Fresh Ice (6 page)

Kim glared at the muffins. “I’ll grab one later. I’ve got a client coming in any minute.”

Abigail turned to Destiny next.
“Destiny?”

Destiny took a step back as if the muffins were infectious. “Ah, I’m on a diet
, Abs, you know that.”

“
I know
, silly. That’s why I made healthy bran and date muffins! They are totally low fat and totally nutritious!”

“Oh,
” Destiny’s face scrunched up in a forced smile. “How thoughtful of you.”

“
Well, I’m putting them in the back room, okay? Everyone has to take at
least
one. The hubby and I can’t eat
all
of these.” Abigail flounced down the hall and disappeared into the break room.

Kim heaved a sigh of relief and went back to setting up her station.

Destiny rolled her eyes and leaned in close to Sarah. “That was a close one. Thanks to Abigail’s baking, I have to constantly pretend I’m on a diet.”

“Is it really that bad?”
Sarah asked. At least they had
looked
tasty in their cute little pink paper baking cups.

“Her poor
husband
won’t even eat her baking so she pawns it off onto us. You’ll understand when you take your first bite.”

“O
kay.”

Destiny preened in the mirror and fluffed her hair.
“So, what’s it like being in a new town? God, I’ve lived in R.V. all my life so I wouldn’t know. It’s not
too
bad here though. There’s plenty of shopping and other stuff to do so that’s good.” She paused just long enough to suck in a breath and continued talking. “Don’t tell anyone, but I already like you ten times better than Drea.”

Sarah didn’t know quite how to respond to that, but luckily she didn’t have to because Destiny was already talking again.

“Drea was the girl who worked here before you. She was
sooo
hormonal,” Destiny groaned. “And that was
before
she got knocked up. Sheesh, you never knew which personality you were going to be working with from one day to the next.”

“What happened to her?”
Sarah asked.

“Oh, nothing
morbid
or anything,” Destiny assured her. “She ran off to Reno to live with her boyfriend. He got some job at some prison or something. I guess he’s making a lot of money now but you’d
have
to dealing with all those creepy inmates.” She shuddered and changed the subject with a shrug of her shoulders. So, Miri trained you?”

At the sound of Miri’s name, a wave of emotion took Sarah by surprise. “Yes
she did.”

“
Miri’s great, isn’t she? She used to work here a long time ago and then moved her school down south after a bad breakup. At least that’s what I
heard
anyway. Her and Peach are still, like, best friends.”

“
Miri is amazing. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t be here.” If it weren’t for Miri, Sarah would be face down on the floor with Dwight’s boot heel grinding into her spine.

Peach r
ushed back onto the floor and skidded up to Sarah. “Sarah!” She exclaimed and clapped her hands together with delight. “I’ve got someone
very
special coming in for an appointment with you. You can call it a test run if you want, but I’d like to see exactly where your skill level is at. Miri assures me you graduated with flying colors--pun intended!--but I’d like to see so for myself.”

“Sure.
Of course.” Sarah couldn’t expect Peach to hire her without ever seeing first hand if she could do hair or not.

“
You know, I’ve never hired anyone without even meeting them first. But I trust Miri’s judgment and she spoke so highly of you that I knew I couldn’t go wrong.”

“Thanks for taking a chance on me
, Peach.”

“
Oh, we’re glad to have you, sugar. Maeve will be here any minute, so go ahead and start setting up your station.”

After Peach left, Destiny leaned over and whispered to Sarah. “Maeve is super nice but she’s
very
particular about her hair. Just do exactly what she says and you’ll be fine. I’ll be right here if you need me.”

“Thanks.” Sarah said and sat her backpack down.
She pulled open the bottom drawer of her station and stowed her purse inside. Then she plugged in her blow dryer and flat iron and laid out her combs and brushes. When everything was in its place, she looked up at her reflection in the big mirror and thought about everything she’d endured in order to get here.

Oh, here came the butterflies again.
Big ones with quick, powerful wings. Luckily, she hadn’t eaten breakfast so they didn’t have anything to bump into.

Before
Sarah had a chance to dwell on her nerves, Peach came back with a middle-aged woman in tow. “Sarah, I’d like you to meet my sister, Maeve.”

Maeve was a
taller version of Peach with lighter, strawberry blonde hair and the same plump figure.

Sarah
smiled and shook Maeve’s hand. “Hello, Maeve. It’s so nice to meet you.”

Wow. Peach’s sister, huh? No pressure whatsoever.

“Maeve, this is Sarah,” Peach introduced. “She’ll be taking care of you today.”

Maeve cast Sarah a skeptical look and
plunked down into the chair. “Hello, Sarah.”

“You’re in good hands, Sis
,” Peach said with confidence. “Sarah comes highly recommended by Miri.”

Maeve’s features relaxed a little.
“That’s a relief. Miriam is good people. It just better not be like the last time I played guinea pig. That horrible woman gave me a mullet and I cried for weeks.”

“Oh, no, we wouldn’t do that to you,” Sarah reassured her.

“Good,” Maeve said with a harrumph.

Maeve seemed semi-satisfied and
Peach scurried off so Sarah could continue with her consultation. “So, what do you have in mind today?” Sarah asked.

“Well, I’d like a
trim
.
Just
a trim,” Maeve specified. “And a little off the sides where it gets frizzy. And
that’s it
.”

“Okay,” Sarah said in an extra cheery voice she’d practiced for just this sort of occasion. “We can do that.
Now let’s get you shampooed.”

After a shampoo and a soothing scalp massage, Sarah led Maeve back to the chair and went to work.
She took a deep, calming breath because her hands would be worthless with scissors if they were shaky and she remembered everything Miriam had taught her. Her mentor’s voice echoed between her ears.
You can do this, Sarah. You were the best in your class. Send Maeve out of this salon looking and feeling fabulous.

S
arah sectioned Maeve’s hair and picked up her scissors. When she started cutting, her natural instincts took over until she didn’t even have to think about each snip.

They engaged in small talk but Sarah could see Maeve’s eyes never left Sarah’s hands in the mirror.

Sarah finished the cut, blew Maeve’s hair dry and ran a flat iron through to add extra smoothness.

“Okay,
you’re all finished,” Sarah announced. She spun Maeve’s chair around so she was facing the mirror again. “What do you think?”

Maeve blinked a few times then reached up to touch the ends of her newly cut hair. “Peach usually dries it so it
’s wavy with my natural curl.”

Sarah swallowed
and bit down on her tongue to keep from apologizing. “Well, I thought I’d style it straight so you could see your different options with this cut.”

Maeve turned her head from side to side and
finally a smile slowly spread across her face. “I think I like it Sarah. It’s so…different. It’s taking me a minute to get used to it, but I think I really like it.”

Sarah let out the breath she didn’t realize she was holding.

Peach hurried over to inspect the cut and her jaw dropped. “Look at you, Sissy, with your straight and sassy hair!” She patted Maeve’s shoulders and smiled at her sister’s reflection in the mirror.

Somehow Sarah had made Maeve look softer and younger and the woman positively glowed.

Peach ran a comb through Maeve’s hair and checked to make sure it was cut evenly. “It’s perfect, Sarah. I hate to admit it, but I couldn’t have done better myself.”

“I really do like it!
” Maeve exclaimed after a thorough examination in the mirror. “I’m going to have to get Frank to take me out to dinner tonight, I feel so good!”

Sarah beamed as Maeve’s praise boosted
her self-esteem through the roof.

“
Whoohoo!” Destiny hollered from the next station over. “Maeve’s going out on the town with her new hair!”

Maeve turned to
Peach. “Put me down on the calendar for six weeks from now. Sorry, Peachy, but I don’t want
anyone
touching this head but Sarah!”

Peach smiled.
“We can certainly arrange that.”

After Maeve left, Peach put her hand on Sarah’s shoulder.
“You’re a natural, Sarah. You’ve got an eye for style and a talent for cutting hair.”

“Thank you, Peach. Thank you so very much.”

Throughout the
rest of the day, Sarah kept so busy she barely had a minute to catch her breath. She learned how to book appointments on the computer and about all of the different products the salon sold. When she wasn’t taking walk-ins, she swept and kept the laundry going so they wouldn’t run out of clean towels.

She
was good at finding things that needed to be done before Peach even had to tell her about them. It was like Sarah was afraid that if she didn’t keep moving, she might wake up from this wonderful dream.

At the end of her shift, Sarah was exhausted in the very best way. She’d swept and shampooed and cut and
blow-dried and answered the phone. She’d listened and chatted and heard hours upon hours of gossip. Phew, those ladies could talk the stripes off a zebra for goodness sake!

When it was time to go home,
Sarah went to the break room to get a glass of water before she headed to the motel. Man, was she parched.

She
eyed the plate of Abigail’s muffins on the counter. The idea of eating a homemade muffin for dinner instead of instant noodles and stale crackers appealed immensely to her growling stomach. Destiny’s words of warning echoed in her head but how bad could a muffin really taste?

S
arah wrapped a muffin in a paper towel and was tucking it carefully into her purse when the break room door swung open. Sarah jumped and her hands froze around the muffin.

“My, you
’re a jumpy one, aren’t cha?” Peach said with a chuckle.

Sarah swallowed to ease her suddenly dry throat. “Sorry. Abigail said I could have a muffin.”

Peach opened a drawer and took out a plastic baggie. “Here, sugar. Take a few of ‘em.”

Sarah put her hand up
to stop her. “Oh, no, I couldn’t.”

“
You’d be doin’ me a favor,” Peach said, cramming three muffins into the bag.

Sarah did the math in her head. Three muffins plus the one in her purse gave her four to di
vvy up over the next few days. Her food situation was scarce but she had to save her money for rent. Sarah could survive on the bare minimum of food--Lord knew she had for her entire life--but she couldn’t end up homeless out on the street. “Okay,” she relented.

“
Good. This way I don’t have to hear her bitchin’ in the morning about how nobody likes her baking and nobody took a darn muffin.” Peach’s head bobbled as she spoke. She was really jamming those muffins into that bag. Apparently Abigail’s baking really
was
as bad as everyone made it out to be.

Peach handed her the bag and Sarah took it.
“Thank you so much, Peach.”

“Don’t thank me ‘till after you’ve tasted
one. Whoo-ee, some of her stuff is so bad even Bean turns his nose up at it.”

That evening in her motel room, Sarah reflected on her first day at Peach’s.

Peach was, well, as
she
would say, a
peach
to work for. Her boisterous personality and silly jokes made Sarah feel comfortable in the salon. Except for Kim, who was a little standoffish, the girls seemed nice and friendly.

Throughout the day,
had they talked about other women, TV shows, movies and men. Most of the time, Sarah had a hard time following their conversations about current TV shows because Troy had controlled the TV back in L.A. and his favorite entertainment consisted of tractor pulls and catfishing shows until he passed out from too many beers. Sarah hid her lack of input by telling the ladies she was more of a book lover than a couch potato, which was the truth.