Soaring (17 page)

They stared at me.

Then I jumped when suddenly Josie went flying out the side of the booth.

This was because Alyssa shoved her out.

Josie righted herself and whirled, eyes narrow, face full of fury, tone frosty. “What
on earth
?”

Alyssa, who didn’t hesitate in exiting the booth she’d shoved Josie out of, waved in her face.

“No time,” she muttered then looked to the long counter. “Marjorie. Three patty melts. I’ll send someone from the salon to pick them up in twenty.”

“I don’t want a patty melt,” Josie snapped.

Alyssa didn’t look at her. “Two patty melts and a Reuben.”

Josie got close to her. “I don’t want a Reuben. I want a Cobb salad.”

“Oh for ef’s sake!” Alyssa clipped. “Two patty melts and a Cobb salad.”

Through this, I got out of the booth too and added tentatively, “I actually wanted a chicken Caesar.”

Alyssa threw up her hands but asked a waitress who was apparently named Marjorie. “Got that?”

“Got it, babe,” Marjorie replied.

“And three Diet Cokes,” Alyssa kept going, doing this grabbing my hand and beginning to drag me to the door.

We were out on the sidewalk and Alyssa was tugging me down it in the direction of her salon, Maude’s House of Beauty (Alyssa was a hairdresser who owned her own place, this, plus Josie having a career in the fashion world, why I enlisted their support) when Josie demanded, “Can you explain why you’re acting like a lunatic?”

Alyssa stopped abruptly, causing me to crash into her, but she didn’t notice me.

She had eyes only for Josie.

“’Cause our girl here is beautiful,” she declared.

I drew in an audible breath.

But she was not finished.

“But she’s broken.”

I stared at her profile and held that breath.

Alyssa went on, “I don’t know why. I just know that shit is real. And every girl knows a makeover is the start of pickin’ up the pieces. And I’m all over that.”

She turned to me and it was then I noticed my vision had gone misty.

“You wanna share, you sock it to me,” she offered. “You don’t wanna give it, it’s all yours to keep. But I’m doin’ this and so is Josie. I get your hair. Josie gets your makeup. And both of us get your clothes.”

Suddenly, she lifted up a hand sharply, palm out to Josie and turned her eyes that way.

She did this still speaking.

“I know I walk on the skank side. I like it. It’s me. My baby likes it. Keeps him just like I want him to be. But I know better with our Amelia. You get the class but me havin’ my part doesn’t mean I’m bringin’ the trash. I’m bringin’ the
va-va-va-voom
’cause with this girl’s tits and ass, she can be all over
va-va-va-voom
.” She turned back to me. “’Cept you’re takin’ off too much weight. Sister, you gotta
eat
.”

And with that and not another word, she carried on charging toward Maude’s House of Beauty, hauling me with her.

I was in her chair with a robe on before I knew what was happening and Alyssa wasn’t done bossing.

She shoved a Surface in Josie’s hands and declared, “I got a one-thirty. This doesn’t leave much time but I’m gonna get her cookin’. You’re gonna be surfin’. Use the salon’s Wi-Fi. Password’s written on a piece of paper in my top drawer. Show her what you find. Show me. Email her links. Anything we wanna pick up at a store, we’re goin’ tomorrow.” She curled her hand around my shoulder. “Anything you wanna buy, babe, you get home, open those links and go crazy. Now!” she cried excitedly. “I gotta go brew up some magic. I’ll be back.”

And she was off.

I sat in my salon robe in her salon chair staring after her.

Slowly, my eyes drifted to Josie.

She was standing beside my chair, forgotten Surface held in her hands, her eyes where Alyssa used to be.

“If you have other things—” I began.

I stopped when her eyes cut to me.

“There is nothing right now more important than what you need.”

My vision again went misty.

“This is—” I started again.

“You picking up the pieces,” she finished for me. “And this is us, at your side, helping.”

I felt the tear slide down my cheek.

“I’m being selfish,” I whispered.

Her head tipped to the side, her eyes filling with confusion. “How’s that?”

“You both dropping everything so I can get a new hairstyle,” I explained and shook my head. “That’s me. Part of me at least. Selfish.”

“May I ask, if you met me and I behaved like you’ve behaved since I met you, and suddenly I phoned you, making it clear you needed me, how you would feel?”

Oh God.

“Honored that you asked me,” I said quietly.

“Indeed,” she replied firmly.

“I’ve made a mess of my life,” I shared.

“Join the club, Amelia,” she returned instantly.

I blinked and another tear escaped down my cheek.

What was she talking about?

She was
gorgeous
. She was the most fashionable woman I’d ever seen. She was
always
turned out
perfectly
. She had Jake, who was nice and sweet and almost as handsome as Mickey and he was so into her, it wasn’t even funny. Her son was adopted, but he clearly adored her beyond reason. And Jake’s other two kids loved her the same way.

She had everything.

How was her life a mess?

“I didn’t always have Jake and all that he brought to me,” she announced, as if hearing my thoughts. “I didn’t always have Conner and Amber and Ethan. I didn’t always have Alyssa and Junior. I used to have next to nothing. Then,” she leaned into me, her eyes holding mine, “with a good deal of help, at long last, and when I say that, I mean for me it lasted
decades
, I picked up the pieces.” She reached out and grabbed my hand. “You’ll note, in saying that, when I did, I did
not
do it alone.”

Another tear chased down my cheek.

Josie watched it then looked back at me.

“Will you give me the honor of letting me help you not go it alone?”

Without the ability to do anything else, I nodded.

She squeezed my hand.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

“Don’t mention it,” I whispered back, the only way I’d be able to speak.

She started chuckling.

“Back!” Alyssa cried, and Josie and I both jumped, Josie straightening away from me, my eyes going to Alyssa in the mirror. “Right, bringing you back to your original beauty
with
threads of blonde to make it exciting, just pieces throughout this mass of gorgeousness,” she stated, dumping the two bowls she had on the counter in front of me and gently pulling the ponytail holder out, my hair falling around my shoulders. “But around your face”, she flipped my hair forward, over my shoulders, then twitched some locks by my temples, “more blonde to highlight your pretty face. Sound good?”

I had no idea. I’d never had highlights. My mom thought highlights were common.

I didn’t care.

Alyssa could do anything.

Just as long as she helped me to a new me.

“Sounds
great
,” I said softly.

She smiled brightly at my reflection in the mirror, straightened from me and shouted to the room at large, “Ruby! We got a mission and we need to sustain that mission so we gotta get our order from Weatherby’s. I’ll owe you a bottle of tequila, you go pick it up. Tell ’em to put it on the salon account.”

“The salon has an account?” a female voice I suspected was Ruby called back.

At this point, Alyssa was pulling on plastic gloves. “Tell ’em to make one.”

“You offer tequila, I expect Patrón,” the unseen Ruby declared.

“Whatever. Hoof it. My bitches are hungry,” Alyssa returned, reaching to open a drawer filled with foils.

“On it,” Ruby replied.

Alyssa started sectioning off my hair.

“What do you think of these?” Josie asked and I turned my eyes to the Surface screen.

There was a pair of silver pumps on it that were simply extraordinary.

“Maybe you should get my credit card out of my purse,” I suggested.

“Size?” Josie asked, her voice smiling.

“Six and a half,” I answered.

She grabbed my purse and sat in the salon chair next to me.

Alyssa twisted and clipped up my hair.

And as time wore on, I found it was astonishingly easy to pick up the pieces.

All you had to do was sit in a chair…

And have good women as company.

* * * * *

“Are you ready for it?”

It was hours later.

It was thousands of online shopping dollars later.

It was two sessions of makeup lessons (Alyssa’s salon did special occasion makeup and had a huge trunk full of it). This done in between me “cooking” and getting my hair washed out, Alyssa taking a client, then coming back to do a cut (with my side or back to the mirror), Alyssa taking another client, then coming back to do the style.

Now I was done.

Staring at the back wall, unable to see myself in any of the copious mirrors around me, I replied on a lie because I was anxious as anything, “Ready.”

She whirled me around.

I looked in the mirror and watched my face crumple.

“Girl, do
not
start crying!” Alyssa fairly shouted. “You’ll mess up your makeup.”

I took a breath in through my nose. I took another one in through my mouth.

And I stared at me.

Alyssa had cut in delicate layers, these making my now shining, gray-less, subtly highlighted hair less heavy. These layers were more distinct around my face where she’d feathered them down the sides and cut in a long bang that hung to my eyelashes and dipped lower at my temples. That and the increased blonde around my face giving my skin a healthy glow. And Josie’s expert makeup tactics that were all about proper use of color, perfect shading, all of this packing a punch, made my eyes pop even more than they used to do.

I looked younger, not decades, but definitely younger.

Mostly, I looked like I gave a shit. I looked like I cared. I looked like I was worth something…
to me
.

Worth taking care of.

Worth spoiling.

Worth everything.

“My husband who I loved more than anything on this earth, save my children, had an affair with a nurse at his hospital, put an engagement ring on her finger before he asked me for a divorce, and married her only days after we signed the papers,” I said to the mirror, my eyes on
my eyes
, something I’d thought when I was younger was my best feature.

Something that was my best feature again.

Finally.

“Oh shit,” Alyssa muttered.

I felt Josie lean into me.

I didn’t take my eyes from me.

“I lost it. Completely,” I stated. “I went absolutely insane and made them both pay for this betrayal at every opportunity. My kids saw it. It was unhealthy. They didn’t like it. It went on for years and got so bad my ex had to move across the country to escape me. He got a judge to award him my kids. They’re all here and I followed them to heal my family. My husband welcomed me to Magdalene by showing at my new house, shouting it down and threatening me. And last weekend, my children made it clear they hated me.”

“Amelia,” Josie whispered.

Alyssa sat down in the salon chair on my other side and grabbed my hand.

I looked between them and then back at the mirror.

“I messed up,” I whispered my admission.

Neither of them said anything.

“I kept doing it,” I went on.

They stayed silent.

“And now I’m trying with everything I have to fix what I broke but I’m afraid I’m going to fail because they’ve completely lost faith in me.”

My new friends remained quiet.

“I miss my family.” It came out almost like a whimper.

“Of course you do,” Alyssa said on a hand squeeze.

I kept going, “And I messed things up.”

“Of course you did not,” Alyssa declared, startling me, and I looked her way.

“I’m sorry?”

“So I take it you went batshit crazy when your husband left you,” she noted.

“Yes,” I confirmed humiliatingly.

“And those two, him and his new woman, don’t deserve that…how?” she asked.

I stared.

“Shit happens, babe,” she continued. “Marriages disintegrate for a lot of reasons. And you’re sittin’ in a chair that’s seen a lot of ugly tales told and those include women losin’ their men because those men fell outta love and into love with someone else. I don’t live those feelings so I can’t say if it’s okay or not for that shit to happen. What I can say is that it’s
not
okay for it to happen while anyone is still wearin’ a wedding band.”

“She’s right,” Josie added and I looked her way.

But I looked back to Alyssa when she again started speaking.

“I don’t know what your kids saw. I can guess if it got so bad that shit is as ugly as it is for you. What I do know is that, you’re right, they shouldn’t see that stuff. You’re also wrong. Kids gotta learn they gotta stick up for themselves. That there are consequences to actions. That you don’t play with emotions. And you
never
piss on them. So it got outta hand. You’re pullin’ yourself together. If they’re good kids,” another hands squeeze, “and I
know
you got good kids, Amelia. You’re a good woman, you can’t have anything but. So I also know they’ll come around.”

“I hope you’re right,” I whispered.

“This is gonna sound harsh,” she replied. “But they got a good mom and if they go the way of their dad and piss all over her, then it’ll suck, it’ll
kill
, but that’s the way it is and you just keep on lookin’ after you. They don’t come around, it’s the wrong decision, Amelia. You pulled up stakes and tucked your tail between your legs and gave it your all and if they don’t have it in them to let go and let you back in, then
they’ll
have consequences. And those consequences will be losing you.”

“You can’t say I’m much to lose because you barely know me,” I reminded her.

“I know you’re hangin’ on by a thread,” she returned instantly. “That thread is the last you got after unravelling and you got the courage and strength to hang the fuck on and not let go, and you’re doin’ all that for your kids. Your ex fucked up your life.
He
did that.
You
didn’t. He broke your trust. He kicked your heart around. And you might have faltered along the way, but you haven’t fallen yet. So you got that in you and you’re still fightin’ to keep your family alive, they don’t wake up and see, their loss.”