Shem Creek Read Online Free PDF Page B

I was dreading telling my daughters. Lindsey, who was going to college in the fall, probably wouldn’t care very much but Gracie was going to explode. Well, that was just too bad for her. We’d had more than a few hair-raising experiences in New Jersey that told me Miss Gracie needed a benevolent dictator to appear in her life, blow up her nonsense and restructure her days. I was to be that benevolent dictator. Solid ground. She needed solid ground. I knew of no better place than Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, to take a wild hare like my Gracie and straighten her out. She had no choice but to move with me, and that was that.
    The front door opened and Lindsey came outside, squinting.
    “Need help?”
    “Yeah! Thanks!” Lindsey’s ponytail was halfway undone and her shorts and T-shirt were sweaty and wrinkled. “Don’t tell me you just got up?”
    “Yep. I’m just so tired, I went back to bed. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”
    “Here, take these. Salt air, kiddo. Best sleeping pill in the world. But you really shouldn’t stay in bed all day, you know.”
    “Why not?”
    Classic teenage response.
    I held the door open to let her pass and followed her into the kitchen. “Because decent people get up and do something with their time, that’s why! Unless they’re sick. You’re not sick, are you?” I dropped the bags on the counter and put my hand on her forehead.
    “Mom! Stop it! God!”
    I ignored that remark. Long ago, I had become deaf to the objections of my children.
    “You’re fine. Where’s Mimi?”
    “Out getting her nails done.”
    “Oh.” I stopped and dialed her cell phone but there was no answer. I hadn’t had a manicure in a thousand years. “Where’s Gracie?”
    “At the beach. Where else?”
    I started unpacking groceries and obsessing. Gracie at the beach. Gracie swimming in water over her head! Sharks! Riptides! Jellyfish! My daughter’s dead body, white, bloated and stone cold, crabs eating her eyes from their sockets . . . But, I was cool. “Did she say when she’d be back?”
    “Dunno. Gotta ask the guys she went with.”
    “Guys?”
    “Yeah. We met some kids at Taco Bell and she went with them.”
    “I don’t like it when she takes off like this, you know. She makes me nervous. What if they’re related to Charles Manson?”
    “Who’s Charles Manson?”
    “A psycho killer, q’est-que c’est .”
    “Mom, you are so weird sometimes.” Lindsey started fishing through the bags, not really pulling things out, just digging around.
    “Thanks, hon. Just what are you doing?”
    “Looking for a snack. How come you never buy chips? And, whoa! You bought steaks? What’s up with that?”
    I debated for a moment whether to tell her now or to wait until dinner as I had planned. I decided to tell her.
    “Okay. Guess what?”
    “What?”
    “I got a fabulous job managing a restaurant on Shem Creek for more money than I make in New Jersey!”
    “What?”
    “You heard me. We’re going back to Montclair as fast as we can, putting the house on the market and we are moving down here.”
    “Holy shit! Are you serious?”
    “Language, please. I am as serious as I have ever been. I’ve got a thousand and one things to do because I start work in ten days.”
    “Gracie is gonna flip a shit.”
    “Language!”
    “Sorry. But she will. You know that, don’t you? I mean, I know you’ve been talking about it, but this is for real now. Mom, I can’t believe you actually took a job here!”
    “Well, I did. Let’s put this stuff away and I’ll tell you all about it.”
    Lindsey followed me around the room, not helping anything except the pharmaceutical industry that manufactures my anxiety medication.
    “Momma, listen. I’m not moving here. I’m going to NYU. This isn’t about me. I mean, look. Okay. Whew! Damn! I’ll help you. I mean, I’ll go back to Jersey with you and pack up all my stuff . . .”
    “We’re all going back together. I can’t pack up a