Only Ever Her

by Whalen, Marybeth Mayhew

  Which is why she’s both surprised and not surprised that Annie isn’t here for the practice run for the bridesmaids’ hairstyle. She’d reminded Annie several times, but she had the distinct feeling each time that Annie wasn’t listening. Annie has been so distracted lately, with all this talk of Cordell Lewis being released. It’s put a real damper on the wedding plans. Which is why she cooked up this practice-run idea in the first place, to get Annie’s mind where it should be—on her upcoming wedding—and not on this man who has dominated their lives far too much and for far too long.

  In the chair in front of her, Tracy Douglas sits with a barely perceptible pout on her face. She’s trying to be okay with being stood up by Annie, but she’s not quite there yet. Faye feels the same way. Some days Annie requires more grace than others. Today is one of those days. She’d sensed it would be when she saw Annie reading something at the breakfast table this morning, something she quickly folded up and tucked into the pages of a bridal magazine she then pretended to be interested in when Faye walked in with her morning coffee in hand.

  “Whatcha reading?” Faye had asked, giving Annie the chance to tell her the truth.

  Annie tapped the magazine page and lied. “An article about seating arrangements for the wedding.” She’d looked up at Faye, feigning innocence. “We really should go over that soon.”

  “Sure.” Faye had decided not to push the issue. Let Annie have her secrets. The girl was entitled, seeing as how she was no longer a girl at all. In a few weeks, she would be a married woman. A married woman moving out and leaving town. Faye tries not to think about that. “Maybe after we finish at the salon today?” Faye had asked.

  “Mm-hmm,” Annie had replied, her nose buried in the magazine. Faye had known she wasn’t paying a bit of attention to her. Now she wishes she’d pushed harder, made sure Annie acknowledged that she would in fact be at the salon immediately after her lunch with the reporter. Ugh. The reporter. Laurel Haines, back in town and hungry for a story. Faye fears Annie’s wedding isn’t the only story she’s after. She’s keeping her eye on Laurel Haines. She has spent her life protecting Annie, and that compulsion won’t go away anytime soon.

  When Annie got up to shower, Faye had flipped through the magazine to find whatever Annie had tucked inside. But whatever it was, it was gone. It had looked like some sort of official letter. Faye has an idea who it was from. She’d like to string up that attorney by his thumbs. This case of his—this Innocence Inquiry Commission—isn’t any concern of Annie’s. Whether or not Cordell Lewis belongs in jail is not for Annie to help determine. Let the girl get on with her life, for crying out loud!

  “Do you think we should call her?” Tracy asks, interrupting Faye’s fingers as they craft the braided part of the updo Annie had shown her a photo of, from that same magazine she’d been pretending to read that morning. Faye is doing the style from memory, and she can tell that Tracy doesn’t quite believe that she’s doing it right without the photo to prove it. But Annie has the magazine, and Annie isn’t here.

  “I tried,” says Faye. “But she didn’t answer. And she hasn’t called back.”

  “I could text her,” Tracy says, trying to be helpful. She has that eager look on her face that says she will do most anything she’s asked. She was always such a pleaser in high school. Annie’s best friend, for better or worse. But sometimes Faye suspects that Annie can take or leave Tracy, that the two will quickly lose touch once Annie moves away. Annie is moving away. The thought catches her up short, as it always does. Faye bemoans the fact that Annie couldn’t find a nice hometown boy. She likes Scott Hanson well enough. But she does hold it against him that he’s taking Annie away from them. She never thought Annie would be the one to leave Ludlow while she would stay behind.

  Faye shakes her head. “I’ve already tried. A bunch of times.” She rolls her eyes, a skill she learned from Annie and Clary. “She’s probably off making goo-goo eyes at Scott,” she says, just to say something.

  “Or maybe more than that,” Louise Hendrix suggests from a nearby chair, then cackles loudly, willing everyone to join her. A few customers politely do.

  “Well, that’s a visual I don’t need in my head, thank you very much,” Faye teasingly scolds Louise.

  Louise laughs again but with less exuberance, then sits back, realizing she’d best not say more. Faye is not a prude, but she doesn’t exactly want to think about her niece’s sex life, either.

  “You know what you should do? You should get a facial,” she says to Tracy. “I can give you a free one. For your trouble.”

  “I want a free facial,” Louise grumbles to herself, but just loud enough that someone could hear if they wanted. But no one pays her any mind. Louise is one of the richest women in town but not one of the smartest. She was once quite the beauty, but that ship has sailed. She spends most of her time standing on the dock waving a hankie, begging it to come back to her. Which means she spends a lot of time in Faye’s salon. She’s as much a fixture here as that big-ass clock on the wall.

  “It’s okay,” Tracy says. “I don’t really need one.” Tracy leans toward the mirror in front of her as if to confirm that she is correct.

  Faye pats Tracy’s shoulder. “You’re right. You don’t. Oh, to have your skin again.” She looks to Louise as if to say, Am I right? but this time Louise pretends to be interested in a back issue of People magazine. Oh well, let her pout. She’ll be back. Faye’s salon isn’t the only one in town, but it’s the best. Her customers are loyal, and her calendar is full. She cannot count on a lot in life, but she can count on that.

  Tracy says something that Faye doesn’t quite hear. She inclines her head toward the girl. “What, honey?”

  “Nothing,” Tracy responds as two spots of color rise on her cheeks. Faye remembers this about her. She blushes fast and embarrasses easily.

  “Oh, you have to tell me now,” Faye prompts, and nudges her playfully, if for no other reason than to get her to lighten up.

  She watches as Tracy debates whether to repeat what she said. She looks toward the door of the salon, as if Annie might walk in and catch her. Satisfied that won’t happen, she takes a deep breath. “I just said, I don’t understand why she wouldn’t show up. I mean,” she rushes to add, “not for me. But for you.” Tracy pauses, sighs. “I mean, considering all you’ve done.”

  Faye takes a step back. It’s normal for other women—women her age—to comment on all she’s done for Annie, what a wonderful person she is to do what she did, the sacrifices she’s made for her niece. But not Annie’s peers. They always seem oblivious.

  “Well,” Faye decides to say, “it’s her wedding. I’ve done what any mother would do.” She shrugs, hoping the action makes her seem indifferent. “I’m the closest thing she’s got,” she adds needlessly.

  Tracy looks at Faye in the mirror until she meets her eyes. When Faye reluctantly does, Tracy holds her gaze for a moment before speaking again. “I’m not just talking about the wedding,” she says. She starts to say more, then closes her mouth with an alarmed look. She has said too much. The moment of bravery is over.

  But Faye knows what she meant, what she was trying to say. And she appreciates it. She rests her hand on Tracy’s shoulder. “Thank you, honey. That means a lot.”

  Tracy nods. “It’s true.”

  “I did what anyone would do,” she says, though she knows this is not exactly true. She’s heard it enough times to know that not everyone would do what she did for Annie. But she is not everyone, and neither was Lydia. She thinks of her dead sister for the briefest of moments; that is all she allows herself anymore. No sense dwelling on the past. There is a wedding to pull off, a life to live in the here and now. When the bride shows up, they will get to it.

  Annie shows up in time for dinner. The door opens, and she breezes in, calling out, “Hey! I’m here!”

  This is what always happens when she pulls one of her disappearing acts. Later, she acts like nothing happened and expects for
giveness. It is part of their unspoken agreement, one that has evolved with time: you recognize that I am damaged goods because of what happened when I was a child. You raise me, and I become the dutiful de facto daughter. On the outside, I will make sure things look perfect, and you will be praised. But when I need to fall apart, you will allow it. You will understand.

  Faye wonders if Scott knows about Annie’s dark moods, understands her need to come apart every so often. Faye and Clary are accustomed to it; they expect it and recognize the signs and cycles. But Faye fears Annie has kept this part of herself from her fiancé. It is, after all, what you do when you fall in love: you hide who you really are for as long as possible, fearing that if you show your true self, the person you love won’t love you anymore. Once, she tried to talk to Annie about this—tentatively broached the subject of Lydia’s death (she’d called it death and not murder to make it sound gentler) and the lingering effects it has had on all of them (she’d included herself and Clary to make it sound less pointed in Annie’s direction). But Annie had seen right through her and refused to discuss it.

  “That will be my new life,” she’d said. “Away from here. Away from all that.” Looking at her, Faye could tell she believed it.

  “Hey yourself,” Faye calls from the kitchen. She hears Annie put her purse and keys on the table in the foyer, then kick off her shoes, just as she’s done ever since she could drive a car: thunk, jingle, clunk clunk. She will miss those sounds, the sounds that Annie is home, that her chicks are all back in the nest. She can already tell that after the wedding, she will catch herself waiting for that familiar sound sometimes, having momentarily forgotten that this phase of her life has ended. She shakes her head and gives the salad dressing a good shake. She’s being maudlin again.

  Annie rounds the corner and gives her a wide smile, the one she uses when she’s trying to deflect what she knows is coming. In response, Faye raises her eyebrows. “We missed you at the salon today,” she says, choosing her words carefully.

  “Yeah,” Annie says. “Sorry about that. I got . . . tied up . . . with something.” She ducks her head and turns the corners of her mouth down, her attempt to look ashamed of herself. “I’m sorry,” she adds. “I called Tracy already.”

  “She seemed kinda mad at you for not showing,” Faye says. Good plan: make it look like someone else is mad. But not her.

  “Yeah,” Annie says. “She said I shouldn’t have stood y’all up. I told her it just slipped my mind, and by the time I remembered, it was too late.” She holds up her hands in a gesture of innocence. “I’ve had a lot on my mind lately,” she adds.

  Faye gives her the salad bowl, and Annie lowers her innocent hands to take it. Without being told, she trots into the dining area off the kitchen to put the bowl on the table. This house was in Annie’s father’s family. They had allowed Lydia to stay on there to raise Annie after he died in a motorcycle accident. Then, after Lydia died, they’d allowed Faye and Clary to stay to care for Annie “just for a little while.” That was twenty-three years ago. But it still doesn’t really feel like home.

  Sometimes Faye daydreams about what a house of her own choosing might look like. She’d lived in a rented apartment with her husband when she got the call about Lydia and came to fetch her orphaned niece. Of course, back then she’d thought—they’d all thought—she’d get Annie and return to Virginia and her husband. But other than a quick trip to collect her things, she’s never gone back other than the occasional forced, quick visit. She’d stayed in this house, raised her daughter and her niece, gotten a job at the salon she eventually bought, and built a life, so to speak. But sometimes she wonders if this life was what she wanted or what she accepted. Any time she tries to really think about it, she gets interrupted by someone who needs something.

  “Where’s Clary?” Annie calls with her mouth full. Without looking, Faye knows she’s eating a cucumber wheel from the salad.

  “She’s outside in the loft,” Faye calls back, gathering the ranch dressing for Clary, the blue cheese for herself, and the Italian vinaigrette for Annie to carry to the dining room table. They are having a light meal of salad and leftover grilled chicken tonight. It’s too damn hot outside to eat anything heavier. One of her customers brought her fresh tomatoes and cucumbers from her garden: the first of the season. She’d decided right then and there to make a salad for their supper. She gets to the table and plunks down the three different dressings, a visual of the three different personalities. It would be nice if they all liked the same thing, but that’s never happened. Three different flavors of ice cream in the freezer, three different kinds of soda, three different salad dressings.

  “She’s upset,” Faye tells Annie.

  Annie looks at her, worried. No one likes to be on Clary’s bad side. “At me?”

  It is a natural assumption, considering. “No,” Faye says, using the tongs to toss the salad one more time, though it doesn’t need it. “She lost a dove.”

  “Oh no!” Annie says. “Did it die? That’s so sad.”

  Faye shrugs. “Don’t know if it’s dead or not. She can’t find it. She did a release at a funeral today—you know Myra McGuirt?”

  Annie shakes her head.

  “Well, her husband died. So Myra hired Clary to do a release at his funeral today. And the one dove never came back.”

  “But the others did?” Annie asks. She goes to reach for another cucumber, but Faye puts her hands over the bowl to block her.

  “Serve yourself some salad if you’re hungry,” she scolds. She picks back up with the story. “Apparently so. You know I don’t understand all her bird stuff.”

  All Faye knows is that one day eight years ago, her daughter came home with a wounded bird, determined to nurse it back to health and find whoever owned the thing. She was just nineteen years old and had returned home from a stint of living up in Charlotte, North Carolina, after her high school graduation, her one attempt at independence that didn’t last long. Clary eventually returned the bird to its owner, and Faye figured that was that. But the next thing she knew, Clary was begging to build a loft in the backyard and start raising her own doves.

  Clary says they’re special, but Faye doesn’t necessarily agree. She considers her tolerance of her daughter’s strange hobby to be enough. Sometimes people pay Clary to release the birds at weddings and funerals; sometimes she has groups of schoolchildren over to learn about them. Faye figures it could be worse. She knows Clary wants her to be proud, to understand what these birds mean to her, but she can’t go that far.

  When Annie doesn’t reach for the tongs, Faye decides to go ahead and serve herself. She’s hungry and cannot remember if she ever had lunch today. She had a few Lance crackers midmorning, which is what passes as a meal for her many days. Eating healthy, as Annie is always harping about, is not her strongest suit. But hey, she made a salad for dinner.

  “You know what you should do,” Faye says. “You should go tell her dinner’s ready. Maybe coax her to come in. She can’t stay out there looking for him all night.”

  Annie’s big blue eyes grow bigger. “She’s been out there all afternoon?”

  Faye nods and sits down in front of her bowl of salad. “When she wasn’t making missing posters and calling local vets, she’s been out there scanning the sky. She’s all torn up.” Faye adds some strips of grilled chicken to her salad and douses it all with blue cheese.

  Annie watches and makes a face. “You know that stuff is terrible for you, right?” she says.

  Faye ignores her and takes a big bite. With her mouth full of salad, she says, “Just go talk to her.” Thankfully, Annie moves toward the back door, leaving Faye to eat in peace, knowing it won’t last very long.

  Clary

  “I guess you came out here to tell me dinner’s ready and I’m supposed to come in,” Clary says as she sees her cousin approaching. It’s the end of the day, but Annie still looks as fresh and perky as if she just got up. Clary doesn’t understand how Annie d
oes it or why she missed out on whatever gene allowed for it. They are related, after all. They even have similar coloring. Their eyes are the same shade of blue. And back when Clary used to know the color of her natural hair, it was blonde like Annie’s. When they were little, Faye sometimes even dressed them as twins. But no one ever fell for it. “Friends?” they’d ask, then make the little “aww” face when Faye explained that they were actually cousins.

  Annie stands outside the loft and hitches her thumb back toward the house. “Salad,” she says. “She used the leftover 7UP chicken she grilled this weekend. But the veggies are fresh from someone’s garden.” Annie does jazz hands and singsongs the part about the garden, making Clary smile in spite of herself. She’s not sure she can eat anything, she’s so worried about Mica. Her stomach rumbles as if to say, I beg to differ.

  “She gave me one of her ‘you know what you should do’ suggestions.”

  Clary shakes her head. Her mother’s suggestions are never just suggestions. They are commands disguised as suggestions to make them more palatable. At the salon she can say, “You know what you should do . . . ,” to a lady in her chair, and the woman will pay rapt attention. Clary knows Faye believes the same response should happen at home, but it never does.

  “She’s in there eating alone right now. We’re giving her time to reload.” Annie makes her voice sound ominous. This is an old joke between them using a line from a movie they once saw. Given time, Faye can come up with a whole new barrage of words, a different slant on an old subject, a brand-new line of inquisition. When they do make it inside, she will start in on one of them. Which one is the only question.