Isle of Palms (33 page)

Great. Just great.

After that, I knew I wasn’t falling asleep in a hurry. Never lie. It’s wrong. I waited until her breathing was even, rising and falling at predictable intervals. There was nothing so sweet in all the world than to have my girl next to me. My heart felt such relief that she was just . . . there.

I had never wanted to hurt Emily by not telling her the truth. I never wanted to hurt anyone. I wasn’t a malicious person. There had just never been the right moment to tell her or a reason to tell her. I should have figured that the day would come when she would ask. I don’t know why I thought we would get away forever with having the world accept that we were a regulation divorced couple. It was how I thought of us. But there was a difference. Jim had always been pretty open about his life.

I would discuss it with Jim in the morning. At some moment, and with certain delicacy, Jim and I would probably wind up telling her. I thought about adoptive parents for a while. My generation usually told their children they were adopted and at some stage the children were allowed and sometimes even encouraged to find their birth parents. But where was the textbook for this case?

I decided to say my prayers. Prayer always put my mind at ease. Maybe I didn’t go to church every Sunday, but a night never passed that I didn’t pray sincerely. I decided to ask the Blessed Mother what she would do if she had to tell her only child that her birth was the result of a rape. Wasn’t Emily’s life at a pretty precarious stage? She had come home so angry, ready to fight with anyone over anything. She had taken on her grandmother in a humiliating argument and lost not only her composure but her financial aid. I could tell by her remarks about Lucy’s nephew how insecure she was about the opposite sex.

What really mattered was that I had my girl home, curled up next to me sleeping without a care in the world. She knew she was safe. I knew then what I would do. Sometimes the facts were too devastating. I would protect her from the dangers of truth for as long as I could.

Miss Mavis and Miss Angel Confer

I HAD been watching that house all day and there was enough funny business next door to alert the authorities. I was sure of it. All day long, cars coming and going and doors slamming and people yelling and carrying on.

“Oh!” I said and closed the curtains. “She almost saw me! That was too close for me! Angel? Are you there?”

Anna was going with that child of hers over to you-know-who’s house again.

“No, Mavis, I was juss fixin’ to go to Charleston and find us some men.”

“What? I didn’t make out what you said. Come out here!” She was always hollering at me like I don’t know what, knowing perfectly well how impolite it was to yell from behind a closed door.

And, there she came, like the Queen, strutting across my floor.

“I’m righ’ chea, Mavis. What’s got your motor going now?”

“My motor’s not going anyplace! You look down there and tell me what you see.”

She stood to the right side of the curtains and slowly, slowly pulled them back a little, staring at me the whole time like we were in a contest to see who would blink their eyes first. Then she moved across the curtains and peered down and then across Anna’s to that little hussy’s house. She was trying my patience, I can tell you.

“I don’t see nothing, Mavis. Nothing ’cept a bunch of folks up in that crow’s nest of Lucy’s.”

“It’s a widow’s walk and you know it.”

“I reckon they likes to watch the sun go down for the day. Something wrong with that?”

Well, there wasn’t anything wrong with watching the blooming sun set and I knew that.

“For heaven’s sake, Angel, you’re probably right. After all, Lucy’s been hanging off the side of that porch ever since that no-good bubba she married took off. Just mooning and mooning! But you’re right, I am too judgmental and maybe a little nosy. Even Mary Magdalene needed friends, didn’t she?”

“Ooh! You bad, Mavis!”

Suddenly, I was wishing I could go up there too. But I was too delicate to climb all those steps and I knew it. After a certain age, there are a few pleasures you have to forego for the sake of your own personal safety. That annoyed me too.

“Well! My mother always said, tell me who your company is and I’ll tell you who you are. I just don’t like to think about Anna ruining her reputation by going around with that, that . . .”

“Oh, go on, Mavis. Ain’t nobody looking at who she going with ’cept us! And, she’s all grown! Come on now! What’s the matter?”

“Oh, Angel! I don’t know. You remember last Sunday and how we talked to her about her mother?”

“I do. I remember the look on her face too. She didn’t want to hear that her momma might be a good woman. Not no how! Makes a body wonder what kinda nonsense they been feeding that child all she life, ’eah?”

“That’s
exactly
what I mean! The dead can’t defend themselves and just because her mother was caught with the wrong rooster doesn’t mean she was
all
bad.”

“You’re right, Mavis! You are entirely right!”

“Don’t point your finger at me, Angel. It’s not nice to point.”

“Humph. I—”

She opened her mouth to speak but I cut her off, as it was my prerogative to speak when it suited me. It was my house and Angel was my employee. I sat in my recliner and motioned to her to sit on the sofa, which she did.

“I remember! Yes, I do! I remember Mary Beth and how she was. She was a sweet girl married to an old man. Percy and I tried to befriend her, didn’t we?”

“Yes, Mavis, y’all sure did do that. And I can tell you something I ain’t never told no one.”

“What?”

She sucked her teeth and said,
“I said that I can—”

“I heard you fine, Angel! I wasn’t asking you to repeat yourself! I was asking you what you knew!”

“Oh, sorry. Lawsamercy! One time my nephew was hanging around here wanting money from me. Had the car park in the yard, waiting. He couldn’t make his car payment. And I was busy telling her about it and I clean forgot he was in the backyard. She left and when I finally got outside with my pocketbook, he say to me that he don’t need a hundred dollar. Miss Mary Beth done give him fifty, so I only needs to loan him fifty.”

“He borrowed money from my neighbor! The nerve! But, Mary Beth didn’t have fifty dollars to give him! Where did she get it?”

“Shows what
you
know! She tell me later that she been cleaning out Doc’s pockets and between the sofa cushions for years—and snitching from his wallet a little bit ’eah and there—and she had over three hundred dollars all saved up. I say she ain’t supposed to give my nephew money ’cause none of us got it to give and she say to me that she ain’t got no nephews and he just got married and she feel for him.”

“My goodness! Yes, sir! That’s how she was, alright. She wanted to go to school, you know, and Doc wouldn’t hear of it.”

“Yeah, ’cause he be afraid he gone lose her too, ’eah? She might find a young man and leave him!”

“Oh, Angel! I don’t think so, but maybe! Maybe so. Who knows how men think? You know what she wanted to do? She wanted to be a practical nurse and take care of old people in the nursing homes. That doesn’t sound like a cat on the prowl to me. Anyway, she was volunteering over at the rest home in Charleston, reading newspapers to old poops like us, and that’s how she met that pharmacist in the first place.”

“He was bad too, ’eah?”

“Oh, Angel. Can’t you see how it could have happened? He was young like her and he probably made her feel alive and beautiful. I know what she did was wrong and, to tell you the truth, if she hadn’t died, I don’t see how she could have stayed married to
Dr. Douglas Lutz
forever anyway. It’s just like that movie
Breakfast at Tiffany’s
, except that Audrey Hepburn never got in the bed with a pharmacist and did drugs, of course. Anyway, it was a tragic loss of a beautiful young woman, and that poor Anna. I could just cry for her.”

“Humph. Save your tears, Mavis. I think Miss Anna’s gonna be just fine. People gots to work out their lives they own selves! She’s got she girl home now and all kinda company coming and going. We might not be too fond of Lucy but Anna’s old enough to pick her own friends.”

“I know. I know.”

“And if she wants to know about she momma? She gone ask. I say we be better off just being good neighbors and keeping our own business.”

Angel was right. She started plumping all my little pillows and rearranging them on my sofa. They all had clever sayings on them that made me laugh. The good Lord knows, my life was pretty boring if I had to resort to pillows to amuse myself. One read I NEVER REPEAT GOSSIP, SO LISTEN VERY CAREFULLY. Another read IF YOU WANT THE BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE, YOU’LL HAVE TO MOVE THE CAT. I just loved them all.

SKewered

YOU’RE going to think this is a bunch of bull, but it isn’t. When I went outside in the morning to turn on my drip hoses, almost overnight my flowers had gone from tiny sprigs to lush and overflowing beds. I nearly fainted. For a minute I thought it was a joke, that someone had sneaked into my yard in the middle of the night and replanted everything. I even checked the dirt and the mulch. It had not been disturbed.

I walked around the side of the house to look at the climbing rose that Miss Mavis had given me. While it wasn’t covering the side of the house, it had grown to a full bushy vine and was crawling up the water meter pipes. What in the world? In the backyard, the honeysuckle had taken off overnight as well. Everything I had planted was growing like weeds! I started to laugh. I didn’t have a clue how or why this had happened. It was another one of those mysterious gifts from the Lowcountry’s Great Beyond. I wondered if anyone else would notice. Maybe they had grown more than I thought and I was imagining things. Possible. I turned on the faucet and decided to go out and get the Sunday paper and some bacon and eggs. I would shop for dinner later.

It was only seven-thirty and Emily and Jim were still sleeping. I backed my car out of the driveway as quietly as I could and headed toward the Red & White. I was thinking about how nice it was to be together and about my salon.

The plan for that day was to have breakfast and check the salon again. With gargantuan effort, everything in the salon had been made ready. I planned to show it to Emily after breakfast. We would all—including Lucy—put the finishing touches on it and then cook something on the grill around five when Arthur arrived. It was hard to believe that we had done so much in such a short time. But that was the power of determination and a little luck thrown in. We had a pretty full schedule for Monday. I called Bettina and Brigitte and they would come in early to call customers when they weren’t busy with the bookings they already had. True to their word, they had many appointments already on the books. So did I.

Before pulling into the parking lot of the Red & White, I swung into our parking lot to look through the windows. I’d admit that I held my breath getting out of my car and locked it for no reason. The parking lot was completely empty. I looked around at who our neighbors were and liked the way their offices and stores looked—neat as a pin. Our sign had been hung yesterday: THE PALMS SALON AND SPA. I looked through the windows and thought,
It looks beautiful.
The chairs were all lined up and waiting. Everything looked fresh and new. All the products were neatly arranged on the shelves. Miss Angel had given us some baskets on consignment and she and Lucy had hung them on the empty walls. They looked so rich and important. The reception area’s nightlight made the entrance seem warm and inviting. Maybe it was corny, but I was so filled up with emotion when I stood and looked at it. I said the name out loud.

“The Palms Salon and Spa!” I was so proud!

To be honest, we were using the term
spa
loosely here. The only services we had resembling spa treatments were warm wax treatments for hands and feet, and standard waxing for legs, bikini line, and lips. But I had plans. If that little card shop next door ever moved, I would hire a team of aestheticians and rid the world of bad skin! Okay, maybe not the world, but the folks who vacationed here fried themselves on a regular basis. There were wonderful things you could do for sunburn—like aloe wraps. Not to mention massages, body wraps—but first things first. It was time for breakfast.

 
 
THE smell of bacon frying brought Jim and Emily to the kitchen.

“Hey, Momma. Whatcha cooking?” She put her arms around the back of my shoulders and gave me a squeeze. “Got any coffee?”

“Pot’s over there,” I said. “Pour some for your daddy too.”

Suddenly last night’s closing conversation about the nature of her birth came back to me. Thankfully, she didn’t bring it up right then. Like most of us, she needed a cup of coffee before trauma, just to clear the cobwebs. Maybe she would forget. I doubted it.

“You get the paper?” Jim strolled into my kitchen in his boxer shorts and T-shirt. He snatched a piece of bacon from the paper towel and I slapped his hand.

“Bad dog,” I said. “The newspaper’s on the table.”

“Ssgood!”

I loved breakfast—and I don’t mean that I liked any old kind of healthy fiber and fresh fruit or freaking smoothies. That ain’t breakfast. That’s a medicinal therapy for personal plumbing. I mean we’re talking bacon (not low sodium), sausage, grits, eggs scrambled in butter, biscuits dripping with butter (okay, I used the White Lily premix packages; so what?), and and a lot of rich coffee. We all know I didn’t cook in the mornings, because why cook when you’re alone? Too depressing. But a house full of life needed a full breakfast and that was what I served.

“Come on, y’all! Grits are getting cold!”

We gathered at the table and after the first bites, the conversation began in full force.

“So, what’s the plan for today?” Jim said. “Pass the jam, please.”