When she finished school at UC Berkeley, she’d never planned to come home to Cedar Valley at all, in fact. But the first and only job offer she received made her decision for her. And it was nice to spend some time with her friends. Even if she would prefer San Francisco or Los Angeles or somewhere happening! The teacher dress code at CV Elementary was at least ten years out of date. If they could, she supposed they’d force them to wear skirts to their ankles and granny boots.
She stayed at her desk during lunch, as she often did, eating her bologna sandwich and apple from home and sipping at a can of Tab she’d wrapped in tinfoil to keep it cold. Tina held a book open on her lap, ostensibly reading the light romance, but her mind strayed into daydreams of handsome dark-haired, blue-eyed firemen. One in particular.
The kids piled back into the class, sweaty and rumpled from the playground, and she had them put their heads down on their desk while she read them a chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe to let them settle a bit. Afterward, they had spelling, science and music…and then it was three o’clock. For once, she followed the stampede outside instead of staying to do some work. She carried a sheaf of papers to grade at home, but she had things to do first if she was going to go on a date the next day.
She parked in front of Angela’s House of Beauty and walked inside to find complete chaos. Cousin Angela had all three hair styling seats filled, dryers roaring away along the opposite wall, and Cindy the hair washer/manicurist/appointment girl racing from place to place as if she couldn’t possibly do everything in front of her. Tina blinked in amazement. Cedar Valley’s sleepy beauty shop rarely hosted anything so busy unless there was a big event planned like a wedding. She shrugged. Whatever it was, she hadn’t been invited.
“Wow, it’s bustling in here,” she said. At least a dozen women wearing pink and green flowered smocks stared at her as if she’d grown two heads. Tina brushed at the front of her sweater and patted her cheek. “Is there something on my face?”
Angela dropped her scissors and comb onto her wheeled tray stand with a clatter and glided over. Nobody in town had the style Angela did, with her Gina Lollobrigida short, dark hairstyle and Marilyn Monroe beauty mark over her upper lip. She wore a pink smock, but underneath would be the sheath dress she favored for daytime. And today, she wore sling-back kitten heels in an eye-catching hot pink. “Tina! What brings you here on a Friday afternoon?” She frowned, a wrinkle appearing between her arched brows. “Cindy, did my cousin have an appointment today?”
Cindy, a recent high school graduate who idolized Angela, appeared from behind the screen dividing the shampoo sinks from the rest of the shop. “No, Angela, I am quite sure. I would have told you because—”
“Never mind,” Angela cut her off and waved her back to her duties. “Tina, did you stop in to visit?”
“No. I have…I have a date tomorrow and I thought maybe you could squeeze me in for a shampoo and set but I see you have so many customers. Is there something big going on in town I didn’t hear about? I’m always the last one to know the gossip.”
A sharp titter came from an older woman who had leaned out from under her dryer, her head full of bobby pins crossed to create pin curls, but at a sharp look from Angela, she ducked back underneath and lifted a magazine to hide her smile.
“Don’t mind Shiela. Her new diet pills make her laugh at nothing.” Angela drew Tina deeper into the salon and lifted a strand of her hair. “You know I can always find time for you, but tell me about this date. Somebody special?”
“No…not really. Just someone I met at school today. He asked me out to dinner so”—she rolled her eyes—“I thought, why not? I deserve a night out for once, right?”
Another titter was accompanied by a giggle from the woman next to Shiela. Angela flashed them both a glare.
“More diet pills?” Tina asked, trying to think if she knew the other woman. She might have been in her mother’s garden club at one time, maybe?
“Something like that.” Angela walked around her. “I think you should have the works for your date. Just met him, you said?”
She nodded, turning her head to try to keep her cousin in her sights. “Just this afternoon.”
“Mmm hmmm. Facial, manicure, cut and style…” She came in front again and held a finger to her lip. “How about a pixie cut this time?”
Tina gulped. Last time Angela gave her a cut, when she was home for summer vacation after her second year of college, she’d ended up with a pixie, and it had taken all this time for it to grow out to her waist again. “No scissors, cousin.”
“Tsk. It would be so cute on you. How about we wash and set it, and you can come back tomorrow afternoon to have it combed out. I don’t have time to do a permanent wave, and if we take the rollers out today, you’ll be flat as a pancake again tomorrow.”
“Oh…okay. Maybe I should just wash it myself at home. You’re so busy and everything.”
“Cindy!” the salon owner called. “Take Tina into the dressing room and get her a smock. We have a lot of work to do before her date tomorrow. What are you going to wear, my dear?”
Angela was not too many years older than her but her choice of careers had placed her in the work world several years before Tina and she tended to speak as if they were an entirely different generation.
“Oh, I don’t know. We’re probably not going anywhere fancy. Just something from my closet.” She moved into the dressing room and removed her blouse and sweater then donned the wrap-around smock designed to protect a lady’s garments from the many noxious chemicals involved in beautification. It wasn’t just Angela who overdid things. It seemed every salon owner believed women needed lots of overhauling to be acceptable to the male sex. When she emerged, her eyes burned at the perm solution on one or more of the customers. No, even if time allowed, Tina would not have that stuff slathered on her head. It left blisters on some people! And made hair burn and stink. Not the natural look she was going for. Long and sleek and curled at the bottom, maybe a little poof at the crown and just a bit messy like Brigitte Bardot. Okay, maybe more sex kitten than natural look. She’d explain to Angela when they combed it out.
Cindy settled her into the chair at the sink and bent her forward, took off her hair band and scrubbed her scalp as if she’d remove the skin itself before rinsing, washing again, and applying cream rinse. Many women looked forward to their afternoon at the salon every week, but Tina preferred a few hours at the library or hiking up into the hills overlooking Cedar Valley. Less pain and more natural beauty.
Clean as a whistle, Tina was whisked into a style chair where her hair was combed, brushed, and wrapped around wire rollers sure to be difficult to remove after sleeping on them. She accepted the garish scarf her cousin handled her and bundled it around her head. She refused the facial—remembering the blotchy red skin that could result and might not be gone in time—but settled into the manicurist’s chair for a filing, cuticle treatment, and hand massage followed by three coats of pale-pink polish. Her hands looked so pretty, she thought, holding them up and flexing her fingers in the last of the sunlight outside.
Opening the door of her third-hand sedan, she glanced back at the salon to see women lining the front windows and peering out. She glanced around to see what they might be looking at but saw nothing and tentatively raised a hand to wave. As one they fled back into the shadows of the shop.
Had there ever been a stranger day?
She began to think she’d wake up and it would be Friday morning, all of this just a dream. Tina wasn’t sure how she felt about that. It would certainly uncomplicated things, but wouldn’t it be a shame if the dark-haired fire god wasn’t real?
And he was a MacKay. Everyone knew the MacKays. Just not him. For some reason, she’d never heard much about Mac the fireman. Martha MacKay had been a year ahead of her in school, his younger sister she thought. She was nice, but she’d moved to San Francisco after high school and she hadn’t heard much about her since. Settling b
ehind the seat, Tina eyed herself in the mirror. Wouldn’t she just love to run into him now with the red-and-green striped scarf covering the porcupine that was her head. She’d never sleep tonight with all the ends of the little wires digging into her freshly scrubbed scalp. Suffering for beauty.
Reaching up to shift the car into gear, she heard her name being called and Angela slid in on the passenger side. “Whew. I caught you. If you have a few more minutes, can I show you something?”
She bit her lip. “I really need to get going. I have so many papers to grade, and if I’m going to go on a date, well, I need to do my housekeeping just in case he asks to come in for a second to use the facilities or something. I’m ashamed to admit there might be dust bunnies running amok.”
Angela rolled her eyes. “If he asks to come in, it’s not the facilities he wants to take advantage of. You’ve never been easy before—don’t argue, I’d have heard. I hear everything in that place. Reel him in first.”
“I just met him!”
“Uh-huh. Now turn off that key and come with me. I want to show you something.”
With a heartfelt sigh, Tina did as she was asked. Her cousin had done her a big favor and it would be ungracious to argue now. She trailed after Angela, down the sidewalk, past the diner to stop at the door of the new boutique. “Oh no. I can’t afford anything in here…look at those beautiful dresses in the window. All the latest fashions. Ohhh, look at that shift dress.”
Angela dragged her inside. “I knew you’d love that one. Just try it on.”
Five minutes later, she twirled in front of the full-length mirror at the back of the shop while Angela and the salesgirl smiled and clapped. It was gold and had a brown belt woven cleverly through built in loops that sat on the hips. The hem landed just above the knee. “It is nice and it fits like a dream.” Even with her wire/scarf head she looked younger and prettier than she could remember being. Dressier than the beatnik styles she’d liked at college and much more fun than her school wardrobe. “It’s just…it’s groovy.” She blew out a breath. “I’m sure I can’t afford it.”
“It’s on sale,” the clerk chirped. “You’ll want the boots, too, right?”
“Go-go boots?” She might be drooling. With her limited salary, she watched every penny. She could manage to pay her rent without a roommate but only barely. And she hadn’t bought anything pretty in…in forever.
The girl thrust a pair of glossy white go-go boots at her, and she almost fainted in delight.
“I can’t.”
Angela pushed her into a cushioned chair and pointed at her stocking feet. “Put them on.”
“Well, I suppose that can’t hurt.” She slipped one foot then the other into the shiny white vinyl and slid the zippers up the side then jumped to her feet. The mirror showed a whole new girl, and she wanted the outfit more than anything. “I never really care about clothes but, oh my goodness.”
Caught up in the moment, she did a few steps from the dance craze “The Freddie” and giggled as she flung her arms and legs to the sides and hopped around. “I saw this on Ed Sullivan last spring but I didn’t have the right clothes to feel inspired to try it until now.”
“Maybe your date will take you to Sacramento dancing,” Angela enthused.
“Oh, no, it’s just dinner. Nothing special.” She fingered the price tag hanging from the sleeve and considered her budget. “I’d better not buy it. But it’s so cute.”
When the clerk slid the matching purse over her shoulder, Tina decided peanut butter sandwiches would suffice for lunches and dinners for the next month. If a girl couldn’t have one outfit that made her mouth water, she didn’t deserve to be a girl. “I’ll take it.”
The other women cheered.
Chapter Four
Driving home from the station, Mac made a left where he always took a right. The morning sun glinted off the hood of his shiny new 1965 Mustang. He’d sold his clunker in Dallas; the old thing would never have made the drive across the deserts and mountains between Texas and California, and when he’d gone into the Ford dealer, he’d been looking for a year or two old sedan. He’d driven out in the Guardsman Blue convertible, the first new car he’d ever owned and one he planned to keep for a lifetime.
The morning chill raised goose bumps on his arms, but he didn’t care. Such a beautiful day, he’d just take a cruise around town before heading home, maybe stop at the diner for some eggs and bacon. On impulse, he pulled the junior firemen brochure where he’d noted Tina McIntosh’s address out of his shirt pocket. He’d really taken a razzing from Tim and the guys last night about his date. Lots of backslapping and way too much interest in his going out to dinner with a woman he’d just met. He supposed small towns didn’t have a lot going on so they got excited easily.
Maybe he’d run by to Tina’s place and make sure he knew where it was, so he wouldn’t be late tonight. Those new buildings were clustered together, and he wasn’t sure the addresses were easy to find. In fact, one of the guys had complained about just that fact when they’d had a false alarm to one of the units just last week.
His mother raised gentlemen. She expected respect for her as well as for the ladies they encountered in other parts of their lives. She had, in fact, suggested to her sons that they do this very procedure and ensure they knew the young lady’s location and how long it would take to get there. Albeit she was talking to sixteen-year-old sons who were less familiar with the streets of town as well as the rural areas where their dates might live. But the same principle applied, and he soon arrived at the new apartment complex.
Hopping out of the car without opening the door—the best part of a convertible— he crossed the parking lot and moved to the paper unit map stapled to a board by the front door. Half of it was missing, the other half faded already from the sun. His coworker had been correct. He made a mental note to ask the captain to cite the owners for negligence. Had the false alarm been a real emergency, people could have lost their lives, and probably would have. As it was, the buildings held an unfinished feel. The vacant lots surrounding them and the hill behind were covered with the dried grasses of late fall.
He continued inside the complex, walking under an archway into a central court with a swimming pool. That was a nice feature. Did Tina like to come here and sunbathe? Maybe in one of those new bikinis? She’d fill that out every bit as nicely as the sweater.
But a teacher, and one who dressed as conservatively as she did, would not likely appear in public with her belly button showing. What a shame. The building consisted of three stories, with what looked like four apartments on each side on each level. A similar building was across the street and another was under construction next to it. How many apartments did a small town like Cedar Valley need?
He glanced at the note again and found that Tina lived in Unit 3A. Maybe it would be easy to find her. Climbing the stairs closest to him, he frowned as the steps, which had no supports other than the ground and the two balcony levels where they were attached, shook with each footfall. The walkway around the third floor level had only a single low railing that anyone who stumbled could fall over or a child could slip through. These buildings were very new. They shouldn’t be ready to shake apart with one person on them. Unhappy even to be on the balcony walkway, he checked each door until he spotted 3A. Between 3D and the very confusing 4D with a small leaf painted on the door.
Any excuse for finding her address out of courtesy used up, he paused at the blue-painted door. A grapevine wreath with colorful autumn leaves and tiny pumpkins hung in the window beside it. He hesitated. Tina had agreed to go out with him that night, and he was looking forward to it. But that was hours off. At the moment, he stood on her doorstep and did not want to walk away.
What would she think if he knocked and said good morning? If she was half as sensible as he believed her to be, she’d send him packing and cancel their date. Probably the best thing for both of them. But he believed in being honest with himself and he wanted to
see her. Even if just for a moment to see if he reacted the same way he had the first time. She was beautiful. No question about that, but he had gone out with any number of beautiful women.
He’d never had the thought that any of them would be his future wife.
Not that he was looking for one.
Chiding himself for invading her privacy, he turned to leave and headed down the wobbly stairs, wondering what he could do about the obvious problems in the building. A pile of dirty rags, paint cans, and turpentine bottles sat in the sun in one corner of the courtyard. They must be doing touchups somewhere, which was good, but they should be put away when not in use. Fallen leaves from somewhere outside the complex blew around in a pretty but flammable display. All he could picture was a fire where nobody could escape because of the faulty installation of the walkways and stairs.
Fire exits.
The only fire exits. Two staircases at opposite corners were the only way people on the second and third floors could escape in a fire or earthquake or any other emergency, and he had no confidence these would hold up under the pounding feet of many panicked residents.
As he stepped off at the bottom, he heard a whistle and looked up to see the most beautiful face in the world looking down at him with a quizzical expression. She had two fingers in her mouth and was whistling just the way his brothers did when they wanted to get someone’s attention.
Dropping her hand to the railing, she flashed him a sassy grin. “What are you doing in my part of town, Fireman MacKay?”
He shaded his eyes with his hand to cut the glare of the climbing sun. “Mac.”
“What?”
“Call me Mac, and I’ll call you Tina, all right?”
“Groovy.” She rested both arms on the railing, and he cringed, afraid it would give way. He’d have to do something about that.
“Don’t lean on that,” he called. “It’s not safe.”
“It’s fine. I do this all the time.” She leaned over a bit more and an ugly scarf tied over her hair fluttered in the breeze. “See? No worries.”
Dallas Fire & Rescue: MacKay's Fire (Kindle Worlds Novella) (MacKay Destiny Book 2) Page 3
