Charlotte touched her leopard-print culottes (which matched her cheetah-print shoes). Theywerefabulous.
They’d both been lonely. They went to art openings, Wine Down Wednesdays, and the Driftaway Café. They went to Marshwood Pool and Franklin Creek Pool, zipping along the golf-cart paths, past magnolia trees and winter-flowering camellias. They played golf and watched people play tennis. Minnie had a Blue Demon golf cart with a forty-eight-volt motor and leather seats. Somehow—how?—twenty years passed, and now Charlotte was officially old and Minnie was dead.
“Too much bronzer, honey,” whispered Charlotte. Her throat grew hot. She touched Minnie’s cheek. “A nice blush. Why not a nice blush, Min?” she said softly. Once, after they had split a bottle of Barefoot Chardonnay, Minnie had allowed Charlotte to give her a makeover. In Charlotte’s bathroom, Minnie offered up her face. Charlotte applied foundation, mascara, lip liner, and lipstick. She curled Minnie’s sparse lashes, dusted her with loose powder. At last, Minnie opened her eyes. Charlotte ran a brush through her best friend’s hair as Minnie took in her new and improved visage.
“Well?” said Charlotte, crossing one arm over her chest, resting her chin in her opposite hand. “Aren’t you beautiful?”
“I look like a prostitute on Saturday night,” said Minnie, turning her head side to side to survey Charlotte’s expert contouring.
“It’s Wednesday,” said Charlotte primly.
And then they both collapsed into laughter. How good it felt, thought Charlotte, to allow yourself to laugh, to let your guard down for an instant. The next day, when they met for their sunrise walk around the lagoon, Minnie’s face was as naked as a baby’s. A few years later, after her daughter sent her bronzer for her birthday, Minnie began showing up each morning in her usual visor and track pants, her cheeks carrot-colored. For evening events, Minnie went orange from her hairline to her décolleté. The more Charlotte advised her, even buying Minnie subtle, tinted sunscreens and liquid blush at T.J.Maxx, the more defiantly Minnie bronzed.
Charlotte remembered Minnie’s warm cheekbones under her fingers, Minnie’s small sigh as she enjoyed the pleasure of being touched. Now, Minnie’s skin was ice.
“Ma’am?” said the woman behind Charlotte in line. She turned, but the woman was a stranger.
—
IT WAS POURING RAINoutside St. James the Less Catholic Church. A young man offered his umbrella. Charlotte shook her head, hating to depend on anyone.
She had trouble getting her key in the lock of her VW Rabbit. The rain was relentless. When she was sitting inside her cozy condominium, she loved Savannah thunderstorms. But now, in a parking lot, she felt afraid. Everything seemed too loud. All Charlotte wanted was to drive home, pour a cold glass of Barefoot Chardonnay, and drink the cold glass of Barefoot Chardonnay. How could it be true that she couldn’t call Minnie to gossip about the funeral? Who had dressed Minnie in her least favorite floral blouse—the one with the tulips—and an unflattering, high-waisted skirt?
Minnie had two children: a ne’er-do-well son and a divorced daughter. Both lived in New Jersey, the state Minnie had fled after her husband’s death. Charlotte had received an Evite to a brunch being held at Minnie’s townhouse “directly after the burial of our beloved Mama,” but had deleted it. Charlotte couldn’t bear to see Minnie lowered into the ground and was upset on Minnie’s behalf that her children couldn’t be bothered to send actual paper invitations. Though Minnie wouldn’t have cared. But Charlotte cared! It was simply gauche to send an Evite for an après-funeral brunch. Minnie deserved better—an eggshell-white or pale pink invitation; handwritten calligraphy on heavy card stock.
Did Charlotte’s own children know to send paper invitations? Did they know she’d like a lunch held at Marshwood after her funeral? She made a mental note to tell Regan, who would remember. For a moment in the rain, Charlotte felt a wave of gratitude for her overweight, thoughtful daughter. She resolved to make more of an effort to be kind.
The battery on Charlotte’s key fob had run out months before. Sheknewshe was jamming her key in the right place! But the door remained locked. “Mrs. Perkins!” cried the young man Charlotte had walked away from moments before. “I can help!”
What Charlotte wouldn’t give to slide into her car and zoom away.
“I can help,” he called, walk-jogging across the lot, his enormous golf umbrella keeping him dry. “Mrs. Perkins,” he said, his voice overly solicitous. Charlotte knew he saw her as elderly, an elderly lady in the rain. She wanted him to know she’d been a stunning beauty once—that inside, she was still that graceful youngbohème.But strangers seeing you as someone you couldn’t bear to be was simply one of the indignities of age. You could accept it, rail against it, or just pretend it wasn’t happening. Charlotte moved between acceptance and willful ignorance, too elegant (and perhaps too worn out) to bother with nips, tucks, and the Beach Booty videos her friend Greer swore by.
“Let me help you, Mrs. Perkins,” said the man. He took her keys right out of her hand and she let him. “I offered you my umbrella,” he reminded her.
When she was inside her car, the young man lingered, saying, “I know you and Mrs. Robbins were thick as thieves. Always saw you cackling together after mass! I’m sorry for your loss. I’m really sorry.”
Charlotte felt antipathy rise inside her toward this man—his cologne-y smell, his close shave, his use of the word “cackling,” as if she and Minnie were nothing more than withered crones. His useless condolences. And worst of all, the fact that he was living and Minnie—kind, sarcastic, thrumming with mischief—was not.
“I said I sure am sorry,” repeated the man.
“Thank you,” said Charlotte. Finally, he shut the door and walk-jogged back to the church steps. Charlotte closed her eyes. Rain hammered down.
On the drive back to her condominium, Charlotte tried to focus on the road. She drove around Tidewater Square (where once Minnie had made Charlotte stop the golf cart so she could watch a scissor-tailed flycatcherforever), took a right on Brandenberry (the grass still ruddy from where Minnie had missed the curb years before), then another right on Boar’s Nest Lane. The Spanish moss hanging from her live oak trees danced bewitchingly in the wind. But it was hard to keep a very painful question at bay.
What now?
Minnie’s evening heart attack—out of the blue, no heart trouble that Charlotte had known about, and Charlottewould haveknown, as Minnie shared her ailments perhaps a teensy bit too much—made it clear that Charlotte could be next. Who knew how much time she had left? And did she even want to be here, now that Minnie was gone? And if she didn’t want to spend her remaining time here, inside a gated community on the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia, where should she go? None of her children were sending Evites to come visit.
Oh. Charlotte’s children.
To her great sadness and bewilderment, Charlotte’s three adult children were lost to her, and perhaps to themselves. Learning how to navigate the world without a husband had been painful—finding a job, trying to spruce up their badly lit rental home with Laura Ashley wallpaper, fielding questions about what had happened to Winston—but sometimes Charlotte actually missed those days. They had all been together, crammed into a tiny colonial, sharing one bathroom with a leaky shower. Although she hadn’t realized it at the time, Charlotte now understood that proximity mattered.
It seemed impossible that they had traveled from that place, where they were together every night, aware of one another’s favorite morning repasts, to the present day. Charlotte had no idea what her children ate for breakfast now, or if they even ate breakfast at all. Cord had always appreciated a bowl of apples-and-cinnamon instant oatmeal sprinkled with sugar. Regan adored donuts so much that Charlotte would set her alarm clock for 5:45A.M.so she could have time to run to Publix and deliver a fresh glazed donut to Regan, her sweet baby girl, before she headed to work at Lowcountry Realtors. (Regan in her L.L.Bean flannel nightgown, saying sleepily, “Oh, Mom! It’s still warm!” made every early rise worthwhile.) And Lee drank SlimFast milkshakes, which she made herself before school, leaving a trail of brownish powder and revolting cups half-full of sludge in her wake. Charlotte herself enjoyed a heavily buttered English muffin and three to four cups of black coffee.
Back at home, Charlotte changed out of her funereal dress and into snug white pants and a neon-pink-and-white-striped top and pink sandals. Father Thomas had once, five or so years ago, stopped by in the evening, and Charlotte wanted to be ready in case he did it again. She made dinner (Triscuits, wedge of cheddar, Chardonnay) and nibbled through a20/20about young people taking hallucinogenic drugs to find serenity, which seemed a bit much when Chardonnay was easily available, or Pinot Grigio if one preferred. She had dessert (one mint Milano, Chardonnay), then rinsed the dishes and settled in the living room to see what old movies caught her fancy. Her Siamese cat climbed into her lap.
Godiva purred and the wine lent the evening a buttery luxuriance. After her children left, every quiet evening had been painful, and Charlotte was proud that she had come to peace with being alone. But without Minnie—Minnie popping by for a drink; plans to meet Minnie for their sunrise walk around the lagoon; her phone ringing in the middle of20/20,Minnie on the other end with opinions she just “had to share”—Charlotte was back in a sad place, the hours moving slowly toward bedtime. No one cared when she went to bed. No one—besides Father Thomas—was waiting to see her in the morning. Her Triscuit dinner was pathetic.
