“Josh,” I replied with extreme exasperation.
“I’m serious, babe. Those pictures are going to end up in the hands of a jury of my peers and I need to be prepared to defend myself if necessary.”
I thought I was fluent in Josh speak, but he stumped me. Jury? Defend himself? “What?”
“The jury will consist of people in my community and they’ll all be judging me and my abilities as a stylist if I look unfortunate in the pictures they show in the courtroom.” He talked very slow, like he was talking to someone with an addled brain. “So, tell me. Was my hair a mess? Did my skin look blotchy?”
I thought back to the photos I held in my hands earlier that morning. They represented my worst nightmare, which was the thought of losing him to the same person who killed Nate Turner. To him, they were equally as devastating, but for a completely different reason. He was serious as a heart attack about what he said. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that the picture from last night, while not flattering to him, was completely adorable to me. His hair was standing up all over the place as if he’d ran his fingers all through it and his pink cheeks made it obvious he’d just been woken from sleep. None of those things would make him a bit happy, so I did what I had to do. “You looked amazing.” I hoped the pictures never made it into his hands because he’d surely call me a liar, but it was my truth.
“Now, let’s talk about how I found your back door unlocked again.”
Josh grimaced then said, “I’m sorry. I’ll do better.”
“Promise me, Josh, because I can’t stand the thought of someone hurting you.”
“I promise.”
“That’s good because there are better ways to spend our time than arguing,” I told him.
“Yeah?”
I playfully pushed him off my lap and onto the couch cushion beside me before I jumped to my feet. “Yes, like eat more apple pie!”
“I don’t know where you put it?” Josh remarked.
“Yes, you do,” I said, waggling my brows obnoxiously.
“Ew, Gabe. No.” Josh shook his head sadly. “We can snark all we want but we don’t do cheesy.”
“Mmmm, cheddar cheese is great on pie.”
“You’re hopeless,” Josh said.
I was hopelessly in love with him and the beautiful smile that he gave only to me.
“That’s your rental car?” Chaz asked the next morning when he arrived to work.
“More like rental tank,” Meredith amended. “I bet Gabe approves of you being surrounded by all of that metal. Does it have airbags to cover every part of your body?”
We were all staring at the gleaming red monstrosity in my driveway through the window in the kitchenette. I had been shocked the day before when the rental car agency pulled up. I saw the Big Red pull in followed by a sleek sedan. I perked up thinking I’d look mighty fine driving that sleek number so you can imagine my shock when they handed me the keys to the giant SUV that looked big enough to transport Blissville High’s soccer team. They informed me it was the only rental left when they presented the rental agreement to me.
“Why can’t I drive that?” I asked, pointing to the sedan.
“That’s my personal car, sir,” Car Guy 1 said. “I followed behind Jerry so I could give him a ride back to the office.” I referred to Jerry as Car Guy 2.
“Hmmm,” I said looking down at the daily rate for rental. “You’re going to make sure you don’t charge my insurance company for the higher rental price or try to get me to pay the difference between a car and SUV rate though, right? It’s not our fault you had insufficient inventory to meet our needs.”
“We wouldn’t dream of doing so, sir,” Car Guy 2 responded, but I noted he sounded more surprised I would know the difference than insulted I would suspect something like that.
I was used to people thinking I was a “dumb blond” and it didn’t help them take me seriously when they found out that I worked at a salon. I more than worked there, I owned it. You can’t be a successful business owner and be gullible at the same time. “Then let’s mark out these rates and write in the correct ones, fellas.” I slashed through the figures like I meant serious business, and I did.
“Of course,” Car Guy 1 said, but he was looking a bit nervous.
I knew damn well that big giant monster wasn’t the only vehicle left to rent off their lot and I had half a mind to drive over there after we were done and prove it. Still, I had better things to do, like bake Gabe’s pie, and it turned out to be one of my favorite memories in our young relationship. So, I let them off the hook with a simple rate change and their initials on the form. Well, I did give a copy of the revised rates to my adjuster so he would know how much to pay them when they sent the bill. My days of playing the fool were over!
“I didn’t read the owner’s manual,” I told Meredith. “I’m hoping like hell not to drive that big bastard.”
“You and everyone else who lives in this town,” Chaz muttered.
“Again with the damn driving remarks.” I threw my hands up in the air and walked away. “It was one parked car,” I said referencing the only accident I had, “and there was an inch of ice on the streets.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t have been out,” Meredith said.
I was saved by my first client of the day who just happened to be Gabe’s ex. “Good morning,” I said cheerily to Kyle. I got immense pleasure by overhearing Chaz choking on his own fucking saliva when Doctor Feel Me Good walked in the door.
“Well, it is for some,” Kyle replied with a smirk. He walked over to my chair and had a seat. “Not all of us started off our morning the way you probably did.”
I know it wasn’t deliberately said to remind me that not that long ago he was the one waking up beside Gabe and getting morning… I killed the thought before it went there. Regardless, that’s exactly where my brain went.
“I didn’t mean that the way you’re taking it.” Kyle sounded extremely contrite and uncomfortable, which I felt was only fair since I was also ill at ease right then.
I met his eyes in the mirror and I saw how sorry he really was by the grimace he wore on his face and the way he bit his lip. It was actually a great look on him; it made him appear more human. Kyle was the type who always came across as confident, as if nothing or no one bothered him. Having known Gabe, I could see where that would irritate him. Gabe wanted real and honest responses from me at all times, whether it be anger and annoyance or joy and happiness. Kyle was a person who was sometimes hard to read. His smiles and responses came across as generic, or at least in public they did. I had no way of knowing what he was like privately.
“I know you didn’t,” I replied honestly. Kyle had told me on more than one occasion that I was good for Gabe. I wasn’t sure what he’d said to Gabe about me and I honestly didn’t care. What mattered was what Gabe thought about me and he really, really liked me. A lot. I could’ve teased Kyle about how silly that would’ve been since I was about to hold his hair in my hands, but I let it go. Instead, I wrapped the cape around his shoulders and asked, “Just a trim today?”
“Yep.” Kyle entertained me with stories from veterinary school like he always did since he started coming to my salon when he moved back with Gabe. He’d never talk about his clients in Blissville because that would’ve been unprofessional and unethical and he was an upstanding guy–one Chaz would give his left testicle to be pinned beneath on the closest firm surface. I tried my best not to let my overactive mind wander there. That didn’t stop me from smirking when Kyle greeted Chaz when he walked by on his way to his post at the front door. “How’s Harry doing?” Kyle was referring to the hairless cat that Chaz owned.
Chaz’s eye bugged out of his head and he choked on his own saliva again, as if Kyle was talking about his cock and not his cat. “Um, he’s doing good,” Chaz finally squeaked out.
“You feeling okay?” Kyle asked, completely unaware of the effect he had on my best friend. I had never seen two more clue
less people than them. If Chaz had been paying any bit of attention, he would’ve noticed how Kyle sat a little straighter in his chair–as if he needed any more height–and how his eyes brightened.
“You need to sit still,” I admonished Kyle with a light whack of my comb on his beefy shoulder. “You’ll end up with a crooked cut or much shorter hair than you’d prefer. People will either think I’ve lost my touch or that you started going back to Burt’s Butcher, um… Barber Shop.”
“Neither of those things will do,” Kyle replied good-naturedly. “Speaking of Burt’s, when do you suppose Gabe will trust you to cut his hair?”
“That’s a good question,” I replied. “He’s due for one.” I decided I would suggest a trim that night and see where it got me. The worst he could say was no and it would only hurt my feelings, but no big deal. I could take it. Maybe.
I was glad my day started with an easy client like Kyle because it allowed me to ease into my day rather than be thrust into chaos right out of the chute. It turned out that Kyle was definitely the calm before the storm.
Hair emergency–a catastrophic event at levels so high they could permanently scar a person for life if not immediately remedied. The occurrences could be self-induced or the result of a freak accident. Also referred to as “you ain’t getting lunch today” among hair professionals.
There were weeks I went without a single hair emergency walking into my salon and then there were days when several of them came rushing inside almost at once. I promised myself I would write a book after I retired because I was certain it would be a best seller and land me on Ellen’s show. Chaz pointed out that Ellen would be retired long before me when I mentioned my book idea to him. I told him to shut the fuck up because I couldn’t imagine a world without Ellen smiling, dancing, and doing amazing things every weekday.
That day, I had three hair emergencies run through my doors with their eyes bugging out of their heads and a forlorn expression on their faces. They looked at me with so much hope in their eyes, as if I was the Jesus of hair disaster fixes, that I couldn’t turn them away. It would mean working through lunch, but I didn’t have the heart to say no.
I was used to seeing kids cut their own hair and Mom or Dad rushing them in to see me, but the opposite happened to my first client–well, except the kid didn’t drive them to my salon. She looked to be around four years old and much too short to see over the steering wheel.
Wow, little Tabitha did a number on her mommy’s hair too. There was no fucking way we were avoiding short-as-fuck bangs. “I can’t believe I fell asleep,” Victoria said. Tears flowed down her face and little Tabitha, unaware of how much trauma she caused, sat in her mommy’s lap and lovingly caressed her mother’s face.
I worked Victoria in between routine maintenance appointments. By the time I was finished, those tears of horror were tears of happiness. “I look like that one actress in that one movie.” I had no fucking idea what she was talking about, but she totally rocked those motherfucking bangs.
“Um, might I make a tiny suggestion?” I asked. I hated to ruin the good mood she was in, but with the shorter bangs it was obvious as hell the woman had zero maintenance program for her brows. They looked like two sasquatches stretched across her forehead that were nearly holding hands above her nose to form one long brow.
“Okay,” she replied timidly when I suggested a brow wax. “Will it hurt?”
“Stings a little, but it’s totally worth it,” I replied.
She loved her new brows so much, Tabitha got a mani/pedi in the little kids’ chair, I got a huge tip, and Victoria bought several new products for her hair and skin. “Let’s go get a brownie and hot chocolate from The Brew,” I heard Victoria tell Tabitha as they left. I knew next to nothing about raising kids, but I thought it was completely possible that Victoria was giving Tabitha the wrong impression about actions and consequences.
Next through my door was a complete surprise. Nadine Beaumont, wife to the sleazy town mayor, entered my salon looking like a Hollywood A-lister trying to go incognito while drawing attention to themselves at the same time. I could see the floral print of the scarf she wore around her head beneath the hood of her red wool peacoat and her oversized sunglasses, on a cloudy day, was a nice finishing touch.
I’d banned Nadine from my salon when she broke the heart of my dear friend who happened to be her former boss and wife of the man she screwed behind her back. They had a soap opera style throw down in my salon that caused damage to my property and face. Nadine had tried to apologize to me since then and she looked truly sincere when she said that she wished she could take it all back and make things right with Georgia. Unfortunately for her, she came to that realization after Georgia was murdered by her housekeeper.
I realized two things since I refused my services to her. Nadine’s marriage to that son of a bitch was a bigger punishment than anything I, or anyone else, could dole out to her and sometimes people truly were sorry about their misdeeds and perhaps deserved second chances. I might’ve been willing to extend the olive branch to Nadine but it would be a cold day in hell before I did the same thing for her loser husband. I had thought about calling Nadine and trying to make amends with her, but I wasn’t really sure how to approach the subject without looking desperate for business, which I definitely was not.
“Josh,” she said breathlessly. “Please take me back.” Again with her daytime soap opera theatrics. “I just can’t go on like this.”
She had the eye of everyone in the room. Her attempt to hide the disastrous effects of whatever was beneath the scarf told me she was tired of being the talk of the town. I led her into the kitchenette and closed the door so we could have some privacy.
“What have you done, Nadine?”
She burst into tears and I’m not talking about a few tears here. I mean full on body shaking sobs. “There’s so many things,” she managed to say in between sobs.
“Honey, I meant your hair. I’m just the Hair Jesus, not the real Jesus.”
“I know,” she said pitifully. Then she lowered her hood and slowly unwound the long scarf from her head.
“Holy fuck!” I knew my exclamation was loud enough to be heard in the next county just as certain as I knew it didn’t help to dispel the curiosity of the clients in my salon. “Who did this to you, Nadine? There has to be laws against this type of treatment to your formerly beautiful hair.”
“It… was… the… new… salon…” She got her words out in between sobbing hiccups.
“What new salon?” Just how busy had I been with Gabe’s dick up my ass that I didn’t know a competitor had moved into my territory.
“Bargain Beauty Salon,” she whimpered. “I didn’t know what else to do since you kicked me out.”
Now look, I was all sympathetic about her hair up until that point. She was the one who said such horrible things to Georgia in my salon. For all I knew, she was the one who gave me a shiner. My mind reeled with what to do. I could send her on her un-merry way, and force her to deal with the disaster she presented me on her own, or I could be kind and help her out. If I decided to be kind, I then had to choose whether to take her out into the middle of the salon so she could be an example to anyone who thought about leaving me for a “bargain,” or I could be a kind human being and keep her away from prying eyes.
I really must’ve wanted to get on the real Jesus’ good side because I said, “Stay here, Nadine. Let me go whip something up to try and remove that lemony-yellow-Jell-O look you’ve got going on there.” Hey, I at least got my digs in.
I didn’t think anyone could outdo Nadine in the hair disaster department, but I was so, so wrong. Laura Sampson won the title hands down. She stood timidly in my salon with her hair looking like it got caught in a motherfucking electric mixer, like cake mixing gone wild. There was even some kind of brown substance in her long locks.
“Girl, what the ever-loving-fuck happened to you?” I asked.
“Kids! Kids happened to me, Josh
!”
“Honey, come sit down,” I said, gesturing to my chair.
I know that people who knew my story would think I had something against Laura, but the truth was I didn’t. Laura had always been kind to me in school and, as far as I was concerned, she was another one of Billy’s victims. Laura plopped down in my chair and I gingerly stuck my hands in the tangled mess to figure out what the hell she’d gotten into because she was crying too hard to help me.
“Aha,” I said when I located the huge wad of gum in her hair. The gooey brown substance was peanut butter. She had hoped the oil in the peanuts would break down the gum and help ease it out of her hair.
“I tried ice too,” she said. “Nothing worked. I had to wait until my mother-in-law finished work before I could come in. Billy’s been gone for a few days and…”
I filed away her statement about Billy to be dissected later. The only thing that mattered was finding a way to remove the gum and make her feel beautiful again. It didn’t take me long to figure out what had to happen. “Honey, I’m afraid I’m going to need to cut your hair.”
“Billy is going to be so mad at me,” she said tearfully.
I hated men who thought they had the right to tell their wives how to wear their hair. Were those assholes up and styling their women’s hair for them every day? It was the same story all the time. “My husband doesn’t like short hair.” “My husband only likes straight hair.” Well, the world never had and never would operate that way.
I kept my opinion about her asshole for a husband to myself and said, “I’m sorry, honey. If I could find another way…”
“Just do it,” she said. “It’ll grow back and if he had been home like he should’ve been then maybe it wouldn’t have happened. I never let the kids sleep with me when he’s home. I didn’t even know one of the little buggers had gum in their mouths. I’m just lucky and grateful that they didn’t choke on it.”
By the time I was finished, Laura loved her hair. She gave me a tight squeeze and a nice tip before she left my salon looking much happier than when she arrived. I just hoped her happiness stayed with her once Billy decided to drag his ass home from God knew where.
Welcome to Blissville Page 36
