Mrs. Young, rightly, looked horrified.
“That’s it,” Joyce stated. “She strolls in here and does any of that, it’s gonna be me goin’ to your momma’s house and dragging her out to take her to one of Pastor Keller’s revivals. He’ll dip her in the river and hold her down until she sees Jesus. And if she doesn’t, he’ll hold her down until she sees Jesus.”
I helped Mrs. Swanson to sit up with my gaze on Lou, both of us visibly trying not to bust a gut laughing.
“I know we’re talkin’ about your momma now, Greta, but just to ask, are people cancelling because of Hope?” Shari queried worriedly from where she’d sat herself in one of the dryer chairs with its bonnet turned up.
“Hope cancelled her and the girls’ appointments with Lou. And Julie Baker cancelled her appointment with me next week,” I answered, walking Mrs. Swanson to my chair. “But other than that . . .” I shook my head.
“Well, that’s good,” Shari mumbled.
“Julie Baker would tear her own fingernails out by the roots before she’d miss a chance to do something mean,” Joyce shared. “But she’ll haul her behind to Styles and Smiles all of once before she puts her tail between her legs and comes back to you girls.”
“Yup, I’m not bothered,” Lou declared nonchalantly, running her fingers through Joyce’s painfully short hair to distribute the product that only Lou put in to make it look cute since Joyce was a wash-and-go type of woman. “I lay witness to no less than five terror attacks on hair that came to me from Styles and Smiles. Francine never mastered the art of foils to the point it’s nearly criminal she keeps on trying.”
This was true.
I’d had two women come to me after their hair had come off with the foils put in at Styles and Smiles.
This made me think I never should have worried about Lou and her House of Beauty. Some women budgeted not only for the style, but for the gas that would take them across the county to see Lou or me. They’d take a floozy sleeping with their sheriff and having a foul-mouthed momma working there in order to get good hair, no sweat.
And I’d met Francine. She was a nice lady. But unless you wanted a straight-up dye, bleach, set or cut from the era of Shirley Jones to Dorothy Hamill to her most contemporary look, the Rachel from Friends circa the first season, your best bet was to go to Lou’s House of Beauty or the Cutting Edge, which was miles away in Morsprings.
We weren’t only the only shop in town. We were one of the only choices in the county.
While Lou whisked off Joyce’s drape, Mrs. Young’s dryer binged and she pulled up the bonnet, doing this talking.
“Hix’ll bring his girls back to you, Lou. Hope might not be levelheaded enough to understand her girls’ll lose their minds, they go somewhere and get bad hair. But Hix adores his daughters and he might be a man, but he’s also the father of two girls, so he’ll understand it. Not to mention, he won’t be too fond of wastin’ the gas money to get them to Yucca to see Francine.”
“I hope so,” Lou replied, taking cash from Joyce for her cut and style. “They’re good girls and they’ve got great hair. I’ll miss having my hands in that.”
“And anyway,” Shari put in, “he won’t dis the salon where his girlfriend works.”
I felt a heavy weight hit my chest as my eyes shifted from combing out Mrs. Swanson’s hair to Shari.
I felt Lou’s attention on me and I had a feeling she was about to say something.
But I beat her to it.
“I’m not his girlfriend, Shari.”
“But I heard—” she began.
“We met and we . . .” I slid my glance to Lou then back to Shari. “It’s too soon for him. He’s a nice guy and I’m glad I met him, but it was a one-time thing.”
“Has he lost his marbles like his ex?” Joyce asked incredulously and my attention shifted to her.
“It’s too soon for him.”
“Too soon, shmoo-soon,” Joyce snapped at me. “Hixon Drake never struck me as stupid. In fact, the opposite. And everybody knows, good drops itself in your lap you don’t shove it off and say, ‘Now’s not the right time. I’m dealin’ with the fact my addled wife didn’t see the good thing resting his head on the pillow beside hers.’ No. You snatch up that good and hold it close and process all that dealin’ while life reminds you, you survive the bad, good always comes slidin’ back in right after it.”
“That’s a nice thing to say, Joyce,” I told her quietly.
“I’m not bein’ nice,” she retorted. “What do the kids call it today?” She didn’t pause for an answer. While hefting her tall, strong, sturdy, farmer’s wife body out of Lou’s chair, she declared, “I’m bein’ real.”
That was when I looked right at Lou.
Lou didn’t need me to look at her.
She was already ordering, “Okay, let’s stop talking about this.”
Joyce walked up to Mrs. Swanson and me at my chair.
“Have a mind to stroll right into the Sheriff’s Department and share some of it with Hix,” she informed me.
Mrs. Swanson made a frightened peep, likely because Joyce wasn’t only a wash-and-go type of woman. She was no-nonsense, ballsy and known not to care if you had a problem with her speaking her mind, in which she had a lot of opinions she felt the need to let out.
I whispered, “Please don’t do that.”
“I won’t, girl,” Joyce stated. “Have a mind to do it but I like you too much to meddle. He’s got his head planted in his keister like his ex-wife, he has to sort himself out. And if he misses out on a good thing doin’ it, that’s his problem.” She leaned into me. “But just to say, don’t you worry about Hope. Known her since she was a little thing. She can get up to some antics, but the minute she realizes it’s makin’ her look bad, she’ll back down. Everybody in this town knows that, and most everybody in this town knows you, so you won’t have any problems. Not a good girl like you. Just ride it out, Greta. It’ll be over before you know it.”
“Thanks, Joyce,” I replied on a smile.
“Whatever,” she muttered and turned to Lou. “Six weeks, Lou.”
“You’re in my schedule, Joyce,” Lou returned.
On that, Joyce walked out.
“I hope he changes his mind about it being too soon,” Shari said, and I looked from rolling a thin rod in Mrs. Swanson’s hair to her. “Even my Rich says something’s wrong in the cosmos, you don’t have a man. I always told him I wasn’t sure there was a man that was man enough to be good enough for you.”
At that, my chest warmed.
“Wow, Shari, that’s so sweet,” I told her.
“Maybe, it’s also true,” she replied. “I heard about you and Hix, I thought, there it was. I shoulda thought of that the minute I heard Hope’d kicked him out.”
That didn’t make my chest warm.
It made it feel heavy again.