CHAPTER 3
Hydroplaning

A novella by Lynn Hamilton

Edwina had faithfully read all of Veronica's work and admired it in the way an emotional elephant might admire Chopin. Some of it, the more accessible poems, moved her to tears. Others were beyond her. She understood just enough to know that neither of the Petters, nor even Arlo Mayhew, could write such a thing. The use of the same word to mean four different things, the funky rhythm, a rhyme where you least expected it all led her to a locked door. Others entered though. Others had been given master keys to unlock Veronica's poetry. She remembered a reading Veronica gave at the public library. Edwina had been terrified that someone would say, "huh?" right out loud after hearing "A Cabbage Sunset," but sitting right next to her was a woman who broke out into an amazed "Hmmmh" which was seconded throughout the audience, accompanied by "Wow"s and accolades whispered like prayer. Nothing so vulgar as applause. This was better. Edwina knew.

So it was with these expectations that Edwina approached the elegantly filled pages on the kitchen table. What she found was a shopping list: Pens, velcro, nylons, chocolate chips. Edwina swallowed.She turned it over and looked at the next sheet. It read:

Dear Mrs. Jameson:

I hope this finds you thoroughly enjoying the pretensions of your gardener. Have you tried the conversation of your personal trainer?

I am sorry you found your stay here so unstimulating. We should never have discussed men and alcohol in the presence of someone who has clearly never enjoyed either.

More than sincerely,

Veronica Able

Edwina turned that one over, too. The hearty waffle she had eaten at Champs felt like it was performing an archeological dig on her stomach. The third page read:

Tangy Red Cole Slaw

Two cups grated red cabbage

Two Tablespoon cooking oil

One tablespoon vinegar

One dash vanilla extract

Four tablespoons sour cream

One half teaspoon paprika

One quarter teaspoon oregano

Mix wet ingredients with seasonings until well blended. Fold into cabbage slowly until thoroughly distributed. Serves eight as a side dish.

She grabbed her right ankle and raised her left arm straight up in the air, the palm flattened parallel with the ceiling, an emergency Zen measure she had learned from Veronica. Her hammering heart slowed fractionally.

She decided to do it.

But then she would be breaking her perfect record.

She only hesitated a moment, then, heart accelerating dangerously again, she marched back into the study and opened the drawer on Veronica's side of the writing table. Just as she thought! The last real poem Veronica had written was dated December first, the day before their vacation started.

These reams of poetic-looking spillages were all, in fact, recipes, hate notes to Erika Jameson, and lists-shopping lists, things to do lists, and wish lists. Some of the wish lists were cousins to poetry. Edwina found herself getting more engrossed in them than she ever had in Veronica's acclaimed verse. One read:

What I Would Do With a Million Dollars

Buy a porsche

Hire a Jeremy Irons look-alike to drive it for me

Medium-sized chalet in southern Spain next to an orchard of lemon trees

Full-time masseur

Lifetime supply of ball point pens

A really comfortable bra

A new pair of tweezers

Another one was more abstract:

Things I Would Like To Do Before I Die

Kiss Roger Moore

See Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights

Find that damn locket that had a tuft of my favorite dog's hair in it

Give Arlo Mayhew a piece of my mind about the "sculpture" in Champs

Tell Edwina to grow her hair out

Write a poem in the style of John Milton

Fly upside down in a stealth bomber

Nothing particularly alarming about the wish lists. Edwina was familiar with most of those fantasies, although the Jeremy Irons reference came at her from out of left field.

The hate notes to Erika Jameson were more of a worry. They fluctuated wildly along a continuum between subtle irony and absolute, naked venom. The word "bitch" was generously sprinkled as were also the words "Pseudo intellectual," "snob," and "pretension."

Margot's, Edwina thought. I must get her to Margot's before it's too late.

Margot was an Australian emigre to Tybee who had opened an Aussie restaurant, pub, and dance floor near Lazaretto Creek. Why was it that only those from far away shores prospered in business on Tybee, while native Georgians languished and traded in their food stamps, she wondered in passing.

Edwina considered a long night at Margot's, beginning at about 8:30, equal to $10,000 in psychotherapy. What's more, she could actually induce Veronica to go there where she would never, even when hell froze, get her to a shrink.

"Margot's? You don't have to ask me twice," were Veronica's exact words later that day. "It feels like we haven't had any read fun for about 27 years."

This was an overstatement. They had been to Margot's less than a month ago and had closed the place, last two out the door at 2:30 a.m. Metaphysically, they could feel the point of Margot's boot in their sagging derrieres as she hollered, "Here are your walkers, ladies, but whatcher hurry" good-naturedly at their backs.

They had a good relationship with Margot. Thank god none of them was fragile of feeling.

That night, on their way to the bar, Edwina paused to stroke the stuffed kangaroo.

"Celebrities!" called Margot. She was wiping the counter top to a gleam with a dry cloth. Heads turned briefly, but, getting a look at two middle-aged, mid-island women, quickly turned back.

The ladies mounted their favorite stools.

"The usual," said Veronica, tersely, casing the place for possible dance partners. It was the usual blend of hopeless old widowed fishermen, Rangers, and Sahara College of Art and Intellectual Methodology students slumming for an evening with the "Tybee trash."

The college kids sat at little tables, laughing and tossing their heads, ostensibly to get the hair off their faces for a moment. They wore close fitting black garments, of indeterminate fabrics, that looked like they could have been bought second hand in the sixties. The girls had thrown off the regulation blue jeans in favor of tiny little skirts that betrayed their tender knees and ankles. They eschewed stockings, with political fervor, as being the trappings of bourgeoise working women over the age of 21. The boys wore the regulation jeans or shapeless khaki pants and tried to look indifferent to the girls.

The Rangers looked, as usual, geekish and defensive, the sides of their heads shaved right up to the crown, leaving an angry strip of short turf to cover the skull top. They looked as if they were in pursuit of women who only liked men with abundant hair, spilling down over the ears and into the neckline. These ones sat at the bar all in a row. There were six of them. They never appeared anywhere in groups of fewer than four.

Up until Veronica turned 45, every Ranger who saw her was set instantly aflame with desire, and many still were. She had had ample opportunity to make biting cynical observations about Rangers as a species, and her assessment was that their haircuts were an exercise in humiliation deliberately enacted upon them by the United States military. "Those haircuts make them so angry, they want to kill people- handy, if you have a coup d'etat going. And they look schizophrenic-even the ones who cling to sanity-so they scare the enemy."

Margot set before the writers two glasses full of ice, translucent bubbling liquid, and lime wedges, saying, "V-tonics. Pay up, ladies."

They scrambled through purses and bill folds, complaining in harmony.

"I don't know why you can't start us a tab, Margot," said Veronica.

"Really, this is such petty economy," chimed Edwina.

Margot, unflapped, pointed at a sign that read:

If I don't have your credit card IN my pocket, you have to pay per drink.

This means you, Edwina and Veronica.

Having scavenged exact change, each of them took a hearty sip and lowered her eyelids, as if to signal the intensity of the alcoholic content.

As a matter of fact, there was no alcohol in the V-tonic, devised by Margot in collaboration with the writers one night when the bar was otherwise empty. The drink consisted of tonic, ginger ale, club soda, and lime cordial. The point was to grab so many different bottles while making it that no one would suspect.

Edwina and Veronica had both had to give up drinking at different points in their lives for different reasons.

Edwina had forfeited while still in grad school up north. She had developed the habit of writing all her term papers in the neighborhood pub. Her daily schedule had looked something like this:

8 a.m. Get up. Spit.

9-11 a.m. Classes

11-12 Nap

12-2:30 p.m. Three bloody marys, pretzel and one stalk of celery at Justin's Campus Side Bar and Grill. This was the time of day when she got all her scientific brainstorms, the ones her profs raved about as being so "flexible" and "human-centered." This was also when she met Dennis who had asked her to marry him on the second date and proceeded, from there, to scare himself right out of a commitment. It had been a brief, but unregrettable love affair.

3-6 p.m. Library and field research

6-?? More drinks and this time, serious waiting at Justin's. No more sky- diving for ideas. She arrived for her evening session with blood in the eye (literally, alas), books, pads, and pens. This was where she wrote a first draft of the now-famous Shifting Lines of Life: A Study of Georgia's Shores and the People Who Live on Them. This was also where she met Nick and Sand, a pleasant heterosexual couple whose only peculiarity was in paying far too much attention to a lone woman sitting at a bar and obviously engaged in writing. At least, it seemed inexplicable at the time. Later, of course, and for the rest of her life, she slapped her forehead. "Naive" is usually the word in the air at these times. Nick and Sandy wanted to give her a ride home in their rented cadillac. (Yes, black.) After Nick and Sandy had bought her fourth drink (or was it Nico and Sandra), she wasn't sure what she thought. Escape still looked like a good idea during the fifth drink. Then they were such good customers that the waitress bought them a round. Edwina thinks, with horror, that she made a pass at the waitress at this point.

After that, just to see what standing up was like, she had said, "Next round's on me. I'll go find that waitress." She pushed off from the table with her hand. Somehow, she bridged the gap between bar and bathroom where the black and white swimming floor tiles spoke to her. "Turn back or you will end in white slavery or, worse, with a taste for the kind of sex you have to advertise for in The Atlanta Constitution." At this point, she took the route of so many cornered women. She crawled out the bathroom window. Yes, there was a window still in this one. She had to break it, true, but she did escape.

She didn't think it wise to return to Justin's for a while after that. In fact, it might be a good idea to wait fifty years or so.

Pity, because she had left behind ten pages of what could now be the pivotal chapter in her book on dolphins.

Veronica's story was altogether different. Only five years ago, Veronica had begun, while under the influence of alcohol, to believe that she was Sybil Shepherd.

So they drank a concoction of mixers and soft drinks and became steadily more languid and uninhibited.

Edwina saw Margot making a sweep of the territory for empty beer cans and asked, "What do you do with those beer cans, Margot?"

"I take them to the recycling station, Edwina," said Margot, her voice roughs , with smoking. "Along with the glass bottles, in case that was your next question. Bruce told me about the lobbying you did in Champs. It's all over the island."

That was just this morning!"

"This is a small island. And you were terrifying, you know, hauling all that trash in to eat with you."

Veronica smirked. From a nearby table, they heard a college coed say ". . . eccentric writers."

Chapter 4