Islands: A Novel Part 21

"Guess you really got her sent to Coventry," Camilla said to Henry, when we heard the news.

"Why, Miss Camilla, how you do run on," Henry said, not looking up from his crab bisque.

"Lewis threatened to do that once," I said, smiling, and then remembered that that time Bunny's poison had spilled over Henry in his grief for Fairlie, and stopped abruptly. Tears sprang into my eyes.

"I'll get the bread," I mumbled, and fled into the kitchen.

"Let her be," I heard Camilla tell Henry gently. "She's trying terribly hard. I really never realized what a child she is, in many ways. We need to take better care of her."

My tears stopped and indignation took their place. Child?

"I'd hardly call her a child," I heard Henry say, and felt a small vindication. When I came back into the dining room, my tears were long dry. I did not let Camilla see them again.

The next morning I drove up Bohicket Road until I came to the John's Island rural center. There was a small collection of buildings: a town hall, a filling station, a boiled peanut and tomato stand, and a new BI-LO store that dwarfed the surrounding countryside. I never saw many houses around the intersection, but the parking lot was almost always full of pick-ups and dusty SUVs, and a great many mud-spattered motorcycles. I looked at them incuriously. Motorcycles, to me, meant Marlon Brando and the h.e.l.l's Angels. I did not expect to meet either at the John's Island BI-LO.

Inside, the glaringly blue-white store was thronged with people, largely women, in blue jeans and hunters' vests and thermal sweaters, pushing carts spilling over with canned beans and frankfurters and nacho chips and dog food and beer, no doubt a weekend's sustenance for a large family. Many of them seemed to know each other, and stopped to talk, clogging the aisles with only a glance at me as I tried to maneuver my cart past. I would smile apologetically, and they would shove their carts over without looking at me, going on with their talk of K Mart bargains and country music concerts at the North Charleston Coliseum. On this morning, I suddenly ached to be one of them, ached to look forward with a simple, hungry joy to hearing Travis Tritt live in concert on a cold Sat.u.r.day night.

Lila and Simms were coming out for the rest of the weekend, and I bought fresh scallops and spinach and mushrooms, and, on impulse, four dozen fresh oysters in their sh.e.l.ls, half sunk in shaved ice. I could almost taste them slipping down, sweet and briny and almost translucent. Lewis had loved them above all other edible things....

On the way to the checkout stand I remembered the bulletin board, and went to scan it. Amid the notices of boat trailers and crab traps for sale, home catering for weddings and funerals, the local junior high school production of Amahl and the Night Visitors, and lost hunting dogs, I found a neat note on heavy pink card stock written in lavender Magic Marker that read: "I have skills in many areas, from housekeeping to baby-sitting to cooking and chauffeuring. I can do substantial home repairs, too. My hours are flexible, and I can sometimes stay over if needed." And it listed a number.

The note was signed with a fat, tipsy lavender heart.

The heart, and the unusually literate narrative, captured my interest. I took down the number, and when I got back to the creek, I called.

The answering machine chirped, "Hi. You have reached Gaynelle Toomer. If it's about the child support, call my lawyer. If it's about the card at the BI-LO, please leave a message."

"Ah...this is Mrs. Lewis Aiken," I said tentatively. Child support? Lawyer? "We live in the three new houses out on the creek, and we need someone to come in weekdays, usually for about five hours, to straighten up and look after a semi-invalid. There's no heavy lifting involved, and she is not elderly, just recovering from an accident. We might be interested in some cooking, too. Please call me back."

At c.o.c.ktail time, when we had all gathered in Simms's and Lila's living room for drinks around the fire, I told them about the Lady of the Purple Heart, as Henry had dubbed her.

"She sounded interesting," I said. "Quirky, sort of, but quite literate. But she hasn't called yet. Maybe we're lucky. Maybe she's a transvest.i.te c.o.ke dealer in reality."

"Just what I've always yearned for," Camilla said.

"I'll track down somebody Monday," Lila said. "I think Kitty Gregory's maid has lots of family out near here. Maybe there's a niece or a granddaughter or something. Was this woman black?"

"No," I said without thinking, and then wondered how I knew. But I did.

Lila frowned.

"I've never had much luck with white girls. They're always running off to go to acrylic nail school or somewhere. And Lord, all those tales of woe! Straying boyfriends, and mothers locking them out of the house, and I don't know what all."

"Lawsy, Miss Scarlett," Henry said.

Lila flushed.

"I didn't mean that as a racist thing. It's just what's been my experience."

Camilla opened her mouth to speak, but her words were lost in a burring, bellowing roar that rolled down the gravel road and up into the turnaround. The outside lights came on automatically, and we hurried to the windows to look. It sounded at the very least like a bulldozer run amok.

"Keep back," Simms said, and went to the door and opened it. We crowded behind him.

In the sucking blue pool of the mercury-vapor security lights, a great fuchsia motorcycle stood, traced with tongues of painted purple and gold flames. A young woman was just getting off it and starting for the door. She was tall and broad shouldered and flat bottomed, and had a ma.s.s of fried-looking rusty red hair and a mask of freckles. Her nose was snub and her mouth was wide, lips chapped from the wind and turned up in a delighted smile. You had to smile back, even as you goggled at her. She wore tight black stretch jeans and a black leather jacket scalloped with what looked to be pounds of metal studs, and her boots were what Lewis used to call s.h.i.tkickers. She was covered with dust.

"Hey," she said, smiling at us as if we were meeting at a family reunion. "I'm Gaynelle Toomer. I lost the number on the machine, but I knew where the houses were. Booter used to be an old friend of my daddy. Lord, look at these houses, will you? Booter would drop his teeth. I'm sorry to be late; my kid's rehearsal ran over. Is one of you Mrs. Aiken?"

I raised my hand like a child in school.

"I am," I said, meekly.

Behind me, Henry began to laugh.

"Please come in," I said. "You must be frozen."

"No, ma'am. Used to it."

She looked around.

"This is pretty," she said. "Booter would think he'd died and gone to heaven. I don't think he ever had anything but a double-wide out here."

I motioned for her to sit, and she did, peeling off the leather jacket. None of us spoke for a long moment. Under her turtle-necked T-shirt reposed the most amazing pair of b.r.e.a.s.t.s I have ever seen. They bobbled softly under the pink stretch fabric like a pair of overripe melons, and looked to be just as large. I could tell that she was not wearing a bra. She smiled around good-naturedly, as if everyone in the room was not struck to stone by the b.r.e.a.s.t.s, and it crossed my mind that she was not flaunting them; she had no need to. This young woman was completely at home with her body, totally situated in her freckled skin.

I wondered how she ever got any work done, hauling those b.r.e.a.s.t.s around. Or how she rode a motorcycle, for that matter. Jouncing must have been a real pain.

I introduced her around. She nodded pleasantly, memorizing us. To Simms and Lila she said, "This is your house, isn't it? It looks just like you."

Lila made a strangled noise of a.s.sent, and Simms nodded vehemently, not yet able to speak. I had the distinct feeling that if he ever cornered Gaynelle Toomer in a bathroom, he would definitely not come off best.

Henry smiled his sweet smile.

"You said your family knew Booter, didn't you? He was one of my best friends when I was growing up, mine and Lewis's...Dr. Aiken. He...we lost him recently. I think Booter would be sad to know that. There wasn't an inch of this creek and marsh we didn't poke through."

"I heard about Dr. Aiken," she said. She turned to me. "I'm real sorry. He was a wonderful man. He fixed my daughter's foot when she was three, and she's doing pageants now. I knew you must be his wife from your message on the machine. You must be missing him awfully."

I nodded, smiling, blinking away tears.

"Yes. I am. It's nice to know he could help your daughter. She does pageants, you said?"

"Yeah. Little Miss beauty and talent pageants. She's a natural, if I do say so. Took to it like a duck to water. She was Little Miss Folly Beach Pier last summer, when she was six, and she's practicing now for the John's Island Junior Tomato Princess. That's why I was late. BI-LO is one of her sponsors. I'm still looking for another one; she has to have two. If y'all know any rich folks who'd like to have a part in the career of a little pageant winner, put a bug in their ear."

Lila and Simms simply stared at her. Camilla smiled her most enigmatic smile. Henry and I grinned widely. This genial emu of a woman had hatched herself a swan.

"So you knew Booter," I said, thinking of the gap-toothed, red-faced man who had danced like a lightning strike to beach music on a summer night long ago.

"All my life. My mama says she thinks she got me on the end of Booter's dock one night. There used to be some good parties out here."

"And so you're looking for some work," Lila said in her best garden club voice. Simms still had not spoken.

"Yes, ma'am. I was working at the Rural Center library, but to tell you the truth, I can make better money doing cleaning and cooking, and I enjoy it."

"What did you do at the library?" Camilla said.

"I was the librarian. I have a degree in library science."

"My dear, you don't need to be cleaning houses," Camilla said warmly. "Never waste your education."

"I don't," Gaynelle Toomer said. "I read all the time. I taught Britney-that's my daughter-to read when she was four. And I have a little night cla.s.s for the other pageant children, and some of their mothers, too. But I do need the work. My no-good husband took off two years ago, and I'm raising Britney by myself. You wouldn't be sorry. I'm really good at what I do."

She looked at Camilla. "You're the lady who needs a little help, aren't you? I've done some work in a nursing home back in Myrtle Beach. You'd be easy to take care of, as little as you are. And fun, because you're so pretty."

"Oh, yes, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, I'll vote for you," Simms said under his breath, but I did not think Gaynelle was b.u.t.tering Camilla up. Camilla was thin; emaciated, almost. And she was pretty. She smiled again, her lit-candle smile.

"It would be two houses and a cottage, just a light once-over," I said. "We'll get somebody else to do the heavy cleaning. And being a companion to Mrs. Curry when we're away. We both work, but at different times. I work mornings and he works afternoons. It would be nice if you could do whatever she needs until about four. I can take over then. Maybe you could come and fix her breakfast, and give her some lunch. I usually do dinner."

"I can do that," she said. "I'd like that. I can leave you all some dinner every now and then, if you like. I'm a real good cook. And who wouldn't want to straighten up with all these books around? It must be like heaven."

"Three houses is a lot, but Mr. and Mrs. Howard aren't here except weekends. We don't want to overburden you."

"I can do these houses with one hand tied behind me," she said. "It would be a pleasure. My rates are pretty compet.i.tive. Mrs. Aiken, I'm going to do yours free."

"Of course you're not!" I protested.

"I am. I won't take your money if you give it to me. Dr. Aiken gave my baby and me a life."

My throat tightened. You left a long shadow, Lewis, I thought.

"Do you always ride the motorcycle?" Henry said. "It's a beauty. I had an old Indian, once. I loved it."

"I never knew that," Camilla exclaimed. "Henry, when on earth did you have a motorcycle?"

"In med school," he said. "I had to sell it when I started my internship. But for those few years, there wasn't anywhere I didn't go on that Indian."

"It's a grand old bike," Gaynelle said. "One of my club has one, restored. You'll have to come ride with the club sometime. Somebody's always got a spare bike around."

"You have a club?" Henry said. His eyes glowed.

"Oh, yeah, they're all over the place. There must be twenty around Charleston alone. At the big rally in Myrtle Beach, there's usually around five hundred thousand bikers. Now that's a sight. Our is the Bohicket club; there are twenty-something of us. You'd like us. We've got doctors and lawyers and a judge and several insurance guys. My boyfriend owns a Honda dealership. And some of the women make more than the guys. Biking isn't the h.e.l.l's Angels anymore."

"I never knew all that was around here," Henry said.

"Oh, yeah. I mean it. Come ride with us. I'll find out what the next big ride is; I think it's for the Low Country Law Officer's Family Fund. January, maybe. Meanwhile, I'll take you for a spin on the Harley whenever you like. It's custom-built for me, but I'm not much shorter than you. Next time it's sunny, I'll ride her over."

"I'd really like that," Henry said, with more color in his voice than I had heard in a long time.

"You better check with your wife first," Gaynelle said, smiling over at Camilla. "Not all wives are real fond of bikers."

"He's not my husband," Camilla said gently. "My husband died years ago. Dr. McKenzie lost his wife last winter. We sort of look after each other."

Gaynelle made a small sound of sympathy, but did not gush or hover.

"It's real nice that you have each other," she said. "More people ought to do that, instead of living alone and dying of loneliness."

We settled on a price, and when she was gone, we sat looking at each other in the firelight. Camilla and Henry and I were grinning.

"A Harley-riding librarian with b.o.o.bs like the front of a '53 Studebaker and a Little Miss Tomato Princess for a daughter. What hath G.o.d wrought?" Henry said, laughing softly.

"Who can cook," I added.

"Who worked in a nursing home," Camilla said, smiling at Henry. She was obviously delighting in his delight.

"I don't know about this," Lila said. "I just don't know. How do we know she won't run off back to the library? And that motorcycle...Lord! And one of those awful little mini-women who strut around shining their behinds and singing Britney Spears. That's even her name, Britney. Why can't we just get some nice black woman who'd be grateful for the work and keep her mouth shut? This one's way too familiar. Mark my words, this woman and her child are going to end up moving in with us."

"Oh, Lila, really," I said. "She's one of a kind. I think she's fascinating. What a life to have lived, as young as she is. And she can do everything we need-"

"Let's give her a try," Simms said. It was the first time he had spoken. "And require that she wear T-shirts at all times."

Henry and Camilla and I laughed, but Lila was not amused. She glared at Simms.

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you."

"We'd never say that." Henry grinned.

Gaynelle was as good as her word. If it was fair, she roared up on the Harley at eight in the morning, or in the truck if the weather was bad. She made a small hot breakfast for Camilla and Henry, and for me if I was still around. She tidied up my and Camilla's houses and Henry's cottage, singing in a surprisingly pleasant alto voice with a tremolo in it that reminded me of Patsy Cline. She seemed to favor Billy Gilman; Camilla said she was learning every one of his songs by heart.

For lunch she made a salad or a light souffle, and they waited until I got home to eat. Sometimes Henry put off going in to the clinic until after lunch. I had to admit that it was pleasant. Gaynelle was, as she had said, a very good cook. She took to making dinners that could be reheated, and we gratefully let her, conscious that we had eaten only each other's cooking for a very long time.

Mornings and afternoons she helped Camilla bathe and dress and do her therapy exercises, and at about four tucked her into bed with a book and the CD player. Camilla usually napped. Gaynelle could have gone home after that, since I was almost always there, but she asked one day if she might stay awhile to read some books from our libraries, and I said of course.

In truth, I was glad of the company. Gaynelle's matter-of-fact recountings of her hardscrabble days-sitting for hours in Medicaid clinics waiting for this test or that doctor, always foraging for money for the truck or the bike, fretting over paying the day care center where she left Britney until five, pursuing her ex-husband through the courts for the child support that was now three years overdue-were for me a window on a world that I had hardly known existed. Well, to be honest, I did know; I remembered the tattered lives of the mothers of my small clients at the agency, but it had been a very long time since that had been real to me. Gaynelle was totally without self-pity, although often full of anger at some uncaring social agency, or "that sorry son of a b.i.t.c.h." I came to admire her enormously. She lived constantly on the edge, and managed in spite of the rigors and strictures to live rather well. Her casual courage sometimes shamed me. Camilla was utterly fascinated by her. To her, Gaynelle led an exotic sort of gypsy life that had little to do with reality.

"I'm going to put her in a book of some sort," she said, scribbling away one afternoon after Gaynelle left. She was writing in her notebooks more than ever now, and seemed more alive and engaged than I had seen her for some time.

I overheard Gaynelle ask her one morning, "Are you writing a book? You're never without that notebook."

"I might, at that," Camilla said, smiling.

"Put me in it?"

"I wouldn't dream of leaving you out."

At the end of November, Gaynelle came roaring up on the pink Harley on a Friday afternoon after she should have been off, accompanied by a man on a monstrous black bike with an inordinate amount of silver piping and tubing showing. It was covered with dust from the road into the creek, but you could tell it was a new bike. The man himself was small-shorter than Gaynelle-and completely bald, with a great blond beard spilling over his leather jacket and a kerchief tied around his head. He wore black goggles; it was impossible to tell how old he was. Behind him, riding pillion, a little girl in full black child-sized leather regalia waved and squealed. I could see carrot red curls spilling out of her miniature helmet and saw that her small boots were sequined. Without a doubt the boyfriend and the daughter of Gaynelle Toomer.

Gaynelle brought them up to the front door, and I opened it to let them in. The last of the low winter sun was glinting on the creek, and there was a lurid smear in the west that promised a spectacular sunset. Gaynelle prodded them before her into the living room like a teacher with recalcitrant children on a field trip. They removed their goggles, and then I could tell that the boyfriend was years older than Gaynelle, maybe forty. He had mild blue eyes and a nice smile through all the hair. The little girl was so precociously beautiful and so aware of it that she almost made you grimace.

"This is my boyfriend, T. C. Bentley," Gaynelle said. "Bentley Honda? And this is my little princess, Britney, who is just as sweet and talented as she is pretty. Britney, what do you say to Mrs. Aiken?"

The child, the ma.s.s of her red hair flaming much as Fairlie's had done, made a stiff little curtsy, nearly toppling over, and said, "Nicetomeetcha."