Sweet Caroline (8 page)

Between the ages of eight and nine, I begged Daddy to take us to church. All the kids in my class went.

Daddy refused. “Caroline,” he’d say, pointing me to the front yard, “if you want to talk to some supreme being, climb the old tree. You’ve got more chance of communing with the Almighty out there than in some stuffy sanctuary.”

It was the beginning of the Mama Years. When she started slipping away from us.

So I climbed the tree. Especially when Mama went missing or acted out—screaming with Daddy about her
horrendous
life—and I didn’t want her to see me cry. The tree became my refuge. When I was fifteen Mama left us for good. I probably logged more hours in the tree than in school.

Now I sit here pondering how one man died and, in a way, changed my life.

If I refuse Jones’s inheritance, I’ll be the one responsible for the demise of the Frogmore Café. Reminiscing old-timers will shake their heads and click their tongues. “Remember the Frogmore Café? That Sweeney girl shut her down.”

Okay, so they might not remember me as the one. But I will.

If I keep the Café and give up Barcelona. I’ll forever be the one who passed up an incredible, amazing opportunity with Carlos Longoria. The envy of Hah-vard grads. Years from now, Carlos won’t remember.

But I will.

“I need an answer.”

Closing my eyes, I rest against the trunk and form a picture of the God Mitch claims slapped him with some reality. Oh, this Deity is frowning. I refuse to talk to someone who frowns.

I force the image in my head to smile—like Granddad Sweeney used to do when he’d tell me stories about growing up in the lowcountry, hunting quail on St. Helena Island. There, that’s better.

Now, where’s the peace I felt the other night when I decided to go for Barcelona? Maybe it’s because the sun is out instead of the stars.

God, if You’re real and can hear me, tell me what to do.

“We’re busy?” I rush past Mercy Bea into the dining room, tying on my apron. Every stool at the counter is occupied and almost a third of the booths and tables.

“You got eyes. What do you see?” The ice she’s frantically scooping clatters into four iced tea jars. “Russell came in early for a bite to eat and ended up clocking in. Did you see the paper?” She tips her head to the bottom counter shelf.

“No.” I take over behind the counter. “Hey, Mr. Feinberg, I haven’t seen you in a while. More coffee?”

Mr. Feinberg taps his cup with his fork. “Sure, Caroline, freshen her up.”

I fill Mr. Feinberg’s cup, then tend to the rich-looking, retired couple’s iced teas and clear away a plate of half-eaten fries shared by three teen girls. When the lull comes, I sneak around the wall with the newspaper and stand inside the kitchen door.

Front page. Below the fold. A story on the Café with a then-and-now picture. The headline makes my heart jump: “Saying Good-bye to the Frogmore Café.”

Answer to my early question? I should
not
be honest with the press. Small blurb in the Living Section, my eye, Melba Pelot.

I skim the article. Stuff about Jones, the history of the Café, and the old doctor’s home. Then:

Sweeney, twenty-eight, who inherited the café from McDermott, is undecided about its future.

Town Councilman Davis Williams: “I’d hate for Beaufort to lose the Frogmore Café. It’s true lowcountry, part of our rich heritage. And where else can hungry folks find Bubba’s Buttery Biscuits?”

In the early ’60s, McDermott defied Jim Crow laws by removing the separate eating sections for blacks and whites.

“It caused quite a stir,” Williams said. “But if I heard Jones once, I heard him a hundred times. ‘If I can share a foxhole in Korea with a colored, I can certainly share a meal in public. Jim Crow laws be damned.’”

I crinkle the paper to my chest. “Oh, Melba, why’d you do this to me?” It’s one thing to shut down a beat-up old diner no one remembers. It’s another thing to shut down a man’s legacy.

Mercy Bea zips around the corner with her arms loaded with dirty dishes, almost crashing into me. “There you are. Mr. Feinberg is calling for you.” She nods toward the paper. “Well, you done it now.”

“I suppose.”

“If you haven’t made up your mind, there you go. Folks aren’t going to want the Café to go away, Caroline.” She drops her load on the counter for Russell to wash later.

“Yeah, well, then folks are going to have to find their way here to eat once in a while. Sentiment doesn’t pay the bills.”

I sound brave, but inside, I’m terrified.

Sunday I have the whole day off. After sleeping in late, doing a load of laundry, and surfing cable channels, I call J. D. to see if he wants to go fishing or down to the beach. I don’t want to sit home all day, thinking, fretting.

“I’m working, babe,” he says, “filling in for Lem Becket.”

Babe ?
The intimate reference makes me feel googly. “Guess I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“I’m glad you called.”

After a twittery good-bye, I absently dial Mitch’s cell, but hang up before the first ring. Do I want to risk my securely closed heart doors by hanging out with his easy, familiar manner? Being good friends is what caused me to trip and fall in love in the first place. It was all Mitch and nothing but Mitch for far too long.

I smile at the memory. Hard to believe my friend and first love was voted by
People
magazine “The Man You Want to Be Stranded with on a Desert Island.”

Oh, how wrong they are. If Mitch can’t shower at least once a day, he considers it barbarian living.

No, if I’m stranded in the middle of the ocean on some two-by-four island, it best not be with Mitch. Not if I want to survive, anyway.

Heart: We should give him a call.

Head: No, we’re moving on. Just like he’s done.

Heart: But it’s Mitch—best friends and all that.

Head: But it’s Mitch—left us high and dry without so much as a “how
do.” Let the past be the past.

Heart: You . . . are no fun.

Head: Yeah, and when you get hurt and bruised, who has to relive it
over and over? Me.

I dial Elle. “You up for a movie or something?”

“Meet me at my place. I’ll drive. Last time I road-tripped with you, I was picking bugs out of my hair until the next morning. Really, you should get Matilda’s top fixed, C.”

“I’ll get right on it.”
Picking bugs. She’s crazy.

We choose a Drew Barrymore romantic comedy playing at the Plaza. During the drive over and in between buying tickets, popcorn, and large sodas, Elle rattles on about ways to find a good, decent, marriageable man, and when she pauses to breathe, I fill her in on Jones’s will and the opportunity with Carlos Longoria.

She’s appropriately stunned—“No, I didn’t see Melba’s article in the
Gazette
”—and gawks at me with wide, round eyes while nabbing a kernel of popcorn from the top of her ginormous bag. “Carlos Longoria. He’s on the cover of
Forbes
, like, every other month. Look at me; I’m green with envy.”

She whips her arm in front of my face. In the dim light of the movie theater, I can’t make out the color of her skin, but I’m pretty sure it’s not green. Elle is doing what she loves: photography and art. Owning an art gallery is her passion. A week—no, a day—as any businessman’s apprentice and she’d pull out her hair. His too.

“Elle, O wise one, I’d love your thoughts on this.” The theater lights fade to black and advertisements roll across the big screen.

“No-brainer. Barcelona.”

“Really?” Why can’t I have her confidence?

She turns slightly toward me. “It’s your true Tarzan vine.”

I snort-laugh. “Oh, brother, Elle, my Tarzan vine broke and dropped me face-first in the dirt.”

Elle covers her laugh with the back of her arm, popcorn pinched be-tween her fingers. “But you believed. You climbed that live oak, grabbed a handful of Spanish moss, and with a rebel yell, leaped.”

“And hit the ground like a sack of dumb dirt.”

“I’ve been waiting twenty years for you to believe in yourself like that again.”

“Death would’ve been sweet relief that day.” I slide down in the chair, propping my foot on the row in front of me.

The Tarzan experiment was a defining moment in my life. The entire third-grade class watched me plummet twenty feet to the ground, finding it all too hilarious that I believed and preached Spanish moss to be as strong as Tarzan’s vine. When I went home to Mama for sympa-thy and Band-Aids, she said, “Good grief, Caroline, don’t you have a lick of horse sense?”

“Caroline, go to Spain,” Elle whispers.

“Even if it means the Café closes?” In the light of the movie screen, I peer into my friend’s eyes, searching for strength, for hope.

“Yes, even if it means the Café closes. Jones should’ve thought of that before he left the place to you. You’ve lived your life for everyone else far too long. It’s Caroline time. What is your destiny?”

“What about J. D.?”

She twists toward me. “C, he’s gorgeous, but he’s not Barcelona-Carlos-Longoria gorgeous. If you were a serious couple or about to be engaged, maybe you’d have to reconsider. But you’ve been on four dates. If he’s yours, he’ll be here when you get back,
if
you come back.”

“Did he have a crush on me in junior high?”

“The quiet, observing Caroline who sailed through puberty unscathed? Probably.”

“Unscathed? I was voted worst dressed.”

“Yeah, but to a junior high boy, that’s cool.”

“You had a mama at home.”

“Right.”

I sneak in one last question as the opening score fades for Drew Barrymore’s dialogue. “What about Mitch being home? I mean, do you think it’s some sort of sign?”

“You don’t believe in signs.”

“Exactly.”

DAILY SPECIAL

Tuesday, June 12
Stuffed Peppers (Pork or Beef)
Green Salad
Rice
Bubba’s Buttery Biscuits
Cherry Pie à la Mode
Tea, Soda, Coffee
$7.99

10

T
uesday. D-Day. Didn’t sleep a wink. Last night I ended up at the city council meeting where they discussed the future of the Frogmore Café.

“The Café is part of our historical heritage,” one man argued. “It’s the council’s job to watch out for our preservation.”

After the meeting, I spent two hours in parking-lot consultations with the old-timers.

“Keep the Café, Caroline.”

“Don’t saddle the girl, Tom. She’s too young. The place is run-down. She ain’t got money to keep it up. Get rid of it.”

But my favorite line of the night came from Darcy Day: “I never eat there. The food stinks.”

At eight-oh-two this morning, the breakfast-club boys arrive. Their presence comforts my tilting emotions.

Dupree is at the ready with his opening bathroom story. “I’ve been irregular, if you know what I mean, so the wife gives me an enema. Now if that ain’t something that will—”

“Dupree, stop, stop.” Pastor Winnie slams his long hands on the table. “You’ve gone too far, friend. Enemas? No. I want to enjoy my breakfast. We’ve got to get you telling other stories. Ain’t you got more going on in your life?”

“Sadly, no.”

“Have you decided, Caroline?” Luke asks in his gentle manner.

“Not yet.” Okay, here it comes—their opinions and advice. I brace myself. But nothing. Instead, they study the table menus from which they never order.

Kirk shows up at the Café just after ten. His rumpled dark suit is replaced with white golf attire, wrinkled but clean.

“Hitting the links today?” I pour him a cup of coffee as he sets up his office in the back booth again.

“Drove down last night with a couple of buddies. Got a room at the Beaufort Inn.” He checks his watch. “We tee off at eleven.”

Andy and Mercy Bea hover around the kitchen door. The breakfast-club boys linger, nursing their fiftieth cup of coffee. Dupree has worn a new path in the old carpet to the men’s room.

“What’s your decision?”

Setting the coffeepot on the table, I slide into the booth across from him, gazing out the window to my right for a long, trembling second. “As much as I loved Jones, and appreciate what he must have been trying to do for me and the Café, I cannot accept it, Kirk.”

“All right.” He adjusts his slipping glasses with the tip of his fancy pen.

I wring my hands.

“Caroline, Jones didn’t mean to torture you with this. Stand by your decision.”

“Then what did he mean, Kirk? Hmm? Tell me? You can’t leave a girl your life’s work and expect her to not agonize over it. Do you realize the Café was the center of discussion at the city council meeting last night?”

“Caroline, calm down. Go to Barcelona. Forget about the Café. People will live. Life goes on. Change happens.” He pops open his brief-case. “But listen, here’s an option to consider. Hang on to the Café through probate,
then
sell it. The guys I’m golfing with today like to invest in
projects
.”

“Then what, Kirk? The job in Barcelona will be gone.”

Kirk leans over the table. “You’d have enough money to vacation anywhere in the world.”

“Again, then what? Call Paris Hilton for a shopping spree? Money isn’t going to give me a future.”

“Then sign.” He taps the papers he handed me. “Here . . . and here.” Taking the pen, I pause to read the form. Sure enough, I’m handing it all over to Kirk for him to close down. I breathe out.
Am I sure?

Another gaze out the window. Through the trees, I spot the back of Paul Mulroney’s bistro. Fifteen years ago, he and Jones used to compete for business, running cheesy radio spots with stupid jingles that got stuck in our heads. Over time, Jones grew complacent and lost his will to fight.

I flip the pen back and forth against my fingers.
Yes, I’m sure.
Breathing deep, I sign. Five seconds later, it’s done.

The Frogmore Café is no more.

The others respect my privacy after Kirk leaves, letting me sit alone in the back booth, fighting an odd emptiness.

Where’s the relief of making a decision? The excitement of what lies ahead? Two minutes ago, I felt confident. Now, it’s like I spent my last dollar for a stupid fairground toy when I could’ve stopped for cheese fries on the way home.