The Hurricane Sisters: A Novel Read online

  “Just give the keys to the doorman when you leave,” Clayton said.

  Apparently Ivy was staying in Liz and Clayton’s pied-à-terre in Manhattan. But what did Ivy mean, that he was used to private planes now? Had he won the lottery? Was James treating him to the high life? I have heard that some of these Asian families are extremely wealthy. Ivy began to drain the water glass at his place when our waiter reappeared. What was his name? Tony? No, Tyler! Tippecanoe and Tyler Too. Yes, I know that’s from way before my time but Lord, the games I had to play with my memory to make it work.

  “Campari and soda with orange, please,” Ivy said.

  “Just Pellegrino for me, thanks,” James said. “I’m going to wash my hands. Where’s the men’s room?” James removed his eyeglasses and handed them to Ivy. “Show Ashley how they work.”

  “Good thing I’m on the way out,” I said, and everyone ignored me.

  “You can follow me, sir,” our waiter, Tyler Too, said. “And I’ll get those drinks out for y’all right away. Did you choose the wine, sir?”

  “No, I need a few minutes,” Clayton said without looking up.

  As usual, Clayton was reading the wine list too slowly. I was convinced that this annoying habit of his was what drove Liz to vodka.

  James walked away with Tippecanoe.

  Then the first bomb of the night was launched across the bow.

  “Is he just your business partner, son?” Clayton said quietly, without making eye contact.

  “No, he isn’t. He’s my life partner.” Ivy put on the glasses. “Okay,” he said to Ashley, “I bob my head, and see that pink light?”

  “Yeah,” Ashley said.

  “Okay, Glass? Take a picture!”

  There was a little click and somehow the eyeglasses took a picture.

  “I can upload it to my iPad or e-mail it or whatever. I think it’s stupid,” Ivy said.

  “Unless you need them,” Ashley said. “I guess?”

  There was an awkward but brief silence while Liz continued to process Ivy’s response in regard to his relationship with James.

  “Oh my God!” Liz said, gasping.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  She completely disregarded my question and began to bluster until her hair was becoming as disheveled as her face was flushed. We were a family of blushers and blusterers.

  “What is it, Mom?” Ashley asked.

  “Well, how old is he, for one thing?” Liz said. She was now completely red in the face and neck.

  “Fortyish,” Ivy said.

  “Kept man,” Clayton mumbled, half chuckling.

  “Hardly,” Ivy said. “I put in my sixty hours a week. At a minimum. Besides, half the business is mine.”

  “I hope you have that in writing,” the ever-cautious Clayton said.

  “Of course I do. Mother, what’s wrong?”

  “He’s a . . . well, he’s Asian!” Liz said.

  I wondered what the problem was. Skipper looked at me and shrugged his shoulders.

  “So what?” Ashley said. “He’s gorgeous!”

  “Hands off, but thank you,” Ivy said and laughed. “Yes, he’s from the Chen family of Hong Kong and he’s the most wonderful, thoughtful, and generous person I have ever met. Doesn’t that count?”

  “You couldn’t find a nice white Episcopalian man?” Liz said. “Why are you so complicated? Do you expect us to throw you a wedding now?”

  “Um, nooooo,” Ivy said.

  “Get a grip, sister,” I said to Liz, thinking, You don’t have that many friends. “It’s 2012.”

  “Um, Maisie, actually it’s 2013,” Ivy said in a whisper.

  “It is?” I nearly fainted. “Wait! Yes, of course it is! Hold the phone! Does that make me eighty-one?”

  “No, you’re still eighty, Mother,” Liz said, rolling her eyes.

  I ignored her.

  “She’s right, Maisie,” Skipper said. “I just did the math.”

  “How do you like that? I just gained a year! This is the best birthday I’ve ever had! Well, so far.”

  “So you’re out there in California just having a gay time with James who wears Glass?” Liz said.

  “Oh, please,” Ashley said. “Here we go. Maybe we should be glad he doesn’t care we’re not Asian.”

  Although we had decades of confirmation, Liz had yet to reconcile with the facts, always hoping against hope that Ivy would meet a nice girl with Herculean powers of persuasion.

  Ivy turned to Liz. “Mother, you do know that five percent of the entire population is gay and almost thirty percent of the population around San Francisco is gay? Including Asians.”

  “Of the entire population of the United States? That’s crazy. I don’t buy that for one minute,” Clayton said.

  It was rare for Clayton to be so insistent.

  “Neither do I!” Liz said and fumbled for her purse.

  “What are you doing?” Ashley said.

  “I’m going to ask Siri!” Liz said.

  “Who’s Siri?” I said.

  “Siri is this teeny tiny woman from California who lives inside Mother’s phone,” Ivy said, laughing. “She’s like the great and terrible Oz.”

  “Another know-it-all,” I said. “Just what the world needs. Siri and Glass.”

  “Watch,” Ivy said. “They’re going to send me back to conversion camp.”

  “Horrible. Anyway, you’re too old for camp,” Ashley said in a somber voice.

  I remembered that painful summer when Liz and Clayton sent young, flamboyant Ivy singing all the songs from West Side Story off to some camp that promised to send him home quiet and straight, begging to become a steady and reliable CPA or something. Years of therapy followed. That camp had become a taboo subject and we did not speak of it. So occasionally Ivy saw fit to sort of stick it to Liz and Clayton and who could blame him? Stick away, baby!

  I watched while Liz and Clayton fooled around with their phones until some very weird female voice verified Ivy’s claim and then they sat back absolutely deflated as though another space-age gadget had just sucked every last ounce of air out of them.

  “Astonishing! Who knew?” Liz said dryly, shaking her head. “Maybe I’ll have a Stoli with a twist, Clayton. By the time you finish reading that wine list, it’ll be Christmas.”

  “Did you say, please, dear, order a drink for me?” Clayton said, sighing, and he slipped his phone back into the pocket of his jacket. He looked at Ivy. “I’m impressed. You could go to work for the Bureau of Vital Statistics.”

  “Truly,” Ivy said.

  “Please, Clayton, please order a Stoli with a twist for me?” Liz said.

  Clayton raised his eyes and scanned the room looking for our waiter, gaining his attention with a nod. The vodka was ordered without one iota of concern for replenishing the drinks of the rest of the table. I have never ordered a third martini in my whole life, but someone could’ve asked. It was, after all, my eightieth birthday. And I wasn’t driving.

  James returned to the table, Clayton finally chose the wine, Liz drank her first cocktail, then another, and finally we all ordered dinner. The mood had shifted. Liz kept biting her lower lip and staring at James, then quickly averting her eyes, causing him to squirm. She knew it was the height of all bad manners to make your guests feel uncomfortable. She made me want to reach out and give the inside of her arm a good pinch. Then Ivy noticed James squirming like a little worm, figured out why, and became irritable. Clayton was chatting like a magpie with Ivy about Ashley’s continued financial dependency, which irritated Ivy.

  “She’s still out on the island living in our beach house with her friend for the mere price of the utilities,” Clayton said for everyone at our table to hear, including Ashley. “She could still live at home. Then her mother wouldn’t be so lonely.”


  “I’m in the room, Dad,” Ashley said.

  “Hush, dear! The whole restaurant can hear you!” I said.

  “Well, it’s harder for kids today, Dad,” Ivy said.

  Clayton harrumphed. Ivy looked at his father with a very stern expression. I could see his annoyance boiling up to the surface.

  “I guess it is hard if you take a job for eight dollars an hour,” Clayton added.

  “Ten,” Ashley said and no one seemed to care.

  “My housekeeper makes twenty dollars an hour scrubbing our toilets,” Liz said.

  Ashley was now completely mortified and struggled to maintain her conversation with Skipper about his llamas, one in particular he named Maisie as a birthday gift to me. It was just so wrong that Clayton and Liz denied their only daughter so much. They should at least give her some respect, especially in front of James, whom they didn’t even know.

  “Yeah, boy,” Skipper said. “Maisie the llama is almost as pretty as your grandmother, as llamas go, that is. She has beautiful eyes and she can bat those lashes of hers like a movie star.”

  “Don’t llamas spit?” Ivy said.

  “Sometimes. But a llama is a great gift for the woman who has everything,” Ashley said.

  “She’s darling,” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

  “I’d love to see a picture,” Ivy said.

  “She could be a calendar girl,” I said.

  Now Ivy laughed and repeated to James what I’d said and James laughed too. Lighten mood—check.

  “I wonder if she’s ever going to get a real job,” Liz said.

  “I do have a real job,” Ashley said and looked to James. “Don’t you love our family?”

  James was now thoroughly uncomfortable. Ivy’s good humor faded right in front of me. Boy, these two were awfully moody.

  “Mother? What is the matter with y’all? You and Dad are just determined to peck everyone to death, aren’t you? Like a bunch of chickens!” Ivy said. “Ashley’s your daughter! And she’s a fabulous painter. Why don’t you and Dad climb off her back for five minutes?”

  “Really?” Clayton said.

  “Yes! The house was empty anyway! What’s the big deal? No one ever goes there, do they?”

  “Because we all worry about melanoma,” Liz said. “You know that.”

  “You’re paranoid about melanoma,” Clayton said.

  “I am not!” Liz insisted.

  I began feeling anxious. “They say we’re in for a busy hurricane season,” I said. No one answered. “There have already been six with names. Thank goodness they blew out to sea!”

  Clayton just sat back in his chair and cocked his head to one side like the chairman of the Department of Decorum and laughed.

  “Well, well, well,” Clayton said. “It seems at long last that my delicate son has grown a pair. This calls for champagne! Where’s that fellow with the list?”

  Clayton ordered a bottle of champagne and as soon as the entrees were cleared away, it was poured.

  “This momentous occasion merits a toast,” Clayton said.

  “Are we really going to toast my family jewels?” Ivy said, snickering.

  “Don’t be vulgar,” Liz said.

  “In Ivy’s defense,” James said, smiling and poised, “it was Mr. Waters who introduced them into evidence.”

  Liz gasped. Rarely had I seen anyone speak so boldly to Liz. I sort of loved it.

  “Are you a lawyer?” Ashley said.

  “Yes,” James said, smiling.

  “Really? Where did you . . .” Clayton asked, but James answered before he could finish.

  “Harvard. I don’t practice too much. But I do a lot of pro bono work.”

  “Wow,” Ashley said. “Can I try on your Glass again?”

  “Sure,” James said and passed the newest thing in gizmos across the table to her.

  “Oh my goodness!” I said, staring at Ashley. “When you said that, you looked exactly like my Juliet!” Why had I never seen the resemblance before?

  “Mother!” Liz said.

  “What?” I said. “Don’t you agree with me? She was just about your age when we lost her, Ashley. Just a few years older.”

  “Let’s not get maudlin, Maisie,” Clayton said. “This is supposed to be a happy occasion, isn’t it?”

  “I’m not maudlin one little bit!” I said. “I was just startled, that’s all. I promise, y’all . . . Ashley, turn your head that way to face your daddy.”

  James was puzzled and said, “Excuse me, may I ask, who is Juliet?”

  “My perfect sister who died of an aneurysm at twenty-seven, thirty years ago,” Liz said.

  “Oh. I’m terribly sorry,” James said.

  “It was thirty years ago,” Liz said.

  “Well, it’s like yesterday to me,” I said. “I always wonder what she would have become had she lived.”

  “President of the United States, Mother. Now, Clayton, you were going to make a toast? Please, dear?”

  I didn’t say anything to that. President, indeed. Juliet may well have become president. She was sure smart enough. And she could charm the birds right out of the trees. At least she never made a living prancing up and down the runway in bathing suits, I wanted to say. Clayton tapped the side of his glass with his fork.

  “To Maisie! Happy birthday to the most amazing woman we know!”

  “Hear! Hear!” everyone said.

  And here came the cake with so many candles I thought if there was a sudden gust of wind we might burn down the restaurant.

  “It’s so pretty!” I said. “Thank you! I really shouldn’t eat cake.”

  “YOLO, Maisie!” Ashley said. “Go for it!”

  “You’re not quoting that Canadian rapper to our grandmother, are you?” Ivy said and then leaned out to tell me, “YOLO means ‘you only live once,’ Maisie.”

  “I don’t know about Canadian raptors, some kind of migrating bird, I imagine, but it was Mae West who coined the phrase.” I gave them my very best smile.

  “And, Ivy? Just to set the record straight, you’re not the only man in the room who’s living in sin,” Skipper said.

  “Not now,” I said, quietly. “We can tell them later.”

  “Tell us what?” Liz said.

  “Yes, what?” Ivy said. He seemed slightly miffed. “Not that I consider myself to be living in sin.”

  “Sorry, Ivy,” Skipper said. “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “It’s okay,” Ivy said.

  “Skipper has moved in with me,” I said, “and we couldn’t be happier!”

  “L. O. V. E. I. T.,” James said, deadpan. “Totally worth the cost of the trip.”

  “Maisie!” Ivy said and laughed.

  “Sweet Jesus of Nazareth,” Liz said and while all the color drained from her face, she drained all the champagne in her flute. She held it out for Clayton to refill, which he did.

  “Now, let’s have dessert, shall we?” I said, trying to gloss over the elephant in the room.

  “Indeed, let’s!” said Ivy, suddenly filled to the brim with mirth.

  The cake was very pretty, all covered in marzipan hydrangeas of every color, just like the ones I grew. All the waiters sang and my family sang along too. Ivy and Ashley took pictures with their phones and the Glass and I smiled, thinking again I was very lucky to be surrounded by so many lovely people who cared about making me happy in that moment. We weren’t perfect. I knew that. And I knew it was even more incumbent on me to see about Ashley’s welfare and state of mind. All I can tell you is that every family on the planet is dysfunctional and we celebrate occasions as generously as we know how to do. We were all doing our best to appear grateful to have one another. Weren’t appearances worth something?

  CHAPTER 2

  Ashley’s
Opinion

  The night after Maisie’s birthday party I was at the infamous family house on Sullivans Island making a bowl of pasta to share with my roommate, Mary Beth, who was also my best friend on the planet. I’m not kidding. She was practically blood. She wasn’t home yet. It had been a long day at the gallery with every tourist in town wandering in, wanting cheap posters in free cardboard tubes they could take home and frame. We don’t sell cheap posters in free cardboard tubes. Please! WTH? The Turner Gallery is a serious place on Broad Street in downtown Charleston. It’s practically a museum. I mean, if an artist gets a show at our gallery, it’s a very big deal. Bill and Judy Turner have dedicated their whole lives to building their business and the most important artists from the entire Southeast are in the house. My parents would have you believe I’m working at a dime store selling cheap crap from China. They make me so frustrated.

  They would also have you believe that I’m living in the Taj Mahal when this creaking old house hasn’t seen a plumber, an electrician, or a coat of paint in twenty years. Maybe longer. I’ve been carded in better-looking dive bars. But I love the beach house. I love every rusty nail in every rotten board. Like so many places in the Lowcountry, it oozes history. In the 1860s it served as a Civil War barracks. How awesome is that? I can imagine boys with whiskers and dirty hair eating from a giant pot of stew on tin plates and I can see iron bunks lining the walls upstairs and twenty or so soldiers tossing and turning at night. And I can envision them straggling back from a battlefield, all sweaty and dirty. Worst of all, when I’m miserable myself, I can feel their fear. Most of them had to be just young boys. Boys who were my age or younger. How terrible.

  The land where our house stands isn’t too far from where the Pest House used to be, a truly horrible place where some kind of officials examined slaves arriving from Barbados and West Africa to determine if they were healthy enough to put on the selling block in downtown Charleston. The old people used to say that they heard from their grandparents that if the slaves were too sick, they got thrown in the shark-infested waters. How unforgivably horrendous and uncivilized is that? Crimes against humanity! Everything about the South isn’t pretty. At all.