“I think I told her six.”
“I’ll be ready,” I said and thought, six o’clock can’t get here fast enough.
As we ate our lunch, a warm breeze began to swirl, enveloping us in thick, salty air. Adam and I sighed deeply and fell under a mischievous Lowcountry spell. Our shoulders relaxed and we smiled for no reason. Gulls squawked all around. The rhythm and the incessant movement of the rolling tide was like a beautiful Strauss waltz. We looked at each other, beaming really, with an inexplicable happiness.
It was a satisfying moment for me. My boys were sitting politely and using nice table manners. And Adam seemed to be thoroughly enjoying his sandwich and gulping down copious amounts of iced tea. An old girlfriend? Who cares?
I was so happy we were all together and I ticked off a list of all the things I felt grateful for. I had beautiful children and a wonderful husband. I was just thirty-seven and I felt very much like an adult. Technically I knew I was a wife and mother, of course, but the realization that I wasn’t ever going to be that hot young babe again had taken a while to adjust to. But if the trade-off was to be Adam’s wife and the mother of our two scallywags, it wasn’t so bad. Who cared about stupid Eve Church?
All I had to do was look at Adam to see that he was having similar thoughts. He was very proud that he was able to give us a nice vacation. Everyone knew he adored his boys, and yes, it always seemed as though he was crazy about me. But at that particular moment, it seemed like he was feeling much younger than his years, macho in fact, anticipating the evening to come. If we hadn’t come to Wild Dunes for this vacation he might never have run into Eve again for the rest of his life. I knew my husband, and right about now he was feeling a twitch in his personal Lowcountry and was trying to redirect his thoughts to something benign, like throwing a Frisbee with his boys.
“This was delicious, Mom,” Max said.
“It was great, Eliza. Just hit the spot. Thanks! You boys want to build sand castles this afternoon? Maybe throw the Frisbee around”
What did I just say?
“Yeah!” Max said, and Luke bobbed his head.
“Y’all are welcome! Okay, boys. Give me a hand cleaning up lunch and I’ll take you to Baskin-Robbins,” I said. “I want to see what looks good at the Pig for dinner.”
The Piggly Wiggly was my favorite grocery store.
“Baskin-Robbins! Yay!”
Ice cream? On a blazing hot day? The boys were understandably jubilant. They quickly gathered up the paper plates and the collapsed juice pouches and rushed toward the public garbage cans.
“We’ll play with you when we get back, Dad,” Max said.
“Okay,” Adam said.
“Let’s go, Mom! Let’s go!”
They were literally jumping up and down in place.
“Go put on a T-shirt and put something on your feet!” I turned to Adam and said, “I wish they still took naps.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll wear them out this afternoon when you get back.”
“Well, behave yourself until I do, okay, Mr. Romeo?”
“Eliza? You know I only love you.”
I pointed my finger at him and shot him some stink eye. We both laughed. I laughed to let him know I was onto him. And Adam laughed to try to make me believe there was nothing to this unexpected meeting with an old friend. We both knew better.
I withstood the bombardment of the highly elevated level of testosterone emanating from Adam, and I was reasonably certain that a trip to the grocery store would not wreck my marriage. He wasn’t going to run over to Eve’s condo and throw her in the sack. The worst that could happen was that he might spend an hour doing sit-ups and flossing. I could leave home with some level of confidence.
I loved shopping at the Piggly Wiggly. They always had a wide variety of Lowcountry specialty foods and condiments, including especially Mrs. Sassard’s artichoke relish and okra pickles. As I gleaned the aisles, I thought we might stop at the vegetable stand on Highway 17 to pick up tomatoes and cucumbers. And maybe we’d pop into Simmons Seafood to check out their daily catch.
By four o’clock that afternoon the boys were back on the beach with Adam, having eaten double scoops of rocky road and pralines and cream ice cream. I watched from the window as they sat on an old palmetto log, working on a large slice of watermelon. In accordance with the Lowcountry traditions of Adam’s childhood, he drew a line in the sand and they had a contest to see who could spit the seeds the farthest. To Max’s chagrin, it looked as though Luke won every single time. Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was missing a front tooth. Finally, Adam whispered something in Luke’s ear, and when the very next round of seeds went flying, Luke’s came up short. Max was so relieved to have won at least one round. And Luke had learned the first of many lessons he would learn about sportsmanship: sometimes it was better to be gracious than to pound your opponent into humiliation. I loved Adam then.
When the seeds ran out they had races to see who was the fastest. Next came practice for a running broad jump. Now that the boys were sticky and salty, Adam threw them into the pool and made them race the length of it over and over. Adam was true to his word. The boys would sleep very well that night. He was a great father.
Meanwhile I was in the kitchen, making hors d’oeuvres I hoped would impress my husband’s old lover and whoever her stupid husband was, who probably didn’t realize he had married a slut. (Yes, my imagination was in overdrive.) Miniature crab cakes would be topped with frizzled leeks and red pepper jelly. Fresh-caught shrimp, deveined and made into ceviche, marinated in scallions, cilantro, lemon zest, and a citrus vinaigrette, would be offered with toothpicks. Sweet sausage baked golden brown in puffed pastry rings would be served with a piquant honey mustard laced with traces of horseradish. And of course, I was making a tray of tiny pigs in blankets, which the boys loved. I seldom worked so hard in the kitchen while on vacation, but the prospect of an old flame dropping by for a glass of vino demanded extra effort. When our guests left I’d just put some burgers on the grill for the boys’ supper if they were still hungry. Depending on his behavior, I might or might not feed my husband, especially since I knew he was feeding me some massive bull.