2. So I had to get my own.”
I had a vision of him running, his pants falling down to his ankles and making him trip, and I figured it was a good thing he wasn’t a runner.
