Queen Bee Read online

  “Because they just do. No one seems to have discovered a good reason yet. It could be to discourage dust and other kinds of debris from settling on them.”

  Tyler added, “How do you know they have five thousand prisms? Did you count them?”

  I laughed and said, “No, honey, I read it somewhere. But they’re interesting little critters, aren’t they?”

  Hunter began running in small circles, looking skyward. I mean, how long did I really expect him to pay attention?

  “What else do you know?” Hunter said.

  “I know you’re going to throw up if you don’t stop that,” I said.

  “No! Tell us something else!” Tyler said.

  “Well, I just told your brother that honey bees are the only insects that make food for us!”

  “Cool!” they said.

  “There are still a lot of mysteries to solve about honey bees.”

  Then the screaming started.

  “Holly! Help me!” Dramatic pause to gain momentum. “Helllllppppp!”

  “Coming! Hang on!” I called back. “Oh, Lord,” I muttered.

  “Help!”

  “Is that Mith Katherine?” Tyler said.

  “Who else would it be? QB! The big queen bee! You boys run along now. She’s okay. I promise!” I said and kind of sauntered back into the house at my own pace, discarding parts of my beekeeper outfit as I went through the back door. The boys turned on their heels and ran home. There was little doubt that they would report the bee facts I’d given them to their father. But I knew that they might or might not relate the story of my mother screaming bloody murder, because she did it all the time. How terrible that it happened so often that everyone took it for granted.

  By the time I got to her room, I only had the overalls left to ditch, and there she was in all her glory, crumpled to the floor with her nightgown hiked up around her waist.

  “Help me up,” she said.

  I pulled her nightgown down to cover her lady parts, but there was no chance on this earth that I could lift her bulky weight. I reached for the phone to call 911.

  “Pick me up, Holly!”

  “Momma, you know I can’t do that. You’re too heavy.”

  “That’s a damn lie. If your sister was here, she’d take care of me one helluva lot better than you do!”

  “Well, she’s not here, is she?”

  I tapped the numbers into the phone.

  “What’s your emergency?”

  “Hey, Darlene. It’s Holly Jensen over on the back beach? Momma fell out of bed, and well, you know, I can’t pick her up.”

  “Don’t you even try to move her, Miss Holly. I’ll get Anthony over there in two shakes. I’m sure she’s okay, don’t you worry. How’re your bees doing? We sure have been enjoying the honey you gave us.”

  “Oh, I’m so glad to know that. My bees are fine, thanks. Remember, there’s plenty more honey where that came from!”

  Momma was instantly irked. “I’m lying here on the floor, maybe near death! And, you’re on the phone discussing bees and honey? You’ve got to be kidding me! What if my hip’s broken?”

  I thanked Darlene and hung up. She had recently married Mark Tanenbaum, and everyone said she was the most beautiful bride they’d ever seen. He was a handsome devil, too.

  “Momma? Your hip’s not broken. You’d be screaming in agony. And even if it is, there’s nothing wrong with being nice once in a while. You ought to try it.”

  “Don’t be fresh with me. You’re only talking like that to me because I’m in a compromised position.”

  “No, ma’am. I’m talking to you like that because I’m telling you the truth.”

  In minutes, there was a knock at the door and the voice of Anthony Stith, the head of the fire department, rang out in a melodious but thunderous boom. Boy, that was quick, I thought.

  “Anybody home?” he called.

  “Back here!” I answered but rushed out to meet him all the same. I pulled my cardigan around me. “Oh, Anthony! Thank you for coming!”

  “Happy to help,” he said pleasantly.

  Momma, for once, said nothing. Anthony stepped into the room. Two EMS workers waited in the hallway with a collapsible gurney. They must’ve been close by to arrive here so quickly. But then, nobody was that far away from anybody on our tiny island, which was perhaps four miles long, depending on erosion and accretion.

  “How y’all doing, Miss Katherine?” he asked.

  “Obviously, not so well,” she answered, as if it were Anthony’s fault she was lying on the floor.

  I looked through the window at Archie’s little boys chasing each other around their yard.

  “They’re cute little rascals, aren’t they?” Anthony said. “Terrible thing about their momma’s passing, isn’t it?”

  “I’d give anything in the world to have kids like them,” I said.

  “Oh, please,” Momma said. “Children are so overrated.”

  “Thanks a lot, Momma,” I said and rolled my eyes at Anthony.

  He just smiled and, undeterred by her notorious bad manners, knelt by her side.

  “Do you mind if I poke around a little bit?”

  “Just what do you mean by that?”

  Anthony smiled again. “I mean, do you have any pain anywhere? Can you move your arms?”

  Momma moved her arms. “I imagine I’m still alive.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Now, can you point your toes?”

  She did as she was told, but when he asked her to bring her knee up to her chest, she grimaced in pain.

  “I don’t like the looks of that,” Anthony said. “Now, Miss Katherine, I know you don’t like going to the hospital and all . . .”

  “Oh, no!” she said, with the smallest objection on record. “Not the hospital!”

  He was joking. My mother loved the hospital! She thought it was like going to a spa. In fact, she kept an overnight bag packed, just in case.

  The fellows from EMS moved in, lowered the gurney to the floor, and between them managed to lift my mother’s considerable bulk onto it.

  “Get my bag from the closet, Holly! And my medicine. And call Leslie! She’ll want to know.”

  “Yes, Momma. I will.”

  My sister, Leslie, would not care. The only thing Leslie had ever cared about was getting out of here. And she was reasonably nice to me because I took care of the beast of a mother we shared. I always wondered if Leslie thought I was going to be Momma’s nursemaid forever. It wasn’t that I wanted such a fancy life. But I did want more than this.

  “How is Leslie?” Anthony asked. “She was always such a pretty girl.”

  Everybody on this island knew Anthony had a sweet spot for Leslie. She was his first sort of serious girlfriend, but she dumped him for Charlie Stevens when his family moved to Charleston in her junior year of high school. Charlie Stevens’s family had big money from a string of car dealerships they owned all through the South and the Midwest.

  “Leslie’s the same,” I said. “I’ll tell her you asked about her.”

  God, Leslie was such a dog. If I caught her going wild with Charlie in the back seat of his daddy’s car once, I caught her a thousand times. Yeah, Leslie sure did like all that sweaty stuff. Not me. Until recently I was pretty sure it was only for the purpose of procreation. At least that’s what the clergy drilled into my head. At school I was so naïve that I believed it. Anyway, as we all know, it wasn’t as if I had anyone interested in sharing that sort of experience with me, so there was no point in getting excited about it. At least, not so far. Although I had been entertaining more than a few thoughts about the widower next door. Life could be so easy if he fell in love with me. I could have children without having to give birth. And I would be next door to Momma, who was sure to leave me the house when she went. Wouldn’t she? And then I wouldn’t have to move my hives.

  I grabbed Momma’s bag from her closet and her medicine from the bathroom and followed them all outside. They were he
aded to the emergency room at East Cooper Hospital because that was where you went when EMS picked you up for a ride on this island.

  “Now, don’t you worry,” Anthony said, “we’re gonna take good care of your momma.”

  “I wasn’t worried for a moment,” I said. “Thanks!”

  I got into my car and, as I followed the ambulance over the causeway, thought about the way the water sparkled and how at this time of year it was almost sapphire blue. The sky was strewn with wisps of clouds and the sun was so bright it hurt your eyes to look up. The spartina was still brown. I knew the edges of it were razor sharp, but from a distance it was so beautiful you would love to run your hand across its top as you would a fur coat. The landscape alone would make a poor person feel as rich as cream.

  As I passed through Mount Pleasant, whose fast-growing population was being watched by urban developers across the country, I began to wonder about myself and my life in general. Seemed like I was doing that sort of wondering more and more often. It wasn’t that I was so miserable or so ungrateful or even jealous of Leslie. It was just that I wondered how a girl like me could ever make her life mean anything.

  “Hunter? Did you know honey bees have pockets on their legs to store pollen? It makes them weigh fifty percent more by the end of their day.”

  “What? They need to go to Weight Watchers!”

  “Oh, Hunter.”

  Chapter Two

  Bee Calm

  Somewhere between leaving the hospital and arriving at Publix to buy groceries, I made a decision. I was going to invite Archie MacLean and the boys over for dinner. Why not? Carin had been in heaven for long enough for him to enjoy some female company without feeling guilty. And with Momma in the hospital—they were keeping her overnight for observation and to run some tests—the timing was perfect. I was excited about the possibilities of company, daydreaming that the boys were mine and wondering what it would be like to be married to a man ten years older than I was. I didn’t even unload my car or take the groceries inside. I was so excited, I’d even coughed up the money for store-bought flowers, a rare indulgence. And, the weather felt a lot cooler than it had been in the morning, which I took as a good omen. In fact, everything seemed like a good omen.

  I marched right up their front steps, crossed the porch, knocked on the door, and waited.

  Archie answered and, of course, Tyler and Hunter were right behind him, nearly colliding with each other as they sock-skated toward the door across their gleaming heart pine floors. Archie, whose longish hair was sexy as hell, was wearing corduroy pants, a plaid shirt, and a thin cardigan, looking every inch the kindly and distinguished professor that he was. He reminded me of Alexander Skarsgård. I mean, break a sweat.

  “Well, hi, Holly,” he said. “Would you like to come in? How’s your mother?”

  “Oh, no, thanks; she’s fine. Nothing broken. Her doctors wanted her to stay the night just to be sure she’s okay.”

  “Well, that’s good news,” Archie said. “I’m sure you’re relieved, too.”

  “Of course,” I said.

  “Mith Holly!” Tyler shouted. “Come see my map of Italy I’m drawing for extra credit!”

  “Cool it, Tyler,” Archie said.

  I smiled and said, “I was just thinking, wouldn’t it be nice if y’all came over for dinner?”

  “Well, thank you! I was just going to order a pizza for the kids.”

  “Well, I’m making chicken and mashed potatoes with little green peas. Nothing fancy.”

  “That sure sounds better than pizza,” Archie said, with a smile so honest and beautiful, it almost made me gasp.

  “I hope so,” I said.

  Tyler and Hunter began rubbing their stomachs and licking their lips while making yum-yum grunts.

  “Mmmm! Mashed potatoes!” Hunter said.

  “Are you sure it’s not an inconvenience?” Archie said. “You do so much for us. I don’t want to impose.”

  “You couldn’t impose if you wanted to! Not even one tiny little bit!” I said. “See y’all in about an hour?”

  “That sounds fine. Thank you!” Archie said and then turned to his boys. “Gentlemen? Synchronize your watches! We depart at eighteen hundred hours!”

  “We don’t have watches, Daddy,” Tyler said with his toothless lisp. “We’re still too little. Remember?”

  Maybe I’d buy both boys watches for Christmas. Batman or Mickey Mouse watches?

  “Great! See you soon!” I said and left.

  I took the bags of groceries from the trunk of my car and hurried inside to get supper started. This wasn’t going to be a romantic dinner with candles, but I put on my favorite Tony Bennett album of George Gershwin’s music anyway. I just wanted to see how motherhood and marriage might feel. You know, just try it on, like a sweater. Oh, sure, I had made dozens of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the boys after school or on the weekends when Archie had an errand to do, even before they lost Carin. I was sure the boys looked at me like an adopted aunt of sorts, because I got plenty of hugs from them. And I had also wiped away buckets of tears when they felt blue or angry or frustrated. In the first days after we buried Carin, I’d taken them casseroles and cake, just like all the other women on the island. It was our tradition, and a nice one, I thought. But this would be the first time I cooked for Archie and the boys in my own house with them all there.

  When Momma wasn’t ranting and raving, she occasionally delivered some wisdom. One of her favorite sayings had to do with the way to a man’s heart being through his stomach. I’d dazzle him with my special chicken dish. I wasn’t a gourmet or anything close to it, but I had a way with chicken, thanks to a recipe I’d cut out of Southern Living magazine ages ago.

  I washed and cut the potatoes into chunks and dropped them into a pot of salted water with their skins left on and set them on the stove on a high flame. I always used a potato ricer on the cooked potatoes that would catch all the skins when they were pushed through. Then I opened the package of boneless, skinless chicken breasts, laid them on paper towels, and blotted them dry. I mixed two eggs in a soup plate with some milk and salt and pepper, and I put a cup of flour on another plate. I sliced a lemon and browned it in some olive oil and butter. Then I dredged the chicken breasts in flour, dipped them in the egg mix, and browned them all, putting them aside to rest as they were done. When we were ready to sit down I’d squeeze the juice of a whole lemon in my frying pan along with a big chunk of butter to make a sauce. Then the chicken would go back in the sauce with the lemon slices to warm it up and coat it all in lemony, buttery heaven. At the last moment, I’d drizzle it with honey and sprinkle minced chives from my garden over the top. Even my mother liked it. It was that good.

  I flipped the album over and set the table in the kitchen, because we never used the dining room, except on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Besides, it was half covered with mail, mostly catalogs my mother refused to let me throw away. She had a black belt in shopping.

  The grocery store flowers went into a glass vase in the center of the table. I used our newest place mats and paper napkins folded in triangles. The next challenge was finding four unchipped plates, and to my surprise, I did. When it was all put together, the table looked inviting. Not magazine worthy, but it had a wholesome charm.

  By six, everything was ready. A fresh pitcher of iced tea stood on the counter, because of course we drank iced tea all year round. The peas were buttered, the chicken was sauced, and the potatoes were whipped into velvet ribbons. A Mrs. Smith’s frozen apple pie was bubbling away in the oven, and it was as domestic a scene as any woman ever set. All I needed was a golden retriever to star in a Martha Stewart tableau. The doorbell rang. On the way to answer it, I glanced at myself in the hall mirror to see that I had forgotten to put on lipstick or to brush my hair and thought, Oh, well, too late for vanity. I bit my lips to give them some color. Didn’t Scarlett O’Hara do that when Rhett showed up unexpectedly?

  “Come in! Everything is
ready! Did you boys wash your hands?”

  “Yup,” Tyler said. “What’s that thmell?”

  “Apple pie baking in the oven,” I said.

  “Yum!” Tyler said and raced ahead.

  “I washed my hands two times!” Hunter said. “Can we have pie first?”

  “It never stops. My little rule breaker,” Archie said and ruffled Hunter’s hair. “No.”

  “Pie is for dessert!” I said. “If you eat your dinner, that is.” I surprised myself by saying something that sounded so parental, but when I looked at Archie’s face, he was unfazed by my words. The stress of the days since he’d lost Carin was still all over his face.

  Tyler was already in the kitchen, having raced ahead, peering into the oven to confirm that there was indeed pie in his future.

  “Close that oven door, young man,” Archie said and looked at me. “I’m sorry. He knows better.”

  “It’s totally okay,” I said. “Now, what would y’all like to drink?”

  I poured milk for the boys and iced tea for Archie and me and we sat down to eat. I caught a side glance of Archie and saw that he had double dimples in his cheeks. I loved dimples because I thought they were a sign of being good natured.

  “So, boys? Are y’all having a good year in school?” I asked, thinking, That’s what a mom would ask.

  They both bobbed their heads.

  “Well, would you like to tell your dad and me something that’s going on? Tyler? You go first.”

  Tyler, the second-grader, said, “Well, we’re learning how to carry one, you know, in math.”

  “And is that easy for you?” I asked.

  “It’s not hard,” he said. “I’m better at it than most of the kids.”

  “Great!” I said.

  “That’s good, son! Keep up the good work!”

  “How about you, Hunter? What’s new in kindergarten?”

  “Hmmm?” he said and looked up to the ceiling to see if the answer was there. In typical baby-of-the-family style, he decided to make it funny. “Well, last Monday our class pet, which is a snake, got loose and Miss Langbein, our teacher, almost fainted. But we found it and put it back, the boys did, that is. All the girls were standing on their chairs pretending to be scared. It was just a little old garter snake.”