Sullivans Island-Lowcountry 1 (53 page)

gie, who was probably parked up some dirt road with Lucius.

“I’ll get it!” Timmy said. He jumped up and ran for the

door.

“Hi!” I heard Timmy say.“Sure, come on in!”

“Thanks,” said a male voice.

My momma stood up from the table, scraping the chair

along the floor. Livvie turned around from the stove, Henry

reached over for some more bread, and Timmy gave him a

karate chop just for the hell of it.

“Hi! I saw your sign and I was wondering if there’s still a

room for rent?”

He smiled and he had lots of dimples. Deep ones. And

brown eyes with gold flecks. Beautiful eyes, black lashes. His

nose was sort of big, and his mouth was kind of wide. He made

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me nervous and I didn’t know why. He just kind of filled up the

room. He was smart and funny and, boy, was he cute.

“Why, yes! Yes, we have rooms available!” Momma said.

“What’s your name, son?”

“Oh, sorry! I’m Simon Rifkin. I didn’t mean to disturb your

dinner, I was just riding by and saw the sign . . .”

“Oh! Don’t worry! We were just finishing. Would you like

some soup? Livvie made wonderful okra soup! She uses a ham

bone to flavor it. Delicious! I’m Marie Catherine Hamilton, and

these are my children, well, some of them, that is!”

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Hamilton.”

He shook her hand and waved at us. He was wearing a navy

blue windbreaker with a little yellow alligator on the top left

side of it and khaki pants with a white shirt. I sat there like a tub

of lard while Momma droned on. I’ll bet he’s over twenty-one,

I thought.

“Why don’t I show you the room and you can tell me some-

thing about yourself. My brother, Louis, says I should find out

everything I can about somebody who wants to live in my house.

I mean, after all, a lady has to be careful, don’t you think so?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He caught my eye and winked at me. It was a

friendly wink, one that said to me that he knew Momma was

gonna blab and blab and he’d take it with good humor. My neck

got hotter and hotter. He wasn’t that tall. No, probably only

about five feet, nine inches.Why was I sweating? And why was I

wearing this nasty old sweatshirt? Livvie looked at me and raised

her eyebrows.

“What?” I said.

“Nothing, chile. Finish up your cornbread. Henry? You want

some more?”

“Sure!”

She knew. She always knew. Henry held his bowl up to her

and I fished a kernel of corn out of the bottom of my mine.

Simon Rifkin.What kind of name was that? Who was this guy?

A few minutes later Momma led Simon into the room like

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a pet dog or something.“Now, will you have some soup with us,

Simon?” she asked.

“No, no thanks. I gotta get back to the city.”

“All right, next time.Well, then, it’s all settled.You’ll move in

Monday?”

“Yes, ma’am. Nice meeting all of you! Well, see you then!”

The door slammed, Livvie jumped at the noise and I leapt

to the window to watch him walk to his car. He had a little dark

green British MGB convertible. Cool. He walked to it, zipping

his jacket, opened the car door and looked up at the house. He

saw me staring at him through the window. He waved at me

and I waved back, blood rushing back to my face like a rocket.

“I have to call Louis!” Momma said. “A hundred dollars a

month! This is wonderful!”

While washing the supper dishes we learned everything that

Momma had found out about him.

“He’s from where?” Livvie said.

“Michigan! Can you imagine? So far from home, poor boy.

He’s a student at the Medical University! A doctor! Anyway, his

father is a doctor too, and he’s divorced, and guess what?” She

whispered,“He’s Jewish!”

“Big deal,” I said.

“Well, it could’ve been, Miss Smarty Pants.Your Uncle Louis

wasn’t too thrilled about that, because, you know, Jews are peculiar

sometimes.”

I just rolled my eyes.“Momma, Jesus was a Jew,” I said.

“That’s a lie and you know it! The Jews killed our Lord and

that’s why Uncle Louis was a little worried.”

“Momma.The Romans killed Jesus,” I said.“At least that’s what

it says in the Bible, if you can believe what you read these days.”

“Well, no matter about that. It’s just that, well, I don’t want

you to go discussing his religion with him or his daddy’s divorce

either. It’s not polite and we don’t want to be too nosy, do we?”

And she went on and on. I mean, here came the best-looking

guy I’d ever seen in my whole life and my momma had to have

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something to say about his religion! Maybe she was afraid we’d

stop going to Mass. Maybe she wanted to convert him so she

could sit next to the Blessed Mother in heaven.They say that for

every sinner you brought to wash away their heathen sins in the

Catholic baptismal font of conversion, you got a guaranteed seat

practically in the lap of the Blessed Mother, if and when you got

to heaven.

“I told him that I had prayed every night to Saint Joseph,”

Momma was saying, “who is the patron saint of families, by the

way, to send a nice person to live with us. I told him that so he’d

know we’re
Catholic
. Anyway, good old Saint Joseph came

through! I have to remind myself to light a candle for him

tomorrow. Such a reliable novena! Oh! This is such
good
news!

And, guess what else?” She whipped out a check for a hundred

dollars from inside her blouse. “Deposit! Louis never said
any-

thing
about deposit money! I thought of that
myself!
Ha! We

have an extra hundred dollars now and Christmas is gonna be all

right.What do y’all think? Should we get a turkey?”

I hadn’t seen Momma so animated in years. She was really

happy and it was catching.

“No more ham?” I said.

“I want a drumstick! Does he play ball?”Timmy asked.

“I don’t know! You’ll have to ask him!” she said.

“Can he fish?” Henry asked.

“I don’t know that either! We’ll have to find out!”

“Want to know what I think?” Livvie said.

“What?” Momma said.

“I think Gawd send this boy to take y’all’s mind away from

your own worry. He needs a family and y’all need something to

set y’all sailing back to the land of the living! He’s just the right

thing! Yes, sir! He’s a Gawdsend, sure enough.”

Sunday after Mass, Maggie and I went with Uncle Louis

and Aunt Carol over to Mount Pleasant to buy a Christmas tree.

It was cold for a South Carolina day, but that added to our

excitement about the holiday.

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I was excited for another reason. One more day and Simon

Rifkin would be sleeping under our roof. I had one short day to

turn myself into a girl and, unfortunately, Maggie was the only

person who could help me.

We lifted Christmas trees from their piles and stood them

up, debating their various shortcomings and assets.

“Too bare in the front,” Maggie said.

“Top’s crooked,” I said. “Hey, Maggie? What do you think?

Should I cut my hair?”

“I’ve got sap all over my hand. I hate that.” She pulled

another tree from the pile. “Yes, you should cut your hair. It

looks like a rat’s nest.You know I always tell you that if you’re

not willing to take care of long hair you shouldn’t have it. And

you live in a ponytail.”

“Right, you do always say that. So now I’m thinking I

might like to cut it.What do you think about a bubble cut?”

“And what then? You’re gonna stick a little velvet bow in

the front of your head like a birthday present? Spare me.”

“No, I’m not gonna stick a little bow in the front of my

head and look like a birthday present. I just think I need a hair-

style, you know?”

Maggie looked at me and narrowed her eyes. It was the first

time in my life that I ever said anything about trying to improve my

looks. She was the mad Dr. Frankenstein and I was her experiment.

“A little makeup wouldn’t kill you either,” she said. “Clean

up your pores, you know? It would make a big difference.”

“Probably, but I don’t know how to use it, you know?”

“I’ll help you when we get home. I’ve got a drawer full of

free samples. Let’s get this tree and get out of here. I’m freezing.

It must be forty degrees!”

“Done! You know what, Maggie?”

“What?”

“I’m getting sorta excited about Christmas, even though

we’re practically broke.”

“Yeah, me too.Who cares?”

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She put her arm around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze.

I thanked God the old Maggie was back.

I sat on the kitchen stool in front of the bathroom mirror,

staring at my face. She cut my hair straight off across the bottom

at my shoulders with the same scissors we used to cut wrapping

paper, coupons and everything else.

When she finally stopped yanking and measuring my hair,

she combed globs of gel through it and rolled it on orange juice

cans, sticking the clips almost through my scalp.

“Ouch! Maggie! Stop! You’re killing me!”

“Pride knoweth no pain!”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Grandma Sophie used to say it all the time when she saw

me pulling my eyebrows with tears running down my face.”

“Yeah, so?”

I was getting cranky and fidgety. Now that she had my whole

head wrapped around her version of rollers, she taped my bangs

to my forehead to give them a final trim.

“Hold still or you’ll look like Moe! It means that vanity

has a price. If you want to look good, don’t complain about the

process.”

“Are you sure these cans are clean? I don’t want bugs in my

hair.”

“You know what, Susan? You’re skating on thin ice. I’m

doing this for you for nothing except an unselfish desire on my

part to help you out and you are being a little pain in the butt.

Plain and simple.”

“Sorry.”

She pulled the hair dryer out of the closet and spread the

big hood over my head, tightening the strings.When she flipped

it on, my head got as big as a basketball.

“Forty-five minutes! You’ll be dry in forty-five minutes!”

I pulled my ears out of the hood.

“I’m not deaf ! Do you have tweezers?”

“Do I have tweezers? Of course.” She shook her head, com -

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365

pletely exasperated with her nincompoop of a sorry-ass sister, as

she fumbled around in her makeup case. “Here. Use this too.

Brush your eyebrows toward your scalp and just pluck the hairs

that aren’t in the line.”

I peered into the mirror and did as I was told. It hurt like all

hell too.

“Jesus, Maggie! This is awful! I’m bleeding!”

“Give them to me! Who told you to pull out fifty hairs at

the same time? You won’t die from this.”

The end result was rather stunning. I didn’t look like my old

self hardly at all, except that I was the same size. Of course, the

wonders of elastic had rearranged some of that. Maggie had

produced another invention of torture—a Maidenform bra.

“Put this on,” she said.

“I’d rather eat glass,” I said. A bra? No way.

“Put it on,” she said.“I’ll buy you some more next week.”

The major change was my head, inside and out. On the out-

side, my hair looked shiny and it swung when I turned my head.

And it wasn’t all kinky and fuzzy, thanks to the orange juice

cans.The makeup that Maggie had finally decided was the right

color for my skin covered my freckles and made my skin look

smooth. A little mascara, a squirt of Estée Lauder Youth Dew

and I felt like a big deal. I felt like Maggie’s peer. She made me

confess why I was doing this and she insisted that he’d fall right

in love with me.

“He’s about a zillion years old,” I said.

“So what?” she said.“You look really beautiful.”

Anyway, all this led me to believe that I
had
changed and I

was ready for Simon to appear on the doorstep. At least that’s

what I told myself.

Nobody said much about my transformation. Livvie just

smiled and nodded her head, Momma said, “Oh, you cut your

hair,” and Henry wouldn’t have noticed anything different about

me if his life depended on it. However, Timmy’s eyes got big

when I brought in a box of ornaments from the hall closet.

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“So what’s
this
supposed to mean?” he said.

“What’s
what
supposed to mean?” I said, embarrassed to hell

and back.

“I mean, you look, you know, grown up or something weird

like that.”

“Thanks a lot,Timmy.”

“No, I mean, you look good, just different.”

I wanted to slap him.

The day passed slowly. Bing Crosby crooned from the stereo.

Momma was taking a nap. Livvie was making rum balls—and

sandies for us.We decorated the tree, unwrapping each ornament