A Teeny Bit of Trouble (22 page)

“Stay away from that boy.” She wagged her finger. “His daddy is in the penitentiary.”

“At least he’s got a daddy,” I said. Then, spitefully, I added, “And a mama.”

Aunt Bluette’s eyes filled, but the tears just stayed there, shimmering on the edges of her lashes. “I won’t let you date him. He’s trash. Do you hear me?”

“Yes, and I don’t care.”

“It’ll never work, Teeny,” Aunt Bluette said. “Your mama and Son’s mama hated each other. They wrangled over a man.”

“I’m not my mama. And Son isn’t his father.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt again.” Aunt Bluette blinked, and tears ran down her wrinkled face.

I felt so ashamed that I’d sassed her. I hugged her as hard as I could. “Son won’t hurt me.”

“There’s all kinds of hurts,” she said. “Just all kinds.”

Every afternoon, Son and I waited until Aunt Bluette drove to town, then we met in the hayloft. What I felt for him was sweet and tender, just like the last peach of summer. And I wasn’t giving him up.

Dot Agnew was home from college that summer, and she devised a plan for Son and me to meet. “Tell your aunt that you’re going on a church retreat with me,” Dot said. “Then you and Son can have two whole days together.”

For the first time in my life, I lied to Aunt Bluette. I added it to my annual tally, then I packed a bag and ran off to Hilton Head with Son. We got a room at the Seaside, a blue building with white Adirondack chairs out front. We didn’t put on our suits, just ran down to the beach. It was a blazing hot afternoon. Old ladies sat beneath striped umbrellas. Babies played in tide pools. Son pulled me to the edge of the water. He kneeled in the sand and drew a giant T + S.

He got to his feet, his green plaid shirt filling with wind, and clasped my hands. “I love you, Teeny.”

“Love you, too.”

“I’m gonna marry you someday. Will you wait for me?” His wet hand slid down my cheek and caught in my hair. The surf rushed between our feet and swept over the T + S, scrubbing out the letters. I leaped onto his shoulders and he spun me around. He carried me back to the hotel, pausing every two seconds to kiss me.

Cissy Finnegan stood outside our door, flanked by Son’s tattooed brothers. Aunt Bluette and the Baptist preacher were behind them. All the breath left my body, as if a fist had slammed into my chest.

“You little fucker,” Cissy yelled. She flew at Son, slapping his face and arms.

“How dare you run off with Ruby Ann’s daughter!”

Thwack, thwack, thwack
.

“You ain’t messing up your doctoring career.”

Aunt Bluette pulled me away from Son. He tried to run to me, but his brothers held him back. Cissy spat on the floor.

“Damn Templetons,” she said.

Aunt Bluette and the preacher dragged me to his Buick. I was crying so hard, my nose was running. I felt a cool hand against my shoulder.

“I’m so sorry, Teeny,” Aunt Bluette said. “But you’ll thank me someday. When you find true love, you’ll thank me.”

The preacher didn’t drive back to Bonaventure. They went south, past Savannah, down I-95 toward St. Mary’s. During the ferry ride to Chamor Island, I slumped on a bench, sobbing, while they discussed corn bread.

“Bacon grease is the secret ingredient,” Aunt Bluette said.

“Jalapeños change the flavor entirely,” the preacher said.

“So do chives,” she said.

“There’s hundreds of recipes,” the preacher said. “Hundreds of ingredients. No need to get stuck on one.”

I realized they weren’t talking about the versatility of cornmeal. This was a food parable, and they were telling me that I’d find love again. All kinds of love.

I spent a month in Aunt Bunny’s cottage, and when I returned to Bonaventure, Son was gone.

*   *   *

A giant neon clover sat on the roof of the Tartan Hair Pub. The parking lot was empty except for a gold Corvette, which I assumed belonged to Dot.

I got out of the truck. The shop’s interior was done up in green plaid and Irish bric-a-brac—leprechauns, pipes, and clover. Green mirrors and chairs lined both walls. A row of hairdryers sat in the middle of the aisle. Four sinks were in an alcove. At the last sink, Dot’s long legs jutted out of a plastic cape that was printed with shamrocks.

She lifted her head and waved. “Mr. Sheehan, just give Teeny the works.”

Mr. Sheehan was in his sixties and wore a tight, hunter green bodysuit. He put a finger to his lips and walked around me, his shoes clicking on the tile floor. “Define
works
.”

“I just want a pedicure,” I said.

“You need highlights. Straightening. Maybe lowlights…” His voice trailed off, then he shook his head. “No, highlights won’t show up in that bush.”

He lifted a clump of my hair. “Are you part Aborigine?”

I shrugged. Honestly, I didn’t know. My daddy could have been anyone.

Twenty minutes later, Dot was getting a comb-out, but I was sitting in Mr. Sheehan’s chair, my scalp burning from the straightening solution. I gritted my teeth and took a hit of Ventolin.

“The smell is formaldehyde, doll,” Mr. Sheehan said. “Years ago, funeral homes used it to embalm people. But it got outlawed.”

It was against the law to put formaldehyde into a dead person but not on my hair? “How much longer?” I asked.

“Five more minutes,” Mr. Sheehan said, then bustled off.

The front door opened and Norris Gallagher walked in, looking like a skinny Jesus. He wore a white Izod shirt, white shorts, and white tennis shoes. He was all legs and eyes. A few strands of hair protruded from his bald head. How could a salon help this man?

As his gaze circled the room, I slid off my chair and ran to the bathroom. My hair gave off a tart smell that burned my throat. I lowered the toilet lid and perched on the edge. Surely Norris wouldn’t require a shampoo. He’d be gone in five minutes, right?

I cracked open the door and breathed clean air. A beautician was shaping Dot’s bangs into long question marks. Across the room, Norris sat in a chair, facing the mirror. A girl with a nose ring crouched behind him, shaving the back of his neck. Mr. Sheehan stood in the middle of the store, his hands splayed on his hips.

“Where’s Teeny?” he asked.

“The bathroom,” Dot said.

Norris turned his head, and the nose-ring girl shrieked, “Yikes, don’t move. I almost sliced off your ear.”

I shut the door and locked it. I heard the clickety-click of Mr. Sheehan’s shoes. “Time’s up, doll,” he called.

“I’m sick.”

“Would you rather be sick or bald?”

I didn’t answer.

“You need rinsing. Or you’ll look like an extra in
Night of the Living Dead
.”

“One minute!”

“I’ll give you two. After that, I can’t be responsible for what happens.”

I cringed. Can’t be responsible for what? I knew about perms—they were, oddly enough, a cure for uncontrollably curly hair—but hair straightening was a new concept. Did I need a neutralizer?

I bolted to the sink and rinsed my hair. Fumes curled up, tart and peppery. Spots churned behind my eyelids. I lifted my chin, and water slid down my neck. I gulped a mouthful of formaldehyde. Where was my inhaler? In my purse. And my purse was next to Mr. Sheehan’s chair. I gagged. Now I knew why formaldehyde had been banned.

Mr. Sheehan banged on my door. What’s going on?”

“You said to rinse,” I called. “So I rinsed.”

“You need a neutralizer. Or you’ll end up fried.” The doorknob spun. “Open up.”

Which was worse—a singed scalp or a face-off with Norris? I thought of Zee Quinn and her hand on his private parts. Then I imagined the shocked look on Irene O’Malley’s face when she opened the door and saw my bald head.

“I can’t hear you,” I yelled.

I heard Mr. Sheehan walk off. “Dot?” he yelled. “What’s wrong with your friend? Is it that time of the month?”

I looked in the mirror. I was a dead ringer for Samara, the demon girl from
The Ring.
All I lacked was a dirty white nightgown and a stone well. Samara wasn’t dead, she was just pissed off. Even demons have bad hair days. I pictured her slithering through a television set, her grimy hands scrabbling against the floor. All she wanted was a comb, maybe a detangling lotion, and Mr. Sheehan better have it or else.

Outside my door, the footsteps returned, pounding out a
coming to get you
rhythm. A scratchy-scrapy noise started up, as if Mr. Sheehan were dragging a fingernail file over the wooden door. The door came off the hinges. Mr. Sheehan set it aside, as if it were no heavier than a curler. He pulled me out of the bathroom, towed me to a sink, and rinsed my head, all the while talking about baldness and chemical breakage. Finally, he shut off the water.

“Oh, my god. Oh. My. God.”

I raised up, water pattering down the front of my plastic cape, and turned. In the bottom of the sink, a blond rat’s nest clogged the drain.

“Am I bald?” I cried.

“You’ve still got plenty of hair. Don’t stress it and maybe it won’t fall out.”

A towel engulfed my head. I shoved it out of my eyes as he led me past Dot and a goggle-eyed Norris. Mr. Sheehan pushed me into a chair and turned on a blow dryer.

When he finished, my hair was flat as roadkill. When the Lord had given me curly hair, He’d known what He was doing because it had suited my round face. Now, sleek, honey-colored panels fell past my shoulders, accentuating my flat head and the signature Templeton ears.

Mr. Sheehan spun my chair around. Norris’s chair was empty. Dot stood off to the side, patting her freshly coiffed head. “Poor Teeny. Let me treat you to a pedicure. You’ll really need one now.”

“Later,” I said. “I’m on a bad-beauty roll.”

The nose-ring girl swept up Norris’s hair. It resembled wild rice. I looked over at Dot. “How well do you know Norris Philpot?”

“Well enough. He chased every nurse at Bonaventure Regional. He hates me because I reported him to administration.”

“Norris and I grew up together,” Mr. Sheehan said. “He drank from a sippy cup too long and it ruined his mouth.”

“A sippy cup wouldn’t do that,” Dot said. “Unless he sucked it until he was twenty.”

Mr. Sheehan lifted a hunk of my hair. “If you hadn’t pulled this stunt, your hair would’ve had a little oomph.”

I rose from the chair and a blond clump drifted to the floor.

“Don’t comb it,” Mr. Sheehan said. “Don’t wear a ponytail. Don’t even look at it, and maybe it won’t fall out.”

On my way back to the truck, Norris popped around the corner of the building. His scalp gleamed in the noon sun. His whole head had been shaved.

“Hello, Teeny,” he said. “Your eyeth are tho pretty.”

Eyeth. A chill ran through me. Was he selling body parts or collecting corneas as souvenirs? I gave him a wide berth, but he stepped in front of me.

“Let me take you to dinner.”

Sweat trickled between my shoulder blades. “I’m engaged. And I’m in a hurry.”

“What a cute non thqueter.” A raptor claw dropped in front of his crotch. “You make me tingle.”

I ran to my truck, climbed inside, and drove home with the windows rolled down, praying the air would blow off the formaldehyde stench. Loose blond strands blew around me like tiny worms. The odor was still with me by the time I stepped onto the porch and checked my Scotch tape booby trap. It was intact, unlike my hair.

When I got inside, Sir trotted down the hall, grunting to himself. I thought I’d put him in the parlor, but the pocket doors gaped open. He looked up at me, twisted his head, then howled until spittle flew out of his mouth.

“Knock it off. It’s your mother.” I checked all the doors and windows. They were locked. But I didn’t feel safe in this house. On my way to the foyer, I stopped in front of the hall mirror. I looked like somebody had poured a bucket of honey over my head. Ignoring Mr. Sheehan’s advice, I gathered the stiff strands, trying to shape them into a ponytail. They immediately sprang out.

Great, just what I needed. Rigor mortis hair. At least it wasn’t a climatic disaster like in
Day After Tomorrow.
Or flesh-eating bacteria. In a few months, I’d be my old, frizzy self.

Unless someone was hiding upstairs. No, that was foolish. I didn’t know what kind of car Norris drove, but when I’d sped down Savannah Highway, a Mercedes with tinted windows had passed my truck. He could have parked it behind the barn. I remembered how easily Emerson had slipped through the kitchen door, and I felt sick to my stomach. It would be a relief to hide out in a fortress.

I fastened the leash to Sir’s collar, then I grabbed the peach basket.

“Come, Innocent One,” I said. “Time to face Momzilla.”

twenty-one

It was mid-afternoon by the time I turned onto Mississippi Avenue. The O’Malleys’ white house faced Hanover Square, and tourists were taking photographs of the spitting fountains and the Revolutionary War–era sundial.

A plump, elderly woman met me on the front porch. She had silver, chin-length hair, and her straight bangs were held back by rhinestone barrettes. She wore a Rolling Stones t-shirt and black leggings. Her tennis shoes looked as if she’d rolled them in glitter, and they were tied with green organdy ribbons. In each arm she gripped a barking Chihuahua.

“Y’all quit yapping,” she cried in a shrill, nasal voice. The Chihuahuas fell silent and trembled. The woman turned to me, her silver-blue eyes crinkling at the edges. “I’m Minnie O’Malley. You must be Teeny.”

“Yes, ma’am. Nice to meet you.” I held the peach basket in one hand, Sir’s leash in the other. He shrank away from the Chihuahuas, his nails scratching over the brick porch.

“God love him,” Minnie said. “He looks like a manatee. Can I give him a treat?”

Without waiting for my reply, she shifted both Chihuahuas to her right arm and pulled a cheese cube out of her pocket. The Chihuahuas whimpered.

“Hush, or I’ll feed you to the bulldog,” she told them. She leaned over and waved the cheese in front of Sir’s nose. He gave her a rapturous look. She fit the cube gingerly into his mouth, then she raised up.

“Come on in and get out of this heat,” she said, and pulled me into the foyer.