Nancy Thompson - Beauty Shop Tales

“Things change,” I say.

I glance at her left hand and see she’s still wearing a ring. “How’s Tommy?”

“Doing good. Still over at the hardware store. He’s the manager now.”

Dani and Tommy quit high school in the beginning of our senior year after Dani got pregnant. They got married—she had the baby, he took a job at the hardware store.

“Tommy’s workin’ late tonight. That’s the reason he’s not here. Had to go on a delivery over to Cocoa. But Renie’s here.”

Renie?

She motions to a beautiful, willowy blond teenager sitting on the floor on the opposite side of the room. All bad posture and awkward, skinny limbs, she looks like the teenage version of Dani I remember, only blonder. She’s listening to an MP3 player with an expression that suggests this party is the last place she wants to be.

When Dani motions her over, she rolls her eyes and drags herself to her feet, looking downright disgusted by the imposition.

The girl presents herself, but doesn’t look up from the iPod she’s holding in her right hand.

“Renie, this is Avril,” Dani says in her quiet voice. “The party’s for her.”

I wonder if the girl can hear her mother because the ear-buds are still planted firmly in her ears. Dani reaches up and touches her daughter’s cheek.

Renie flinches and shoots the look of death at her mother.

“Renie? Remember I was telling you about the girl I used to go to school with who worked in the movies?”

The girl looks me square in the eyes and pulls a so what face. “No.”

Dani flushes the shade of the Naugahyde.

“Sweetie, why don’t you just go on home if you’re gonna act like that? I don’t want you ruining Avril’s party.”

Renie turns and walks toward the door.

“You go straight home now,” Dani calls after her. “Your daddy should be home soon and I’m going to ask him if you were there when he got home.”

Renie doesn’t turn around.

Lonnie Sue puts a hand on my arm. “Avril, hon, so you’re going to start on Monday?”

I’m glad for the diversion so I won’t have to gloss over the awkward Renie moment with Dani.

“I haven’t really talked specifics with Mama, but sure, I can start Monday if that’s what works.”

Gilda stands up stiffly and shoots me a lightning-quick look that suggests she caught the exchange with Renie. Her eyes dart away just as fast, focusing on her paper plate as she folds it in half around the chicken bones like a big white grease-stained taco.

“Actually you’re right between the two of us,” she says. “So we can both keep an eye on you.”

She winks at me. “Well, I don’t have a cranky thyroid. So I’m definitely goin’ to claim me a piece of Maybell’s cake before it’s all gone.”

As she ambles off, Mama corrals Lonnie Sue and Dani into a discussion about the overbooked schedule on the Saturday of the Founder’s Day celebration—which appointments they want to keep and which they want to shift over to me.

I’d wondered how my coming on board would work. The way Mama’s been billing me as the “beauty operator to the stars” and urging people to come in and book an appointment with me, I didn’t want to step on anyone’s toes by poaching their clients. Hairdressers can get a little territorial and the last thing I want to do is get off on the wrong foot.

I’m glad Mama broached the subject and decided to let them figure it out. I get up and circulate, thanking people for coming, talking to others about who married whom, who’s divorced and who died—seventeen years worth of gossip to catch up on in one night. Most of it I already know because a leaf couldn’t drop from a tree without Mama calling to tell me.

It’s wonderful to see everyone, but it’s also a little overwhelming. By the end of the party, my head is buzzing. I’m relieved when the last person bids us goodbye, leaving Mama, the girls and me to clean up.

I start gathering used paper plates into a pile.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Lonnie Sue stands in front of me with her hands on her hips. “You will not tidy up after your own party. Right, Tess? I’m sure she’s exhausted so tell her to get her skinny self upstairs and stretch out on the bed and let us get this place back in order.”

All four of them make noises about me leaving them to do the cleanup as they bustle around tidying up in a routine that almost seems choreographed.

“I am tired,” I admit. “But I don’t think I can sleep just yet. I’d like to take a walk and get a breath of fresh air.”

“Oh, honey, it’s dark outside,” Mama says. “Dani, you go with her. I mean, I’m sure it’s safe, but, well…you know how it is.” She flutters her long fingers and bends down to retrieve a plastic fork from under one of the chairs.

I’m just opening my mouth to protest, because I really am looking forward to the solitude. What I had in mind was breathing in the fresh night air as I walked down Main Street, reacquainting myself slowly without having to make conversation. But Dani’s already got her purse on her arm.

“I’d love to take a walk with you, Avril.”

We’re mostly silent as we walk the short block up Broad Street toward Main Street.

We turn onto the deserted main drag, pausing in front of the salon’s big plateglass windows to watch the three women make quick work of putting the place back in order. They wave at us. We wave back and start walking again.

The street is lit by old-fashioned wrought-iron gas lamps that illuminate the storefronts, allowing just enough light to see inside. We stop again, this time in front of Paula’s Bakery.

“Are you going to take back Mulligan?”

It takes a moment to realize she’s asking if I’ll take back my maiden name. I want to say “I’m a widow, not a divorcée,” but instead, I shake my head.

“I want to keep Chet’s name. At least it makes me feel like I still have a part of him.”

A balmy breeze blows in and I breathe in deeply, savoring the briny ocean scent. I want to ask her about the bruise, but I don’t know how.

Instead, we start walking again.

As we turn the corner to complete our circle around the block, the glow of the gas lamps on Main Street doesn’t illuminate the small community parking lot that’s adjacent to the hardware store. It’s dark and a little eerie hearing the crash of the waves off in the distance.

“Oh, good, Tommy’s back.” Dani gestures to the shadowy far corner of the lot, and I can just make out the outline of a big, dark pickup. “Renie and I walked to the party since Tommy took the truck. I’ll just ride home with him. But, of course, we’ll both see you back down the block.”

It makes me a bit uneasy thinking that Tommy might have given her that bruise, but it seems worse for her to walk in the dark alone. Of course, one of us could have driven her…

“Let’s go around to the back door,” she says. “He’s probably in the office doing paper work.”

She raises her hand to knock, but the door opens and Tommy stumbles out. His long black hair is mussed. His blue button-down shirt is completely open, showing a pelt of dark chest hair that narrows as it disappears beneath the top of his unfastened jeans. Holding a beer bottle in his left hand, he has his right arm draped around the shoulder of a buxom brunette.

Real life never turns out like the movies.

In real life, Superman doesn’t swoop down and catch the jumper before she hits the pavement; the governor doesn’t call at the last second to grant a stay of execution; and when the husband is discovered rumpled and mussed with a sexy bimbo half his age, you just better accept the fact that the screwing going on in the hardware store had nothing to do with hardware.