And then there was that horrible episode when those awful rumors had spread through town about Nick taking advantage of Delaney. Ten years later, Benita still didn’t know what had taken place that night. She knew Nick was no saint when it came to women, but she was sure he hadn’t taken anything Delaney hadn’t been more than willing to give him. Then like a coward, she’d fled and escaped the stinging gossip, while Nick had stayed behind and braved the worst of it. And the rumor about Nick taking advantage of that girl hadn’t been the worst of it.
She looked at him now-her tall, handsome boy. Both her sons had succeeded on their own. No one had handed them anything, and she was extremely proud of them. But Nick… Nick would always need her to watch out for him, even though he didn’t think he needed her at all.
Now all she really wanted for Nick was for him to settle down with a nice Catholic girl, marry in the church, and be happy. She didn’t think it was too much for a mother to ask. If he married, the loose women would quit chasing him-especially Delaney Shaw. “You probably wouldn’t tell your mother if something did happen with that girl anyway,” she said. “What am I to believe?”
Nick raised his mug and took a drink. “I’ll tell you what. If something did happen, it won’t happen again.”
“Promise me.”
He gave her an easy smile meant to appease her. “Of course, Ama.”
Benita wasn’t appeased. Now that girl was back and the rumors were starting again.
Chapter Eleven
Delaney took her telephone off the hook. She kept it off the hook until she left her apartment for work the next morning. She hoped that somehow the impossible had happened and Mrs. Vaughn hadn’t been able to see into the shop. Maybe she’d been lucky.
But when she unlocked the front door of her salon, Wannetta Van Damme was waiting and within seconds it became apparent Delaney’s luck had run out months ago. “Is this where it happened?” Wannetta asked as she hobbled in. The sound of her silver walker, chink-thump, chink-thump, filled the inside of the salon.
Delaney was a little afraid to ask the obvious, but she was too curious not to know. “What happened?” she asked and took the older woman’s coat. She hung it on a tree in the small reception area.
Wannetta pointed to the counter. “Is that where Laverne saw you and that Allegrezza boy… you know?”
A lump formed in Delaney’s throat. “What?”
“Hanky-panky,” whispered the older woman.
The lump fell to her stomach as she felt her brows rise to her hairline. “Hanky-panky?”
“Whoopie.”
“Whoopie?” Delaney pointed to the counter. “Right here?”
“That’s what Laverne told everyone last night at the bingo game over there at that church on Seventh, Jesus the Divine Savior.”
Delaney walked to a salon chair and sank into it. Her face grew hot and her ears began to ring. She’d known there would be gossip, but she’d had no idea how bad. “Bingo? Jesus the Divine Savior?” Her voice raised and got squeaky. “Oh, my God!” She should have known. Anything involving Nick had always been bad and she wished she could blame him completely. But she couldn’t. He hadn’t unbuttoned his own shirt. She’d done that.
Wannetta moved toward her, chink-thump, chink-thump. “Is it true?”
“No!”
“Oh.” Wannetta looked as disappointed as she sounded. “That youngest Basque boy is a looker. Even though he has a nasty reputation, I might find him hard to resist myself.”
Delaney put a palm to her forehead and took a deep breath. “He’s evil. Evil. Evil. Evil. You stay away from him, Wannetta, or you just might wake up and find yourself the subject of horrible rumors.” Her mother was going to kill her.
“Most mornings I’m just glad to wake up. And at my age, I don’t think I’d find those rumors too horrible,” she said as she moved toward the back of the salon. “Can you squeeze me in today?”
“What? You want your hair done?”
“Of course. I didn’t go to all the trouble of getting myself down here just to talk.”
Delaney rose and followed Mrs. Van Damme to the shampoo sink. She helped her into the chair then set her walker aside. “How many people were at the bingo game?” she asked fearing the answer.
“Oh, maybe sixty or so.”
Sixty. Then those sixty would tell sixty more and it would spread like a brushfire. “Maybe I should just kill myself,” she muttered. Death might be preferable to her mother’s reaction.
“Are you going to use that shampoo that smells so nice?”
“Yes.” Delaney draped Wannetta, then lowered her back toward the sink. She turned on the water and tested it on her wrist. She’d spent the previous day and night hiding in her apartment like a mole. She’d felt emotionally battered and bruised by what had happened with Nick. And so extremely embarrassed by her own abandon.
She wet Wannetta’s hair and cleaned it with Paul Mitchell. When she was finished with the conditioning, she helped her walk to the styling chair. “Same thing?” she asked.
“Yep. I stick to what works.”
“I remember.” As Delaney combed out the tangles, Nick’s parting words still echoed in her head. They’d been echoing in her head since he’d said them. To see if I could. He’d kissed her and touched her breasts, just to see if he could. He’d made her breasts tingle and her thighs burn just to see if he could. And she’d let him. Just like she’d let him ten years ago.
What was it about her? What personality defect did she possess that allowed Nick to slide past her defenses? During the long hours she’d spent contemplating that question, she’d come up with only one explanation other than loneliness. Her biological clock was ticking. It had to be. She couldn’t hear it ticking, but she was twenty-nine, not married, with no prospects in the immediate future. Maybe her body was a hormonal time bomb and she didn’t even know it.
“Leroy liked when I wore silky drawers,” Wannetta said, interrupting Delaney’s silent contemplations about ticking hormones. “He hated the cotton kind.”
Delaney snapped on a pair of latex gloves. She didn’t want to envision Wannetta in silky underwear.
“You should buy you some silky drawers.”
“You mean the kind that come up past your navel?” The kind that look like car seatcovers?
“Yep.”
“Why?”
“Cause men like ‘em. Men like women to wear pretty things. If you get yourself some silky drawers, you can get yourself a husband.”
“No, thank you,” she said as she reached for the waving solution and snipped the top off. Even if she were interested in finding a husband in Truly, which was of course ludicrous, she was only going to be in town until June. “I don’t want a husband.” She thought of Nick and all the problems he’d caused since she’d been back. “And to tell you the truth,” she added, “I don’t think men are worth all the problems they cause. They are highly overrated.”
Wannetta grew silent as Delaney poured the solution on one side of her head, and just when Delaney began to worry that her client had fallen asleep with her eyes open, or worse, passed on, Wannetta opened her mouth and asked in a hushed voice, “Are you one of those lipstick lesbians? You can tell me. I won’t tell a soul.”
And the moon is made of green cheese, Delaney thought. If only she were a lesbian, she wouldn’t have found herself kissing Nick and her hands tearing at his shirt. She wouldn’t have found herself fascinated by his hairy chest. She met Wannetta’s gaze in the mirror and thought about telling her yes. A rumor like that might neutralize the rumor about herself and Nick. But her mother would freak even more. “No,” she finally sighed. “But it would probably make my life easier.”