The Hurricane Sisters (4 page)

“One of these days I’m going to rob a bank and go to all the great restaurants in Charleston and order whatever I want,” Mary Beth said.

“I’m going to rob a bank and get the heck out of here,” I said. “Or I’m going to marry Porter Galloway and live happily ever after with him in the White House. Maybe.”

We clinked the sides of our glasses toasting our very uncertain futures, took a sip, and sighed.

“Either way, we have a plan.” Mary Beth was always the optimist.

“Some plan,” I said with a grunt.

“Want to eat outside?” she said.

“Why not? We can watch the harbor.”

So we piled pasta on our plates and filled our glasses with ice and swill and made our way out to the porch juggling silverware and linens. We may have been young and broke but we had style. And standards. Frat boys ate without place mats and napkins. Not us.

The heat of the day had broken and the horizon was beginning to turn red. There was nothing more beautiful in all the world than sunset on Sullivans Island. But considering I hadn’t really been anywhere outside of Charleston since I was like fifteen when I didn’t care about things like sunsets, I could’ve been wrong. But it sure
seemed
beautiful to me. And romantic.

We set up our places and sat at the old glass-top table, taking the first bites. It was delicious.

“Wow, this is so good,” I said. “Maybe you really ought to be a chef. You know? I mean,
really
!”

“Yeah, and old Larson would kick my butt! This
is
good.”

Larson Smythe, her father, the Pentecostal preacher in the hills of Tennessee, didn’t really believe in college educations for women. Her mother, Agnes the Weirdly Timid, played the pump organ in his church on Sundays while the congregation got moved by the spirit and spoke in tongues. Small congregation. Large snake box. Scary. He owned and ran the local hardware store in their town and Agnes, well, Agnes was a wonderful homemaker and cook but never had any prospects of a career, beyond handling the books for Smythe’s Hardware. Larson would not have heard of it and Agnes wouldn’t have asked. They lived quietly. (Boring.) It’s not like their town was crawling with opportunity anyway.

“Probably. But your momma’s a great cook. You must get it from her.”

When we were in college, I used to go home with Mary Beth on long weekends so I knew this to be a fact. There was always a cake on the table, soup on the stove, and biscuits in the oven.

“Humph. I think the only thing I got from them was far, far away.”

“What were you supposed to do? Work at the Dairy Queen for the rest of your life and marry some no-chin boy named Skeeter? You’d have had total brain rot if you’d gone home after college.”

“Truly. At least I do some subbing once in a while. That keeps Larson’s nerves in check,” she said. “Makes him think the tuition was worth it. So what happened last night? Did you get career counseling again?”

“In a major way. In front of the world. While my butt was allegedly hanging out of
that dress,
according to my mother. Also in front of the world. They ragged on my job and my salary. So embarrassing. I mean, Mary Beth? How am I going to become a famous artist from here? This island has never produced a famous anything. I mean, we had Edgar Allan Poe here for like one year. Big whoop. He wasn’t even born here.”

“You could be the first,” she said.

“Right. You know, Dad goes to New York on business every week. He used to always promise that he’d take me along so I could go to all the museums and galleries. But he never has.”

“Keep asking. It’s a legit request.”

I was quiet for a few minutes and thought about that.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I think he just likes getting away and I know he likes being by himself. Mom doesn’t seem really happy. But then, I don’t really know what she looks like when she is.”

“It’s the same with my mother. Maybe they’re just out of estrogen or something.”

“I’m sure my mother takes a pill for that. But seriously. Even though she’s always ragging on me, I feel bad for her. She needs more fun in her life. Or something. I know she means well.”

“I’d be happy if I was just married to somebody with a lot of money. I get so tired of worrying about college loans and car repairs and every other thing. I mean, I can’t even afford to get my hair cut!”

I looked at her crazy red curly hair blowing in the damp breeze that was drowning the whole porch and wondered if a haircut would make a lot of difference one way or the other.

“What?” she said.

“Nothing! I’m just looking at your hair flying around and mine is too. We look like total crap! But nobody’s watching us anyway so who cares?”

“Amen. I guess you can’t have good hair at the beach. And what good is it to be young and gorgeous if we’re broke? Nobody even knows we’re here. Life is very depressing.”

I scraped the plate with the side of my fork, picking up the last bits of pasta.

“Yeah. Bummer. We may as well eat ourselves into oblivion.”

Just then a huge container ship on its way to somewhere on the other side of the Atlantic came into view. It inched along and because the channel was so close to our property, it seemed as if the ship was going to crash through our yard and kill us. But it wouldn’t. It would veer out to sea and away from view in minutes. It always startled people when they saw this for the first time.

“You could make money with this view,” she said.

“How?” I said. “Sell the house? That might be tough to do since I don’t own it.”

I looked at Mary Beth and she had the same look on her face as she did every time she was about to tell me something really devious.

“What are you thinking, girl? Tell me right now.”

“Well, you know how we’ve always said this was a great place for a party?”

“Yeah. For a party that goes with my funeral. You want Liz and Clay to kill me?”

“Wait a minute. I’m not talking about a party like with our friends and kegs and drunk boys, puking and peeing and passed out in the yard!”

“What other kind is there?”

“The kind you have at the gallery! Like what if . . .”

“Stop! No way!”

“Wait. Let’s do the math. What if you rented the first floor to some organization that was coming to Charleston for a conference? Or just a pop-up party? And what if they wanted to see a sunset that would blow their mind? I can get our company to cater for twenty dollars a person; we limit it to fifty people who pay fifty dollars a person. It’s a two-hour deal period. You got a pencil handy?”

“I already figured it out,” I said.

“We make fifteen hundred dollars in two hours!”

“And my parents will find out and I’ll be homeless. So will you.”

We watched the container ship adjust its course and it floated away with Mary Beth’s excellent but dangerous idea.

“You’re probably right,” she said and sighed hard enough to blow the ship to Cape Hatteras or Greenland or someplace like that. “Paris will have to wait.”

“Maisie always says I should remember that I can marry more money in five minutes than I can earn in a lifetime.”

“She’s right,” Mary Beth said.

“Maybe, but I don’t see any of the guys we know scraping their knees off proposing, do you?”

“You’ve still got Tommy Milano drooling over you.”

“The guy who’s named for a cookie. Great,” I said. “Not in a bazillion years. He’s asked me out how many times? Not happening.”

“Yeah, no future. But he’s so sweet and he’s supercute.”

“Maybe. Besides, I don’t think it makes any sense to get married until you’re ready to have children, do you?”

“It makes economic sense.”

“True. Maybe. But who wants children anyway?”

“You don’t? Wow. I love children! I want like five or maybe four.”

“Maybe I wouldn’t mind one if he looked like Porter Galloway,” I said.

“Porter Galloway. Girl? He’s totally gorgeous,” Mary Beth said, “but messing with that man is gonna land you in a world of hurt. He’s a ladies’ man and you know it.”

Senator Galloway did have sort of a reputation with the ladies. Allegedly, there were a lot of them in his past. To be honest, the number was practically biblical. Every time his picture was in the paper, there was a different woman on his arm.

“Maisie knows his momma, you know. He grew up on James Island. All her friends think he’s like the second coming of JFK or something.”

“Then you should ask her what she thinks about him. I love Maisie.”

“Who doesn’t love Maisie? Problem is, if I ask her, she’ll tell Mom. I haven’t even met him yet. I really don’t want my mother all over my personal life. It’s bad enough as it is.”

“Okay, enough pussyfooting around. What did they say to you last night?”

I thought about it for a minute. It wasn’t what they said so much as it was how they made me feel.

“They didn’t say anything new. It’s just that they make me feel like a loser. You know, I’m just a dreamer. That trying to be an artist is stupid and a waste of time. Maybe they’re right.”

“You think my parents are any better?”

“Probably not. But why are we supposed to spend our whole lives respecting them when they don’t show any respect for us?”

“That’s why you have to believe in yourself and never give up. Me? I just want to marry a doctor or something and have a pile of kids. But you want more, Ash. You always did. Don’t let them ruin it for you.”

Was money really that important to Mary Beth?

“You know, I gave Maisie that little painting for her birthday? I think she really loved it. But all Mom could do was roll her eyes because her dead sister, Juliet, was very artistic. Which was one more excuse for Maisie to bring her up.”

“That’s not so nice. But families are crazy.”

“Truly. Just as Mom was about to sink her teeth in my neck, Ivy showed up with his partner—and I mean that in the business and the romantic way—and they suddenly had something else to focus on besides me. He’s Asian. James is his name. Old Liz nearly fainted.”

“Because he’s Asian? You’ve got to be
kidding
me!”

“Nope. And he’s awesome. He’s from Hong Kong and he was wearing
Glass
.”

“Glass? Google Glass? Wow. That is awesome. It’s not even out yet! God, I’d love to go to Hong Kong.”

“I’d love to go
anywhere
! Actually, Glass is sort of creepy but it’s sort of cool too.”

“Yeah. Makes you look like Data on
Star Trek
or something. I heard it’s like fifteen hundred dollars.”

“It is. I read all about it online. It’s probably going to be amazing. But let’s be honest. If I had fifteen hundred dollars . . .”

“I know; you’d go to Paris.”

“True story,” I said. “Or New York.”

It was getting darker by the minute. In the distance we could see the night lights of the Ravenel Bridge come alive, and the waterfront of the city began to twinkle. Somewhere over there my mother was pouring herself her third vodka and my dad was pulling the second cork of the day. Between the Battery and the Morris Island Lighthouse, Maisie was probably curled up next to Skipper on a sofa watching reruns of
The Love Boat
. And Ivy, my sweet brother, was no doubt in his glory tonight, showing off lovely tech-savvy James and telling stories about their glamorous lives.

But me? I was on Sullivans Island, drinking really lousy wine with my roommate, mooning over a man I didn’t know, who didn’t even know I had a pulse, and wondering how to become a world-famous artist. Persevere, I told myself again and again, and my life would come together. I was sure of it. All I had to do was to keep trying. The more I painted, the better I got. Even
I
could see that in my work.

I thought again about what Mary Beth said about renting the house out and all that. It sure would be great to make fifteen hundred dollars in two hours. Could we get away with it? How could we plan it without them finding out? Charleston was a really small town. I hated secrets. I didn’t want to lie to my parents. I only wanted to prove them wrong. Maybe I’d run it by Ivy.

I texted him at eight o’clock the next morning. He was probably still sleeping. It was five to him, body time, so no way he was up. Then again, knowing Ivy, he was probably still up from last night!

Wanna meet me at Starbucks on Calhoun Street?
I hit the send button.

That particular Starbucks was probably the most convenient for him. A few minutes passed and my smartphone pinged the notice of his reply.

Sure! How’s nine?

Perfect!

I hopped in my car and zoomed over the bridges to downtown, all the while thinking of how much I loved my brother. He was so smart and so sweet. And he loved me. He really, really loved me and accepted me. I wished that he didn’t live so far away.

I parked on the street across from the college and for a moment I indulged in a twinge of nostalgia. A herd of freshmen were crossing the street, guys in their flip-flops and shorts wearing old T-shirts and girls with flat-ironed long straight hair, and I thought, Man, they look so young. I remembered being a freshman and couldn’t remember ever looking like them. They were absolute babies.

There was a line at Starbucks so I got in it and waited, letting other people go ahead of me until Ivy showed up.

“Hey you!” I said and gave him a hug.

“Hey, Ashley River,” he said.

I giggled and said, “Aren’t you happy that our mother didn’t name you Cooper?”

The Ashley and Cooper Rivers surrounded the peninsula of Charleston.

“Please! I have enough scars as it is! So what are you having?”

“A venti skinny latte, no sugar.”

“I think I want a skinny cappuccino. Grab a table. This is mine.”

“Okay, thanks.”

I parked myself at an empty table, folding up a newspaper left behind by another person. I wiped the table clean of crumbs just as Ivy sat down to join me.

“So what’s going on? Sorry about last night. I ran into a bunch of people I hadn’t seen in years . . .”

“I figured as much. No biggie. About Friday night?”