Summer Blowout

by Claire Cook

  Sean Ryan laughed that big laugh of his again. “Just once. But I have to tell you my wife hated it when I left my corporate marketing job and went out on my own. I felt free as a bird, but she was terrified of the risk. And she missed the pension plan. I started a SEP-IRA, but it just wasn’t the same for her.” He looked over at me again. “A joke,” he said.

  “Cute,” I said. “So what other kinds of projects are you involved in?”

  “A small brewery that’s working on making a beer with as many antioxidants as red wine.”

  “Is that possible?”

  “Sure. Right now a nice high-end beer contains more than twice the antioxidants of white wine, and half that of red. But there’s some evidence that the large antioxidant molecules found in red wine may be less readily absorbed by the body than the smaller molecules found in beer. So, if we can up the antioxidant level at the same time we buzz the absorption issue…”

  I looked at him. “Buzz the absorption issue?”

  He shrugged. “You asked. Also, I invest in property development, mostly waterfront condos.”

  “My father would call you a barracuda,” I said.

  “Yeah, well, the way I look at it, they’re going to happen with or without me, and I can help keep them green and aesthetically pleasing. Anyway, I’m also involved in a couple of microfinance projects in developing countries. You know, a group gets together to help create and consolidate local financial structures to manage loans and savings—”

  “Oh, that,” I said. “I was just talking to some friends about getting one of those together.” I looked over at him. “A joke,” I said.

  Sean Ryan cleared his throat. “We also facilitate access to technical advice to improve local income-generating activities, things like agriculture, livestock, and fishery production. It’s really interesting stuff. And it’s nice to feel like you’re helping people who need it.”

  “Is that how you pick your projects?”

  “Sometimes. And sometimes I pick them so I can eat.”

  “Or so a guidance counselor with a dream can eat?”

  Sean Ryan shrugged. “I’ll take the kits to a college fair in Atlanta next weekend, then I’ll help him pull all the feedback together.”

  “Did you just say you’re going to be in Atlanta next weekend?”

  “Yeah, why?”

  “Me, too. My nephew’s getting married at the Margaret Mitchell House.”

  “Will you get to watch Gone With the Wind?”

  “Not very original.” I shook my head. “You know, I’ve never been to a Southern wedding, but I’m a little bit afraid they’re going to serve okra.”

  “Okraphobic, huh? Well, get ready, it’s in season from May through October. Actually, it’s not bad. And it’s high in fiber, calcium, and folic acid.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said.

  Sean Ryan smiled. “Anyway, if you feel like fitting in a college fair first, feel free to use half of my table again. But I call the right side this time.”

  “Sure,” I said. A few hours at a college fair would pay for my whole weekend, including hotel and airfare. But what I was really thinking about was how much easier it would be to handle a wedding that my half sister would most likely be attending with my ex-husband if I had a date. Not a date date, of course. Just someone to make me look a little less conspicuously single. “I know,” I said. “How about I go to the college fair with you, and then you can come to my nephew’s wedding with me?”

  Sean Ryan grinned. “Why, Bella Shaughnessy, you’re not asking me out on a date, are you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “I just want you there to eat my okra.”

  IT WAS A PERFECT LATE SUMMER night to sit on the beach and eat fish and chips. I’d packed a little can of dog food for Precious, since I didn’t know how long we’d be gone. I pulled off the flip top and set it down on the sand, and she began eating daintily from the can. I could tell she would have preferred a nice bowl, but she was being a good sport about it.

  “Well,” Sean Ryan said. “One week later and here we are again. You know, I’m starting to think of this as our beach.”

  I opened my mouth, then closed it again when I saw he was smiling. “Cute,” I said.

  A seagull flew just overhead, assessing its chances for a french fry. “Don’t even think about it,” I yelled. The seagull turned and headed out over the ocean.

  Sean Ryan raised an eyebrow. “So, what, now you’re talking back to seagulls?”

  “It worked, didn’t it? If the tourists would just stop feeding them and turning them into beach pigeons…”

  “Beach pigeons,” he said. “I like that. It has a nice ring to it.” He stabbed at his fish with a plastic fork, and the fork snapped in half.

  I laughed.

  “Thanks,” he said. He reached for the fish with his fingers and broke off a piece and popped it into his mouth. “It tastes better like this anyway.”

  I ditched my fork, too, and ate a piece of fish with my fingers. “You’re right,” I said.

  “That’s a first,” he said. “Not that I’m counting. Okay, let’s talk about the dog. I think the first thing you need to do is look into the laws about lost-and-found pets.”

  Precious had finished her meal and was whipping a piece of seaweed around down by the water. “I disagree,” I said. “I think the first thing we need to do is disguise her.”

  “Okay,” he said. “And how might we do that?”

  I took another bite of fish, then closed the Styrofoam takeout container. “Come on,” I said. “We can finish these at Salon de Paolo.”

  SEAN RYAN WAS USING THE SALON computer to search the Internet, and I was mixing up some Aveda Full Spectrum Protective Permanent Crème Hair Color. It was the darkest color they made, Level 1, which was a blue black, what I thought of as coal black. Far too many older women picked a dark, shoe polishy color like this, hoping to return to the deep color of their youth, and they never even noticed it was so harsh it washed out their coloring and called attention to each and every wrinkle. Women’s hair color should always go lighter as they age.

  But Level 1 was a great color for a dog, and this particular product was 97 percent natural and fairly gentle for a permanent color. I was a little bit concerned about using it so soon after those highlights, but desperate times called for desperate measures.

  I screwed the top on the applicator bottle and started shaking it. I loved being in the salon after hours. It reminded me of when we were little kids, and we’d get to hang out with my father while my mother cooked a big Sunday dinner, and he caught up on work. He’d pull out some bins filled to the brim with pink rollers and silver hair clips for us, and Angela, Mario, and I would go to town on our dolls.

  We’d start by washing their hair in the sinks. I had a Tressy doll. She had a tiny key that was attached to a white belt wrapped around her waist. You inserted the key in her back, very Stepford Wives in hindsight, and I remembered wondering if it hurt her. You twisted the key to make her hair shorter, but before I washed Tressy, I’d push the button in her tummy and yank on the hair to make it as long as it would go.

  Angela had a Cricket doll, who was Tressy’s little sister, just like Angela was mine. Cricket also had hair that grew and a key hanging from a belt. Mario had started out with a G.I. Joe, but he’d lobbied long and hard until eventually he got his own Mary Make Up. Mary’s hair didn’t grow, but her face was waxy, so that makeup could be applied to it and easily removed.

  Mario took to her like a duck to water, and it was no surprise to anyone that the trajectory of his life had gone from Mary Make Up to professional hair and makeup. Mary Make Up and Tressy were exactly the same size, and Mario and I loved that we could share clothes and have twice the wardrobe.

  After we washed the dolls’ hair, we’d pile boxes on salon chairs so the dolls could sit high enough for us to work on them, and then we’d start wrapping their hair around the smallest curlers we could find. W
e taught ourselves to make spit curls, too, with real spit, and to anchor them with silver hair clips. Then we’d hold the dolls under the hair dryers, checking them occasionally to make sure they didn’t start to melt.

  “Listen to this,” Sean Ryan said. “I think I’ve got something. It’s a Massachusetts statute. ‘Public Safety and Good Order, Chapter One Thirty-four, Lost Goods and Stray Beasts.’”

  “Did you hear that, honey?” I said to Precious. “He called you a beast.” Precious gave me a look that could only be described as proud, then she jumped up on Sean Ryan’s lap.

  He reached one hand down to pet her. “Okay, it says that any person who takes up a stray beast shall report, post, or advertise the finding thereof, giving a description of the color and the natural and artificial marks of such beast, otherwise he shall not be entitled to compensation for any expenses which he may incur relative thereto.”

  “Come on, in English, please.”

  “Okay, wait.” We waited while Sean Ryan read through the legalese. “This doesn’t really apply. It’s more about the fact that you can auction off the beast after three months, and if the owner shows up within a year, you get to deduct your caring-for-the-beast expenses before you split the profits from the auction with the owner.”

  “That’s awful,” I said. “It makes them sound like cattle or something.”

  “I think they are talking about cattle,” Sean Ryan said. “Wait, here’s something else on another link. Okay, it says that the question of lost-and-found pets does not have an easy legal answer.”

  “Duh,” I said.

  He smiled and brushed some hair off his forehead. “Okay, the common law that has developed through court decisions generally holds that the person who can assert true ownership has superior rights. The court may consider other factors, however, such as how long the person who found a dog has cared for it…”

  “A week is nothing to sneeze at,” I said.

  “…how much effort has been made by the original owner to find it…”

  I shook my head. “Like, none.”

  “…and the relative value each party has invested in the pet in terms of care.”

  I walked over and picked up Precious. “Okay, enough with the computer,” I said to Sean Ryan. “We’re about to give this beast a new identity.”

  17

  “HERE,” I SAID. “PUT THESE LATEX GLOVES ON.”

  Sean Ryan raised an eyebrow. He’d already rolled up his sleeves a little bit higher, and I’d draped a black cape with SALON DE PAOLO printed in gold over him.

  “Just do it. Otherwise your hands will get dyed, too.”

  “Ohh-kay,” he said slowly. He took the gloves from me and pulled at one of them, then let it go with a snap.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I’ve always wanted to try that. Like on one of those TV medical shows.”

  I gave the hair color another shake. “Come on, we don’t have time to fool around. Your job is to keep her from licking it off. Just get a good hold on her, but try not to rub off any of the dye.”

  “Great,” Sean Ryan said. He started to put one hand into a glove, but his fingers got stuck halfway.

  I put the hair color down and pulled the glove off him. I held it to my mouth like a balloon and blew into it. When the fingers of the glove grew about two sizes, I handed it back to Sean Ryan.

  “Wow,” he said. “You must be a big hit at birthday parties. Can you make those balloon animals?”

  I ignored him and blew up his other glove. I handed it to him, then I picked up Precious and put her on the tabletop at my station. She looked up at me calmly.

  “Approximately how long are we talking about here?” he asked.

  “Well, it’s hard to say. Her hair’s pretty coarse, which might make it resistant, but she’s also had a recent process, which might make it absorb more quickly.”

  “In English, please.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I’ll start checking after thirty minutes, but it could take up to forty. We want to make sure she looks like a true brunette.”

  “Oh, boy,” he said.

  I started at her hind legs and worked my way forward. The long point of the applicator bottle made it just as easy to dye a dog as a person. I’d make a part in the fur and run a line of color almost at the skin line, then I’d work it out to the end, using my glove-covered fingers to make sure I didn’t miss a spot. I’d been doing this since high school, so I was both speedy and efficient.

  About halfway through, Precious started to shake, which hardly ever happened with humans. Dye drops flew everywhere.

  “Do something,” I yelled.

  Sean Ryan let go with one hand to wipe at a spot of black dye on his cheek, which only created a long dark smear. “Sure,” he said. “Any suggestions?”

  “Just try to hold her still,” I said. “I’ll go as fast as I can.”

  I finally finished. Sean Ryan took a deep breath. “Now what?” he asked.

  “Now you keep holding her, and I’ll get the dye off your face before it’s permanent.”

  When I came back with a cotton ball and a bottle of Clean Touch color remover for skin, Sean Ryan was holding Precious behind her front legs and singing “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall” to her.

  “That’s the spirit,” I said. I soaked the cotton ball and reached for his face.

  He stopped singing. “What is that stuff? Not that I don’t trust you, of course.”

  Precious got ready to shake. “Don’t stop,” I said.

  “Take one down,” he sang. He had a nice strong baritone, although he might have been a tiny bit flat.

  “It’s only color remover.” I dabbed at a spot on his nose. “My father says they used to use cigarette ashes for this, but that’s not very PC these days. Toothpaste works pretty well, too.”

  “Pass it around,” Sean Ryan sang. He stopped singing long enough to say, “Fascinating,” then segued right into, “ninety-seven bottles of beer on the wall.”

  “I CAN’T BELIEVE I MADE IT all the way to thirty-seven bottles,” Sean Ryan said. He was spinning himself around in one of the salon chairs. “I think you should have had to sing, too.”

  “That’s because you haven’t heard my voice.”

  “Well, you owe me. Big-time. First me giving you the right half of the table, then holding down your dog for you….”

  I finished towel drying Precious and put her back on the tabletop. “So, send me a bill.”

  He stopped spinning and looked at me in the mirror. “That’s okay. I’ll take it out in trade. After you finish the dog, you can give me a makeover. I’ll want to look my best for that wedding.”

  “Here,” I said. “Keep an eye on her for a minute.” As soon as Sean Ryan had his hands on Precious, I walked into the other room, flicked a switch on the wax machine, and came right back.

  “What was that all about?” he asked.

  “Nothing,” I said. “I just remembered something.” I picked up the Andis T-Edger, the same buzzer we’d used on my father, and snapped on a number three guard. “Okay, break time’s over. I need you to hold her again.”

  Sean Ryan pushed himself out of his chair and got a good grip on Precious, and I started buzzing off her fur to a nice crew cut length.

  “Don’t forget.” He was yelling so I could hear him over the sound of the buzzer. “She still needs a new name.”

  “What about Priceless?”

  He shook his head. “Too close to Precious. What about P? You know, like P Diddy? Maybe P Puppy?”

  “Nah,” I said. I turned off the buzzer so I could take a look at my progress. “What about Lucy? I always wanted to be named Lucy.”

  Sean Ryan let go and walked over to the other side of the salon and squatted down. “Here, Lucy,” he called.

  Precious ignored him and looked at me.

  “I rest my case,” Sean Ryan said.

  He came over to hold her again, and I finished the buzz cut. T
hen I got out my scissors to trim off her tufted eyebrows. Since they were one of her best features, this was a little bit sad, but necessary.

  I took a step back to get a better look. “Holy cannoli,” I said. “She’s a whole new beast.”

  “That’s it,” Sean Ryan said.

  “What’s it?” I said.

  He walked back over to the other side of the room and squatted down again. “Here, Cannoli,” he called.

  Precious ran over to him and licked his face.

  “No way,” I said. “Anything but Cannoli. Plus, I think it’s more of a blond name than a brunette name.”

  Sean Ryan walked across the salon and squatted down again. “Cannoli,” he sang.

  Precious ran right over to him.

  “It’s perfect,” he said. He looked around the salon. Although Salon de Paolo didn’t have a kiddie area with a fake Tuscan wall like Salon de Lucio, it did have Corinthian columns flanking the door on the inside, plus a two-tiered fountain next to the reception desk. “It’s like she joined a witness protection program and was given a whole new identity. She’ll fit right in.”

  I had to admit there was a certain logic to this, but I wasn’t completely convinced. “I don’t know, I think we might have enough fake Italians running around this place. Maybe we should broaden our horizons and call her Croissant. I could buy her a little pink beret.”

  Sean Ryan shook his head. “Cannoli,” he said. “It’s a done deal. Okay, moving on.”

  “Boy, it sure didn’t take you long to start getting bossy.” I patted the chair in front of me. “Next,” I said.

  “I think I might have only been kidding about that makeover,” he said.

  “Too late,” I said.

  He sat. I opened my razor. He opened his eyes wide. “You’re scaring me,” he said.

  “You’ll barely feel a thing,” I said, just so I could watch him cringe some more. I started razoring. “I’m not going to touch the length much at all, but it’ll look a lot better and be much easier for you to manage if we take out some of the bulk.”

  Sean Ryan met my eyes in the mirror. “Is that the first thing you thought of when you saw me? I mean, have you been plotting to take away some of my bulk since the day we met?”