Chapter 12
It’s not raining. It’s pouring.
Big fat drops splat like water balloons onto the roof of the porch, and steady streams of water decant from the gutters.
Sammie has done as we used to, and gone through the house throwing open every window so that the cross-breeze ripples through the house, bringing with it the charge of negative ions Babe always promised thunderstorms carried.
What that meant was never explained, only that it was a good thing.
Austin and Matt are chatting outside on the porch, Nora on Austin’s lap while she colors again.
I set out a bowl of olives with a smaller bowl for the pits, feeling a surge of warmth at the familiarity of this dynamic, in this old house.
“Oh, it still works!” I hear Sammie exclaim from the other room, and then the telltale, earsplitting scratch of the needle on vinyl that could be heard whenever she was in charge of music.
A few seconds later, the low, warm voice of Bing Crosby comes to life. I recognize it instantly as the Hawaiian album, starting off with “Return to Paradise.”
It sends me back in time. To dreamy nights when I learned the breathtaking rapture of falling in love for the first time.
There were a hundred nights like this, where torrential rain kept us inside and I had flitted around in gleeful anticipation of Austin’s arrival, or when he was here, and I saw how he fit so effortlessly into the long-established dynamic of Sammie, Babe, Matt, and me.
Meanwhile, timeless, romantic music would sing and aromatic foods would sizzle on the stove, and I would be in awe every moment that this boy, this perfect, wonderful boy loved me back.
An endless string of things had to happen to put us in each other’s paths, and they happened. I never took it for granted.
Well, not at first. I suppose we did both eventually do that.
I dip a wooden spoon into the confit to taste it.
Needs more salt. I pinch some in.
Sammie comes into the kitchen, unacknowledged tension buzzing between us.
“Wine?” she asks.
“No, thanks.”
Wordlessly, she pours herself a glass, then returns the bottle to the fridge before going outside.
Once there, she exclaims, “Oh my god.”
I look out the kitchen sink window and see what she sees. “No way.”
In the purple, gray haze, there is a figure of a man walking up the beach, standing out in a yellow raincoat. He’s dragging something heavy behind him.
I turn off the KitchenAid, leaving the long strands of bucatini to dangle several inches above the ground. I squint out at the beach. “Is that … Mr. Kelly?”
“No … surely he’s…” Matt says, slowly.
“Dead?” I finish.
“He was about a hundred when we were kids,” says Sammie. “Like little kids.”
“Does no one but our mother die on this island?” I shrill. “First Migla, now him?” The others laugh at the gallows humor, the way they always have.
As he gets closer, he puts out a hand and calls out some greeting we can’t hear. It’s definitely Mr. Kelly.
Austin stands and puts his hands in his pockets. “Nothing like a solid diet of Jack Daniel’s and cigarettes to carry you into a second century of life.”
Mr. Kelly is an ancient—possibly immortal—fisherman who lives on a houseboat nearby.
He’s very nice, if also a little unsettling.
Sort of like an affable, male wicked witch.
He’s got what he calls summer teeth, as in summer here, summer there.
And if there’s one thing that can be said about him it’s that he always has the best seafood on the island.
“Hi, Mr. Kelly!” Sammie waves enthusiastically, coming to the top of the steps beside Austin. Rain falls down on her but she doesn’t seem to mind, only swooshing her increasingly wild hair off her forehead.
When he gets close enough, Austin runs out and tries to help him. Mr. Kelly waves him off.
“I’ve been doing it all myself all this time, no need to start taking shortcuts now.” He laughs that raspy old smoker’s laugh, exposing even fewer summer teeth than last I saw him with. “How you kids doing on this fine afternoon?”
“Uh—” I glance at Sammie. “Good, how are you doing?”
“Alive and kickin’! Oh, that reminds me. Sorry to hear about Ms. Babe. She was a good one.”
Matt turns to me and mouths, that reminds me?
“Thank you so much,” says Sammie, a hand on his shoulder. “What can we do for you?”
“It’s not what you can do for me, it’s what I can do for you! I’ve got some wonderful black grouper, redfish, some white shrimp, scallops, and Bulls Bay oysters for ya,” he rasps, pronouncing it ersters. “Ms. Babe told me you’d be around here this Saturday and asked me to come by.”
“Come out of the rain, let me take a look,” I say.
Again, he accepts none of Austin’s help and lifts his massive cooler up the three steps onto the porch all on his own.
“I wish I’d known,” I say. “I went to Lawson’s and got stuff for dinner already.”
“No worries, not at all, Ms. Didion, I’ve got plenty of rounds left.”
“No, you know, let’s take a couple dozen oysters. Yeah, that’ll be good. You guys like oysters?”
Everyone nods except Nora who makes a face of unbridled disgust. It amuses me that she knows enough about them to be grossed out. Only a kid with a bougie father.
“I’ve got some cash inside, or do you prefer—”
“No, no, your money’s no good. No good at all.”
“Mr. Kelly, I—”
“Keep insisting, and you’ll start to insult me.” He laughs again. “Now here, take these in and put them on ice, do you need some ice?”
“If you have it,” I say, accepting the favor.
He gives me two bags of chipped ice. “You kids have a nice weekend now, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”
He chuckles again, and takes off into the storm.
“Nothing he wouldn’t do, well, good, that means we can smoke a joint and let off illegal fireworks then,” Matt deadpans.
“Oh my god, remember when he almost sank his boat? That was the most dramatic boat emergency I’ve ever seen that didn’t involve an iceberg.” Sammie cracks up.
I go back into the kitchen and catch Birdie having a Lady and the Tramp moment with the pasta I left dangling.
“Birdie!” I call out, but smile as she quickly steps away, making eye contact with me as she swallows her last bite.
I remember I need to salt the confit, and go do so as Matt comes in and says, “Smells good.”
“Thank you, hopefully it is.”
“What time is your flight tomorrow?” he asks, getting a glass of wine.
For reasons I can’t quite put my finger on, this sends a sinking feeling through my gut. “Seven.”
“Mine’s at nine,” he says. “LaGuardia?”
“Yes.” I shut my eyes as I stir the sauce. It is incredibly overwhelming to imagine this all behind me twenty-four hours from now. That I’ll be back in the city, struggling with the unbelievably frustrating rideshare pickup situation LGA is so famous for.
“Too bad we’re not on the same flight. But I’ll end up working the whole time anyway.” He rubs his face. “God, I’m gonna be up all night with everything I have to catch up on.”
I’m not sure what to say. Tears are threatening in my throat and I don’t understand their origin. I keep my back to him and chop some basil.
“I don’t want to bother you,” he says. “It really smells great though.”
He misinterprets my silence as disinterest, but really, I am only having trouble speaking through the sharp, painful knot of tears that has suddenly appeared in my throat.
Half an hour later, and I’m beyond frustrated. I haven’t made pasta with one of these machines in a long time, and the bucatini keeps coming out either too wet and stringy or in dry, shattered coils. I can’t get the balance right.
“Dammit,” I say, checking on the confit and burning my finger on the lid.
“Want me to shuck those oysters?” calls Austin. The window over the sink looks right out onto the porch from the side, so his voice doesn’t have to go far.
“Uh,” I say, wanting to say no, but aware that the jigsaw puzzle of timing is beginning to fall apart in a way it hasn’t for me in the kitchen in a very long time. “Sure.”
He comes in and takes the oyster knife out of the drawer where it’s always kept. Babe’s, her favorite ever since she worked at an oyster bar on King Street in Charleston.
He also gets out and opens a beer. I don’t even think before I comment, “You really shouldn’t drink and then—” Our eyes catch and I stop myself. “You are an adult. You are allll adults.”
“Appreciate that.”
I turn away and put another ball of dough in the machine. “But don’t come crying to me if you stab your hand down to the bone.”
“Oh … uh. I don’t think we have to worry about that, chef.”
I rear back at hearing Austin James call me chef, and then start to ask what he means—but then I see.
Two dozen oysters sitting in bags of what is now, mostly, water. I left them next to the stove.
“Dammit!” I say again, taking the oyster knife from Austin and hurrying to open one, though I already know, of course, they’re past the point of no return.
When I do, the blade crunches out of the seam, stabbing straight into my hand, and I let out an involuntary yelp of pain, dropping both on the ground.
“Hey, hey, hey,” says Austin. “Let me see—”
“No, I’m fine, I’m fine.” I go to pick up the oyster and the knife and he stops me.
“Leave ’em, Red, let’s take care of your hand.”
“I don’t need help!”
“I’m not saying you do, Miss Scarlett, but let me give you a hand now that you’re suddenly missing one.”
His touch is gentle as I give a pained whimper of a laugh at his Gone with the Wind reference and let him touch me. He takes my bleeding fist into his palm, steady and unruffled by the sudden gush of blood.
For a moment, I am so tempted to let him save me. Unfortunately, I remember all too well what it feels like to need him and have him ripped away. I can’t slip for even a moment.
“I’ve got it.” I try to speak softly, competently, pulling my hand away and running it under cold water. The pain smarts, but I don’t allow it to show, letting my professional instincts come back into play.
“Okay. No help.” He steps away. “Should I toss them, or is that too much helping?”
He’s being nice, teasing me in the face of my obstinance, but regrettably, reeling from the pain and embarassment and unchecked well of other emotions, I snap, “Will you please leave the kitchen?”
He nods once and then turns his hat around from front to back, picking up and then swigging on his beer.
I hear Matt say, “She okay?”
Austin gives a silent answer, not forgetting how the sound travels. I want to know what he said, but then … feel pretty sure I know.
Didion doesn’t need anybody, and she’s being kind of a bitch about it. He’d never say that, but if I were encountering me? That’s about the nicest thing I’d say.