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­My grandmother was elegant, polite and graceful. She was, without a doubt, a woman with class. Granny was a knockout beauty from head to…ankle. There were two things that Granny didn’t tolerate: lying and spreading her business. So, for her sake, I’ll just say she was pretty and leave it at that.

Granny was the matriarch of the family, my mom’s mother and the owner of beachfront property. Every summer, she invited the entire family—her four children, their spouses, and children (totaling 11 grandchildren)—to live together under one roof on Sullivan’s Island.

Gypsies in the palace? Well, if you can call a cinderblock home without air conditioning a palace, then, yes. But there’s no debate about the gypsy part.

My cousins were like sisters and brothers. No one opened up a bag of “Salt and Vinnies” without someone smelling them and sticking their sandy, wet paw in your bag of chips. You also shared your Slim Jims, jelly shoes and candy dots. Our hermit crabs lived in the same tanks and we often slept in the same beds.

We were close, sometimes too close. We battled over who got the last pair of stick-on earrings, who “stole” your ForenzaOutbackRedBenetton shirt, and who was the last to wear your Tretorns.

We settled the score over card games, fiercely competitive matches of UNO, Egyptian Rat Screw and Spoons, grasping and clawing for them until we bled. Our mothers rarely interfered, but when they did, you knew you were getting a spanking. Most of the time, they sat together on the back porch, which was covered in green indoor-outdoor carpet. They’d gossip, smoke their Vantage cigs and drink Miller Lites while smocking our bikinis.

We collected shells, starfish and sand dollars, swam to the sandbar and built sandcastles. We were infamous on the beach for our mermaid. We’d bury one of our clan and cover her with sand to create a mermaid’s tail and big, enormous boobs on her otherwise small chest. We went crabbing with my mom on the rocks (and her scotch on the rocks) with nothing but a chicken neck tied to a string and a net.

We hosted nightly performances “on stage,” (the fireplace in the living room). We sang solos, duets and had our own choir. We directed and starred in plays. And “the older cousins,” a group I was barely old enough to be included in, created our own business, The Sand Dollar Salon.

Mary Dickey was our massage therapist and offered her services “on site,” in the room with the twin beds or on the beach in a lounge chair. Her schedule was always packed with back massages. Margaret and Norris washed, styled and even sometimes cut hair. I was the salon’s manicurist and pedicurist. No one fought me for the position and I already had a foot spa, wooden sticks that I’d swivel cotton balls around to make them softer for pushing back cuticles, a pumice stone, an electronic buffer and every shade of pink polish imaginable.

Issie was our receptionist. She set up a table at the top of the stairs and scheduled our sessions, mostly walk-ins. She was serious about clients keeping their appointments. If one didn’t show, she’d yell for our younger cousin, Gabby, to find them. Gabby was always busy with her lemonade stand outside. She and the younger cousins stood in the middle of Marshall Boulevard; they stopped cars using hand signals like crossing guards and sang, “Stop in the lemonade of love, before you break our hearts.” If Gabby had to stop her thriving business to come find a client for ours, believe me, the no-show thought it “Oh-O-ver” before not showing up again.

Granny was a tall, lanky lady with long, lanky toes to match. Like mine, her toes decreasing in size perfectly from big toe to pinky; stair-step toes, we called them. Although, unlike my toes or any other client’s for that matter, her nails curled around the end of her toes, making them impossible to trim with clippers. This was a job for the electronic buffer! But as soon as the rotating disc made contact with her nails of steel, it created a horrible screeching sound that literally cleared the salon and disrupted the tranquility of the massage room next door. And, oh, the nail discoloration, it was a shade of yellow that could never be misclassified as belonging to the pastel group.

Unfortunately, Granny booked a pedicure with me nearly every day. Issie tried to fib her and tell her that I was booked, but Granny knew better. “Ibbie,” she always called Issie that (no one knows why), “don’t lie to me.” I didn’t blame Issie for caving and “squeezing” her into my schedule. Granny was known for being an iron fist in a velvet glove. And when you lied, she wasn’t afraid to take the gloves off.

After the “herr-i-cun,” as Granny would say in her thick Charlestonian accent, took our old beach house, we rebuilt. The new house is magnificent. It has air conditioning and designer furnishings that compliment the rattan furniture we were able to salvage after Hugo. Sadly, not too long after the hurricane took our old house, cancer took one of our mothers and then, our Granny. Trips back to the island are always bittersweet. We call our new house “The Blender.” But, to be honest with you, lately, there are more frozen margaritas blended there than families.

I miss Granny. I miss how she brought us all together, her hominy and sausage casserole, her always-perfect wig, and, yes, even her funky toenails.

­Merry Glenne Piccolino is the editor of skirt! in Augusta, GA and Aiken and Columbia, SC. She’s busy being a mom to her daughter Isabella (who she sometimes calls Ibbie), but still treats family members and friends to the occasional pedicure.