The Summer Girls (18 page)

When the coconut cake was brought out and she’d blown out the eight candles (she’d insisted they not be ridiculous and try to squeeze eighty onto the cake), it was time for gifts. Mamaw was much more excited about what she was giving than about what she might be receiving. She’d already received many other gifts from friends. The doorbell had rung all week as the UPS and mail carriers made countless stops. Sea Breeze was filled with beautiful flower arrangements, and there were more soaps and sweets in beautiful boxes than she could ever use.

Dora nervously presented her with a beautifully wrapped box. Inside, Mamaw found a hand-knitted shawl of the softest merino wool with lovely long tassels. It was magnificent, and Mamaw was deeply moved by the handmade gift, but Dora couldn’t stop apologizing for all the perceived flaws. Mamaw thought how she really had to teach Dora to take pride in her accomplishments.

Harper surprised her with some modern contraption she called an iPad. The other girls were very impressed with the gift and huddled over it, checking out all the features, but Mamaw didn’t have the first clue how to use it. Harper promised to teach her and said something about helping her to be “plugged in.” Whatever that meant, bless her heart.

Lastly, Carson set before her a box wrapped in purple floral cloth in the Japanese
furoshiki
style. Mamaw was amused by this exotic wrapping, so like Carson. But she was unprepared for the gift. Inside was a stunning photograph of Mamaw sitting in her favorite wicker chair on the porch overlooking the cove. Carson had employed all her considerable skills to catch just the right amount of the reds and golds of the setting sun to add a glow to Mamaw’s skin, making her appear ethereal. It was a singular unguarded moment, not posed. Carson had captured a rare wistfulness in her expression, a fierce tenderness that each of the girls recognized and was deeply moved by. Mamaw looked into Carson’s eyes and thanked her. As she spoke the words, she wondered at the perspicacity of the woman who could capture glimpses of someone’s soul.

After the waiters cleared away the last of the dishes, Mamaw signaled for them to pour another round of
champagne. At last she’d come to the moment for which she’d been waiting so long.

“Now it’s my turn to give you each a present,” she announced.

“We get presents?” Dora asked, brows raised in surprise.

The girls all sat straighter in their chairs, eyes as wide as saucers as Mamaw bent to pick up the black beaded bag from beside her chair. From this she retrieved one velvet pouch after the other, then handed the appropriate ones to her granddaughters. Suddenly there was a flurry of movement and high-pitched squeals as the room echoed with a chorus of oohs and aahs. The girls leaped to their feet to deliver kisses to Mamaw amid declarations of love and thanks that made her head swirl. She grinned from ear to ear, thinking how much they looked like butterflies in her garden, landing on one flower, then the next, as they whirled to help each other fasten their pearl necklaces. Then, in a rush of giggles, they ran off to admire themselves in her bathroom mirror.

Mamaw and Lucille remained at the table, smiling and raising their champagne glasses in a toast to their success. Soon, the girls returned and took their seats at the table, their faces suffused with pleasure. Mamaw eyed them carefully, to see if there was any sign of someone being disappointed, or perhaps a trade in the bathroom. To her relief, each of the girls appeared delighted with the necklace chosen for her.

Lucille and Mamaw exchanged a meaningful glance and Lucille immediately rose, tactfully excused herself, and left to handle the final details of the caterer’s departure. Mamaw’s gaze floated around the table, resting on each of the girls glowing happily in her necklace—Dora in her
opera-length pink pearls, Carson in her dark South Sea pearls, and Harper wreathed in the creamy three-strand choker. Each girl had grown up to be a beauty in her own right. She couldn’t have loved them any more than she did at this moment. Now she had to pray for the strength to challenge them. She picked up her silver spoon and tapped her crystal glass, drawing the attention of the girls. Talking ceased and all eyes turned to her.

“My precious dears,” she began. She was surprised again by the nervousness that swept over her. She cleared her throat and pushed on. “It’s been too long since we’ve spent time together at Sea Breeze. I hope that you all have felt that this was your home, a place to come to whenever you wished.”

Each of the girls graciously assured her this was true.

“But time marches on. As you know, I’m not getting any younger. The ruins of Rome are upon me and I’ve come to accept that it’s time for me to move into a retirement home, where I will live among many of my friends and, importantly, be where I can take advantage of all the amenities that make life easier as I reach that certain age.”

Dora, who was sitting beside her, reached over to pat her hand. “You’ll always be ageless to us, Mamaw.”

“Thank you, dear. However, I’m not getting any richer, sadly. Which brings me to the business at hand. The three of you have carved out lives for yourself elsewhere in the country. You’re all busy; you have other places you want to travel to when you go on vacation instead of here. I understand this and must face the fact that your visits to Sea Breeze are few and far between. I’m not saying this to be
the least bit critical. However, I’ve always been a realist.” She spread out her palms.

“I’m selling Sea Breeze,” she said with a bittersweet smile.

She saw their faces reflect a mixture of shock and sorrow.

Dora spoke first. “But it’s been in the family for generations.”

“Yes. True enough. I feel that burden keenly. I’ve done all I can, my dears.”

“Isn’t there some way we can keep it?” asked Carson. She looked stricken.

“I really don’t think so.”

“B-but,” Dora stammered, “I . . . I thought . . .” She shook her head. “I don’t know what I thought.” She laughed with some embarrassment. “That you have chest drawers filled with money, I guess.”

Mamaw smiled indulgently. “We were well-off, to be sure. But our fortune has dwindled considerably. There’ve been bad investments, the ups and downs of the stock market, the high cost of living, and the expenses of illness and old age. After your grandfather retired, we lived on our nest egg. There was no new money coming in as expenses went up. If you knew what it costs to insure this place today, you’d weep!” She paused, choosing her words carefully. “And there were Parker’s expenses. The simple truth is that my son—your father—ate through a good deal of my money in his lifetime. It was my decision to support him, and I must accept my role in the way things turned out. But here we are.”

There was a silence as the girls digested this.

“He what?” Dora blurted, breaking the silence.

Harper said more softly, “I don’t understand. What do you mean, he ate through your money?”

Mamaw glanced at Carson. She sat rigid, her jaw set and her blue eyes glowing like acetylene torches.

“Parker never found himself,” Mamaw said, trying to couch her words with kindness. “Bless his heart, he tried so many different projects and he had so much potential. Sadly, that potential was never realized. He needed . . .” She paused, seeking the correct word that would be honest but fair. “. . .
support
over the years. And Edward and I gave it to him.”

Carson couldn’t hold back any longer. “Support? He depended on Mamaw’s allowance.”

“Wait,” Harper said, still trying to understand. “Are you saying that he didn’t earn any money? That Mamaw just gave him money?”

“That’s what I’m saying,” Carson replied.

“What about his writing?”

Mamaw covered her eyes with her hand when Carson let loose a hoot of derogatory laughter.

“His writing?” Carson asked incredulously. “Are you serious?”

“Yes. Quite,” Harper replied unflinchingly. “I always understood my father was a writer.”

An uncharacteristically cruel smile eased across Carson’s face. “Did you? No, Harper.
Our
father wasn’t a writer. He was a writer wannabe,” she replied. “Or rather, he didn’t want to be a writer as much as he wanted to be famous. There’s a difference.”

“You don’t have to be so cruel,” Harper admonished her, looking Carson straight in the eye.

Carson shrugged. “Me, cruel? You know his great American novel never got published, right? You ought to know that. Your mother was the first editor to reject it.” There was ringing accusation in her voice.

“Yes,” Harper replied tightly, keeping herself rigid. She continued. “Mother had always been quite clear about his talent, or rather, his lack of it. But I’d always thought her judgment was clouded by her general loathing of him.”

Carson appeared slightly mollified. “Well, she wasn’t alone in her opinion of his talent,” Carson said. “He could’ve wallpapered a room with his rejections.”

“What about screenplays?” Harper asked persistently. “Isn’t that why he went to California?”

“Oh, God,” Carson moaned, shaking her head in her palm. Then, peering up at Harper, she said, “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

Dora spoke up. “Apparently, neither do I. I’d always assumed that Daddy made his living writing screenplays.”

Carson dropped her hand and turned her head to stare at Mamaw with accusation.

“They don’t know?” Carson asked her.

Mamaw lifted her chin. “It was no one’s business but his own.”

“So the great myth of Parker Muir the artist, the author, the entrepreneur, the beloved son of the great Muir clan, is alive and well,” Carson said with sarcasm. “Good job, Mamaw.”

Dora clasped her hands together on the table. “I think it
is
our business, Mamaw. We’re not children any longer. He is our father, no matter how absent he was, and apparently he made a huge dent in the family fortune. You just told us you’re selling Sea Breeze because of his debts. That affects each of us. After all, we’re your heirs. After, of course, our mothers.”

Mamaw drew up in her seat. “Your mothers?” she said, her tone rising with her distaste. “My daughters-in-law are nothing more than a disappointment. My son may have had three wives, but it takes two to tango.”

Carson abruptly rose to her feet and reached for the bottle of champagne. She filled her glass, then went around to refill those of her sisters.

Mamaw regretted her comment and gazed at the centerpiece. The roses appeared otherworldly against the flickering candles. Her thoughts drifted back to other dinner parties, years earlier, when Parker was young and filled with promise. He filled out his dinner jacket seamlessly, and with his sharp wit, his elegant manner, his dashing good looks—he was dazzling. She wished his daughters could have known him then.

Harper turned toward her and spoke calmly. “Mamaw, I don’t know my father. Other than the few stories you’ve fed me, and the few choice bits from my mother, he’s a complete stranger to me. From you, I heard he was a writer, a starving artist. A very romantic character. From Mother, I heard he was a raging alcoholic, a no-talent writer with an exaggerated sense of entitlement. Even a womanizer.”

“I think your mother got it right.” Carson picked up her champagne glass and raised it in a mock toast ringing with scorn. “To dear old Dad.”

“That’s enough, Carson,” Mamaw said, deeply hurt. She looked at her granddaughter and wondered at the source of her deep resentment.

Carson scowled and downed her glass of champagne.

“You still didn’t answer Harper’s question,” Dora said, returning to the sore point. “How did Daddy earn his living all those years in California?”

Carson slowly turned in her chair to face Mamaw, twiddling the stem of the glass in her fingers, waiting for—challenging—her to answer the question. When Mamaw did not reply, Carson set the glass down on the table and stared at it.

“The good mother sent her little boy a monthly allowance,” Carson told them. “It was always a big deal in our house, you know. Dad waiting for his check.” She looked down at her empty glass and said in a changed voice, “I know you meant to help him.”

“Not only him,” Mamaw interjected. “To help
you
.”

Carson reached out to grab the bottle and refill her glass. “At the beginning, it wasn’t too bad. We had a nice apartment. Mamaw and Granddaddy gave him a good bit of money to invest in some new venture. I was pretty young, I don’t remember what it was.”

“It was a movie,” Mamaw said.

Carson delivered a long stare. “No, I don’t think that was it.”

“I should know,” Mamaw replied. “I recall it vividly. He wrote the screenplay and had a producer.” She waved her hand in the air. “I . . . I can’t recall the title.”

“I wish we could have seen it,” Dora said. “A movie made
of Daddy’s screenplay. That’s something, isn’t it?” She spoke the latter like a cheerleader, encouraging the girls to feel some pride in their father.

Mamaw held her tongue. Edward had always been suspicious of the whole project but she had pushed for the financial support, believing Parker’s claim that if he could get one movie done, then more would follow. It was a substantial investment, and how she’d prayed it would launch his career at last. When the film was finished, she and Edward had flown to Atlanta to see it. She’d worn a new dress for the occasion and had wanted to throw a party, but her son had been strangely against any fanfare and didn’t encourage them to see it. The film was shown in a smarmy theater in a dodgy part of the city, which should have been their first clue. Mamaw was shocked and Edward so outraged by the film that they got up and walked out after the first fifteen minutes. On the way home to Charleston Edward had to explain to Mamaw what soft-core pornography was.

“Where’s the film? I’d like to see it,” said Harper.

“I’ve no idea,” Mamaw said in an absent manner. “It’s probably destroyed. Lost.”

Carson turned and said in an easy manner, “The film wasn’t saved and the bottom line is it was never a success and there were never any more. End of story.”

She turned to look at Mamaw, her eyes pulsing a private message to stop. Mamaw immediately understood that Carson knew the full story but didn’t want to discuss it. She was embarrassed, but she was also protecting her father’s—and perhaps Mamaw’s—reputation.