Low Country (46 page)

“It was a shitty idea,” he said. “I’m sorry, Caro.

Please forget I even mentioned it. I’m as bad as Ezra,

trying to get you to march with us.…Fuck.”

416 / Anne Rivers Siddons

“No,” I heard myself say. “I’d love to stay with Lita.

You need to do this. Do it for the folks at Dayclear

and the ponies; do it for Nissy and Yambi. You’re

right. If it was Hayes, God help him, then everybody

ought to know it was. Apparently I don’t know my

husband as well as I thought I did, but I do know that

he would never on this earth harm those horses, or let

anybody do it for him. Do it for me if you can’t do it

for Clay. Please, Luis.”

He took a deep breath and nodded. He turned to

Lita.

“Will you stay with Caro and not give her any grief

about going to bed, and not pester her for more than

three stories?”

“I promise,” Lita said. “She can have my bed and I’ll

sleep on the sofa, like you do. I’ll be as quiet as a

mouse. You said fuck, Abuelo.”

“I did, and I should know better. I owe the jar a

nickel. Go cut you and Caro a piece of pizza while she

walks me out to the Harley. Look, Lita, I’m going to

wear Uncle Ezra’s helmet and leather jacket; will I look

like James Dean, do you think?”

“Who’s that?”

“Ay,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I am too old for this.

But I can’t wait to straddle that hawg and eat that as-

phalt up. Think of it, Caro, a breath-held crowd waiting

at the bridge, and I come thundering in on that thing

with the proof of the

Low Country / 417

pudding in my pocket…What more could a man ask?”

“Brains enough to be careful?” I ventured. “I don’t

like the sound of this clandestine stuff, Luis. If your

guy knows that kind of stuff, he’s a criminal himself.

Are you meeting him in a safe place?”

“Deep in the sewers of Columbia at midnight,” he

said. “No, really. I’m meeting him at the VFW hut in

the middle of the parking lot, with a fais-do-do going

on inside. He’s going to wear a red carnation in his

navel and I’m going to carry a rose in my teeth. The

worst danger is that he’ll try to kiss me, and I can al-

ways claim sexual harassment.”

“Then hit the road, fool,” I said as we walked out

into the night. Dark had fallen and the thin curl of

moon had swollen and leaned closer. Someone nearby

had planted Confederate jasmine; the sweet, tender

smell almost took my breath. Even this far inland, the

kiss of salt lay on the wet little night wind.

He pulled on the helmet and shrugged into the

jacket. He should have looked ludicrous beyond words,

but he did not; he looked enormous and rock-solid

and somehow both boyish and dangerous, going off

on this extravagant quest to save something not his

own. But then, had that not been almost his whole

life?

“Do you remember, you told me once to find

418 / Anne Rivers Siddons

what I would die for and then live for it?” I said. “What

is it you would die for, Luis? What is it you live for?

What is it you ride this silly thing to Columbia at night

for?”

He was not smiling when he looked at me.

“For the quaint, old-fashioned notion that people

ought to be able to live wherever the fuck they choose,”

he said. “I ought to be able to go back to Cuba if I

want to. That little girl in there at least ought to have

a choice. The people in Dayclear should, too. You,

too, for that matter. A great deal of this business is so

that you can live on that island of yours if you want

to. Didn’t you know that?”

“I guess I didn’t, really,” I said, around the cold salt

lump in my throat.

He reached out and touched my hair.

“I don’t know what will happen with you,” he said.

“I do know that things change. I think things may

change for you. I don’t know what that means yet. But

when I get back we will talk about it. Can we do that,

Caro? Can we talk about that?”

“Yes,” I whispered.

He stood still with his hand on my head, and then

he leaned over and kissed me very chastely and softly

on the forehead.

“Sleep well with my little girl,” he said. “And I, I will

ride like the wind until my great steed Rosinante brings

me back to you.”

Low Country / 419

“Get out of here.” I laughed, choking on it.

He swung himself into the seat of the Harley and

stomped down on the gas pedal. It roared into life,

throbbing and bucking to get away, to ride out into

the vast black night, to spit out the wind. He wiggled

his eyebrows up and down like Groucho Marx, jerked

back his thumb in the old WWII pilot’s salute, and

gunned the Harley. It leaped forward, roaring, and I

watched it as he leaned into the turn at the bottom of

the street, raised a hand, and was gone.

When I got back into the trailer, the pizza was

waiting, smoking hot, on two flowered Melamine

plates, and
The Lion King
was beginning on the TV

screen.

“I always work the VCR,” Lita said, settling herself

into the rocking chair with her plate of pizza. “It makes

Abuelo say fuck, and then he has to put a nickel in the

jar. It’s half-full now.”

“I’ll bet it is,” I said, beginning to laugh. And that is

what we had for our supper, Estrellita Esteban and I:

pepperoni pizza from the real pizza place, with no

anchovies, and laughter, and a golden lion cub growing

through pain and despair into lordliness.

Lottie came so early the next morning that I was still

in Luis’s old seersucker robe, putting on coffee, and

Lita was still asleep. She had had a restless night,

muttering and whimpering, and I had

420 / Anne Rivers Siddons

heard her from the sofa bed in the little living room

and gone in to her, and finally, when I could neither

fully wake her nor quiet her, crawled in beside her.

She had subsided then, but had rolled against me and

clung there, and I was tired and sweaty when the first

graying of the dark outside the high little windows

came. I got up carefully, so as not to wake her, and

found the robe hanging behind the bathroom door

and put it on over my underwear, and went into the

kitchen. The robe smelled of Luis and somehow of

peat moss, an intimate, earthy smell. I drew it close

around me in the morning chill.

When I had peered out to see who was banging so

peremptorily on the trailer door and let Lottie in, she

grinned, in spite of what was obviously one of her

more advanced hangovers.

“Looks better on you than it does on me,” she said,

indicating the robe. I felt myself color, and she said,

“Oh, for God’s sake. I know he isn’t here. He called

me on his way out of town last night and told me you

were staying, and to come over and get you all going

early so you wouldn’t run into reporters at the bridge.

They’re sure to know your car, and they know about

Lita. He doesn’t want them near either of you. You

ought to know, too, that he and I are what they cus-

tomarily call just good friends now.”

“God, Lottie, I don’t care…”

“Just so you know.”

Low Country / 421

I gave her coffee while I went to wake Lita. She was

fussy and petulant, and clung to me. I had never heard

her whine before, but her manner this morning was

that of a much younger child, and I automatically felt

her forehead to see if she had a fever. She did not.

Well, she was only a small child after all; she was en-

titled to a small regression now and then. I had never

really seen her in any state but her customary cheeky,

sunny one.

“Got up on the wrong side of the bed, did we?” I

said, and she looked in fretful puzzlement at each side

of her double bed.

“It’s just an expression that means fussy,” I said.

“That’s okay. I do it, too, sometimes. Let’s get some

breakfast in you. Lottie’s here to take you over to her

studio with Mark. You all are going to have a great

time. You might not know it, but it’s a real honor. She

doesn’t invite many people over there. She’s a famous

artist, you know.”

She was unimpressed.

“Don’t want to go,” she said, scrubbing fitfully at

her eyes with her fists. “Want to go with you. And I

want to go with Abuelo and ride the hawg in the

march. I want to go home, too.”

“Well, you can’t do all three at the same time,” I said

in the tone I remembered employing with Carter and

Kylie when total unreason ruled. “You were all excited

about going to Lottie’s last

422 / Anne Rivers Siddons

night, to play with Mark. You can’t come with me this

morning, but we’ll do something tomorrow maybe,

or the next day. Where’s home, Lita?”

I should not have had to ask, and felt a frisson of

anger.

“Over there,” she said sullenly, jerking her thumb

back toward the road south. I knew that she meant the

island. What would happen when Luis took her away

from there, as he was bound to do sooner or later?

Where would home be then?

“How about we go see Yambi tomorrow?” I said. “I

hear he’s been asking for you.”

“Promise?”

“I’ll do my best. It’s up to your grandfather.”

“He’ll let me,” she said, some of her sunniness return-

ing. I thought that he would, too.

Lottie made appalling cinnamon toast while I got

Lita into her miniature jeans and T-shirt and running

shoes. When we were ready to go, Lottie said, “Why

don’t you pick out a few toys to take with you?” and

Lita scampered off to gather her treasures.

Lottie turned to me.

“I heard about the island. The deed thing, I mean.

I know somebody who does freelance hits, and in case

you think I’m kidding, I’m not. He would probably

do Clay and Hayes for the price of one. Are you going

to get through this, Caro?

Low Country / 423

Why don’t you come back with us today? It’s not go-

ing to be pleasant, even over where you are. You’re

bound to hear some of it, and there’s always the pos-

sibility that some of those assholes will track you down

at the house. The patrician, betrayed, environmentalist

wife…you’re honey for the flies. Just for today? Luis

and Ezra will keep them away from you after this, but

they’ll be tied up today.…”

“I can take care of myself,” I said. “I think I could

easily shoot any son of a bitch who comes over there

with a camera. I wouldn’t mind a bit. I don’t need Ezra

and Luis to fight my battles for me.”

“Well, don’t shoot anybody. Ain’t none of them

worth jail. Save the bullets for Hayes. Somebody ought

to do it, sure enough. That poor old mare…What will

you do today then?”

“I think I might be ready to paint. If I can do that, I

won’t hear anything from the bridge, and I won’t think

about it.”

“Okay, sweetie,” she said, hugging me. She felt solid

and warm and smelled of bourbon. It was somehow

comforting, and then I realized it was my grandfather’s

smell.

“I’m coming by after I take the children back to

Dayclear tonight, though,” she said. “I’m either going

to spend the night with you or drag you back to my

place. There are nights it’s okay to be alone, but to-

night is not one of them.”

424 / Anne Rivers Siddons

“We’ll see,” I said. The idea of Lottie’s formidable

presence on this looming night was oddly appealing.

When it was over, something very basic to the fabric

of my life would have changed. I knew that. I simply

was not sure what.

It was still early when I pulled out onto 174 and

drove south toward the bridge over to Peacock’s. The

sky was still pink behind the line of black pines to the

east, and there was little traffic in the opposite direc-

tion. The islanders who worked in Charleston would

just be leaving now. I thought that I would get home

and take a long, hot, sulfurous shower and make myself

some real coffee and dig out my camera and take the

Whaler far up the creek. The eleven o’clock news last

night had spoken of a powerful cold front working its

way east through Alabama and Georgia, and predicted

strong thunderstorms and high winds by the evening

of the next day. I knew that meant a return, however

briefly, of cold weather. We were not done with winter

yet. This might be the last of the enchanted gold-green

light on the marshes for several weeks. I remembered

a poem Robert Frost had written about that first gilded

green of spring. It ended, “Nothing gold can stay.”

The line almost brought tears to my eyes as I drove.

Why couldn’t the gold stay? Was it too much to ask?

I crossed over to Peacock’s Island and reso

Low Country / 425

lutely looked neither right nor left as I headed west,

so that I would not have to see the company’s offices

or the artful stand of tropical plantings that led to the