“And now we turn it over to Money Mike who’s in Auburn where the Tigers are getting ready to take on the LSU Tigers this weekend. Mike, who will win the battle of the big cats?”
Grace’s arm appeared to the left of his head, pointing. “There! It’s there! I can’t wait for you to park—just let me out!” He slowed the car down and his daughter jumped out the back, slamming the door with so much force that the whole rig shuddered.
“We meet at the store, Gracie!” he shouted out the window, but she didn’t turn back or respond.
Parking in Opelika was easy. The streets were half empty and Charles felt a sense of accomplishment as he pulled the wagon, shocks creaking, into place along the curb, cutting the wheel at exactly the right moment so that the U-Haul in back would line up easily. It took only a few long, focused minutes now, instead of the cursing, sweating, quarter of an hour that docking the giant metal fishtail used to take.
He turned to Barbra. “Will you come in?”
She shook her head.
Charles was glad. It seemed less pathetic, somehow, if they just saw him and Grace. He could pretend that they were in the middle of a carefree, father-daughter cross-country jaunt and had decided on a whim to make a personal delivery. There. Life wasn’t so bad after all. Smooth down the shirt. Fix the collar. Adjust the pants. Tidy the hair. Too bad men couldn’t wear makeup—he could probably use a little lip gloss and rouge, a touch of blue liner to make the whites of his eyes whiter.
Half a minute later Charles was pushing open the weathered wood door of the Magnolia General Store. He could see Grace inside, talking to Ellie Yates, who still looked exactly as he’d remembered her from the plane—tiny and golden.
“Yes. Totally. That’s what I want to do.” Grace nodded at Ellie enthusiastically as the two of them looked at something on the computer.
For a minute, Charles wanted to turn around and leave. Dump the trailer full of lotions and balms into a river somewhere so that he wouldn’t have to break in on Grace’s small happy moment. But there was no land in China without the money to find it and, most likely, to bribe some corrupt Communist official into handing it over, so he pressed forward.
“I have a special delivery!”
Ellie turned. “Mr. Wang!” As he crossed the room to embrace her, he noticed Grace clicking something shut on the screen.
“Mr. Wang, your daughter here was just showing me her style blog—she’s got herself some serious taste.”
Grace smiled.
“Ah, I think you have serious taste,” said Charles, looking around the shop. It was expertly done, at once the kind of general store that might have existed in an old American mill town a hundred years ago and a modern art gallery. Every gardening implement looked like a finely wrought weapon, the jars of penny candy were piles of gems, the few articles of clothing equally appropriate for a field hand or a gallery owner. “Everything is even better than you describe!”
Ellie beamed; Charles beamed back. Grace, caught up in the goodwill, opened her blog back up. “Here, Dad, do you want to see it?”
Charles nodded. This was a rare gift, he knew. Grace made space for him in front of the screen and handed him the mouse. He peered down. At first glance, it appeared to be a web page made entirely of pictures of Grace in different outfits. Subsequent glances confirmed it. Grace in her dorm room. Grace lying on a bench. Grace in the woods. Grace in an empty swimming pool. Even though she was all covered up, it felt vaguely pornographic. The whole thing made Charles uncomfortable. His daughter and Ellie were chatting, something about shooting a picture here at the store, but he could feel Grace watching him.
“Very pretty pictures,” he said, finally. “Very creative. Nice name, Style and Grace.”
“Don’t lie. Just say you hate it.”
“No, no, no! I don’t hate anything you do! Daddy just don’t understand blog—it is new thing for me!”
“Well, look.” She reached over and typed “makeup” into the search bar. “I did a tutorial with, you know, your stuff.”
Charles watched, surprised, as a photo of the Failure’s whole line slowly revealed itself on the screen. It was a lovely shot. As good as, or better than, the professional product shots they’d used. He scrolled through the post. There was Grace, putting on the eyeliner that was fine and true, swiping on the richly hued lipstick, atop a caption that read, “OMG Loves It!” Charles wanted to cry. Instead, he patted her hand, and said, “Good girl, Gracie,” and then turned to Ellie. “Speaking of makeup, we have special delivery!”
Grace rolled her eyes. “Dad, you made that joke already!”
But she came outside with Charles and Ellie, and smiled as Ellie exclaimed over the pile of boxes stacked in the U-Haul.