“Sakes, baby, that dress is fine as frog’s hair,” Mama said.
Auntie Abitha abandoned her tarot cards to walk around her niece.
Blanche came down the stairs to see what the fuss was about. “Woah, Cuz! You clean up nice.”
Abitha licked her index finger, leaned forward, and touched her own butt. “Ssss! That’s a nice fit. Did you get all dolled up because we’re having steak?”
Mama got up, and adjusted the lapels on the suit coat. “Nice. What’s in the bag?”
“The same one, but in berry.” Ivy blushed. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to dress up once in a while.
“Try it on. Let’s have a fashion show!” Abitha said.
Moira appeared next to Blanche, startling her. “Doesn’t she look totally BOGO?”
Blanche made a face at her.
Feeling light, Ivy modeled the berry suit, shoes and all. She hardly even stumbled in the low heels.
“Turn like a runway model!” Moira shouted. “Make a bitch face!”
Once Ivy changed back into the usual, they sat down to dinner. Roby frowned at the T-bones. “Sorry I didn’t catch anything. Had a pretty big shark on the hook, but he bit through the line.”
The steaks had been barbecued, and sizzled with juice. As per usual, Uncle Roby fried all the side dishes. Ivy didn’t care. She tucked in.
“What made you decide to buy some decent clothes for a change?” Blanche asked.
Ivy frowned. “Well, I was working this case with Everett, and all the women looked so put together. And me, I’m wearing someone else’s suit, and it’s a size too big, and my hair’s in a bun and I feel frumpy.”
“A size too big?” Moira said from the parlor. “Try two or three sizes. Blanche, honey, you need to lay off the mochaccinos.”
Blanche gave Moira a slow burn, but asked Ivy. “Speaking of nice suits, where’s mine?”
“At the cleaners. I’ll pick it up for you tomorrow—” She stopped short when her cell phone dinged: text message.
“What is it?” Mama asked. “Something wrong?”
Ivy put the phone back in her purse. “Everett says he came up with something. He needs me to meet him first thing.”
“That’s a good thing, right?” Auntie Abitha said.
“Maybe.” Ivy frowned. “It’s just that I’m taking all this time away from the botanica.”
“You’re making good money now,” Blanche said. “Why not hire a girl?”
“I’m making good money because I work hard. And who am I going to hire? Nearly half my business is in magic potions. Dang it, I wish—”
Ivy stopped talking. Everyone at the table avoided her eyes. They knew what she was going to say. She wished Harmon were here. With his official job title being “adventurer,” it left large blocks of free time. If he was in town, he’d be hanging out with her at the shop anyway. She felt her eyes prickle, but shook off the sadness.
Mama put her hand on Ivy’s. “Harmon will be home soon, sugar.”
“But what about the tarot reading?” Blanche blurted out.
Moira vanished from the parlor, reappearing in the dining room. “What tarot reading?”
“The cards can’t be interpreted so literally,” Auntie Abitha said.
Blanche spread her upturned palms. “That looked like a whole lotta bad boating cards to me, and then the Death card.”
Moira gave them all a haunted look. She vanished. Inside the hutch, plates rattled ominously. The chandelier flickered overhead. In the parlor, the volume on the TV increased. A machine-gun blatt of fast-changing stations roared, and then died.
“I just talked to Harmon,” Ivy said. “He made it past the Somali coast. He’s fine.”
Around the house, the three toilets flushed simultaneously. China clinked and shuffled in the cabinet, tableware thrashed in the drawer, all their cell phones made strange squawks. Moira was upset.
“Lot more in the ocean to worry about than just pirates,” Uncle Roby said.
Moira wailed, a ghostly sound of heart-stabbing angst. Only Blanche and Ivy could hear her. Yet the Biddy Committee could still sense it. Abitha rubbed her arms, as if chilled.
“Not that my nephew can’t handle it,” Roby finished, lamely. “Dang it, it sounds like our ghost is back.”
Ever since Ivy and Blanche were little, the ghost of Light House was supposed to be a running gag for when anything went wrong. Can’t find your keys? It was the ghost. Who knocked over my sweet tea? It was the ghost. Still, the lighthearted stories terrified the girls when they were alone in their room at night. Especially since they knew the ghost was real, no matter how the old folks joked. It was a relief when Moira came out to them. Even if she was a ghost, at least she wasn’t a spooky, lurking secret.
Moira’s crush on Harmon Light ran deep. Ivy was worried, and a little sad. Moira was anguish personified. The entire house shook with her sobbing wail.
“Stop being such a drama queen!” Blanche shouted.
The poltergeist activity immediately quieted. All eyes shifted to Blanche. Auntie Abitha said, “Who are you talking to, sugar?”
***
Early the next morning, Ivy put on coffee and hopped in the shower. Bleary eyed, she wiped steam from the mirror, revealing Moira. Ivy let out a cry.
“Drop your socks and grab your locks, Private!” Moira was dressed in a tattered robe identical to Ivy’s, save the chevron on the sleeves. “You call that a shower? Did you even exfoliate?”
“Moira, jeeze, it’s six a.m.” Ivy was glad she decided to sleep in her apartment. Maybe the Biddy Committee couldn’t hear Moira, but Blanche could. And no one would miss the sound of her dropping her hair brush, bouncing her hand soap dispenser off the floor, and knocking over her nail polishes like tenpins. “You’re making me nervous!”
Her hair dryer vibrated on the vanity. Moira got up in her face on the other side of the glass. “We didn’t buy those suits so you could frowse around! Tease that hair! Mousse it! Mousse it! Pike at the waist! Blow that mass of honey blonde sky-high!”
Ivy wasn’t sure if she preferred angsty Moira, or drill-sergeant Moira. It was a lot to take before caffeine. She staggered around, getting ready.
“Did you drag a one-eyed stray cat into the shower to shave your legs with? Sakes alive, you look like a fresh popped can of biscuits! Slather on that foundation! Easy on the perfume, that ain’t no mustard gas! Where’d you learn to brush on mascara, from a family of blind raccoons? What do you call that lipstick shade, Bozo the Clown Number Seven? You need a red so slutty, your mama won’t kiss you for fear of getting VD! Your eye shadow is so uneven, you look cross-eyed! Those nylons—”
“All right, stop it!”
Moira raised her brows. “Just trying to help.”
“You’re not helping, you’re making me crazy.”
When the ghost vanished from the mirror, Ivy found herself looking at a woman she didn’t know. Moira appeared beside her, but not in reflection. “Maybe we overdid it a touch. You’re a natural beauty. You can get away with a little concealer, some lipstick and some brow pencil.”
“I don’t know how women do this every day. It feels like my eyelashes are going to get glued shut, my hair will explode in the humidity, and all this goop will melt off me when it heats up. Not to mention my knees are knocked together, my ankles are wobbling, and I feel a draft down this top.”