Truly Madly Yours (10 page)

“Come home with me,” he whispered above her ear.

Delaney pulled back just far enough to look into the dark shadows of his face. She wished she could use him. She wished she was tempted. She wished he wasn’t so young and that his age didn’t matter, but it did. “I can’t.” He was handsome, had pecs of steel, and seemed genuinely nice. She felt like a cradle robber.

“My roommate is out of town.”

A roommate
. Of course he had a roommate. He was twenty-two. He probably lived on canned chili and Budweiser. When she’d been twenty-two, a well-rounded meal consisted mostly of corn chips, salsa, and sangria. She’d been living in Vegas, working at Circus Circus, not even concerned with the rest of her life. “I never go home with men I’ve just met,” she told him and pushed until he took a step backward.

“What are you doing tomorrow night?” he asked.

Delaney shook her head and opened her car’s door. “You’re a nice guy, but I’m not interested in seeing anyone right now.”

As she drove away, she looked into her rearview mirror at Steve’s retreating back. At first she’d been flattered by the attention he’d paid her, but as the night had progressed, she’d become more uneasy. A lot of maturing happened in seven years. Matching furniture became as important as a killer stereo, and somewhere along the way, the phrase “party till you puke” lost its appeal. But even if she’d been seriously tempted to use Steve’s body for her own pleasure, Nick had ruined it for her. He ruined it by just being at the party. She was much too aware of him, and there was just too much history between them for her to ignore him completely. Even when she did manage to forget him for a few moments, she’d suddenly feel his gaze, like hot irresistible tractor beams pulling at her. But when she’d looked at him, he was never looking back.

Delaney turned up the long driveway and pressed the garage door opener on the dash. And even if Nick hadn’t been there, and Steve hadn’t been young, she doubted she would have gone home with him. She was twenty-nine, lived with her mother, and was too paranoid to enjoy a one-nighter.

After she parked next to Henry and Gwen’s matching Cadillacs, she headed into the house through the door off the kitchen. A bug light and several citronella candles cast a dim glow on the porch out back, illuminating Gwen and the back of a man’s head. It wasn’t until Delaney walked outside that she recognized Henry’s lawyer, Max Harrison. She hadn’t seen Max since the day he’d read Henry’s will. She was surprised to see him now.

“It’s good to see you,” he said, standing as she approached. “How do you like living in Truly again?”

It sucks, she thought as she sat in a wrought-iron chair across the matching table from her mother. “It takes some getting used to.”

“Did you enjoy your party?” Gwen asked.

“Yes,” she answered truthfully. She’d met some nice people, and despite Nick Allegrezza, she’d enjoyed herself.

“Your mother was just telling me you’ve been busy training Henry’s dogs.” Max took his seat once again, and his smile seemed genuine. “Maybe you’ve found a new career.”

“Actually, I like my old career,” she said. Ever since her conversation with Louie, she’d been thinking about the vacant building downtown. She hadn’t wanted to discuss her ideas with her mother until she was sure she could pull it off, but the person she needed to talk to most just happened to be sitting across the table, and her mother would find out sooner or later anyway. “Who owns the building next to Allegrezza Construction?” she asked Max. “It’s a thin two-story with a hair salon on the bottom floor.”

“I believe Henry left that block of property at First and Main to you. Why?”

“I want to reopen the salon.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” her mother said. “There are a lot of other things you can do.”

Delaney ignored her. “How do I go about doing it?”

“To get started, you’ll need a small business loan. The previous owner is dead, so you’ll need to contact the attorney representing her heirs to determine the value of the salon,” he began. When he was finished half an hour later, Delaney knew exactly what she had to do. First thing Monday, she’d pay a visit to the bank holding her money in trust and apply for a loan. As far as she could see, there was only one drawback to her plan. The salon was located next to Nick’s construction company. “Can I raise the rent on the building next door?” Maybe she could force him out.

“Not until the current lease expires.”

“When is that?”

“Another year I believe.”

“Damn.”

“Please don’t swear,” her mother admonished while she reached across the table and placed her hand on top of Delaney’s. “If you want to open a little business, why don’t you think about a gift shop?”

“I don’t want to open a gift shop.”

“You could open up in time to sell Christmas Spode.”

“I don’t want to sell Spode.”

“I think it’s a wonderful idea.”

“Then you do it. I’m a hairstylist, and I want to reopen the salon downtown.”

Gwen sat back in her chair. “You’re just doing this to spite me.”

She wasn’t, but she’d lived with her mother long enough to know that if she argued, she’d end up looking childish. Sometimes talking to Gwen was like wrestling with flypaper. The more you fought to get free, the more you got stuck.

By the end of the unscientific study, she could see that Helen did a thriving business, but Delaney wasn’t worried. She’d seen Helen’s hair. She could steal her old rival’s clients—no problem.

Once the loan went through, Delaney put away her legal pad and got busy on the shop itself. A grimy layer of dust covered everything, from the cash register to the perming rods. Everything had to be scrubbed down and sterilized. She pored over the previous owner’s books, but the numbers didn’t match the inventory. Either Gloria had been completely inept, or someone had come in after her death and stolen cases of hair products. Not that Delaney minded the theft all that much since she didn’t have to pay Gloria’s heirs for the missing supplies, and everything in the shop was at least three years behind the current trends anyway. Still, it left her a little uneasy to think that someone might have access to the salon. In her mind, the prime suspect was of course Helen. Helen was a thief from way back, and who else would have use for things like cotton strips, shampoo towels, and wig pins?

Delaney had been assured that she had the only key to the front and rear entrances, as well as the only key to the apartment above. She wasn’t convinced and called the sole locksmith in town, who promised he’d be out in a week. But she was living in Truly, where a week could sometimes mean a month depending on hunting season.

Nine days before she opened for business, she had the old name scraped from the front window, and the words the
cutting edge
applied in gold. She had new products sitting in the storage room and new black lacquer chairs in the reception area. The hardwood floors were refinished and the walls painted a bright white. She hung up trade show posters and had the old mirrors replaced with bigger ones. When she was finished she was very pleased and very proud. It wasn’t her dream salon. It wasn’t chrome and marble and filled with the best stylists, but she’d accomplished a lot in a short amount of time.

She introduced herself to the owner of Bernard’s Deli on the corner and the T-shirt shop next door. And on a day when she didn’t see Nick’s Jeep parked in the lot out back, she marched into Allegrezza construction and introduced herself to his secretary, Hilda, and office manager, Ann Marie.

Two nights before she opened, she gave a small party at the salon. She invited Lisa and Gwen and all of her mother’s friends. She sent invitations to business owners in the area. She excluded Allegrezza Construction but had an invitation hand delivered to Helen’s Hair Hut. For two hours her salon was packed with people eating her strawberries and drinking her champagne, but Helen didn’t show.

Gwen did, but after half an hour she’d made up a dumb excuse about having a cold and left. It was just one more expression of her mother’s disapproval. But Delaney had stopped living for her mother’s approval a long time ago. She knew she would never get it anyway.

That next day, Delaney moved into the apartment above the salon. She hired a few men with trucks to haul her furniture from the storage unit to the small one-bedroom. Gwen predicted Delaney would be back in no time, but Delaney knew she wouldn’t.

From a small common parking lot behind the salon, a set of old wooden stairs climbed the back of the building to the emerald green door of her new home. The apartment was run-down and needed linoleum, new curtains, and a decent stove
post-Brady Bunch
era. Delaney loved it. She loved the window seats in the small living room and bedroom. She loved the old clawfoot bathtub, and the huge arching window that looked down on Main. She’d certainly lived in nicer apartments, and the shabby little place couldn’t begin to compete with the luxuries of her mother’s house. But maybe that’s why she loved it most of all. The things in it belonged to her. She hadn’t even realized how much she missed having her stuff around until her own dishes filled the cupboards. She slept in her own wrought-iron bed and sat on her own cream linen sofa, with the zebra print pillows, to watch her own television. The black coffee and end tables belonged to her, as well as the pedestal table in the small dining area at the far left of the living room. The dining room and kitchen were separated by a half wall, and a person could see most of the apartment all at once. Not that there was a lot to see.

Delaney unpacked what she considered her business clothes and hung them in her closet. She bought a few groceries, a clear plastic shower curtain with big red hearts on it, and two braided rugs for the worn patches on the kitchen floor.

Now all she needed was a phone and a few new locks.

Three days after she opened for business, she had her phone, but she was still waiting for those locks. She was waiting for the stampede of customers, too.

Delaney sat her first customer in the salon chair and took the towel from her head. “Are you sure you want finger waves, Mrs. Van Damme?” She hadn’t done finger waves since beauty school. Not only had it been four years, but a whole head of finger waves was a pain in the backside.

“Yep. Just like I always get ‘em. Last time I went to that shop around the corner,” she said, referring to Helen’s Hair Hut. “But she didn’t do a very good job. She made it look like I had worms laying on my head. I haven’t had a decent hairdo since Gloria passed on.”

Delaney shrugged out of her short vinyl jacket, then shoved her arms through a green smock. The smock covered her raspberry Lycra shirt and vinyl skirt, leaving her knees and shinny black boots exposed. She thought of her old job at Valentina in Scottsdale and of her clients who knew a little something about fashion and trends. She reached for her shaping comb and began to remove the tangles from the old woman’s nape. She’d found some waving lotion in the storage room, left there by the former owner. Normally, she wouldn’t have agreed to style Mrs. Van Damme’s hair, especially after the woman had bartered the price down to ten dollars. Delaney’s intuitive talent lay in her ability to see nature’s flaws and fix them with cut and color. The right cut could make noses look smaller, eyes bigger, and chins stronger.

But she was desperate. No one wanted to pay more than ten dollars for anything. In the three days she’d been open, Mrs. Van Damme was the only person who hadn’t taken one look at her prices and turned and run out. Of course, the woman could barely walk.

“If you do a good wave, I’ll recommend you to my friends, but they won’t pay more than I do.”

Oh goody, she thought, a whole year of frugal old ladies. A whole year of tight roller curls and back combing. “Do you part your hair on the right, Mrs. Van Damme?”

“On the left. And since you have your fingers in my hair, you can call me Wannetta.”

“How long have you worn your hair this way, Wannetta?”

“Oh, for about forty years. Every since my late husband told me I looked like Mae West.”

Delaney seriously doubted Wannetta had ever looked anything like Mae West. “Maybe it’s time for a change,” she suggested and snapped on a pair of rubber gloves like a surgeon.

“Nope. I like to stick with what works.”

Delaney snipped off the tip of the bottle, then applied the lotion to the right side of the woman’s head and began to shape the waves with her fingers and comb. It took her several tries to get the first ridge perfect so that she could move on to the second and third. While she worked, Wannetta chatted nonstop.

“My good friend Dortha Miles lives in one of those retirement villages in Boise. She really likes it. Food’s good she says. I’ve thought about moving to one of those villages myself. Ever since my husband, Leroy, passed on last year.” She paused to slip her bony hand from beneath the cape and scratch her nose.

“How’d your husband die?” Delaney asked as she formed a ridge with her comb.

“Fell off the roof and landed on his head. I don’t know how many times I told that old fool not to climb up there. But he never listened to me, and look where he is now. He just had to get up there and fiddle with that TV antenna, so certain he could get channel two. Now I’m alone, and if it weren’t for my worthless grandson, Ronnie, who can’t keep a job and is always borrowing money, maybe I could afford to move into one of those retirement villages with Dortha. Only I’m not certain I would anyway being that her daughter is a”—she paused and lowered her voice—“lesbian. I tend to think that sort of thing is genetic. Now, I’m not saying Dortha is a”—again she paused and whispered the next word—“lesbian, but she always did have a tendency toward very short hair, and she wore comfortable shoes even before her arches fell. And I’d hate to live with someone and discover something like that. I’d be afraid to take a shower, and I’d be afraid she’d run around the apartment naked. Or maybe she’d try to get a peek at me when I’m naked.”

The mental picture that flashed through Delaney’s head was frightening, and she had to bite her cheek to keep from laughing. The conversation moved from Wannetta’s fear of naked lesbians to the other disturbing worries in her life. “After that house out near Cow Creek was robbed last year,” she said, “I had to start locking my doors. Never had to do that before. But I live alone now, and I can’t be too careful I guess. Are you married?” she asked, peering at Delaney through the wall of mirrors in front of her.

Delaney was getting sick of that question. “I haven’t found the right man yet.”

“I have a grandson, Ronnie.”

“No, thanks.”

“Hmm. Do you live alone?”

“Yes, I do,” Delaney answered as she finished the last ridge. “I live right upstairs.”

“Up there?” Wannetta pointed toward the ceiling.

“Yep.”

“How come, when your mamma has such a nice place?”

There were a million reasons. She’d hardly spoken to her mother since she’d moved out, and she couldn’t say she was all that upset about it. “I like living alone,” she answered and formed a row of tiny curls across the woman’s forehead.

“Well, you just watch out for those crazy Basque Allegrezza boys next door. I dated a sheepherder once. They have mighty funny ways.”

Delaney bit her cheek again. Before she’d opened the shop, running into Nick had been a concern of hers, but although she’d seen his Jeep in the common lot behind the two buildings, and their back doors where only a few feet apart, she hadn’t actually seen him. According to Lisa, she hadn’t seen much of Louie lately, either. Allegrezza Construction was working overtime to complete several big jobs before the first snow, which could come as early as the beginning of November.

When Delaney was finished, Mrs. Van Damme was still old and wrinkled and looked nothing like Mae West. “What do you think?” she asked and handed the woman an oval mirror.

“Hmm. Turn me.”

Delaney turned the chair so Wannetta could see the back of her head.

“Looks good, but I’m going to take off fifty cents for those little curls in the front. I never said I’d pay for extra curls.”

Delaney frowned and removed the neck strip and silver plastic cape.

“You give a senior citizen discount don’t you? Helen isn’t as good as you, but she gives a discount to seniors.”

At this rate, she was going to be out of business in no time. As soon as Mrs. Van Damme left, Delaney locked up and put away her green smock. She reached for her vinyl jacket and headed out the back. Just as she stepped outside and turned to shut the door behind her, a dusty black Jeep rolled to a stop in the slot reserved for Allegrezza Construction. She looked over her shoulder and almost dropped her keys.

Nick cut the Jeep’s engine and stuck his head out the window. “Hey, wild thing, where you headed dressed like a hooker?”

Slowly she turned and shoved her arms into her jacket. “I am not dressed like a hooker.”