Chapter 5 #2
I opened my mouth to respond but paused to formulate an answer that wouldn’t make me sound insane.
The truth was I almost died last night because I’m an idiot who doesn’t want anything to do with this fucking island, but a ghost saved my life.
Now she lived with me, or I lived with her? And I found her stupidly adorable.
Nope, that wouldn’t work.
I cleared my throat. “Light in the hallway was out. I, uh, had a fall. It’s not a big deal. Just need to deal with the hair situation.”
Rebecca tsked lightly. “Why don’t you get the doc to look it over?”
“I honestly have no idea what kind of network coverage my insurance has out here, and I really can’t afford to find out the hard way.”
“Valid. Hang on a sec.” She yelled up the stairs, “Honey! Can you come down here and bring your stuff, please?”
“I’m fine. I don’t need—”
“Don’tcha worry about it.” Somehow, she had maneuvered me into the barber’s chair. “Do you mind if I remove this?”
I nodded, and she gently removed the bandage over my ear.
A few moments later, another woman skipped down the stairs carrying a black bag.
Her dark hair seemed to float around her head in an uncontrollable cloud.
Rebecca pointed to my head, awkwardly trimmed on one side and slightly swollen.
“Newcomer. She’s had a fall, mind having a look? ”
“You really don’t have to,” I protested.
But the cloud-haired woman was already turning my head gently. I closed my eyes and let her, feeling a hot lick of shame rising to my hairline.
“Doesn’t look too deep, and you cleaned it fairly well,” she said. “But let’s go over it again, shall we?”
I swallowed. Apparently, no one on this island took no for an answer. “You’re a doctor?”
“Yep.” She reached into her bag to retrieve supplies that looked similar to the ones Annabelle had used, but much newer and cleaner. “Sorry, this might sting.” She dabbed my head with antiseptic. “I’m Dr. Johnson. Rebecca’s my wife. You’re in Agatha’s house then? Abaddon Cottage, she called it?”
She was holding my head, so I couldn’t nod. “Yeah. She was my great-aunt, I guess. My name’s Gibson.”
“Well, Gibson, you could use a stitch. Won’t take long, and it’ll dissolve in a week or two so you needn’t come back.”
“I mean, I’m just here for—”
Dr. Johnson waved her hand and gave me a stern look. “No charge. Give me a moment, and I’ll let you get back to your ‘do.”
I closed my eyes while Dr. Johnson worked on my head. There was a brief pinch as she set the stitch, then I heard her opening a new bandage. She gently placed it on my head, then stepped back.
The whole process took roughly five minutes, but I felt indebted to these women in a way that made me flush.
I hadn’t asked for their help, but they’d sensed how pathetic I was and helped me anyway.
It reminded me of how small I’d felt as a child.
How inadequate. My skin crawled with shame.
I wanted to smash my hand into the mirror and throw the homemade jar into the wall.
I took a deep breath.
“Thanks, love,” Rebecca said to the doctor.
“No problem.” Dr. Johnson packed up her bag of supplies, then pressed a kiss to her wife’s cheek. “Call me if the wound becomes red or more painful than it is now. It might itch a little. But if it starts oozing, get your butt back in that seat, you hear?”
I nodded.
“So, what’re you going to do?” Rebecca asked.
The obvious answer was that I would sell the house and get the hell out of here. I could take the money and run back to my normal life where no one helped me because I never asked anyone to.
I came all this way to evaluate the property, consult with a local real estate agent, and settle on a price.
Abaddon Cottage and the land it sat on were mine to cash out—if I got enough for it, I could keep living in New York.
I might still have to rent even if I made a million bucks on the deal, but I could find a better place.
Maybe quit my day job in marketing. Go on the road playing with Brooke and the rest of Call Me Kate Kane.
Instead of saying any of that, I said, “The house needs a lot of work. Figured I’d see what the market is like, but I’m not sure it’ll sell unless I gut it. And I’m not sure how long that’ll take.”
Rebecca gently placed her hand on my shoulder. “I meant your hair.”
“Oh. Right.”
She smiled. “But I’d be lying if I said the year-rounders weren’t dying to know your plans for the cottage, too.”
I ducked my head, trying to recover an ounce of dignity and failing miserably. “I don’t know. Never been big on plans.”
“Understandable. Need one for the hair, though.”
In the mirror, I saw a person I barely recognized staring back at me.
My brown eyes looked tired. My neck skin was starting to become turkey-like, and I was clenching my jaw without realizing it.
In the mirror, I saw someone who’d been hurt once, then several times more.
A mop-haired fool who’d been running from the hurt ever since.
There were more lines on my face than I remembered, and they hadn’t been put there by smiles.
“Cut it all off.” I mimicked a buzz cut, complete with sound effects. “You can leave some in the front, but otherwise, full Rachel Maddow.”
Rebecca hesitated, then gave me a nod and said, “Okay.” She didn’t ask if I was sure, or tell me I might regret the decision, just got down to business in a comfortable silence I was profoundly grateful for.
She turned my head this way and that, moving my chin gently but firmly.
I felt myself relax as pieces of hair fell away.
Gradually, we returned to a conversation that didn’t go near any exposed nerves.
I told her about my to-do list and that I’d put off my day job by telling my boss my phone service was too bad to set up a Wi-Fi hotspot.
“Been to the fort yet?” she asked.
“Nah, I’m not really one for propaganda.”
“That’s fair.” Rebecca smiled. There were pictures on the walls of the hairdresser, her wife, and a kid that aged and de-aged depending on which picture I glanced at. “The kids have fun doing accents and reenactments, though.”
“Accents?”
“They play British soldiers.”
I vaguely remembered the ferry captain saying something about the War of 1812 figuring into the history of the island.
I hadn’t much cared at the time, though.
Rebecca worked silently for a few moments, and I drifted, feeling the odd sensation of a person flitting about behind me, actually able to touch my head.
“Wait—you said British soldiers?” I wanted to slap my forehead, but my arms were trapped inside a hairdresser’s robe. “There were British soldiers here?”
“Yeah, they were here before we were.” She paused. “I mean, obviously, the Native Americans were here way before anyone else, though. Look down, please.” She tipped my head down and shaved the back of it. I listened to the buzzing of the clippers while my thoughts swirled.
British soldiers—was that why Annabelle was British? Of course. Why didn’t I realize how ridiculous it was to have an English ghost in an American house? Then how old was she?
I felt stupid for not connecting the dots earlier.
But then again, it wasn’t any of my business who Annabelle was or how she was connected to the house.
Once I sold it, the next owner could interrogate Annabelle’s connection to the colonialist history of this weird, gentrified island.
I didn’t need to know Annabelle’s story, I just needed to tolerate her long enough to pawn her off on whoever I could convince to buy a haunted house.
But I wanted to know.
We stayed quiet for the rest of the cut.
I tried not to think about how long it would take to fix the house up enough to sell it.
I wondered what Brooke was doing. She’d probably be waiting tables, dreaming of being on stage.
My day job writing copy and strategizing for an advertising firm was more “adult” than many of the musicians I hung with, but no less soul-sucking.
At least no one cared if I put on my headphones and listened to Patti Smith’s back catalog all day.
What kind of music did Annabelle like? She probably didn’t know anything more recent than Beethoven.
To distract myself from the women living rent-free in my head, I glanced around at the cluttered house. I pointed to the business cards with the bridge logo on them, neatly stacked in a little homemade ceramic bowl. “What’s with ‘Burn Your Bridge’?”
“Well, the Mackinac Bridge, obviously,” Rebecca said. “Longest suspension bridge in the West and all that.”
I hummed politely, not giving a crap about the long-ass bridge.
“And ...” Rebecca hesitated, giving me a thoughtful look.
It felt like she was appraising me, trying to decide if I was worth whatever she would say next.
“Have you ever had a moment where you knew you needed to do something dramatic? But the prospect of change is so terrifying that in order to force yourself to do it, you have to burn your bridges? Because if you have the ability to go back, you will?”
I met Rebecca’s eyes in the mirror. Her presence behind me was solid.
She smelled like the light perfume of a hairdresser in her thirties comfortable in the skin she wore.
I couldn’t help but contrast her with Annabelle, an ephemeral woman in old-fashioned clothes who smelled like the tea she constantly made and couldn’t drink.
“I guess I’ve burned a bridge or two,” I said. “So, you had your big epiphany and burned your bridges to open a barbershop on Mackinac?”
Rebecca threw back her head and laughed. “Hell no. You think I wanted to stay here and be ...” She pursed her lips and glanced upstairs, where her wife had returned. She didn’t say “Mackinac’s palatable lesbians.”
“The thing is, you gotta make sure the life you’re setting on fire is worth burning, and you gotta get it done.
Over with. Nothing left, but ready to start anew.
If you’re on fire when you reach the other side of the bridge, then the place you’re trying to get to isn’t different from the place you left behind. ”
She put the finishing touches on the shaved hair around my bandage. The tickling vibrations sent tingles down my spine.
“Tell you what,” she said, “if you stick around Mackinac for a while, buy me a drink and I’ll tell you about my bridge and how I burned it.”
I smiled, surprised to find that it was genuine, not a polite, forced smile. “Deal.”