Even her spiteful and sarcastic behavior today wouldn’t change that. If anything, it endeared her to me more.
I shook my head. Blue, a high-maintenance woman is the last thing you need.
Still, the thought of driving her to the brink of madness and then kissing her back had an intense appeal to me. Life with someone like Julie would definitely not be boring. She would likely drive me insane, make me curse, and torture me in ways no other woman would.
What was wrong with me that made me want to move closer instead of farther away?
It’s just stress. It’s just you getting back to reality, I told myself. My job, my work life was full of drama. My home life needed to be calmer, more steady.
I sighed and took another wrong turn. I kept turning and driving in all different directions just to be sure that I wasn’t being followed. I wasn’t. I was told that I was safe. I liked to take precautions.
‘Course, I already knew it was safe. If I hadn’t been sure, I wouldn’t have gone to her to get a haircut.
I guess some habits are hard to break.
I sighed when the station came into sight. I slowed and pulled into the lot, grabbing my duffle out of the back and jogging to the entrance.
What I needed to do was get back into the swing of things. Focus on the job. Always the job.
But it wasn’t the job that I kept thinking about.
It was her.
3
Julie
My last client of the day was a walk-in. Technically, my day was done, but she was here and I was free so I extended my hours. I was exhausted. Seeing Blue again had pretty much made me feel like I had a gigantic shot of adrenaline straight to the heart, and when it drained away, I was left feeling like a wobbly noodle.
The woman in my chair was probably at least seventy years old. She had short curly hair, a rounded figure, and light wrinkles on her pale cheeks. Her eyes were bright and kind and she smiled a lot, which is probably the reason I offered to stay.
She leaned her cane against my workstation—which was a white built-in against the wall, with drawers and cubbies reaching to almost the ceiling on each side of the large rectangular mirror. There were bright lights overhead and in front of the mirror was a bar that ran across that held my blow dryer and styling tools.
She lowered herself down into the black chair, and I pulled out the black cape (okay, so maybe I didn’t spill something on it) and draped it around her shoulders.
I pumped the chair up with my foot, bringing her to the correct height for me to work. “What can I do today for you, hon?”
The woman’s hands moved around underneath the cape, and I watched as she drew out a folded-up section of a magazine. She’d brought a picture. I liked when clients brought a picture because it gave me an exact idea of what they were looking for so I didn’t have to try to interpret what they tried to tell me.
“I want to look like this,” she said and unfolded the paper and held it out to me.
It was Halle Berry.
I looked at her and then back at the paper. I tilted my head. I squinted my eyes. I shut one eye and looked at her that way.
Yeah, it was just as I thought.
Hopeless.
I sighed. “Hon,” I began, trying to be sweet as I could. “I can absolutely cut your hair this way.” It was the cut that Halle had made famous around the world. The ultra-short one with tasseled layers at the top. “But you do know that even if I cut your hair like this, you’re not going to look like Halle Berry?”
Why must people always think they need to look like a celebrity? The good thing about people and hair was that you had the immense opportunity to define your own style, to be creative. Why look like someone else when you could look like you?
She laughed. “Oh, dear, yes, I know that.” She smiled and pointed. “But I do love that cut. I was thinking it would be easy to get ready for church on Sundays.”
I nodded. “Well, it definitely would.” I placed the picture on the table nearby and ran my hands through her hair. It was surprisingly thick and well bodied. “How about this,” I suggested, leaning down beside her ear and looking at her through the mirror. “Let’s get some honey-blond highlights in there and really make it pop. Then I’ll cut it just like that and show you how to style it.”
“Blond?” she asked, looking over her grayish hue.
I nodded encouragingly. “Honey, you will give Halle a run for her money!”
She smiled ruefully. “Let’s do it.”
A little over an hour later, she stepped out of the Razor’s Edge looking like a million bucks. Judging from the bounce in her step, I would say she felt like one hot lady.
I sighed. All in a day’s work.
I carried the empty bowl of coloring mix back into the little kitchen and rinsed it out in the sink. Then I gave it a light wash, cleaning the highlighting brush out as well and placed them on the drying rack to dry overnight.