LITMIR.BIZ

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      As the knot of people breaks apart, Lonnie Sue eyes Mama’s plate and then bites into a celery stick. “Chocolate cake. Ha. With this thyroid of mine if I even look at cake, I’ll pack on five pounds.” She pats her belly. “I already have years of Maybell’s cakes to contend with.”

      Mama smiles, then closes her eyes as she savors her first bite of deviled egg.

      “Mmmm…what more could a girl want?” She reaches over and pats my leg. “Good food and my darlin’ girl. I got everything I need right here.”

      I glance around the beauty shop, letting its familiarity seep into my bones like a balm. Everything is neat and in its functional place. Mama hasn’t redecorated since she opened the place back in seventy-six. But it’s clean and painted. Nothing looks too worn or in disrepair.

      Someone has yanked down the white sheets I saw hanging when we drove by. As it turns out, they weren’t drapes after all, only a temporary prop to curtain off what was brewing inside, so Mama could drive me down Main Street without ruining the surprise. True to form, Tess Mulligan doesn’t miss a thing.

      “I really never thought I’d see you back here.” Dani wrinkles her tanned, freckled nose and looks down at her hands. “I mean, I’m glad you’re back, but, well, you know…I guess if I ever got out of here and made it to California I wouldn’t want to come back.”

      I shrug and so does she, nervously flipping her long, straight golden-brown hair over her right shoulder. With that too-long fringe of bangs sweeping across her tanned forehead, she still looks like the natural, pretty beach girl she was when we were in high school. Only a little spent and worn around the edges…

      I try to look in her blue eyes rather than at the ring of bruise, but it’s hard to keep my gaze from wandering. Mama never says much about Dani. We weren’t very close in school. But I’m surprised she never mentioned Dani coming in with a shiner. I make a mental note to ask her about it. Not simply to gossip, but to see if she needs help.

      “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

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