Then, there it was, the same pinkish-white, shingled, dignified structure recessed off the road that Ella had known in the old days and that stood almost in noble defiance of progress and trendy vulgarity. Both the inn and its spacious parking lot were virtually camouflaged by old palmettos and tall, thick borders of well-trimmed myrtle hedges that guaranteed an optimum of privacy for the privileged guests, and when she looked up from the car, Ella noticed that every window was now graced by a neat blue awning with a small white P in the center of each. On the front was a long, white, bannistered porch with rocking chairs overlooking a wooden terrace and plush lawn between the inn and the ocean, and, as all the locals knew, the formal dining room inside still served what was without question the finest Lowcountry cuisine on the entire beach.

Pulling through the front gate to the main entrance of the inn, they were greeted immediately by an older, uniformed attendant, who opened Ella’s door, directed them to the reception area, and said he would park the car and handle the luggage and fishing rods. Inside the quiet, wood-paneled hall furnished with deep cane armchairs, a handsome bookcase, and tasteful seascapes on the walls, it was as if time had stood still, and when the familiar, salty aroma of fresh sea air swept through the front porch doors into the vestibule, Ella had the strange, comforting impression that she’d been here only yesterday.

“Young man, when you’ve finished checking us in,” she addressed the attractive clerk behind the desk, fishing in her pocketbook for a credit card while he glanced furtively at Goldie, “I’d like to have an important word with you.

“Yes, Mrs. Dubose, by all means,” he acknowledged cordially in a thick Lowcountry accent, taking the card, running it through a machine for an imprint, and indicating where she should sign the registration form. Ella thought about commenting on the vulgarity of credit cards, but she’d learned that she was just wasting her breath ridiculing this modern phenomenon.

“Do you know what incognito means?” she almost whispered, leaning up and touching the sleeve of his blue blazer.

The lad looked perplexed. “No, Ma’am, I can’t say I do.”

“You don’t? Well, I’ll tell you. It means somebody who prefers not to be recognized, who’s in disguise, and that’s the way I’m traveling on this trip --- incognito.”

“Oh,” he uttered, still baffled by what the elegant lady was trying to put across.

“You see, I and my family were coming to the Priscilla years ago --- before you were even born.” She stopped to laugh softly to herself. “And I’m now returning with my companion here mainly to rest and relax and not be disturbed --- total privacy.”

The clerk, his blue eyes wide open, remained quiet a moment, then said, “Oh, yes Ma’am, we try to respect the privacy of all our guests.”

Ella frowned slightly, her hand still on his arm. “I don’t think you fully understand, young man, so let to try to put it another way. As far as this inn is concerned, I don’t exist, I never checked in here, and if there should be any phone calls for me, you’ve never heard my name. I have my own very personal reasons, and, take my word, there’s nothing shady going on, but can you assure me that this request will be honored, and your telephone operator notified, and...?”

“Don’t forget about Mr. Tyler,” Goldie interrupted quietly, nudging her arm.

“Oh yes, my son from New York City, Mr. Tyler Dubose, will be joining us on the weekend for a few days --- I believe you have his reservation --- and he also will be staying here incognito.”

By now, the poor clerk, who was trying to be sophisticated in accordance with his training, was so confused that all he could do was excuse himself, tap on an office door just off the reception area, and speak momentarily with a much older gentleman dressed in a beige linen suit.

“Good day, Mrs. Dubose,” the man greeted, approaching the desk and eyeing the dark-skinned woman with the beads and bracelets before turning his full attention to Ella. “I’m Albert Glover, the general manager, and I understand that you’ll not be accepting any incoming calls during your stay with us.”

“That’s correct, Mr. Glover. In fact, I’d like our registration --- and my son’s this weekend --- to remain anonymous, if that’s no problem. I have my reasons.”

For an instant, the manager wondered to himself if perhaps the perfectly respectable looking lady might be either a celebrity or kook, but then he quickly determined that she was no more than a well-off, harmless eccentric with a peculiar companion who, for whatever reasons, simply wanted to be left totally alone.

“No problem, Mrs. Dubose,” he assured in a friendly manner. “As you might know, we’re still a very old-fashioned, traditional place, and go out of our way to accommodate all our guests’ every wish, so our lips are sealed if that’s what you ask. And please let us know if there’s anything at all we can do to make your stay more pleasant.”

Once Ella had thanked him, the two women were shown to their adjoining rooms on the third floor, Ella’s on a corner with sweeping views of the sea and coastline, and Goldie’s much smaller connecting one on the side. The first thing Ella did was cut off the air conditioning and open all the windows, and after hanging up a couple of dresses and leaving the rest of the unpacking to Goldie, she looked down at the blue and white cabanas that were similar to those where she used to sit sewing and watching Big Earl and the children romp in the waves. She now felt tired and a little groggy, and as she gazed out over the ocean with thousands of small whitecaps reflecting the hypnotic afternoon sun, what came to mind first was the day so long ago when she and Jonathan frolicked up the beach in front of the Ocean Forest, and he held her tight around the waist, and she was so in love. Then she remembered worrying, years later, about Tyler one morning strolling all alone up the beach while his father pitched baseball with Little Earl, and how she caught up with him and they searched together for beautiful shells. And next surfaced the vision of pier fishing with Earl, and pulling in a large blue, and standing back in horror as he ripped the hook from the struggling fish’s mouth while Little Earl and Liv cheered him on. One by one, the disparate memories emerged and clashed, and if, sitting there in a partial trance with the warm, familiar breeze blowing across her venerable body, Ella sensed a remote happiness being back in her beloved Lowcountry where important chapters of her long, rather ordinary life had unfolded, she was not so distracted by the promise of pleasure and relaxation to forget the primary reason for this deviant trip. Nor could she disregard some of the irritating family circumstances back home that threatened to darken her entire mood.

“We’re concerned, Mama, and not just about your physical health,” had been Olivia’s exact words that day at Bull’s Barbecue.

“When somebody gets to your age, there’re changes in the system that can effect everything we do from making important decisions to... driving a car,” had been Little Earl’s added two bits.

Not that Ella had really wanted to go to lunch with her son and daughter on that hectic Saturday. It had been a trying week, so much so that if one single thing else went wrong she thought she might reach for the gun in her pocketbook and blow her own brains out. First, she was still recovering from a nasty touch of the colic, most likely brought on by a strange shrimp dish she’d ordered at Phoenix Garden when her old friend Lilybelle Armstrong invited her out to celebrate Ella’s 74th birthday. Because of a terrible, really inexcusable mix-up, the man due to clean the crystal chandelier in the dining room had yet to show up. Nor had young Billy next door come over on Wednesday after school, as promised, to help Miss Ella move one of the two heavy artificial Christmas trees on wheels from behind a large Indonesian screen in the sun room to a corner of the library.

All week long, her soaps on TV had been preempted hour after hour by the news of some factory or house or bus that had been blown up over in Israel. And as if that annoyance were not enough, Ella now had good reason to worry that the garbage man might start asking questions about the potted marijuana plant growing taller each day in a remote sunny area of the spacious porch that wrapped it round two sides of the house. She had almost burned the bottoms of jelly cookies intended to be served at her charity league luncheon, then Lucy, sick as a dog with a migraine, had called to change the regular hair and manicure appointment at the beauty parlor. And what should arrive in the mail from up north but a copy of Tyler’s new memoirs revealing not only certain aspects of his unusual life that should have been kept private, but also a few embarrassing details about the family that were not at all necessary.

All of which meant that Ella Dubose was not exactly in the best frame of mind when Little Earl called out of the blue to announce that he and Olivia would like to drop by the house on Saturday and take their mother out to Bull’s Barbecue for lunch. Ella immediately suspected something shady since it just wasn’t normal for her younger son and daughter to pay a visit together, much less pick a Saturday to eat barbecue when everybody in Charlotte knew how horrendous Saturday crowds could be at any restaurant. Maybe if Earl had said that he and Betty Jane, his wife., were simply planning to drive over to visit, Ella wouldn’t have been so leery, but no, it just wasn’t normal for the two of’ them to be coming together and wasting a good Saturday that could be and usually was spent with their own children or some friends.

“Son,” Ella began to beg off, “that’s awfully sweet of you both, but to tell you the honest truth, it really doesn’t suit this weekend. I’ve had a pretty bad week, and besides, much as I love it, I’m not one bit sure I should be eating barbecue after this little intestinal spell I’ve had.”

“Oh, Mama, you know as well as I do that half of that’s in your head,” he had challenged in his nonchalant way when trying to sway his mother. “What you need is to get out of that big house and forget about your problems for a while. If you don’t feel up to barbecue, you can always have a good bowl of Brunswick stew, and a few hushpuppies, and plenty of ice’ tea, You know how much you love the Brunswick stew out at Bull’s, and it might do your tummy lots of good. And Liv’s dying for a barbecue plate.”

Ella stood her ground. “Earl, honey, please don’t try to humor me, for heaven’s sake. As I said, this has not been a very good week, and I’m aware when my nerves are on end, and I certainly know what I should and should not eat after I’ve had a little set --- back. I also know that I have no intention, no intention whatsoever, of waiting over there for a table on a busy Saturday.”

Earl could be as persistent and stubborn as his mother, not only at his company but when dealing with any of his ken. “Now, Mama, I think you’ve forgotten, I think it’s completely escaped your mind that I’ve known Bull Godwin ever since we started coaching Little League together, and that Bull will have me a table ready anytime faster than you can shake a stick. All it takes is a quick phone call, so you can’t use that as an excuse.”

“Son, I’m not going to argue with you till I’m blue in the face. Some of the girls from the church are coming over this afternoon to strip palms and make crosses for Sunday, so I don’t have time to argue. Goldie’s here now helping me fix tea sandwiches and roll nutty fingers, and we still have to straighten up the sun room. If you and Liv want to drop by just for a visit, fine, but I’m not making any promises about going to Bull’s. Just depends on my condition.”

Ella had every right to wonder about her son and daughter coming over together to take her out to lunch on Saturday. Not that she’d ever had any reason to distrust her own flesh and blood. It was simply because she couldn’t remember the last time just the three of them had gone out together to eat barbecue or anything else, and her maternal instincts told her that something odd was up --- something peculiar that she could detect merely from the tone of Earl’s voice on the phone. Of course, had she been a fly on the wall at his and Betty Jane’s home the previous weekend while the two of them and Olivia sat around the kitchen table drinking cola or coffee and nibbling on snacks, she’d have known in an instant why any wariness was justified.

top of the page