Corey looked at his watch, then looked around as if checking a nightstand clock after being awakened from a bad dream. More than ten minutes had passed and no Mr. Thomas. According to Crystal, he could leave.
Crystal.
He hadn’t realized he had dialed her back until he heard the phone ring. It was like a reflex.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, as if she knew he’d call back. Was she psychic?
It took everything within him not to tell her all about the conversation he just had and subsequent conclusion he had drawn, but that would mean he’d have to tell her about Pill. He knew now was definitely not the time.
“What do you think Mr. Thomas sends back to Medicorps? And why do they ship UPS?” Corey asked, trying to act as natural and as upbeat as possible. With her, it wasn’t hard.
No introductions had to be made. Besides the fact that he knew she’d be at the docket desk, he identified her instantly after walking through the lot entrance to the office area. Her smile embraced him from across the room. When he approached the desk, he had to thrust his hands in the pocket of his uniform to resist the urge to reach over the desk and hug her. Her skin tone was darker than his, although her features were a harmonious amalgamation of mixed heritage. She was not glammed-up gorgeous, but she was cute, very cute. He wondered how in the world he would stay out of the store now.
“I knew it. I knew you’d look better in person,” she said with a slight shimmy of her shoulder. He was trying to avoid her eyes and the V-neck view of her cleavage beneath her blazer.
He waved off the compliment with his right hand. “Yeah, right. Beat down, brown suit and all.”
“Especially in the brown suit,” she purred, which tickled Corey in the most unexpected way. “I was starting to think you were trying to avoid me.”
He had. Tonight was different. She had given him permission to leave a note on Mr. Thomas’s door. She shared that in rare cases they helped accounts set up alternative shipping with other couriers if it was no longer feasible for UPS to do so. She would champion his cause with Medicorps and Mr. Thomas. Maybe it was for that reason he lingered on the phone until each of her reps said good night. Now it was just her and the night supervisor, just one witness.
She had wanted him to stop in and see her before leaving, and he was ready to see her as well. He was curious to see what she looked like. He told himself that if she was able to remove Mr. Thomas’s drops and pickups from his route that there would be no need for their calls after tonight, no need for fraternizing.
“Ramirez,” Corey said pointing at her ID badge.
“My good Dominican name is Castillo. Ramirez is one of the only things my ex-husband left with me. A good Mexican guy; bad husband, though. I guess it could have worked, but what can I say? We were young and stupid,” she said, beaming her warm amber-colored eyes up at him.
Young and stupid, he knew the feeling. Wasn’t that what his mother was insinuating when he told her he was getting married. Maybe that was the problem with him and Pill, immaturity and youth.
“So what about you, Corey Taylor? What’s your story?” Crystal said, busying herself with the papers on the desk as if she was trying to expend her nervous energy.
“All I know is I’m starving to death,” Corey said, fishing around in his pocket for his keys. He jangled them to make a point, to send a signal.
“I know, right? Buffalo Wild Wings may be in order,” she replied.
Everything he said sounded like an invitation to her. He gave the Lord permission to kick his butt if only He would deliver him from this awkward situation. He didn’t owe Crystal allegiance, but he felt obligated not to hurt her.
Before he could throw out another decoy, a gentleman approached her from behind, calling her by name. They seem to carry on a silent conversation as he flipped his finger toward the phone they both heard ringing a minute ago but choose to ignore.
The man’s wide-eye expression led her to say, “Not again?”
The mute man nodded his head before heading out of the docket area with a ring full of keys.
“Lost package? Runaway driver?” Corey asked, silently thanking God.
“More like hit and run. Some guys can’t wait to pull the truck in before hitting the Happy Hour spots. Then when they hit someone or something, the cops call me. This guy has more fender benders than a little bit. I might really have to play the bully and put in a recommendation for his release. I tell you, my little business management degree did not prepare me for all this.”
She kept pulling him in—kept him interested. He thought that they had so much in common. “You know, I was nine credits shy of a business management degree myself.”
“You’ve got to go back then,” Crystal said definitively. “You owe it to yourself to finish, Corey, and even go further.”
He noticed her hurried pace as she gathered up a few documents in her hand. He owed it to himself. No one had put it to him quite like that. No one seemed to care enough to encourage him.
This time he used her preoccupation to really stare at her. He considered the what-ifs. What if they caught a bite to eat after work? Coworkers did that all the time.
Chapter 16
Pill started off her day counting down the hours. She was on a mission. The mall was calling her to jumpstart a very special evening she had planned for Corey. She had something in the tight, lacey, and see-through variety in mind to purchase. One that she hoped came with a lasso because she sensed Corey was pulling away from her.
Nothing was coming naturally as she had thought. Their conversations seemed forced, and intimacy was nonexistent. He’d given up the chase, not bothering to initiate even the slightest display of affection since leaving Deacon Tripp’s office after their six-month session two weeks ago. No massages, no hand holding, and definitely no snuggling.
It was his way or no way. His ultimatum was clear. He would not survive without sex, the complete copulation, but he sure as heck wasn’t making himself desirable with his present attitude. It didn’t help that Pill was as stubborn as he was. It was like they had both pitched a tent at the opposite ends of their relationship, and neither one of them were quick to meet in the middle.
Pill was willing to cross that border because she knew with each passing day Corey was leaning toward Deacon Tripp’s suggestion for more intensive counseling sessions with their first lady. That had her thinking of lying on a leather couch and fishing for repressed memories. Corey knew her to be a strong woman. She refused to be that vulnerable in her marriage or let her past ruin it.
She remembered how it used to feel to be adored by Corey and how he would tell her over and over again how beautiful she was. Lately, she saw glints of how nice it would be to lie in his arms again, smell his brutish scent up close, and feel his strong caresses. She had plans to string all those flashes together into one romantically sensuous evening. It was going to be perfect.
She made the mistake of mentioning her plans to Mercedes as they prepared their stations for the day’s clients. Usually she wouldn’t entertain a conversation about something so personal, especially at the shop, but she had truly grown closer to her coworkers since her disclosure at the restaurant. She was officially the “Little Big Sister.” Even Deena softened a bit after her hangover subsided that night. Their stations were side by side, and they were swapping stories and products like nothing had happened.
Pill and Mercedes were the only two stylists there that early. While Ms. Wilamae Shirley and Ms. Ollie Davis, better known as her Morning Glories, had Pill up at the shop at seven A.M. on a Saturday morning for their standing press and curl appointment, Jerome had dropped Mercedes off and had taken her car yet again.
Pill had a glob of heavy pressing cream on the back of her hand like she had been taught for easy dabbing as she straightened each section of Ms. Wilamae’s hair with a pressing comb. She was thrust in a time machine back to a point in her life where she used to sweep up hair around Ms. McQueen’s two-chair
shop for money when she was a teenager. She would usher clients to dryers that weren’t helmets, but rather funnels that hovered above one’s head or caps that clinched tightly on their heads. It was there she learned to love the soft fuzziness of natural hair when it was blown dry and the intoxicating scent of heavy Bergamot Hair Dress infused by the sizzle of the pressing comb.
At that time, she and Shae would listen in to grown folks talk. Ms. McQueen and her church sister and partner, Ms. Donaldson, were the older matriarchs who schooled everyone on the points of finer womanhood with a mixture of gossip and wisdom. Today, she and Mercedes were getting a lesson in seduction from her now seventy-year-old-plus patrons.
“I remember all I had to do was wear my hair down to catch Mr. Shirley’s eye.” Ms. Wilamae’s light hazel eyes lit up at the thought of her husband who had died more than ten years ago.
Ms. Ollie stretched her tissue-thin right hand from her seat in the waiting area while holding firmly to her canned RC Cola with a striped straw standing out of the spout with her left. “I’ll tell you, I used to dust off in Royal Secret powder. Shucks, there was no better way to say, ‘Come here, mister.’ It never failed. Ask me if I cared if he knew I was just buttering him up.”
“That’s right, Ms. Ollie. Got to give to get,” Mercedes interjected as she rummaged through her bureau drawers taking stock of the supplies she had on hand.
“Now wait a minute. I don’t mean give up anything without a husband. Are you married, sweetie?” Ms. Ollie asked.
“Who me?” Mercedes said, as if there were countless others around she could be asking. “No, ma’am, not yet.”
“Well, close your ears then. This conversation is for people with husbands.”
Buttering her husband up is what Pill planned to do. She had yet to inform him about the hair show and the estimated cost of the entire weekend. Of course she’d have to pad the numbers of the hotel and travel expenses so she could squeeze in a new outfit or two also.
“Yes, yes, I remember Royal Secret. If Mr. Shirley wasn’t frisky before, I’d tell him, ‘I got a secret, Mr. Shirley. Maybe after I get your dinner and run you a warm bath, you can try to figure it out.’”
The two elderly women blushed, cackled, and covered their mouths like they could say something X-rated that the two Generation X’ers hadn’t already seen played out in some video, soap opera, or movie.
“Stop, Wilamae. I think you done embarrassed baby girl and her friend,” Ms. Ollie said.
“I don’t know about all that,” Mercedes jumped in. “Pill, you need to go down to the Pleasure Cove. They got everything: videos, whips, chains—”
“Anyone that’s whipping a man don’t plan on keeping him long, that’s for sure,” Ms. Ollie said offhandedly before slurping the last corner of her soda loudly with her straw.
Pill just shook her head at Mercedes’s insistence to contribute to the conversation. She knew Ms. Ollie, the feistier one of the two, was close to giving Mercedes a righteous reaming out. She had learned long ago not to interrupt the pair of them when they were making a point.
“That’s what’s wrong with these young girls, thinking they can buy everything. I was just shaking my head when you all were talking about buying a whole wardrobe just to run around with each other at some conference or another.”
“It’s a hair show, Ms. Mabel. The stylists are the stars of the competition. We want to look good,” Pill said, substituting the hot comb for her large-barrel curling iron in the hot plate. She took an opportunity to fluff her own bangs in the mirror while they heated. “Obviously, you all like to look good too, because you never fail to miss an appointment with me every other week.”
“I like to be in order. Now I’m prepared for church and the week ahead,” Ms. Wilamae said with a harrumph. “It’s certainly not about vanity. There is not another man living or that will be born that I am trying to attract.”
“Dag, Ms. Wilamae, is it that serious?” Mercedes said, plopping down in Deena’s chair next to them while she watched Pill start to part and tightly curl a row of Ms. Wilamae’s silky, medium-length hair. Pill blew on the hot iron enough to cool it so that it would not singe the hair.
“Sure, it’s serious. No wonder you’re not married, gal. What does Mable look like trying to entice a man at her age when her husband of forty-two years is dead and gone? Shoot, it’s the same as them telling me at the nursing home ain’t no need to visit Mr. Davis every day either. Like I tell them, he might not know my name, but he knows my care. Like I got any other responsibility on this earth than to look after him like I been doing and he than receive it.”
Pill looked at Mercedes with a glare in order to halt any further reply. They all kept quiet for a while. This was one of those topics the younger women were not qualified to contribute to. It was more than years of marriage that separated her and Corey from what these ladies had with their husbands. They truly honored and cherished each other. That’s what she had tried to do before Corey became like this crabby bill collector. She couldn’t even explain how or exactly when her marriage had taken a turn.
Pill looked at the pressed-through sections of Wilamae Shirley’s hair left to be curled. It was like velvety ribbons with frayed ends. She became preoccupied with trying to tame it. She rolled the barrel over the ends before catching them up by the root to curl the entire piece. The frizzy ends were there because Ms. Wilamae had made it clear that she did not want Pill to cut her hair. No matter what she did, however, without a significant trim, Pill couldn’t smooth over the dead ends.
That made Pill think again about her afternoon plans, starting with the mall. Would a lacey teddy smooth over the dead and frayed ends of her relationship with her husband? More than anything, she just wanted to go back to when she and Corey didn’t trip over trivial things and they were having fun.
“You know, I also remembered when we would pin our hair back so it wasn’t in our face too. You could get a good look at someone, and they could see you,” Ms. Ollie smirked, bringing Pill back to the present.
“It’s the style, Miss Ollie,” Pill said, doing a good toss of her bangs since the comment was for her benefit, “or at least my style.”
The silver-haired woman chuckled and swatted at Pill’s legs to show her jest. “Lord, she sounds like she that little thing prancing around McQueen’s shop. You had a style idea for everyone that entered that shop.”
“Like the time she told Mabel she wanted a perm,” Ms. Wilamae said with a chuckle.
“Yes, Mercedes, girl, you’d of thought the word was synonymous with Satan,” Pill said to her coworker. “They wouldn’t let me get one.”
“Shoot, I got my first perm at five,” Mercedes exclaimed.
Once again, Mercedes halted the conversation. They all just stared at her a minute.
“Bolder and browner than a cup of coffee, that was Mabel McQueen’s baby, right there. She learned how to finally style hair and got herself a perm,” Ms. Ollie reminisced.
Pill knew what was coming next. She deflected the question every two weeks and was running out of replies.
“Why haven’t you been to see Mabel? She’s right over there at the Sunshine Senior Center with Mr. Davis,” Ms. Wilamae asked.
“I haven’t been to see her ’cause I got a perm, Ms. Ollie,” Pill said, making light as she shielded Ms. Wilamae’s face from the mist of hairspray followed by oil sheen. Pill was never allowed to comb out her curls either. Her hair went straight from the hot curling iron at the shop to the cold plastic rollers that she snapped on at home.
“Shucks, she asks about you all the time. She always says she got something for ya. I guess she waiting for you to bring your tail up there ’cause she sure hasn’t pulled it out for me to give it to you,” Ms. Ollie said.
Ms. Wilamae shifted so she could look at her bouquet of curls in the mirror. “Don’t think she didn’t know what was going on in your household when you were younger. She thought of you like a granddaughter.”
&nb
sp; Why’d she have to go there? Pill thought. Ms. McQueen was the only other person besides Shae who had seen her mother in action and still could look her in the eye and love her. It wasn’t that pity turned love either. It was genuine.
She gave Pill her first paying job that eventually turned into a vocation. Even then, Pill spent nearly all her money as fast as she could earn it. Pill knew if she stashed her money in the house her mother would eventually find it. Then it was as good as spent anyhow.
“All right, Ms. Wilamae, you’re done. C’mon, Ms. Ollie,” Pill said, trying not to dwell in sentimentality. She unsnapped the cape from around Ms. Wilamae’s shoulders and brushed off her collar with her free hand.
“Ms. Mabel is my heart. She’s the reason I am a beautician today. Tell her I’ll be by to see her real soon. I haven’t forgotten her.” I could never forget the one bright spot in my past, Pill thought.
Chapter 17
What should have been a forty-five-minute trek to the mall ended up being a three-hour fight with temptation for Pill. At five o’clock, she freed up the rest of her afternoon by rescheduling one client and deferring another to Candy. She knew the mall layout like the back of her hand. She told herself that she would enter through the food court not the department stores and hit the lingerie shop on the first floor. The plan was etched in her mind: return home with one purchase and almost the entire weekend’s worth of wages. One purchase. She wanted to be both physically and fiscally irresistible to Corey.
Her own seduction began when she left the lingerie store for the lingerie department in Macy’s for something less pink and Barbie-like. Macy’s had its own esplanade with studio lights highlighting huge posters of celebrity product brands, such as Jessica Simpson’s jewelry, fragrances by Beyoncé and Usher, and everything else by Michael Kors, just in time for the start of the Christmas season. It was like the glitz and lights up and down Broadway.
Pill stopped short of the store’s entrance. Inside the display window were mannequins frolicking in confetti snow in bright white jersey tunics with shimmery silver track paneling down the sleeves over a pair of simple leggings. The backdrop bore the title “Iced Out.” A sepia-colored and ridiculously tall mannequin with ski goggles atop her model-molded hair had Pill reflecting on how the color white would look great against her darker complexion. She had to have it.
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