Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (41 page)

come see me and I’ll cut and color her hair and all the wives of

the doctors at the Medical University for twenty-five percent

off. The offer’s good until Christmas. How does that sound?”

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275

“I think you are going to be a very busy man.”

“You know what? It’s much cheaper than advertising. I’ll

give you a stack of business cards to take with you, okay?”

“Consider it a done deal.”

I was thrilled. Maggie couldn’t resist a bargain and neither

could any woman I knew. Beth was finished and she came over

with the cutest haircut I’d ever seen. It was swinging and shining.

“Mom! I totally love my hair! What do you think?”

“I think your hair looks beautiful but the concept of lime

green nail polish escapes me. Say hello to Kim.”

“Hi,” she said. “Mom, I’m gonna go cruise the mall and I’ll

be back in an hour, okay?”

“Sure, have fun.”

“Cruise the mall?” Kim said, watching her leave.

“Don’t ask.”

For the next two hours, he spun me around and foiled my

head, rinsed my hair, conditioned it, glazed it, trimmed a little

more and at last he was ready to blow it out. A gal on a low

stool manicured my fingernails on a lap pillow while he worked.

I felt like the queen of a lovely kingdom.

Finally, he spun me around to face the mirror and I barely

recognized myself.

“Lord have mercy!”

“Like yourself ?” Kim said and started to laugh.“I should’ve

taken a ‘before’ picture, don’t you think?”

“Amazing,” I said. “You know, I’m not an arrogant woman,

but I think this is the best I’ve ever looked in maybe my whole

life! How can I thank you?”

“Tell your friends and your sister. Don’t forget we have our

agreement.”

Kim stood there smiling. I wanted to be his friend forever.

“Well, I suppose there is a big difference between profes-

sional care and cutting my bangs with the same scissors I use to

cut cardboard, right? Kim?”

“Yes?”

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“Don’t ever leave me.”

He wouldn’t let me pay for Beth either but I tipped the

shampoo girl heavily and the manicurist too. I was floating on air.

Out in the mall, Beth came toward me with a shopping bag

from Record World.

“Whoa! Do I know you?”

“Very funny!”

“Seriously, Mom. That old codger did a number on you!

You rock! I bet you could pass for thirty-something!”

“Thanks.” Her compliment made me actually blush, some-

thing I hadn’t done in a long time.

“Got some new tunes,” she said,“want to see?”

“Sure. Come on, let’s get a cappuccino.”

What a cheery little monster I turned into with a little effort.

All I had done was starve myself for six months and accidentally

hustle a free makeover! Not a bad day’s work at all. God, it was all

so shallow.

Saturday night arrived and I wondered why I was so ner-

vous. I was dressing for dinner with a man, that’s why. Given my

relationships with men, I should break out in a rash. Maggie

may have been right, he might try to seduce me and I wasn’t

ready for that at all.

Beth was in her room packing a duffel bag to take to Tom’s

apartment to spend the night. I worried that she would let it slip

to Tom or Karen that I was on a date. Not that they would care,

but it was only a few days until the papers for our divorce would

finally, at long last, be signed. I zipped the back of my dress on

the way down the hall to Beth’s room.

“Hi, doodle!” I said.

“Hi! Mom! You look great!”

She had the look of someone who had reconciled the facts

of her life. I had a date, her father had a girlfriend and it was

normal for her.

“Thanks, honey. Listen, do me a small favor, will you?”

“Sure, anything.”

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

277

“If your dad or Karen mentions my social life just tell them

I don’t have one, okay?”

“No problem. None of their business, right?”

“Right. And don’t mention my column in the paper either,

all right?”

“Sure. How come?” She pulled on a pair of jeans that were

ripped out at the knees and a faded Gap sweatshirt.

“Are you gonna wear that outfit to go out to dinner with

your dad?”

“We’re just going to Pizza Hut.”

“Oh, okay. Fine. Look, it’s not a huge deal if he found out,

but we are supposed to sign our papers very soon and I don’t

want him to think that we don’t need his support. Understand?”

“Right. He’d think that, like, this doctor is moving in and

paying all our bills. And that you’re getting totally rich from

your second job. Am I a genius or what?” She zipped her bag

and gave me a crooked smile of mature knowing.

“Honey chile, baby heart, you are a certified rocket scientist.

Just be cool.”

“Hey, Mom. I’m a teenager. It’s my job to be cool.”

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it,” she said.“It’s probably Daddy and if he sees you

looking like that he’ll be way suspicious.”

“Thanks, honey. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” I kissed her

head and she stopped and turned to me.

“Try to get home at a decent hour, Mom.You want me to

call you? You know, bed check? Then, if you want him to leave,

you can use me for an excuse.”

“Great idea, but I think I can handle it. Go on now, Daddy’s

waiting.”

“Love you!”

The front door opened and closed and she was gone. How

priceless was that, I thought. I went downstairs to the living

room to turn on some music. I caught a glance of myself in my

mother’s huge mirror and, for the briefest moment, didn’t know

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it was myself. I stopped and gave myself a full appraisal. Not bad.

I had on a deep brown, short, sleeveless dress that had a coat to

match. My arms weren’t too flabby. My hair looked really good

with its auburn “low lights” and my face seemed to have less

stress. My new makeup was doing its job. I looked like a woman

who was perhaps going out to do the town, not like the one

who, just a few months ago, had sunk to the floor and wept.

I flipped on an old favorite CD,
Clifford Brown with Strings,
and

relaxed as his music warmed the room. I poured myself a glass of

wine from the cooler on the coffee table and lit some candles on

the mantel. The candles were sandalwood, my absolute favorite.

Maggie had given me a box of them for my birthday. Old houses

like mine would take on musty smells but sandalwood perfumed

the rooms with the perfect amount of richness.

I hoped Roger would like Brie baked in puff pastry with

peach jam. It was a recipe I clipped from the newspaper and hadn’t

burned beyond recognition. Hopefully he’d think that I possessed

some domestic skills. At least my house looked clean. Beth and I

had spent the better part of the day cleaning and waxing. She was a

good girl, I thought.The doorbell rang and my date began.

“Hi! Come in!” I said.

“Hi! God, what did you do to your hair? Here, I brought

you these.You look great!”

“Thanks, you don’t look so bad yourself.” I ran my hand

through the side of my hair. “Just cut it a little, that’s all. Gosh,

these are so pretty! I love freesias!”

We went in the living room and I added them to the vase of

grocery store flowers on the end table next to the sofa. I poured

Roger a glass of wine. He touched the side of my glass with his

and took a large sip.

“That’s some mirror,” he said.

“You don’t know the half of it.”

“Educate me,” he said, running his hand around the side of

the mirror’s wide gold frame. “It looks old. Historical signifi-

cance?”

S u l l i v a n ’ s I s l a n d

279

“Well, this may seem hard to imagine, but way, way back in

time, before the War of Yankee Aggression, over on Sullivan’s

Island there were resort hotels. People went there to escape the

summer fevers.This mirror hung behind the bar of the Planters

Hotel until 1830. Later, it was installed in the Moultrie House

on the Island in 1850. The Moultrie House was a hotel and a

legendary spot for summer dances. It was built right down the

street from my family’s beach house, right on the harbor. It even

had a ballroom! Would you like a bit of this?”

I put some warm Brie on a cracker and offered it to him.

“I’ve never heard that.Thanks.”

“Yeah, seems hard to believe, doesn’t it? You can only imag-

ine how much bourbon and whiskey has been poured out in

front of this mirror. How many men twirled the tips of their

handlebar mustaches, how many ladies adjusted their bonnets?

God, I love history. My grandfather got his hands on it some-

how and it was in our house on the Island for years.”

“What a great story!”

“Anyway, there’s an old Gullah belief that the mirror holds

your soul. Same thing with photographs—that a little bit of

your spirit becomes trapped in the mirror or on the film.”

“Incredible what some people believe, isn’t it?”

“Well, who knows? They might’ve been right. I mean, there

have definitely been times when this old mirror gave me the

creeps.”

“So what happened to the Moultrie House? Do you want

some more wine?”

“No, thanks. I’m all set.Well, it seems there was this Yankee

soldier during the beginning of the war who fired a cannonball

on it. It was filled with guests and they all ran outside in a fit of

terror with their bloomers on fire.When they asked the Yankee

why he fired on a civilian building, do you know what he said?”

“I can only venture a guess.”

“Go ahead, guess.”

“Because the last time he stayed there he got a bad room?”

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“God, you are so smart. Do you know that?”

“Come on, let’s go to dinner,” he said. “I read that some-

where.”

“You rascal! You let me tell you that whole story!”

“Madam, I am neither a rascal nor a rogue. And, in the style

of the true southern gentleman, I have left my
Beamer
in the

garage so that I could stroll the
boulevard
with your
beautiousness.
”

His little speech made me giggle.“I’m not sure
beautiousness

is a word.”

“Poetic license. Shall we go?”

We walked to a small restaurant in the historic area, up an

old alley that I had never even known was there.We had steaks,

beautiful things, thick and rare with a wonderful mustard sauce

and an incredible bottle of cabernet sauvignon from the Napa

Valley. We shared a Caesar salad and discovered neither one of us

liked anchovies, but we loved garlic and croutons. For dessert we

had something decadent in flames, cherries jubilee.

After dinner we walked arm in arm and under the marquee

at the Dock Street Theater he told me I was beautiful. I thought

he meant it. It must’ve been the wine or the streetlight. What-

ever. It was nice to hear.

“That was a wonderful dinner, Roger. Thank you.”

“Oh, you’re welcome, it wasn’t anything really. I wanted to

cook for you, but another time. I had so much stuff going on

today I couldn’t figure out how to make dinner.”

“I have a lot of days like that,” I said.

“Well, I thought it might be nice to go back to my place

and have a cognac or some coffee.”

“Sure. I’d love to see where you live.”

We walked by the old cemetery and heard the voices of

teenagers deep inside the rows of tombstones.They were probably

in an open mausoleum, drinking beer and fooling around. It was all

terribly romantic. He held my hand and talked about growing up

in Aiken and how he had married a girl he met in medical school.

“Was she a medical student?”

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281

“No, no. She was the sister of a friend of mine. Family was

from Boston, old-line and very particular about everything. She

was like the Holy Grail to me. I always wanted what I couldn’t

have.”

“I know how that is,” I said.

“Well, she got pregnant and we got married and it was

downhill from there. Her parents hated me. I was southern and

no matter what, even when our second son was born and even

though we stayed together for almost twenty years, I wasn’t the

man they wanted for their daughter.”

“God, that’s awful. People are so stupid.”

“Well, it was a lot of years ago and I did my best for

Adelle—that’s my ex-wife’s name. She was okay, I guess. Any-

way, I have two great sons, and she’s remarried—to a Brahmin—

and living in Boston during the winter and the south of France

in the summer, as they always intended she would. All’s well that

ends well, right?”

“I suppose so,” I said.

“Here we are. Come on, I’ll make us some coffee. I have a

new espresso machine.”

“Ah, the gadget king!”

“Yep, that’s me!”

Pink stucco? His town house opened right on the street and

we stepped onto his long narrow porch.The door concealed a lit