The Accidentals(9)

He throws the phone on the seat. “So, Carlos. How are the Dodgers doing?”

“Not good, boss,” the driver answers, turning the radio up a notch. “It’s going to be another humiliation.”

“That seems to be a theme today.”





The bell tinkles on the salon door when I open it. I don’t know the young woman behind the counter. But Mary is in her usual spot near the window, with an elderly woman in her chair. I stop to watch, and Mary looks up.

“Rachel!” She puts down her scissors and comes running. “Oh, honey! Why aren’t you in Atlanta with your aunt?”

This is not an easy question to answer, but I don’t have to. Because Mary’s eyes travel up and over my head, and then she gasps.

I turn around to see Frederick standing there in front of a display of haircare products. Straight-faced, he raises a hand and salutes the two of us.

Mary gets ahold of herself. “Come with me, sweetie. I have someone in my chair, but Megan is going to give you a nice shampoo, and you need conditioner. Then I’m going to trim you up while we talk, okay?” She cups my face in her hands and frowns. “You look awfully tired.”

I allow myself be snapped into a salon gown and led to a sink. I tilt my head back onto the neck rest.

“You let me know if that’s too hot,” the girl says.

“Okay.” I close my eyes while shampoo is massaged into my scalp. This is a nice salon, and Mom and I can only afford it because Mary gives us a deal. The shampoo girl takes her time, rubbing her thumbs on my temples, massaging the crown of my head. Her gentle touch has the unexpected effect of making me want to cry. Every swirl of hands through the soap threatens to break me.

“Just one more rinse,” she says. And when I finally sit up again, I look around. Frederick has seated himself on a pink divan with a tufted footstool. He has a magazine open on his lap, and he’s poking his phone with one finger.

“Come quick,” Mary says. “My next client is always late. We can make this work.”

“Thank you,” I say, sitting in her chair.

Mary swivels the chair around, and the face that comes into view in the mirror looks so hollowed out that I recoil.

It’s my own face.

“Oh, sweetie. Are you okay? You have to tell me what’s going on. And you look so thin, Rachel.”

I close my eyes. “I’m okay… It’s just hard.”

“That’s your father?”

I nod. “I met him yesterday.”

“Heavens. Your mother once told me who he was. But then she never brought it up again. Forgive me, this is going to sound awful. But I was never really sure she was serious.”

Serious as cancer.

In the mirror, I see Mary’s eyes sweep to the side as she checks Frederick out. “He sure is a looker. No wonder your mother…” She lets the sentence die.

I don’t blame Mary for saying it. I’ve been trying to picture it myself—a twenty-one year-old Freddy, and a nineteen-year-old Mom. She was biding her time in New Hampshire, saving up for college. And he would have been a local star and a new graduate of the music school, just months away from breaking out nationally.

Somehow they met one night, maybe after one of his concerts. Together, they took off all their clothes and made a baby. And then he left for his first tour before Mom even knew what happened.

The mother I knew wasn’t like that. She was the original Good Girl—attending nursing school while working full time, then working double shifts for the overtime pay. My mom could smell an incomplete homework assignment or a dirty dish from a block away.

The mom I knew had a tired smile, and didn’t swoon for anyone.

“Since you’re here, we should talk about the house,” Mary says, her scissors working behind me. “The electricity is the only thing I left on. And the rent is paid up through August fifteenth.”

“August fifteenth,” I repeat.

Mary sets down her scissors and moves around the chair to face me. “If you need another month, we can tell the landlord. But I didn’t think you’d want to spend your money on a house you’re not living in.”

“No, I…” I’m supposed to be heading to Claiborne soon after that. “That sounds fine.”

“I’ll pack the place up, Rachel,” Mary whispers. “You don’t have to do that. But there must be things in your room that you want to sort through, since you’re still here. Are you going to Atlanta at all?”

My answer is slow. “I don’t think so.” My aunt Lisa had come to the funeral. The details of that day are patchy in my memory. The funeral home was packed, mostly with nurses from the hospital where my mother worked. My choir friends were there too, but I hadn’t talked to them. I’d sat, numb, in the front row between Haze and the aunt I barely knew.

My mother’s sister lives seven hours from Orlando. They weren’t close, and I’ve met her only a couple of times. After the funeral, and a lunch arranged by Mary at which I ate nothing, my aunt Lisa drove back to Atlanta without me. She’d left it to Hannah Reeves to explain.

“You have just a couple of weeks of school left,” Hannah had said in her ever-steady voice. “I know that your prep-school acceptance is very important to you, and that you need your grades. And Lisa told me she can’t stay on in Orlando without losing her job.”