Bristles snagged in my hair. I blinked back tears.
“Sorry,” Tammy said, untangling the mess. “Anyway, Sandra definitely wins the Most Successful award. She ended up on the campaign team for some guy running for mayor in one of the big suburbs. He gave her credit for his win, and she pretty much wrote her own ticket after that. You can’t beat a six-figure income at the age of thirty-three.”
Tammy put the brush in a drawer and slid it shut with a bang. “I’m lucky if people remember to leave me a tip.”
I frowned in sympathy. I couldn’t blame Tammy for feeling disappointed at the follies of life. My own forgotten dreams were enough to make me resent everyone I’d gone to school with. I hadn’t kept in touch with any of them, but somehow I was sure their lives were going along without a hitch, while mine had bottomed out long ago.
A comb scraped against my scalp and scissors crunched through my hair. I tried not to cry as four inches of split ends dropped to the floor.
Tammy yanked up another section. “Then a few years ago, Sandra hooked up with a guy even more driven than she was. They fell in love, if you can call it that. Anyway, their careers ended up on a collision course, and before you know it, she broke off the engagement. Not long afterward, Sandra left town, never to return.”
I wondered if it was completely rude to ask more specifics. I decided I had a right to know. Sandra’s messy life had spilled over into my own.
“Who was this guy and what happened?” I asked.
“I probably shouldn’t be telling you this. It comes dangerously close to being gossip.” She lifted another section of hair. The scissors hovered, then I heard the snip. “But I better mention it so you don’t find yourself on the wrong side of Sandra’s ex-fiancé.”
“Would I know this person?” I asked.
“You would if you’ve tried to get anything through at the village.” She cut off a chunk of fluff. “Martin Dietz.”
My fist hit my forehead. At the sudden move, Tammy jerked her scissors clear.
“Martin Dietz, huh?” That explained why the man was so barbaric at our first run-in. If this Sandra had jilted him, my face could only bring back the most painful of memories.
But was that reason enough to deny me a permit to knock down the cistern? It seemed he was letting personal grumps get in the way of his job.
“I take it you already ran into him,” Tammy said.
“This past week. No wonder my contractor yelled at me for going over to the village offices.”
“I hope you don’t get the wrong impression. Like I said, it’s just because you look so much like Sandra. Martin’s really not that bad. He’s just getting over a broken heart. I think he’s taking positive steps toward improving his attitude. For one thing, he’s been a big financial backer of our church’s youth group over the past year.”
I almost guffawed at the thought of Mr. Dietz being charitable. More likely, he was trying to buy his way to heaven.
Tammy turned my chin back toward the mirror. “Almost done.”
I hardly recognized the woman staring back at me. I had a neck. And eyebrows.
I tucked one sleek strand behind an ear. I had a face again, and it was pleasant. Pretty, actually. I could even see the green of my eyes now that all the perm and highlights from last year’s visit to the salon were cut out and my hair was back to its original chestnut color. The glaring grays I’d obsessed over this morning had disappeared with the fresh look.
“Wow. It’s great.” I smiled at Tammy in the mirror.
I wondered if she could perform the same miracle with my insides. Snip off a little guilt here, a tortured conscience there, and voilà, I’d be as good as new.
Yet somehow I knew it would take more than a trim to cure my problem.
11
Tammy dried my hair, then suggested a manicure as a finishing touch. I looked down at my jagged nails. The last remaining runt had peeled off this morning when it snagged my paint-splattered sweatshirt.
I pictured myself across the table from David at the Rawlings Hotel, lifting my glass in toast to a possible future together.
I slumped at the vision.
The only lipstick I owned had to be at least three years old; I’d never had my nails done professionally; and I couldn’t remember the last time I’d bought a new outfit. Goodwill clothing had always served my renovator lifestyle just fine.
Before my thoughts degenerated into an all-out pity party, I reminded myself that David had asked me out before I cut my hair or bought new clothes. He appreciated me for qualities beyond my outer appearance. What those qualities were, I couldn’t yet fathom, but I hoped to discover that on Friday.
Still, stick-on nails with a glossy coat of polish could only enhance my inner attributes.
“A manicure sounds good,” I said.
Tammy led me to an oblong mahogany table near the window. A display rack filled with nail colors took up one end. I sat in a floral-patterned chair and lay a hand on the vinyl pad opposite me. Tammy picked up a file and went to work. White dust gathered on the black surface beneath my fingers.
I peeked at Tammy’s own perfectly manicured hands and wondered how she’d managed to dodge a wedding ring through the years.
“It sounds like you were pretty involved in high school. Do you still stay busy?” I asked, interrupting the steady ssht ssht of the file.
“Absolutely. I spend most of my time with the teens from church. You wouldn’t believe how many hurting families there are in this town. And most of them live in the pretty houses.”
I nodded. I hadn’t lived in one of the pretty houses, as Tammy put it, but I’d endured the lingering pain of my mother’s suicide. I’d probably never forgive Mom for leaving me to be raised by my grandmother.
“Your mother would be spinning in her grave if she knew you were hanging out with that girl,” Grandma would scold. “And look how you’re dressed. Nice girls don’t wear clothes like that.”
It seemed Grandma never approved of anything I liked—my friends, my music, or even the books I read. I finally figured out that life was simpler if I did things Gram’s way.
College had been my first taste of freedom. Unfortunately, it hadn’t lasted long. I remember the sound of Christmas music playing on my roommate’s stereo and the smell of homemade gingerbread cookies from a care package as I answered the phone in my dorm that day more than ten years ago. Nat King Cole’s rendition of “The Christmas Song” became a surreal requiem in light of that brief conversation.
“I’ve got some bad news, sweetie.” Grandma’s voice was filled with false bravado as she told me she was given only a few months to live. “Come on home and we’ll talk about it.”
“Which color do you prefer?”
My head snapped up at Tammy’s question, and I realized I’d been staring vacantly as she’d applied my nail tips. I looked at the myriad of opaque, gloss, and pearlescent polishes on the rack beside me.
Choices.
I excelled in a one-color scheme in all my renovation projects: off-white. When dealing with discerning homebuyers, walls the color of cream cheese frosting were the safest, least offensive choice.
But that seemed far too tame a shade for a Friday night at the Rawlings Hotel.
Tammy leaned her elbows on the vinyl pad. “What will you be wearing? That’s the easiest way to decide.”
What will I be wearing? I chewed my lip. Jeans and a tee would never do.
“What should I wear?” I asked. After all, she was the professional.
She cocked her head and poked her lips to one side. “Hmmm. How about something blue? That will show off your hair and eyes.”
The suggestion brought to mind an exterior paint chip card I’d been contemplating for accent colors at the Victorian. The shade was a rich, medium blue, like the sky over Lake Michigan on a summer morning.