Folly Beach - Dorothea Benton Frank [34]
“You mean please?”
“Yeah, that’s the one. Works like a charm. Usually.”
“Okay,” he said and practically ran through the swinging door to the kitchen, oblivious to the possibility that someone on the other side may have been charging through to the dining room with a tray of something fragile or a tureen of boiling grits at the exact same moment.
God protects children and fools went the saying, or something like it, because just as I was finishing up my breakfast, having amused myself over the local Police Blotter Report in the paper, Junior reemerged with the chef and a platter piled high with steaming pancakes, dripping with butter and maple syrup and sausage patties glistening with grease. Junior carried a large glass of chocolate milk and I thought, oh boy, somebody’s stomach is gonna be begging for mercy before they get to the Lincoln Memorial. In that moment, I was not nostalgic for the days of mothering young children. Not in the least.
“Have a great day!” I said and smiled at the little redheaded, freckled sack of hell.
The rest of the day should be easy, I thought. Straight down I-95, bang into I-26, whip over to Highway 17, and then get on Folly Road. I’d be at Aunt Daisy’s by eight, still in time for supper and to begin the next leg of my odyssey.
Around one o’clock I stopped at a Cracker Barrel for lunch and to fill up the car with gas. I looked around the gift shop to see if there was something I could bring my sweet aunt, well, maybe feisty is the better descriptor, something she’d really want. Naturally, there were lots of things from which to choose: cast-iron cookware; a wall clock that looked like Felix the Cat with eyes that darted left on tick and right on tock; ceramic cookie jars; aprons, towels, and oven mitts that matched; coffee; packaged mixes for cakes and breads; relishes; music; and every kind of old-fashioned candy under the sun. She would probably not want any of it, because like most people over the age of whatever-the-age-is-when-you-get-peculiar, she was very, very particular. I’d buy her something when I got to Charleston, maybe an armload of flowers and a dozen Krispy Kreme doughnuts that I knew she loved. Ah, Krispy Kreme. Every girl should have a guilty pleasure, no matter her age.
It was around seven-thirty when I rolled into the parking lot of the Piggly Wiggly on Folly Road. My intention was to zoom in, scoop up several bunches of flowers and a box of glazed sin, and zoom out, but as you might imagine, that never happens. I hadn’t been to the Piggly Wiggly in years, and Ruth’s Pimento Cheese Spread, the Pig’s own brand of breakfast sausage, a jar of pickled okra, and White Lilly Flour seemed to jump in my basket as soon as they caught my eye. I bought a can of boiled peanuts (sacrilege, but it was February and raw ones didn’t come around until summer), a bag of barbecued pork rinds, a box of MoonPies, and a six-pack of Cheerwine. All I needed was a loaf of Little Miss Sunbeam white bread and I was set for the duration. And cereal, instant coffee, and skim milk. Addison loathed instant coffee. It occurred to me while I went through the checkout line that the flowers I had chosen were pretty pitiful and that I, The Widow who was no longer accountable to anyone, was no better at making healthy choices than the kid at breakfast in Virginia, but then I wasn’t going to eat all this mess at the same time. I would allow myself to indulge in it all bit by bit. It was a good thing my pants had five percent spandex woven in the fabric.
It was very chilly outside, probably somewhere in the forties, but cold and damp enough for gloves. So I pushed the two bags and the flowers into the back of the car, hopped in, cranked it up, stepped on the gas, and bam! I hit something. Hard. I looked behind me again and there was a huge SUV awfully close, in fact, right on the right side of my back bumper. Shit. A wreck. Great. That’s just great, I thought, just what the doctor ordered. I pulled back into my parking space and put the car in park. I really