Midsummer's Eve (25 page)

“
Justin says Chia
has started slipping out at night to meet Chris. It seems
Adam
has awakened several times at night and found her gone. He said
Adam
was also complaining about how much money she spends. It seems he is forced to let his bills pile up for months at a time in order to finance her Wal-Mart shopping sprees e
very Friday and keep her happy.”

“Serves the imbecile right.”
Teri said.
“
He deserves to be treated the same way he treated you. I hope she ruins him financially.

“
I bet if
Adam
lost his job and couldn’
t buy her everything she wanted,
Chia
w
ould leave him in a hot minute.”
Mallory
said.

“Of course she would,” Teri agreed. “
Even Adam
i
s smart enough to realize that.”

Then
Tammy
brought out what we had all bee
n waiting for, a banana pudding
made with Splenda to satisfy the diva, and we were too busy eating to talk for a
while.

While
we were clearing the table,
Tammy
totally surprised us by announcing, “I have been thinking about going on a
cruith
. Who
wanth
to go?”

“I do!” I said. “That would be so much fun, the four of us on a cruise. “Let’s plan it for the fall, after hurricane season has passed.”

“Let’s make it a singles cruise,”
Mallory
pleaded. “I doubt there would be many single men on one of those fun ships that cater to families.”

“I’ll go online tomorrow and start checking websites for a good deal,” Teri said. “Any particular destination in mind? I hear the Atlantis Resort in the Bahamas is spectacular.”

“I have always wanted to go to Jamaica,” I said. “There is so much history there. I could spend days researching pirates and maybe tour a working sugar cane plantation.”

Tenderhearted
Mallory
asked, “Does Haiti have a cruise ship port? I would love to spend my vacation doing whatever I could to help those poor earthquake victims.”

“I don’t know for sure,
Mallory
. I certainly will check for you though. But why not just send Samaritans Purse a check,” Teri said. “Billy Graham’s son
, Franklin,
runs that organization, so you know the money will actually go to help the Haitian people and not some corporate CEO.” Teri grabbed her latest Louie and stood up to leave. “So which is it, Jamaica or the Bahamas?”

At that moment, Tammy stood up with a fierce look of determination in her eyes, placed her hands on her hips and said with meaning, “Have you all
loth
your freak
ing
minth
? You know damn well we are
cruithing
to Mexico.”

Evide
ntly
,
we had all lost our
minds.
Tammy
very rarely voiced an opinion. She always went along with the crowd. We felt terrible that she hadn’t
heard a single word from Melvin
since returning from the beach, so we were thrilled to witness this new and improved version.

“Okay.” We were all in agreement. “Cozumel it is.”

“I’ll call you all tomorrow and tell you about the deals I found,” Teri said. “Start shopping for cruise ship attire
, girls
.”

“I’
ll see you tomorrow,”
Mallory
called to me as we were leaving. “Are you coming to work?”

“No, I probably won't make it in tomorrow. I have to pick up supplies in the mo
rning and then I have a Chamber
meeting at lun
ch. I’
ll call you
sometime
tomorrow.”

The following morning I attended the monthly meeting of the Chamber Of Commerce. I had joined four years earlier hoping to attract business and get to know fellow self
-
employers. We had a catered lunch consisting of chicken salad with grapes on croissants, chips, pickles and sweet tea and then sat down to the meeting.

I hadn’
t attended a meeting in months
due to my journey into limbo, and saw that we had acquired a new member during my absence. She was tall, short red hair, no make up and she sat next to me.

“Hi.”
I g
reeted her, extending my hand. “I’
m
Eve
Bryson. I don’
t think we’ve
met.”

“Marilyn Little.”
She introdu
ced herself and shook my hand. “
No we haven’t
and it’
s
nice to meet you.”

The pudgy owner of a men’
s clothing store
uptown coughed to gain everyone’
s attention and then called the meeting to order.
“Good day, everyone.
Thank you all for coming. As our first order of business today I
would like to introduce
our newest member.” Then with a flourish, he wav
ed to her. “
Marilyn, would you care to tell us about your enterprise?”

Marilyn stood up. You could tell immediately that she was a take-charge kind of gal.

“
Hello everyone. My name is Marilyn Little. My husband and I moved here recently from Pennsylvania and my business is called Inne
r Awakenings. I am a hypnotist.”

Oh! She should go far in this town! I chuckled to myself, as did some others, while a few sat up and took notice.

“
Can
you make someone stop smoking?”
Tom the owner of a Heating and Air business and a chain smoker for 30 years asked.

“
I will let you answ
er that question yourself.” Marilyn
moved around the table passing out cards
. “
To drum up som
e business
,
I’m giving everyone
here a free one hour session.”

“Free? Great! Thanks!”
Tom was immediately interested. He should be with that f
lorid face and rasping wheeze. “
Do you have
your appointment book with you?”

“
Yes, as a matter of fact I d
o.”

“Do you have anything for tomorrow?”

Of the 12 members in attendance 4 used their free
coupons then she turned to me. “
How about you,
Eve
? Is there
anything I could help you with?”

“
Nothing that could be fixed in an hour
, I can assure you.”
I laughed
somewhat nervously. I wasn’
t about to
let someone hypnotize me
.       

She was probably a fake anyway. I had gone to the Comedy Zone once and watched a hypnotist make an entire stage of people do everything from bark like dogs to pretend their chairs were their lovers. It had been hilarious.

“
Then you keep coming back until it is fixed. Come on, I need someone to spread the word about my amazing talent
.”
Her smile was very warm and welcoming. She was one
of those people
you couldn’
t help but like instantly.
“
Help a fellow small business owner out here,” she cajoled. “
It’
s fre
e and you have nothing to lose.”

Why not? What could I lose? I remembered several years earlier when I had first started my business how kind and helpful members of the Chamber had been to m
e. Evidently, i
t was pay back time. “Okay, pencil me in.”

“
Ho
w does Wednesday at 2:00 sound?”

“
Sounds good
.
” I embellished that part. Nothing sounded good about it at all.

Of all the stupid things! How did I allow myself to get talked into a visit with a hypnotist? Me? Someone who could make a telemarketer wish he had never rolled out of bed that morning. I could just hear my Dad's guffaws if he ever found this out.

Twelve

A
ll too soon, Wednesday afternoon rolled around and I
arrived at the directions on Marilyn’s
card with ten minutes to spare. A long driveway with pecan trees on each side led to a beautiful old country farm house with a wrap around porch, a billowing American flag and dozens of hanging ferns. Cow pastures surrounded the house and as I parke
d under the shade of a tree cows
lowed at me
from all directions. Several large
dogs came running as soon as I opened the door.

Marilyn came to the door calling the dogs by name and ordering them to hush. “
Come in.
Would you
like a glass of tea or coffee?”

“Wh
atever you’re having.
”
I was
already regretting the
decision to come here. This was
really beyond stupid.

“
Sweet tea. I've
become quite fond of it since I’
ve been in the South. And,
Eve
, don’
t be nervous. You seem nervous.”

“
Well, this is a first. I
can honestly say that I’
v
e never been hypnotized before.”
I took the glass of tea and followed her up a curving, wooden stai
rcase. “
You have
a very beautiful home, Marilyn.”

“
Thank you. My husband’s parents passed away last year and left it to us. I had a thriving business in Pennsylvania and would have been content to spend my remaining years there, but my husband had a desire to come back home to North Carolina aft
er he retired. So, here we are. But it’
s so quiet here. I’m accustomed to the hustle and bustle of a large city. I had the receptionist, the waiting room, an adequate clientele, the whole nine yards.” She motioned and pointed through the window. “As you can see my only companions now are dogs an
d
cows.”

We went into a
bedroom with floor to ceiling wi
ndows and a spectacular view of…
cows. The room was country chic at its best, with lovely, knotty pine walls and wooden floors that had been shined and buffed to a high gloss. The breeze coming through the open window ruffled frilly lace curtains and a patchwork quilt covered the four-poster bed. Hand stitched embroidery samples adorned the walls.

The focal point of the room was a wooden rocking chair with a thick patchwork cushion positioned in front of the floor to ceiling window. She instructed me to sit in the chair. Marilyn sat down on a stool in front of me.
             

I had already decided that I was going to pretend to slip into a deep meditative state just to make her feel good. You know us Southerners. We love to give folks the warm fuzzies and make them feel welcome.

“
To begin with, can you tell me something that you need help with,
Eve
?”
She had her
pen and paper at the ready
and was waiting patiently for me to lay out my deepest, darkest secrets
.

“I’
m not really sure that I need help.” Wow, I had spent way too much time with
Adam
if I could say those words with a straight face.

“Okay. Are there any aspects of your life that you wish you could change?”

“Well, I suppose. I mean I guess everyone has things about themselves they would change if they could.”

“You’re right. Almost everyone does. Tell me one of the things you would change.”

Good. She didn’
t expect me to tell her all
my problems in an hour. Just one.

As I was trying to narrow down one of my simpler issue from the multitudes, just to make her happy, I was also nervously, and without realizing it, fiddling with a loose
thread on the hem of her
lace curtain. I gasped, and blushed to the roots of my hair when the hem unraveled in my hand.

“Oh, Marilyn! I’
m so sorry! Do you have a needle and thread? I will be happy sew it back up!”  To be so stupid! How could I just sit there and unravel the woman’s curtain?

“Don’
t worry about it,
Eve
. Just talk to me.” She patiently pulled
my fidgety
hands to rest in my lap.