“Gotcha. And, thanks.”
Cecily gave her a little wave on her way down the stairs and seconds later she was gone.
“Okay, Lola,” Beth said thirty minutes later as she secured her in the crate, “Momma’s going to town and I’ll be back soon.”
Her cell phone rang and her hopes spiked as she hoped it might be Max. When she checked the caller ID, she saw it was her Aunt Maggie and she sighed in disappointment. Tempted as she was to let it go to voice mail, she answered it in as upbeat a manner as she could muster.
“Hi! How’s my Surfer Barbie aunt? Are y’all having fun?”
“Hi, honey! How’s everything?”
“Good, good. I’m on my way to Charleston to get my hair color recalibrated? You know? Maybe to a color found in nature?”
“Goodness! That’s wonderful! Well, I’m sure you’ll be mighty glad you did that. After all—”
“And, I’m getting contact lenses. Hope Mom doesn’t flip a shit when she sees the bill.”
“What’s that, honey? It sounded like you used a bad word for poopy.”
“What?” Then Beth remembered who she was talking to. “Sorry. Potty mouth. Um, do you think Mom will mind?”
“Beth? You listen to me. There’s nothing more important to a man than how you look. You remember that, okay?”
“Okay,” Beth said, and gagged a little.
“And, I was always of the opinion that you should have contact lenses anyway. Maybe, just maybe, your momma didn’t want you to be so attractive. Did you ever think about that?”
“No. I gotta say I never thought about that.” That’s sick, Beth thought.
“Well, some women want their daughters to stay little girls forever, that’s all I’m saying.”
Thinking that this kind of talk was definitely somehow unflattering to her mother, Beth decided it was time to bow out of the conversation. “Right, well, I gotta go or I’m gonna be late.”
“Okay, just close all the windows before you go. There’s supposed to be a big storm this afternoon.”
“No problem. But how do you know that?”
“The Weather Channel, you silly girl. How else?”
“Oh. Okay. Don’t worry.”
“And Beth? It seems that my boy wants to pay you a visit this weekend. Is that okay with you?”
“Bucky and Mike?”
“Well, darlin’, they’re the only two I have. But we’re talking about just Mickey—um, I mean Mike—and maybe a friend or two of his.”
Did Beth really have a choice in the matter? Seeing that she did not, she decided that she may as well be gracious about it.
“Of course! I’d love to see him! I’ll call him right away!”
After they hung up, Beth closed all the windows and doors, wondering how her aunt knew they were open. The woman had a pair of eyes on a satellite in outer space, she decided. Or maybe she was somehow supersizing the house with Google Earth. She would not have put it past her.
She drove over the bridges to Charleston and found a parking spot on Warren Place. As she walked over to King Street, the oppressive heat of the afternoon sun bore down on the top of her head, burning her scalp. As of yet, there had been no rain that day, but the heat index was spiraling out of control.
Beth squinted in the afternoon sun and wished she had sunglasses. When she saw the eye doctor, she would buy a pair. Cecily was right; she would have cataracts by Christmas if she didn’t.
“I’m going for broke,” she said, and pushed open the door of the Allure Salon.
Beth stepped into the rejuvenating air-conditioning and exhaled in relief. She checked in at the desk, changed into a robe, and took a seat at Hailey’s station. She was flipping through an old issue of Us magazine, fully absorbed in an article on the Olsen twins.
“Think those girls are skinny enough?”
She looked up to see someone standing behind her with her hands on the back of her chair.
“Uh, yeah. Are you Hailey?”
“Yep. And you must be Beth Hayes. So what on earth do we have here?”
“An unnatural disaster,” Beth quipped. “Do you think you could make it look like something I could have grown?”
“Uh-huh. Cecily told me this was a big job. You’re friends with her, right?”
“Yeah. She’s my most amazing friend.”
“Well, just so you know, you can tell her that your hair doesn’t scare me, okay?”
“Good.”
Two hours and a rather stunning amount of money later, Beth was a new woman. And although she worried about how she was going to explain the exorbitant expense to her mother, she knew her mother would be relieved that Beth was taking some initiative to resemble other functioning members of society. She took off her glasses and stared at herself in the mirror. Her hair was back within the zone of its authentic color. Hailey had shortened the bottom by several inches and dried it with a diffuser, giving new shine and bounce to her natural ringlets.
“Wow,” Beth said.
“Wow is right. Those glasses don’t match your new do, you know.” Hailey was smiling and meant what she said in the nicest way.
“I’m aware,” Beth said with a self-conscious giggle. “But I’m on my way to fix that too.” Beth thanked her and gave her a generous tip. “Guess I can’t say I’m with the band anymore, huh?”
“Truly. Should’ve taken before pictures,” Hailey said with a smile. “You take care of yourself now, okay? No more red dye.”
“For real,” Beth said, nodding.
Dark clouds continued to gather as Beth hurried to the car. The predicted storm was brewing. She debated whether to go see the eye doctor or return to the beach. But she decided to keep her appointment because if she didn’t do it then, she was afraid she would lose her resolve. Besides, with hair spun into corkscrews like an angel, she knew she looked like she was wearing someone else’s eyeglasses and not Tina Fey’s.
Before long Beth was loving her new contact lenses and, most important, the way she looked, which was surprising to her. She looked like a Hamilton for the first time since high school and it pleased her. Why had she not done this before? Just the improvements to her peripheral vision were more than worth the annoyance of the handling and care of the tiny fragile lenses. She could not wait to call Cecily. But like most females would, she wondered if the change to her appearance was enough for people to say she was actually good-looking. She would not have admitted it to anyone then or ever, but what if looking the best she could wasn’t good enough for Max Mitchell? It was one thing to have a kind of funked-out demeanor. Then the more off-the-grid you looked, the cooler you were assumed to be. The worst thing in her mind would be to go mainstream and then be considered to be as homely as a mud fence.
It looked more like the dead of night than late afternoon as the storm gathered strength. Just as she turned the corner onto East Bay Street, the first crack of thunder boomed like the beginning of the Apocalypse. Next came the pounding rain, fat droplets at first and then sheets and torrents, coming down so fast Beth could hardly see the rear end of the car in front of her.
Jagged bolts of lightning ripped the skies apart. Beth worried about Lola and knew she must be terrified. As she crossed the Ravenel Bridge, fog rolled in from across the Cooper River. These were the worst driving conditions Beth had ever endured and it made her hands clammy. She drove slowly in the rush-hour traffic, inching along, mindful of the dangers. As she reached the end of the bridge, she could see dozens of cars pulled over on the shoulders of the road. Coleman Boulevard and the side streets were flooded because the sandy ground and gutters had not had the time to absorb all the water. But that was the way of Lowcountry afternoon squalls. They blew in, drove the faithful to their knees, and scared everyone else out of their wits. Then they blew out to sea, leaving the world washed clean and the skies bluer than you could ever remember seeing them before. By the time she rolled by the Boulevard Diner, she reckoned the storm was probably halfway up the c
oast toward Georgetown.
She had one hand on the wheel as she reached in her purse for her cell phone and saw that she had missed two calls. One was from the rectory at Stella Maris Church and the other was from her cousin Mike. She had little enthusiasm to return either one and decided to wait until she got back to the house on the island.
With its wide range of historically insignificant architecture and commercial signage, Mount Pleasant was looking a little worse for wear, she thought, until she crossed the bridge over Shem Creek. To her right, the creek was completely placid and the shrimp boats were reflected in the water in perfect mirror images. Great beauty did not always require great sums of money, she thought. Sometimes something as easy and undemanding as an old shrimp boat, moored to an ancient piling battered from salt and time, could stop your heart in the same way as might a great work of art. It certainly seemed so at that moment. The little pocket that was the commercial area of Shem Creek was one of the most charming spots in the entire Lowcountry and she reminded herself to have a meal in one of the dozen or so restaurants that were strung along its shores.
As she crossed the top of the Ben Sawyer Bridge, it happened again. Just as she had seen on her initial arrival to the island several weeks ago, everything seemed to glisten and shimmer.
“I’m definitely losing my brains,” she said, adding, “Maybe it’s the rain.”
But there was no mistaking the curious phenomenon. The greens were greener, blues were bluer, and everything was sharp and in focus.
“Maybe it’s my contact lenses. Great. I’m talking to myself. Great.”
She passed over Middle Street, deciding to take Atlantic Avenue down the island to avoid the possibility of seeing Max. The fact that he had not called her all day had mushroomed into the Great Insult. As much as Beth intellectualized that there could be a thousand legitimate reasons why he had not dialed her number or texted her or sent her dozens of roses, inwardly she sulked. Here she was, ready for her proverbial close-up and no one was there to pass judgment or click the camera.
“Men stink,” she said as she passed the back side of his construction site, straining to see if his car was parked anywhere in the vicinity. If it was, she missed it.
She arrived home, walked Lola, and debated her next steps. She returned the call to the rectory, finding it closed for the day, and left another message. Then she called Mike.
“I heard you’re coming for the weekend. Is that true?”
“Yeah, if it’s cool with you. And I might bring a friend and this woman I’m seeing, if that’s okay?”
“Anything’s cool with me, big shot, but you gotta know your mom will have a cow if she finds out you’re shacking up in her house.”
“Oh, please. I’m twenty-six years old. Does she think I’m a virgin?”
“Uh, yeah she does. Do what you want, but when she starts raising hell, don’t blame me.”
“How’s she going to find out?”
“She has little bitty cameras buried in the paneling, okay? How should I know? I just know that she’ll find out, that’s all. Anyway, I have to work so I won’t be around too much.”
“You got a job? You mean, someone actually hired you?”
“Yeah, ya big jerk.”
“To do what? Cut grass?”
“Like this place is crawling with career opportunities? Um, I’m hostessing at Atlanticville. I get my dinners for like next to nothing and the food is actually pretty good.”
“Oooh! Some perk. Girls don’t eat anyway. So maybe I’ll get everyone organized and come for dinner on Saturday.”
“You’ll need a reservation, dude.”
“Right, can you help me out with that?”
“Maybe. So who are you bringing besides some poor misguided woman?”
“A really great guy that I work with. He’s Henry’s heir apparent. The guy’s like an unbelievable brain.”
“Nice.”
“You won’t like him.”
“Good.”
They talked for a few more minutes and then hung up. Beth was actually excited that her cousin was coming. He was very good company. He was bringing someone? She concluded that he was probably bringing some random stupid girl and another guy—read: gargantuan nerd—from their Uncle Henry’s investment banking firm. But at least she wouldn’t be alone, not that she technically was if you included the Other Side.
“We’re having company, miss!” she said to Lola, who was curled up on one end of the sofa. “Should I put Mike and his Little Miss Hot Pants in the haunted bedroom? Come on, let’s figure this out.”
Beth walked from room to room with Lola scampering behind her. She opened windows in the rooms that smelled musty from the rain and checked the bathrooms for toilet paper and tissues. She decided that all the company could sleep downstairs and she would keep the upstairs for herself. She would rearrange the furniture in the second bedroom upstairs to resemble an office, which would deter Mike from sleeping across the hall from her with his girlfriend and making disgusting noises all night. It would also discourage his friend from staying there. After four years of living in dorms and cramped apartments with roommates, Beth was quickly adapting to having some space and some privacy—once again, the dead notwithstanding.
She found herself digging around in the attic for a folding table that could work as a desk. There was nothing up there except dust, old luggage, and boxes of junk.
“Oh no you don’t!” she said to Lola, who was sniffing around all the corners of the rafters. Beth scooped her up and quickly took her outside to the yard, where, as it happened, Lola needed to be.
When they got back inside, Beth called Cecily.
“May I just tell you how much I love your friend at the salon?” she said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. I look like, well, I don’t know, better. I think.”
Cecily started laughing.
“Law, girl! You are supposed to say good things about yourself! If you don’t, no one else will! You want some company? Is that what this call is about?”
“Yeah. You had supper yet? And do you know where I might find a folding table?” Beth looked at her watch. It was almost seven.
“Under the house, next to the showers and the hoses. I’m starving.”
“Me too.”
The difference between supper and dinner might need some clarification. In the not-so-recent past, respectable Charlestonians from all walks of life paused their daily business to enjoy dinner at around one in the afternoon. Dinner was the main meal of the day and it usually included rice, which is why people say Charlestonians have important ties to the Chinese in that both cultures eat a lot of rice and worship their ancestors. Supper was much lighter fare served at the end of the day. These customs came into being as a result of climate and lifestyle. But with the advent of air-conditioning, business travel, and the wretched stresses of our times, dinner had become supper, except on Sundays, when, if a mother is extremely lucky, she can still coerce her family to gather around a table after church and before a football game. In any case, because she was still a Lowcountry girl, Beth said supper, which really meant dinner, although according to her cousin Mike, generally girls didn’t eat enough to call it a meal, except for Beth, who frequently claimed that she could eat a horse.
“Why don’t we go up to the Boathouse and have a Cosmo? Maybe pick on an appetizer?” Cecily said.
“Breach Inlet or downtown?”
“You think I’m going over that big bridge tonight? Honey, it’s enough to get me over the causeway!”
“I’ll meet you there in thirty minutes.”
The waiting area at the Boathouse was crowded and Beth edged through the crowd to where Cecily waited at the bar, sipping a cocktail and chatting with the bartender, who was clearly under her spell. When she spotted Beth, Cecily’s eyes popped opened like a steamed clam.
“Is that really you? Lawsamercy! Beth! You look gorgeous! Oh no! I spilled my drink!”
It was all Beth needed to hear to put some loft under her wings.
The bartender quickly handed her a dish towel, scooped her glass away, and said, “I’ll replace that for you. Don’t worry.”
Beth reached for some paper napkins, handed them to Cecily, smiled, and said, “Here. Do you really think so?”
“Yes ma’am! You look unbelievable! Turn around! Are you wearing mascara?”
“Yep!”
“Mascara too! Mercy! What next?”
Beth did a little spin in the narrow space where she stood. Laughing with delight at the great success of Beth’s makeover, Cecily shook her head and clapped her hands.
“Eyeliner?”
“Yep!”
“Amazing! I knew it! I just knew there was a swan in there!”
“Thanks! Well, I owe it all to you! I never would have done this.”
“I know. Now, you thirsty?”
“I guess I just might be.”
“Jimmy darlin’? Can we have a glass of white wine for my friend?”
Jimmy was grinning all over his freckled face and he couldn’t give Beth her drink fast enough.
“On the house,” he said. “Any friend of Cecily is a friend of mine.”
“Gosh, thanks!”
During the period of time it took to down two glasses of wine, a Diet Coke, and two appetizers, Beth checked her cell phone for missed calls at least ten times. Cecily’s suspicions were confirmed.
“So, no phone call, huh?”
“Who? Who didn’t call?”
“I’m figuring either it’s Hollywood or Max Mitchell?”
“Um…”
“Okay, so it’s not Hollywood. Want to tell me what’s up?”
“I am wildly aggravated and mildly depressed.”
“Okay…why?”
“Oh, crap. I hate men. That’s all.”
“Yeah. Love stinks. That’s a song I think.”
“J. Giles. Bunch of old dudes. My mom loves them. Anyway, men stink too.”
“Not all of ’em. Just the ones I like.”
Beth looked up at Cecily. She found it hard to believe that Cecily had anything but a perfect life. And as that thought floated through her mind, another one was arriving. Somehow she always wound up telling Cecily every self-possessed little detail of her life and rarely had she ever asked anything about Cecily’s personal life. Once again, Beth came up short in her own eyes. She was a twit, an unfortunate but fitting term.
Return to Sullivan's Island Page 14