Wave Good-Bye (9 page)

“But isn’t there grant money? And why would they shut down a going concern?”

From that position, her voice was muffled but surprisingly peevish. “I just don’t know! Walter says there is, but I haven’t had the chance to do any research yet. The point is I’m not sure what this means to me. To the salon. To all of us.”

“But you didn’t know this was a historic building! So why would you be in trouble for making changes?” I squirmed in my chair. Mom usually wasn’t a worrier. Instead, she was a take-it-as-it-comes type of person. The fact that she was worrying had me worried.

“I don’t know. Of course, I didn’t realize it was a historic building. I knew it was old when I inherited it. My grandmother told me it had been built shortly before the War Between the States, but I surely did not know it has or had special significance. I didn’t make any changes except to keep a roof over our heads. Opening the salon brought in enough money that I could hang on to this place. A house this old always needs something or another. But I’m not sure that any of those repairs was up to historical standards. I did what I could, the best I could, with what money I had.”

“Mom, don’t second-guess yourself. You did a great job. You kept a roof over our heads, you employed three other people, including me, and you raised two girls. Is it possible the house won’t qualify?”

“From what Walter says, there’s a very good chance this place will pass muster and have a place in the national historic register.”

“Why? Because it’s old? St. Elizabeth is full of old houses.”

“That and it turns out that Cyril Rothmere built this place for his mistress. Can you believe it? I would have never guessed it of old Cyril, but I guess it’s true.”

St. Elizabeth sits in the crook of a backward L bordered by the St. Andrew Sound to the east and the Satilla River to the north. Cyril Rothmere chose the long side of the L as the perfect site for his Greek revival home. On a bit of high ground, he constructed a house with an expansive view of the river. Some say he was a man who loved beauty and his choice of the Satilla River reflected that. One of the state’s fourteen major watersheds, the Santilla provided a picturesque setting, especially in the early spring when the swamp cyrilla and azaleas turned its white sandbanks ablaze with reds, pinks, and oranges. Others, more cynical, suggest he wanted to keep an eye on the commercial river traffic so he could make wise investments when tall ships from all over the world off-loaded their merchandise in St. Elizabeth’s exceptional harbor.

The Rothmere home has since been turned into a museum, sheltering and preserving all things Rothmere as well as any items with historic ties to St. Elizabeth. Oh, and it’s supposed to have a ghost. That makes it perfect for tourists and locals to visit at Halloween.

“So much is up in the air. How is this all going to turn out?” I wondered out loud. “I don’t mean to sound heartless, but since Lisa was murdered inside Snippets, I imagine that some of our customers are bound to want to come back. Stands to reason, doesn’t it?”

Mom opened her arms to me, hugged me across the desk, and held me surprisingly tight. “Honey, I don’t know what they’ll do. People sure can be funny. They might find the whole situation intriguing. I used to think I knew my clientele pretty well, but not anymore. Everything is all upside down now. Frankly, when it comes to the historic
preservation situation, I don’t even know what to do first. Or whether I need to do anything at all. Things are just happening so quickly.”

She let me go and ran nervous fingers through her hair with its cute spikes held in place by a generous application of gel. When she finished, she quickly tucked her hand under the desk. “You see, this thing with the historical society isn’t the only thing on my mind. Something else has come up. Recently. Just last night, in fact.”

“What?” I couldn’t imagine any more on our plate.

With her right hand, Mom neatened the edges of a stack of papers. “While we were at dinner, Walter told me he’s planning on selling out. Seems he’s got a buyer who’s interested in his whole inventory. A collector. Then a friend called, another Civil War reenactor, and offered him a great deal on his Winnebago. Walter always teased him about wanting to buy it from him one day—and last week the man decided he wanted to sell. The upshot is that Walter wants to travel all around the country. He’s planning to go from historic battlefield to battlefield.”

“I’ll be sorry to see him go. It’s kind of nice how he’s been popping in all the time lately.”

A small smile played at her lips. “Yes, that has been nice. Actually, I’ve grown quite fond of Walter. Really fond. Um, he asked if I’d like to come along with.”

“And what? Fly back from some of those places? Sure. I can hold down the fort. It’s not like we’re overrun with customers.”

“No, honey.” She positioned her left hand on the desk so I could see the sparkle of her new ring. “He’s asked me to marry him.”

It’s always hard to imagine your parents did “it.” Harder still for me, after all these years without a dad, to realize that my mother was still interested in “it.” But the blush on
her cheeks told me everything I needed to know. She might be sixty-something years old, but my mom was still a girl at heart. Anything else would be too much information, or TMI as Rachel put it.

“Where are my manners? Congratulations!” Now I reached across the desk and hugged
her
hard. She giggled as I did. “Does Alice Rose know? Or Althea?”

“No. You’re my firstborn, so I wanted you to hear it first. Walter even asked if he needed to get down on his knees and propose to you, too, but I told him I thought you might take a pass. Seeing the commotion his proposal caused at Pizza Hut, I wasn’t sure I wanted to go through that again.”

I would have liked to have seen that but I wasn’t about to spoil the moment by saying so.

“When’s the date? I mean, have you set a day for the wedding yet?”

She shrugged. “Everything’s up in the air.”

I sank back into my seat. “What do you mean? You are going to marry him, right? You’re wearing the ring.”

“I’ve accepted his proposal, but we have a lot of details to iron out. Of course, I also have to tell Alice Rose and Althea. Stella and Rachel, too.”

“Althea’ll want to be your matron of honor. Or would it be your maid of honor, since she’s a widow?”

“I don’t know! I figure she’ll let me know what she wants to be and I’ll go along with it!” She paused, acting unsure what to say next. “Grace Ann, Marty is coming down Tuesday night for sure, right? I guess as a reporter, he works odd hours. Kind of hard to get used to, isn’t it?”

“He promised me that he’ll be here.”

“Have you given any more thought to his suggestion that you move up to DC with him? Go work in a salon up there?”

A hailstorm of emotions battered me. Did I want to
move in with Marty? Was I willing to make that commitment? Had he been serious when he suggested that it would be easy for me to find work in a DC salon? Was that the same as an invitation to move in together? Or was he simply pointing out that it would be a lot less hassle if we didn’t live a half day away from each other?

Other than the two years I lived in Atlanta while attending UGA, I’d lived in St. Elizabeth all my life…so far. Moving would mean saying good-bye to Vonda. I hadn’t particularly enjoyed the traffic and noise of Atlanta. I liked the fact I could get anywhere in St. Elizabeth that I needed to go in fifteen minutes. I’d heard about beltway traffic. Seen it with my own eyes a few times when I went up to visit Marty. The thought of driving in that mess made my heart pound and my mouth go dry.

Mom was waiting for my answer.

“What if I stay here? I mean, Marty and I have only been dating on weekends for four months. I’m not sure I want to make a commitment. I could still run the shop, right?”

Her eyes filled with tears and her voice grew husky. “Grace Ann, hon, that’s what I’m telling you. There might not be a shop.”

Chapter Thirteen

WAS SHE REALLY PLANNING TO CLOSE THE DOORS ON Violetta’s? Or just decided to sell the house? Victorian homes like this had become increasingly fashionable, especially with young couples from Savannah, looking for a place in a small town. These houses were bringing top dollar, even in the tough economy. With business so slow, and liable to be this way for a long time, selling the house might be a good idea. We could always rent a space if she decided she wanted to stay in the beauty business.

The question was…did Mom want to keep working? Or was she ready to call it quits?

Suddenly, I saw everything differently, a bit like Dorothy did in
The Wizard of Oz
. The overstuffed shelves above Mom’s desk filled me with a new affection, as did the
crayon drawings by Owen and Logan that she’d pinned up on her bulletin board. On the thin carpet behind me was a yellow streak, leftover from a botched attempt to paint the office yellow, Mom’s favorite color next to periwinkle. I ran my hand over the seat cover on my chair, a quilted pad that a customer had created especially for Mom.

Truth to tell, I couldn’t imagine a world without this shop. I’d grown up here listening to women talk about their lives while Mom shampooed their hair with lavender-scented suds. The hanging ferns, the cozy sitting area, the wide heart-of-pine floorboards made this seem more like a home than a salon. The array of African violets in the windowsills spoke to a time when simple pleasures like sharing a plant cutting were true signs of friendship. Even the dust motes that danced in the early morning sunshine seemed magical to me.

As a girl, I would sweep the floor between customers, making sure to get in every nook and cranny so that no stray curls were left behind. One of our regulars, Mrs. DiSilverio, thought my industry so cute that she even bought me a child-sized broom and little dustpan to use. How I enjoyed taking the towels out of the dryer and pressing their warm, soft surface to my face! The smell of perm solution always made me cheery, because with it came the delighted cries of “Oh, I love it!” after the rods were removed and the hair was styled.

If you took a survey, I’d bet that more than three-quarters of the women in this town had come through our doors at least once in their lives. I remember one bride who insisted on having her picture taken in her white gown standing under the figurehead from the
Santa Elisabeta
, a Spanish galleon that sank off the Georgia coast in the 1500s. The wooden carving provided benevolent supervision from a wall behind the counter. Since this bride’s name was Elizabeth, she believed that her name saint was responsible
for bringing her the man she would marry. Unbeknownst to us, Elizabeth had been lighting candles at church and praying to St. Elizabeth. Maybe I should have followed her lead, because that Elizabeth was happily wed after all these years later, and my marriage to Hank had been over for three years now.

In short, I loved everything about Violetta’s, and the thought of turning the key in the front door one final time and walking away from all this, and all these memories, made me want to bawl like a baby. After Mom’s pronouncement, I didn’t trust myself to speak. I kept swallowing and swallowing, but nothing would dislodge the lump in my throat.

“Y-Y-You’re honestly thinking about quitting? Closing the shop forever?”

“I’m getting older.” Mom spoke in a whisper. “My back used to hurt at the end of a day. Now it starts aching around ten and keeps paining me until I crawl into bed. My hands are arthritic. Have you noticed I can barely get my fingers into the handle of my good scissors? I’ve got a lot less patience than I used to have. Once upon a time, if a customer like Mrs. Everly told me I was cheating her, I would have laughed it off. But yesterday, I went into the bathroom and bawled my eyes out. The truth is, Grace Ann, I’m tired. Maybe it’s time for me to retire. I never did get my cosmetology license, and maybe there’s a reason. Maybe in my heart of hearts, I knew I didn’t want to do this for the rest of my life.”

With the back of my hand, I flicked the tears out of my eyes. It took all my strength to hold back, to keep from breaking into sobs. Mom handed me the box of tissues she always kept in her top drawer. “I don’t know what to say,” I stuttered.

I was mopping my eyes when the door flew open and Hank Parker, my ex-husband, walked in.

Chapter Fourteen