Prologue
Okay. I had a dream about my mother last night and I always
seem to dream of her when she has had a beyond-the-veil
itch to scratch my back. She was waltzing with my father at
an enormous celebration of some kind. They were smiling and
having a wonderful time. I couldn’t remember ever seeing
Doc so happy or Momma so beautiful. She never said a word.
She just smiled at me. I had so many questions I wanted to
ask her but for some reason, I couldn’t speak.
The next thing I knew, I could sense the light of morning
growing all around me. I must have been born with the
thinnest eyelids in the world. You know how that is? Well,
I realized I was awake. But for a few moments I hung on to
the fringes of sleep, trying to retain the details of
everything I had seen. I wondered, like I always did, if
there was a larger meaning to the dream. Half of my DNA is
German, but it was the all-American Lowcountry remainder
that wore itself out to a frazzle searching for cosmic
explanations.
Maybe something was going to happen. Had we all been at a
wedding? The old salts said that when you dreamed about
weddings it meant the opposite, that something was coming
to an end. More change? No, thanks.
That was when my feet hit the floor. There was no way
another blessed change could happen without me pitching a
hissy fit. Big time. We’d had enough change around here to
choke a goat. We had made it through Thanksgiving and were
now trying to focus on Christmas. Thanksgiving had been
enough to make anybody’s head burst like an overripe melon.
Like Bettina says all the time, it’s enough already.
Bettina’s from New York. She’s our manicurist and you’ll
love her when you meet her.
There’s so much to tell you about.
Anyway, next I got myself a cup of coffee—ground Colombian
beans with a piece of split vanilla bean thrown in the
filter—and went outside to get the paper and look at the
sky. The first thing I noticed was that my blasted garden
still continued to climb all over my trees and my house.
Every night it took over a little more. Not that it wasn’t
pretty. Hell, no! It was nothing less than a horticultural
miracle. Jack’s beanstalk.
The sky looked fine, no storms coming or anything like
that. In fact, it was going to be a beautiful day. I stood
there watching the sun rise on the Isle of Palms. Right
then and there, I decided that my dream had been a message
that it was way past time to tell my story. So, here I am.
Now, you don’t know me yet, but by the time I’m all done
working my jaw, you’re gonna see that I’m not one to blab.
Even though I’ve heard more tales than every bartender
in Ireland, I’ve always tried to keep my distance from
trouble. Gossip was trouble and I gave it a wide berth. At
least I had tried to. Not that I hadn’t had my share of
tight spots. Lord! Jeesch! Man! There were days when I
thought the devil himself was out to get me. Maybe he had
been, but lately, I had been feeling like he thought he’d
given me his pitchfork enough. Not that I’m suspicious, but
don’t repeat that, okay? Saying things were going great
might get his attention.
Here’s the thing that had landed me in trouble in the first
place. Most of my years had been spent careening through
life, keeping my plans on a back burner. I kept waiting to
live. But wasn’t that what women did? Didn’t we always put
duty to others before our own ambitions? Were we not the
caretakers, the peacemakers, the homemakers, the ones who
told our men and our children that we would always be
behind them, no matter what? We told them that everything
would be alright and that life was worth living.
Well, most of us tried to do these things. Not all women.
Some women were so mean if you looked at them funny your
hair could turn into snakes. But all they ever got
themselves by being mean was older and more bitter. Ooh!
I’d tolerated a few women like that for too long. Somebody
better tell them to run and hide because Anna’s talking
now. That’s me. Anna Lutz Abbot.
My professional life has earned me nothing but beat-up
eardrums and a grossly underexercised tongue, mainly
because I own a salon. I’ve been working in the salon world
for getting on to twenty years. See, when my clients bared
their souls, what I thought and what I said were very often
two different things. Who in this world has the privilege
to really speak their minds? The lunatics, honey, that’s
who. Naked truth from my lips would have put me in the poor-
house long ago. Besides, isn’t it better to try to deal
with people and all their problems with some little bit of
sympathy? Of course it is. But, bottom line? I have heard
it ALL!
Have I got a story to tell? Yeah, honey, let’s get you a
glass of sweet tea and then plop yourself right down in my
chair. I’m gonna tell you a lot of secrets, but if I hear
them told, I’ll come after your tongue with my shears. Or
worse, my hammer! Yes, I will. This entire tale is true to
the very last word and all the names and places are real to
expose the guilty.
I was telling Arthur the other day—Arthur is the man who
drives me crazy with the shivers—that I had been thinking
that maybe it was time to tell some people about how my
whole world had changed in just a few months. If it could
happen to me it could happen to anybody, right? He laughed
so hard I thought he might up and die on me, so I said,
Just what the hell is so funny, and he said, Since when
don’t you talk? I was not amused. Not at all. No.
Besides my own discoveries, it had occurred to me that it
would be très cool if people knew about another side of
life in the Lowcountry and baby, there’s plenty to talk
about. Every possible thing you needed to know about
southern living was discussed under the roof of Anna’s
Cabana—and don’t tell me, I know: Anna’s Cabana sounds like
the name of a seedy juke joint on the back beaches of the
Virgin Islands. It does! But, when you come to understand
how it was given that name, you’ll see why I let ithappen.
In any case, my crazy little salon is a gold mine in human
behavior studies. When you take one part old salts, mix it
up with gentrification and garnish it with tourists, you
got yourself one mighty cocktail, ’eah? What happened here
a few months ago literally turned the tide. It did. In any
case, if I charged the same for listening as I charge
forfixing hair, I would own the biggest house on this
beach. No joke.
And this whole drama isn’t just about what I hear at work.
No, no. There’s a whole universe here on this island. We
say we are from Charleston, but we are really from East of
the Cooper—Cooper River, that is. Around here you’re either
from Charleston, East of the Cooper, West of the Ashley
(that’s the other big river), or out by Awendaw. Maybe you
lived in one of these weird developments that keep cropping
up that look like a movie set of downtown or one of the
islands you could only get to by boat. The point is that in
this neck of the woods, you can better believe that where
you hang your hat makes all the difference in how you tick.
I am and have always been an island girl and there was
nothing to be done about it.
My family hasn’t been in Charleston for a thousand years.
We don’t have some grand family home, plantation or any
silver we rescued from the Yankees by hiding it in the
bricks of our chimney. In fact, I don’t own a lick of
silver and it suits me fine. Polishing silver would not be
the best use of my time. But we do love the history of the
Lowcountry with a wild passion and we romanticize it all,
telling ourselves we are anything except ordinary just
because we can call this place home.
My momma and her people were from Beaufort and I guess the
only thing unusual about my background is that my daddy
immigrated here with his parents after World War II. They
wound up in Estill and were peach farmers. That means my
daddy and his daddy worked like coolies to get to where
they got and what they got was a comfortable but
unspectacular life with no frills.
I can tell you right now that I was never indulged,
coddled, or overly nurtured. But that was probably because
my daddy’s family had to fight for their very survival.
Things were tough in the early days for them and for me
too. For the longest time it seemed like my life would be
an endless exercise of pushing big rocks up a hill. Take
money. My daddy was the one who taught me the value of a
dollar. Okay, he’s got a reputation for being a massive
tightwad but he can’t help it. And, sometimes when I least
expected it, his wallet would open, the moths would escape,
and then the buckolas would start to flow. He’s full of
contradictions, just like everybody else. Anyway, I learned
from him that saving money and perseverance could get you
something you wanted if you wanted it badly enough. And the
only thing I ever really wanted was to get back to the Isle
of Palms and live my life.
That took longer than it should have, to say the very
least. But you see, nothing in my life ever happened quite
the same way it did for the other people I knew. Everything
happened in wild extremes, which made for a whole lot of
hullabaloo and lessons in life. Frankly, I could do without
more learning experiences for a while. (Lord, I hope You
heard that.) The most important thing I learned is that to
be truly happy, you’ve got to pay attention to that stupid
little inner voice we all have. It knows what you need and
will drive you shit crazy until you listen to it.
Guaranteed. My New Age clients—and I know them on sight
because they wear crystals to which they have attached
human names—call it connecting with the universe. Like my
daughter says, whatever. I’ll just stick with my own name
for it, thanks. Now, that inner voice thing sounds simple
but you wouldn’t believe how many people I know who are
stuck in the rut they dug for themselves. And the good Lord
didn’t mean for so many people to be so unbelievably
dissatisfied with their lives. I’m pretty sure about that.
Think about it. If you spend ten years thinking you wish
you could go to China, then there’s a good chance the
experience would give your soul something it really needs.
I’m not talking about people who say, Damn, I wish I could
run away to China this minute. Running away never solved a
daggum thing. In fact, real happiness is hidden in facing
yourself, asking yourself what it is you really want out of
this life and then being honest about it. By the way, you
couldn’t pay me money to go to China.
I’m lucky because I always knew what I wanted. It just took
one helluva long time to get it, that’s all. For me to be
content and happy, I had to be on this particular island. I
mean, I couldn’t breathe right anyplace else. I’m serious.
I’ve asked other people who live here what they think about
that and they actually agree with me. They don’t feel like
they belong anyplace else either. And, my whole spirit is
stronger here.
Naturally, I have a little theory about why that’s so.
Islanders are their own species. We have to live near the
ocean to stay in touch with our souls. Everything is
amplified. The breeze is sweeter, the air is thicker, the
sun is relentless, and the nights are more mysterious.
God’s fingerprints are all over it and, before y’all go get
your knickers in a knot, I know that you should go to
church but I also believe you can talk to God anywhere.
Especially on the Isle of Palms.
We’re not a bunch of shiftless pansies either. We’re
actually a pretty courageous bunch, usually unafraid of
anything that Mother Nature slings our way. Hurricanes? Big
deal. This may sound crazy but for some peculiar reason we
need to, no, we have to stand in front of the angry ocean
right before a storm hits. When I was little my daddy, Doc,
would say, Anna?—let’s go have a look at what the Atlantic
is up to before the eye hits. We would stand on a sand dune
and inhale enough salt to actually elevate our blood
pressure. It was good for us. Evacuations? We usually
stayed at home. Until Hugo. Then everybody threw up their
arms and said, just why did we pay these hefty insurance
premiums in the first place? If the hurricane was a real
monster, we just packed up our precious belongings and the
family photographs and got out of town. We’d let the old
storm have her way for a day or two and then we cleaned up
her mess. Afterward, we’d rock away the nights on each
other’s porches, laughing and telling stories about
hurricanes for a million years.
Islanders recognize something kindred in each other. Shoot,
if I get a tourist in my chair and she says she’s from
North Carolina I handle her one way ...like a Yankee, but
don’t let’s go around telling that, okay? But if she tells
me that she lives in Wrightsville Beach, well, then she
gets treated like an old friend.
Beach people love life harder than anybody else. We do! We
have a tendency to be, well, slightly excessive in our
behavior. You usually won’t see us eat one boiled peanut,
drink one beer, tell one joke or get just a little bit of
sun. So if you tell me you’re from a beach, I know who you
are. Except if you’re from California where everything
wiggles. See what I mean? Hurricanes don’t ruffle me, but
earthquakes? Not me, sugar.
People who live on islands are generally unpretentious too.
This is a quality that is greatly overlooked and
undervalued by others. Look at all those people who live in
New York. They have outfits for everything! They have
jogging clothes, which aren’t the same as their workout
clothes, which aren’t the same as their weekend clothes
and, Lord have mercy on us, every stitch they own is black!
Shoot! They probably blow out their hair to go around the
corner to buy a newspaper!
I just couldn’t live like that. I mean, God bless them,
they’ve had their trials for sure. It’s just that I don’t
think life is supposed to take that much effort. Down here
in the Lowcountry, we just prefer to take things a little
slower and savor each moment.
Arthur says that in New York City dinner for two in a fancy
restaurant can cost hundreds and hundreds of dollars. You
could spend a right good bit of money down here on dinner
too. That is, if you wanted to drive to Charleston. Out
here on this island, you’d probably have to wait twenty
minutes for a table, if you went to a restaurant that took
reservations (which they don’t), because we don’t like to
rush people when they’re trying to have supper and enjoy
each other’s company. Actually, most of us would rather
stay home and eat what somebody caught that day along with
a salad or something. Maybe it’s because of the heat, but
our big meal is in the middle of the day, if we can manage
that much time for dinner. But supper (which is called
dinner elsewhere) is usually a smaller meal.
Island people aren’t like other people out there across the
causeway and we don’t want to be either. We have our own
style of everything and our own point of view. Living here
makes you practical. I knew all along that my business
would be recession proof. Go ask any woman you know. If
it’s a toss-up between doing her roots and buying a dress,
she’s getting her hair done before you can blink. And I
knew, or at least I hoped, that my old clients wouldn’t
mind coming over here from Charleston. Every last one came
because when women find a hairdresser they like, they stick
with them like white on rice.
And then there are the transplants. These days it seems
like everyone I meet is from Ohio. All these folks moved
here to live. I tell them, Look, sugar, you might not be
able to become a Charlestonian until you’ve been dead for a
bazillion generations. But! I say, you can become an
islander and they seem plenty happy with that.
Attitude is everything in life, isn’t it? We are all
capable of change. Even me. In the last six months, I found
myself believing in the basic goodness of people again, and
in the power of love and in miracles. You don’t believe in
miracles? Well, when we’re all done here, come on by my
house and see my yard.
I had somebody from a magazine stop by my house the other
day. This fellow was a horticulturalist and a photographer
for some magazine in Vermont or someplace like that. He
wanted to know what kind of fertilizer I used. I laughed so
hard I had to reapply my mascara. I said, Honey, I don’t
use a thing except Lowcountry air and island magic! He
shook his head and left, thinking I was playing with his
head. But I had told him the truth. I never lie. Okay, I
might leave out some facts but that’s different.
I’m sure you’ve heard all these stories about the South
being haunted and people here talking to the dead and
seeing ghosts. Bad news. They are all true. Every last one
of them is true. Things happen here all the time that you
can’t explain. That’s just the Lowcountry. When you get out
to the islands, the weird factor accelerates. We don’t
mind. We adore the bizarre and inexplicable as much as we
treasure our eccentrics.
Every life has its share of trouble. Like Miss Angel says,
every dog has his day but every cat has his afternoon. Miss
Angel is my next-door neighbor and the neighborhood
philosopher. She’s also a regular Edgar Cayce. I dream, but
not like her. But don’t worry, we’ll get to her. There are
a lot of people I want you to meet.
I wasn’t always content, you know. I went through some
hellish suffering to finally love my life. But I never gave
up hope. Like I said, it was my early years that were the
worst. I had to go through them to understand what was
worth fighting for and what wasn’t and I needed to learn
how to just get along in the world. I guess the best place
to start would be with Momma.
Do you need some more tea? Well, let’s get it now because
I’ve been holding back the tide for a long time. I think
all the failures and victories of my life have come
together pretty nice—like a string of graduated pearls. I
can talk about Momma now without being upset but, when I
was ten? Honey, I would rather have taken a stick in my eye
than hear her name so much as whispered.