When my mother can’t sleep, she pounds rice into tiny balls and fills them with sweetened red bean paste. She says that in her village of Damyang-gun, she was the queen of making sticky rice balls or, as they are known in her language, gyungdan. Growing up, I knew she’d heard some disturbing family news from Korea when I found her in the kitchen turning rice into clumps on a floured cutting board, forcing them into shapes she could control. The outcome was always a treat for us—delicate circles with bean paste sweetened with cinnamon and coated on the outside with toasted and ground black sesame seeds or a dusting of sweet mugwort powder.
Sadly, I have no idea how to make rice balls. Maybe I will ask Mom to teach me and then serve them at the Bailey House.
If it ever opens.
At midnight, there are noises in the bathroom. Zane mumbles, bumps into something, and lets out a murmur.
Entering the bathroom, I see him by the sink. “You okay, Zane?”
His face is solemn. “I lost Popacorn.”
“Did you look under your bed?” Suddenly it hits me that a dark room and an even darker space under a bed is not a happy place for a kid. I enter his room. “I’ll help you find him.”
Getting on my knees, I look under the bed. All I find is a lonely sock. I then scan the floor. Finally, I search the closet. There sits the stuffed squirrel, as if he wasn’t hiding at all but that we just weren’t looking in the right place. I pull out the fuzzy creature and hand him to Zane. “Why is he there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the trucks wanted him to be there. They get lonely in the closet.”
“I see.”
He kisses his stuffed animal. Then, “Jackie?”
“Yes?”
He whispers, “I think I’m okay now.”
I guess he wants me to leave. Funny how I wouldn’t mind staying by his bedside for a little while longer.
I pull the downy comforter up to his chin. His eyes are closed before I leave his room.
The duplex is silent, but outside I hear a barking dog and the echo of a foghorn. I see Buck’s smile, hear his laughter, and want to feel his hand holding mine.
In my own bed again, I count my breaths, and then, closing my eyes, picture a sun-baked seashore of bright shells and attempt to count them. I flip to my back, then my stomach. I wonder if Cassidy counts calories when she can’t sleep, and if that helps any.
It’s very hard to pull myself out of bed the next morning. Before Minnie and Zane leave, Minnie tells me not to worry about Zane.
“Why don’t I need to worry?” I ask as I measure three cups of water and pour the liquid into the coffee maker. I turn the pot on. Coffee should help clear my head.
“Because after school Ropey will meet his bus and then take him fishing.”
The coffee maker gurgles.
“Jackie,” Minnie says, her face just inches from mine, “did you hear me?”
“Oh no!” Surely I didn’t forget.
“What is it?” Minnie asks.
“I forgot.”
Zane enters the kitchen, his book bag lopsided on his back. His eyes are bigger than his stuffed squirrel’s as he notices my poor attempt to brew a pot of coffee.
Minnie is oblivious to my error. “Zane is going to Ropey’s after school today—”
But I cut her off as I see the steamy water fill the coffeepot— clear—without a trace of coffee in it. “I can’t believe I did that.”
We all watch as the rest of the water splashes into the pot to create a drink of only hot water.
Zane says, “Just stop at Starbucks for your coffee, Jackie. They know how to make it there.”
When Minnie and Zane leave, I open and close the refrigerator, not sure what I want to eat. There is leftover macaroni and cheese, a baked potato in aluminum foil, and half a grapefruit. The container of cottage cheese has three curds left in it; Zane needs to learn to throw empty containers away.
I take out my striped notebook and tear out a sheet. Stretching my hand over it, I smooth the torn edges, and then sit at the dining room table to write.
Where do I stand? I’ve signed the lease papers, so I owe rent on the house. Davis is a liar—and probably a cheat. He may still be in love with Vanessa. Why was I so quick to think he and I were made for each other? Even Irvy was trying in her limited way to warn me about him. Davis told me he’d never been married; I recall that conversation as we sat on the pier eating roast beef sandwiches. Or did he only say, “I’m not sure marriage is for me” ? That night, I took that statement to mean that as a single man he wasn’t sure he wanted to get married. Now I realize he could have meant he didn’t want to ever be married again.
“I don’t want to be deaf and blind,” my mother said to me on the phone. I feel I have been both with Davis. I should have been seeing things the way they are, not viewing them with a heart gone soft with romance and visions of the Bailey House clouding my good sense.
“Slow down; good things take time. Don’t be quick to give away your common sense or your heart.” These are lines from one of the first songs Sheerly ever wrote. I find it appropriate that I’m reminded of them now.
On another sheet of paper I write at the top: List of what I need to do. My pen starts to swirl along with my mind, but instead of a list, all I come up with is: Wait upon the Lord. I read the words twice.
But I have waited and waited.
“You must be still and listen,” my mother often told me when I was growing up. “We have hard time—you and me. We want to hurry up. But God tells us in the Bible to be still.”
With determination, I head to Rexy Properties. But Davis is not there.
At first I tell Bev that I’ll wait. I pick up a flyer with pictures of properties for sale around the island; one home with a pool is listed at two million dollars. Another has seven bedrooms, two pools, and a whirlpool and has been reduced from 3.25 million to three. Placing the flyer back on her desk, I decide to sit. I hold my cell phone, debating whether or not to call Davis. After six minutes, I leave.
Outside the sun is only a shadow of what it was this summer. Autumn looms as I stand under an oak with rust and gold leaves. And suddenly I realize Davis is not the man I want to see today.
Sometimes a person cannot continue to keep her emotions inside, letting them silently brush against her heart like waves on the shore. Sometimes there’s a call for speaking up, and out. So as I drive to the Grille, I form a plan. I am going to boldly ask a certain waiter if we can go for a kayak ride and then, as we paddle around the coves, I’ll let him know how I feel about him. Girls do this in the movies. I’ve seen enough to know how it’s done. I’m not coy, and I’ve had enough of blind dates. I’m taking the initiative and asking Buck out on a date.
When I enter the Grille, I freeze when I see Davis seated on a stool at the right side of the bar. A large man almost hides him, but I spot him anyway. He’s wearing a light blue Ralph Lauren shirt and eating a well-done cheeseburger.
Buck catches my eye as I pause for a second, and then once I see his smile, I make my way toward Davis.
There are times when you know something important is about to happen in which you will play a large role, and yet you have no idea what you are going to do or say. Life is unrehearsed, Sheerly says in one of her songs. My mother phrases it this way: “You never can know how you will be.”
I find my feet moving toward Davis, buoyed by a wild boldness unfamiliar to me.
40
Davis looks my way and then takes a sip of his iced tea. I watch his fingers ease their way around the mason jar, those fingers I have grown to know and love the way they feel against my skin.
When he flashes his broad smile, I hear myself saying, “I know, Davis.”
He says, “It’s good to see you! How are you?”
As he slips his arm around me, I step back. “I know everything.” His face shows no worry lines, no fear. “What do you know?”
From the corner of my eye, I see Buck’s face, drained and shaded with disbelief. He�
�s holding a towel. Neither the towel nor Buck move.
“I know that you aren’t the man you want us to believe you are.”
Davis looks so strong, so tailored in his black pants and buttondown blue shirt. I recall how it felt to rest my head against his chest. “I’m not sure what you mean, Jackie.”
“You haven’t been straightforward with me. You hired men to fix the Bailey House, but when they found serious problems, you ignored them.” My calm tone has escalated.
I expect Davis to glare at Buck or stand up and punch him like in a scene from a film. He does neither. He is the epitome of serene, like a glassy lake on a spring afternoon. He takes another sip of his drink. “Don’t believe everything they tell you.”
“Why not?”
“There’s no proof.”
I now know what novelists mean when they use the phrase “her blood boiled.” I feel mine rapidly churning with heat. “You made sure there wasn’t. You used your power to silence people.” And to make me be a toy in your scheme to get a renter—a renter that would do just as you wanted.
Davis laughs, sinister and cool.
His response gives me strength to say, “You’re a . . . a disgrace.”
He touches my elbow. “Jackie—”
I pull back. The large man turns to look at me, but I don’t even care that he’s there, listening in. “No.”
Davis uses a soothing tone. “Jackie, really, let’s not do this here.”
“What you’ve done is deceitful.”
“Sweetheart, you are beautiful.”
He’s never called me either of these things before, yet, at this moment in time, he’s using them as if he’s turned into Humphrey Bogart. I don’t think my mother would approve.
“How could you be like this? How can you be so . . . so callous?”
His face holds a smirk, one I haven’t seen before.
“Why can’t you be a decent landlord?”
“You know you love me.” His words are out of place.
“Love?” The word sounds empty, as empty as it did coming from Davis’s mouth. “I don’t love you.”
He grimaces. For a second, I think he might break down, get angry. Instead he says, “You are in love, and you know it.”
The next words fly from my heart straight out of my mouth without consulting my mind. “I do love someone.” His smug look only makes me bolder. “And it’s not you.”
Davis spins in his seat to face me. “You are such a confused and misguided child.”
“Child!”
His smile insults me.
“You know something? I can’t believe that your hero Manex Jethro never gave any credit to his girlfriend for all those songs she wrote for him. He made his money and never gave her any of it.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“Who has heroes like him? His girlfriend was entitled to some of his wealth.”
“They broke up.”
“That’s not the point. She still wrote all those songs you like so much. She still deserved some credit. After he broke up with her, she had nothing.”
“Her loss.” Davis reaches for his tea.
I leave the restaurant because I’ve never hit a man and I don’t want to start today.
41
I don’t know where to go, but I know I can’t be alone right now. I need someone to reassure me that I’m capable and sensible, that I’m not going to end up in the Morning Glory Nursing Home anytime soon. I wish I could talk to Buck, but I’m not sure of my feelings toward him right now—and besides, I can’t go into the restaurant again. Minnie’s at the salon, and her shift doesn’t end until five.
Seated in my truck, I feel that a trip to the salon might be just what I need. There is safety in the familiar walls of my aunt’s shop with the German cuckoo clock, the cross-stitched wall hangings, the warmth of women’s chatter, and the thermos of hot tea. And Aunt Sheerly, with all her wise sayings, might be able to help me.
Inside Sheerly Cut, my aunt puts her scissors down to give me a hug and ask if I want my hair trimmed today. “I could give you lots of layers,” she says, running her fingers through my long, straight strands.
“No thanks.”
Beatrice Lou offers me a cup of jasmine tea as I sit in one of the empty chairs. My aunt’s just had a perm; her graying curls look stiff, and the air around her is heavy from a bottled solution.
Minnie stops sweeping hair to ask me what’s wrong.
I wonder how she can tell. I fake a smile for each customer— Mavey Marie, the woman seated under one of the pink hair dryers, a round-faced woman with a baby, and Lona in the pink leather chair, her head a mass of spongy curlers. When Minnie sits next to me, I whisper, “I confronted Davis.” Then I take a swallow of tea and burn my tongue.
Beatrice Lou comments to the woman holding the infant in a purple dress and matching bonnet, “Such a cute baby. What lovely blue eyes she has.”
The young mother, a jacket pulled around her thin shoulders, smiles sweetly at my aunt and at her child. “Thank you.”
“How old is she?”
“Seven months.” She watches as her baby sucks her fingers. I recognize this woman, but I can’t decide where I’ve seen her before. Perhaps she’s a cashier at Food Lion.
Firmly, Beatrice Lou says, “Enjoy her when you can still control her.”
The young woman’s eyes widen.
Sheerly laughs. “I think God wants to humble us and that’s why He gives us kids to raise.” She unfastens one of the rollers, freeing Lona’s curled hair. “I used to think I knew all the answers. Then I had kids.” Busily, she unclamps another roller while Lona peers at her reflection in the mirror. “When your kids become teenagers, they will show you that you know nothing.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” Beatrice Lou says with extra volume to her voice.
Minnie whispers over the other conversation, “You okay?”
Mechanically, I nod.
“Want to go to the back room to talk?”
“Later,” I say.
Minnie gives me a concerned look but resumes her sweeping, and then answers a ringing phone.
Sheerly walks over to the set of pink dryers and, after checking a petite woman’s head, snaps the dryer off. She removes the dryer from over her and invites her to sit in the chair next to Lona.
“I miss having young kids at home,” Mavey Marie tells us. “Funny, while they were there, I only dreamed of what I would do once they left the nest.”
“What was that?” asks Beatrice Lou.
“I wanted to redecorate. Did you see the shop near the vet in Waves?” She makes sure all of us are looking her way as she reveals, “I designed the colors in there.”
“That little cute shop that sells hammocks?” Sheerly takes more rollers out of the tiny woman’s hair, which is starting to resemble sheep wool.
“That’s the shop,” says Mavey Marie as her own hair bounces from its beehive abundance.
Beatrice Lou puts in, “Dreams are vital. They keep us going. Sheerly’s dream was to own a salon, right?”
Sheerly nods. “I had no money. Just a dream. Then one day the owner of this salon let me rent it for only two hundred dollars a month.” She smiles knowingly at Beatrice Lou. “God provided.”
“I had a dream to write. Some days I wonder why I dreamed that one.” The women laugh as though Lona is a guest comedian on The Tonight Show.
Beatrice Lou sighs. “My Aggie is twenty-four now, and I still wonder what she’s up to.”
“Wasn’t she going to be a lawyer?” Lona asks.
“Oh yeah, then a psychiatrist, and then a mortician.” Beatrice Lou pours another cup of tea.
I wonder if she’s going to tell us about how Aggie is dating Douglas now, but she doesn’t.
“She needs to find her passion,” says Mavey Marie.
“Like Jackie has with the B & B. How is that coming?” Lona peers at me from the mirror she’s seated in front of.
As I
wonder how to answer, Beatrice Lou interrupts. “Sheerly had a fundraiser for it.”
“Hated to miss it,” says Lona as Sheerly combs soft piles of curls on top of the woman’s hair.
“It went great,” Sheerly says. “The gang sang our hearts out.”
“Raised a lot of money?” asks the woman with the sheep wool hair.
“We sure did.” Sheerly grins at me.
Lona then says to all of us, “I don’t know why I can’t write today. My main character is supposed to be optimistic and fun. Today she’s sounding a lot like me.”
“How’s that?” asks Beatrice Lou.
“Tired. Tired.” She slips her handbag over her shoulder. “I think I need caffeine and a greasy burger.”
“Go to the Grille,” I say, placing my empty teacup on an end table near my chair. “And while you’re there, punch someone for me.”
This is not how I planned to tell them about Davis Erickson, but sometimes I surprise myself.
Disbelief fills every pore of Minnie’s face as she stares at me over the counter. She was in the middle of calling someone but lets the phone find its way to the cradle.
Sheerly’s hand with the large metal hairbrush is suspended from her side like a raised sword.
My words crawl at first, and then tumble and leap all over themselves.
I must be making sense, for there are looks of understanding and disgust.
“Davis Erickson?” Sheep Wool and Sheerly’s eyes lock through their reflections in the mirror.
Slowly, I say, “Yeah, he’s been covering up all that damage at the Bailey House.”
Sheep Wool presses her lips tightly. “Oh, mercy! He’s our landlord. We weren’t supposed to talk about it. We love the location, don’t want to move.”
Lona is no longer interested in her hunger and a burger. She plops down in a chair beside me; her purse swings onto her lap.
Minnie says, “This is where I heard the first rumors, Jackie. Remember, Sheerly, the other day when that couple came in and said something about reading about Davis in Lighthouse Views?”
Sheerly shrugs her shoulders, looks at me as if she should have told me what she’d heard the other day, shows guilt that she didn’t.
Hatteras Girl (Heart of Carolina Book #3) Page 21