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.”