Sweet Caroline(21)

“No-brainer. Barcelona.”

“Really?” Why can’t I have her confidence?

She turns slightly toward me. “It’s your true Tarzan vine.”

I snort-laugh. “Oh, brother, Elle, my Tarzan vine broke and dropped me face-first in the dirt.”

Elle covers her laugh with the back of her arm, popcorn pinched between her fingers. “But you believed. You climbed that live oak, grabbed a handful of Spanish moss, and with a rebel yell, leaped.”

“And hit the ground like a sack of dumb dirt.”

“I’ve been waiting twenty years for you to believe in yourself like that again.”

“Death would’ve been sweet relief that day.” I slide down in the chair, propping my foot on the row in front of me.

The Tarzan experiment was a defining moment in my life. The entire third-grade class watched me plummet twenty feet to the ground, finding it all too hilarious that I believed and preached Spanish moss to be as strong as Tarzan’s vine. When I went home to Mama for sympa-thy and Band-Aids, she said, “Good grief, Caroline, don’t you have a lick of horse sense?”

“Caroline, go to Spain,” Elle whispers.

“Even if it means the Café closes?” In the light of the movie screen, I peer into my friend’s eyes, searching for strength, for hope.

“Yes, even if it means the Café closes. Jones should’ve thought of that before he left the place to you. You’ve lived your life for everyone else far too long. It’s Caroline time. What is your destiny?”

“What about J. D.?”

She twists toward me. “C, he’s gorgeous, but he’s not Barcelona-Carlos-Longoria gorgeous. If you were a serious couple or about to be engaged, maybe you’d have to reconsider. But you’ve been on four dates. If he’s yours, he’ll be here when you get back, if you come back.”

“Did he have a crush on me in junior high?”

“The quiet, observing Caroline who sailed through puberty unscathed? Probably.”

“Unscathed? I was voted worst dressed.”

“Yeah, but to a junior high boy, that’s cool.”

“You had a mama at home.”

“Right.”

I sneak in one last question as the opening score fades for Drew Barrymore’s dialogue. “What about Mitch being home? I mean, do you think it’s some sort of sign?”

“You don’t believe in signs.”

“Exactly.”





DAILY SPECIAL


Tuesday, June 12

Stuffed Peppers (Pork or Beef)

Green Salad

Rice

Bubba’s Buttery Biscuits

Cherry Pie à la Mode

Tea, Soda, Coffee

$7.99


10

T uesday. D-Day. Didn’t sleep a wink. Last night I ended up at the city council meeting where they discussed the future of the Frogmore Café.

“The Café is part of our historical heritage,” one man argued. “It’s the council’s job to watch out for our preservation.”

After the meeting, I spent two hours in parking-lot consultations with the old-timers.

“Keep the Café, Caroline.”

“Don’t saddle the girl, Tom. She’s too young. The place is run-down. She ain’t got money to keep it up. Get rid of it.”

But my favorite line of the night came from Darcy Day: “I never eat there. The food stinks.”

At eight-oh-two this morning, the breakfast-club boys arrive. Their presence comforts my tilting emotions.

Dupree is at the ready with his opening bathroom story. “I’ve been irregular, if you know what I mean, so the wife gives me an enema. Now if that ain’t something that will—”

“Dupree, stop, stop.” Pastor Winnie slams his long hands on the table. “You’ve gone too far, friend. Enemas? No. I want to enjoy my breakfast. We’ve got to get you telling other stories. Ain’t you got more going on in your life?”

“Sadly, no.”

“Have you decided, Caroline?” Luke asks in his gentle manner.

“Not yet.” Okay, here it comes—their opinions and advice. I brace myself. But nothing. Instead, they study the table menus from which they never order.

Kirk shows up at the Café just after ten. His rumpled dark suit is replaced with white golf attire, wrinkled but clean.

“Hitting the links today?” I pour him a cup of coffee as he sets up his office in the back booth again.

“Drove down last night with a couple of buddies. Got a room at the Beaufort Inn.” He checks his watch. “We tee off at eleven.”

Andy and Mercy Bea hover around the kitchen door. The breakfast-club boys linger, nursing their fiftieth cup of coffee. Dupree has worn a new path in the old carpet to the men’s room.

“What’s your decision?”

Setting the coffeepot on the table, I slide into the booth across from him, gazing out the window to my right for a long, trembling second. “As much as I loved Jones, and appreciate what he must have been trying to do for me and the Café, I cannot accept it, Kirk.”

“All right.” He adjusts his slipping glasses with the tip of his fancy pen.

I wring my hands.