Down Home Carolina Christmas (11 page)

“Dixie and I used to play house here when we were kids. This rock was the living room, that one to your right was the kitchen and the one closest to the spring house was the garage where I went to work every day.”

“And Dixie—did she work at the garage, too?”

Carrie shook her head. “Dixie is more traditional. She's beginning a new career of selling real estate, and she'd like to find a husband. She's a better cook than I am, too.”

“That couldn't be true. The pot roast was fantastic.”

“I'm glad you liked it, but I didn't make the dessert. Dixie did that. Memaw brought watermelon pickle, which she puts up every summer. Voncille contributed yeast bread.”

“And the children,” Luke added with a smile. “They're great.”

“I love those kids. Paul is eleven, Liddy is nine, Amelia is six and Petey is two.”

“Voncille said she was in high school with you. She acts much older somehow.”

“Vonnie's two years my senior. She dropped out to marry Skeeter in eleventh grade, and they've had a time of it. They're happy, though.”

Carrie seemed reflective, and he nuzzled her temple. “Hey, if they're happy, that's all that counts.”

She sighed. “Easy for you to say. Skeeter keeps getting laid off. Voncille doesn't work—thinks she should be home with the kids. She's tried all sorts of useless get-rich-quick schemes, like stuffing envelopes at home. She wants to work full-time when little Petey starts school.”

“Good for her.”

“If she can find a job. She's working on her GED to make up for the lack of a diploma from Yewville High.”

“I'm glad to know more about your family, Carrie, but I'd like a crash course in Carrie Rose Smith.”

“You've already found out almost everything important,” she said.

“Not your favorite color or the soft drink you like best. If you prefer boxers or briefs on men. Your birthday.”

“Pale blue, like moonlight on water. Cheerwine, a Carolinas drink. Briefs, on you. And December 24.”

“Your birthday is the day before Christmas?”

“Unfortunately yes. I've always felt cheated because other people get presents twice a year and I only get them once.”

He squeezed her hand. “You know what? I'm not familiar with Cheerwine, but I understand exactly how you feel about your Christmas birthday because mine's on December 24, too. The same day as yours.”

Her eyes grew wide. “Really?”

“It is. I never had a real birthday party. Sherry would always give me a little present because she felt sorry for me, but—” He didn't like to talk about his sister, and besides, after she died, no one had ever made a fuss about his birthday again, not even his parents. They'd all had a hard time keeping Christmas after Sherry's accident, which had happened in November.

He cleared his throat. “Now, back to what you like. Grease under your fingernails. Hub, at the garage. Stray dogs. And slightly kinky sex.”

She made a face. “You make it sound as if I'm into chains and handcuffs.”

“No, but I liked the shower scene this morning. Not to mention getting good mileage out of that settee in the attic.”

“I'd always wondered what it would be like to make love on that plush fabric,” she said thoughtfully. “I finally found out.”

“I'm glad I could help you with that,” he said in all sincerity. “And if you have other fantasies you'd like fulfilled, I'm your man.”

“I've always wondered if it could be done on the porch swing. But don't tell anyone.”

“You think I would talk about such privileged information?” He wasn't sure whether to be offended or amused.

“I hope not, since I'd hate for my sexual proclivities to become part of the Yewville gossip mill.”

“How about
my
sexual proclivities?” he asked mildly.

She made a disparaging sound. “People go to the movies. They remember that you had sex with Buffy Gaetano in
Frankly, Roberta
and that Judith Stirgill jumped your bones in
Crawdads.
They expect you can sleep with anyone wherever you want, Luke Mason.”

He laughed and kissed the tip of her nose. “I told you, sometimes it's not even me up there on the big screen.”

“Hmm. I don't know whether to believe it.”

He kissed her hard, leaving both of them gasping for breath. “Do you believe that kiss?” he asked. “What it means and what it could?”

“Not sure. Try it again,” she said.

He kissed her again, deeper, and with more passion. His fingertips explored her face before he trailed kisses down her throat and the hollow exposed by her V-neck sweater. He feathered his hands up her sides and curved them around sweet, warm flesh. When her nipples reared up to say hello, he paid them the attention they deserved.

“We should have brought a blanket,” Carrie murmured as together they fell back against the rock.

“Next time.” He counted his way down her ribs, marveling at the delicacy of her bone structure. Her jeans presented a problem, though she obliged by slithering out of them in a movement so graceful it might have been choreographed.

He slid over her, and took them to a mindless, heedless place where all they wanted was to yield to wild, heady excitement. When it was over, when his heart had slowed to normal, Carrie unwrapped her legs from around his waist and touched his face as if in a trance.

“This is better than any movie I've ever seen,” she said.

“It's also more real than any I've been in,” he said with a chuckle, anchoring her to him with his arms.

She sighed, and he was overtaken by the sudden notion that he could make love to her for the rest of his life and never miss any other women. He started to move apart from her, feeling obliged to contemplate the idea before it got away from him.

But she wrapped her legs around his waist again and held him fast. “Where are you going?” she asked playfully.

“Not far,” he told her, forgetting what he'd been about to contemplate.

“Good. Because I want you to do all that to me again,” she said. And he was more than happy to oblige.

Due to Tiffany's unexpected bout with bronchitis, the filming of the
Dangerous
scenes at Smitty's Garage was delayed a week until the beginning of October. During that time, Carrie and Luke led an idyllic life.

When she arrived home from work, Luke was waiting. Once he took her to his place to spend the night, but Carrie, remembering when the CEO of the now-defunct textile mill had lived there, was uncomfortable amid all the brocades and expensive imported antiques, so she said she preferred that Luke come to her house. He soon learned to make himself at home. Usually she cooked, but sometimes he brought meat over and grilled it on the barbecue that he had assembled himself.

Occasionally, on a weeknight when it would be less crowded, they went out to eat at Pothier's. Carrie had developed a passion for their chocolate gâteau, which she'd denied herself the first time she'd eaten there, and now Luke insisted that she always order it. The restaurant was far enough away from Yewville that they never saw anyone Carrie knew, and the hostess understood to seat them at a table discreetly screened from the other patrons.

Luke and Carrie were together almost every night, unbeknownst to Dixie or anyone else in her family. Mostly they whiled away the evening watching TV with Killer on the couch beside them, though he still attacked Luke's feet whenever he spotted a bare one.

“I never thought I'd have to wear socks to bed,” Luke said ruefully one night as the rabbit burrowed under the sheet and curled up between them.

“I never thought I'd wear my birthday suit to bed,” Carrie retorted, snuggling up. Killer never attacked her bare feet, only Luke's.

Carrie lived far enough out in the country that people didn't see Luke's Ferrari in her driveway, but as time went on, he began to park it in the old tractor shed so that his presence would be undetected if someone dropped in. That usually only happened in the morning when Dixie would drive out to enjoy a cup of coffee with Carrie before they both went on to their jobs. By then, Luke was long gone.

Carrie soaked up Luke's attention. She'd missed having a man in her life ever since she and Mert had split up, though she hadn't realized exactly how much she'd yearned for male companionship until Luke had come along with his hot breathless kisses, his penchant for clever, amusing recreational sex and the libido to pursue it. She now spent her days and nights walking around in a haze of afterglow, ripe as one of her tomatoes ready to be plucked from the vine, pendulous with constant longing. Which Luke took care to satisfy regularly, by the way.

But when filming commenced, Carrie, of necessity, steeled herself for more time away from Luke. He had to rehearse, he had to shore up Tiffany's precarious emotions and, most of all, he had to show up promptly when scenes were filmed. He could spend nights with Carrie, but he couldn't linger in bed of a morning, loving away the hours until the sun no longer slanted through the lace curtains but hung high in the sky.

Anyway, by the date the movie company was ready to film the first scenes at Smitty's, Carrie had other things on her mind besides Luke.

Dixie asked her one day how the preparations at Smitty's were going and got an earful from Carrie. “Those technicians are snaking cables all over the place, and they push my equipment around as if it's of no importance to anyone,” she grumbled in annoyance.

Dixie cautioned her to get a grip. “The movie company is also paying you more than you expected. Thirty thousand dollars! I'd say that's more than enough.”

“You don't have to go through what I do,” Carrie reminded her heatedly. “Shasta is beside herself with all those people around her, and no matter how many sausage biscuits they feed her, she doesn't understand why she's shut up in my office all day.”

“Haven't you found that dog a home yet?” Dixie asked, surprised.

“I've been busy” was all Carrie said, neglecting to enlighten her sister as to what she'd been busy doing.

“By the way, Carrie, the new roof on the home place looks awesome,” Dixie said. “Norm did a great job.”

“Thanks. I chose shingles as close to the original as possible. It sure is great not to have to worry about leaks these days.”

Once he started working full-time, Luke became increasingly preoccupied, informing Carrie one evening that Tiffany had gained weight while out with bronchitis and had to be sewn into her costumes so they'd still fit. Not that it mattered much, Carrie observed. Mary-Lutie Goforth had hardly been a fashion plate.

Filming commenced on a Monday, the set closed to all but interested parties, of whom Carrie was one. Carrie had insisted that she be allowed on set. She wanted to protect her equipment and make sure that any customers who stopped by understood what was going on and why they couldn't buy gas until filming had finished.

But by the second day of filming, during which Carrie stood to one side out of everyone's way while Yancey and Mary-Lutie argued about Yancey's preference for racing over repairing cars, Carrie was practically in hysterics.

The script called for Mary-Lutie to berate Yancey about his neglect of her and their children. “I'm sick and tired of this—this love you have for racing! Why, if you had a choice, Yancey Goforth, you'd make love to a carburetor instead of me. As for our children, they might as well have no father!”

The way Tiffany spoke her lines was so far from the real Mary-Lutie's flat South Carolina Midlands accent that it was laughable. Every single take they did, when Tiffany would say, “Ah'm so sick and tarred of this—this
luv
eyew have for racing,” Carrie would retreat to the ladies' room to quell her laughter.

Despite the weeks Tiffany had spent in town talking to people, mingling with them as Luke had, she hadn't figured out that the proper accent didn't derive only from the way in which South Carolinians enunciated their words. Intonation counted almost as much. Not only that, but Charlestonians had a different accent from people who lived in the Midlands, where Yewville was located, and those who hailed from the Upcountry around Greenville and Spartanburg had their own way of speaking. The trouble was that the words that came out of Tiffany's mouth sounded like none of them.

Carrie didn't want to cause trouble. Really, she didn't. But when Luke finally tracked her down throwing a ball for Shasta behind the garage and asked her where she'd been when they'd filmed that particular scene, she told him.

“I was laughing my head off,” Carrie said. “In the restroom.”

She'd startled him; that was evident. He bent to pet Shasta, tossing her a dog biscuit, as had become his habit lately. “Exactly why were you laughing, do you mind telling me?”

Carrie dried the damp tennis ball off on her jeans. “Every time Tiffany opens her mouth, she sounds like she's channeling Dolly Parton. That's not a South Carolina accent of any kind, much less from Yewville.”

“Tiffany's had the best vocal coaches. She's studied this stuff.” Luke appeared bewildered.

“She needs to unlearn most of it. I tell you, Luke, if I were in a movie theater, I'd walk out before I even finished the first box of popcorn. Her accent is not believable.”

Luke was clearly taken aback. “It's important that everything be authentic. This is my breakout movie, the one that is supposed to head my career and Tiffany's in a new and more serious direction. You'd better have a talk with Jules.”

“That's not my job,” she said flatly. She eyed the director, who was barking into a cell phone over by the air pump.

“Do you mind if I tell him what you said? Jules will want your impressions.”

She shook her head and he hurried off in Jules's direction, beckoning to Carrie immediately. Carrie reluctantly walked over and repeated what she'd told Luke. Jules heaved a giant sigh and made more phone calls. Carrie heard him demanding, cursing and finally pleading, for all the good it did, though from the way Jules was carrying on, it was probably not much.

Nevertheless, the next afternoon a vocal coach named Emil, from Long Island, New York, showed up on the set. As soon as he arrived, Jules called a recess while Emil earnestly advised Tiffany, who then returned to the set to mangle her lines worse than ever. This time Carrie had to adjourn to the Eat Right and share a banana split with Dixie so as not to speak her mind about Emil's lack of suitability for the job.

Emil lasted only a few days and was dismissed when Tiffany ran sobbing from the set. That was when Whip, Jules and Luke paid Carrie a visit at the home place and begged her to help out.

“All you have to do is talk with Tiffany and give her a few pointers,” Whip argued persuasively as the three of them rocked on her front porch.

“I talk with her every day,” Carrie said. “I don't understand what good this would do.”

“We need you, Carrie,” Luke said, and she melted. She couldn't resist anything where Luke was involved.

The upshot was that the next day, Carrie and Tiffany went to the Eat Right for a long lunch, where they sat in a booth and Tiffany listened to what she had to say.

“If you wish to come across like a South Carolinian, you'll have to talk like one,” Carrie instructed over the blue-plate special. “You've got to pull syllables out of the back of your nose and down into your voice box. And when you're saying, ‘Ah'm so sick and tarred of this—this luv eyew have for racing,' forget the
ah'm.
A real South Carolinian would say ‘I am' instead of using the contraction, in this instance.”

“Why?”

Carrie drew a blank. “I don't know, but the
am
would be spoken in a slightly lower tone than the
I.
And the
so
would have its own emphasis. As for
love,
the vowel can be pronounced like a short
U,
but the tone should be flattened up under your sinuses before it comes out of your mouth.”

“Like this? Lu-u-ve.” Tiffany then repeated the whole sentence.

“You've almost got it,” Carrie said encouragingly as Kathy Lou gawked from behind the counter, where she could hear every tortured syllable. “You're still not saying the word
tired
right, though. ‘Tarred' is what I hear, but you need to thread a bit of the long
I
through the ‘tar.'”

At this, Tiffany started to laugh. “I'm sorry, Carrie, I'm not laughing at you. I'm laughing
with
you. How ignorant I must seem!”

Carrie shook her head. “No, no, no! We grew up learning how to talk the way we do, and you've only been here a few weeks.”

“I believed I could do a Southern accent,” Tiffany said. “I even went to the Chicken Bog Slog to immerse myself in the culture the way Luke does. I listened to people. I really did.”

“Those of us who were reared in the South don't all talk alike. What your teacher taught you might have been a perfectly fine Mississippi accent or a Texas accent, but it won't work here.”

Tiffany sighed. “Okay, let me try again,” she said. “Tarred.”

“You're saying ty-
errd.
Try it like this.” Carrie demonstrated.

“Ti-ahrd,” Tiffany said.

“
Ti-
arrd,” Carrie shot back, and this time Tiffany got it right.

Kathy Lou rolled her eyes and murmured to the cook behind the grill, “If that don't beat all. Are you hearing what I'm hearing?”

“You're doing great, Tiffany,” Carrie said warmly. “And FYI, those of us who live here can spot an outsider as soon as he says Yewville. We pronounce it ‘Yewvull.' Heavier emphasis on the first syllable.”

“Uh-oh, I've been saying that all wrong, too.”

“Don't worry. You wouldn't know.” She eyed Tiffany's plate, with half the chicken salad remaining, and realized that she should hustle her out of the Eat Right before she noticed she'd only eaten part of her lunch. Now that Liz, Tiffany's personal trainer, had turned up, Tiffany rarely swallowed so much as a carrot curl without her approval.

“What do you say we get back to Smitty's,” Carrie suggested. “You and Luke can practice your lines together before resuming filming.”

“Good idea,” Tiffany said, sliding across the red vinyl seat.

As they left the restaurant, Tiffany curved her arm around Carrie's waist. At such times Carrie couldn't help but like her. “I want you to be my new vocal coach,” Tiffany announced grandly. “I simply can't make this movie without you.”

“I don't know anything about coaching,” Carrie replied in dismay.

“You know how to talk like someone from Yewville, and that's what counts. I'm sure everyone will agree that you're exactly what we need. Your help will make all the difference in this film.”

Carrie figured she could wiggle her way out of the assignment, but that afternoon in her office, she sat scratching Shasta behind her ears as Whip, Jules and Luke insisted that she was important to the film and that they would pay her munificently for her work in addition to what she'd already received from renting the garage. In the face of their persuasion, Carrie buckled. With the extra money, she could have the home place painted and the sagging porch shored up. She could help Memaw purchase a new car to replace her rusty Plymouth, and she could buy Voncille a brand-new, extracapacity dishwasher. And maybe she'd even take a trip to the Caribbean with Glenda, who had invited her to go along. Plus, working so closely with Tiffany would keep her near Luke, and even though they were together almost every night, it wasn't enough. She desired to be with him all the time, which was a switch for her. She'd mostly been a loner since Mert had left town.