I sighed, feeling lower than the day I got my diagnosis. “I guess so. Give me a couple of weeks.”
“I’ll be on your doorstep in two days. Twenty thousand in cash is perfectly acceptable.”
SO I GEARED up for one last haul. This time I donned a white pageboy wig, black wrap dress, padded bra, high heels, and sunglasses. I was hardly invisible granny but the hair covered much of my face, the glasses hid my eyes, and I added some fake teeth to give me an overbite. I could see the headlines . . . Grenade Granny Goes Glam. The trembling teller gave me nine thousand dollars, the biggest haul yet.
On my way out of the parking lot, I pulled off the wig and removed the teeth, then stopped at a fast food restaurant to strip off my dress and bra and slip into shorts and sandals. All the bank’s money went into an envelope for Trevor.
In a cloud of anxiety I walked up to the Wishy and collected the bills from the change machine, quarters from the washers and dryers. The place was busy, but no one from Oak Leaf Court was there. Maybe they’d all bought washers and dryers with their newfound prosperity. I was frantic with worry over Trevor. Paying him blackmail money might just whet his appetite for more. And if I balked and he told the police I was Grenade Granny, they might figure out where the money had gone. Scandal would rain down on Oak Leaf Court. I had nowhere to turn.
I dabbed on mascara and a red lippy and went to the bank with my regular deposit. My unhappiness must have showed on my face, because Joshua frowned. “Say it’s not true,” he said, counting my money. “That you’ve found someone else and you’re dumping me. “ His hazel eyes studied me.
I made an effort. “There will never be anyone else. You smell too good, like pine and lemon and the sea.”
“Then what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I’m fine.” I forced a smile but he didn’t return it. He handed me the deposit slip, on which he’d drawn a pair of hearts linked by an arrow.
For the first time in a year, I felt desperate for a drink. But alcohol wouldn’t have cured my ills, only created more problems. I went home and waited for Trevor to arrive on my doorstep.
HE NEVER CAME.
Trevor had been murdered. His body was found that night, underneath the stadium seating at a Greensboro high school. He’d been stabbed four times in the back. Estimated time of death, late morning, so I had an alibi—I’d been seen in the Wishy and at the bank. Not that I was a suspect—why should I be?
His other wife wasn’t a suspect either. Yes, it turned out that Trevor was a bigamist with a wife in Florida, which partly explained his six-month absences. She and I commiserated over our similar miserable Trevor-experiences.
Detectives found a few of his scamming victims and questioned them, but finally concluded it must have been a mugging, since Trevor’s wallet and phone were missing.
I didn’t believe it was a mugging, or a scamming victim. I suspected who killed Trevor. And I was grateful.
A WEEK LATER, on the Riviera Maya. Joshua and I reclined in a private cabana, avoiding the heat of the day, drinking pisco sours. Mine was virgin, but nonetheless tasty. Also tasty was Joshua, who turned out to be even sexier once he emerged from the bank. I’d shown him the ad for this resort as a joke but he thought I was serious, and maybe I was. And here we were, me and my boy-toy.
“Pour me another, please,” I said. “All those quips about money laundering. How did you know?”
“I’ll tell you but you won’t like it.” He handed me the drink and rested his hand on my thigh. His hand was warm and brown and very capable. “I recognized you in the first video.”
“What? I was invisible granny with a wart!”
“You looked right at the camera at one point. I saw your eyes. These eyes.” He leaned over and kissed my closed eyes, left, right. “I didn’t know why, but I remembered when you gave Robert your money, and I thought . . . you were a woman on a mission.”
I inhaled his smell, pine and the sea. “Why didn’t you turn me in?”
“Guess I liked your mission. Spread happiness.”
“Until Trevor showed up, it was working.” I told him about Trevor’s murder. “Someone saved me.”
“Who?”
I remembered how Annie left my house the day Trevor threatened to blackmail me. Did she go home? Or lurk under my kitchen window to listen to us talk? I thought about Annie’s amazing organizational skills on my behalf, getting my good neighbors to clean my house, fix my roof, knit me pretty caps, groom Scruffy, cook delicious foods that I could eat, thanks to her pot cupcakes. I thought about the morning Trevor was killed, how none of those neighbors were in the Wishy Washy. What else, who else, had Annie organized?
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Let’s go for a swim.” I took his hand in mine and we walked across the white sand, into a sparkling turquoise sea.
Blessings
SURELY IT’S DISCRIMINATION to deny a job to a woman who earned her cosmetology license in prison. Especially when she has been exonerated. Declared innocent. But it seems no one will take a chance on me. After the umpteenth salon manager asks where I’ve worked, responds thanks-but-no-openings, and hangs up, I decide to try a personal approach, make use of my beauty-pageant glow. What’s left of it, after seven years in lockup.
There’s a strip mall across the highway from my apartment. Grocery store, dry cleaners, pizza joint, and a hairdresser’s called Park Avenue. A hoity-toity name for a low-rent joint. Walk-ins welcome. I peer through a smudged window. Stuffing’s popped out of the sofa cushions and the floor tiles—a few missing—are grimy. The walls are what some call apple green—but I think, yeah, maybe after the apple’s been digested.
A spiky-haired teenager lies on the ripped sofa thumbing her phone. She’s pierced every which way to Sunday. The piercings don’t spoil her natural beauty because she hasn’t got any. She hollers, “Mom! You got a customer!”
Mom emerges, wearing a blond Dolly Parton wig and a pink strapless terry sundress one size too small. (I can’t abide wearing strapless when you’re doing hair. I like a bit of fabric between armpit and customer.) She stares at me. I get that a lot, being six-one. Her mouth’s open but nothing comes out except a foul cigarette odor.
I hold out my hand for a shake and say that I’d be so pleased to talk with her about renting a space in her salon. I amp up my glow—thanks to Mama’s lessons in superficial charm—and compliment her on her place, failing to mention the hairy dust bunnies and overflowing waste bins. She nods but I can’t tell what she’s thinking. She asks my name and I hesitate a second—too many people have heard of Brea Casteel. But she doesn’t blink, says her name is Polly Park.
Polly leads me through the deserted salon to a cubicle in the back. Scummy basin, stained counter, chair covered with splattered dye. My heart sinks, I’m tired of dirty places. On the plus side, there’s a window (with a view of dumpsters) and Polly says I can do the space up any way I like. She tells me that two other stylists work there, part-time afternoons, and the rent’s one-fifty. There’s no receptionist—everyone books their own clients, furnishes their own supplies. I wait for it but she doesn’t ask where I trained or where I’ve worked.
“What do you think, Brea? Ready to join the Park Avenue team?” Polly sounds unsure and I realize she’s as insecure about her crummy salon as I am about my entire life. Somehow that makes me feel better about the place. Room for improvement wherever you look.
Feeling brave, I sign a six-month lease and write her a check. She gives me a key, shows me the bathroom, ugh, and a break area, more ugh, cluttered with trash and diet soda cans and dirty dishes. I glance at Polly—she’s OK with the mess? She’s already turned her back to tell her texting daughter, get ready to leave. I’m thinking this place would not be acceptable to Mama. Even when we lived in our car she kept it clean and organized.
“You can have mornings,” Polly says. “You’ll be alone then, you’ll catch all the walk-ins. Start tomorrow?”
Two stylists have wandered in. One ig
nores me. She’s about twenty-five, with pink-streaked black hair, too much eyeliner and a sullen expression like one of the undead. The other is a brick-shaped woman with bright red lipstick, but she’s friendly, welcoming me with a quick smile. Polly tells me their names are Eve (the undead) and Dru (red lipstick). I feel a little shy, like it’s the first day in a new school. I spent fifteen years faking it in beauty competitions, a year as a nanny while I slept with the husband until I was convicted of murdering the wife, then seven years surrounded by felons. It’s no surprise that I don’t quite know how to act around civilians. Will they see through my too-tall exterior to the freak, despite my efforts to glow? In prison, we were so sad, all wanting the same things—keys, a job, a warm being in the night. Friendship was a hollow substitute.
AT NINE THE next morning, I insert my key into Park Avenue’s front door (loving my keys, loving how they unlock doors). I want to catch any walk-ins since I’m broke, my cash tied up in supplies.
The hours pass slow as jail time. I sweep the floor, polish my mirror, clean the plate glass window though spatters of rain tell me no sane woman would get her hair done in this weather. I paint my nails midnight blue. I make coffee. A cloud of worry, the fear of poverty ingrained in my DNA, drifts around me and nothing will scatter it but clients, a steady stream of them, one every hour, every day.
I’m thinking about a plant for my counter—maintenance-free ivy, sexy orchid, or soft fern?—when—hallelujah—a man walks into Park Avenue. He’s fifty-ish, balding on top but long on the sides and back. Not a good look, but he wants it all off. After a #1 buzz cut, I tell him he resembles Patrick Stewart. Throughout he doesn’t say a word, doesn’t give me a tip even though I’ve worked my glow for all it was worth. Maybe he hates that I’m taller than he is, I think, pocketing eighteen dollars and starting another coat of nail polish. He goes to the door then comes back, hands me a five. “Sorry, I was rude. Lots on my mind today.”
I’m curious. In my experience, people rarely apologize. Every jerk thinks he’s justified.
“My assistant has quit, I’ve got an event today that I can’t cancel and I badly need help. Could you give me a hand? Two hours, fifty bucks?”
I sweep my hand at the empty salon. “What, and leave all this?”
He runs his hand around the back of his head. “Harrigan’s. It’s just down the road. What do you say?”
The job would fill some time, and I need the money. “Sure. As soon as someone else takes over here.”
“See you later, then.” He bustles out the door, leaving me slightly more optimistic about my future.
Dru, her lipstick even brighter than yesterday’s, drags in around noon. I tell her about my gig down the road. “A place called Harrigan’s, you know it?” It sounds like the name of a pub.
She shudders. “That’s a funeral home! As in, dead people. Creeps me out. You gonna do hair?”
Oh. Well, even dead people want to look good. Er, deserve to look good.
THE RAIN HAS stopped, and steam rises from the hot pavement as I walk a quarter-mile to Harrigan’s Funeral Home, an enormous Victorian with porches, turrets, oodles of gingerbread. Inside, dim light, flowered carpets, sofas like big bricks, a fireplace.
“Call me Tim.” He gives me a quick tour of the casket showroom, pointing out options. Satin or velvet? Maple, mahogany, oak, or pine? Handles, trim, pillows. More than I ever thought I’d know about caskets. Mama died while I was in prison and her body was cremated. I don’t even know what happened to her ashes. I listen politely to Tim, wondering what he needs me to do. Finally, after a brief walk through the chapel, past massive buckets of pungent lilies (for some reason, lilies smell like hot dogs to me), he gets to the point. Showing me a program for a viewing, he says I have to get Mrs. Jolly ready.
“Hair and makeup. And help me dress her. You’ll see. It takes two.” He’s matter-of-fact, though he’s watching me for a reaction.
“No worries.” Indeed, I feel prepared for anything. He leads me to the back of the building, into a well-lit room with a concrete floor, sinks, hoses, steel instruments. On a table rests a body, covered up to the neck by a sheet. Mrs. Jolly’s plump face is a healthy pink color. Her hair, dyed reddish-brown with an inch of white roots, hangs over the end of the table at least a foot.
“She’s already been embalmed,” he says.
I nod, glad I don’t have to participate in that. “What hairstyle, do you think?”
Tim shrugs. “I didn’t get a picture from the family. Use your judgment. All we care about is the front and sides.” He shows me a cabinet with supplies.
We wheel the table to a sink where I give Mrs. Jolly her final shampoo and blow-dry. I spray root concealer on her white stripe, and brush it in. Tim helps me prop her up a bit so I can scissor her bangs, fluff them up and trim the hair all around. We lay her back and I finish with the blow-dryer and a spritz of hair spray. I powder her face, add brown eye shadow and black mascara to her eyes, which are mostly closed, just a sliver of cloudy eye visible. After blush and a touch of coral lip gloss, except for her eyes she looks alive, like she might jump up, dance, and sing. I dab pearly polish on Mrs. Jolly’s nails. Her hands are hard, like plastic.
“She looks younger,” Tim says, “very nice. Let’s get her dressed.” He brings out a cocktail dress, a teal-blue chiffon.
“What about shoes?” If the shoes are open-toed, I should paint her toenails.
“The casket will be only half open. Besides, look.” He lifts the sheet.
Mrs. Jolly has no feet. They are missing, removed at the ankle. Her legs end in squared-off stumps.
My self-control evaporates like breath on a mirror, and I gasp for air. I had thought I was fine, feelings successfully squelched. But Mrs. Jolly’s clammy plastic skin, sweet-rotten smell, slivers of dead eye, and the final straw—missing feet—combine with the utter freakishness of this place to press down on me and I give way. I feel a whirring sensation in my head, the floor tilts up, and the world vanishes.
When I awake, apparently only a few seconds later, Tim has put a pillow under my head. He holds out a cup of water. “It takes a while to get used to. You’re not the first to pass out and you won’t be the last.”
“What happened to her feet?” I push myself to a sitting position, embarrassed, breathing slowly.
“Wasn’t what killed her. That happened a long time ago, from the looks of them. You OK? Go outside for a minute, get some air.” He points to a hall, a back door. “Hope you’ll come back, though. I need your help to dress her.”
The air is fresh after rain, humid and clean. I sit on the steps, remove my shoes, and rub my feet on damp grass. A bunion is beginning on my left foot, my little toes curl under. I circle my feet clockwise, then counter-clockwise. Flex my ankles, point and wiggle my toes.
What would it feel like to have no feet? Legs that stop at the ankle? My mind clamps shut, refusing to entertain the idea. Don’t go there, that’s the way I got through the years in prison, refusing to look at certain things. How Cy betrayed me, how Angela lied, said I killed Fran. I rarely allowed myself to think those thoughts, turned my mind away from an empty present, a hopeless future. Denial is a skill, not showy like backflips or lucrative like safe-cracking, but useful.
I sip the water. Feet or no feet, Mrs. Jolly deserves to look good. Today’s an important day for her. I slip my shoes on and hurry inside to help Tim wrestle her into the teal chiffon dress, maneuver her body into a velvet-lined mahogany casket with gold handles, and wheel her to her place of honor.
When Tim hands me fifty bucks, I apologize again for passing out.
“You were a big help.” He has an open, likeable face. “Hope to call on you again.” His round smooth head comes up to my chin.
AT PARK AVENUE, Dru is shampooing an actual client who’s chattering away about a televised trial of a woman accused of killing her child, a program I surely will never watch, having had enough of courtrooms to last me to eternity and beyond.
>
Eve’s in the break room touching up her eyeliner. I greet her with a cheerful “hi” but she shoots me a dark look, doesn’t respond. Ah, feels familiar. Prison was full of women like her, lacking the energy for civility. She will warm up, I hope. Her skin is milky white, no visible pores, perfect.
I slump into my chair, struck by heart-thumping limbs-tingling stomach-clenching panic. I have committed myself to making a living in this dump, with no clients, no phone. I stare through the dusty window at the dumpsters, feeling sorry for myself, sorry for Mrs. Jolly’s life without her feet, missing Mama. Then I hear her voice. Brea Casteel, get your lazy ass up outa that chair, and count your blessings. Do what needs to be done, little missy. Even towering over her by a good ten inches I was always little missy.
Tears fill my eyes—I miss her so much—and I slip into the bathroom for a two-minute cry, wishing she was beside me, thinking how I always depended on her pushing me. Count your blessings, she said. I count. My own apartment with a bathtub and a key. Thinking back on Mama’s last months, I remember it’s a blessing to be healthy. I grab a piece of paper and start writing it all down in case I need reminders. Real coffee, butter pecan ice cream in the freezer, giant pine trees that creak in the wind. My feet, ha. A place to do hair though it needs cleaning. Do what needs to be done, little missy.
I find a sponge, Pine Sol, and a bucket. I wash my window, inside and out. I scrub every surface of my station—sink, counter, chair, floor. Dru comes back to my cubicle. “You’re a hard worker.”
I’m on the floor, giving it a final wipe. “It’s still drab.”
“The green’s pukey. None of us like it.”
“What about a different color? Would Polly mind?”
“She don’t care. Might even cheer her up. She’s getting chemo, you know.”
That explains the wig, and more. Mama lost interest in her surroundings when she got sick, too. “I’ll have to ask her permission,” I say.
Restless Dreams Page 17