“If we aren’t put in jail for life I’m going to kill you,” David said so just Ariel could hear. “Do you have any idea what these women are doing to me?”
Ariel knew, since the women had delighted in telling her everything. “If he can stand that,” they said, “then he is gay.” Ariel was split between laughing and leaving the dye on too long. As it was, she was too busy to do much of anything other than try to keep up.
There were double doors between the beauty salon and the dress shop and they’d been thrown open so the women could go from one room to the next. Ariel had been in the middle of them, for the most part saying no. “That’s not for you. Try the blue one. No, no, no! Not that belt!” At first she’d been almost timid, and she’d worked hard to be diplomatic. But by eleven o’clock, she’d stopped being polite. The women weren’t being courteous, so why should she be? They were shoving and grabbing and pushing ahead of one another in the queue, and in general acting like what they were: starving for fashion and beauty.
To accommodate so many, Ariel stopped doing things herself. She’d started applying the cosmetics herself, and had even done the foil highlights on one woman’s hair, but after an hour, she began directing and the women hurried to obey. Cosmetics, hair, clothes were all being done at once, while Ariel barked orders. “She doesn’t need more blonde! Her hair’s been bleached white as it is. And look at her eyebrows! Somebody get me a weed whacker!” Instead of being insulted, the women laughed and pushed harder to get closer to Ariel. “I brought all sixty-one of my handbags and I thought you could tell me which ones I should keep.” Ariel looked into a black plastic bag full of purses that were stiff with age and gray with mildew, but she recognized gems from the forties and fifties. “Get some saddle soap and some colorless shoe polish,” Ariel said, “then sit in that corner and clean those bags up. When you’re done, put them on that table and I’ll sell them for you. I get twenty-five percent.” The woman blinked a couple of times, then ran out the door to go to the hardware store to get the supplies.
David had helped her for a while, but the women got to be too much for him. They were fascinated by his good looks and by what Phyllis Vancurren had conspiratorially told them.
At about one o’clock, she overhead a woman who had severely sun-damaged skin say the word “Gideon.” Ariel went to the girl who was slapping on bright blue eye shadow and took away the brush from her. “I’ll handle this one,” Ariel said and the girl looked at her gratefully.
“You need laser treatments on your skin,” Ariel said flatly.
“Don’t I know it. All those years on Fenny’s boat.”
Ariel had to pause to keep her hand from shaking. Fenny Nezbit. The dead man in the bathtub. The man who was suing them.
“It’s okay,” the woman said softly. “I won’t let Fenny hurt you on Monday. It’s just a game he plays. He don’t mean no harm in it. He knew that man was rich.”
“R.J.”
“Yeah, the older one. He sure is in love with that girl, ain’t he?”
Again, Ariel paused. “With Sara? She works for him, but I don’t think they’re in love.”
“Hmph!” the woman said. “You should have seen them this mornin’. I was comin’ here and I guess he thought I was gonna run him over with my truck because he threw her in a ditch and covered her up. If anybody was gonna get hurt, it was him. I can tell you that Fenny ain’t never done that with me.” She leaned toward Ariel. “I bet that young man of yours would do that for you.”
Ariel glanced at David. Some woman was asking him if the blouse she had on was too low cut. “David is—”
“Don’t tell me that lie. I know a lie when I hear one. I live with Fenny and that’s all the lyin’ I can take. That boy ain’t no homosexual.”
“I wonder if I could talk to Mr. Nezbit,” Ariel said. “Maybe tonight I could see him.”
“He’s gone and I don’t know when he’ll be back. Probably not till Monday when he sees the judge.”
“Did he leave the island?” Ariel was putting shadow on the woman’s lids, but the wrinkles were making it difficult not to cake it.
“Naw. He’s just gone up to sleep with his gold.”
“Sleep with his gold,” Ariel said.
“Surely you’ve heard about Fenny’s gold.”
“Phyllis—”
“Don’t say that woman’s name to me! Her and Gideon—”
“Who is Gideon?”
“The devil’s spawn, if you ask me. Evil little bastard.”
“He’s your son, isn’t he?”
She looked at Ariel in the mirror and her eyes began to sparkle. “If you say so.”
Ariel was trying to calm her rapidly beating heart. “When you saw R.J. and Sara, where were they going?”
“To my house. I told ’em to take care of my kids.”