Bulls Island (27 page)

He had already reimmersed himself in the three computer screens on his desk, watching numbers.

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for listening and for—I don’t know—understanding.”

He looked up at me and I had the feeling our relationship had moved away from the red zone and closer by a notch to green.

“Life’s complicated,” he said. “Try and keep it simple. Don’t get all sappy on us and stay in touch, okay?”

“You know it.”

I let myself out, passing Darlene with a serene smile for her to interpret and distribute along the gossip machine.
Bruton did not eat her alive.

I stopped in my office and went to my desk. I took the framed photograph of Adrian and dropped it in my purse. Seeing no other items that demanded any attention, I tossed all the junk mail in the wastebasket and left. I had almost left the building when I felt another hand on my elbow. Dennis Baker, Elevator Annoyance. Ew.

“Hey! I thought you were out on assignment. What are you doing here?”

“Had a meeting with Bruton.”

“Everything okay?”

I just looked at him and wondered if that now renowned newspaper article had been posted on the company’s website or Smoking Gun.com.

“Of course everything is okay. Like it’s any of your business?”

Dennis backed up and threw his hands in the air, feigning innocence.

“Hey, I’m just being a friend, you know, happy to listen or help out. Whatever.”

“Oh, Dennis, Dennis,” I said as I pushed the revolving door to the street. “There is no
whatever
between you and me.”

I didn’t look back, but I could feel his cynical smirk groping my derrière, which had been the target of his weasel eyes from day one.

I pulled out my cell phone and pressed Adrian’s number on speed dial.

“Mom? I’m in the library,” he whispered. “Can I call you back?”

“Sure, but I just need a sec. I’m in town. Wanna have supper?”

“Um, sure! Seven okay? Meet you at home?”

“Perfect.”

I hailed a cab, got in, throwing my overnight bag across my seat, and gave the driver my address. When we pulled up in front of my building, Sam the doorman was there.

“Well, Ms. McGee! I wasn’t expecting to see you today. Welcome home!”

“Thanks!” I said, giving the driver a ten-dollar bill. “Keep it,” I said. I was feeling generous since I had not been fired in disgrace. “How are you, Sam? Everything quiet in the building?” I handed him my bag.

“Yes, ma’am. Quiet as can be. We like it like that.”

“Yes, we do, Sam. Quiet is good.”

He went ahead of me into the lobby and pressed the elevator button. When it opened, he held the door for me. I stepped in and he placed my bag at my feet.

“Anything else I can do for you?”

“Nope, that’s great. Thanks, Sam!”

The door closed quietly and I pressed the button for my floor. For some reason, the elevator seemed small and claustrophobic. And I thought for the moment about how my surroundings seemed to change dimensions every time I left them for a while. The door opened and I stepped out, fumbling for my keys. The day’s mail was stacked on the hall table and I was sure there was a mountain of it inside.

When I was out of town, my housekeeper brought the mail into the apartment for me and piled it on the kitchen counter, next to where I had the garbage cans tucked away in a lower cabinet. We had known each other for so long, she even knew which catalogs to discard. Bills had their own pile, Bergdorf ’s and Saks catalogs had theirs, just in case there was something I wanted from there that I couldn’t live without even though I could walk to either one of them in twenty minutes. Anything that was hand-addressed or that looked
like personal mail was placed front and center so that I would be sure not to miss it. I gave that stack a cursory flip and decided it could all wait until later.

My apartment felt lonely. I went into my bedroom and decided when I caught a glance of myself in the mirror that I looked lonely, too. Maybe I was.

“You need a shower,” I said out loud to no one, and began taking off my clothes.

I let the water in my bathroom run and run until the air was thick with steam. A hot shower always lifted my mood and Adrian would be there soon. I would order sushi or whatever he wanted. We would get caught up. I missed him then, something fierce, and I couldn’t wait for my arms to be around his neck.

The time flew by, the mail dropped into the trash, and soon Adrian was there, ringing the doorbell.

“Hi, Mom! Where are you?”

He had rung the doorbell and also let himself in, calling out so he wouldn’t scare me to death.

“Hey! Where’s my boy? Come here, you!”

It seemed that he had grown taller and older, more mature in the few weeks since I had seen him, and I marveled at the changes.

“Mom! Wow! You look great!”

Maybe I had a bit of a suntan?

“Thanks! So do you! Who is this strapping young man before me? Oh! Sweetheart, I missed you so!”

“I missed you, too! Strapping? What’s for dinner?”

“Just like a male, always thinking of your stomach!” I said. “Get the menus!”

“Nothing like a home-cooked delivery!” he said.

“You know it!”

Soon we were eating sashimi, shrimp tempura rolls, and all sorts of Japanese delicacies.

“So tell me every detail of your college experience, baby. How are your classes? Your roommate?”

“Classes are wicked hard. It seems like all I ever do is study. George the Slob is good. He’s from like this really huge family. Must have a zillion cousins or something. On parents’ weekend—”

“Parents’ weekend? Did I miss that?”

“It’s okay, Mom. I called Aunt Jennie and she came. I wasn’t going to drag you all the way back here for something that lame. I mean, it was stupid and it wasn’t important to me.”

“I feel terrible! Adrian! You know I would’ve come! I just didn’t remember…”

“I know that! Jeez, Mom, don’t fall apart over it. It was this really huge waste of time anyway. Seriously!”

“Still! I mean, I never missed a class play or anything and now I blew this? Your first parents’ weekend?”

“There’s another one on the calendar. If you want to blow a perfectly good day sitting in an auditorium listening to a bunch of academics who are so boring you could kill yourself…”

“When you find out the date, I want to know, okay?”

“It’s on the website. But anyway, I gotta tell you, Mom, the only thing that sort of got to me was that George has such a huge family! Seriously! I mean, there’s just us? Don’t we have any cousins or
anything
? Any old ladies in nursing homes? We’re from Atlanta, right?”

We’re from Atlanta, right?
His words were slamming all around the inside of my skull like bullets ricocheting on the walls of a steel vault. Was this the moment to tell him? No. I quickly decided it was not. News of that importance deserved a well-thought-through revelation, not some slapdash “Oh, by the way…”

“Adrian, I wish I could tell you we have more family, but well? What can I say?”

“Well, I Googled ‘McGee’ and ‘Georgia’ and there are massive
amounts of them in every county. It’s just a little hard to believe we don’t have anyone on the planet besides us who is a blood relative.”

“I know. But there it is. We don’t have one single relative in the entire state of Georgia. Maybe some of them are distantly related, but I never knew them.” I was deceiving him again. This could not go on forever, but I couldn’t help myself.

“Not even one hillbilly hiding in the mountains of Tennessee? Somebody with a still and no teeth and pet pigs?”

“If we do have relatives like that, I wouldn’t be claiming them and you know it. So tell me about your professors.” My left eyelid began to twitch.

“My professors? Interesting question. They cover a wide range. I think my algebra teacher is like an alien or something…Mom? Are you okay?”

“Sure, I’m fine. What do you mean?”

“Your left eye is, like, going nuts over there. What’s bothering you?”

“Me? Oh, nothing. Just a little stress at work.” My traitorous eyelid!

“Must be ’cause I know the signs! So, how is Charleston and what’s up with that thing you’re doing?”

“Developing Bulls Island. And Charleston is hotter than the hinges on the back door of hell. The bugs! And it’s muggier than the—”

“Okay! Got the picture! But other than the tropics, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?”

“Oh, shoot. Adrian? It’s a rough project. Unpopular because Bulls Island was always this pristine little oasis. Now it’s gonna have homes for multimillionaires and the radical environmentalists are flipping and—”

“Sounds like a battlefield.”

“Pretty much.”

“Hey, Mom?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatever happened to that guy you were seeing? The one that sent you all the flowers?”

Now, for the first time ever, my
right
eyelid began to twitch. I had a regular duo of Judas Iscariots harmonizing smack in the middle of my face.

I
t was Monday morning and I was back in Charleston. Sandi had been e-mailing me like mad to let me know that Louisa Langley was waiting for me in the office. She had been there for an hour. And the prior Friday, while I was having my confession heard by Bruton in New York, she had parked herself in my office, not believing Sandi that I was gone for the weekend, and in the process making Sandi a nervous wreck. When you realize that Sandi was something of a female fortress to begin with, you get some idea of how relentless the imperious Louisa Langley could be given the opportunity to bare her fangs.

I e-mailed her back:
Throw her a raw piece of meat. I’ll be there in ten minutes.

I wasn’t looking forward to starting my day with a confrontation with Louisa Langley, but I wasn’t afraid of her either.

Just after nine o’clock, I pulled into the office parking lot to discover that Louisa’s big old Benz wagon had commandeered my spot.
Good grief. She was worse than a male dog marking the neighborhood and just as childish.

I pulled into the visitor spot, turned off the ignition, and took a deep breath. What would I say to her? And what accusations of transgression would she hurl my way? I got out and went inside.

There she was in her navy-blue-and-tan Lilly Pulitzer print dress and jacket, wearing pearls and embalmed in makeup.

“Good morning, Sandi. Messages? Good morning, Louisa.”

Yes, I took the liberty of calling her by her first name.

Sandi handed me a stack of pink sheets with various names and phone numbers on it. I made my way toward my office, talking over my shoulder.

“Do you want to come in, Louisa? Have something on your mind?”

She followed me in a bluster and dropped her purse on my desk. I went around to my side of the desk and silently stared at her purse and then at her. She picked up the offending Gucci and put it on a chair adjacent to the desk. I inhaled, admittedly puffing myself up over the small victory.

“Would you like coffee? A cold drink?”

“No, thank you. I don’t drink coffee.”

“Neither do I.”

“One of the very few things we have in common, I’m sure.”

“Indeed. Won’t you sit down?”

She sat, shifting around in her seat until her bony rump was comfortable.

“So, what can I do for you, Louisa?”

“Well, you can go on back up to New York City and get out of our lives, for starters.”

I looked at her and smiled the same serene smile I had given Bruton’s secretary.

“Can’t do that and I won’t do that. Is there anything else?”

“You certainly have become a brazen thing, haven’t you, now?”

“I’m not sure what you mean by
brazen,
but it surely sounds accusatory and very impolite, considering that you burst in here—and not for the first time—uninvited and unannounced.” I said this to her in the detached tone I reserved for the Dennis Bakers of the world. Another point for me.

“Betts? My son has enough to deal with without you sashaying in here like something from a bandbox and turning his head.” Half point.

“‘Bandbox’? ‘Turning his head’? My, my, Louisa. I didn’t know you found me so attractive.” Full point.

Her face and neck turned scarlet and I knew I was winning.

“You had better just listen to me, Betts McGee. There are greater forces at play here. An oath taken before God, a very sick wife, and a hound dog for a son. Did you know my son has announced his intentions to marry you? Did you know he has asked his wife for a divorce? Don’t you feel any remorse?”

That was all news to me. But…remorse? I leaned back in my chair and just looked at her, thinking loudly enough for her to hear, I feel no more remorse than you did for being the indirect cause of my mother’s death and I don’t really care what you think.

What I said aloud was: “For your information, not that it’s any of your business, J.D. and I are not involved.”

She pulled the newspaper article from her purse and slammed it on the desk in front of me.

“Perhaps,” she said, “but any fool can see it won’t be long before y’all
are
involved.”

“What do you want from me, Louisa?”

“I have given this a great deal of thought and it is a complicated and terrible situation all around. I think many things. First, it’s patently obvious J.D. still cares for you. Loves you, in fact. Second, his wife, his good and loyal wife of
many
years, is dreadfully insecure
and appears to have some rather serious health problems. I would like to see J.D. help her get back on her feet and then you all can go fly to the moon on a wooden horse for all we care. It’s not right to kick Valerie in the teeth while she’s in this precarious situation. It’s not nice.”

“You of all people have some nerve to decide what’s nice and what isn’t nice.”

“That may be true, but Lord in His heaven, Betts, the poor girl is a disaster and your presence has simply exacerbated her problems. She is saying and doing all manner of crazy things. I am afraid for her mental health, and to tell you the truth, I am afraid for her life.”

…
afraid for her life…

She had me there. Game, set, match. The horrible old biddy was right.

“Listen,” she continued. “I can see with my own eyes what’s happening here and so can the whole world. I’m just asking you to back away from J.D. until we can get Valerie under control…you know, stabilized, that’s all.”

“This isn’t a contest, Louisa. But I happen to agree with you. When you marry, you make a deal. He owes her that much, to try and help her overcome her problems, that is. I will tell him that.”

“Then we all have nothing else to discuss.”

I stood to let her know she could leave then, that she might have won the day, but that I was still someone to be reckoned with, not a coward, but a reasonable woman who would play fair in a time of crisis.

She stood and looked at me long and hard, relieved that her point was taken, but it was clear that to be spoken to in such plain words had disarmed her. No one spoke to Louisa Langley without a bow and a kiss for the ring first.

“I appreciate your candor, Louisa.”

“Well, I am relieved that you do. I imagine that soon the day will
dawn when we will have to find our way to getting along again, won’t we now?” She spoke with such a long-drawn-out southern accent you would have thought she’d grown up at Tara.

“Yes, but not now. We can save our mutual admiration for another day.”

“Thank you, Betts. Big Jim always said you were a
decent
person.”

Decent person? That was the best she could manage? I let it slide. I wasn’t going to argue with her any more than I already had. It wasn’t worth it.

I watched her leave my office, and when I heard the front door close behind her, I went out to Sandi to collect the other messages that had come in.

“Holy cow,” she said.

“Did you hear what she said?”

“Of course I did. But you have more drama to deal with this morning.”

“What now?”

“J.D. called. There has been a major disaster out on Bulls. Most of the big equipment has been damaged and one of the guys involved was seriously attacked by an alligator. Lost most of one leg and his whole arm. He almost bled to death, but somehow they got him out of there and to the hospital. Needless to say, he’s in critical condition.”

“What? Are you kidding? Oh no! Oh Lord! This is terrible! Who knows about this?”

“The immediate world.”

“Were the police called in?”

“Of course! It’s trespassing, destruction of private property—”

“Get J.D. on the phone.”

As Sandi started dialing she said, “He’s already called four times—”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Interrupt me?”

“Because I figured ten minutes one way or the other wasn’t going to change the facts, and you had your hands full with his mother.”

She was right, of course. There was enough madness in the air already; an interruption from J.D. would only have made Louisa more insane…and perhaps that was what Sandi had been thinking. It didn’t matter.

I went back to my office and dropped into my chair. It wasn’t even nine-thirty and I felt like I had worked a ten-hour day in the hot sun.

“J.D. on line one,” Sandi called.

I picked up the phone and somehow, the very second I heard his voice, I felt better.

“Got those public-relations folks on the payroll yet?” I asked.

“I wish. This is some mess,” he said. “These idiots took a sledgehammer to everything. You might want to come out here and bring a camera with you.”

“Did you call the insurance guys?”

“Of course. But the
Post & Courier
is here, and the
State
as well. Every local network affiliate is on its way with a crew—”

“I’ll be there as fast as I can.” Great, I thought. “I’ll be on my cell,” I said to Sandi as I sailed past her and out the door.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“I’ll call you…”

In my car, I looked in the rearview mirror before I backed out of the parking space. Wait! Was it the same man who had followed me before? Was that him across the street sitting in his car pretending to read a newspaper? Yes! What did he want? It occurred to me that he could be a friend of Vinny’s. Why would Vinny care what I did? What was the matter with him? Apparently, Vinny was not going to go quietly into the mists and disappear. I would have to call him and ask him nicely to call off the dogs. Yes, that’s what I would do. As
soon as I had resolved the problems at Bulls Island and the endless stream of trouble this entire development was causing.

All the way out to Awendaw I worried. First of all, someone had to put a stop to these incidents of vandalism. Maybe we could put a guard or even two on the island overnight in a secure area, free of man-eating reptiles. Then there was the PR problem. Who would want to live in a multimillion-dollar house on an island that was infested with hungry alligators? I had thought most of them or all of them had been moved over to Capers Island. Clearly, they missed one or two.

I pulled into the parking lot and hurried to the dock. J.D. had the company boat there waiting for me with a captain. Three or four reporters were also on the dock, posted there to see who would show up, but I wasn’t talking to them until I spoke to J.D.

They recognized me.

“Excuse me!…Ms. McGee!…Do you have a comment on the break-in last night?…Do you know that the victim’s life is hanging by a thread?…Do you know if they successfully reattached his arm?”

No comment! No comment! No comment!

Even though
we
—Triangle Equity and Langley Development—were the victims here, we were going to have to endure more scrutiny and criticism and I knew it. Fine! Let the entire citizenry of the state of South Carolina come have a look!

I boarded the boat as quickly as I could and escaped the inquisition of the stringers from the press. But more of them were waiting on the landing at Bulls Island. Maybe we needed to hold a press conference. I could feel my chest constrict, then my eye started twitching, and I just wished it would all go away. All I wanted to do was develop the island with sensitivity to the pertinent issues, make my money, and get the hell out of town. But then there was the matter of J.D. Well, I couldn’t focus on J.D., except that at some point we
would have to have some discussion about Valerie. What was
really
going on with her? I wondered.

As soon as the work site came into view my priorities reordered themselves. First, somebody had to clean up the destruction. There was broken glass all over the ground and machetes hanging from the tires of earthmovers and backhoes with smashed windshields. Every piece of equipment had been spray-painted with peace signs, dollar signs, and slogans like stop the madness! kill gentrification! take back the earth! I sympathized with the sentiments, but the reality was that you couldn’t stop progress of this type. Moreover, the world was better off with someone like J. D. Langley in charge of developing Bulls Island than with any number of disreputable butchers out there who would do much more harm than good.

“Morning, Betts,” J.D. called out to me.

“Nice little disaster we’ve got here, huh? How’s the guy that the gator bit?”

“He’s in a medically induced coma. Lost half his blood, I heard. Can’t talk to
him
for a while.”

“Good Lord, that’s awful. Even if he is a criminal. They didn’t catch anyone else?”

“No. The three fellows who got him to the ER just took off and left his arm in a cooler filled with ice and vitamin drinks right in the middle of the admissions area.”

“Fortified with guava and pomegranate, but running like sissies?”

“Yep. Probably afraid of the cops. Maybe somebody got a plate number; I don’t know. We got a couple hundred thousand dollars’ worth of damage here. Maybe more. The foreman is trying to put some numbers together for the claims adjusters over there.” He pointed to two men in khaki pants and knit shirts with cameras, talking to one of the foremen and some other guys from Langley. “We’re supposed to be running power and sewage lines this week
and this fiasco is probably going to delay that. How many barges do we have in Charleston that can get us new equipment on short notice?”