Plantation by Dorothea Benton Frank Read Free Book Online Page A

around pewter finials—fabric from the bridal district of the garment center. If this seemed like a lot of white, it was, but I suppose I had this romantic notion of our life together starting as a blank canvas.
    Last month when the major renovations were over, I began scouring the city for houseplants and put them in Chinese reproduction ceramic planters. I took lots of photographs and framed them in red lacquer with tan linen mats. The effect was cool and tranquil. I couldn’t wait until he saw it all pulled together. He worked like a maniac at all hours of the day and night and I ran back and forth to the apartment from my office to check on this and that. This had been going on for over a year. We hardly saw each other vertical!
    I’ll never forget the day I gave him the grand tour. It was just three weeks ago. We hadn’t moved our furniture in yet. The only other furnishings were small things I had recently purchased. The carpenters had finally attached all the doorknobs and drawer pulls.
    The shower curtain was finally pressed and hung. I spritzed all the plants to make them shine and Richard rang the doorbell.
    I opened the door and there he stood with a bottle of champagne and two paper cups. As we walked from room to room, we touched the rims of our cups and, smiling, he gave me lots of kisses, saying what a resourceful girl I was, how thrilled he was with everything. We ate Chinese food from cartons on the living room floor.
    At some point during the evening we christened the apartment by making love. I remember gathering up all our containers and putting the garbage bag outside the kitchen door in the service hallway.

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    D o r o t h e a B e n t o n F r a n k We turned out the lights and waited for the elevator. He turned to me and said, “You’re amazing, Caroline. Simply amazing!”
    Can you imagine how that made me feel? He gave me such courage! Acting as my own general contractor had given me a new career. I learned so much about the practical placement of wall sockets, electrical needs, plumbing requirements, and how to get things done that I decided to become an interior decorator. I knew that Richard thought it was a pretty shallow way to make a living.
    He never came right out and said it, but I could tell by his tone of voice when he commented as I went over our renovation plans or fabric swatches with him. I didn’t care about that because I knew decorating was more fun than being the branch manager of the Bank of New York at Fifty-seventh and Third, which is what I had been doing after I finished my MBA.
    Up until yesterday, I was still dealing with the man from California Closets about the way the bedroom cabinet shelves were hung. It wasn’t until this morning when the florist arrived and decorated the mantelpiece with flowers for the ceremony tomorrow that I started to get the shakes. I had been too consumed with organizing the wedding and taking care of the final touches on our apartment to allow myself to face the fact that I was really going to be married. Married to someone not of my family’s faith, of another citizenship, with an ex-wife and a toddler son. Someone my mother would no doubt disapprove of on sight. Yep. On sight.
    Mother’s disapproval was the reason we were being married in New York and not at Tall Pines. I didn’t want to deal with it. We were just having a tiny ceremony anyway.
    Frankly, I was surprised she made the trip. I knew it was Millie who convinced her to come to our wedding just last week, by train, of course. Mother refused to fly. My brother, Trip, was going to give me away and my sister-in-law, Frances Mae, probably wanted to take inventory.
    I looked at my watch. Five-thirty. Where on earth was Richard? The phone rang. It was Trip.

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    “Hey! You nervous?” he said.
    “Hell no,” I said.
    “You lying?”
    “Hell yes!”
    We started laughing.
    “Yeah, just you wait! That man’s gonna put the old leash on you! You’re