Page 21 of Then You Happened
“Here you go. Fi will be right with you,” she says, and I breathe a sigh of relief when I see that her chair is in the back corner of the salon and that no other stylist is around her.
“Tatum Knox. Blessed be,” Fiona’s distinctive voice calls to my right when she sees me. “You’re actually among the living now. Talk about a sight for sore eyes.”
Fiona bends to where I’m seated and wraps her arms around me in a hug that is as unexpected as her warm welcome. When she steps back, my smile is instantaneous despite my jittery nerves.
“Hi.”
“Hi? That’s all you have to say to the woman you are letting down by letting all of that brassiness rent space on that head of yours? What? You don’t write. You don’t call. You let gray hairs grow and cancel appointments.”
I sit there and look at her, uncertain how to exactly voice my reasons, which are only justifiable by my standards. “Um . . . uh—”
“Such nonsense,” she says as she grabs my hand and squeezes. “I don’t care why you kept canceling, all I care about is that you’re here. That you’ve finally shown that gorgeous face of yours.” She pats me on the shoulders. “Now, let’s get that mess on your head fixed up so you can feel like your old self again. You might still look great, but darling, I can make you look fabulous.”
I laugh, and for the first time since getting out of the truck, I feel as if I can breathe. “I missed you.”
She puts the cape on and squeezes my shoulder again. “I don’t get a chance to miss you at all. Hell, you’re still the talk of the town even when you’re not here.”
“Jesus.” I roll my eyes, loving that she’s still the same and they haven’t poisoned her opinion of me yet. “That bad?”
“Nothing is ever as bad as it seems. Just be glad they’re still talking.”
We fall into small talk as she adds color to my hair. She doesn’t once demand to know why I pretended not to be home the last time she came out to the house for my regularly scheduled appointment. She doesn’t ask about the ranch or the horses or where in the hell I’ve been over the past year.
All she says is that it’s good to see me.
All she talks about is the town happenings to catch me up to speed.
All she does is deflect anyone who wanders by to see if they can get any information to gossip about.
“Your scars are looking great,” she murmurs absently as her hands massage my scalp in the washbowl.
My hand goes instinctively to the white lines on the underside of my jaw and lower part of my neck. The screech of brakes and utter fear that held me hostage return momentarily as if the car running me off the road happened yesterday, not two years ago.
“I used the concoction you told me about.” I meet her eyes as she leans over me, her hands still rubbing in circles. “That, and they’ve faded with time.”
“Time fades all scars. Even the ones we can’t see,” she says with a wink and squeezes the excess water from my hair. When she helps me sit up to wrap a towel around it, the other clients sitting near the bowls glance my way before texting furiously.
“You’d think you were royalty the way these ladies are burning up their phones,” she jokes when she begins to trim.
“It’s ridiculous.”
“It is. Fletcher was a dick. No one else in this town will say that to your face, but you know me, I will. Ginger might too. But, I’m sorry, you’re better off without him.”
The part of me that isn’t used to having any sort of support fights back the tears. “I know, it’s just . . .”
“Hard? Shitty? Hurtful? Yeah, it’s every single one of those and a whole slew more, but in this town, women don’t stand behind women. They only hide behind their husbands.” She says this just a touch too loudly as she snips two inches off my hair. “Good thing I’ve had enough husbands to know they aren’t worth standing behind.”
Her laugh sounds off in the brightly lit salon. One of the reasons she’s my ally is because the people here have judged her just as harshly. If it weren’t for the fact that she’s the best stylist in town, they would treat her as they treat me.
As if her husbands never screwed anyone over and whatever they did was her fault.
“So, you were out and about taking photos the
other day?” she leads. How did my walk out on Old Sawmill Road last week become town news? Rusty mentioned it too. Is it a crime to need a few minutes to myself with scenery other than the ranch? The irony is I didn’t have my camera on me. The fact that someone added that detail shouldn’t surprise me. “Honey, people in this town know the minute you step off your land. Get any good shots?”
“Don’t play that off,” I say, not bothering to correct her. “What are they saying now?”
“Nothing you need to care about.”
