Then, just as suddenly as the noises had started, they stopped. She waited a few heart-pounding minutes. Slowly and quietly, Beth made her way back into the house and stopped in front of the mirror in the darkened living room. Nothing. She put Lola on the floor and Lola raced upstairs, presumably to Beth’s bed. Beth passed through the dining room and then the kitchen. Nothing. She went to her deceased grandmother’s bedroom and the door was locked. How could that be? She tried the knob again several more times, and eerily, the door opened easily the last time. As quickly as she opened the door she felt the wall for the switch and flipped it, flooding the room with light from the ceiling fixture. The bed was a shambles, all the dresser drawers were pulled open, and the room was freezing cold. Beth’s heart was racing and she could feel her pulse in her ears. She was terrified, furious, and realized she was screaming as loud as she could.
“What is this? You call this scary? Let me tell you something, whoever you are! You get out of this house! You don’t scare me one damn bit, but I’m not spending the next year cleaning up after you! So, get out! Get out right now!”
She slammed the door behind her but left the ceiling light on, thinking that maybe the bright light might somehow deter further activity for the night. And, she decided to leave things as they were until she saw Cecily again. Perhaps Cecily would have some Gullah wisdom on what to do.
“This is some major bullshit,” Beth said to the thin air. “Lola? Where are you, baby? It’s okay now.”
Lola was indeed in the bed, huddled under a pillow.
“Come here, sweetheart. Looks like we have some company. Don’t worry; it’s just your dead great-grandmother. Probably. I think. Maybe. Let’s go downstairs and lock up the house for the night.”
Beth poured herself a glass of milk, wondering if she should sleep downstairs or upstairs, but in the end she decided that no ghost was going to dictate her life. She secured all the locks, checked the stove twice, and went to bed with Lola snuggled next to her in the same room where she had been sleeping all along. She pulled her laptop into her bed to check her email and there was something from her mother.
Arrived Paris safely. Trip was great except for the businessman in the seat next to me who got drunk, fell asleep, and snored the whole way across the Atlantic. Typical. Faculty housing isn’t exactly the Ritz but then I never lived at the Ritz anyway! How are you, baby? Hope everything is all right. Love you!
Beth wondered if she should tell her mother about the haunting and then decided against it. What could she do when she was an ocean away? Nothing, she decided. She wrote back:
Take lots of pictures and email them to me! Everything is cool! Love you too! Stop worrying! xxx
She woke in the morning amazed that she had not tossed and turned all night. In fact, she had slept more soundly than she could remember having slept in months. She hated to get up and face the day. Even Lola was feeling lazy, stretching with her tiny fanny up in the air and yawning so wide it made Beth smile. Looking over at the alarm clock, she was surprised to see that it was almost nine.
“Come on, girl, you’re a loaded bomb. Let’s get you outside.”
Beth quickly brushed her teeth and Lola followed her down the steps, out the front door, and into the yard. It was the beginning of another gorgeous day. It would be hot, there was no doubt of that, but Beth was getting used to the heat and pacing her day around it.
“Okay,” Beth said to Lola, “let’s go see if I can make a little bank as a journalist. What do you say?”
After a fast shower, a granola bar, and a short ride down the island, Beth was in for a shock. Middle Street was blocked to traffic. She stopped the car a half block away and got out to look at what was going on. A wrecking ball and a crane were taking down the building that had once housed Bert’s. A crowd of old islanders were there, taking pictures and remarking to one another that this was the end of an era, the end of every good thing that had kept Sullivans Island what it had always been—unspoiled by the outside world.
“Next thing you know we’ll have traffic lights at all the intersections,” an old man said.
“Yeah, and superstores,” another man said. “Big parking lots…I just hate seeing this happen. My beautiful momma must be spinning in her grave. Thank the Lord she didn’t live to see this pitiful day.”
“You said it, bubba.”
It wasn’t that Bert’s had any real architectural merit. No, the élan of the building lay in its history. Once, it had been a drugstore where a grandmother stopped in to buy her grandchild their very first ice cream cone. In those days, you could buy the latest Archie and Jughead comics or fill a prescription there. Teenagers shared banana splits spinning on the barstools and bought copious amounts of Clearasil and chewing gum. Decades went by, and when the pharmacist who owned it finally retired, it became a local haunt for a great burger and a game of pool. Friends met there. People fell in love there, slow dancing to bluegrass music on hot summer nights. Every island native had sweet memories of Bert’s for one reason or another, and knocking it down was like witnessing a sort of death.
“Excuse me,” Beth said politely, “do y’all know what they plan to do with the land?”
The two old codgers, their faces lined from years of sun exposure and hard work, turned to face Beth. Their rheumy eyes were brimming with suspicions that perhaps they had outlived their usefulness, just like Bert’s.
“Yeah, they just posted some drawings over there. They say it’s gonna be a multipurpose retail establishment, whatever that means.”
“It means whatever they’re selling, I guaran-darn-tee you, I don’t need,” the other man said.
“Me either. Too highfalutin for my blood. Come on, Lloyd. Let’s go over to Dunleavy’s and get us a beer. They’re open.”
Beth watched the two men walk away. They moved slowly and the shuffle of their gait was unsettling to her. She was touched by their sorrow and she knew just how they felt. Just how modern and shiny was this new place going to be, and how would it fit in the landscape that was the business district of the island? Would it make the rest of the establishments look shabby?
The population of the island didn’t just go around knocking down things. They recycled. Hadn’t Dunleavy’s Pub once been a liquor store? Didn’t Off the Hook begin its existence as a Red & White grocery store? Wasn’t the old barbershop where Bill the barber would give you a flattop for twenty-five cents now a dentist’s office? Even Sullivan’s Restaurant had been Burmester’s Drug Store. Beth knew these things. Her mother might say, Would you look at Dunleavy’s? When I was a kid that was the liquor store and it smelled like booze too! Or her Aunt Maggie would reminisce that they always got their bait for crabbing at the Red & White at no charge. No, razing Bert’s was extremely dubious, and Beth knew the islanders were holding their breath.
Beth looked up at the offices around Station 22 Restaurant and saw the sign for the Island Eye News. She walked across the street and up the stairs, feeling confident enough for a walk-in interview. It wasn’t like she was interviewing with the New York Times, she thought.
“Hi!” she said, opening the door and facing the receptionist.
“Hi, can I help you?”
The receptionist, who was maybe a year or two older than Beth, was sizing her up from head to toe, testing the limits of her Juicy Fruit chewing gum, which Beth could smell. Suddenly Beth’s confidence faded, replaced with a creeping dread. What was she doing there?
“Yeah, I was wondering if I could talk to someone about the opening you have for a freelance journalist to write feature articles? I saw the ad? In your paper?”
A female voice thundered from the other room and Beth jumped.
“Katie? Send her in here!”
“That’s Barbara Farlie,” Katie, the receptionist said, rolling her eyes. “She owns the paper. Go ahead in.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Résumé in hand, Beth took a breath and went to the next office to meet the publisher and editor in chief of th
e Island Eye News.
Barbara Farlie, who was one of those women of an undeterminable age, stood to her full height, which Beth reckoned was in the zone of nearly six feet. She had gorgeous thick honey blonde hair, cut in layers and blown back, away from her face. Beth thought the maintenance of it must cost her five hundred dollars a week. Barbara was wearing a T-shirt with the paper’s logo across the front tucked into a pair of black linen trousers. Everything about Ms. Farlie’s attire said she was casual on first glance but underneath she was all business, as Beth was about to discover.
“Hi, I’m Beth Hayes,” Beth said, and offered her résumé.
“I’m Barbara Farlie. So, what makes you think you’re a journalist? How old are you anyway?” She sat down in her chair and stared at Beth.
“Twenty-three. I’m not a journalist, actually. I just got out of college. Boston. See? It’s right there.” She pointed to the place on her résumé where her educational background was printed. Beth was still standing, feeling very awkward, and wondering if this was all a big mistake.
“Sit down,” Barbara said. “You’re making me nervous standing there like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.”
“Oh! Sorry!”
Beth dropped in the chair opposite her as fast as she could sit. She didn’t know whether to put her purse on the floor next to her or if she should hold it in her lap. She decided to hold on to it as it gave her some comfort to have something to anchor her to her spot.
“You want coffee? Put your purse down. Nobody’s gonna steal it.”
Beth immediately put her purse on the floor and said, “No thanks. Water might be good, though.”
“Katie?” she called out loud enough to rattle the walls. “Bring Beth a bottle of water, okay?”
Barbara leaned back in her chair and scanned Beth’s résumé. Katie appeared and handed Beth a small bottle of Evian.
“Thanks,” Beth said, and made eye contact with Katie, who gave her a reassuring smile.
Who would have thought that an interview with the publisher of a small newspaper could be so stressful? Beth’s hands shook as she tried to remove the cap from the bottle. At last she broke the seal and she began to drink like she was just crawling in after a month of being lost in the desert.
“Katie?” Barbara hollered out again. “Bring reinforcements! We got ourselves a binger here!”
Seconds later, Katie handed Beth another bottle and took her empty one away. Beth was so embarrassed she wanted to run out of the office and never see these people again in her life. But Barbara Farlie had other plans.
“So, what do you want to write about?” she said.
Beth knew she had better have some ideas but she had yet to learn about pitches and things like that. But still jarred from the sight of the demolition outside, she just blurted out, “Well, have you seen the disaster outside at Bert’s?”
“Yeah, what about it? That place was a dump.”
“Well, seems to me that every old-timer on this island is going to be pretty pissed—I mean, upset. Don’t you think so?”
“Doesn’t matter what I think. I want to know what you think. Why is that news, beyond the obvious?”
“Where are you from, Ms. Farlie?” Beth had a hunch she was dealing with someone from the other side of the causeway, perhaps even the Mason-Dixon Line.
“Michigan. I was in the army. Wrote for Stars and Stripes for over twenty years. Then the dust in Afghanistan began to upset my asthma and I decided I had been in the trenches long enough. So, I came here—my old aunt lives on the Isle of Palms. My kids are grown and scattered with the wind. My husband Amos kicked the bucket three years ago and left me lonely. Ah, Amos. He was a good man. Anyway, I figured this would be a good retirement job and it’s got great benefits, namely, my kids come and bring my grandchildren because everyone likes the beach. But to get back to our conversation about the wrath of the old-timers?”
“Listen, I grew up here. So did my mother and grandmother and her mother before her. This island is a crazy place. We like things just as they are. I’m telling you, if they put up some glitzy new building next door and start selling ten-dollar coffee and ten-dollar muffins, people around here are gonna burn it down.” Beth was surprised by her own passion.
“Really?”
“Well, not literally. But they won’t support full-blown gentrification. That’s for sure. Would you pay ten dollars for a cup of coffee?”
“Hell no. You know, that’s an interesting position. I wonder how many islands in this state have developers coming in and trying to change things.”
“I’m just guessing here, but I would say all of them?”
“You got a car? And a camera?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. I’ll tell you what. You bring me twelve hundred words and some good pictures of what’s going on out there and on the other islands. If it’s any good, I’ll pay you for it if we run it. And I’ll cover your expenses either way. How’s that?”
Beth considered it for a minute. What did she have to lose? She could even take Lola with her, couldn’t she?
“That sounds great! Thanks!” Beth stood and shook Barbara’s hand soundly.
“Beth Hayes?”
“Yes ma’am?”
“Welcome to hell, honey, welcome to hell. By the way, love the flip-flops.”
Barbara was smiling as she said it. Naturally, Beth smiled back, but she wondered what Barbara Farlie meant.
5
Hello Trouble
[email protected] Susan, Got to Paris fine? Dead in the Seine? Want to let us know? Hmmm? xx
[email protected] Maggie, honestly! Busy eating pommes frites and drinking Dom with de Gaulle’s grandson and his wife. Whaddya think I’m doing? Love Paris! Love you too!
EARLY THAT AFTERNOON, armed with her digital camera and a small notepad, Beth left the house, feeling some urgency to document the final hours of Bert’s Bar. After all, this was the end of a landmark and if she was going to be a successful journalist, she needed to be smack in the center of things. Where Bert’s once stood, the scene was now all but a pile of rubble, the air swirling with dust and tiny bits of debris. Chunks of cement and ragged piping were being tossed into dump trucks by a streamlined backhoe, designed to work in small spaces. The noise was surely going to destroy the lunchtime business of the surrounding restaurants and that cash flow for the foreseeable future which would result in a litany of complaints to the Town Council and headaches for everyone.
At the scene, there were still a few people hanging around watching, but the crowd that had been there earlier in the morning had gone on about their day. Beth walked toward the site with a brisk stride of purpose. She stopped to take in the details of the drawings that were posted on the brand-new gleaming placard along with the permits. Two thick tubular columns stood on either side of the display window. The placard itself was almost six feet tall and constructed of brushed chrome, as was the frame of the window itself. Copper pyramids topped the columns to discourage perching birds and the droppings they left behind. The non-glare glass that protected the documents from the elements was etched along the frosted edges in shapes that suggested seagulls in flight.
“Seagulls,” Beth said out loud. “Ew. How original. And just what the heck is all this?”
The whole thing was offensive because the obvious truth was that if the placard was an indication of the money that would go into the new construction, the future building would stand out against everything else in the realm, just as the old islanders and Beth had feared.
Beth harrumphed, snapped several photographs of it, and mumbled, “I’ll bet this rocket ship has night-lights and a dehumidifier.”
“Actually, it doesn’t, but that’s a good idea.”
Beth turned to the source of the manly voice and fell right into the laughing brown eyes of Max Mitchell.
“Given the climate and all…” he added, putting his sunglasses on top of his head
like a surfer.
Did she know him? It seemed to Beth that this was a reunion after many lifetimes of separation. Cosmic. And Max, usually calm, cool, and copasetic, was so taken by her face and the sound of her voice that he actually felt a shiver of déjà vu. But Max Mitchell shivered over women a million times a day, women of every shape and size, age and cultural orientation, married and single. He just loved them.
Then there was a virtual blast of pheromones and Beth, completely unaccustomed to anything like it, was rocked at the strength of it. What kind of kismet was this? Beth vowed to get her story and walk away as fast as possible. Max stopped himself, having sworn off female temptations until his project was further under way. He thought she was probably too young for him anyway. Or not.
This is ridiculous, they both thought, but knew they were caught in the net of fate’s intentions just like a couple of fish.
An awkward silence hung between them before they finally regained their senses and introduced themselves to each other.
“Um, I’m Beth Hayes. Island Eye News.” She hoped she sounded professional.
“Max Mitchell. Architect. And builder.”
They shook hands and by all appearances any passerby would have said the act of shaking hands was simply a cordial business gesture. But Max was astounded by how small and soft Beth’s hand felt in his. For a split second, as any man would, he wondered if the rest of her was so, well, so what was she like in the sack? And Beth, whose hormones had been practically dormant most of her life, thought his hand was the most perfect hand she had ever touched, and for a brief moment she wondered what both of his hands would feel like on her face.
“This is your idea?” She gestured toward the site with her chin.
“Well, yeah, I guess so. I have several minority partners but it’s mostly my own investment.”