Page 79 of The Guests on South Battery
It was these guilty thoughts that made me agree to invite Jayne to pick out makeup for the big night, despite my protests that I shouldn’t wear anything except a thick green moisturizing mask to go with my hair that I was planning to wear in pink curlers.
“All three of you have the most amazing eyelashes,” Sultana, the beautiful woman with perfect skin and luminous eyes on the other side of the counter, said as she leaned in again with a mascara wand. “This one is a little more expensive, but it will give you the dramatic look you want with your smoky eye.”
“A smoky eye? Won’t that make them water?” Jayne asked. I shot her a look to see if she was serious. Apparently, she was.
“Let me show you,” my mother said, picking up the sample of eye shadows that Sultana had been playing with. With expert precision, Ginette began covering Jayne’s eyelids with color. “We’re so lucky to all have deep-set eyes—it makes eye shadow application so much easier and so much fun. We can do tons of things that other girls can’t because we have a much larger area to work with.”
Sultana handed her a wand of black liquid liner and I watched as my mother perfected a cat’s-eye on Jayne. Ginette picked up a hand mirror and showed her. “See? You almost look like someone else entirely—which is sort of the point of dressing up and going to a party, isn’t it? It’s like preparing for your part and your moment onstage.”
She smiled at Jayne, but there was something in her expression as she regarded the younger woman. “What’s your natural hair color, Jayne?”
“Dark brown,” Jayne said with a little hesitation. She looked around for something to compare it to, finally settling on my hair. “Like Melanie’s—but maybe a bit darker.”
“Melanie’s natural color is actually a little darker—she colors it now to hide the gray that’s started to come through,” my mother said matter-of-factly.
Sultana thrust a lipstick into my hands either to distract me or keep my hands occupied so they wouldn’t do any damage. “Try this,” she said. “It was all the rage at Charleston Fashion Week. It will lookgorgeouson you.”
As I applied the lipstick, my mother continued. “You look good as a blonde, Jayne, but I think you’d look stunning as a brunette. Don’t you think, Mellie?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, grateful for the lipstick that prevented me from forming full words. Otherwise I’d just ask my mother to shout to the world that her daughter was old and gray and that the nanny would outshine her if she’d color her hair back to brown. I closed my eyes, much to Sultana’s protests that I would mess up my mascara. I justcouldn’t face myself in the mirror. Jayne might talk like a teenager at times, but I certainly had the inner teenage voice down pat.
Sultana took the opportunity while my eyes were closed to grab a tweezer and begin plucking at errant eyebrow hairs. “You look like a woolly mammoth,” she said. “Let me clean these up for you.”
I sighed, resigned to my just punishment for my earlier thoughts.
“Melanie?” Jayne asked.
I braced myself, wondering if she wanted to borrow a pair of shoes—we’d recently discovered that we wore the same size. “Yes?”
“I was wondering—did you hide one of Sarah’s toys in that hall chest upstairs? She keeps crawling toward it and banging on the bottom drawer. I didn’t want to pry, so I didn’t look, but she certainly seems determined to get inside.”
“Ouch,” I said as Sultana ripped out a reluctant eyebrow hair and apparently a chunk of skin, judging by how much it hurt. I’d completely forgotten about the broken snow globes, or Nola telling me where she’d put them until I could tell Jayne. “Those are the remains of seven snow globes from the Pinckney house. They got broken, but Sophie was reluctant to throw them out, so I brought the bag home. Sarah saw them and was pretty fascinated, so I asked Nola to hide them until I could ask you what you wanted to do with them. Sarah must have seen her do it.”
“Well, that explains it,” Jayne said. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll take the bag out and show Sarah the empty drawer. Maybe she’ll forget about it.”
Ginette laughed. “Not likely—Sarah’s pretty stubborn. She gets it from her mother. She’s small and cute, but she’s like a pit bull with a bone when she gets it in her head that she wants something.”
I opened my eyes to find both Sultana and my mother studying my face. “Much better,” Ginette said, nodding approvingly, then slid her credit card across the counter. “Go ahead and wrap all this up—my treat.”
Despite our protests, Ginette insisted (obviously Sarah’s genetic disposition toward stubbornness ran deeper than just one generation) and Sultana began sorting our selections to ring up.
Jayne walked behind the counter to the shelves of perfume and picked one up to sniff. “I’m wondering if there’s a way she can play with the snow globes that might be safe. I mean, I wouldn’t let her handle them or put them in her mouth, but maybe some kind of game I can make up that might make her happy?”
I considered for a moment. “Well, she did show a partiality toward the Miami one—was really vocal about that one being ‘the one.’ For what, I have no idea, but as soon as I showed that one to her, she was fine and then went to sleep. If you want to whip them out of the bag and lay them on a table for her to let you know when you get it right, go right ahead.” I paused. “Just don’t leave them in their room when you’re done. I wouldn’t want them to get hold of one of them, just in case there’s still broken glass.”
“All right.” A frown crossed her brow. “How did they get broken?”
I cleared my throat while my mother unscrewed the lid of a face cream and took her time smelling it. “I’m not really sure. There’s so much construction going on, and so many workmen. I asked Amelia if they might be worth anything, and she said no, so at least there’s no restitution involved.”
“Not that I’d make anybody pay for them anyway, since it’s my fault they got broken,” Jayne admitted. “I should have had them moved out of the house long before they started all the restoration work. It’s just... I don’t know. I don’t feel as if the house is mine, and I’m finding it really difficult to make these decisions because I still think of the house and everything in it as belonging to Button Pinckney.”
“That’s normal,” I said taking my shopping bag from Sultana. “If you work more closely with Sophie, she can help you put your personal stamp on things to make it feel more like yours. Well, assuming they’re historically accurate. She’s a little fanatical about that kind of stuff.” I smiled brightly. “Of course, I can help you work around them. I’m a real expert on that.” My smile faded as I remembered a few times when Sophie had discovered my subterfuge, my knees aching at the memory of me being forced to strip floors by hand after a contraband electric sander had been discovered in my possession. “As long as you don’t let her know.”
Jayne gave me a worried glance. “Okay. That’s good to know. But I still wouldn’t feel right. Maybe I’m holding out hope that Jack will discover some answers so I can move forward—mentally, anyway.” The air behind her shifted, the temperature dropping as if an air conditioner had been switched on behind us, and I watched her shiver. She reached up a hand and brushed at the back of her neck, as if something had touched her, and I was glad for the scarf I wore that hid the scabs from the scratches I’d received in Button’s bathroom. I met my mother’s gaze, her eyebrows rising in acknowledgment that we weren’t alone.
“Thank you, Ginette,” Jayne said as she took her bag. “This wasn’t necessary, but I do appreciate it. I had fun.”
“Me, too,” Ginette said, sneaking a glance behind us as she held open the door and we said good-bye to Sultana with promises to return.
