Isle of Palms

by Dorothea Benton Frank

  “They went nuts! They thought it was wonderful!”

  “You and those gals are so funny,” she said. “Okay, are you going to throw in lunch?”

  “Good idea.”

  “What about a limo to pick them up? Champagne in the backseat and all?”

  “Open container law in South Carolina.”

  “Then just give her a split with a note attached to it that indemnifies the salon against any problem if it’s opened.”

  “Too complicated.”

  “Then give her a note that says, Drink me! Two glasses will loosen her tongue enough so that when she arrives, you can go to work. What questions are y’all gonna ask her?”

  “Gee, God, I hadn’t even thought about that. What do you think?”

  “Well, for Pete’s sake, the first thing you need to know is if they have children! I mean, don’t you want to know if Emily has half brothers or sisters?”

  “Come on, Frannie, I’m not a total idiot! Of course that’s the most important thing!” I had never considered it. She was right. “But besides that, what should I ask her?”

  “Well, as long as we’re channeling the devil, why don’t you get Bettina to somehow start a chat to find out what their sex life is like. And while Bettina is warming her up, check out her jewelry, shoes, handbag—see if she and old Everett have any dough to speak of.”

  “Heaven help me, Frannie, their sex life is the last thing I want to know about.”

  “No, it isn’t; because if they’re not happy then you might not want Emily to get entangled with them. I mean, Anna, this woman could be a total, screaming, nagging bitch. Or a lunatic. Or overpossessive of Everett. Or who knows? Maybe she’s such a tightwad that she wouldn’t let Everett give Emily ten cents for college.”

  “God, Frannie! The thought of money never even entered my mind!”

  “Then, hang on, lassie, I’ll call Rome on me other line and have you put on the short list for sainthood.”

  “You’re so funny,” I said and giggled.

  “Look, here’s the point. The more you can get her to talk, the more you can make a better guess on what kind of man he turned out to be. And whether or not you want Emily to find out about him now or later.”

  “What do you mean now or later?”

  “Look, Anna. Let’s say his wife is the salt of the earth and you love her to death. Okay, then you might want to take Emily aside with Jim and tell her that you have found her birth father and ask her what she wants to do about it.”

  “Well, that’s about how I had figured it, which is why it’s so important for Jim to come. If that happens, I don’t think I should spring this on Emily without him.”

  “Absolutely. It wouldn’t be fair. And if she’s a bitch from hell, you don’t have to tell Emily right away. Do you? Is she suspicious about anything?”

  “She thinks I’m just nervous because we’ve been so busy, and upset because King Arthur went back to New York.”

  “He what?”

  “Yeah. Skipped town and took Excalibur with him.”

  “Excalibur? Is that what he calls his . . .”

  “No. It’s what I called it.”

  “Excalibur? Whew! Really? Whoa!”

  She was killing herself laughing and I was turning every shade of lipstick in my makeup bag, including the free samples.

  “Don’t bust a gut up there in Yankee territory, girl! Wait till you get here and I’ll tell you all about him, if I have the courage. I’m going to hell, right?”

  “Who gives a shit? Just pray he’s there! Anna?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Excalibur?”

  “Yes. Get over it, okay?”

  The trap was ready. Now all we needed was a victim. We had our trial run on the first Saturday in August with a precious older lady from Birmingham. The concierge gathered the names of all the guests who had a Saturday night stay at Wild Dunes that week. All we had to do was stop by and pick them up. We took the names back to the salon, pulled a slip of paper from the fishbowl, and we had a winner. We then called the concierge back to arrange the appointment, giving him three different times. Wild Dunes was happy because they had a little bonus to offer their guests. We were pleased because Mrs. Dan Gaby of Birmingham bought three of Angel’s baskets, for almost five hundred dollars, and a twenty-five-dollar bottle of aloe for her husband’s sunburn. There were benefits to this that I hadn’t even calculated. Besides, I knew she would come back to our salon if she came to the Isle of Palms again. It was always interesting to meet new clients—especially if they liked to talk. Women don’t go to the beauty parlor expecting to keep their business to themselves.

  “Dan liked to burn himself half to death out there, deep-sea fishing with all those silly men,” she said.

  “Did he catch anything?” I said, while I was painting color on her roots. She was easily on the other side of seventy-five.

  She started to chuckle. “Catch anything? Well, nothing much besides sun poisoning and a hangover. He’s up to the condo right now, lying on the couch watching the Golf Channel. Is that the most boring thing in the world? The Golf Channel? Why, I’d rather clean closets than waste my time watching golf on the television.”

  “Sometimes I think fishing is just an excuse to drink beer,” I said. “And, I wouldn’t watch golf on television or in person. Puts me to sleep!”

  “Me too!”

  She was pleased as punch with her hair and her purchases and we were one week away from facing Mrs. Everett Fairchild.

  Thirty-two

  La Bomb-ba

  T was early Saturday morning, the second week of August, and I couldn’t shake my dreams out of my head. I was a teenager, riding in a pale yellow convertible with some friends, heading from Breach Inlet toward Fort Moultrie on Sullivan’s Island. My mother was in the back of a van in front of me. She was wearing a lavender dress and jacket and she waved at me, smiling. I was aware that she was dead and I kept saying in the dream, There’s my mother! See her? She looks so great!

  Most dreams I had seemed to be a clearinghouse for whatever was on my mind during the day. Even though I had been born in the Lowcountry and had grown up in the Gullah culture, combined with my peculiar brand of Catholicism—which was highly driven by saints and novenas—I wasn’t completely convinced that all dreams of my mother were spiritual visitations. I only hoped they were. I may have had a garden growing out of control, but my imagination was in check. Still, I’d had enough of these dreams to know something was about to happen and if it was indeed her, that she wanted me to know that she was around, pulling for me.

  Well, yes, something was about to happen because this was the day that Everett Fairchild’s wife was coming into the salon.

  Frannie had canceled her return emotional support trip because of business but Jim would hopefully arrive that night. Among the many things on my list, adding to the very worst case of nervous anxiety I’d ever had, was the most harrowing of all burning questions.

  How does one get their act together emotionally to meet the wife of one’s rapist?

  I hadn’t given my own state of mind much consideration because, compared to the possible ramifications of the day before me, it seemed like I had accepted the plan as it came together. But I hadn’t. When I woke up and realized everything was on schedule, I was terrified.

  I wanted this woman to take me seriously. Who wouldn’t? I kept thinking that, if and when she found out that her husband had fathered Emily, she wouldn’t believe it was a rape; she would say it wasn’t his child; and finally she would say that if her husband left some little nothing hairdresser with a baby, so what? That I was nothing but a redneck hairdresser and people like me did white trash things like this all the time.

  I mean, I would have felt better about myself if I were a world-famous neurologist and she was coming to me because of migraine headaches, you know what I mean? I thought that I had made peace with myself about being a hairdresser instead of a doctor or a lawyer, and I had. I
was wildly proud of myself. Until that morning arrived, that is, and then I was wildly insecure. Well, at least I owned my own business and that was a substantial something to console me.

  Was there anything in my closet that would send the message I wanted her to receive? Exasperated with my own self-consciousness, I finally settled on a midcalf white linen tank dress with a lavender linen overshirt. I put on every piece of faux turquoise jewelry I owned, which wasn’t much, and white sandals with a low platform. How odd that I had chosen white. I looked pristine and innocent. It was another reminder that before I had been targeted as the aircraft carrier of Joanne Fairchild’s husband’s stinging crash landing, I had been innocent if not pristine.

  For all the thought I had given to how and what I should do to fix my life, I had never figured Everett Fairchild into the equation. I wasn’t convinced in the least that seeing his wife would bring me closer to a decision on whether it was right or wrong to circle his planet. The whole thing made me a complete wreck.

  That day I would have to begin the process of deciding if his marriage looked hospitable enough to allow my daughter to enter their lives. How could I even concentrate if my hands wouldn’t stop shaking? I wished that Jim was going to be there.

  The group picture had been taken and framed. Emily was right in the middle, her father’s green eyes plainly visible. We put it in a gift bag with some shampoo, conditioner, and a T-shirt, of which we now owned many dozens. I decided then and there that if I didn’t like Joanne I would just remove the picture from her bag before I gave it to her. Easy enough. Our small cast was ready. Everyone, that is, except Emily.

  It was only eight-thirty in the morning and already over ninety degrees, as it had been all week. Emily didn’t want to come to work. She slipped into moodiness, as she was unaware there was a landmark occasion hovering to which she should rise. She and David had argued over something—probably sex or power, which at their age were frequently the same thing.

  “He’s a total jerk,” she said.

  “Men mature later than women,” I said, “you know that.”

  “Except Lucy,” she said, “he’s just like her. I’m not working today. I’ve had it.”

  Who knew what that meant except that she didn’t feel like dealing with Lucy? I didn’t want to know what had happened—and I imagine she didn’t want Lucy asking her what had happened either. Tough noogies, O young, petulant one.

  “Honey? It’s Saturday! It’s our busiest day! I need you!”

  “Then tell Lucy to stay out of my face, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  I understood. I really did. Unfortunately, this was not the day to abandon ship.

  I wobbled into the salon and everyone was already there, playing opossum. The most difficult part had been not telling Emily and I hoped we would be busy enough that she would slide through the day. Lucy, Bettina, and Brigitte were cool and greeted Emily and me as though it was another normal unspectacular day.

  But we knew better. Joanne Fairchild would be there in twenty minutes. She was bringing a friend who had booked a long appointment while their husbands were playing in a golf tournament.

  The front door opened and in they came, stepping up to Lucy’s desk to announce themselves. One was stunning, right out of a magazine, and the other one was, well, bless her heart, dowdy. She wasn’t overweight, just frumpy, the kind of woman who never got a second look or even a serious first glance. I assumed correctly that the one who suffered from the overzealous personal stylist and trainer was Joanne. And, because Lucy took her over and introduced her to Brigitte.

  I gave Joanne the eye. She wore cobalt tissue linen drawstring pants and her black knit halter top left a great part of her rock hard midriff exposed. Her arms were toned from the rigors of weight training, her wrists a chorus of thick gold bangles. Her four-carat diamond stood out like a midnight beacon against her deep tan, flashing little rainbows against the walls every time she moved. She had almost jet black hair pulled back in a clamp and I imagined she had dark, heavily mascaraed eyes hiding behind her large Chanel sunglasses. She was the complete antithesis of me. She was dark, flashy, and she reeked money. And she was self-absorbed. Fault Number One: egocentric.

  Yes, Brigitte was handling Joanne. Before everyone starts saying, Why? This was the opportunity of your lifetime, may I just say that this was going to be nothing like a high school catfight in the girls’ bathroom. It was choreographed to be dead serious and innocuous at the same time. Way before this day actually dawned, I knew that when Joanne Fairchild arrived, Brigitte would have the most composure of any of us. Besides, Brigitte was no nitwit and I trusted her to ask the right questions. I would be four feet away the entire time and listening, ears twitching. It was the most I could bear. I think it was the most any woman in my position should have been expected to bear.

  Lucy brought the other woman to me and introduced her as Marsha, before they were swept off to change into salon robes. Brigitte was shampooing Joanne and I put Marsha in my chair. Bettina was warming the wax and making the treatment room ready, her heels ticktacking back and forth across the floor. Lucy offered them drinks and magazines.

  As soon as Marsha sat down I could sense that she seemed uneasy. Her appointment was obviously more important to her than it was to me. How could she have known that I only wanted to fall in a hole, pass out cold, and have them tell me what had happened later? Anything. But, hell, no. My middle name should have been Be the Pro and Face the Music.

  “I think, I mean, I’ve been thinking that maybe I’d like red hair. What do you think?”

  Oh, God, not today! Why did I always get the desperate-to-be-saved on days I could barely think?

  “Well, let’s see what you have here,” I said and pulled the rubber band from her ponytail.

  Her shoulder-length hair tumbled and settled around her shoulders like wisps of goose down from a pillow fight. Women thought they knew what they wanted but it was my experience that I could serve them better if I knew what they hoped would come of a few hours in my chair. Sometimes a client would badger you into some wild new look that would be great on a rock star but looked like holy hell on their triple chins, broken veins, and trifocals. And, I mean that in the best way. I’m not in the business of being cruel. I’m in the business of serving up someone’s most flattering appearance.

  Whenever I gave in to duplicating the hairstyle of a magazine picture of some glam gal a client had carried folded in her wallet for months, she almost always regretted it. Sometimes they sat right in my chair and cried. I was in no state of mind to have that happen.

  “Well, we can do red. I mean, honey, I’ve got a war chest of colors that would scare Rembrandt. I can make it any color you want.” I looked at her face in the mirror as I stood behind her and thought about it for a minute. She had obviously colored it a lot—at home—because it was straw and didn’t have much elastic to it, except at the roots. What she really needed was a good cut. And to lose the blue metallic eye shadow.

  “Marsha? If what you want is a new look, I think it’s more about the cut and the condition of your hair than the color. But, I’d go blond. Blonds are hot this year. I can give it some highlights and glaze it to give it body and to make it shine and I can cut away all the dead stuff.”

  “Well, as long as I leave here looking like I’ve been here, I guess that would be okay.”

  “Does that mean cut it and condition it?”

  “I guess. Look. Here’s the thing.” She lowered her voice and said quietly, “My husband works for Joanne’s husband. I’m always hearing about Joanne this and Joanne that from him. It would be nice if my husband would look at me the way he looks at her. You know what I mean?”

  I thought, Whooo baby, it didn’t take long to start getting the skinny on Joanne Fairchild. Fault Number Two: Joanne flirted inappropriately with the help.

  “Done,” I said, “Blond it is. I can show you some makeup tricks too, if you’re interested.”

  “I
’m interested in anything but let’s not announce what we’re doing, okay?”

  “You can count on that, Marsha. This chair is sacred like the confessional at the Vatican. I’ll be right back.”

  I went to the back to mix some color and some bleach, thinking about the scores of women I had known over the years. They spent more money in one week on groceries and more time on volunteerism in a month than they spent on themselves in a year. They forgot that men don’t care how many committees they chaired or whether or not the chicken soup was made from homemade stock. Men liked their women to be good looking and stylish. Women forgot that they didn’t have to sacrifice themselves on the road to quality homemaking.

  I knew what I would do to resurrect her face. I was going to give her a single process and then some highlights. Bettina caught my eye and followed me.

  “So, what do you think the first thing is she says when Brigitte starts washing her hair?” Bettina said, practically hissing and spitting. When Bettina was annoyed, it showed like the lights on the tree at Rockefeller Center.

  “I give up,” I said, whispering, stirring color around in a plastic bowl.

  “She says of all the women in the group they’re traveling with, wasn’t it funny she won? She said she needed to win the Day of Beauty less than any of them. Augh! Is she stuck on herself or what?”

  “Be nice. Bait her. Don’t challenge her.”

  “I know, I know,” Bettina said, “but you know me. First impressions and all. I’d like to slap her! I hate women like her!”

  I put the bowl on the counter and faced her, whispering. “Me too, but don’t judge her, Bettina. That’s death. We need to get her to talk, remember? Concentrate on how you’re gonna find out about her sex life.”

  “Right.” Bettina’s eyes glistened at the prospect of her assignment. “It will all come out in the waxing room.” She inhaled, raising herself up to her full height, and walked away as though nothing had passed between us. Go wax the hell out of her, I thought, and while you’re at it, cut her cuticles up to her knuckles.