Cutting Loose in Paradise

by Mary Jane Ryals

  According to Dad, my mom’s French ancestors died for their faith. As Huguenots, their parents were tortured, imprisoned and had their throats slit for ministering to peasants, so the French Catholics killed her great-great-great etc. grandmother and grandfather. Didn’t I owe it to them to practice my faith?

  But my life came 350 years later, I rationalized. We needed a new faith, or a faith not unlike Grandma’s to remind us of nature’s power. I felt as weary as a dying civilization. I would need some of my special Ethiopian java to get me through the day, so mounded double my allotment of the ground beans.

  IT WAS IMPERATIVE that I wash Matt’s hair. I added some bergamot oil to his neck and just under my nose. It smelled the way Earl Grey tea tasted. The cut was simple: a Beatles bowl cut for a quiet, kind man who happened to have a gigantic gorilla for a pet. But he had such thick hair that fat and muffy fur grew over his ears. So I decided to do a triangle cutout. This would pull the weight from the area. I didn’t want any of my clients walking around looking goofy.

  “So how about Trina’s suicide, Girl?” Matt said. We’d grown up together, had listened to bad eighties music together. And Cindy Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” That’s when he started calling me Girl.

  “It wasn’t suicide, Matt,” I said, trimming the bottom of his hair first. He sat up and turned around slowly and looked at me.

  “Know what? Somehow, I knew that,” he said. “She wasn’t the type. But who did her in?”

  “Been trying to find out,” I said, shrugging. “Turn around, unless you want me to trim your eyelashes. I think—okay, between us, okay?” He nodded and sat back in the chair. “I think Trina knew too much about something. Or somebody wanted her money. Or someone wanted to marry her husband.” I began picking up the crown of his hair and cutting. He had perfect hair—shiny, straight but with body, dark like Italian men you see in fancy magazine ads. I ran my hand through it while cutting. “Gorgeous hair,” I reminded him.

  “Would you stop that?” he said. “It’s making me think evil thoughts.” I slapped him on the head like I would have when we were eight. “You call Fletch a husband?” he said. “Fletch hadn’t lived with Trina for years. I did yard work for her. Some mornings, I’d go work before the sun was up. Fletch always drove in around six-thirty a.m.”

  “Know anything about where he might have been?” I said. He shook his head no.

  “Know anything about ECOL, this group that seems to be buying up land out our way?” I asked. He turned around to look at me. “I can tell you what I’ve seen,” he said, shifting a little in his seat. I was onto the bangs now. He was cute, after all, gorilla or not. “Dish,” I said.

  “I was down at the lower Magnolia basin last month, near the wildlife refuge, you know? And I put my canoe in and drifted out of the park and down to where the Colberts used to live. You know how Mr. Colbert died of leukemia, and his wife died of sadness about a month later? Not one of the Coltons, the Colberts.”

  “Right,” I said. “Mr. Colbert looked just awful at the end. His lips, under his eyes—everything was kind of purple.”

  “Worst kind of cancer, cancer of the blood,” he said. “Anyway, out one of those dirt roads the government put in there? All these big dump trucks came roaring through. Out in the middle of nowhere,” he said. “Disappeared just as fast. Sort of across the river from Magnolia Gardens, you know, near that spot where you got married out on the river?”

  “Don’t remind me,” I said. “What’d these trucks look like? Did you see any names on the machinery?” I asked.

  “Looked like they’d been painted kinda camo,” he said. “Dull and splotchy green and brown and beige. Mostly dump trucks painted over.” I put the scissors down and combed through his hair.

  “Like army trucks?” I said, disbelieving.

  “Sorta,” he said. “They’re probably trying to build condos out there. Hey, the hair looks good. You’re no good at keeping a husband, but you sure can cut hair.” I slapped his head again.

  “I have dirty words to describe people who mess with the wetlands,” I said. “Swamps. And you know as well as I do, that’s all there is out there. It’s no place to build jack shit.”

  “They’re changing this place, Girl,” he said wistfully. “But you,” he said, teasing, pointing at me, “You better worry about getting your derriere off the hook first,” he said. “They find anything else out about Mac’s poisoning?” He saw my face fall. “Don’t worry, I’ll vouch for you in court.”

  “Great,” I muttered, brushing hair off his shoulders. “A guy who owns a gorilla near the swamps will verify that I’m sane and not a murderer.” He handed me two twenties. “No,” I said. I handed back one of them. “You don’t have this to give me. You’ve got a big fat monkey to feed.”

  He kissed me on the cheek like a brother. I held my breath like a sister with a stinky brother, and he left. Later I found the other twenty sitting by the cash register.

  IN WALKED MISS MURPHY, who wore her silver hair in a knot and sported a big mother-of-pearl cross around her neck. She had that old lady smell about her, of Kleenex and dust and White Shoulders perfume. She needed some honey color in her toilet-paper-white hair. But today, she wanted simply to talk about Trina and how we could possibly get a hurricane and oil pushing up to shore, according to the Weather Channel. Always in polyester black pants and a twin set, today she wore her jacket trimmed with fox fur, the type where the actual fox feet are imbedded in the fur. I guessed someday I’d understand why modern people wore dead animals’ fur.

  “I can’t believe that Trina is gone,” she said primly. She pulled off her jacket and handed it to me, then plopped into the chair by the basin. She clasped her little cloth purse in her lap. She never let me put the clutch on the desk where I worked. I washed her hair once a week, so I leaned her back in the black speckled basin and sprayed warm water over her pink scalp. Miss Murphy went on. “She was such a lady. She praised God. I just don’t believe she did that.”

  She was referring to suicide. I wrapped the towel around her hair and we went to the cutting chair. I wouldn’t cut much today, but I could sure create a better fifties look by flat pinning the hair, teasing it for a lift, using a thumbing technique for a simple elegant style.

  Miss Murphy kept talking. “Though she had had a hard time of it all those years, grieving for that baby boy she lost. Imagine, having your husband lose a child that way. How would you ever forgive him?”

  “I know what you mean, Miss Murphy,” I said. What I was thinking was What happened to your forgive-and-forget and turn-the-other-cheek stuff? Also, what did she mean by ‘lose a child that way?’ I trimmed her hair at the bottom a little as she talked.

  “Then the other boy, he ended up in Chiefland. I don’t think she ever healed from all that. The Lord will heal your heart if you let him,” she said, raising her eyebrows and pointing in the mirror before us.

  “Yes, ma’am,” I said, thinking maybe she was more superstitious than Grandma Happy. At least Grandma knew a broken heart sometimes couldn’t be mended. I bit my tongue, smoothing styling gel into her hair, flat pinning it, and thumbing for a clean look.

  “I’m glad she had that Randy Dilburn boy to sit with in church,” she said. “They seemed close. They always shared a pew on Sundays.”

  “Randy Dilburn, the lawyer Randy Dilburn?” I asked, trying not to sound too interested.

  Had Trina been robbing the cradle? She looked great for a woman of sixty, sure, but with Randy Dilburn, twenty years her junior? And why not? Older men with younger women was always on the big screen, ad nauseum.

  “Yeah. I believe they attended some church and—what do you call those nature lovers—ecologicals? Yeah, ecological conferences together, too,” she said.

  “Really?” I said.

  “Yeah. And they went on some African mission work, you probably already know.” I knew about the mission work in Africa, vaguely, but I hadn’t known it was Randy and Trina. She
went on. “One time, they were gone six weeks helping a village in Kenya, I believe it was. Helping those poor people get some clean water.” She was clutching her purse under the big cape I’d put on her. “See, water’s scarce and they were building some way to catch and keep water for everybody. Some people don’t even have clean water, did you know it?” she drawled.

  I pictured Randy and Trina in a tent in the bush, getting it on, drinking Coca Cola and . . . I stopped myself. I respected anyone who put aside six weeks of their own pursuits to try to get people clean water.

  “Randy’s got some pretty hibiscus growing out in front of his yard,” she said. “He’s got quite the green thumb.” I thought of having wanted some myself up at the nursery.

  I put Miss Murphy under the dryer and started thinking about closing up shop. The water kept haunting me. I wondered how long we’d have clean water out in the swamps or in town or at the springs with the oil spill, the runoff pollution, and whatever else. How could anyone do that without some interference from the government? Unless no one knew. Since I didn’t want Miss Murphy to get suspicious of my asking too many questions, I handed her a gossip magazine. She was such a gossip, she could run right to the wrong people about my enquiries. I walked outside to get a breath of sweet rainy air.

  AFTER WORK, I sauntered across the bridge of the cove to hang out with Madonna and Laura. Now I was looking out the window at the gray Gulf of Mexico from the Hook Wreck. I thought about the Indians I came from, probably floating back and forth across from the Yucatan to these islands. The Gulf, a water vortex. A mere fissure in the earth between the two peninsulas. Those people, thousands of years ago, made their way over cross currents, white caps, and deep water.

  “The uterine sea of our dreams haunted by the true dream,” said Madonna, dreamily. She sat across from Laura and me as we all sipped drinks.

  “Pretty esoteric for a high school dropout,” Laura teased. “Who said it?”

  “SJ Perse,” Madonna said. “I was smart enough to quit school. What’s your excuse?”

  “Boarding school,” Laura said. “I couldn’t quit. At least, I didn’t think I could.”

  “This drink is called White Cloud,” Madonna said, eyeing me, talking to Laura. Madonna held up the whitish translucent drink she’d made and poured into martini glasses. “White crème de menthe and vodka.”

  “You were right—it goes directly to your elbows and knees,” Laura said. “I hope nobody needs to drive anywhere tonight.”

  “Not me,” we each said. We watched the white caps, the uterine sea of our dreams and sipped in silence.

  “Was Jackson ever married?” I asked Laura.

  “He’s been in several committed relationships,” Laura said, “but he tends to pick Super Professional women. You know, the ones who really marry their jobs.”

  “Hmm, maybe he wants that,” I said. “It means he doesn’t have to really commit.”

  “Oh, I don’t think so,” she said. “He’s more conventional than you might think. They tend to leave him about the time he wants to get married. He just likes interesting, challenging women, I guess.”

  “Why would you introduce him to me?” I said. “I’m a homegirl hair stylist.”

  Laura and Madonna exchanged looks and rolled their eyes. “She’s hopeless,” Laura said. Madonna made us each another drink, and we toasted to finding the poisoner.

  Finally, Madonna decided to get playful. She said, “So LaRue is going to get nekked with Randy Dilburn.” We all snorted.

  “Hardly,” I said, reddening.

  “Well, he is a babe,” Laura said. “I wouldn’t mind slipping between the sheets with the likes of him.”

  “You guys are ridiculous,” I said. “I don’t even know how to do this dating thing anymore. I don’t think I ever did. Did any of you ever really go on a date? It was always more like, ‘Wanna go to the Mounds Saturday? We’ll hang out and party down!’ ”

  “It’s not about a date. It’s about how to be with a guy. It’s like a bicycle,” Laura said.

  “You never forget how. Or you never learn how, depending,” I said.

  “Or like eating a chocolate ice cream cone,” Madonna said. “Come on, Panther. Give yourself over to pleasure once in a while. Bet he’s great between the sheets. Ooo, he’s got those pretty lips, and think of that tongue on a chocolate—”

  “All right, you guys, knock it off!” I said.

  “Tell me if he’s got a fine ass, LaRue,” Laura said.

  “Laura!” I said.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Madonna said. “Randy goes to church. He and LaRue don’t do stuff like that. LaRue begat Daisy and Tay through . . . hmmm, what’s it called? Immaculate Preconception.”

  We started laughing and hooting and slamming our hands on the table when the door to the outside creaked open. Then the sound of its closing echoed through the bar, and Fletch stood at the entrance. Madonna muttered to us. “Okay, girls, here I go with my pretend-you-like-him routine. He’s a good tipper anyway.” We all got up. Madonna slid behind the bar, Laura sat next to Fletch, and I headed out the door.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE NEXT MORNING, the Saturn puttered me out past Gulf Point and onto Wakulla Key to see Randy. I’d left Daisy and Taylor with Dad. The night before, I had left Laura and Madonna with Fletch, despite the fact that my knees and elbows did, in fact, wobble.

  The grass by the school nearly vibrated green after the rain. Out on the peninsula, the Gulf effect kept the earth’s surface slightly cooler than in the main residential part of the island.

  The houses on the drive to Randy’s sat low. Due to the dunes, higher land elevation, and the way these houses were situated by the channels, they tended to fend off the brunt of hurricanes. Pines, tall cabbage palms, a few spindly oaks. The airstrip ran parallel to the road, but private planes flew in only on weekends. The yards consisted of the stuff Grandma used for medicine and fragrances, like dollar weed, sea lavender, rosemary, and aloe yucca.

  Randy lived in a small house about halfway down the peninsula. I pulled in behind his hybrid parked out by the road near his new hibiscus bushes. The boat was already launched in the canal.

  The file that I took from his car was the same file I had seen at the real estate office. I had to return the ECOL file to Randy’s car without his notice.

  I got out of the car, threw the file into his, and went to the door and knocked. I had a slight headache. “No more White Clouds for you,” I said aloud facing the door.

  “Talking to the door?” Randy said behind me. I jumped. He snickered. “I was on the side deck and heard you drive up. Coffee? Inside.” He smiled warmly, raising his cup. I nodded, worrying that he may have seen me put the file into his car, and followed him around to the deck that faced the Gulf, and then into the sliding glass doors. As flat as his house was, one story on an island, he had the million-dollar view of the water and beyond to the out islands. In the other direction, he had a huge glass window facing the strip where planes landed, mangroves beyond. And a view across the inlet back up towards the river near Magnolia Gardens.

  “Great view,” I said. “Views, that is.”

  “I see more than most,” he said grimly from the kitchen. This is one intense guy, I thought. “Sugar, cream?”

  “Don’t need any more, thanks,” I said, noticing he had only one chair in the living-dining room area. Maps of the islands were spread across the dining table almost like a heritage tablecloth.

  “Waiting for the furniture truck, are we?” I said, plopping into the one chair.

  “I like it clean,” he said. But the house felt dusty, stuffy, and bacheloresque. He brought the coffee and stood near the dining table about four feet away.

  “Thanks for your work with Tay,” I said.

  “He’s smart and seems pretty grown up,” Randy said. “I’ve enjoyed him. He appreciates the natural world. Doesn’t want to see it destroyed.”

  “You . . . uh, it’s hard raising kids,” I sa
id. “Being a single parent . . .” I drifted off. “Staying married is hard enough.” One thing a person didn’t do on a date was talk about past loves.

  He picked up his binoculars and looked out to the Gulf. His broad shoulders, the lean torso and legs. I remembered this from high school days—all our make-out sessions when we’d sneak into his dad’s church’s fellowship hall.

  “See anything interesting?” I asked from the one chair in the room.

  “Too much sometimes,” he sighed. I wondered if what they said about him was true—still in love with his wife.

  “Miss Murphy just told me you and Trina Lutz sat in church together every Sunday,” I said. He lowered his binoculars and looked at me blankly.

  “She had a lot of loss in her life,” he said, a wrinkle appearing between his eyes.

  “You traveled together,” I said, shifting in the chair.

  “We worked together,” he said. “Went to Africa—Ghana—got water for a village. The people there really appreciated just having clean water. We tried to help them find environmentally sound ways to vary their crops.”

  “You and Trina were friends or what?” I said.

  “Does it make a difference?” he said, staring again into the binoculars.

  “Guess not,” I said. “Just wondering your thoughts on the suicide-murder argument.” He didn’t say anything. The chair wasn’t very comfortable, so I wiggled out of it and slid onto the thick carpet.

  “Look,” I said, “my son was close to her. And now I’ve been accused of trying to poison Mac just after she died. My son’s very upset about it all.” He was still silent. “Do you know what she and Mac—what the relationship was?”

  “Aren’t the state detectives on this?” he said. “Aren’t you dating some cop? Shouldn’t you be asking him these questions?”

  “I went to dinner with the cop, Randy,” I said. Why should I have to defend myself? “I could go to jail. I’m just trying to get myself out of this. The local cops are totally corrupt, and the county? You know that. No, the guy I went to dinner with is helping with what he can. But he’s busy with Florida’s urban crime.”