The Guests on South Battery (Tradd Street #5)(95)
He bent down to give me one of his mind-emptying kisses that left me with a stupid smile on my face and only a vague memory of what we’d been talking about. I was still smiling as he made his way into the house, the door shutting behind him, my smile doing nothing to convince me that there wasn’t something Jack wasn’t telling me.
I sat in between my mother and Jayne at one of the makeup counters at Cos Bar on King Street, trying on makeup for the book-launch party the following evening. Jayne and I were, anyway. My mother was just trying on makeup for fun, much to the joy of the employee working with us. Ginette’s flawless skin was the perfect canvas for makeup, and her years as an opera singer had taught her not to be afraid of looking dramatic—something she was trying to share with Jayne and me with mixed results.
I hadn’t gone with my mother and Jayne to look for a dress, if only to prove that I wasn’t petty or jealous and didn’t care if they selected a dress that was prettier than mine. Jayne was the nanny and was going with Thomas Riley as her date. They actually made a very cute couple, and I thought they might even have a future together if Jayne could just learn to speak like a normal person when she was with him.
I hadn’t seen her dress, but I was sure it was lovely, since my mother had helped pick it out, which, if I was forced to admit, hurt a little. Maybe not having had a mother for most of my life made me feel a little possessive. Jayne had grown up without any parents, but at least she hadn’t known what she was missing. I had, and had known the pain of it being snatched away from me.
It was these guilty thoughts that made me agree to invite Jayne to pick out makeup for the big night, despite my protests that I shouldn’t wear anything except a thick green moisturizing mask to go with my hair that I was planning to wear in pink curlers.
“All three of you have the most amazing eyelashes,” Sultana, the beautiful woman with perfect skin and luminous eyes on the other side of the counter, said as she leaned in again with a mascara wand. “This one is a little more expensive, but it will give you the dramatic look you want with your smoky eye.”
“A smoky eye? Won’t that make them water?” Jayne asked. I shot her a look to see if she was serious. Apparently, she was.
“Let me show you,” my mother said, picking up the sample of eye shadows that Sultana had been playing with. With expert precision, Ginette began covering Jayne’s eyelids with color. “We’re so lucky to all have deep-set eyes—it makes eye shadow application so much easier and so much fun. We can do tons of things that other girls can’t because we have a much larger area to work with.”
Sultana handed her a wand of black liquid liner and I watched as my mother perfected a cat’s-eye on Jayne. Ginette picked up a hand mirror and showed her. “See? You almost look like someone else entirely—which is sort of the point of dressing up and going to a party, isn’t it? It’s like preparing for your part and your moment onstage.”
She smiled at Jayne, but there was something in her expression as she regarded the younger woman. “What’s your natural hair color, Jayne?”
“Dark brown,” Jayne said with a little hesitation. She looked around for something to compare it to, finally settling on my hair. “Like Melanie’s—but maybe a bit darker.”
“Melanie’s natural color is actually a little darker—she colors it now to hide the gray that’s started to come through,” my mother said matter-of-factly.
Sultana thrust a lipstick into my hands either to distract me or keep my hands occupied so they wouldn’t do any damage. “Try this,” she said. “It was all the rage at Charleston Fashion Week. It will look gorgeous on you.”
As I applied the lipstick, my mother continued. “You look good as a blonde, Jayne, but I think you’d look stunning as a brunette. Don’t you think, Mellie?”
“Uh-huh,” I said, grateful for the lipstick that prevented me from forming full words. Otherwise I’d just ask my mother to shout to the world that her daughter was old and gray and that the nanny would outshine her if she’d color her hair back to brown. I closed my eyes, much to Sultana’s protests that I would mess up my mascara. I just couldn’t face myself in the mirror. Jayne might talk like a teenager at times, but I certainly had the inner teenage voice down pat.
Sultana took the opportunity while my eyes were closed to grab a tweezer and begin plucking at errant eyebrow hairs. “You look like a woolly mammoth,” she said. “Let me clean these up for you.”
I sighed, resigned to my just punishment for my earlier thoughts.
“Melanie?” Jayne asked.
I braced myself, wondering if she wanted to borrow a pair of shoes—we’d recently discovered that we wore the same size. “Yes?”
“I was wondering—did you hide one of Sarah’s toys in that hall chest upstairs? She keeps crawling toward it and banging on the bottom drawer. I didn’t want to pry, so I didn’t look, but she certainly seems determined to get inside.”
“Ouch,” I said as Sultana ripped out a reluctant eyebrow hair and apparently a chunk of skin, judging by how much it hurt. I’d completely forgotten about the broken snow globes, or Nola telling me where she’d put them until I could tell Jayne. “Those are the remains of seven snow globes from the Pinckney house. They got broken, but Sophie was reluctant to throw them out, so I brought the bag home. Sarah saw them and was pretty fascinated, so I asked Nola to hide them until I could ask you what you wanted to do with them. Sarah must have seen her do it.”