“I don’t know how she decides to get out of bed in the morning. I’d be further along if your woman had gotten here sooner and taken Bitsy away. She’s thinking the white’s too white, and maybe she picked the wrong countertop. Or the wrong paint color. Don’t ask about the backsplash.”
“Too late now to change her mind on any of it.”
“You try telling her.”
“You gotta love her.”
“Yeah, you do. But Christ, Matt, can’t we put her in a box for the next three days?”
Grinning, Matt took off his light jacket, tossed it aside.
Where Griff was long and lanky, Matt was tough and ripped. He wore his black hair neat and trim where Griff’s strayed past his collar with a hint of curl. Matt kept his square-jawed face clean-shaven while Griff’s narrow, hollow-cheeked one tended toward scruff.
Matt played chess and enjoyed wine tastings.
Griff liked poker and beer.
They’d been as close as brothers for nearly a decade.
“Got you a sub,” Matt told him.
“Yeah, what kind of sub?”
“That fire-breather one you like. The one that burns off the stomach lining.”
“Cool.”
“How about we get a couple more up, take a break? A quick one? Who knows how long Emma Kate can keep Bitsy out of our hair.”
“Deal.”
As they got to work, Griff decided to start poking.
“Miz Vi’s granddaughter stopped by. The one who just moved back. The widow.”
“Yeah? Heard some buzz about that while I was in town. What’s she like?”
“A heart-stopper. Seriously,” he said, when Matt spared him a look. “She’s got hair the color of her mom’s and Miz Vi’s. Like that painter used.”
“Titian.”
“Right. It’s long and curly. And she got their eyes, too. That dark blue that’s nearly purple. She looks like something poets write about, right down to the sad eyes.”
“Well, her husband died, what, like right after Christmas. Happy freaking holidays.”
About three months, Griff calculated, and that was probably too soon to ask her out on a date.
“So what’s up with her and Emma Kate? Check the level.”
“What do you mean, what’s up? Take your end up a couple hairs. Stop there. Perfect.”
“Bitsy went on about what good friends they were—are—whatever, and the body language said the opposite. I don’t remember Emma Kate ever talking about her.”
“Don’t know,” Matt said as Griff set the screws. “Something about how she left with the guy she married.”
“It has to be more than that.” Griff prodded again, wondered if he’d need his drill. Matt never hung onto the more subtle details when it came to people. “A lot of people move somewhere else when they get married.”
“They lost touch or something.” Matt just shrugged. “Emma Kate mentioned her a couple times, but didn’t have much to say about her.”
Griff could only shake his head. “Matt, what you know about women could fit in a thimble. When a woman brings something up, then doesn’t have much to say about it, she’s got a
lot
to say about it.”
“Then why doesn’t she say it?”
“Because she needs the right opening, the right angle. Forrest hasn’t said much, either, but he knows how to keep things tucked away. I didn’t think about giving him an opening on it before.”
“Before you knew she was a heart-stopper.”
“There’s that.”
Matt checked the level again, all sides, before they moved on to the next.
“You don’t want to start sniffing around a widow with a kid who’s a friend’s baby sister.”
Griff only smiled as they lined up the second cabinet. “You don’t want to start sniffing around some sassy southern girl who keeps telling you she’s too busy to start anything up.”
“I wore her down, didn’t I?”
“Best thing you ever did. Got it?”
“Got it.”
Griff let go of the cabinet to attach it to the first. “You should ask Emma Kate what the deal is.”
“Why?”
“Because after she walked the redhead out,
she
had sad eyes. Before she walked her out, she was a little bit pissed, and after, she looked sad.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. So you should ask her.”
“Why would I ask her about something like that? Why stir it up?”
“Matt, jeez. Something’s in there. It’ll just stay in there being pissed or sad until it’s stirred up and let out.”
“Like a wasps’ nest,” was Matt’s opinion. “You want to know so much, you ask her.”
“Wuss.”
“About this kind of stuff? Oh yeah, and not ashamed.” He checked the level. “Right on the mark. We do good work.”
“We fix it.”
“That we do. Let’s get the rest of this line up, then have a sub.”
“I’m with you, brother.”
• • •
V
IOLA STARTED OUT
doing hair for fun, doing up her sisters’ or her friends’ hair in fancy dos like they saw in magazines. She told the story of how the first time she took the scissors—and her granddaddy’s straight razor—to her sister Evalynn’s hair, she escaped a hiding because it looked as fine as what Miz Brenda down at Brenda’s Beauty Salon charged good money for.
She’d been twelve, and from that point on, in charge of cutting everybody’s hair in the family, and styling the girls—her mama included—for special occasions.
When she’d been carrying her first, she’d worked for Miz Brenda, and had done some side business out of the tiny kitchen in the double-wide where she and Jackson had started out. When Grady had been born—with her still four months shy of her seventeenth birthday, she added on manicures, and worked exclusively out of the two-bedroom house they rented from Jack’s uncle Bobby.
By the time her second followed close on Grady’s heels, she squeezed in cosmetology school with her mother minding the babies.
Viola MacNee Donahue had been born ambitious, and wasn’t afraid to give her husband a few prods in the same direction.
By the time she was twenty, with three children and the loss of one that had broken off a piece of her heart she would never get back, she had her own salon—buying Brenda’s place when Brenda ran off on her own husband with a guitar player from up in Maryville.
It put them in debt, but while Viola wasn’t one to agree with the preacher saying how God would provide, she believed He’d look kindly on those who worked themselves sweaty.
She did just that, spending often eighteen hours a day on her feet while Jack worked just as hard and long at Fester’s Garage.
She had a fourth child, worked herself steadily out of debt, then dived right back into it when Jack started his own car repair and towing service. Jackson Donahue was the best mechanic in the county, and he’d been carrying most of Fester’s business as Fester was stumbling drunk by noon five days out of seven.
They made their own, raised four children, and bought a good house.
And with the nest egg Viola tucked away, she bought the old dry goods, expanded, and had the town talking when she put in three fancy pedicure chairs.
Business stayed steady enough, but if you wanted more, you figured out how to get it. Tourists wandered through the Ridge here and there, looking for quaint or cheap, or picturesque in a quieter setting than Gatlinburg or Maryville.
They came to hike and fish and camp, and some to stay in the Rendezvous Hotel and ride the white water. Those on vacation tended to be looser with their money, and more apt to take a few indulgences.
So she took the leap, expanded yet again. And yet again.
The locals called her place Vi’s, but the tourists came into Viola’s Harmony House Salon and Day Spa.
She liked the sound of it.
The latest—and, Viola claimed, the last—expansion added on what she billed a Relaxation Room, which was a fancy name for waiting area, but fancy it was. Though she enjoyed bold, rich colors, she’d kept the tones soft, added a gas-burning fireplace, banned all electronic devices, and offered specialty teas made local, spring water, deep-cushioned chairs and plush robes with her logo embroidered on them.
Since the expansion, this latest and last, had been in the works while Shelby had been moving from Atlanta to Philadelphia, Shelby hadn’t seen it all done.
She couldn’t say it surprised her when her grandmother led her through a locker room/changing area and into the room that smelled lightly of lavender.
“Granny, this is amazing.”
She kept her voice down as two women she didn’t know sat in oatmeal-colored chairs paging through glossy magazines.
“You try some jasmine tea. It’s made right here in the Ridge. And relax some before Vonnie comes to get you.”
“This is as nice as any of the spas I’ve been to. Nicer.”
Amenities included shallow dishes of sunflower seeds, a wooden bowl of sharp green apples, clear pitchers of water with inserts holding slices of lemon or cucumber, and hot pots for tea clients could drink out of pretty little cups.
“It’s you who’s amazing.”
“It’s not enough to have ideas if you just let them sit around. You come see me when Vonnie’s done with you.”
“I will. Would you . . . could you just check with Mama? I just want to be sure Callie’s behaving.”
“Don’t you worry about a thing.”
Easier said than done—or so Shelby thought, until Vonnie, who couldn’t have been more than five-three, had her on a warm table in a dim room with soft music playing.
“Girl, you’ve got enough rocks in these shoulders to build a three-story house. Take a deep breath for me now. And another. That’s the way. Let it go now.”
She tried, then she didn’t have to try. She drifted.
“How’re you feeling now?”
“What?”
“That’s a good answer. I want you to take your time getting up. I’m going to turn the lights up a little, and I’ve got your robe lying over your legs.”
“Thank you, Vonnie.”
“I’m going to tell Miz Vi you could use another next week. It’s going to take a few times to get you smoothed out, Shelby.”
“I feel smooth.”
“That’s good. Now, don’t go getting up too fast, you hear? I’m going out and get you some nice spring water. You want to drink a lot of water now.”
She drank the water, changed back into her street clothes and made her way out to the salon area.
Four of the six hair stations were working, and two of the four pedicure chairs were occupied. She saw two women getting manicures and glanced at her own nails. She hadn’t had her nails done since right before Christmas.
While the Relaxation Room stood as a sanctuary of quiet, the salon rang with voices, the bubble of footbaths, the whirl of dryers. Five people called out to her—three beauticians, two customers—so she got caught up in conversations, acknowledged offers of sympathy and of welcome before she found her grandmother.
“Perfect timing. I just finished doing Dolly Wobuck’s highlights, and my next appointment canceled, so I’ve got time to give you a facial. Go put a robe back on.”
“Oh, but—”
“Callie’s fine. She and Chelsea are having a tea party, with costumes. Ada Mae said they hooked together like two links in a chain and reminded her of you and Emma Kate.”
“That’s good to hear.” Shelby tried not to think of that cool look in the eyes of her childhood friend.
“She’ll have your baby home in a couple hours. That’ll give you time for a facial, and us time to talk.” Viola tipped her head, and the light through the front window tipped gold in the red. “Vonnie did you some good, didn’t she?”
“She’s wonderful. I don’t remember her being such a little thing.”
“Takes after her mama.”
“She may be little, but she has wonderfully strong hands. She wouldn’t let me tip her, Granny. She said Mama had seen to it, and anyway, we’re family.”
“You can tip me by giving me an hour of your time. Go on, get a robe on. The facial rooms are in the same place. We’ll be in the first one. Get!”
She did as she was told. She wanted Callie to make friends, didn’t she? To have someone to play with, to be with. It was healthy and right. And foolish to feel so anxious because she was spending the day at her grandmother’s salon.
“I’ve got just the thing for you,” Viola said when Callie came in. “It’s my energizing facial. It’ll give you and your skin a boost. Just hang that robe on the hook there, lie down here and we’ll tuck you up.”
“This is new, too. Not the room, but the chair, some of the machines here.”
“If you want to be competitive, you’ve got to keep up.” Viola took out a bib apron and tied it over her cropped pants and bold orange T-shirt. “I’ve got a machine in the next room that works on lines with electrode pulses.”
“Really?” Shelby slipped under the sheet onto the inclined chair.
“Only two of us trained to use it for now, that’s me and your mama, but Maybeline—you remember Maybeline?”
“I do. I can’t remember a time she didn’t work for you.”
“Been some years, and now her girl’s working here, too. Lorilee’s got the same good touch on nails as her mama. Maybeline’s training on the new machine now, so we’ll have three can use it. Not that you have to worry about lines for some time yet.” She laid a light duvet over the sheet, then banded back Shelby’s hair. “But let’s have a look at things. Your skin’s a little dehydrated, baby. Stress’ll do that.”
She started out with a cleanse, her hands soft as a child’s on Shelby’s face.
“There are things a girl can tell her granny she might not say right out to her mama. It’s that safety zone. And Ada Mae, she looks at bright sides, she’s blessed with that outlook. You’ve got trouble, and it’s not grief. I know how grief looks.”
“I’d stopped loving him.” She could say it out loud, with her eyes closed and her grandmother’s hands on her face. “Maybe I never really did love him. I know now he didn’t love me. It’s hard knowing that, hard knowing we didn’t have what we should have and he’s gone.”
“You were young.”
“Older than you were.”
“I got awful lucky. So’d your grandpa.”
“I was a good wife, Granny. I can say that and know it’s true. And Callie—we made Callie, so that’s something special. And I wanted another baby. I know maybe it’s wrong wanting another when things aren’t the way they should be, but I thought maybe it’s just how it would be, and it was all right. It could be good if there was another baby for me to love. I had such a hunger for another baby, such a yearning in me.”