Shem Creek Read online

  Oh, eventually you’ll hear the whole story, because this is a long ride and there ain’t much to do besides tell secrets and think about life. Thinking about life is what I had been doing for one very long time. I finally decided to quit the thinking nonsense and do something. I mean, I was even driving myself crazy from my own whining. Then I came to this conclusion. You don’t like your life? Go get another one and shut the heck up already, right?

  Look, I know I’m not the only single parent in the world. And I know I’m not the only one who’s tight for money all the time, okay? And, I might not be the biggest gambler you ever met, but I know when it’s time to change the scenery and if you don’t do it when you feel the urge, you might be blowing off the last life raft that ever floats your way. It’s probably worth noting that I waited to change the scenery until I went digging for my mascara in Gracie’s makeup bag (my fifteen-year-old daughter, thank you), and I found birth control pills, some other unidentifiable pills and a baggie of pot. Then, I hemmed and hawed around until I found Lindsey weeping over her weight—she’s five feet five inches tall and weighs one hundred and twenty pounds, the same as Gracie. She doesn’t even have a freckle. Her date for the prom told her he couldn’t go with her, that she was too fat. She was standing naked in front of the full-length mirror, sobbing and reading Sylvia Plath aloud—remember her? She’s the poet who stuck her head in the oven and killed herself. The final straw was the romantic dinner I had with Louie Provost at Epernay when his wife, Cherry, showed up to introduce herself. Um, didn’t know there was a wife? Thanks, Louie. Can’t have dinner there anymore.

  I said to myself, Linda? You can definitely do better than this. All of a sudden it was clear to me that I had a stupid job and we had a very stupid life. So I called my sister and she said, Honey chile? You put yourself and your girls in your car and come on down to me!

  So, that’s what I’m doing out here in the middle of the night in Virginia, traveling under the wing of all these trucks. But can you keep a secret? I quit my job. We’re moving to Mount Pleasant and no one knows it except you and me. I know it seems slightly sneaky and a little impetuous but you know what? It’s not. Look, if New Jersey had wanted us, it would have given us a reason to stay. It didn’t.

  I told the girls it was a vacation. I told the girls I told my employer I would be back in four weeks. They knew I had vacation time piled up like laundry. Maybe they know, maybe they don’t.

  I have to find a job. And that, my friend, should be the easiest part. I could get hired as a grave digger and make myself believe that I was working at Mardi Gras. But hey, brighter days and better days are coming. I can feel it in my bones! I really can. I am absolutely going to make this work.

  PROLOGUE

  JUNE 2003

  MY mother always used to say that if a man could count his real friends on just one hand that he was a wealthy man indeed. My mother was right. I’m going to tell you a story about heaven and hell and how I got out of one and found the other—both with the help of a true-blue friend. Hell was being married to Loretta and working for her father. Heaven is our restaurant on Shem Creek, which we would never have had, except for the generosity and ingenuity of my best friend and partner, Robert. We call it Jackson Hole because my last name is Jackson and I guess you could say it is a hole in the wall. Yeah, it’s definitely a hole in the wall. And, Robert likes to ski guess where. I know. It’s a less than nimble play on words, but let’s get this on the record right now—when the whole world conspires against you, a healthy sense of humor can be a very valuable tool. And, up until eight months ago, the world conspired. Worse, I was thrashing around in my quagmire of self-deception watching it happen and didn’t do a thing about it.

  I used to come down here all the time, in between deals, and I guess I’ve been fishing the waters around Charleston for fifteen years. There isn’t a creek in this whole area that hasn’t seen the bottom of my boat, but that said, every time I dropped a hook in the salty creeks and rivers, it always seemed like the first time. The landscape and the light—well, it was always a little different. Quiet but vibrant. You could have made yourself believe that the good Lord Himself was somewhere in the thicket, waiting patiently for you to remember that He was still there. It finally got to the point where I just left my boat in South Carolina. And my heart? Well, looking back, it seems now that the only time I ever thought about it was when I was floating on the Lowcountry waters.

  We should discuss this heaven and hell thing, which all begins with my newly-acquired-at-great-personal-loss philosophy. Here it is in a nutshell. When you choose the wrong partner at the dance (whether it’s marriage or profession), you will surely bust your ass.

  Women seem to know this by instinct. Men don’t. Men are conditioned from birth to be providers and basically, our success is measured by how well we do that job. This somehow neatly translates to how much we earn and how many trophies we can accumulate over a lifetime. Cars, second houses, antiques, jewelry for the wife . . . the list goes on and on. We have to graduate from the right schools, become a partner in the right firm, marry the right girl, be invited to join the right club and develop a decent game of golf and tennis.

  Right? Wrong! That entire unholy plan, my friends, is a truckload of manure.

  Isn’t it? I swear, I laugh now when I think about the years I spent chasing the almighty buck. Money, money, money. And, chasing the almighty buck with my wife, Loretta, who always was and continues to be a misery. Well, I can laugh now, but a few months ago, it was not funny at all.

  Overall, daughters are so much luckier than sons. Their mothers tell them to follow their hearts, right? They say, Darlin’? If you want to go study history, you go right ahead. Honey? If you want to be a chemist, go right ahead! Sure enough, women will graduate and can usually earn a decent living with their degree, doing something they love. Of course, women get screwed right and left because they don’t earn the same money that their male colleagues do for performing the same jobs and for a whole variety of other reasons, but for the most part, I think women are happier in their professional lives. And yes, I guess you could say that I am kind of a male feminist.

  But, sons are another matter entirely. When I look at the number of kids coming out of graduate school with business degrees, I am absolutely astonished. I mean, where are they all going to find the fortunes that they think are waiting for them? The ones they think they are entitled to? And law school? Don’t get me started! Do we really need more lawyers?

  What has happened to humanity is this. The world has become vicious, because the devil’s real name is greed. Our ability to justify our greed is staggering. If you believe what you read, see and hear around you, our children’s future will be all about heeding the call and joining the detestable clamor for money and power. It breaks your heart.

  When I think about how I used to run my life, I am sure I must have been completely out of my mind. Besides working seventy-hour weeks, I used to read three newspapers every day—The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. No more. Now I read the front page of the Post & Courier and guess what? It’s as much as I want to know about what’s going on “out there.” And, I check the weather and the tide tables.

  Let me ask you something. Have you ever been to Italy? Did you know that Italy has the sixth largest economy in the world? But when you go there, you see shops closed for hours in the middle of the day, everyone seems to be drinking wine and espresso, smoking Marlboro Reds, and it looks like no one’s working! What is going on in Italy? Ahem. They are really living. And, guess what? Their lives last just as long as ours do. But! They’re enjoying their lives one helluva lot more than we are. So, I said to myself, Brad? One day, you’re gonna be dead and buried. That’s when I decided to become Italian.

  I want to have a romance with life! I want to love women and children and savor all the beauty and good to be found in the world. I was missing everything! So hitting rock bottom was a good
thing. Otherwise, I’d still be a hamster, running on a worthless, pointless wheel, racing to the grave.

  “Mr. Brad? Your appointment is here.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right there! Thanks!”

  That was Louise Waring. Who’s she? Well, Louise is the greatest woman in the world, that’s all. She runs the kitchen, everybody and everything. She’s the chef when Duane takes days off, and the assistant chef when he’s here. She is capable of almost anything, thank God. Shoot, just last week she stopped a knife fight in the kitchen between a busboy and a dishwasher. Seems one guy made a slanderous remark about the dubious nature of the other’s birth, which was followed by a reference to the other fellow’s lewd preference for his mother. Well, after that, the conversation switched to Spanish and could have escalated to a lifethreatening situation but Louise stepped in and threatened to call the police. It’s a good thing our customers don’t know what goes on in the kitchen. It’s bad enough what goes on in the dining room!

  Rock bottom? It’s almost embarrassing to tell you how I got there, but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I figure that if I can save some other poor son of a gun from the hell I went through then it’s worth it to put my pride aside. No, I’ve come to some very new conclusions and it all began with becoming separated from Loretta and going broke. I was forty-two, a smart fellow (or so I thought) with a platinum resume and suddenly I didn’t have a pot to pee in or a window to throw it out of, like my grandfather used to say. It was the best thing that ever happened to me.

  Look, you’ll have to excuse me for just a few minutes. This interview shouldn’t take very long. And, when I get back I’ll tell you why simplifying life is such a beautiful thing. Yep, think like an Italian and keep it simple. Just hold that thought.

  ONE

  FISH OUT OF WATER

  I walked across the floor from the kitchen door to the bar where my appointment was waiting. She hopped down from the bar stool and took a very deep breath. Nervous enthusiasm was a good sign.

  “Hey! I’m Brad Jackson. Thanks for coming.”

  “Hi! I’m Linda Breland.”

  I took the resume she offered me, we shook hands and all my knuckles cracked.

  “That’s a healthy grip you’ve got there.”

  “Oh, God, sorry. Comes from throwing bundles of newspapers. Not very feminine. You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Really.”

  She was applying for the job of manager and how feminine she was didn’t matter one whit.

  Louise had her hands full with the mushrooming kitchen staff—a little restaurant humor—and business was going gangbusters. Robert, Louise and I agreed it was time to hire someone with a good disposition and a head for details.

  At first glance, Linda Breland seemed like a nice woman, the kind you could depend on. I would have said she was somewhere in her mid-thirties. If her grip was any indication, she was a healthy specimen. Her brown hair was highlighted with some streaks of blonde, perhaps even done for the interview, but her hair color made no difference to me. She was dressed conservatively, not in expensive clothes, but stylish enough to say that she cared about her appearance. That was what really mattered. Looking professional was important. Having the strength of a stevedore wouldn’t hurt either. You never knew what you might wind up having to do—stack cases of wine, crates of vegetables, racks of glasses—anything could happen at any moment.

  “Why don’t we sit over there by the windows?” I said. “Would you like something to drink? Tea?”

  “Actually, if you have Diet Coke, that would be luv-ley.” She lifted her jacket and pumped it lightly for airflow. “Augh! It’s so hot today. I’m parched like tha Sa-HA-rah!”

  “No problem. You sit and I’ll be right back.”

  There was a Civil War going on in her accent. In one breath she was Scarlett, and in the next moment she was a flawless Edith Bunker. It was amusing. Weird, but amusing.

  The dining room was almost empty as it was after lunch and before dinner. We had an abbreviated menu that we served all day long, but today was Tuesday and Tuesdays were sort of slow for some reason I had yet to figure out.

  As the glass filled, I glanced at her resume and saw she had worked in New Jersey for a number of years. No surprise there—not with that accent. She was employed by the Newark Star-Ledger in distribution. How that qualified her to run a restaurant was a mystery, but what did I know?

  I placed the glass in front of her, she smiled at me and then she crossed her legs. She had a nice face. There was nothing in her smile that was inappropriate—merely pleasant.

  I sat opposite her and looked over the resume again. She was crossing her legs again in the other direction. Probably nervous.

  “Ms. Breland, there’s no restaurant experience on your resume and that concerns me a little.”

  “Yeah, I know but I understood you were looking for a manager, right? And, I have four years of management experience from the Star-Ledger, where I ran distribution.”

  “And, what did that entail?”

  She crossed her legs for the third time and was all squirmy in her chair, which even I had to admit wasn’t very bahunkus-friendly.

  “Are you okay in that chair? Should I get you another one?”

  “Nah, it’s fine. I’m fine.”

  “Okay, so tell me about this job. How did your day begin? I mean, what did you actually do?”

  “Oh, not much. Just get up at four-thirty in the morning, scrape ice or snow or both from my car, drive down to Jersey City in the pitch of night, make sure all the truckers showed up, make sure their trucks got loaded and then make sure the papers got delivered. Not very glamorous, I’m afraid, but it paid the bills.”

  Any woman who could deal with teamsters in the middle of the night in a New Jersey winter, well, she must possess some bodacious spunk. Spunk was good.

  “Tell me about yourself,” I said.

  “Me? Oh, Lord, it’s a long story. Well, first, I grew up here. I went to Carolina and then married this guy from New Jersey in my senior year, which, yeah I know, was crazy.”

  “He was crazy?”

  “No! I was pregnant! Nice Catholic girl, right? I mean, oh Lord, it was probably crazy to quit school and run off like that. But things have a way of working out all right.”

  Linda Breland blushed. I guess she hadn’t expected to blurt out the detail of her unexpected pregnancy. I smiled, trying to put her at ease.

  “Well, these things happen.”

  “Right. So that’s how I wound up married to the old ball and chain, Fred, and living in New Jersey for all these years. Then Fred freaked out when his hair started thinning . . .”

  I patted the crown of my hair and she blushed again.

  “And then we got divorced almost five years ago and I’ve been raising our girls ever since. Anyway, it finally occurred to me that there were plenty of ways to make the same amount of money I made and probably, they all didn’t require getting up in the middle of the night! Right?”

  “Right.”

  “I mean, I was never going to be the publisher of the paper, so why was I killing myself in that awful job? Why not do something else that would give me a better life? You know what I mean? Like, I have never had breakfast with my girls the entire time they have been in high school? I mean, my girls are the most important people in my life, like ever, and I guess I’m trying to grab the last couple of years with my youngest. I guess I think things like that are important. I guess.”

  Well, Linda Breland was not the most articulate woman I had ever met, but she certainly was not stupid. She had some good solid values. A woman willing to uproot her life to spend more time with her children had to be a decent human being.

  “I couldn’t agree with you more. How many children do you have?”

  “Two. My oldest, Lindsey, is going to college this fall and Gracie will be a junior in high school.”

  “So, I take it you’re moving back to Mount Pleasant?”

  “Ye
ah, I mean, if I can get everything organized. My sister still lives here and we’re staying with her for the moment, and I guess soon I’ll be looking for a house. And, I’m looking for a job.” She was silent for a moment and then added, “Obviously.”

  “Right. Obviously.”

  “And, I’ve done other things too. If you look down there, you’ll see I have a little business called How She Does It All. I pay bills and organize home offices for women around Montclair. Um, Montclair’s where we live or lived, depending on how well this is going?”

  “It’s going fine, Ms. Breland.”

  The legs changed position one more time but I ignored it.

  “Uh, you can just call me Linda. I mean, everyone does.”

  “Okay, Linda, and you call me Brad.”

  “And, I sold Avon products too. Uh, Brad. Home products and makeup, that is. I mean, it was pretty funny. While I was balancing somebody’s checkbook I’d look at them and say, Lord, girlfriend, you need some color on your face! Then, I’d reach down in my big bag, pull out some samples and give them Lopez lips!”

  “Lopez?” What in the world was she talking about?

  “Jennifer?”

  A-ha!

  “Yes, of course. Jennifer Lopez, the rock star. And they didn’t get mad? I mean, you’d tell someone they looked like the dog’s breakfast and . . .”

  “Dog’s breakfast?”

  She started to laugh and the twinkling sound of it was disarming. Musical. Infectious.

  “Yeah, dog’s breakfast? You never heard that? It means all messy and—”

  “No, I understand the general drift. Dog’s breakfast. I love that.”

  “You can use it. No charge.”

  “Thanks, I will. See? That’s another thing I like about living in the south. Sayings like that. Even talking is just a little more fun. Am I right about that?”