Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [31]
“Yeah, especially since I’m driving this hot car and all. They’ll probably hijack it and me and this will be a short story. The end.” I smirked at her and she shook her head.
“Just don’t do anything stupid, okay? Like sit on a public toilet seat anywhere! And call us?”
“Don’t worry! I know how to hold my purse and tinkle in midair!”
“Please!” Mark said in mock horror. “Tinkle?”
Patti and I made nasty, nasty ew faces at each other.
“I might stop and spend the night around Richmond if I’m getting tired. If I do I’ll call you.”
“That’s a really good idea,” Mark said. “Something like ten percent of all road accidents are caused by falling asleep at the wheel.”
“Yeah, but three times as many men as women,” Patti said and I stared at her as if to say, how in the hell did you know that? “I looked it up on the Internet.”
“Oh,” I said and was astonished to see that they had put more actual effort into my trip than I had. But they had done so to bring facts and statistics to light. And because they loved me. And in the end, this was a hallmark day.
We were all busy sighing and smiling, sighing and smiling. Mark was saying that he would be in touch with Dallas and Mel regarding Addison’s estate but we all knew there wasn’t anything to be gained there, that is, no inheritance for me or for the children. I gave Mark power of attorney so if there were documents for me to sign he could do that for me. More sighing, more smiling. Don’t worry, don’t worry. Bankruptcy is not the disgrace it used to be. Let’s see what your real liabilities are, if any, probably nothing. Well, you can’t get blood from a stone, Patti said and we smiled and sighed some more.
We were convinced this was the best possible decision for me for the short term. It wasn’t exciting or uplifting, because it didn’t fit the normal categories of why one usually took a road trip with all their belongings. I didn’t feel like Katharine Hepburn playing Jane Hudson in the old fifties movie Summertime, the one where the schoolteacher goes to Venice, the trip of her dreams, to fall in love with some gorgeous Italian man.
Nope. I was going to my aunt’s house on Folly Beach in an old Subaru. The truth was something had to be done with me and this was the most benign choice, couched in the excuse of taking care of Aunt Daisy.
I overate at breakfast, probably because of nerves and the fact that I had not indulged in blueberry pancakes since December, when Patti made them for all of us on Christmas morning. God, Patti was lethal in the kitchen. And there was the fact that when the meal ended, it would be time for me to go. Time to go and let go. Well, I had told myself that this was just going to be a trip and not necessarily a permanent move. I could tell myself anything I wanted to but it was plain to all of us that this trip had every possibility of becoming just that. And along with that new home address came an avalanche of other considerations, not the least of which was how would I adjust? Exactly how small would a new home have to be so that I could afford it? Two rooms and a hot plate? Well, all of that would be based on what I could earn. Doing what? This whole adventure and its background music produced a whopping case of acid reflux. Ugh. I noted that for the foreseeable future I should eat lightly. And before I got on the road, I’d stop at a CVS for some TUMS.
We hugged and hugged and Patti slipped something in my pocket.
“Wha . . . ?”
“Shhh! Later!” she whispered.
“Oh, Patti!” I was tearing up again and so was she.
“Stop!” she said. “Look, you can always come back here and live with us.”
“Oh, right! That’s not too screwed up or anything. Mark would shoot both of us after a week!”
“No, seriously! I’ll teach you how to make cupcakes. They’re all the rage now.”
“Cupcakes,” I said, thinking how ironic it would be to actually be able to support yourself making something like multitudes of cupcakes. But then, years ago, Pet Rocks, Zoo Doo,