Hatteras Girl (Heart of Carolina Book #3) (11 page)

I’m in the middle of writing a list of what I’m grateful for, thinking that it might help me deal with the anger and frustration that have taken hold of me. On four lines I write Mom, Dad, Ron, and Minnie. I place the names of all my Hatteras relatives after them. I toy with writing Zane’s name. Then I see Minnie’s face when she holds him, the light in her eyes and the way her smile spreads over her cheeks whenever he kisses her. I suppose I’m grateful that he makes her happy. I add Zane’s name.

I lean back in my chair and turn on my computer. I have to admit that writing the list did help. Another point for Dad, king of the lists.

Bert asks if I know where his stapler is. “Did you borrow it?”

“I have my own,” I say.

Distress lines his face; I let him borrow my Bostitch.

He doesn’t say thank-you because he’s aggravated that he can’t find his. He continues to search under stacked notebooks and folders on his desk. Soon he’s peering under his desk, but all he finds today are three paperclips and a dried-out highlighter.

Right before noon, Davis calls to ask me out for this Friday. Bert hears portions of the conversation, even though he acts like he’s occupied at his computer. When the call ends, he says, “So I take it the interview with the realty man held more than what we see written in your article?”

I give him a Mona Lisa smile.

He responds with a sour look. I wonder if he’s still upset over his missing stapler. Rising from his desk, he makes his way over to me. “You know,” he begins, lowering his voice. “About this Rexy Properties man. I hate to break it to you, but—” He’s interrupted by his own ringing cell phone.

Staring at my computer screen, I wonder what he wanted to tell me. His voice sounded concerned.

When the call ends, he’s rushing out the door. Excitedly, he says, “Got an interview. Selena’s going to love this.”

“With whom?”

“That family from Vietnam that moved here last month. They’re opening up a new restaurant on a ferryboat. Very posh.”

“Maybe we’ll get invited to the grand opening,” I muse. One time Mom’s Vietnamese friend in Charlotte had our family over for spring rolls and steamy noodles in a tasty broth, sliced scallions dotting the surface. Suddenly, I’m hungry.

Bert’s last words come out quickly. “They want to use the profits to save the whales.”

I interview regional storeowners; Bert’s job with the magazine is to write features about history, facts, and events taking place around the Outer Banks. At times, he’ll talk to old-timers on their back porches, gleaning history about the region. He actually doesn’t mind spending time swapping stories with Casey Luweigneson, but he brings his own beer, not favoring Casey’s selection. Bert’s good at what he does, I think, as the tires on his ancient Chevy sputter gravel, heading out of the parking lot. Even if he can’t keep up with his stapler.

At five thirty on Friday, I’m trying to decide what to wear for my evening with Davis when Aunt Sheerly calls. A light wind blows through my open bedroom window. Alone at the duplex, I’ve turned off the air-conditioning and let freshness seep in. I smell grass, just cut. The sweet scent of wild onions sashays through the screen as birds call out to each other in the distance and a cat responds with its own cry.

But Sheerly does not add softness to the enjoyable scene. Desperation sucks the life out of each word as she exclaims, “How could I have forgotten? How in the world did I let this happen?”

“What?” I’m suspicious because this is how she reacted when she left her tomato pie in the oven too long, fuming with disgust at its burnt edges.

“Lord, help me.”

“What did you forget?” I ask. Mom and Dad’s anniversary isn’t until November. Sheerly’s daughter, Mary Rose, who lives in Asheville, was born in May. My birthday is a month away. None of my other relatives have birthdays around this time.

“I am really getting old.” Sheerly lets out a sigh as I wonder which pair of shoes to wear. The black ones with heels add two inches to my height, but Davis is over six feet, so that would put us at about the same height.

“Why is it that getting older takes years off your life?” This line is one my aunt often repeats. No one has ever given her an answer for it. “Forgetful, forgetful,” she chides.

Gradually, I find out what is making her fret. She’s forgotten that today is the annual songwriting competition in Kitty Hawk, her favorite event of the whole year.

Quickly, she lays out why she’s called. “Jacqueline Cate, I need to ask you to watch the salon for me this evening.”

Immediately, I think that she should ask one of her employees, like Minnie. But my aunt, as if reading my mind, reminds me that it’s Minnie’s day off, and Minnie and Zane are visiting Irvy. My aunt doesn’t realize she’s asking me to break another date with a man who could be The One.

As I stare at a scruffy pair of tan sandals at the bottom of my closet, I hear Mom’s voice in my head: “Family do these things for each other. Family do, and not expect anything.”

I can and have dismissed my mother’s voice, but this evening the word that comes into my mind—no—never makes it to my mouth. Instead, I say, “I’ll be there to help out.”

“Jacqueline Cate,” my aunt says, “you can help me celebrate.”

“Celebrate what?”

“When I win!” My aunt is giddier than Minnie or I ever were as teenagers. I ask what song she’s going to be singing, but she’s already hung up.

She’s dressed in a pink blouse and white slacks and waiting in the parking lot of the salon when I pull up. I open the door of my truck to get out, and she’s instantly by my elbow saying, “Now, the UPS delivery hasn’t arrived yet, but when it gets here, can you restock all the boxes? We might be inspected next week, so can you clean a little? Just make sure the floor is swept and dust off the hairdryers.”

The temptation to close the door and drive off taunts me.

Sheerly stretches up to kiss my cheek. Her pearl necklace grazes my shoulder. “Lona’s under the dryer. And Mavey Marie called to say she’ll be in to pick out a hairstyle for next week’s rehearsal dinner.”

“What dinner?”

“Her grandson’s getting married in Duck on the beach so she needs a style that will withstand all the wind.”

Mavey Marie’s grandson used to spit in my milk in fifth grade.

“And did I tell you that Lona is under the dryer?” She slips into her pink Mercedes with the personalized plate—SHEERLY.

“You did.”

“She ate French toast at Breakfast at Andrew’s this morning and the food made her sleepy. Don’t let her sit too long.” She cranks and then revs the engine. Three times.

“I won’t,” I reply, although I know that Sheerly cannot hear me.

All the other relatives think she’s damaging the engine by treating it like it belongs in a race car. Sheerly says Mercedes, like women, can handle just about anything.

With a wave, she’s gone, driving north to Kitty Hawk, hopefully with a winning song in her head.

15

Slowly, I get out of my truck.
A night at the salon is a poor substitute for a date at Evan and Julia’s, seated across from the handsome Davis Erickson, a glowing candle between us. I phoned Davis on my way over here, hating to tell him the news.

“Your family needs you,” he said after a while. “We’ll get a date in one of these days.”

I thanked him for being understanding.

Sure enough, inside the scented salon, Lona is seated under the pink dryer on the left, reading the latest issue of
People
magazine. I check her hair, feeling the locks that are wrapped around wide metal curlers.

She smiles at me, says something I can’t hear due to the whir of the dryer; I just smile back.

In addition to providing the community with all their hair care needs, Sheerly also displays sayings, cross-stitched and framed, around her shop.
“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook”
hangs above the set of dryers. This saying is attributed to William James. Another plaque, stitched in blue, reads,
“Age is something that doesn’t matter unless you are a cheese.
—
Billie Burke”

I find a wooden stool by a tiny window, sit down, and let bits of my recent phone conversation with Davis warm me. I can see the Sound from my view; the water is crystal blue and the sky is a canvas of wispy clouds with a sun preparing to retire from a hard day of work.

When I turn off the hairdryer, Lona says, “Nearly fell asleep. Had too much to eat today.” She yawns, using one large hand to cover her mouth. “That French toast at Breakfast at Andrew’s is just too good to pass up. And the pancakes with all that maple syrup just make me sleepy.”

“Did you eat them both?”

“Had a bite of the pancakes off of Mother’s plate. They were topped with blueberries, just delicious. I did eat the whole plate of French toast.” Lona takes her mother to Breakfast at Andrew’s every Friday morning before she heads to the golf course in Nags Head. I know this because I’ve known Lona since she moved here when I was eighteen. Her first murder mystery had just been published, and the salon’s regulars were eager to meet a
real author
. Sheerly’s song about Lona, the mystery maven, actually has a nice beat to it.

The door’s overhead bell tinkles and in walks a wrinkled woman with white hair teased into the highest beehive I’ve ever seen. Mavey Marie has had this hairstyle since she was born, I think. I wonder why she needs to choose another to withstand the winds of Duck. This one looks like it could stand up to any hurricane.

“I just loved
Death Dutifully Defines Dorothea
,” Mavey Marie says when she sees Lona. “I liked it better than
Roger Rochester’s Revenge
.” “Thank you, thank you.” Lona looks up from the magazine and beams like the shining light at Cape Hatteras. After another yawn she says, “Some days I think I’ve lost it, can’t write another.” “I just don’t know how you do it.” Mavey Marie sits on a chair by a shelf of hardback hairstyle books. She’s wearing her favorite color— lemon yellow. She and Sheerly went to one of those color parties, and ever since Mavey Marie found out her skin tone and eyes make her suited for spring, she has bought all yellow clothing. Sheerly says she’ll wear pink no matter what the color charts label her as. “At this age, do you think I’m going to change myself ?” she asked us one Sunday at lunch.

“I really like that line about romance.” Mavey Marie picks up a book and flips through pages of sleek hairstyles on women who look like they have overused their makeup brushes.

“Which line is that?” Lona stretches her short legs that, to me, resemble Asian radishes.

As though she’s reading it from one of Sheerly’s cross-stitched masterpieces, Mavey Marie quotes, “You want a man to adore you so much that his heart is only satisfied when you are with him.” Mavey Marie’s sigh fills the shop.

Lona nods, seeming to recall that she did write that line in a novel. “And when he closes his eyes, you are the only one in his dreams.” With a sudden fling of her hand, she snorts. “I wish Sylvia would realize that. I thought I raised her to be independent and not fall for the first man who gave her a second glance.” Sylvia is Lona’s only child. She and I were in a church youth group together.

“Well, if she read your third mystery, she would see that Benedict was never in love with Amelia. He only used her to get to his dream of being the president of the company.”

Looking at me, Lona says, “Jackie, you’ve always been wise. I know you won’t fall in love for the wrong reasons.”

I’m not sure what to say. I give her a vague nod.

“Develop who you are. How can these young girls expect to find a man when they don’t even know what they want?” I don’t think she’s intending this question to be for me; I think Sylvia is still on her mind. “I fell for the wrong man. He left me after five years. Just like that!” She snaps her fingers for emphasis.

Mavey Marie just shakes her head, and Lona and I watch her tower of piled hair move like a barge through a sandbar.

Lona has a faraway glint to her eyes. “To thine own self be true.”

“Shakespeare!” Mavey Marie’s smile curves. “He did know a thing or two about life and love.”

“Right now, I don’t know,” Lona says as she searches in her leather bag and takes out a tube of hand lotion.

“What don’t you know?” Mavey Marie has opened a book on hairstyles for weddings.

“Whether to kill the neighbor off or just let him be maimed.” Lona rubs her hands together. She eases the other woman’s confusion by explaining, “In the mystery I’m writing now.”

Mavey Marie peers over the top of the book. “Is he a good neighbor?”

“He lets his grass get too long before mowing.”

“Is that all? Doesn’t sound too bad.” Mavey Marie adjusts the collar of her yellow blouse.

“He doesn’t mow his grass because he’s spending too much time with his girlfriend.”

“Is she in love with him for the right reasons?”

“She doesn’t know he’s married.”

“Heavens! Oh, kill him off,” Mavey Marie squeals.

“I could let him be attacked by the wild boars in Alabama.” She stares at the ceiling as though the boars and her character are fighting up there. “I could let him live.” The hand lotion is back in her bag, and now she buffs her nails with a file she’s found on one of the tables by the hairdryer. Her nails are clipped short, so the process doesn’t take long. “I think he will learn his lesson. Sometimes people need to be put in their place.”