Wicked Forest (12 page)

I smiled, but he didn't. His smiles had become as rare as diamonds and, for us, more valuable and important.

Afterward. I went to the beauty salon by

myself. I was still disappointed that my mother hadn't come along. I had so looked forward to a real day together as mother and daughter. but I realized now that I had to move even more slowly. There were many miles to make up, a great stretch of emotional pain to ease and stop. It wasn't going to happen overnight. It might never happen completely, but as Daddy used to say, "An inch at a time is still moving forward.'

The beauty parlor was very busy. The

receptionist was not at all diplomatic about her disappointment in my canceling Mother's

appointment.

"Do you know how valuable that time slot is?"

she chastised. She didn't look much older than I was, if she was older at all, but she had a very snooty attitude from the start.

She wore black leather pants and a white

translucent blouse that did nothing to hide her small but firm bosom, and she had bleached hair. I thought she wore too much makeup and was especially heavy-handed with her lipstick. Her swollen lips looked like they were made of wax,

"I'll pay for it anyway," I said.

"That's not the point," she wailed with more volume than necessary. I knew she was trying to attract the attention of those women in nearby chairs and their beauticians. "We have clients we had to turn away, and pleasing our clientele is our first priority,"

she recited.

"Oh really," I said sharply. "Well. I don't see how you succeed with your attitude."

"My attitude?"

"What is happening here?" I heard a male voice ask from behind me, and turned to see a man with his dark hair in a ponytail. He wore black slacks and a frilly red shirt with the sleeves folded back over his slim wrists. His black pearl eyes flicked from the receptionist to me.

"She just arrived and canceled one of her appointments." The receptionist wailed. "With no notice!"

"I see."

"It couldn't be helped." I said "I apologized and offered to pay for it anyway. It was my mother's appointment."

"Oh, you are Miss De Beers?"

"Yes."

"I am Renardo de Palma. It's fine. Candace.

There is no need to be histrionic." he added with a tone of authority and chastisement that brought immediate tears to her eyes.

"I'm just doing my job." she moaned.

"I'll take charge of this." he told her firmly. "Is your mother ill. then?" he asked me in a far softer, more concerned tone of voice, even though it lacked real sincerity. I thought he had a smile smooth enough to charm a cobra.

"Yes," I said, thinking that was the best and fastest explanation.

"These things happen. No earthquake. Please, let me take care of you personally,' he offered, turning me toward the workstations, "Don't mind her. She's my brother's child so I have to employ her." he said with a wave of his hand. The receptionist smirked. His brutal honesty brought a smile to my face.

"Right this way," he said. and led me to a chair in the rear of the salon.

I couldn't help but feel everyone's eyes on me as I walked alongside him. Conversations were put on pause. Beauticians froze for a moment. It wasn't until after Renardo took my jacket to hang up and put my purse aside and I sat that the place seemed to come back to life.

"So," he said. stepping behind me. let's see what we have here first."

He lifted my hair with his hands as if he were dipping them in a mound of diamonds and stared at my image in the mirror.

"Well. Miss De Beers." he began as if I were a four-year-old child. "you haven't been taking care of yourself as well as you should." He shook his head.

"So many split ends. and your hair is too dry. I must do a complete treatment on you before we begin. We must wash it and condition it, and then we will decide on a cut."

"A cut? You think I need a totally different style?" I asked.

"But of course. senorita. You are not taking advantage of what your hair can do for your beautiful face." he said. "I think of a woman's hair as the frame for her face. which is the picture, and just like any wonderful picture, it can be enhanced or it can be diminished by a poor-quality frame. no?"

"I suppose so." I said.

"
Muy bien
. Then let us begin. You are in the hands of an artist. Don't worry." he said. and turned,

"Trinity." he called to a young, dark-haired girl chatting with the receptionist. She stopped in what looked like midsentence, excused herself. and hurried to my side. "A wash and condition." he dictated. "Use formula forty-two,"

"
Si,
" she said. She had bright, eager dark eyes and looked not much older than seventeen.

"As soon as you are ready, I will be." Renardo promised.

He gave the young girl a very hard, almost threatening look. then left us. She looked like she was trembling as she pinned the protective sheet behind my neck and turned my chair gently so I could be lowered to the sink behind me.

"You are comfortable?" she asked as she did so.

―Yes.‖

She tested the water, then began to soak my hair, moving her fingers through it with long, even strokes like someone who had just been taught how to do it and wanted to be sure she had the technique perfect.

"It's not too hot?"

"It's fine," I said, and closed my eyes. "How long have you been doing this?" I almost expected her to say I was her first client

"Five years," she said.

I snapped open my eyes.

"Five years? How could— how old are you?"

"I'm twenty-one." she said. "As soon as I was sixteen, my father put me to work in his salon."

"Your father?"

"Renardo de Palma." she replied. "I am his daughter."

"His daughter?" The receptionist was his niece.

Was his whole family employed here?

She began to scrub mare vigorously as if she was angry about revealing she was his daughter and put all her anger into her fingers. She was giving me a virtual head massage.

"He wants me to become a beautician like him.

but I told him I had other plans for myself," she muttered well under her breath, "He keeps me here helping, hoping I will give in and graduate to cutting and styling. My father doesn't look it, perhaps, but he is behind the times. He believes in the old-fashioned idea that a parent should design his child's whole life.

He has even picked out the man I should many, a fifth cousin.

"You would think in this day and age, parents don't choose who their children will marry," she added.

You'd be surprised at how many parents still think of their children as their property, puppets to manipulate, I mused, thinking about Bunny Eaton, but I didn't say anything. I tried to relax instead and enjoy being pampered. After washing my hair, she put in the conditioner her father had prescribed and then told me it should sit for a full five minutes. I felt my scalp tingle delightfully,

"I can get you a magazine, if you like," she offered,

"No, I'm fine."

She stepped back but remained at my side. I opened my eyes and glanced at her.

"You're from Joya del Mar. My cousin was telling me," she said.

"Yes."

"You've never been here before, maybe on my day off?"

"No. I've just moved to Palm Beach," I told her.

"That's where Mr. Eaton lives. I know because I just shampooed his fiancee yesterday," she said with some pride.

"His fiancee? Who are you talking about?" I asked, lifting my head. Was she referring to Thatcher's sister?

"The lawyer, Mr. Eaton." she replied.

"Who told you he was engaged?" I asked, a little more aggressively than I intended, She actually backed up a few steps.

"Well, it's in the paper. I'm not making it up. I shampooed Miss Raymond and she was talking about it. too. She conies here twice a month with her future sister-in-law, but I don't shampoo her. She always asks for Carol Ann," she said, glaring at another young woman across the way who was working on an elderly lady.

"You said it's in the paper? A recent paper?"

'
Si
. You want to see it?" she asked me.

"Yes, please," I said, lowering my head. My heart felt as if it was sliding down to the bottom of my chest.

She went to the front of the salon and spoke to the receptionist, who reached under the desk and handed her a shiny newspaper. Then she hurried back as if she were delivering an important telegram to the Queen of England.

"Here. It's in 'Talk of the Town.' " she said, opening the Shiny. as I knew everyone called the glossy paper, to the proper page and pointing to a column written by someone called Suzy Q. Most of the column was devoted to a recent charity event given by a prince at the Flagler Museum. It listed people who'd attended, and one paragraph picked up on a recently knighted architect, Sir Floyd Raymond, whose daughter Vera was rumored to be "expecting,‖

but not a baby, not yet. Vera is expecting an engagement ring from one of the most eligible bachelors in Palm Beach, Thatcher Eaton. Sorry, girls, the counselor appears to be making a motion, and from what we've learned, no one in either family will raise any sort of objection."

There was a picture of Vera Raymond with

Thatcher, and she looked very much like the woman I had seen him with in the cafe. I could feel the blood drain from my face.

"If you lived there. I thought you would know her and know all about it." Trinity said, her curiosity now piqued.

"No. I just moved here." I replied, fighting to keep my voice from cracking. Managing a simple sentence was suddenly like unraveling twisted wire in my head. My fingers held the paper like pincers as I stared at the picture of Thatcher and Vera Raymond, his arm around her waist, both smiling for the camera.

I'm sure I looked like I was trying to burn a hole through the page.

You can keep that,' she said, backing away.

"No," I told her, and held it away from me as if it had become contaminated. Gingerly she took it back, flashed a smile, and hurried to return it to the receptionist, who had been watching us the whole time. I saw them put their heads together to mix some new gossip.

I lay back. It seemed hard to breathe. Despite the air-conditioning system, the air was oppressive and heavy. I closed my eyes. When I opened them again, it seemed to me that everyone in the salon was now looking at me and whispering. Minutes later.

Trinity returned to rinse my hair and wrap it in a towel.

"Are you related to Mr. Eaton?" she asked. She had obviously been given the assignment of finding out as much as she could about me and passing it down the line of gossips just waiting to cackle like hens.

"I'm here to have my hair done," I said sharply.

"Nothing more."

Her hands lifted from the towel as if she had touched a hot stove.

I glared at her.

"I'll tell my father you are ready," she said, and hurried away.

Moments later. Renardo de Palma was at my side, that soupy smile spreading like hot butter over his face.

"So, now we do some cutting, no?"

"No." I said, sitting up.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm sorry," I said. "I've changed my mind. I don't want to do anything different with my hair."

I practically threw off the protective sheet, my heart thumping like a blown tire on a fast car.

"But.
señorita
—"

"I've got to go," I said. I moved quickly to get my jacket. Renardo's mouth hung open, his jaw slack, his arms up and frozen in position as he watched me put on my jacket.

"But your hair... your hair is wet. and—"

"I'm fine," I said. "Just tell me how much I owe you." He simply shook his head.

"Very well. Send me a bill. then." I added, and marched down the center of the salon, passing all the gaping eyes. Everyone stopped talking and watched me hurry out of the place. When the door closed behind me. I felt as if I had just left a sauna. I took a deep breath and hurried to my car. Water was dripping from my hair down the sides of my face.

Vaguely, I realized how mad and wild I had appeared and still looked to anyone who gazed in my direction, but all I could think of was getting myself away from those dissecting eyes and those whispers that had looped around me like chains, causing me to feel trapped and so naked and exposed that everyone could see the cracks in my broken heart.

How could he do this? How could he take

advantage of me this way and lie and betray me? I felt so violated. I couldn't feel any worse if I had been raped, I thought, I had been raped. Instead of force, he'd used promises and sweet talk. The rage continued to build inside me, expanding like a hot balloon that was on the verge of exploding.

I didn't recall getting into my car and starting the engine, but after I had. I lurched away from the curb, cutting off another vehicle and nearly sending it into an oncoming car. The driver pressed on her horn, the blaring noise causing me to go even faster. I shot forward, then had to bring the car to an abrupt halt at a traffic light. The moment I did so, a police car pulled up alongside with its bubble light going and the officer stepped out

He gestured for me to roll down my window.

"What exactly do we have here?" he asked, gazing in at me. I simply stared at him, my lips trembling.

He turned when the light changed and waved the cars behind me around; then he nodded toward the side of the street.

"Pull in there and let me see your license and registration," he ordered.

"I'm sorry," I said, hoping my apology would work like a magic wand and make him disappear.

He acted as if he hadn't heard it and walked back to his car. He got in and waited for me to pull over, then pulled up behind me and got out again. I fumbled through my purse for my license and reached into the glove compartment for my registration. He read them both and tipped his hat back with his right thumb. I thought he looked very young, too young to be an actual policeman.

"South Carolina, eh?"

"I've just moved here," I said. "I haven't had time to change anything yet."