Read Online Lowcountry Summer by Dorothea Benton Frank - Free Book Online Page B

over the billboards at the 17 cutoff. Right up there as pretty as can be she wrote, ‘Tell Trip Wimbley to go home to his family!’ And on another one about one hundred feet down the road she wrote, ‘Rusty is a f-ing whore!’ Big red letters . . .”
    I stood there holding his mug, trying to suppress some massive giggles and thinking as fast as I could.
    “Wow. And that’s it, I hope? Do you take cream?”
    “Yeah, just a little. That’s it so far. Who knows what the day will bring? Listen, Caroline, you know how I feel about you and your family, but we just can’t let this woman go running wild all over the countryside.”
    “Don’t worry!” I said. “She’s all done.”
    I told Matthew that we actually had a plan in place and that if Frances Mae went to the pokey at this point, it would throw a considerable wrench in the works. He listened carefully and then he smiled at me.
    “Caroline? It seems to me that y’all could take care of this unfortunate incident if Trip will pay for the cleanup and if y’all get her out of town in the next couple of days. I don’t like the idea of locking up Frances Mae. It’s ugly and it’s embarrassing.”
    “You darling man! Are you hungry?”
    “I’m always hungry when I’m around you.”
    “Jeez, Matthew! I meant, would you like some toast? I was going to make some for myself.”
    “That would be good, too.”
    So Matthew consumed four pieces of lightly browned toast with a mighty gusto, spread with butter and a new mixed-berry jam that Miss Sweetie was thinking we should produce.
    “I like this,” he said. “It reminds me of something my grandmother used to make.”
    “Ah, Matthew! Why can’t all men be like you?”
    The minute Matthew was out of the door I dialed Trip’s cell and told him what Frances Mae had done.
    “That’s it! That’s the final straw!”
    Five minutes later he called me back.
    “Okay, are you playing bridge this afternoon? What I mean is this: Is it okay for me to have a meeting with Frances Mae and my lawyer in the living room around four? I’ll have the papers.”
    “Of course. I’ll bake a cake.”
    “Very funny.”
    Millie arrived to find me doubled over in laughter. She closed the door behind her and said, “All right now. Tell me what’s so funny.”
    “Oh, my! Guess what my sister-in-law did now?”
    I told her and Millie’s eyes grew wide. She began to laugh with such abandon that she bent over and slapped her thighs.
    “She did what now?”
    “Oh! Can’t you see her up on a ladder with her big fat butt hanging out of some tacky little dress?”
    “Oh, Lawsamercy! This ain’t funny! This is terrible!”
    “I know!”
    And then we laughed all over again until tears spilled down our cheeks.
    “I told Trip I’d bake a cake.”
    “Shoot! I’ll make that cake. This might be your house, but this is my kitchen!”
    I knew at once that Millie was going to reach into her bag of tricks and throw a little voodoo in the pans.
    “Millie? What are you planning on?”
    “Let’s just say that my pound cake will make Frances Mae agreeable. Look, I want that woman on a plane to California today! Don’t you?”
    “I’ll say!”
    “And I had a little session with Oya last night.”
    Oya was her favorite goddess.
    “And?”
    “And I think our Eric got himself a woman.”
    “Is this a good thing?”
    “He ain’t gone marry her.”
    “Then I shouldn’t be concerned about somebody stealing my baby’s heart?”
    “Nope. Not unless you think you got some other cause for worry.”
    That satisfied me for the time being. I would simply ask Eric and I would see what he said. He’d had lots of girlfriends before and they were uniformly benign. But he was my only child and I wanted to know what kind of company he was keeping.
    “Well, thanks, Millie. I feel much better. I gotta go see Miss Sweetie for a couple of hours. I’ll be on my cell.”
    “Humph. Go do what you have to do. I’ll call you if I need