Chapter 7: Following in her footsteps

You never really know a person until you’ve lived her life. I can’t actually live Georgia McFearin’s life, but I’m getting a picture of it that is pretty intense. If I could just talk to her.

Putting on Peg

I spent the night at an airport hotel in Savannah. Now that was irritating. This beautiful city was spread out before me and I was in a commercial, sterile chain hotel that shook every time a plane took off. It was about seventy degrees and raining when I got there but the guy at the hotel desk said it wasn’t likely to last long. It would get up near eighty in the afternoon. Wow! When I left Seattle, it was in the thirties. According to the Weather Channel, it was forty-five there and raining.

I went straight to the hotel Saturday night and checked in as Deb Riley, a young curly haired blonde. I had dinner in the hotel restaurant, which I was surprised to discover was pretty popular on Saturday night. Go figure. Of course, my body was telling me it was only six o’clock when I started trying to get myself ready to sleep. Part of my nighttime ritual was cleansing everything as deeply as I could. Ages in a hot steamy bath, beauty mask, carefully removing my nail polish and makeup. Just me, au naturel. When I got up in the morning, I was a fresh blank canvas ready to paint a portrait of Peg Chester on. Breakfast was delivered by room service at seven along with the Savannah Morning News. By that time, I’d already filed my nails to a no-nonsense length and applied polish—a pinkish pearl called Champagne Toast.

After breakfast, I started on my face and hands. Even though at twenty-seven I think of fifty as being kind of old—sorry about that—significant aging on most women doesn’t start to show in the face and hands until later. You don’t turn into a wrinkled old hag at forty-nine. Unless you’re my mother. The creams Stevie gave me tighten skin or loosen skin. I have to be careful where I use them. When I applied a combination of skin loosening under my eyes and skin tightening on my cheeks, I naturally developed puffy little bags under my eyes. I stretched the skin at the corner of my eyes and applied a latex base, holding the skin tight while it dried. When I let go, there was just enough extra material there to wrinkle. The good part is it wrinkled in the exact same places every time—basically wrinkling where I’m going to wrinkle someday.

I used a slightly darker base than I would normally wear as Deb. It gave my skin a slightly more weathered look. My cheekbones got highlighted and so on. Doing the full face and neck took maybe ninety minutes. Of course, if Stevie were helping me it would have gone a lot faster.

Then the hands. Nothing is a faster giveaway that you aren’t what you appear than a mismatch between your face and hands. Latex is the ticket. I made a tight fist with my hand bent forward at the wrist and applied latex across the entire back of my hand and well up onto my forearm. I let it dry thoroughly before I relaxed my hand. All the little wrinkles and veins were accented. I blended each finger from nail to knuckle, using the same method. I don’t normally wear finger jewelry but was sure to erase any sign of my watch. I did less with makeup on the palms—just relaxed them. The first inclination when a person holds out her hand is to stretch the fingers out straight. Nothing says young more quickly than that. When I show the back of my hand, I keep it relaxed so the fingers are slightly curved inward. Relaxed fingers allow the puffiness of the skin to enhance the depth of the natural wrinkles.

After I added suitable clothing—a skirt and hose, conservative blouse, and cardigan sweater, I pulled on my wig. This one is a simple ash brown bob with about twenty-five percent gray. I popped in my brown contacts and I was a new woman. I checked out electronically and left by the side entrance. People only remember what they see, not what they didn’t see.

Grover pulled up to pick me up in an older model Honda Accord. It was time to go to work.

Losing my identity

Grover didn’t recognize me until I stuck my head in the car door and said, “Uncle Grover?” You’d have thought he was a fish the way his mouth was working. I figured he’d need some time to get used to it, so I suggested we have lunch before I checked into the bed and breakfast Grover reserved for me. The entire drive to the restaurant was filled with Grover dodging cars on the freeway and repeating to himself over and over, “I don’t believe it. Are you really you?”

“Look, Uncle Grover,” I said patiently, “it’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other. It’s understandable that you can’t believe how much I’ve changed in all these years. But you must remember that I’m Peg and forget you ever met anyone in Seattle. I’m your niece and I’m going to take care of Georgia’s affairs for you. Why don’t you start by telling me all about Savannah and where she played, went to school and church, and who her friends were. I didn’t know most of the people she knew. I’m going to find a reason to visit each and every one of them that still lives in Savannah.”

I have to hand it to the old guy. He adapted pretty quickly. Then I had to do some adapting. There is nothing that will make you feel middle aged as quickly as eating at some super buffet restaurant on a Sunday afternoon. The Hog Corral or something. It seemed this was one that Grover frequented most weeks because the hostess greeted him by name and smiled at me when he introduced Georgia’s cousin from Cleveland. I couldn’t do justice to the amount of food available on the buffet, but Grover more than made up for my appetite. He packed away plate after plate of turkey and dressing, roast beef, salads, sweet rolls, and coffee. The coffee was pretty weak and I resigned myself to not having a decent cup until I got back to Seattle. I knew I wouldn’t get one in Cleveland either.

All through the meal, Grover talked about Georgia. He started out just reciting facts he thought I should know but with just a little prompting on my part, he started reminiscing about what she was like as a girl. It seemed to be a relief to him to talk about her. We were at the restaurant for a good two hours while he kept going back for another helping and then talking around a mouthful of fried chicken.

“Georgia and Clarice—oh they were always together—they must have been about thirteen when they decided to hold a séance in the attic,” he laughed. “I slipped up before they started their little ritual and appropriately thumped and rattled when they asked the ghosts to appear. The girls were so frightened, they fled from the attic and hid in Georgia’s bed for the rest of the night.”

After the long lunch, Grover took me to the Queen Vicky Bed & Breakfast next to Forsyth Park. The couple who run the B&B were very nice and also knew Grover fairly well. They didn’t recall Grover having a niece, but he mentioned his wife’s sister back in Ohio and they nodded their heads. He was becoming a natural at this.