Wave Good-Bye (3 page)

I didn’t have the heart to tell her about the pile of foils I’d already folded and put away in my workstation.

With a nervous finger, Rachel twirled a lock of her hair. Usually she’s busy all day shampooing our clients in the sink of our former powder room. Today there’d been plenty of time to sort through and toss old magazines, wash and
fold towels, prep foils, and address the birthday cards we always sent our customers.

“Um, I suppose this is as good a time as any to tell you…I’ve been offered a job over at Snippets.”

I rocked back on my heels in shock.

“Yeoow!” wailed Beauty.

“Sorry!” I’d caught her tail under one of my tennis shoes. She streaked past me and took shelter under a styling chair. There she made a big production out of licking her toe pads.

“But I told them no! I’m not taking it. No way! I mean, I went for an interview. Just to check them out. Kind of like a covert agent. Wow, is that place ever cool!” Rachel’s kohl-rimmed eyes grew wide, and her fingers plucked at a run in her jet-black tights. “I mean, it’s so modern and sleek, and like, big city. They’ve got this big saltwater fish tank smack in the middle of the shop. I could have stood there all day and watched the fish. And you’ll never guess who’s working for them. Lisa Butterworth. Yep, she’s, like, their manager.”

“Crud,” I whispered. “That explains it.”

Mom and Althea exchanged glances. My face burned red and I looked away. Suddenly, I felt sick, like the time I ate spoiled potato salad at the church picnic. But this wasn’t anything I gobbled down. It was something I’d done.

For months I’d bugged Mom to start using social media as a marketing tool. “At least e-mail our customers with special offers,” I pleaded.

“Don’t have the time or the know-how,” said Mom.

One day Lisa Butterworth walked in and pitched us on hiring her as a part-time consultant. She had been two years behind me in high school. Obviously she was a late bloomer, because in high school, she’d been nicknamed “Mrs. Butterworth” for her matronly figure, dumpy wardrobe, and bad hair. The woman who sat across from Mom and me wore a
lovely gabardine pants suit with a silk blouse, tasteful pearls, and her hair had been professionally styled.

“I know the beauty industry. I graduated from cosmetology school after high school. I also have experience in marketing small firms like yours. I went back to GSU and got my degree in marketing.”

That was impressive. I went to UGA for two years, hopped from subject to subject, before dropping out.

“First I’ll compile an e-mail list of your customers.” Lisa ticked off a to-do list on her fingers. “Next I’ll separate them into categories. All the facial customers go in one group, the mani and pedi customers in another, and so on. Last but not least, I’ll craft messages that appeal to them and the services they use. Finally, I’ll send them e-mail blasts and check the click-through numbers.”

“I’m not sure that our customers will appreciate getting spam from us,” said Mom. She didn’t know much about social media, but she recently learned to use Outlook and retrieve her e-mails.

“You got that right,” said Althea, looking lovely in the dashiki she belted over black tights with a pair of ballet flats. “Kwasi gets two hundred e-mails a day. He swears he’s getting carpal tunnel from hitting the delete key over and over.”

Ever since she started seeing Dr. Kwasi Yarrow, a professor over at Georgia Coastal College, her conversations are sprinkled with “Kwasi this” and “Kwasi that.” The way she goes on about him, you’d think she was fourteen instead of sixty-three. But maybe I’m just jealous. I’ve been seeing Marty Shears, a political reporter I met when he worked for the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Since then, he’d taken a job at the
Washington Post
up in DC. Carrying on a long-distance romance is the pits.

Lisa defended her plan. “When it’s a service people
want, when they’ve given you their e-mail addresses to stay in touch, it’s not spam.”

“I doubt I can afford your services,” said Mom, eying Lisa’s well-tailored gabardine suit. I noticed how sleek her hair was. Either someone else was giving her a great blowout, or she’d mastered the skill of doing it herself.

“Actually, I’m incredibly reasonable.” Lisa named a figure so low it shocked me.

Mom still wasn’t convinced, but I nagged her. I called Lisa’s references, and they had glowing comments about her work. Finally Mom phoned Lisa and signed on. For a month and a half, Lisa entered all our customer data into her computer. We’ve always kept good records, filling out a card for each customer and taking notes on our services. Now Lisa transferred all that into a spreadsheet.

Watching her attack the mountain of forms, day after day, I couldn’t believe her industry. Nor could I understand why she charged us such a piddling amount. She worked hour after hour, making less than minimum wage. But she never complained. Never seemed anything but dedicated.

“Once you have all that data, what do you plan to do with it?” asked Mom one day as she looked over Lisa’s shoulder.

“We’ll run a few test messages to determine the bounces.”

“Bounces?”

Lisa nodded. “Addresses that are wrong, no longer current, or no longer in service. By running a test message, we clean up the list. Think of it like sending out your Christmas newsletter. A few come back, right? Then you call and find out your friend has moved. This is the same procedure, but we do it through e-mail.”

She sent the test message. Made a few calls. And disappeared.

“At least she didn’t charge us much.” Mom shrugged
and spread her hands wide in a “what are you going to do” gesture.

Now we knew why. Lisa had scammed us. She’d hired on for the sole purpose of stealing our customer list. Once she finished the job, she left. The piddling amount we paid her would have been chicken feed compared to what Snippets offered her to steal our customers out from under us.

“So that’s how they knew how to reach our clients,” mused Althea. “And what to suggest for them.”

Mom pulled off her rimless glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Excuse me,” she said, “I need to use the ladies’ room.” And walked away.

I sank down onto the floor and buried my head in my hands.

What had I done?

Chapter Three

WHEN MOM CAME OUT, HER PUFFY RED EYES ANNOUNCED that she’d been crying. That got me all shook up, because my mother isn’t the crying type. When my dad died of pancreatic cancer, leaving her a young widow with two small daughters to raise and no particular education to speak of, she grew a backbone of pure steel. She’s also a paragon of practicality, a woman who believes that when life gets tough, you pull up your big girl panties and work a little harder. Given all she’s been through, she’s pretty hard to rattle.

Walking over to the appointment book, she ran a finger up and down the listings. “Hmm. Grace Ann, we’ve only got two people coming in tomorrow. I know you have plans. Why don’t you take Saturday off? You, too, Rachel.”

“Sick! Totally sick!” said our shampoo girl.

I translated for Mom. “She means she’s thrilled. I am, too.”

Althea opened the cabinet by her workstation and grabbed her car keys. “Since I don’t have anything in the appointment book, I think I’ll hit the highway and see y’all on Monday. Kwasi’s taking me out to eat at that new barbecue place, then we’re going to the football game. After that, he’s going to read to me from a new textbook he’s working on.”

Dr. Kwasi Yarrow was six years younger than Althea, but his gravitas made him seem older. He was a professor, and he wore an air of self-conscious intellectualism around him the way most men wear cologne. Of course, he drove a Prius, watched CNN, and read the
Atlantic Monthly
. I don’t think Althea was attracted to him for his looks, although he wasn’t a bad-looking man. Althea described her beau as “passionate,” and I would add after seeing him in action with a student group that he was also persuasive.

The tall African American woman picked up her purse, a mesh sack that Kwasi told her was hand-woven elephant grass made in Ghana. It looked exactly like ones they were selling at South of the Border, that kitschy tourist place on the state line between Georgia and North Carolina. Althea stored her bag on one of the upper shelves because Beauty liked to use it as a scratching post. The design on the front was already missing two beads, and Beauty had been happily batting at something small and round earlier this morning.

“A textbook he’s writing?” I stopped wiping down the baseboard. “Sounds exciting.”

“What of it?” Althea stiffened and gave me “the look.” I’ve seen grown men quake in their Nikes when she levels those powerful tractor beams on them.

“I’m just sayin’,” I backpedaled.

“What are your plans for the weekend, Grace Ann? You and Marty going to the bonfire and the big game? Especially since you’ve got tomorrow and Sunday off?” Althea raised an eyebrow. This was a direct challenge, and I knew it. Althea and Mom both thought I was nuts for putting up with Marty’s erratic schedule and vague promises. Last weekend, we were all set to spend a romantic couple of days in Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, when he called at the last minute and cancelled. “Big, big story,” he said, but he was eating at the time, so it sounded more like, “Ig, ig, ory.”

“Naw, I’m not much of a football fan.” The real reason I wasn’t going is that I refused to show up at the festivities without a date. This summer we had our ten-year reunion, and I was depressed for days. Seeing all my high school friends married with kids reminded me that the clock was ticking. For years I’d kept my desire to have children a closely guarded secret. After my failed marriage with Hank Parker, I acted like being a career woman was exactly what I wanted. Of course, pretending got a lot harder when Alice Rose married Wade Willard in a beautiful June ceremony. My baby sister and Mom spent months planning every intricate detail of the wedding, down to the pink and white tulle party favors on the tables at the reception. Three months later, Alice Rose and Wade announced they were having a baby. Six months later, that baby became twins. Nine months and two days after their wedding, Alice Rose gave birth to two boys, Owen and Logan.

While I loved being a doting aunt, lately it had become harder and harder to keep up the charade that working nine-to-five was my fantasy life. When the holidays rolled around, and the Willards sent out their carefully posed family photo, a sick tension gripped my gut. On Thanksgiving when we gathered around Alice Rose’s Martha Stewart–perfect table, I tried to count my blessings. Mainly I
succeeded, but the taste of loneliness grew sharper as the years went on.

“But is Marty coming? He was supposed to be here tonight, wasn’t he?” Althea locked on me and wouldn’t let go, those deep-set eyes of hers flashing a warning. She didn’t like the way Marty stood me up over and over, and she’d made no bones about it.

“Marty has given me his word he’ll be here Tuesday. He’ll spend next weekend with me. We’re planning to have dinner at Enchanté.” I purposely got on my knees with my butt stuck up in the air before going back to work on the baseboards.

“Grace, wasn’t he supposed to be here tonight?” Rachel looked up from the sink bowl she was sanitizing. “I’m only asking because you’re welcome to come with us to Angelini’s and have spaghetti before we go to the game.”

I grunted.

“Grace Ann?” Mom prodded me.

“Fine!” I threw down the sponge. “Okay, pile on, everyone. Let’s all pick on Grace Ann! Yes, he had a major development in a big story, and he had to cancel for tonight. After all, it’s only a small-town homecoming, and goodness knows he’s seen plenty of them. But he promised—”

Althea walked right up to me, fisted her hands on her hips, and said, “Of course, he promised. Men like that always promise and never deliver. You’re old enough to know that by now. Girlfriend, you need your head examined.”

After she left, Mom picked up her car keys, shouldered her purse, and headed toward the front door. “Walter has a coupon for a two-for-one meal over at Denny’s. We have to use it tonight or it’ll expire.”

She giggled. “He called to say he bought me a mum corsage. Isn’t that sweet?”

While Kwasi reeked of high-brow elitism, Walter
Highsmith cut a low-brow comical figure. He was short and pudgy, with a goatee and full moustache that he waxed into rigid loops. This was in keeping with his Civil War regalia, in Confederate gray, of course, and the sword that clattered at his side as he walked. Frankly, I thought Walter was a bit of a loony tune, but a nice loony tune. Mom seemed to like him well enough. He owned the Civil War memorabilia shop called Confederate Artefacts, two doors down from Violetta’s, a proximity that made it easy for him to pop in and chat with my mother. Lately, he’d been stopping in at least twice a day. I’d always suspected he was sweet on Mom, but it hadn’t been until recently that she seemed to return his affection.

I changed positions to sit cross-legged and work for a while. From my spot on the floor, I watched my mother walk out the front door. A sick feeling started in the pit of my stomach. Mom always gives me a hug or kiss and says, “Love you,” before we say good-bye. But not tonight.