Wonderful.
“I can’t tow it today, I’l have the wrecker here tomorrow some time.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
I cal ed JoJo to arrange a ride while I watched the mechanic drive away. Then, I dragged my behind up to the apartment, looking forward to sleeping for a ful three hours before having to go into Smithie’s.
When I opened the door to the apartment Mom shouted,
“Oh good! You’re early.”
I walked into the living room, Trixie was there and it looked like a Beauty Salon Bomb had exploded.
“Hooray! I’l have more time to work,” Trixie said.
I absolutely loved Trixie. She’d had dyed red hair for as long as I could remember. She wore it teased out big. It looked good on her. She was petite, had happy, brown eyes and the most beautiful hands I’d ever seen on anyone.
She had what I thought of as an artist’s hands.
“Trixie, what are you doing here?” I asked as I gave her a hug. Trixie usual y came to visit Mom on a Monday.
“Surprise! You’re getting a manicure, pedicure, facial and highlights.”
I did a mental groan.
“Trixie…”
“Nope. No arguments this time. Your Mom says you’re worn out; so today, it’s al about you. It’s Jet’s Day of Beauty.”
I needed a manicure and highlights like I needed a hole in the head. Both required maintenance and maintenance required time and money and I had neither of those.
Trixie was dashing around the room, getting prepared and Mom was smiling her glamorous lopsided smile. They thought they were doing me a favor. They thought this was a good thing.
Damn. How did you say no to that?
Trixie put one of our dining room chairs in the living room, I sat in it and she swooped a drape around me.
“Oscar came in today,” I said to Mom.
“Real y? How is Oscar?” Mom replied, feigning innocent surprise.
“I don’t know, since most of the time he was there he was yel ing at Eddie in Spanish and the rest of the time he was yel ing at him in English and any leftover time he was yel ing at me.”
“Oh dear,” Trixie said.
“That didn’t go as planned,” Mom said to Trixie.
My mother.
If I didn’t love her, I’d kil her.
Trixie started mixing some gunk in a little bowl with a wide flat paintbrush and shrugged at Mom.
“Everything’s okay with Eddie so you can stop meddling,” I told them.
“I better cal Javier,” Mom said quietly.
See what I mean?
“How okay are things with Eddie?” Trixie asked, giving me a wide-eyed, nosy stare.
I looked to the ceiling and asked for deliverance.
God clearly had better things to do that day.
I guided them off the subject of Eddie. I fel asleep during the pedicure with a head ful of foil wrap and had to be woken up to get my hair rinsed in the kitchen sink.
“Voila!” Trixie said, handing me a mirror when she was done.
I stared at myself in disbelief.
Okay, I had to admit, it looked good. No, real y, it looked great. She’d cut off a couple of inches so my hair just brushed past my shoulders, gave me a deep thick bang that was parted wel to the side and looked almost sexy. It did actual y brighten me up. In fact, my eyes looked more green than hazel and my skin looked kind of glowy.
“It’s great,” I said.
“It is! It’s you! It’s perfect! You’re a whole new Jet,” Trixie announced.
I wished I was a whole new Jet with a whole new life but I’d take the new ‘do because I wasn’t going to get the other, that was for sure.
Trixie did my makeup for Smithie’s, which also looked better than I could ever do, and I was a dab hand at makeup. I celebrated my new look by wearing my sexiest slut shoes with my Smithie’s uniform. They were black patent leather, closed, pointed toe with double, thick straps with a dual buckle at the ankle. Smithie cal ed them my dominatrix shoes and he wasn’t wrong.
JoJo and I were only five minutes late when we swung through the door. Smithie was at his usual place behind the bar. He turned when we entered, opened his mouth to say something smart and his mouth just stayed open when he saw me.
I put my purse and cardigan on the bar.
“Please tel me you did that to your hair ‘cause you’re gonna dance a pole.”
“I’m not dancing a pole,” I told him.
He handed me my apron and, as usual, I slid my cel into the pocket. I always did this; I was never without my cel , just in case Mom needed to cal .
Smithie kept talking. “So, then, it was to throw me off the fact that you didn’t cal me to tel me some dickhead held a knife to you last night.”
Damn.
Lenny had given me up.
“It was nothing.”
“It didn’t sound like nothin’, it sounded like fuckin’
somethin’. You’re escorted to and from the building from now on.”
I opened my mouth to argue but he lifted his hand.
Everyone knew you shut up when Smithie lifted his hand.
“Okay,” I said.
“I take it since you sashayed in with JoJo that your car stil ain’t workin’,” he said.