by Catie Rhodes
“Calm down.” Like magic, Wade Hill appeared at my side to tower over me. He draped one heavy arm over my shoulders. I shrugged him off. We worked together at least once a week for my odd jobs business. I knew his ways, and I wouldn’t let him soft shoe me.
“This is on my bucket list.” Memaw grinned wider than I’d seen on a long time. “I wanted to ride with a real badass biker gang. Just like on TV.”
“This isn’t TV. It’s going to be a hundred degrees by noon. It’s already hellish out here.” To prove my point, I pulled my already damp t-shirt off my skin.
“That’s why we started early,” Memaw said. “I’m gonna have a fried chicken lunch for them as thanks.”
“See?” Wade tried putting his arm over my shoulders again. I tried to shrug him off, but he didn’t budge. He tugged me away from Memaw and walked me a short distance away. He spoke in a low voice. “She’s running out of time. Let her enjoy herself without giving her shit.”
My first impulse was to tell him Memaw wasn’t running out of time, but I knew she was, which infuriated me. I wanted to argue, to tell him she needed to take care of herself, but I knew it didn’t matter. The end would be the same. I nodded to let Wade know I understood and squeezed his huge arm in thanks. He gave me a rough back pat, nearly knocking me off my feet. I walked to Memaw and gave her a hug.
“Enjoy,” I told her. To King, I said, “Make her drink water.” He gave me the same lizard stare but winked to let me know he understood. He started up his motorcycle, and the rest of his club followed suit. I waved as they drove away, feeling as though I’d lost something, but I didn’t know what.
I turned to find Hannah and Dean whispering together on the museum steps and glancing at me. I got into my car and hightailed it out of there before they decided to include me in their conversation.
I chain-smoked my way to the first job of the day, trying every trick I knew to forget the creepy figure in the surveillance video. I needed to forget the theft and go about my business. Nothing concerning the Mace Treasure had any place in my life, ghosts or no ghosts.
Those awful, pleading words wouldn’t leave me. Don’t want to do this. My friends. Can’t do this. Then the most awful part, when the ghost faced the camera as though he somehow knew I’d watch this video. Please make it stop.
The same sense of déjà vu I had at the museum crept over me. Somehow I should know this voice, but I didn’t. A familiar weight settled around my neck, and I almost dropped my cigarette in my lap trying to feel what it was. The black opal. Could this day possibly get worse? I wondered how the piece of jewelry got away from Hannah before she had time to put it up.
Dean’s mother gave me the black opal because of what I am. It originally belonged to Dean’s great-grandmother, who had what some folks call the Sight. The black opal had serious power. Aside from following me around like an overzealous dog, the gem’s magical properties increased my ability to see ghosts and communicate with them. If I spent all day every day farting around with woo-woo, the black opal would have helped me immensely. But I did my best to stay away from magical stuff.
Amanda’s Hair Flair, my first job of the day, came up on the right. I turned into the parking lot but stayed in my car to finish my cigarette. Time to put on my game face. Running a business required me to act competent. Business aside, I didn’t want to revive the town rumor about my lack of sanity. A spring in the backseat creaked. The car shifted. I glanced into the rearview mirror and screamed.
A shadowy figure sat in my backseat. The voice came to me again, the black opal vibrating with the words. Please make it stop.
I grabbed for the door handle, fingers slipping off in my eagerness to get away from this thing. It had power, power enough to take a pile of books out of the library. What could it do to me? I swung open the door and found myself face to face with my mother. I screamed again.
“What do you think, honey?” She finger-fluffed her hair. Her grin would have put a shit-eating possum’s to shame.
Didn’t she hear me scream? It expressed exactly what I thought about her and her hair. Seeing her reactivated the acidic coffee in my stomach, and I clutched my middle. What on earth was she doing in town?
“Amanda told me you were scheduled to help her today, and I just had to see my baby girl.” She made a shrill sound likely meant as a combination giggle and squeal and grabbed me in a hug I didn’t want. The little girl who lived deep in my psyche, the one who still ached for her mother’s love, forced me to half-assedly return the hug. It was enough for Barbie. She dropped her arms immediately. “Last time I saw you, your hair was in one of those sleek, short styles. Looked good. You’ve got your daddy’s hair, you know.”
“I saw some old pictures of myself. Thought it was time for a change.” I picked at my nails, which looked awful, so I wouldn’t have to make eye contact with Barbie and waited for her to say something so I could formulate a response. I wanted to run away from her, get in my car, and leave, but Memaw raised me to act better. She raised me to treat people with respect, even the ones who deserved to have roach doo doo rubbed on their faces.
“Might look good if you can get past the stage it’s at now.” She snorted. “I cut mine short when I was about ten years older than you. Tried to grow it out a dozen times and never made it.”
The back of my neck began to throb from me clenching my shoulder muscles. I had no idea how to communicate with the woman who gave me life, nor any desire to learn. Amanda joined us with a bottle of one of her homemade beauty potions in hand.
“I am so glad you are back in town to stay.” She drew Barbie into a one-armed hug and gave her a loud kiss on the cheek. She turned to me and pulled me into the hug. I stiffened, but Amanda was stronger than I could have imagined. Resisting her would have been noticeable, and I never aired dirty family laundry in public. “Ain’t you glad your momma’s gonna be living near you again?”
“You can’t imagine,” I mumbled. A buzz filled my head. Back in town to stay? It made no sense. “W-w-w-” Pull it together, Peri Jean, I instructed myself and started again. “What made you decide to move back here?”
“You mean back to a one-horse town?” Barbie threw back her head and laughed. “Back to everything I couldn’t wait to get away from when I was twenty-five?” She stared at me for too long and pressed her lips together. “Mostly you. I missed you.” She threw her arms around me again.
The reek of her perfume cloaked me, and I felt my gorge rising. The buzz in my head got so loud it made me dizzy. I willed my knees not to buckle. Barbie released me so she could stare into my face. I couldn’t meet her gaze.
“Amanda said you’re dating the guy who’s running for sheriff. I saw his campaign poster. What a hottie.” She rubbed my arms as though trying to warm me. I noticed the tremors jerking through my body. The twit thought I was cold. Unreal. Her smile grew so wide I hoped her head would split, spilling what passed for her brains onto the asphalt of the parking lot. “He’s from Louisiana money, I heard. You hit the lotto, kid. She’s a chip off the old block, all right.” She pecked my cheek and exchanged a grin with Amanda. I fought to keep from wiping the dampness from her kiss off my face.
“Where’s…Ron?” It took me a moment to remember her current husband’s name.
“Who cares?” She exhaled a world-weary sigh. “The jerk traded me in for a newer model. His new lady is probably younger than you, Peri Jean. Of course, she’s not nearly as pretty.” She and Amanda laughed, reminding me of those cartoon crows Memaw thought were so funny. Barbie’s phone buzzed, and she took it out of her handbag to glance at it. “I’ve got to get moving. That’s the realtor. She’s going to show me a cute little house.”
Amanda quickly told Barbie about the natural anti-aging ingredients of the homemade lotion she was selling her, conveniently leaving out the way all her homegrown miracle cures smelled. Then she told her the price.
“Well, I sure hope it works.” Barbie handed her two twenties.
“Oh, all my formulas do exactly what they’re supposed to, right Peri Jean?” Amanda winked at me.
“They do.” I didn’t care to continue the conversation with Barbie, but Amanda wanted an endorsement. I had no choice but to give it. “I burned this hand last month at work. It blistered, puss ran out of it, the whole song and dance. Bought some of Amanda’s herbal healing salve. Look here. Not even a red mark.” I held out the hand for her to inspect. The way the wound healed really had impressed me. Amanda might act a little loopy, but she knew her stuff.
Barbie inspected my hand. “I’ll take your word for it, but only because you’re my baby girl.” She walked toward her car but turned back before she reached it. “My cell number’s still the same,” she said. “Set up a time I can meet your honey. I am absolutely bursting with excitement. Louisiana money,” she muttered under her breath and walked to her car, actually throwing me a big wink before she got inside.
Once a gold digger, always a gold digger. I’d have laid down the twenty-dollar bill in my back pocket to bet Barbie’s real interest in me had to do with Dean’s family money. She probably thought she could worm her way back into my life instead of finding a new husband, which might be hard with her no longer being young. My foot itched to kick her departing behind, but she was gone, and I needed to act as professional as I could.
“The new washer won’t be here until this afternoon,” Amanda said. “I need you to get these towels over to the Laundromat and wash them.” She took a closer look at me. “Are you all right, hon?”
I was, and I wasn’t. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember what I’d been so upset about when I drove over here. I remembered being at the museum with Hannah, making her angry because I didn’t want to get crazy from the Mace Treasure on my shoes. But what had I been so upset about when I pulled into the beauty shop parking lot?
“Peri Jean, honey, you all right?” Amanda stepped closer and closed one of her strong hands around my arm. My knees weakened, and I listed to the side, black spots in my vision. Amanda got one arm around my waist and had me in the beauty shop before I could recover enough to protest.
Every face turned to me, eyes alight with curiosity. A few women tried to feign pity, but not very hard. I tried to pull myself together and fast. The gossip grapevine in Gaslight City could have competed in NASCAR. I didn’t want to give any of these people an evening’s entertainment. I fought to rein myself in, but my feelings welled up, flooding and overflowing the shallow reserves of my emotions. How dare my awful mother act as though I’d let her swing back into my life? I let the outrage the thought generated cancel out some of the hurt and immediately felt more stable.
Barbie acted as though she’d been on a long trip and we were picking up where we left off. Then the core of it hit me like a bucket of ice cold piss. In the depths of Barbie’s artfully made up eyes had been nothing but confidence in her ability to win me over. She either had no idea how she’d made me feel all my life or didn’t give a rat’s ass.
I could get as mad as I wanted. I could act as much of a horse’s ass as I wanted. It wouldn’t touch Barbie. I could buy into her act whole hog and eat until I popped. No matter how nice I was, no matter how hard I tried, Barbie would dump me when it suited her. Inside, I sagged, the hurt pounding like a bad injury. Outside, I used every trick I’d learned to push a smile onto my face. I turned to Amanda.
“Sorry about that. Memaw had a bad night last night, and I’m tired.”
I waited while all the woman in the shop clucked in sympathy. Hazel Siegler pushed the hair drying apparatus off her head and turned it off, leaning forward in the dryer chair to catch all the action.
“Sugar, I’ll spend the night with Miss Leticia if you ever need a break,” she said. “We worked together over at the high school together all our adult lives. It’d be just like a slumber party.”
“Thank you, Miss Hazel. I’ll sure keep it in mind.” Problem was, Hazel lived at a nursing home because she couldn’t care for herself. I turned to Amanda. “You still got a job for me?”
“I do.” She patted my back. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said it was congratulations for pulling myself together. She led me into a side room, which held a washer and dryer. Piles of towels littered the floor. “You can do this however you want, but I need them out of here ASAP and washed today.”
I knelt on the floor and began gathering towels, pushing them into a canvas bag I’d spotted hanging on the wall. Amanda leaned against the door frame and watched me.
“I never realized you and Barbie had issues.”
“I didn’t realize you and Barbie were such close friends.” I finished loading the towels and slung the bag over my shoulder.
“We aren’t.” The lines around Amanda’s eyes deepened into what would have been a smile had her mouth not remained still. “When she lived here, she came to me for haircuts. Came in here for a perm the day she left town. Never said a word about moving away.” She moved away from the door. “Come on. I’ll open the door for you and help you get them into your car.”
I waddled through the shop, mulling over what Amanda said. It rang true in my ears. Maybe Barbie didn’t really make friends. Too self-absorbed? Too conniving?
“What’s she doing in here?” The raspy, squeaky voice jabbed into my thoughts like sharp ice.
I dropped the towels on the floor and turned to face its source, even though I knew exactly who’d spoken.
Felicia Brent Fischer Holze smirked at me from underneath her red-streaked mousy hair. She’d smeared oddly colored makeup over her angular features, and her gut had grown considerably since I’d last seen her. Either she’d made good friends with after-work beer drinking or she was pregnant again. I didn’t care which it was. All I cared about was not doubling up my fist and hitting her with it. I got away with beating up my childhood tormentor once. It wouldn’t happen again. She was married to a sheriff’s deputy, and her father-in-law was the sheriff of Burns County. I had a feeling I wouldn’t escape prosecution if I hit her.
“What’s around your neck?” She took a few steps toward me and plucked the black opal from my shirt.
“Don’t touch me, Felicia.” I tightened my grip on the canvas bag holding the towels.
“Is it a substitute for an engagement ring on your finger?”
I turned my back to her and stood in front of the door. Amanda appeared next to me and held it open. She held my elbow as I took the step down onto the stoop.
“He’s gonna lose, Peri Jean,” Felicia sang after me. “Are y’all going to live out there in your Memaw’s house and be jobless together?”
“That’s enough, Felicia. We have customers.” Amanda’s voice brooked no argument. She followed me out of the shop.
“Thanks for ignoring her,” she said when we reached my old Nova. “She’s a good stylist, brings in a lot of clientele, but sometimes I could wring her neck.”
“I’m glad I’m not the one who has to work with her.” I handed Amanda the keys and let her pop the trunk.
“Sometimes you have to work with people you don’t like because of who they’re related to.” Amanda stared at the Nova and ran her hand over the flank. I hefted the canvas bag into the trunk and closed it.
“I ever tell you how cool I think it is for you to drive your daddy’s car?” Amanda stared at the street, eyes unfocused and misty. She didn’t seem to expect an answer, so I didn’t bother thinking of one. “Paul Mace. Your daddy was the best looking guy in town. He’d rev up the engine on this baby, and you could hear him a mile away.” The corners of her mouth turned down. “Too bad he died so young.”
Yep, too fucking bad. I kept the comment to myself and walked around to the driver’s side door and waited for Amanda to dismiss me.
“Look…I hate it when people tell me what I ought to do, but right now I’m about to do it. Try to make friends with your mom. My situation growing up was a lot like yours. My mom left me for my grandmother to raise while she went off and got
remarried.”
I would rather bathe in hot garbage than open the door for Barbie to crucify my emotions.
“Did you make up with her?” I couldn’t help asking. Amanda never, ever discussed her past, and it remained a mystery because she didn’t grow up here.
“Nope. Last time I spoke to her, when I was about nine, I told her I hated her guts.” Amanda took a breath and let it out. “She died two years later in a house fire. She, her new husband, and my half-brother.”
Would I regret it if Barbie turned up dead? I didn’t think so. I barely knew her, and what I did know was negative. But I could never be sure until the situation presented itself.
“Sometimes we forgive people, not to give them a pass for whatever wrong they committed against us or to get them to do a certain thing, but to be kinder to ourselves.” Amanda watched my face and then nodded. She patted my arm. “Think about it. Okay?”
“I will.” I opened the door climbed into the car. “I gotta get on this if I want to finish. Thanks for the talk.”
“You bet.” A car pulled into the parking lot, and Amanda walked over and talked to the person, following them inside her business, still chattering.
I started the car, a little fear tingling at me. I tried to remember why I’d been scared again, hoping it would come with Barbie gone, but I couldn’t access it. It was gone, as though it had never been. Just as well. If it had to do with the Mace Treasure, I was better off forgetting it. I put the car in gear, and my cellphone rang. I checked the caller ID. Eddie Kennedy. Uh oh. “Hi, Eddie.”
“What do you mean telling Hannah you can’t help her? Don’t you know what this is about?”
“Something I don’t want any part in.” I cringed as I said the words. Back talking Eddie felt wrong no matter how old I got.
“I want you to meet me at Hooty’s.”
“I have a job. I’ll spend the day at the laundromat doing Amanda’s towels from her beauty shop.”
Eddie slapped his hand over the phone, nearly deafening me, and said a few things. I heard Hooty Bruce’s deep voice answer.