Gone With a Handsomer Man (2 page)

I’d crossed the Ravenel Bridge a hundred times but never in a police car. The officer booked me at the Charleston County Detention Center. After I was photographed and fingerprinted, I called the only person I knew in this town—Bing’s stepmother, Miss Dora.

It was a natural choice. Back in April, she’d hosted our lavish engagement party, but Bing hadn’t even thanked her. Despite his antagonism, Miss Dora and I had become friends.

I was bussed to night court with two other women. One had hired a hit man to knock off her boyfriend’s wife, and the other had shot ten people with a paint gun at Terri Sue’s Klip ’n Kurl after an altercation over hair braiding. My crimes were small in comparison. Surely my case would be dismissed.

The bus turned into the courthouse parking lot. I took a deep breath and gave thanks that I hadn’t let Bing talk me into selling the farm. Bonaventure, Georgia, was a three-hour drive from Charleston. In just a little while, I’d be home.

Miss Dora hired Mr. Alvin Bell to represent me. He looked a hundred years old and smelled like gin rickeys. The air between us filled with alcoholic vapors as he explained that I was being charged with assault and vandalism.

“But I didn’t vandalize anything,” I said.

“You broke a boom box,” Mr. Bell said.

“I didn’t personally smash it,” I said. “I threw something at it.”

“Just the same, you destroyed Mr. Jackson’s property.” Mr. Bell leaned closer. “Are you telling me everything?”

“I might be an accidental vandal, Mr. Bell, but I’m not a liar.” This wasn’t completely true. In my whole life, I’d managed to keep every commandment except number nine—unless cohabitation with Bing counted as a sin. I’d always been mindful of my lies and kept track of them on a yearly basis, starting with January first. So far, I’d only told a dozen. One more violation and I’d be up to the unluckiest number of all: thirteen.

“How can I be in this much trouble?” I asked Mr. Bell.

“You can throw peaches at a fence, but if you aim them at people or animals, it’s criminal assault. I know a case where a girl got jail time for throwing a cat at her boyfriend.”

“I had no idea it was this easy to break the law, Mr. Bell,” I said.

“That’s what keeps me solvent, my dear.” He patted my hand. “You can’t call people liars. That’s defamation. But it’s perfectly legal to call them assholes.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” I whispered.

“Remember, you’re innocent until proven guilty. If the complainant doesn’t show up, the judge will dismiss the charges.”

“Teeny!” cried a voice behind me.

I glanced over my shoulder and waved at Miss Dora. She sat on a bench all by herself in a raspberry linen suit. Her swimmy blue eyes glanced around the courtroom, then she fingered her short, poofy white-blond hair. No one, not even Bing, knew how old she was. She looked to be anywhere from fifty to seventy.

I smiled, then turned around and glanced up at the bench. The judge’s black robe had long, crinkled fold lines down the front and a mustard stain on the bib. As the night wore on, his edicts got harsher and harsher. The woman who’d paint-balled the beauticians was slapped with six months unsupervised probation and was ordered to stay away from the shop. The woman who’d tried to kill her boyfriend’s wife was carted off to the state hospital for psychiatric evaluation—thirty days involuntary commitment.

Bing and the girls showed up with an attorney, not his own personal lawyer but one who worked for the city. When my case was called, the judge listened to the arresting cops. Then he listened to Bing and the women, who all but said I was a rabid polecat. Finally, Mr. Bell asked me to take the stand so I could tell my side of the story.

My legs shook as I walked to the witness stand, but my voice was strong as I swore to tell the truth. I explained about the canceled cake class, the naked badminton game, and my ninja attack. Then I went back to my seat.

The attorneys argued back and forth, but even to my own ears, I sounded guilty. Apparently Bing had gotten an emergency restraining order. The other attorney claimed I was a flight risk because I’d lived in Charleston County for only a few months.

Mr. Bell called Miss Dora to the stand. She took up for me, but the judge didn’t seem impressed. He got a weary look in his eyes and sentenced me to forty-eight hours of community service and six months unsupervised probation. I had to pay a fine and couldn’t leave South Carolina until probation ended—exactly six months from today.

“And Miss Templeton,” the judge said, “stay away from Mr. Jackson.”

The judge called for a recess. The bailiff said, “All rise.”

Everyone stood except Miss Dora. She started talking real loud about kangaroo courts and plea bargaining. Her brassy voice always made me think of Ethel Merman songs, motorcycle gangs, pure grain alcohol, and home hair coloring gone wrong. She was an interior designer here in Charleston, but her personality put off a lot of people. Apparently she’d been named after a hurricane that hit the Georgia coast in 1964, and she’d been stirring up trouble ever since.

The judge flashed her a hard stare. Mr. Bell’s face turned red. “Dora, you better rise or he’ll hold you in contempt.”

“Honey, my cup runneth over with contempt,” Miss Dora whispered. “I’ve seen that man naked.”

The three of us walked into the hall, where a janitor pushed a wet mop over the floor. Bing hurried out and never looked in my direction.

“Don’t you be thinking about going near that boy,” Mr. Bell said.

“No, sir,” I said. I feared jail more than I feared bees and snakes.

“Alvin, you’re frightening the poor girl,” Miss Dora said. “Teeny, don’t listen. One of my drapery hangers got slapped with unsupervised probation and he didn’t even have a parole officer.”

“Teeny won’t have an officer.” Mr. Bell patted my arm. “Just be smart. Don’t leave the state. Don’t drive over the speed limit. Don’t jaywalk. Be a model citizen and those six months will fly by. It’s summer now, but it’ll be December fourth before you can say Jack Robinson.”

three

Miss Dora and I walked out of the courthouse into the muggy night air. We climbed into her Bentley, and she dumped her purse between us—a large Hermès bag, which she affectionately called The Black Hole, thanks to its tendency to suck objects into a vortex. Tonight the purse bulged with fabric swatches, marble chips, and a fan deck from Sherwin-Williams.

From the depths of the bag, her cell phone rang. She reached inside, pulled out a gilt drapery finial, and located the phone. She answered with a breathless hello. A tinny, hysterical voice rose up, but Miss Dora cut it off.

“I’m so sorry you’re troubled,” she said. “But it’ll have to wait till the morning. I’ve got a family crisis. Toodle-loo.”

She rang off and turned onto Azalea Street. “A client is having a hissy fit,” she said. “Apparently the wrong furniture was delivered—a hideous brown leather sofa instead of a silk settee. The poor woman is hysterical. Mark my words, she’ll call back.”

Halfway to I-26, the phone trilled again. This time, Miss Dora didn’t bother to say hello. “Look, darlin’, there’s two ways of doing things,” she told the client. “Your way and my way. Let’s do it my way from now on.”

“Humphrey Bogart said that in
The Caine Mutiny
,” I whispered.

She winked at me and resumed her conversation. “You’re talking way too fast,” she told the client. “Start at the beginning.”

I settled against the window and remembered the engagement party Miss Dora had thrown for me and Bing. It had been a warm April night, and her guests had spilled out of the Queen Street house into the courtyard.

During the party, Miss Dora had pulled me aside and pointed out prominent Low Country citizens, adding salient points about their personalities, marriages, and household decor. She waved to a sharp-nosed woman in a blue dress. “Look at those diamonds, Teeny.” Miss Dora whispered the woman’s name. “She’s one of the richest women in South Carolina. But she’s miserable. Just like Vita in
Mildred Pierce
.”

“You mean she eats her young like an alligator?” I said.

Miss Dora smiled. “You’re familiar with that movie?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Teeny, you’re a keeper. You put me in mind of my baby sister. Gloria and I were rabid film buffs. She was an ash-blonde, just like you. Same big old brown eyes. Same cute little gap between her front teeth. Big boobs and curvy hips. She was made for childbearing. And she had a turquoise convertible, just like you—a Chevy, not an Olds.”

“Had?” I asked.

Miss Dora’s eyes teared up as she told me how Gloria’s convertible rear-ended a truck filled with giant pumpkins. “It’s like Gloria has come back to me,” she’d said, squeezing my hand. “I know you aren’t her, but it just makes me feel good to be around you.”

Remembering the party made me sad. That same night, Bing and I had spent a little time in Miss Dora’s azalea pink guest room.

Now, from the other side of the Bentley, I heard a loud shriek, and images of Miss Dora’s guest room evaporated.

“What the poop!” she cried. “I think she’s been drinking. Every other word is gibberish.”

She dumped the phone into her purse. “You know what, Teeny? Bing’s an asshole for letting a jewel like you get away.”

She steered the Bentley into traffic. In the distance, I saw lights from the Ravenel Bridge.

“Now tell me about the peach fight,” Miss Dora said. “And don’t leave out a thing.”

“You heard what I told the judge,” I said. “Have you really seen him undressed?”

“Bunches of times. The judge and I had a little fling when I first moved to Charleston. But he had the littlest penis I ever saw in my life—in fact, I called him Pencil Pecker. I quit him and married Rodney Jackson.”

As she headed toward the historic district, I wondered if the memory of the judge’s private parts had distracted her.

“Aren’t you taking me to my car?” I asked.

“I like a man who’s well endowed in
every
way,” she added, ignoring my question. “Which is something the Jackson men aren’t. But they’re gargantuan compared to Pencil. And yes, I know you want your car. I’m sure you’re worried sick about that bulldog of yours. But do you really think it’s wise to go near Bing Laden after he took out that restraining order?”

She drove through the intersection of Queen and Meeting. I’d thought for sure we were going to her house on Johnson’s Row. I looked back at the Mills House Hotel, then I glanced at Miss Dora. She was just being Dora-esque—scatterbrained, late for appointments, a notorious no-show.

The traffic thinned after we drove past St. Michael’s Episcopal. Miss Dora pointed out houses she’d decorated, adding assessments of her clients. “Stingy,” she said, gesturing at a redbrick. “Social climbers,” she said about a white clapboard. When she spotted a blue stucco she hadn’t decorated, she flipped her hand and said, “Fugly.”

She swung onto Tradd Street, nosing the Bentley around parked cars, then she drove past Church and Bedon’s Alley. When she hung a left onto East Bay, I expected more of the deco-tour but she made a U-turn and angled the Bentley in front of a three-story pink house with gray shutters. A sign next to the door read
SPENCER-JACKSON HOUSE, CIRCA 1785
.

I’d never been inside this house, but I knew its history. It had been in the Jackson family forever; it was high maintenance and needed a full-time custodian. Bing’s uncle Elmer had lived here rent-free, but he’d died three weeks ago. After the funeral, Bing and I had driven by the house and I’d asked if he was going to sell it. “Never,” he’d said. “The Spencer-Jackson House proves my family is Old Charleston.”

“Miss Dora, why’re we stopping here?” I blinked at the iron gate, into a breezeway that was lit up with gas lanterns. At the end of the corridor, faint lights twinkled in a private garden.

She ignored me and dug through her purse, muttering to herself. Two men in sweats jogged by the Spencer-Jackson and moved toward a blue house with black shutters. On this side of East Bay, the houses were fitted together like marzipan confections—cotton candy pink, blueberry, lime, saffron, watermelon ice. Across the street, the homes were cream, white, or beige, as if their more colorful neighbors had sucked the life right out of them.

The joggers cut across the street, past a white Winnebago plastered with cat-related bumper stickers, and headed toward the Battery. Behind them, I saw a wedge of Charleston Harbor. It spread up and out, all streaked with lights.

I fidgeted with my Ventolin inhaler—all I’d brought with me from Bing’s house. The matron at the detention center had let me keep it after I’d explained about my asthma. My chest tightened when Miss Dora pulled a hot pink tasseled key chain from her purse. I fit the inhaler between my lips and took a short puff.

“Here are the keys,” she said.

“To what?” I asked.

“To the Spencer-Jackson House,” she said. “Your new home sweet home.”

four

I glanced up at the pink monstrosity and took another hit of Ventolin. “I can’t stay here,” I cried. “Bing will pitch a fit.”

“No, he won’t,” she said. “He hates this old house. He prefers McMansions.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “He hates the traffic in the historic district, but he loves this house. It’s a feather in his social cap. If I move in, he’ll call a SWAT team.” I totally believed this.

“Are you kidding me?” Miss Dora cried. “Why, just the other day he called the Spencer-Jackson a firetrap. He said taxes were eating him alive.”

“The problem isn’t Bing’s feelings about this house,” I said. “It’s his feelings towards me.”

“Darlin’, I hate to be crude, but Bing Laden is sniffing after poontang. He’s not thinking about you.” Miss Dora combed the tassel with her fingernails. “But there’s a reason I want you here—a selfish reason. I decorated this house myself. I used some of my finest antiques, and I haven’t had time to move them. What if a burglar stripped the place? Or a fire could break out and everything would be lost.”

“So buy smoke detectors.”

“The Spencer-Jackson has a state-of-the-art alarm system. But when a place sits by itself, it falls into ruin. I’d just feel better if I had a house sitter. You’re stuck in Charleston till December. You might as well stay at the Spencer-Jackson.”