Ferris Beach by Jill McCorkle

Author:Jill McCorkle [McCorkle, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Published: 2009-06-17T20:00:00+00:00

For the whole next day my mother toyed with her hair. I saw her several times just standing in front of the halltree mirror, pulling her hair this way and that, turning her head from side to side the way I had done so many times in an attempt to see what other people saw when I passed by. She even borrowed one of my Glamour magazines, the pages folded back to a make-over section, and Angela was right there egging her on. “You could surprise Fred.” Angela smiled knowingly, stepped closer. “He’ll love it.”

By the end of the next day, my mother’s hair looked like it had been cut with pinking shears. It kinked and curled all around her face and was rinsed dark and free of the gray. Her bangs stood out from her forehead in a Cleopatra look. She kept looking in the mirror, a worried expression on her face. Even Mrs. Poole had walked into our house and not said a word, acting as if she didn’t notice anything new, and all the while studying my mother furiously when she could steal a glance.

“Your mama looks like she just joined the Egyptian Marines, and Sally Jean looks like a damn carrot,” Misty said two days later when we were back out in the sun with Angela. “Damn it all to hell and back if she ain’t orange and if your mama’s hair doesn’t look like a frizzy pyramid.”

“Oh, now,” Angela said. “I was trying to help the two of them.” Angela smiled, lips together, eyes filled with concern and pity. It was the same look she had given my father when he asked us what had ever made my mother think of doing such a thing to herself. “What do you really think, Fred?” Mama kept asking, and he replied, “One in a million.”

Angela told Misty she shouldn’t talk about my mother and Sally Jean, but nonetheless she laughed every time the two were mentioned. My mother, on that very day, had her navy shorts rolled up three inches higher than she normally wore them. Clearly Angela had started something. Sally Jean was daily coating herself in orange, and Mrs. Poole had even been spotted in a pair of chartreuse polyester shorts.

“You are so lucky,” Misty had said over and over. “Angela is so neat. Maybe she’ll take us to the beach and let us stay at her place. Maybe we’ll meet some boys.” Now she turned and looked at Angela, lifting her sunglasses up the way Angela always did before speaking. “You knew my mother, didn’t you?”

“I knew who she was.” Angela nodded. “And of course I saw her Christmas a year ago.” She looked at me to confirm the meeting. “What a beautiful woman she was.” Misty nodded and smiled. “I knew I had seen her before because how could you forget someone so pretty, right?” Misty nodded again. “The truth is”—Angela lowered her voice—“I wasn’t going to bring this up because I didn’t want to upset you, but I was at your mother’s funeral.

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