Summer Blowout

by Claire Cook

  “Sure,” he said. “If you’ll take a walk with me.”

  WE FOUND SOME CHAIRS on the far corner of the lawn, tucked beside some hedges, not far from the street.

  “Okay, what,” I said.

  He laughed. “You’re such a charmer.”

  “Look who’s talking,” I said.

  “I spoke to your father,” he said.

  Even with the outdoor lighting, I couldn’t quite see his eyes, but I knew they were hazel with flecks of gold. “I saw,” I said.

  “I didn’t know anything about that call to the health inspector. I’ve already pulled out of the group. And I told them to back off, or I’d tell your father who made the call.”

  “They’d never get a haircut in that town again” was all I could think to say. A piece of the puzzle was still missing, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

  “I would have done it, even if he wasn’t your father. Calling in a failed septic system is playing dirty. These old systems almost always fail, and he’ll have to put in a new one. It’s going to cost your father some good money.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Even if he can afford it, what if he couldn’t? People lose their homes over things like this every day. I don’t do business that way.”

  I still didn’t say anything.

  “And there’s not a lot of land for the system, so I don’t know what it would do to the property aesthetically. I told him I’d do some research for him. There are some new compact septic tanks. They have to be pumped more often, but they take up a lot less space.”

  I was too curious not to ask. “What did he say?”

  Sean Ryan smiled. “He took me up on it. And he tried to get me to pay for the whole system. What a character.” He reached for my hand. “So, are we okay now?”

  I stood up. “No, you and my father are okay. We’re not okay.”

  “What?”

  I chugged down the rest of my wine. “It’s all about business for you, isn’t it? Well, let me tell you, I have no intention of pursuing even a friendship with someone who thinks business is more important than I am.”

  I WAS HALFWAY DOWN the street before I realized that, since it was my nephew’s wedding, I shouldn’t have been the one to leave. I should have made Sean Ryan leave. It was too late now, since it would ruin my exit if I went back. I wondered how far it was to Hotel Indigo. I wondered if I was walking in the right direction. It was hard to tell. It was dark. I was in a strange city. And as much as I tried to fight them, hot tears were stinging my eyes.

  Sean Ryan pulled up in a no parking zone in his gray Prius and rolled down the passenger window. I kept walking. He inched the car along beside me.

  “Come on,” he said. “At least let me drive you back to your hotel. It’s not safe.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” I said. I picked up my pace.

  So did he. “Please?” he said. He leaned across the passenger seat. “I have crime statistics.”

  “How bad?” I asked. A guy walking in my direction suddenly looked armed and dangerous.

  Sean Ryan pulled around an illegally parked van, and I lost sight of him.

  “Well,” he said, when he came back into view, “things are definitely moving in the right direction, but there’s still a ways to go before it’s safe to walk at night.”

  I stepped off the curb, grabbed the door handle, and pulled. “Fine,” I said. “Just don’t talk to me, okay?”

  He waited until I was buckled, then we merged with the traffic.

  “You’re right,” Sean Ryan said. “I should have talked to you first. I should have told you you’re more important to me than any business deal.”

  I looked straight ahead. “I would have liked it if you’d said that. I would have even told you that I’m never ever going back to Craig. Ever.”

  We looked at each other.

  “I still think we should just be friends,” Sean Ryan said. “Maybe work on your kit for a while, see how it goes.”

  “You’re such a control freak. That’s what this is, you know. You can’t find a place and freeze it. Life doesn’t stop. It moves on.”

  “Thank you for the pearls of wisdom,” he said.

  “You’re welcome,” I said.

  He reached over and held my hand. I slid over to his side as far as the Prius would allow. I closed my eyes and let in the magic of the moment.

  “Any other pithy advice for me?”

  I thought about it. “Yes,” I said. “You can try to avoid getting hurt six ways from Sunday, but it still might happen. And don’t you dare ever sleep with one of my sisters. Or my brother.”

  Sean Ryan put on his blinker. He pulled over to the side of the road and put the car into park. There’s nothing like a good kiss in a Prius.

  30

  “IT’S GOOD,” I SAID. “BUT IT’S NOT QUITE THE SAME without that sumo suit.”

  “Maybe I can find a couple around here somewhere,” he said. “Do you want me to check?”

  “Don’t you dare go anywhere,” I said.

  He rolled us over across the width of his king-size bed. I pushed back, and we rolled back over in the other direction.

  “Show-off,” we both said at once.

  Morning sex with Sean Ryan was seriously fun, but it was getting late, and eventually one of us was going to have to make a move to get up. We both stared up at the ceiling. I was happy to note I’d ended up on the right side of the bed. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you owned a loft in Atlanta. Not to mention another Prius.”

  He propped himself up on an elbow and kissed me on my shoulder. “What? So you could try to sleep with me to get to the Prius?”

  “I’ve been plotting it for months, you salon stalker you,” I said. “Hey, what’s the name of this place anyway?”

  “Peachtree Lofts.”

  “What else?”

  I’d been otherwise occupied kissing Sean Ryan, so I hadn’t been paying too much attention last night, but I vaguely remembered underground parking and a lobby that looked like a modern art museum. His apartment had exposed ductwork on the ceiling and an exposed brick wall behind the bed. He had leather furniture and some nice art on the walls, and not much clutter.

  “So, what,” I said, “are you obnoxiously rich or something?”

  He laughed. “No. It was just a great investment. I bought it for practically nothing in 1995, when they first turned it into condos. It used to house the CDC, the Center for Disease Control, back when it was still called the Center for Infectious Diseases.”

  “I hoped you scrubbed it with bleach first.”

  “After that, it housed the Department of Agriculture, so maybe you’ll just get mad cow disease.”

  “Great.”

  “Anyway, I kept it because it’s everything my house in Marshbury isn’t. It’s a nice balance.”

  I pulled the sheets up over my shoulders. The comforter had ended up on the floor somehow.

  He sat up in bed. “How about some breakfast? There’s a great place down the street called The Flying Biscuit.”

  I pulled the sheet over my head. “I’m not leaving,” I said. “Ever.”

  “Any particular reason?”

  I’d spent some time thinking about this last night, after I’d dozed off and then woken up again. “The minute we leave this loft,” I said, “everything’s going to get all messed up again.”

  Sean Ryan slid under and pulled the sheet over his head, too. He stretched his legs up in the air and held the sheet up with his feet like a tent. I put my feet up there, too, to make the tent bigger.

  “See,” I said. “We can just stay here and pretend we’re camping. Toast some marshmallows, tell some ghost stories. Watch your unibrow grow back.”

  He walked one of his feet over until it was touching mine. “Would it help if I recited your speech of last night back to you? I could start with the part about being a control freak.”

  “I was just trying to get you into bed,”
I said.

  “Ha. Not to rush this along, but are your legs starting to shake yet?”

  We kicked the tent down and sat up. “We have air-conditioning,” I said. “And water. We’ll be fine.”

  “You haven’t seen my refrigerator. We’ll die of starvation in no time.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’ll go, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  I jumped in the shower first, while Sean Ryan made coffee. There is nothing in the world like a cup of coffee you didn’t have to make yourself. It was rich and strong, and I drank it, wearing his robe, a fresh coat of Afterglow on my lips, looking out the window, trying not to think.

  He came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist. My heart did a little leap in my chest.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey,” I said. I could feel us slipping away from each other already.

  He poured himself a cup of coffee, then leaned back against the kitchen counter. “Listen, why don’t you just stay here for the week and fly back to Boston with me on Friday? I have plenty of frequent flyer miles. Can you juggle your clients? Or get someone to cover for you?”

  My cell phone rang in my shoulder bag, which had somehow ended up on the floor by the front door. I got up, found my phone, and looked at it. “It’s Mario,” I said. “I’d better answer it.”

  “Esther Williams died,” he said as soon as I said hello.

  “Oh, no,” I said.

  “She left a list of final requests. She wants you to do her hair and makeup.”

  “No way,” I said. “You know I don’t do corpses.”

  Sean Ryan followed me into his bedroom. “Not to pry,” he said. “But did I just hear you say you don’t do corpses?”

  I was already pulling yesterday’s dress over my head. “I knew it,” I said. “We didn’t even have to leave the apartment. Everything always gets screwed up. People get hurt. People break up with you. People die. It’s not even worth…Oh, just forget it.”

  Sean Ryan put an arm around me. I slid out from under it and bent down to pick up my shoes.

  “Do you think breakfast might help?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Just take me back to the hotel, okay?”

  CANNOLI AND I CAUGHT AN early evening flight back to Logan, and I spent a sleepless night in my apartment. When I got to the funeral home the next morning, Sophia was waiting for me in the parking lot. We both locked our cars and started heading for the back door. My stomach was in knots already.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Did Mario make you come?”

  “No,” she said. “I wanted to.”

  Sophia rang the doorbell, and a man opened the door for us. “Come on in, girls,” he said. “She’s waiting for you in the embalming room.”

  I wanted to turn and run just like Myles did at the wedding, but I forced myself to keep breathing, to keep walking. O’Donohue’s Funeral Home was set in an old Victorian, with rich wood floors and intricate carved moldings, but the embalming room was cold and sterile. It had stainless steel shelves, a huge stainless steel sink, and a drain in the middle of a white tile floor.

  I shivered as we walked in. Esther Williams was already in her casket. She’d clearly picked it out herself. The wood was ornately carved and stained avocado green, and it was lined with a soft pink crepe. There was a darker pink rose embroidered on the lining of the lid. Right now it faced out into the room, but you could tell it was positioned so that when the casket was closed, the rose would end up right over her nose.

  I’d been hoping I’d be able to use my airbrush gun, so I didn’t have to touch her much, at least for the foundation, but I was afraid I’d mess up that lining. I pulled out the legs on my makeup case and set it up on the floor next to the casket. My hands were shaking.

  Esther Williams was wearing a hot pink dress, one she’d worn to the salon about a million times. It was tight and cut low, and she called it her husband-hunting dress. Salon de Lucio wasn’t going to be the same without her. I just couldn’t believe she was dead. She had always been one of the most alive people I knew, sparkling with vitality and true beauty, the kind that bubbles to the surface from the inside.

  I must have been standing there for a while, because Sophia said, “Here, I’ll start.” She reached into my case and pulled out a triangular foam sponge. She placed a finger on a round black MAC Studio Tech foundation compact. “What is she, an NW25?”

  I nodded. Sophia spread the foundation on gently, lovingly, covering not just Esther Williams’s face, but her neck and cleavage, and the tops of her hands.

  “How do you stand it?” I asked.

  “It’s not so bad,” Sophia said. “I just pretend it’s me, and I think about how I’d want to look good if so many people were going to be staring at me.”

  I rummaged in my case until I located my curling iron. I found an outlet under one of the shelves and plugged it in.

  “Some places,” Sophia said, “they put the caskets up higher and tell you just to do the half of the face that shows. Same with the hair.”

  “Oh, that’s awful,” I said. “She’d hate that. We have to do all of her.”

  “I always do,” Sophia said. “That’s how Dad taught Mario and me.”

  “I was such a chicken,” I said. “I was always so jealous when one of you got to go with Dad when he had a body to do, but not quite jealous enough to go.” I took a deep breath. “Okay, I’m good. I’ll take it from here.”

  I set the foundation with a large brush and some loose opaque powder to make sure it lasted through both the wake and the funeral. Then I added some MAC powder blush in Angel, which now I knew really did look good on everybody, even dead bodies.

  I could almost hear Esther Williams saying, “Okay, now give me some eyes.” I pulled out a shelf in my case and lined up everything I’d need to give her some unforgettable eyes. Almay color cream eye shadow in Mocha Shimmer, Bobbi Brown long-wear gel eyeliner in Black Ink and NYC self-adhesive eyelashes. Plus Maybelline Great Lash mascara in Very Black.

  I placed a tube of Revlon Super Lustrous Lipstick in Gentlemen Prefer Pink on the shelf for my final touch. If there were husbands to be had in her next life, I wanted her to find one right away. I took a deep breath. I picked up a disposable foam eye shadow brush and dipped it in the Mocha Shimmer. I braced one hand on the edge of the casket. I reached for Esther Williams’s eyelid.

  When I touched it, it moved.

  I screamed. And screamed.

  “What happened?” Sophia asked calmly when I stopped.

  “It moved,” I whispered. “Her eyelid moved.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sophia said. “It’s just wax. They must have had to rebuild part of her face.” She walked over and touched the eyelid lightly, then ran her finger along the lower lip. “Look, this is wax, too. She might have fallen when she had the heart attack. Or thrown up, and it took them a while to find the body. Sometimes the acid…”

  I turned around and vomited into the stainless steel sink, then I went outside to wait for Sophia.

  SOPHIA HANDED ME MY MAKEUP CASE. “You okay?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I said. I was sitting on the ground, leaning back against a sugar maple tree on the edge of the parking lot. When I moved my feet, the first dead leaves of the season made a dry, rustling sound. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sophia said. “She looks great.”

  “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Sophia smiled. “You want me to follow you back to your place?”

  I shook my head. “I’ll be okay to drive in a minute.”

  She slid down to the ground next to me. I moved over so she could lean back against the tree, too.

  “Craig’s moving back into his condo in Boston,” Sophia said. “The tenant’s lease is up this weekend.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “It was his idea, but I think I would have broken up with him anyway. You’re much more fun to hang out with.”

  “Yea
h,” I said. “Especially today.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sophia said. “I’m really sorry.”

  I put my arm around her, and she rested her head on my shoulder. “Do you regret not having kids of your own?” she asked.

  “I’m not sure. I know I regret letting Craig make the decision for me.”

  Sophia sighed. “Mario’s going to start sending me to New York. He’s got an in for per-diem work at one of the networks. He and Todd say Boston’s such a tiny market, and they want to expand. They’re talking about Atlanta, too.”

  “That’s great. It’ll be good for you to broaden your horizons.” I took my arm back and pushed myself up to a standing position. “Listen,” I said. “The truth is, I didn’t think I could forgive you, but I forgive you. I love you. But if you ever do anything like that again…”

  “I won’t,” Sophia said. “I promise.” She stood up, too. She gave me a hug.

  I turned my head, so she wouldn’t have to smell my breath. A green Prius pulled into the parking lot. My heart started beating like crazy, but my head knew there was more than one green Prius in Marshbury.

  Sean Ryan pulled up beside me and rolled down the window.

  “Those things have power windows?” I said. “That seems like a real waste of energy.”

  Sophia waved over her shoulder as she walked away. “I’m not even going to look at him,” she said.

  Sean Ryan put his car into park and climbed out. “Do you want to try that greeting again? Maybe something like, ‘How nice of you to fly back early to make sure I was okay’?”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “So listen,” he said. “I can’t promise you I won’t die, but it’s probably not going to happen today, so why don’t we just try to keep a positive attitude here.”

  I’d actually been thinking the same thing myself. I mean, maybe if the right person floats into your life, you have to jump in with both feet and try to make it work before the tide turns.

  “I agree,” I said.

  “Well, that’s a first.”

  I smiled. “Hey, life goes fast. Before we know it, we’ll both be lying there in a casket, hoping to get makeup on both sides of our faces.”