by Tamara Leigh
“Sorry about that. He was deskunked, you know.”
“Found that out after the fact.” She narrows her lids. “You haven’t changed much, have you?”
Not a compliment. “Thankfully, no.” I point at the windshield. “Do you mind?”
She gives a throaty laugh. “If you ask me, we’re more than even.”
But—Oh, all right! “Even we are.”
She sidesteps. “Thank you for the lesson in environmental stewardship. I can’t tell you how it’s impacted me.” She walks past. “Oh, here’s a little something for you.”
When I turn, she’s holding out a business card. “Wesley Trousdale, Premier Real Estate Agent.” Her smile turns sly. “I have a feelin’ we’ll meet again soon.”
The Pickwick estate. That’s probably why she’s here all the way from Asheville. The day just gets heavier. “Not likely.” Still, I take the card.
As she sways back to her car, I peel the gum from my windshield and climb into my truck. After wrapping the sticky offender in an old paper napkin, I press the accelerator with a foot destined for blisters and pull into the right lane. Not unexpectedly, Wesley Trousdale draws alongside. As she accelerates past, I glimpse the sunglassed face of her anonymous client.
“No, you are not getting your hands on my family’s estate,” I mutter. Though how in the world I’m going to stop him, I haven’t the foggiest.
Ten minutes later, I halt at the end of my long driveway and lower my forehead to the steering wheel. What a day—my brother married to a female version of himself, that whole H.E.A. business, the argument with Bonnie, happy couples all around …
I tug a dread—a comfort, especially when I’m missing Easton—then dig my wedding ring out of my bra and stare at its out-of-place shape between my thumb and forefinger. How’s Bonnie to know? I start to slide it on, but the pale circle at the base of my finger that contrasts with the tanned length above and below makes me hesitate. It’s as if I’m wearing an invisible ring and, actually, I can still feel it there.
Goose bumps rising, I turn the simple band around, reading the words inscribed on the inside: You and me. Forever.
“About as make-believe as H.E.A.” However, once more I position the ring to slide it on. Don’t do it. Bonnie’s right. When you make little girls cry, it’s time to say good-bye. Time to stopper the big yawn between now and the grave and get on with your life. Your life, Bridget. Easton is dead. Dead.
I try to say the four-letter word, but I can only mouth it. Yes, Easton is. Not just gone, as Bonnie pointed out. He’s … Yes, he is.
In the next instant, anger stomps me up one side and down the other. What is my problem? “Easton is dead. D-E-A-D.” I curl my fingers around the ring. “And I can say …”
A mental door behind which I haven’t looked in a long while creaks open, and I see Easton on our wedding day. It’s the first dance. A slow dance. He’s so near I can feel the beat of his heart. “And they lived,” he lowers his forehead to mine, “happily ever after.”
I swallow hard. “No, they didn’t.” But I can say it. “Happily …” I draw a breath. “… ever after.”
Now all I have to do is figure out how to live happily after ever after.
3
Wednesday, August 11
The magazine made me do it. More specifically, the man on the cover—J. C. Dirk, whose Florida oceanfront condos have set the new standard for environmentally conscious developments. Forget that he hasn’t returned my phone calls and his assistant has become testy. I’m not going away. In fact, since he’s so busy, I’m going to him. Just as soon as I’ve done what I came here to do.
“Ow!” I come up out of the chair only to be pushed back down.
“It’s your own fault.” Georgia of Sisters’ Day Spa, with whom I attended kindergarten through twelfth grade, pulls her hand from my shoulder and frowns at me over the top of her hip, thick-framed glasses. “What’d you expect? They’d come out pretty as you please?” She returns her attention to the dread she’s attempting to unravel with a steel-toothed comb. “No ma’am, you don’t traipse around in gnarly hair for years and get off that easy.” Georgia never much liked me.
“Don’t be givin’ her a hard time, Georgie.” That’s older sister Savannah—yes, Savannah and Georgia, whose mother never got over her homesickness when she married into Pickwick, North Carolina.
Savannah, with hands infinitely gentler and personal style finitely more laid back (she wears contacts), continues. “She’s here, isn’t she? I’d say she’s seen the error of her ways.”
I’ve seen no such thing. It’s time, is all. Under cover of the itchy cape, I rub the ring suspended from a chain around my neck. Unfortunately, the quest for J. C. Dirk has pushed up the timetable. The only reason I haven’t suffered much backlash from wearing dreads all these years is because I own and work a nursery, but if I’m going to gain an audience with the environmentally conscious developer, I have to fit into his world. And according to the article in the magazine I stumbled on two weeks ago, my dreadlocks are not a normal part of his uppity world.
“Isn’t that right, Bridget?” Savannah leans to the side to meet my gaze in the beauty station’s mirror.
As much as I’d like to challenge the “error of my ways,” the sisters have personal experience with them, even though my erroneous ways predate today by more than a dozen years. Too, I am at their mercy. And they came in after hours so this could be done without gossips looking on.
I clear my throat. “I’ve certainly made mistakes in my life”—such as believing in happily ever after—“but I’m headin’ in the right direction.”
“ ’Course you are.” Savannah pats my shoulder before once more ducking out of sight to work on the dreads at the back of my head.
“Goodness!” Georgia jerks the comb through a conditioner-drenched dread.
“Ow! Oh, ow!” I’m up out of the chair again. And down.
“I can’t do this if you don’t hold still,” Georgia snaps.
Savannah gives my watery-eyed reflection a sympathetic smile. “I know it hurts, but we’re doin’ our best. How about an aspirin?”
“Do you buy them in bulk?”
She laughs, causing her rolled bangs to bounce. “Who woulda thought you had a sense of humor? See, Georgie, she’s not so bad.”
Georgia thinks I’m bad? I’m not surprised, what with her behavior, but it’s unfair to continue to hold The Great Crop Circle Hoax against me. And it’s not as if her daddy didn’t more than make up for the loss of the crop I laid down by charging admission to the thousands who flocked to Pickwick to get a look at what experts deemed “genuine.” Of course, maybe she simply doesn’t like me because I’m a Pickwick. Or she could be an anti-environmentalist. Or an animal hater. Is it the dreads? All of the above?
“Not so bad,” Georgia mutters, wiggling the comb and making no attempt to keep the strain from the roots. “That’s subjective.”
“Here”—Savannah thrusts a bottle at her—“try detangler.”
“But her hair’s already knee-deep in conditioner.”
“I know, but I’ve taken out nearly two inches for every inch you’ve undone.”
Georgia sprays the end of the dread until it drips. “I don’t see why you don’t just whack it all off, Bridget. Short hairstyles are in.”
I thought it would come to that, which is why I stopped working the new growth into dreads following Bart and Trinity’s wedding—to give me a couple inches to fashion into something presentable—but then I ran into Savannah two days ago. Though we rarely exchange more than nods, she stopped me as I was coming out of the Pickwick Arms Hotel next door and told me God had put me on her heart. I started to lug my watering can and tool bag past, but she said that when I was ready to do something about my dreads, she thought she could save most of my hair.
Her timing gave me chills, but I passed it off as Savannah simply being observant—until I realized it had been less than three weeks since I�
��d stopped working my dreads and the change was barely apparent. Coincidence, then. With no intention of enlisting her services, I hurried off. Now here I am.
“That is better.” Georgia wiggles the comb through another inch of dread. “Still, I’ll probably end up with arthritis.” She peers at me. “If we cut off a bit more—say, six inches—you could still manage a shoulder-length do.”
It’s tempting, since Savannah’s New York stylist friend estimated that with the two of them working together, the “takedown” would require five hours to undo the four years invested in my dreads. But the change would be huge, and I’d prefer to ease into this.
“Don’t cut any more than you have to.”
Georgia grunts. “Afraid you’ll lose your strength like Samson?”
Old Testament Samson. In my opinion, that man deserved what Donna or Delia or whatever-her-name-was did to him. Some leader he turned out to be. “I like it long.”
She sighs, and I wrinkle my nose at the scent of something peppery on her breath. “At this rate, we won’t be done before midnight. Mark my words, Savannah.”
“Nah, we’ll have it out by ten. Providin’ you stop giving Bridget a hard time.”
“And she stops jumpin’ outta the chair.”
This time Savannah sighs. “Just keep that detangler going, Georgie.”
“Time?” Savannah calls.
“Nine fifty-five,” Georgia says from somewhere to my left. “You gonna make it?”
“Almost there.”
More spraying, more tugging, and my head is one big ache despite the three aspirin I took. Staring at my lap where my head hangs forward, I notice I’m no longer looking through a blur of tears. Dehydration?
“Time?”
“Nine fifty-seven.”
Savannah’s breath comes in puffs on my neck, as if her adrenaline is chugging full speed. “And it’s done!” Cool air rushes in where her breath was. “You mark my words, Georgie! By ten, I said, and so it is—and without your help this last quarter hour.”
“Yeah, but it looks like a tornado went through her hair.”
Does she think I’m sleeping? No, it’s just Georgia, who hasn’t stopped grumbling about the “dread-ful” arthritis for which I’ll be responsible when it’s diagnosed twenty years from now.
“That’s to be expected, but the worst is over.” Savannah lays a hand on my shoulder. “Are you ready?”
No, but I want out of this chair, out of this salon, and into the hammock awaiting me at home. I lift my head. However, once my chin is level, I can’t raise my eyes. It’s hard to believe that the wiry mess of unraveling hair I last glimpsed two hours ago can be anything but, especially considering the amount of hair Georgia has been sweeping up since she chucked the comb and said she couldn’t do any more. A small rug could be fashioned from all those blond strands. Though Savannah warned there would be a lot, since what I would normally shed had been locked into the dread, I won’t be surprised if I’m a candidate for a “sweep over.”
“Come on, darlin’, it’s not so bad.”
Drawing a breath that shames me with all its shuddering, I raise my lids. “Oh. Oh. Oh.” My hair kinks and juts despite the month’s supply of conditioner and detangler weighting it. Worse than looking downright scary, I don’t look like me. I don’t look like Easton’s wife. Actually, it’s his widow you don’t look like.
“Don’t fret,” Savannah says. “Once we get you ’pooed, rinsed, and blown out—”
“Oh no, you don’t.” Georgia hustles forward, broom in hand. “We’re done. If she wants a proper stylin’, she can come back tomorrow during regular business hours.”
Savannah frowns. “You let me be the judge of that.”
I pull the cape’s Velcro fastener. “No, Georgia’s right. You’ve both gone above and beyond, and it’s late. I’ll come back tomorrow.” Providing I can bring myself to go out in public. The thought of all the attention my dread shedding is bound to attract nearly makes me groan.
“You sure?” Savannah comes alongside, her plump figure a bit bent from the nonstop hours, her flushed hands dripping from her wrists.
“I’m sure.” I sweep off the cape, causing a mess of hair to empty from the nylon folds. “Oh, sorry.”
Grumbling, Georgia takes up her broom again.
As I step out of the chair, I groan at the straightening of my body, the numbness of my backside, and the pressure on a bladder that should have been emptied an hour ago.
“Five hours is a long time.” Savannah pats my back as I reach for my fanny pack on the counter below the mirror.
“I’d best use your bathroom.” When I emerge, I pull my cell phone from the pack. Earlier I’d turned it off, seeing as I can’t stand being at the mercy of others’ whims. It might be fine for some, who I can only imagine are mighty lonely to allow their privacy to be violated at all hours, but it’s not for me.
As I cross the salon, I turn on the phone to see if Maggie’s daughter, Devyn, responded to my invitation to spend the night this Friday. The screen shows I missed two calls, one from Maggie, the other from Piper, ten minutes ago.
I halt. This late at night, Piper might be calling about Uncle Obe’s dementia that has crept closer since its diagnosis a year and a half ago. What if—?
It’s the “what is” that matters. Still, I hold my breath as I access my messages.
Devyn would love to spend the night. “Good,” I murmur.
Next up is Piper’s message. “Uncle Obe is missing. I ought to have heard the bell on the door, but I was sitting in the garden with Axel, so …” Her voice breaks. “I shouldn’t have left him alone in the house, but he was in bed asleep. Anyway, he’s on foot and can’t have gone far. Axel and I are scoutin’ the property, and if we don’t find him soon, we’ll call the police. I was hoping you might drive down this way in case he took to Pickwick Pike. Not that I think he would, but … call me.”
“Something wrong?” Savannah asks as I snap my phone closed.
“You know them Pickwicks,” Georgia mutters from where she’s urging a hill of hair into a dustpan. “There’s always something wrong.”
That’s an exaggeration—mostly. “I need to get going. Mind if I square up with you tomorrow when you wrestle this mess into something presentable?”
Though worry remains on Savannah’s brow, she says, “Sure. Same time?”
Since three employees are scheduled to work the nursery tomorrow, I think I can manage to stay out of sight until then. “Same time. See you tomorrow.”
“Not me. I’m done.”
Georgia will get no argument from me.
“You be blessed, you hear?” Savannah calls as I push through the front door.
One foot on the sidewalk, I hesitate over those words that ought to roll off me like water off a duck’s back. Exactly how does one go about being blessed? By recognizing a blessing when it’s staring you in the face.
I turn and look from sister to sister. “Thank you, Savannah … Georgia. It was kind of you to stay after hours.”
Savannah breaks into a smile. “Our pleasure.”
Georgia shrugs.
Shortly, I leave the town square behind, point myself toward Pickwick Pike, and make a call to Piper, who’s on the verge of calling the police.
4
I don’t expect to find my uncle on the pike, certain like Piper that he’s somewhere on the property. Thus, when I catch sight of a white-haired, orange-robed figure walking slowly alongside the road, heading in the direction I’m coming from, it takes a moment to react. Then I’m whipping a U-turn and fumbling for my phone as my headlights illuminate his backside and the slight limp that is back despite last year’s knee replacement.
“He’s walking down the pike,” I say. As Piper starts thanking the Lord, I talk over her. “I’ll bring him home.” More Lord thanking. I snap the phone closed.
“Uncle Obe,” I call as I step from the truck.
He turns and shields his eyes against the
glare of headlights. “Who’s there?”
“Bridget.” I jog toward him.
“Bridget?”
I hurt for the question in his voice. It’s not the kind rooted in disbelief, but the “Bridget who?” kind. “Your niece, Bridget.” I halt before him.
“My niece. Niece?”
I put an arm around his shoulder, and frustration runs through me at how feeble this six-foot-three man feels alongside my five-foot-six frame. There’s about as much justice in that as there is in making a happily married young woman a widow. And Piper wants to praise the Lord.
As I urge Uncle Obe toward my truck, he says, “You don’t look like Bridget.”
“I ditched the dreads.”
“The what?”
“I changed my hairstyle.”
He squints at me. “You don’t wear it in a b-braid anymore?”
What year is he in? I haven’t worn a braid since long before I went into dreads. “It’s been awhile.”
“What’s this?” he says when I pull open the passenger door.
“My truck.”
“Yours?” Out from the headlights, there isn’t enough light to see his frown, but it’s in his voice.
“Yep.” I pat his back. “I’ll give you a ride home.”
He chuckles. “You’re funnin’ me. Now, come on, where’s that bicycle of yours?”
He’s certainly not stuck in any of my high school years. Maybe not even middle school. See, God? You let stuff like this happen to good people and expect me to love on You. What do You take me for?
“Why, I don’t know the last time I rode in a truck.” Uncle Obe runs a hand over the worn seat. “She’s an old one.”
“But a goodie. Even gets decent mileage, all things considered.”
“Ford?”
“That’s right.”
He lets me help him into the cab, doesn’t appear the least surprised when his bicycle-riding niece climbs into the driver’s seat, and sighs as I swing the truck around. “I like ridin’ up high.”
“Me too.”
