by Hillary Avis
Bells jangled as I pushed open the door into Ruth’s shop. The interior of the Do or Dye was low-ceilinged and might have felt cramped if it weren’t for Ruth’s unique decorating style that involved a lot of white twinkle lights webbed across the ceiling and vibrant tapestries hung on the walls. Somehow, she made it feel charmingly eclectic and bohemian rather than like college-dorm chic.
Two barber chairs faced a couple of sinks and hood dryers, and the manicurist’s station up front doubled as the reception desk, a rainbow of nail polish arranged in an artful mandala on one side. I spotted Ruth in the back, her back bowed over a client at the sink. She was really getting into the head massage, and her whole body was jiggling with the effort.
“No tipping, no touching.” The red-haired woman seated at the desk winked at me. If I didn’t know better, I’d say she was making a joke about the size of Ruth’s bosoms, as though I’d walked into a strip joint and not a hair salon. They were ample, it was true, like the rest of her. Big hair, big laugh, big boobs. Ruth’s spirit was as generous as everything else.
“I’m Tambra.” The redheaded receptionist held out her hand across the desk to shake mine. She was one of those put-together, ageless women who could be twenty-five or forty-five underneath all her makeup, where I suspected a crop of freckles much like mine lurked in secret. I couldn’t help noticing her long, almond-shaped nails that were painted a frosty, glittering pink. The ring finger of each hand was a slightly darker shade and had a crystal flower glued to the tip. She had to be the manicurist as well as the receptionist, but I had no idea how she managed to do anything with nails like those, whether that was shampooing clients for Ruth or wiping her own—
“Leona!” Ruth had finally spotted me. She wrapped a towel around her client’s head and ushered her to the barber chair, pumping the chair’s hydraulics with her foot as she motioned me over. “It’s so good to see you in town!”
“Yeah. It’s going to be awesome having everyone witness my fall from grace. Here I am, home with my tail between my legs.”
“Your loss, our gain!” Ruth’s eyes snapped mischievously as she looked me up and down, taking in my grubby T-shirt and baggy overalls. “You’ve really taken this chicken lady thing to heart. Last time I saw you, you were wearing a cashmere twin set and some pearl earrings.”
She meant the day I’d closed on the farm. It was only a month ago and it already felt like years, like another life. I wasn’t even sure where that cardigan was. I’d been too busy packing and moving and unpacking to make the rounds and say hello to everyone in town. If I was being honest, I’d been hiding.
“Nothing wrong with a little dirt,” I said defensively. “I’m a farmer now; you can’t farm with nails like those.” I nodded across the room at Tambra and her frosty fingers and curled my hands into fists so my own grubby nails, broken from my digging misadventures, wouldn’t show.
“No one’s suggesting you try and measure up to Miss Oregon 2003,” Ruth said wryly, combing out her client’s wet hair with gentle, efficient strokes. “Even Beverly Hills can’t match her sparkle.”
“I can hear you talking about me!” Tambra scurried over, and I noticed her pink plaid shirt had snaps decorated with the same rhinestone flowers as her nails. She grabbed my hand to examine my fingers and clicked her tongue disapprovingly. “There’s nothing wrong with a little sparkle in the country. Trust me...I work on plenty of farm girls. They all want a little glamor.”
“Well, I don’t.” I pulled my hand out of Tambra’s grasp and stuck it in the back pocket of my overalls. I wondered if I had never left Honeytree, never gone away to school, never married a high-powered plastic surgeon in the most plastic place on earth, would I be more susceptible to Tambra’s brand of glamor? Would I have yearned for glitter if I’d never had it? Maybe. But now I knew what I was missing, and I didn’t miss it. “Been there, done that, have the tennis bracelet to prove it. Give me chicken turds over diamonds any day.”
“I don’t think you’re going to have any shortage of those!” Ruth chuckled. She twisted her client’s hair into sections and began trimming the lowest one with careful snips of her scissors, her bottom lip caught in her teeth as she concentrated on her work.
I certainly hadn’t been a fan of chicken turds when I’d left Honeytree as fast as I could at age eighteen, and I’d have laughed in the face of anyone who said my life’s dream would be to own an egg farm like my dad’s. I had bigger dreams then, and everyone in town knew it. They were all going to have a good laugh at my expense when they learned I was single and broke now that I’d spent my whole divorce settlement on the farm. That’s why I’d been such a hermit since I moved back—I didn’t want to be a joke.
“It’s going to be a few minutes while I catch up with Cheryl here.” Her client’s eyes brightened at the prospect of an update from Ruth, who, between hairdressing and house-hunting, knew everyone’s business in town. In particular, she knew my business. “Why don’t you let Tambra work on you while you wait? I promise I’ll get those records pulled up for you as soon as I’m done.”
I sighed. Who was I kidding? With Ruth Chapman as my realtor, everyone in town already knew I bought her grandparents’ place. Word travels quickly from a hairdresser’s chair, so there was no point in trying to hide. People were going to be looking, anyway. Might as well have pretty nails.
“Fine,” I said to Tambra. “Just to pass the time while Ruth finishes up.”
Tambra clapped her hands, her armful of silver bracelets jangling. “Go ahead and pick out your polish while I get set up.”
She pulled an array of tools out of a sanitizing bath and arranged them on her station as I scanned the rack of nail polish looking for a color that didn’t remind me of my old life. No sedate nudes, no classy mauves. Nothing that would match the pink marble master bathroom that the son of a peach, Peterson, was now sharing with an aspiring actress younger than our daughter.
That gave me an idea. I handed Tambra a dark peach bottle and she raised a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “I didn’t expect orange. It’s a little early for pumpkin spice.”
“I think of it more as the color of a good laying hen,” I said, obediently splaying my fingers for Tambra’s ministrations.
“You’re getting chicken fingers?!” Ruth hooted with laughter from across the salon. “You want some fries with that?”
My stomach growled in response to her question. “Actually—yeah.”
Ruth deftly untwisted another section of her client’s hair and combed it out as she glanced at the clock on the wall. “Well, listen. Cheryl’ll be set and under the dryer in fifteen minutes, and then we’ll get lunch and see what we can rustle up in the property records. My treat.”
Chapter 3
I relaxed into my seat. Tambra, who’d already managed to clean all the dirt from my nails and file them smooth, trimmed my ragged cuticles and began applying polish in thin, even strokes.
“What kind of chickens do you keep?”
I knew she was asking to be polite, the chitchat every manicurist makes. I don’t know if they train them to do that or if it’s just the kind of person that the profession attracts. What does your husband do? How old are your kids? This was the country version. “None just yet. I ordered a batch of chicks from the hatchery that are coming in soon. Hopefully I’ll be done building the coop by the time they’re off the heat lamp.”
“Mm. You’re doing the work yourself?”
I nodded and she twitched—I’d inadvertently jogged the hand she was working on. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it.” She flashed me a smile. “You know, if you wear the right gloves to work, your nails will last longer. The pillow-top ones are made especially to protect your nails. They have them at the feed store. I have some in purple.” She sat up and replaced the polish brush back in the bottle. “I gave you an extra-strong topcoat so you don’t destroy my work immediately.”
“I can’t make any promises,” I said, thinking of the tren
ch I intended to dig as soon as I solved my pesky skeleton problem, and the accompanying beer bottles I’d have to pry out of the ground.
She gave me a mock glare and clicked her nails menacingly on the tabletop. “I will hunt you down for touchups. Don’t think I won’t.”
“She’s not lying. Tambra is a pitbull. Once she sinks her teeth in, she doesn’t let go.” Ruth clipped a final row of curlers into Cheryl’s hair and led her over to one of the dryer chairs. She settled the hood over her head and handed her a magazine before looking over at me. “Ready to eat?”
I checked with Princess Pitbull, who gave my hands a quick once-over before nodding her permission. Ruth gave Tambra quick instructions for freeing Cheryl from her roaring plastic prison when the timer went off and grabbed her laptop with the “Chapman Realty” sticker on it from the back room. Then we headed down the street to the Rx Café.
“Wanna sit outside?” Ruth asked, pausing at the café door and look up at the sky where the morning clouds had burned off, leaving a clear blue expanse. A lone table for two was parked in front of the window, like it was waiting for us.
“Sure.” The plastic chair skidded on the concrete as I pulled it out and sat down to admire my shiny orange fingertips. While it hadn’t been the two-hour spa experience I’d experienced in Beverly Hills, it was a first-class manicure. “Tambra does good work.”
“She has high standards—for herself and everyone else. That’s what makes her a good business partner. You know me...I’d let the dust accumulate a little. I’d let the polish chip. I’d be a mess without her.” Ruth waved her hand and I saw that her nails were a deep, iridescent teal that flashed magenta in the sunlight like a peacock feather. Tambra’s work, for sure. Ruth opened her laptop and stared intently at the screen as she clicked the trackpad. “Let’s see what we’ve got in the files.”
“You ladies want the salad special?” A short woman with her hair in two unnaturally red braids squinted at us. “It’s five bucks, drink included.”
“Sounds good to me.” Ruth was back to staring at her screen.
“Me too,” I told the waitress, a little stunned by the low price tag.
“Iced tea?” she asked.
Ruth nodded absentmindedly, and I shrugged in acquiescence. Why not let the waitress choose? No need to make decisions for yourself when your hometown could do it for you.
Red-braids dimpled at me. “You’re Leona Landers.”
I nodded. Of course she knew who I was. “Davis, now.”
“Well, we’re glad to have you back under any name.” She patted my hand before darting back inside to put in our order, leaving me a bit bewildered. Surely, she was related to someone I knew, but I had no idea who that might be or why anyone in Honeytree would be glad to have me back.
“It’s true.” Ruth looked up from her screen, fixing me in her dark blue gaze.
“What is?” I craned my neck to look at her screen. What had she uncovered in the old records?
She held the laptop screen away from me. “We’re glad you’re here. I’m glad you’re here. I missed you. I knew you’d return to Honeytree eventually, but I didn’t know when. It’s been a long wait.”
I couldn’t help smiling. This was the reason Ruth was the only person I’d kept in touch with all these years—she knew me better than I knew myself. I never would have guessed that I’d find myself right back where I started, both literally and figuratively, but she did. “I missed me, too.”
“Orange looks good on you. Full of life. Your aura is popping. I’m glad you got our farm.” Her smile stretched thin across her teeth and it looked like she was trying not to cry. She shook her head. “It was hard to let it go—Rusty dragged his feet, but I convinced him you were the right person, and I can tell that was a good decision just by your energy shift.”
Rusty was Ruth’s older brother. He’d been held back a year, so the three of us had been in the same classes with the same teachers. As a result, Ruth and Rusty were often mistaken for twins when we were growing up, but even though they had the same wild, curly hair and mesmerizing blue eyes, they couldn’t be more different in temperament. Where Ruth was free-spirited and loud, Rusty was conservative and quiet, a rugged athlete who always stood in the back row of team photos. After graduation, when Ruth was juggling beauty school, art classes at the community college, and a part-time assistant job at the real estate office in Duma, Rusty joined the Air Force. I was gone to LA before he came back.
“How’s he doing? Married? Kids?” The waitress returned and set down two glasses of iced tea with lemon wedges. I sipped my straw and waited for Ruth’s answer.
“Nope and nope. Living in a trailer behind my house, feeling sorry for himself. He’s been a little lost since Grandpa passed.” Ruth wrinkled her nose sympathetically. “He was pretty much running the orchard by then, and now he doesn’t know what to do. He better figure it out, though. Ah, here we go.”
She turned the laptop around and pushed it toward me. It showed a line drawing of my farm and some numerical notations along the property lines. I scrolled down the document she had pulled up. It listed the dimensions and details of the farm and then had a list of known defects. Lead paint, a fireplace that didn’t meet burn efficiency requirements but was grandfathered in, a well with untreated water, a roof with only a few years left, an easement where the Sutherland’s driveway cut across the northeast corner of the property. There was no mention of any family graveyard or anything else buried in the yard other than the aging septic tank.
“I don’t see a family graveyard.”
She nodded and sipped her own glass of tea, grimacing when the cold liquid hit the roof of her mouth. “Doesn’t mean there isn’t one, though. A permit wasn’t required before 1946.”
The waitress returned, sliding two heavy china plates onto the table in front of us. She stood back and looped her thumbs into the waistband of her apron, surveying the spread. “Need anything else?”
I stared at my so-called salad plate. This was not the microgreens-and-shaved-fennel salad that the ladies who lunched in LA so often ate. No—on one side of the plate, a single piece of white bread held an ice cream scoop of egg salad. On the other side, a ruffly lettuce leaf cradled an identical blob of potato salad. Each scoop was topped with a single olive, which made the plate look like it held a pair of lumpy, mayonnaise-y boobs. I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
“You don’t have to eat the bread,” the waitress said, noticing my expression. “But if you want, you can turn it into a sandwich.”
“Looks good,” I choked out, not daring to look her in the face. In my peripheral vision, I saw Ruth’s shoulders shaking as she suppressed her own laughter until the waitress went back inside the café. Our eyes met over our plates and we giggled like naughty schoolgirls.
“What do you think? C-cup?” I asked her, nudging my right mayo boob with my fork. The olive nipple rolled off its potato salad mountain and bounced off my plate, coming to a stop somewhere near Ruth’s iced tea. “Or maybe a D?”
Ruth snorted and speared the olive, gently placed it back in its original proud position.
“Careful!” I warned her. “It’s very sensitive.”
At that, she threw her head back, tears streaming down her cheeks as she gave in to the laughter, her whole body jiggling. By the time we both recovered, my stomach muscles ached.
Ruth shook her head as she surveyed her plate and crossed her arms, cupping her own chest protectively in her hands. “I don’t think I can eat. I feel like I’d be disturbing some female deity if I destroyed this perfect pair.”
“The mayo salad goddess won’t mind.” I grinned at her. “Anyway, you’ll feel better about it tomorrow, when the special is going to be a bratwurst and two boiled eggs.”
Ruth dissolved into giggles again, shaking her head and rocking back and forth. “I can’t...I can’t.”
“There’s only one solution.” My fork hovered over the egg salad boob. “On three. One, two...�
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We smashed our forks down simultaneously, flattening the egg salad onto our respective slices of bread. I popped the olive into my mouth, and suddenly the plates were just ordinary.
“By the skin of our teeth,” Ruth said solemnly. “I feel like Indiana Jones, destroying an idol.”
“The egg salad idol is no more.” I folded the bread over and took a bite. The egg salad was perfect—creamy, garlicky, salty, with the just right hint of mustard and dill. And the bread, which I’d assumed was regular white sandwich bread, was a delightfully tangy sourdough. “Hey, this isn’t bad. Better than I was expecting.”
Ruth nodded around her own mouthful of sandwich. She chipmunked her bite and mumbled, “They’re known for it. The Rx goes through a lot of eggs. Maybe when you’re up and running, you can supply them.”
Hm, an interesting possibility. I’d only thought of selling eggs to individuals, but now I wondered if there were any more restaurants in town that might like a local supplier. I wouldn’t have thought of that on my own, but that’s why Ruth was such a good entrepreneur: she was always looking for the angle, the niche where she could nestle. “Good idea, thanks!”
“I want a cut. A per-egg royalty.” She winked at me. “I’m just kidding. I am an expert in many things, but the chicken business isn’t one of them. Oh, shoot!” she said, as a chunk of egg salad fell onto her laptop. She wiped it off with a napkin and moved the computer under the table.
I set down my sandwich on the plate. “So what do you think about the boots I found? Am I going to dig up the rest of a dead guy or what?”
