Lindsey Brackett
We’re getting ready to take our annual fall sisters and cousins and matriarchs trip to the beach. This means my text messages go off constantly and I’m wondering if the leftover pork chops in the fridge will still be there when I return.
We’re trying to decide who’s bringing the really important items to our rented beach house. You know, the coffee and filters, the wine, the toilet paper. Only the essentials.
Oh, and Mama made pimento cheese and told me to get some homemade bread from the Country Bake Shop if I was sure I didn’t have time to make my own. We’re definitely ready.
Usually, we caravan ourselves down Interstate 95 through the heart of South Carolina and land at Edisto, which if we had a home-away-from-home this would be it. Even if most of my younger sisters can’t remember the days when my mother and her sister packed up all the gear into minivans and our families spent a week together in a beach house rented on a budget. My father asks about the rental houses more than he asks about our welfare. Have we frozen out the AC unit yet? Is the septic tank backing up? How many times have we called the rental company because something is missing/broken/rotting? He still can’t believe that for the past few years we’ve done really well with our rental.
It’s still BYOTP but the septic works nicely, thank you very much.
Our preferred October Edisto rental sits about halfway down the beach, on a side street. It’s got a wide front porch, plenty of bedrooms, but like any home challenged with hosting ten or more women could probably use another bathroom.
Most importantly, it’s across the street from John and Marley. We made friends with John the first fall we stayed in the house.
Our mothers left us to three days of our own devices while they handled a family emergency in Charleston, so my sisters and cousins and I had to make our own decisions.
And we decided that befriending the man across the street with the pet parrot was definitely the way to go.
Oh, and we also ate nothing but charcuterie and spent an entire day sitting on the porch only to realize we were at the beach and hadn’t actually gone to the beach.
This year we’ll be missing John and Marley though I’ve been assured there’s time for porch sitting, or poolside sitting rather.
This year we got all splurge-y because our last sister with plans for a big wedding is having a big wedding.
Apparently this necessitates a more luxurious weekend. Edisto was deemed too rustic for bachelorette endeavors.
So this year we’ll be dressing alike and dining in downtown Charleston, taking more pictures in our swimsuits than I’m comfortable with, and living in luxury on the Isle of Palms.
But I’m pretty sure when it’s all over, we’ll be looking ahead to next year and our simple getaway.
Hopefully the septic will last another year.
Lindsey P. Brackett is a community columnist who writes books and makes pizza. Find her novel, “The Bridge Between,” anywhere books are sold. Get a free novella at lindseypbrackett. com.