Beach House Memories Read online

  Cara was rather like that cat, Lovie thought with some amusement. The previous May, Lovie had asked her only daughter to come home for a visit. She hadn’t thought Cara would come. They’d been estranged for some twenty years. Cara was always too busy, too involved in her career to find time to come back to Charleston. If Lovie was honest with herself—and this late in life, why be anything but honest?—she had to acknowledge that Cara just plain didn’t want to return. She preferred the crispness of the North in all its forms. Lovie had prayed that she and her headstrong daughter could patch up their differences before she died. She took a long breath and exhaled slowly, feeling the weariness of her years. How did one reconcile after so long a time? It was in faith that she’d written, and in a twist of fate, Cara had returned.

  Cara had been laid off from her high-powered job at an advertising agency in Chicago. She’d arrived at Lovie’s door at the onset of summer, feeling lost and restless, uncharacteristically adrift. She’d stayed the summer on Isle of Palms, ostensibly to take care of her mother. And yet, over the past months, Cara, like the lost cat, had been cared for, stroked, needed. The summer had made Cara wiser and more content—not so quick to chase the mouse.

  And in the process, she’d rediscovered her mother’s love. This had been the answer to Lovie’s prayers.

  It was autumn now, however, and like the season’s end, Lovie’s strength was ebbing with the receding tide. She had terminal cancer, and both she and Cara knew that soon the Lord would call her home.

  “Okay, Mama,” Cara conceded, patting Lovie’s hand. “We’ll sit out here a little longer. I know you hate to miss a sunset. Would you like a cup of tea? I’ll make you one,” she went on, not waiting for an answer.

  Lovie didn’t want tea just now, but Cara needed something to do. Though they didn’t say the words often, Lovie knew that Cara expressed her love with action. Cara rose effortlessly from the chair, a move Lovie could hardly recall being able to make.

  Cara was strikingly good-looking, tall and slender with glossy dark hair she usually wore pulled back in a carefree ponytail. But tonight was cooler and the humidity low so she let it fall unkempt to her shoulders. It swayed in rhythm with the few long strides it took her to cross the wooden porch.

  Lovie’s gaze swept across the porch of her beloved beach house that was showing signs of age. Time . . . it passed so quickly! Where did all the years go? How many summers had this dear house survived? How many hurricanes? Two white wooden rocking chairs sat side by side where mother and daughter sat most nights to enjoy the Lowcountry sunset. The recent category one hurricane had destroyed her pergola, and the new screens Cara had just installed hung in tattered shreds, waving uselessly in the offshore breezes. She heard the teasing hum of a mosquito in her ear.

  Her little house on Ocean Boulevard had always been a place of refuge for Lovie, a sanctuary through good times and bad, ever since childhood. In the twilight, the quaint and tidy lines of her 1930s beach cottage appeared part of the indigenous landscape beside the tall palms, the raucous wildflowers, and the clumps of sea oats on the dunes. From her seat on the porch, she could see straight out to the Atlantic Ocean without the obstruction of one of those enormous houses that bordered the island’s coastline. It was the same view she’d always had, all these many years. When the wind gusted, it rippled across the tall, soft grass like rosy waves and carried her back to happier days when the island was a remote outpost.

  Lovie’s parents had given the modest prewar cottage to her when she’d married, and she, in turn, would leave it to her daughter. Her house on Tradd Street in Charleston with the heirloom furniture and silver she had already handed down to her son, Palmer. Once upon a time she’d loved that house with a grand passion, yet never as steadfastly as she’d loved Primrose Cottage. She’d created wonderful memories here. The best . . .

  But her days were fading as quickly and surely as the sun. In these final precious moments, Lovie sought to divest herself of the encumbrances that held her to the present, tugging at her attention, diverting her from the path her heart wanted to follow.

  As the sun lowered in the west and purpling sea met the horizon to blend into one vast vista, Lovie felt the line between the past and the present blur as well. She allowed her thoughts to turn, as they often did at this moody hour, to Russell Bennett.

  He was waiting for her. Somewhere out in the vast purpling expanse of water, Russell was biding his time. She sensed this with every fiber in her being. Russell had been the love of her life. She’d lived long enough to say so, though one summer was all they’d had. In retrospect, with the passage of time and grace, Lovie understood that she’d been pulled toward her fate as surely as the tides were pulled by the moon.

  She felt it now. She could sense herself slipping again in the insistent undertow of the past, calling her back. There was no use fighting it. It was so easy to simply close her eyes.

  And relinquish.

  Two

  June 1, 1974

  Lovie was thirty-eight years of age. “In her prime,” her mother had declared. Her mama liked pat phrases. She spoke them with authority, as though she’d just made up the clever phrases herself. No matter how described, it was true that Lovie’s looks had at last blossomed from the sweetness of her youth into a more mature beauty. Or as her mother had pronounced, “From a sweet blossom to a fine example of the flower of Southern womanhood.”

  Lovie could smile at that description now, but at the time it had filled her with wonder and even pride. She was the wife of a successful Charleston businessman, the mother of two beautiful children, and the mistress of a beautiful house in the golden area of Charleston known to the locals as South of Broad.

  Lovie’s life circled around her husband, her children, her home, her church, and the endless, myriad responsibilities and obligations each entailed. She didn’t complain. Rather, she gave of herself with an open heart and mind, to her fullest. She’d been raised in a proper Southern household and appreciated the importance placed on a well-run home. Her mama had told her again and again that “the woman was at the heart of every home.”

  Yet, at the onset of every summer, Lovie crossed off the days on the calendar, feeling a growing desperation to shed the demands and expectations of her role in the city and run, feet bare and hair streaming, to her beach house.

  And now, at last, she was ready to go. Lovie slammed the hatchback of her Buick station wagon and slapped the dust off her hands with satisfaction. Her final social duty of the season was a dinner party for Stratton’s business tonight. Tomorrow she would escape across the Cooper River Bridge on a beeline to the Isle of Palms.

  “I’m all packed,” she said. “We’re off to the beach house first thing tomorrow morning.”

  “That’d best be everything, Miz Lovie, ’cause I don’t think you can squeeze one more thing in,” Vivian said. She stood beside Lovie with her arms crossed, shaking her head in doubt as she surveyed the big car with its faux wood siding. “That car look like a suitcase bulgin’ at the seams.”

  Vivian Manigault had been employed as the Rutledge maid since Lovie first set up house in Charleston as a young mother fifteen years earlier. Vivian’s primary task was to mind the two Rutledge children, Palmer and Cara, but she also tidied the house, did some laundry, prepared lunch, and, when Lovie was out, started the occasional dinner. For this she was paid a standard wage, had weekends off, and earned an extra fee for working evenings, such as tonight’s party. But Lovie felt there was no amount of money that could equal Vivian’s worth as a trusted ally.

  “How’re you gonna squeeze Palmer and Cara in that car?” Vivian continued. “Better not feed ’em too much tonight.”

  Lovie chuckled. “Every summer I tell myself that I don’t need to cram everything in the day I leave. That if I need something I can always just drive back to the city to pick it up from the house. But once I’m at the beach house, it’s like I’m a million miles away. I can’t bear to leave. So I can’t really
blame the children for packing everything they own.” Her gaze lifted to sweep across the backyard. “Where are those two? They should be home by now for dinner.”

  “Palmer’s back. That boy came saunterin’ in an hour ago smelling like one of those boars he’s so fond of huntin’.”

  “And Cara?”

  “She’ll be here.”

  Lovie caught the quick defense in Vivian’s voice. There was a bond between those two that Lovie was sometimes a little jealous of. “Well, she’d better. She knows I have an important dinner party tonight. And I’ll be waking her early in the morning.”

  “Yes’m. But that’s tomorrow. Tonight you best be watchin’ the clock. Your guests will be here ’fore you know it. You don’t want to be greetin’ them in your work clothes.” Vivian reached up to adjust her own pristine starched white collar.

  Lovie thought Vivian looked positively regal in her formal gray uniform with the crisp white facing at the collar and cuffs. Tall and as slender as a reed, Vivian liked to say she had the bones of a sparrow and the strength of an eagle. She also had the binocular vision of an eagle, Lovie thought. Nothing happened in the Rutledge household that Vivian didn’t know about.

  Lovie looked down at her jeans and the frayed white long-sleeved man’s shirt rolled up along her slender arms. Both were streaked with dirt from all the packing. She tugged off the cotton scarf from her head and shook out her hair as she mentally switched gears.

  “Lord, it is getting late. You know how I hate to stop before I finish something. I’m going right up to change. Could you—”

  She was interrupted by a short blast from a car horn.

  “Yoo-hoo! I’m here at last!”

  Turning, she saw her mother’s pale blue Cadillac convertible roll into the driveway. Lovie released a short puff of anticipation as she took off across the garden to the car. She arrived as her mother climbed from the white leather seats. Diana Simmons, Dee Dee to most, appeared as she usually did, trim and neatly dressed. Today she wore a pale beige linen dress with a strand of pearls at the neck and beige sling-back pumps. Not a blond hair was out of place, styled in the popular bouffant style, tucked behind pearl-studded ears. Dee Dee was still a pretty woman. Lovie had inherited her large blue eyes and petite Southern belle good looks. The singular difference between them was in expression—Lovie’s face was guileless and welcoming, while Dee Dee’s appeared strained and her eyes narrowed in perpetual scrutiny.

  “I brought the flowers,” Dee Dee called out. She opened the back door of her enormous car and began pulling out a cardboard box holding a large silver urn overflowing with freshly cut flowers in an array of spring colors.

  Lovie rushed forward to take hold of the box. “Mama, that’s too heavy. Let me.” Vivian was a step behind her to carry the second box, filled with another silver urn of flowers. “They’re beautiful!” she exclaimed.

  “They are, aren’t they,” Dee Dee replied, allowing Lovie to take the box. She reached out to adjust a few blossoms. “It’s a vile day. In this heat I waited till the very last minute to cut and arrange them. Let’s get them out of this sun. And I want to see your table.”

  They made their way single file along the narrow brick walkway through the walled garden. Lovie shared her mother’s love of gardening and had broken several nails bringing the ancient flower beds back to life. The garden had been in a shambles when she and Stratton had bought the wide-porch Georgian Revival house shortly after they were married. The three women passed neatly bordered beds of spring flowers blooming in full force. Breathing in, Lovie could smell the freshly mowed green grass and the blooming yellow jessamine vines.

  “I hope it cools down enough that I can serve drinks in the garden,” Lovie said. “It’s so beautiful this time of year. Look, the magnolia is blooming!”

  “My dear, it’s hotter’n hades! Maybe after-dinner drinks . . .”

  Lovie imagined guests sweltering in suits and silks. “I suppose so . . .”

  “Don’t frown, dear. It’ll cause lines in your face. I hear it’s supposed to cool down after sunset. I should think . . . Lovie!” her mother suddenly exclaimed. “You best stop and see this!”

  Lovie stopped abruptly and turned to allow her gaze to follow her mother’s outstretched finger. She spotted a child scooting along the top edge of the high garden wall. It was a girl. As she reached their property, she dangerously reached far out to grab hold of a tree branch and then swing down to the ground with the finesse of a circus acrobat, landing squarely on her feet. She nonchalantly swiped the dirt from her hands on her torn blue jeans, then, looking up, her dark eyes rounded at seeing Lovie and Dee Dee staring at her a few feet away.

  “Uh, hey, Mama, Grandmama,” she called out, wiping the thick shock of dark brown bangs back from her face, leaving a streak of dirt across her forehead in the process. She ambled toward them with her long arms swinging at her sides. Her T-shirt was splattered with dirt and her coltish legs were scraped through the torn knees of her pants.

  “Caretta Rutledge!” Lovie called out sharply in surprise. “What are you doing running along the garden walls like that? You could fall and break your neck!”

  “Aw, Mama, no I won’t. It’s a shortcut.”

  Lovie was astonished. “A shortcut? You mean you do this all the time? Vivian, did you know about this?”

  Vivian twisted her mouth in a wry smile. “Let’s just say I’m not surprised.”

  “Palmer taught me,” Cara added, as though that made everything all right.

  “You mean Palmer runs the walls, too?”

  “Why, sure. Everybody does it.”

  Lovie closed her mouth to halt the laugh bubbling in her throat. Though she’d never admit it to her children, running around the neighborhood via garden walls was quite resourceful. Most of the gardens were interconnected by walls. It would, indeed, be a shortcut.

  Dee Dee spoke in an admonishing tone. “Now, Cara, you know that’s very dangerous. Any one of those old walls could crumble at any time. And you look like a river rat, scuttling the walls like that. It’s . . . it’s just not ladylike.”

  “No, ma’am,” Cara mumbled.

  “When I think of you falling . . .” Dee Dee said, pressing her hand to her heart.

  “You’re not to do it again, hear?” Lovie said firmly.

  Cara looked at her feet. “No, ma’am.”

  “That’s settled, then. Now run along upstairs for your bath. I’ll be up later. Vivian’s going to bring your dinner on a tray. I have guests tonight.” Seeing Cara’s slump-shouldered walk, Lovie added, “There’s a special treat for dessert.”

  “What is it?” Cara asked, bobbing her head up. She pressed her dirty palms together as in prayer. “Some of that chocolate cake you made? Please, please, please?”

  Lovie saw the sparkle in her daughter’s eyes and felt the glow of it in her heart. Then her eyes narrowed. “Cara, where are your glasses?”

  Cara’s smile dropped as she mulishly kicked a pebble on the slate walkway. “Oh, I took them off. Just for a little while.”

  “The doctor said you have to wear them all day or you won’t get used to them.”

  “Aw, Mama, they keep getting in my way. Besides, school’s over. I’m on vacation. What do I need them for?”

  “Maybe to see where you’re going when you run along a stone fence?”

  “I hate them,” Cara blurted. “I look like such a dork.”

  Lovie’s heart lurched for the little girl, and were it not for the box of flowers she was carrying she would have bent to wrap her arms around her daughter. “You look beautiful to me,” she said. “Underneath all that dirt. Go on, now. Run along to your bath. And give your hair a good washing. Lord only knows what’s tangled in there. And I don’t want you sneaking downstairs during my dinner party, hear?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cara called back as she took off toward the house like a gazelle.

  “Lord help me, what am I going to do with that child? She’s such a t
omboy,” Lovie said, walking toward the house.

  “A firmer hand, perhaps?” Dee Dee suggested. “I’ve said it before, but you don’t pay me mind. You allow that girl to run around like a boy.”

  From behind, Lovie heard Vivian mutter, “She just a girl that knows her mind.”

  “For pity’s sake, Mama. The child’s only ten years old,” Lovie said.

  “That’s plenty old enough for her to learn to mind her manners. Lovie, dear, as your mother, I can tell you that you need to rein her in some, offer her more guidance.”

  Lovie’s cheeks flushed. Her mother was banging the belle drum again, and any insult against Cara felt like an insult against her mothering skills. She rushed to defend her daughter. “You let me play wild when I was a girl.”

  “Not in town. Only at the beach house. That’s the proper place for such behavior. Besides, I could always count on you to be a lady in public. Cara’s another thing altogether. Climbing trees and fences . . .”

  “She’s just high-spirited.”

  “Headstrong is more like it. Too headstrong. It might’ve been cute back when she was in pigtails, but it’s not any longer. It’s high time you rein her in.”

  “What would you suggest?” she asked tersely.

  “Cotillion, perhaps?”

  Ah, yes, she thought. Legions of young girls and boys from “good” Charleston families endured hours of schooling on manners and protocol. Lessons on how to sit, stand, and greet were drilled into them along with table manners and ballroom dancing. It was expected, if not de rigueur.

  “I’ve already scheduled Cara to begin junior cotillion in the fall.”