When my tea is gone, I head into my bedroom with my notebook. The only thing I’m uncertain of today is if it’s within protocol to call Davis when we did not arrange for this to be a phone interview. Hopefully, he’ll understand. After all, he’s the one who told me a date and time to be at his office. I showed up; he didn’t.
Davis Erickson apologizes immediately. “I am sorry, Jacqueline. I’ll be glad to give you the interview now.” His voice is just as warm and articulate as the first time we spoke.
“You can call me Jackie.” When I called to set up the interview at his office, he kept calling me Jacqueline and I let him.
“Okay, I will, then. Give me just one minute to turn the blender off.” I hear a whirling sound and then a click. “There.” A pause. “Just making a smoothie.”
“Oh? What kind?”
“Well, my parents have peaches growing in their yard, so this is peach.”
“Where do your parents live?”
“Cincinnati. That’s where I was raised. How about you?”
“Here.”
“Which is?”
“Hatteras.”
“Oh, that’s great. You can go out on the water anytime you want to.”
My mom didn’t exactly agree with that. She was very big on Ron and me protecting our skin. Growing up, she reminded me that in Asia, many women carry umbrellas to shield their skin from the sun. I’d thought she was exaggerating until a Korean friend in college told me that her mother always carried a parasol during the summer months. Mom didn’t make Ron and me carry parasols, but we did have to slather ourselves with sunscreen before we went outdoors.
“Did you go to school in Hatteras?” Davis’s voice reminds me of Bono from U2, minus the Irish accent.
“Yeah, every single year. Then I left to go to UNC-Charlotte.”
“I thought maybe they just taught the kids out on the docks.”
“Barefoot,” I say.
He laughs, and then I do, too.
Calling him was the right thing to do.
Talking with him is comfortable; I stretch out on my bed and extend my legs like Shakespeare does on the sofa at work. One topic eases into another, and soon we’ve discussed food we both like, personal cooking disasters, childhood pets, the differences between life in the North and the South, and movies. I’m writing some of it down, but I know I need to get into the subjects Selena wants covered in the interview. Although I find Davis’s story about how his golden retriever saved his brother from drowning at a swimming hole in Upstate New York engaging, Selena isn’t going to see that as important to Lighthouse Views readers. To segue into real estate, I ask about the Bailey House.
“What do you know about it?”
“Is this part of the interview?”
“No, just for my interest.” I think of telling him how I loved going there as a child, how the lemon cookies were moist and tasty, how Ogden kept the grounds looking like a garden in an issue of Southern Living, but I decide not to disclose too much.
“I do have some connections to it. I know it’s vacant and in need of a buyer.”
My heart jumps against my chest. “Do you manage it? I mean, is Rexy Properties the one trying to sell it?”
“Possibly,” he says.
“What do you mean by ‘possibly’?”
“Technically, it’s not listed as being for sale. However, I do know that if the right buyer came along, he or she would be considered.”
His words confuse me a bit, but I switch to the question I’ve had for a long time. “Do you know how much it’s going for?”
“Sure,” he says. “Right under a million and a half.”
“Half a million?”
“No, one million and five hundred thousand dollars.”
“Are you teasing?” I bet he is. I clutch the phone, waiting to hear his laughter.
There is no laughter. “That’s actually a little reduced. In my opinion, it’s worth at least two million.”
“But it’s worn down. I mean, the outside of it looks pretty weatherbeaten.”
“Inside is gorgeous.”
I hope it is, I think, and then when I realize he’s serious about the price, my mind shouts: Where in the world will you ever come up with 1.5 million dollars? My brain searches for some way, some relative, some investment that would allow me to get that kind of money. I can’t think of anything. I knew the home would be costly, being prime real estate on the Outer Banks, but I never thought the price tag would be so monumental.
Still, my veins pulsate with excitement. I’ve finally found someone who knows about the Bailey House and hopefully can tell me even more. “That’s a lot of money, but it can be financed, right? I mean, should the right buyer come along?”
“I suppose.”
“Who would I contact about it? You?”
“Depends.” His elusiveness about the house bothers me, so it’s a relief when he changes the subject. “How long have you been working at the magazine?”
“Forever it seems. About five years.”
“You must be good at what you do.” His voice soothes like a summer breeze that comes in the window from across the Sound. “Do you like interviewing people?”
“Oh, I like to interrogate.”
He laughs. “Well, it’s been a pleasure talking with you. I don’t feel interrogated at all.”
Note to Selena: It doesn’t matter that his house needs painting. He’s a nice guy.
Conducting an interview is one thing; putting it all together on my computer is a different beast. I sit on the chair in front of my Dell and wonder how to turn all my sloppy notes into an article that will make Selena smile.
I head to the kitchen for some more iced tea, and feeling hungry, make a peanut butter and honey sandwich. As I squeeze honey onto a slice of wheat bread, my brother’s advice from the past fills my mind. “Write!” Ron would tell me whenever I’d complain about how difficult it can be to put words together in a way that conveys what you want to get across. I was on the high school newspaper committee, and some days I wondered why. “If you say you’re a writer, then why aren’t you writing?” Ron would say.
“Well, that is easier said than done.”
Which always led him to reply, “Don’t use clichés.”
“You know, sometimes clichés are the only way to say something that is easily understood.”
“The best writers avoid them.”
“Oh, really?” With plans to major in journalism, I felt I was a “best writer.”
“Yeah.”
“What do you know?”
“A lot more than you, apparently.”
I love Ron, in spite of his argumentative ways. He has an air about him that is refreshing. He’s a magnet, pulling you in, and you always get the feeling he’s arguing with you because he likes you. After all, he claims he only wastes his time arguing with people whose opinions he cares about. If you aren’t important to him, he doesn’t fritter away his time or words.
Ron went to Wake Forest University and now lives and works as a water ski instructor in Fort Lauderdale. Dad wonders how his degree in business administration helps him in the ocean, to which Ron replies that you always need a good business head in whatever you do. “My son plays from nine to five at the beach,” Dad used to tell friends. “Can you believe he went to college so that he can do that?”
Last Christmas, Ron said to Dad, “Do you know how hard it is to teach a three-hundred-pound man to water ski?”
Our father just shook his head.
“I got him up and skiing, too. He almost capsized the boat, but he skied, thanks to my instruction.” Ron was a little smug about it, but I think he made his point.
These days, Dad is more careful about criticizing Ron’s line of work. When they’re together, he and Ron like to play chess, a game of few words.
By the time the sun slips into a crimson-and-lavender western sky, I’ve not only finished composing the article about Davis, I’ve drifted into daydrea
ming about the Bailey House. The longing to enter its red door once again and walk on the Oriental carpets is so great that I consider heading over there to see if I can pry open a window. I should have asked Davis more questions. Instead, I acted like some sort of perky woman in love with her job and life, hiding the truth that on some days this very woman would sell her cherished fishermen’s hat collection to own that house on Red Pelican Court.
9
Minnie prefers to drive when we go to the Morning Glory Home. Her silver Intrepid is a 2005, newer than my Ford, but I know that’s not the reason she wants to drive. She feels since it’s her mother we’re going to see, she should pay for the gas. She also enjoys pounding the accelerator on the ride home from Nags Head to our duplex. I think it’s her raw outlet after a visit, a demonstration of the frustration she feels over her mother’s condition.
Minnie also likes to get to the home before lunch so that she can help feed Irvy. Just the other day as we were drying breakfast dishes, she said, “I should be taking care of Mama.”
“You are.”
“She’s in a home.” Her eyes were red at the rims. I wasn’t sure if she’d been crying or if her allergies were getting to her.
“That is taking care of her,” I said.
“I should visit her more.”
“You do every week.” I tried to reassure her that she’s a good daughter.
“Zane doesn’t like the home.” Minnie gently wiped a plate and put it on a shelf with other dishes we moved over from her mother’s house.
“Zane is going through a phase of hating germs.”
“The place is clean.”
“Yeah, but it smells funny. Like disinfectant.”
“I’ve told him that takes care of the germs.”
“It doesn’t help when you tell him that.” I wanted to say that Zane whines about many things, that perhaps she needs to be stricter with the child, but I stopped myself. I concentrated on drying a cereal bowl instead and put it away in the cabinet. What did I know? Minnie and Zane moved in shortly after Lawrence’s death to have a cheap place to live, not for me to be the disciplinarian.
“I hate that Mama finally got a grandchild and yet she can’t play with him.”
Minnie has said this before, and I never have a good response. She and Lawrence tried for four years to have a child. Minnie never gave up hope; her own mother and father tried for ten years, and when they were both forty-four, they welcomed Minnie, their first and only child, into their lives.
Sometimes Minnie wears guilt and remorse like heavy jewelry. Today the necklace called Mama is causing her neck to turn blue. I want to take it off her neck, rub her shoulders, and tell her that things will get better.
We drop off Zane at Uncle Ropey and Aunt Beatrice Lou’s. Zane perks up when my aunt says she’s going to take him to the library in her yellow truck.
“We’ll pick out books about trucks,” she says in the same magical tone she uses when reading The Little Engine That Could during the library’s story hour.
With a smile, Zane rushes to give his mother a good-bye hug.
The spring day is breezy, the clouds are like cotton puffballs, and I’m feeling content as we drive toward the home in Nags Head. I replay my discussion with Davis in my head. He likes John Wayne movies and old homes. He has a twenty-foot runabout boat that is brand-new, just purchased last month. He plays golf with the mayor of Hatteras once a month, and his hero is Manex Jethro, a musician who lived in poverty in Columbus until he made his big break as a songwriter and performer just nine years ago. I’ve never heard of Mr. Jethro, but Davis spoke like this guitarist reached for the sky and, due to his strong tenor voice and a heap of hard work, obtained his dream.
When we are a few miles from the nursing home, Minnie interrupts my thoughts. “Zane is acting a little better at being away from me these days.”
I wonder if I’ve ever sat through an entire John Wayne movie. To Minnie, I say, “Maybe Zane’s growing up.”
We cross over the Oregon Inlet Bridge that takes us from the island to Nags Head, the water sparkling like a jewelry store beneath us. I love living in this area. I would not want to live anywhere else. The ocean and sky never seem to stop, giving you a feeling that there is always more to see, and more to experience.
But once we pull into the parking lot of the nursing home, my stomach starts to feel like a boulder has lodged itself between my small and large intestine. I fake a smile when Minnie looks at me as we make our way to the front entrance of the brick building with black shutters.
When we enter through the wide glass doors of the building, the smell of boiled potatoes, turnip greens, Pine-Sol, and L. J. greet us.
L. J. wears a perfume that’s sweet, like Minnie and I wore in high school for school dances. She’s one of the members of All That Glitters Is Gold, my aunt Sheerly’s senior citizens’ band. Often she and the others give little concerts at the home, but today she’s volunteering by helping the staff.
When the white-haired gentleman in a wheelchair complains she’s pushing too fast, she says, “Now, Handsome, you are just too young to be complaining like an old man.” She bends to pick up a handkerchief that a small wrinkled woman mobilized by a walker has dropped.
The woman takes the handkerchief and tucks it into a large pocket in the front of her gingham dress. “Thank you,” she says to L. J. She then looks at me and mumbles, “Thank you.”
“Irvy’s by the piano,” L. J. says to us before maneuvering the man around a corner. “I think she knew you’d be here. She’s in good spirits today.”
Sure enough, a thin woman in turquoise slippers and a matching robe sits in her wheelchair by the baby grand piano. Her right hand moves from the blue crocheted blanket on her lap to her mouth when she sees Minnie and me approach. Her mouth is open, droopy on the left side. A light moan releases from her throat.
Minnie hugs her mother, runs fingers down her sparse gray hair, and kisses her cheek.
From an abandoned card table, I pull over two folding chairs. I place a chair on either side of the wheelchair, and we sit down, Minnie on the right and me on the left.
Minnie says that within minutes of getting to the nursing home she can tell whether her mother is having a talkative or a silent day. She claims she can tell just by looking in Irvy’s eyes. Regardless of whether Irvy wants to converse or just grip the edge of her blanket with her good hand, she rarely makes sense to me. Ever since her stroke four years ago, I haven’t been able to understand her speech.
One and a half million dollars, I think to myself. Can a person like me get a loan for that much money?
Minnie’s bracelets clink against each other as she reaches for Irvy’s right hand. “Mama, how are you?”
Irvy’s mouth moves in slow motion. “The farm is in Cary.”
“Yes,” Minnie tells her and quickly smiles. “Mama, do you want to go outside for a while?”
Irvy looks past her; her right eye twitches. “The farm is in Cary.”
This is one of Irvy’s favorite lines. There’s another one she repeats whenever she’s driven from the home across the inlet bridge to Sheerly’s for Sunday dinner. Irvy never says a word until Uncle Ropey crosses the bridge and then, always at the same spot, just as the tires of his car hit the road again, she blurts out from the backseat, “I heard that they got married on a pontoon boat.”
Uncle Ropey has heard this so many times, he is always ready with an answer. This varies from, “Well, it was about time” to “Really now? I would rather get married on a canoe.”
“Mama, you look nice,” Minnie says.
Irvy’s lips find each other after a couple attempts, and something resembling a smile forms across her face.
When Minnie talks with one of the nurses, Irvy and I are alone.
I shift in my seat, feeling like Zane must when he gets a haircut at Sheerly’s salon. Desperately, I try to see the face of the woman I knew as a child, the one who entertained us with Frank Sinatra
songs on her piano. After our visits at the Bailey House, we’d walk to Minnie’s cottage on the ocean side of the town. From the front yard, we’d hear Irvy playing and singing at the piano. Quietly, we’d slip inside the front door, trying not to rattle the doorknob that had a tendency to sound like BBs rolling inside a tin can. Sometimes a student would be seated on the bench beside Irvy; sometimes Irvy sat alone with new sheet music. She frequented the music shop in Manteo and particularly liked to buy selections from movie soundtracks. Casablanca and The King and I were two of her favorites.
“Hair done at Sheerly’s,” Irvy tells me as a pool of saliva runs down her chin.
I nod. I want to wipe her chin, but I don’t have a tissue or anything with me.
“Sheerly does my hair.” Talking is labor for her.
My eyes focus on a bruise on her wrist, purple lined with avocado green. It looks like a butterfly, one wing shorter than the other.
Minnie is back now, taking her seat.
I let my hands relax.
“Take me to Sheerly’s,” Irvy demands.
“She’s coming here, Mama.” Minnie finds a tissue in her purse— she keeps a pack in there for these occasions—and gently clears away the wetness from her mother’s face. “She doesn’t want you to travel. She’ll fix your hair here.”
A long pause, and I’m aware of movement around me. A silverhaired woman in a cotton duster is looking under my chair for her glasses. “I lost them, Annabelle.” Her thin, spotty face is inches from mine. She lets out a breath, and my senses are saturated with antiseptic mouthwash. “Annabelle, do you see them?”
I have been called many things in my life but never by this name. Bending down, I glance under my chair. “Nope.”
The woman looks at Minnie and then gestures toward Irvy. “Has anyone seen my glasses?”
An attendant in medical-green scrubs searches with her. “Are you sure, Miss Williams, that you were by the piano when you misplaced them?” he asks as his hands slide over the bench.
Hatteras Girl (Heart of Carolina Book #3) Page 5