Shem Creek Read online

  “I gotta go to work,” I said again, and smiled at her.

  “I’ll follow you out,” she said and turned to the broker. “This is sweet? But, um, I think we probably want at least three bedrooms, you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Uh-huh,” said the broker, nodding, “I’ll call y’all if anything new comes on the market.”

  “Too small?” Mimi said, after the broker had closed her car door and started her engine.

  “Yeah, too small and too old. I want squeaky clean and all that new stuff, you know? I am all over drafty windows, uneven floors, leaking gutters, cracked asphalt driveways, unreliable furnaces . . . I want central air, central heat, new windows! I want to flush my toilets with confidence! I want a dishwasher that lulls me to sleep, not one that sounds like a 747! Do you know what I’m talking about?”

  “Gotcha!” she said, her index finger pointed like the barrel of a revolver.

  I opened my car door, threw my purse over to the passenger seat and got in. Mimi leaned in the window. “How’s this Brad person?” she said.

  “Brad’s great! The job’s great! But I gotta find a house, you know?”

  “I’ll comb the Moultrie News!”

  “Thanks,” I said and blew her a kiss.

  There were so many choices of where to live in Mount Pleasant. And, I suppose like everyone else all up and down the coast, I would have loved to own a home with a view of something besides my neighbors. The harbor, the Cooper River, a creek—any of them would have been fine. But, not knowing how much I could spend put me in a weird position. It meant that I had to look at houses from the point of view of what would be sufficient. In spite of everything, my heart was leaning to living in the old village where I grew up, even though that choice would never deliver a house with new everything in my imagined budget range.

  Yesterday, I learned Brad lived in Simmons Pointe, right by the Ben Sawyer Bridge. He was lucky enough to run into a furnished, year-round rental. Even though Brad was a partner in the restaurant, he hadn’t been in business long enough to earn enough money to buy anything. He said he felt like he had definitely hit the jackpot with his three-bedroom house on stilts, a new kitchen, two and a half bathrooms, and a marsh and water view for which there was no price tag on the face of this earth.

  He had invited me to come see it, saying there might be another one available, and I had thanked him and had said I would but, in reality, the last thing I wanted was for my boss to have access to my privacy. I mean, what if I decided to let Antonio Banderas sleep over? Did Brad need to see his limo in my driveway? No. And did I want to know who was hanging around him? No thanks. Life was complicated enough as it was.

  I pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant and, getting out, the smells of the creek startled me. How powerful! And, how reminiscent of my childhood. I could close my eyes and be seven years old again, my hand in my dad’s, tromping over to Magwood’s to buy five pounds of shrimp, the soles of my sneakers crunching along the broken oyster shells that covered the ground. After a good soaking rain, there were puddles wide enough for zigzag navigation and jumps that resurrected the boy in my father as we leaped over them together, whooping with laughter. Even hours later, long after the mud in the treads of my shoes was dry and fallen away, the smells of salt and sea remained. That same fragrance was linked to good memories like a bookmark. In some remote part of my psyche, I believed that to be surrounded by it again would bring me happiness.

  It was in that dreamy state of mind that I began my workday, shuffling through a mountain of bills, organizing them on the computer by category, backing them up on disc. Certain things stood out as too expensive, others as bargains. I would have to think about all of it and apply some kind of analysis to it. One thing was certain—the produce bill was in the stratosphere. Others were unclear. Such as, I couldn’t understand the process for verifying the bills for seafood or why we used rentals for special events. It would all be sorted out in due time. My first order of business was to get everything entered in a bookkeeping software program that would produce checks.

  Louise appeared at my door and cleared her throat. She was holding two mugs of steaming coffee and placed one in front of me.

  “Some people come say hello in the morning and I reckon some others don’t!”

  “Oh! Louise! I’m so sorry!”

  “Everybody comes in and says hello to Louise, even Mr. Brad and he owns the place.”

  “Other than that, how am I doing?”

  “Guess we thought the place would fall apart until you got here this morning, that’s all!” She smiled at me, her dimples showing.

  “You are so wicked! Come on, sit down and talk to me. How’s everything in the kitchen? What’s Duane up to?”

  “Humph! That man drives me crazy! Now he’s wanting to do all kinds of raw fish—something called carpaccio. I can tell you right now that people don’t come to Shem Creek to eat no fool carpaccio. They want a clean piece of fish out of the waters of Charleston and they want you to tell them to eat it fried so they don’t have to feel guilty about it. The most exotic thing they order is oysters on the half shell. Isn’t that right?”

  “Well, carpaccio is Italian and Brad’s got his Italian thing going on everywhere else around here.”

  “Humph! So, I’ll let him put it on the menu for now.”

  I thought about what she was saying and essentially, she was right. Most of the restaurants along the water served more fried seafood than broiled and I couldn’t remember anyone serving raw seafood, with the exception of oysters.

  “There’s a restaurant in New York—Greek or Italian, I can’t remember—but they serve mostly seafood, pretty much like us. But what’s different is that the customer picks out their own fish. They have a huge presentation of iceddown fish in the front and what you do is go with your captain, pick out your fish, and then they only cook it one of two ways. Either they put it on a bed of rock salt and bake it with olive oil and lemon juice or they fillet it and sauté it in butter and olive oil.”

  “Fish just sits out there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You know what? You might have something there! That might be the scratch for Doo-wayne’s itch! There ain’t nobody over here doing that! That would, you know . . .”

  “Make us look like our seafood was fresher? Give us a little style?”

  “I gotta go find out how much one of them things to show the fish would cost.” Louise stood up and gave me a little pat on the shoulder. “You know what?”

  “What?”

  “I like you. You ain’t stupid!”

  I hollered after her as she left my office, “Thanks! I think?”

  The day was flying by and I didn’t see Brad until well after lunch, when he stopped in.

  “Hey! Welcome to your second day in the asylum.”

  “Thanks! I am so excited! I have a new job, I have a new life!”

  “Um, Linda?”

  He was leaning on the frame of the door and if he had not been my employer, I might have been thinking some lascivious thoughts. I didn’t know why but, during the interview, his appeal had gone unnoticed.

  “What?” I said, and thought my lascivious thoughts anyway.

  “Are you always this upbeat?”

  “No.” That was the truth. But since returning to the land of my people, I had become undeniably optimistic. In fact, I had stopped taking my happy pills and didn’t miss them at all.

  “And, so what’s happening with your domestic arrangements?”

  “Oh, that! Well, I, that is, we are still hanging in my sister’s crib.”

  “Ah,” he said, taking a moment to digest the meaning. “Well, this may or may not be of interest to you, but Robert has a client who owns a property in the old village that used to be a farm. One outbuilding—a boathouse—still exists and he wants to rent it. I know the guy—very nice guy—nice wife, all that. I think he would even consider selling it if he could get the variance and found th
e right person, but you might like to have a look.”

  “How many bedrooms?”

  “I don’t know. I’ll call him if you want.”

  “Sure. Why not?”

  Brad whipped out his cell phone, one that sent and received pictures, and called Robert for the number and then got his friend on the line. “Lowell? You still interested in renting that little cottage?” Pause. “Uh-huh, uh-huh. No, she works for me.” Pause. “Two teenagers, one going to college this fall. Yeah. NYU. Yeah, no kidding. Okay, sure.” Pause. “How much? What? Hey, didn’t I tell you she worked for me? She ain’t related to Donald Trump, okay?” Brad covered the mouthpiece and said to me, “Don’t worry.” Pause. “Okay. Five o’clock. Sure. I’ll bring her around. Yes, I’ll bring some wine!”

  Brad turned to me.

  “Okay. Here’s the vital stats. It’s on the bank of the harbor and used to be a caretaker’s cottage slash boathouse. It’s been renovated, has three bedrooms, a sort of living room, dining room, kitchen, two-bathroom combination but it’s got light and a fireplace and enough storage—so he says. We can see it at five. Want to do it?”

  It had been a very long time since a desirable man had thrown out the phrase Want to do it? I took a deep breath, steadied myself and said, “Sure, why not?”

  Who was I kidding? He was not interested in me in the least and I would be well advised to get over myself. I immediately switched gears to Little Miss Pragmatic, and began making a list of the features of living so close to work.

  The biggest advantage of living in the old village was that driving to work would take less than five minutes, even if I caught every single red light. That was certainly a plus. But the truth was that as long as I stayed east of the Cooper River, the most time it would ever take was fifteen minutes, even from the islands.

  I continued to dig through the pile of papers on my desk, deciding to withhold judgment until I actually saw the place. The afternoon glow began to cover the dining room in deep shades of pink and I looked at my watch. It was four-thirty.

  I thought Brad was probably in the kitchen and went to look for him.

  “Seen Brad?” I asked anyone in earshot.

  “He’s up on the sunset deck,” one of the guys said.

  I said something like Okay, thanks and climbed the outside stairs to find him with a hose, spraying the deck with a vengeance.

  “What in the world are you doing?”

  “Well, it’s a thousand degrees up here, right?”

  “Whew! No kidding!”

  “And, we get about a hundred to two hundred people up here every night for happy hour, right?”

  “Yeah, so . . .”

  “Well, hosing down the floor, or the roof, depending on your point of view, cools it down about ten degrees.” He continued to spray for a minute and then realized I was standing there for a reason. He turned off the nozzle and looked up to me. “Um, want to take my car?”

  “Sure.”

  He grabbed a bottle of white wine and we were off. Without a lot of conversation beyond the usual niceties, we drove from the parking lot to the house of his choosing, which worried me. After all, what if I didn’t like the house he thought I should like? But when we pulled into the yard of the big house and drove down the live-oak-columned gravel drive to the back, every hair on my body stood on end. This was it. I knew it, even before I saw the inside. This was my new home. This might be my home forever. How could he have known?

  “It’s beautiful,” I said.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty cool. Love the location.”

  “Me too.”

  We climbed the steps together. As though I owned the place, my hand reached out to the flower boxes overflowing with the palest lavender petunias and fragrant blooms of yet another something I didn’t recognize. The owner, Lowell Epstein, was waiting inside for us. He had turned on the lights and Rod Stewart’s new CD of ballads filled the air. And, there was a smell of something familiar but then I knew that every house had its own perfume.

  “Hey, Brad! Gimme that and I’ll open it.”

  “Thanks,” Brad said. “Lowell, this is Linda Breland.”

  “Hey. How are you?” I said.

  We shook hands, and I was careful not to wrench his hand. I took the glass of wine he offered. When he turned his attention to Brad, I began to snoop.

  The rooms were furnished as though someone was living there full-time. The master bedroom was cozy with its big brass bed covered in layers of handmade quilts. An old wardrobe with a mirrored door guarded the corner on its great ball-and-claw feet. The end table held a stained-glass lamp, the type made by Tiffany a century ago. Stacks of books were piled on the floor. When I pulled back the curtains, light flooded the room and I saw that there were sliding glass doors that led to a tiny balcony.

  The other two bedrooms were large enough for trundle beds, a chest of drawers, a small desk but not much more. There was a well-designed bathroom in between with a shower and a tub. The master bathroom had a brown granite countertop that sparkled with flecks like diamonds. The hall had a large walk-in cedar closet combination linen press and the kitchen was in the front, facing the water. The kitchen was open through to the living area and the sliding glass doors on the far end opened to the balcony shared with the master bedroom. I stood there thinking how nice it would be to have breakfast at the little café table, even though it was encrusted with the dust and dirt of one hundred storms. Of course, blooming flower boxes lined its rails, overflowing and trailing down the front of the house.

  Situated between the kitchen and living room was a fireplace fashioned of ancient bricks. I could envision myself reading a book, curled up on a sofa while a great pot of stew simmered on the stove. This tiny place, of less than, I guessed, eight hundred square feet, was like a New York apartment but all the windows made it seem endless. I had to have it.

  “This is very charming,” I said, putting my empty glass down on the counter.

  “I usually don’t rent this place,” Lowell said. “My father lived here until he passed away and since then I’ve just used it for friends and family. Barbara and I spend most of our time on Pawleys Island now. I’d just like to have someone around here, I think.”

  “Well, that’s probably a good idea. God, I haven’t been to Pawleys in years,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, it’s the same as it was when you last saw it,” he said, “and that’s probably why it’s so appealing.”

  “I told Lowell that you have two daughters, one going off to college in the fall,” Brad said, “and no pets. Am I right?”

  “That’s about it,” I said. “Um, are you thinking of renting this furnished or unfurnished?”

  “As you wish. Brad tells me you’re an old Geechee girl, so I guess I’ll have to rent to you, and actually, putting all this stuff in storage isn’t a big deal. In fact, my kids would probably love to have some of these things for themselves. Think about it.”

  “Great,” I said, “I just want to bring my sister over to see it before I sign my life away. Is that okay?”

  Lowell looked at me, then to Brad and shook his head. “Here’s the key,” he said, handing it to me, “don’t throw any wild parties until we have a deal, okay?”

  I had to smile at Lowell’s trusting nature. “Yeah,” I said, “this is just how they do things in New Jersey.” They looked at me in surprise. “Don’t y’all have a sense of irony down here?”

  “I just figured in that Liz Claiborne outfit, you probably weren’t a flight risk, that’s all! Sensible women wear Liz.”

  “Is it Liz? Shoot! How did you know?”

  “He’s a retailer,” Brad said, “with an eye like an eagle!”

  “How should I know?” I said. “I bought it at Loehmann’s!”

  “Another quality to her credit,” Lowell said to Brad, “doesn’t throw money away!”

  “Right! Come on, I have to get back to the grind,” Brad said. “Thanks, Lowell!”

  Driving back I sat in
the passenger seat, twirling the key chain around my finger. “I can’t believe it! I mean, that little house is a dream!”

  “Well, I saw it a while back. Of course, Lowell and Barbara live in the main house, but they don’t care who comes and goes from your part of the place. They just want someone reliable and someone who would pick up the newspapers when they’re away or let them know if something goes wrong, like a tree falls on the house or something.”

  “It makes perfect sense, really. I mean, at least I can stay there for a while. I love my sister and all, but it’s too much female energy, right?”

  “One can only imagine.”

  “Hey, thanks a lot for taking me over there and making the introduction . . . Oh! We never discussed the rent!”

  “You really don’t like to discuss money, do you?”

  “Oh! What if it’s like two thousand or something?”

  “Girl! Stop worrying! I’ll negotiate it if you want!”

  “Okay! Be my guest!”

  We got back to the restaurant and it was already crazy with early diners. I talked to the waitstaff about why it was taking so long to get breadbaskets and water on the tables. My feeling was that every customer should be greeted, seated, and drink orders should be taken within the first three minutes they arrived. Even if the rest of the dinner got tangled up in the kitchen with Doo-wayne (I loved Louise’s pronunciation of his name), the customers should at least think we were on top of their dining experience and trying to do our best. Besides, the profit margins on tea, soft drinks and salads were a lot higher than anything else. It had taken me one whole day to figure that out! Actually, my annoyance with the slow waitstaff came from my northern exposure. If you owned a restaurant in New York or New Jersey and took your sweet, lazy-ass, shuffling time getting water, bread and drinks to the customers, you’d be out of business in twenty-two seconds! Please the customers and turn those tables, baby; that’s the name of the game.

  “Miss Linda?” Louise came over and said, “Phone! Line two! It’s your sister.”

  “What? My sister? What does she want?”

  “A reservation, but she wants to talk to you.”