9. We Have to Stop Meeting Like This
9
We Have to Stop Meeting Like This
CARLY
To-do list—November 9
?? Check business budget — time to sell another bag?
?? Set up steeper styling discount for Black Friday
Order new vibrator that can do that thing Andrew did with his tongue
Try to relax
“ W hy do we put ourselves through this?” I wondered aloud at the salon on Saturday.
“Through what?” Lucie blinked her eyes open. She was sitting in the massaging pedicure chair as her feet soaked in warm, bubbly water. She lifted her glass of complimentary sparkling wine to her lips.
I wiped a trickle of sweat from my temple. Like we’d brought it on with our menopause talk the other night, my temperature was more volatile than a Real Housewife cocktail hour. I was perfectly fine one minute, but then I’d feel my body temperature rise. It would start at my stomach and prickle up my torso, then to my chest, then it would crawl up my neck, and finally, my face would flame. When it happened, I felt like an erupting volcano, an unstable one that terrorized the nearby villagers when it went off with no warning. The episodes always ended a few minutes later, leaving me chilled and shaky.
The foils the colorist was applying were like a helmet, and even my scalp was sweating. The worst part was that there was absolutely nothing I could do about it other than wait it out. And if I hated anything, it was waiting.
“Why we put ourselves through this.” I pointed at my head. In the mirror, the brown ends of my hair stuck out between strips of foil.
“It’s not so bad,” Savannah said from the next chair over. She was going with all-over blond—again—so her hair was slicked to her head with the color cream.
“You don’t like it?” Tessa asked. It looked like an effort for her to frown while the manicurist massaged her wrists. She had a few threads of gray in her thick, auburn hair, but she’d asked for only a cut and style.
“Oh, no, I mean, I’m grateful.” I fanned myself. “Thanks again for treating us all. It’s just…do you ever wonder why we think we need to do it? Why we need to look like we’re twenty instead of forty or fifty?”
“I look like I’m fifty.” Savannah wrinkled her nose at her reflection. “But a good fifty, right?”
“You’re a goddess,” Lucie said. “We’re all beautiful.”
“That’s not what I—never mind.” Sweat trickled from my temple. I had to get out of there. I met the colorist’s gaze in the mirror. “Can I take a break, please?”
“Um, sure?” She stepped back, her gloved hands raised.
“Sorry. I’ll be right back.” I stood with the black cape clinging to my sweaty neck and strode toward the exit.
“Don’t go out in the sun,” she called after me.
I waved a glistening palm to show I’d heard her.
The salon’s lobby was decorated in soothing shades of sand and ivory and softly scented with patchouli. I took a deep breath to try to cool the inferno inside me. When I fanned myself, my arms were red and blotchy. This was it. I was going to flame up from the inside out like an out-of-control nuclear reactor. Chernobyl had nothing on me.
“Carly?”
I looked up at the cringe-inducingly familiar voice.
Andrew Jones rose from the soft cognac leather sofa in the waiting area. He approached me slowly, reluctantly, looking pressed and perfect in his khaki slacks and white button-down. He probably felt obligated to say hello. I wished he’d pretended he didn’t see me with my sweaty cape and red face.
“Don’t you ever wear anything but Brooks Brothers?” I blurted out. The hot flash must have fried my filter.
His cheeks went pink. “It’s easy. Everything coordinates.”
“Like Garanimals.”
“What?”
I supposed Audrey had never shopped for him at Walmart. “Never mind.”
He stopped an arm’s length away and scanned me from the foils on my head to the disposable flip-flops on my feet. He shook his head, bemused. “I guess I missed the memo on the dress code.”
I grimaced, then tucked my hands under the cape to ensure my robe was tied at the waist. A cooling breeze reminded me I was naked underneath.
“I needed to take a break.” I patted down the foils on the left side of my head. “I wish I—” I stopped. What was my runaway mouth going to say? I wish I wasn’t a sweaty, makeup-free mess…I wish I hadn’t left the safety of our private room…I wish I’d gone to a different salon, maybe in another state.
He cocked his head and smiled. “I don’t know how you do it. You look beautiful even at the salon. Nat always looks like Medusa.”
“I look like Medusa.” I squinted at him.
“Only if Medusa were the most gorgeous woman in the city.”
My cheeks heated, and that’s when I realized my hot flash had ended as quickly as it had begun. Sweat cooled my body. How could he say something like that? I’d seen myself in the mirror. Gorgeous was not the word I’d have used.
Making me feel beautiful and strong and sexy was Andrew’s superpower. He’d used it on me in Monterey, the night I’d lost my mind and slept with my frenemy’s son.
But we weren’t in Monterey. We were in San Francisco, and someone we knew might see us together.
I shoved my hands into the pockets of my robe. “What are you doing here?”
“I drove my mother and Natalie.”
If Audrey was here, I needed to retreat, to hide, but I couldn’t tear myself away from Andrew. Not yet. “Don’t you have better things to do on a Saturday?”
He shrugged. “It’s family. They asked. And I brought some work.” When he waved at the sofa, I noticed the laptop he’d left there.
I glanced around the lobby, but the only witness was the receptionist behind her desk.
Seeming to read the thoughts on my face, he said, “We ran into each other. We’re just talking. No one would read into it, I promise.” He grinned, and despite my panic, those dimples weakened my knees. He tipped his head toward the sofa. “Want to join me? I could use a break from my spreadsheets.”
“No, I…uh. I came out to…” I would not share that I was having a perimenopausal hot flash. “To make my next appointment.”
“Ah.”
Now I had to make an appointment at this salon, which I couldn’t afford, considering the bill coming due for my new website.
I moved toward the desk, and he ambled beside me. “How have you been?”
“Fine. Good.”
“And business is good?”
“Yes,” I lied.
“That’s great.”
We reached the desk, and I turned my attention to the receptionist. “I’d like to make an appointment, please. Cut and highlights.”
“In six weeks?” she asked. “That takes us to the last week of December.”
“Oh, no.” The last week of December reminded me of Brad’s wedding.
“Is that not good?” she asked.
“It’s…there’s a wedding, and…” If I were going to the wedding, I’d need an earlier appointment. I’d die before I’d let Brad and all those potential clients see my roots. But I wasn’t going.
“Brad’s wedding?” Andrew asked. When I stared at him, he looked at his loafers. “My mother mentioned it. Only an insensitive prick would invite his ex.”
“Right.” Of course Brad would’ve invited Audrey and Charles. I couldn’t stop the hurt from bubbling out. “Barcelona is where we went for our honeymoon.”
“Ouch.” He winced. “It’s brave of you to go. Do you have a plus-one? I could take you.”
I sucked in a breath. “No!” A date with Andrew? In public? Talking with him in the salon was bad enough. It made me too conscious of my lack of underwear. I pressed my thighs together. “I mean, no, I wasn’t planning to go.”
“Really?” One side of his mouth tipped up. “I figured you would. To prove to everyone you’re the bigger person.”
That smile. Those dimples. So confident, yet also inviting. It was what drew me in. It made me feel like we shared a secret. And, in fact, we did. I shuffled back half a step in my foam flip-flops.
I swallowed, remembering my friends’ advice to use the occasion to prove I was over Brad and to pick up clients. “That does sound like me, doesn’t it? But, surprisingly, I’ve got some complicated feelings about it. I think it’s best if I gracefully decline.”
He leaned an elbow on the tall counter. “Sure. Though Spain could be fun, especially with a date to inspire a little jealousy. Not that Brad’s petty like that.”
I snorted. Brad was exactly that petty.
I let myself imagine it for a minute. Walking into the reception with young, handsome Andrew. Leaning on him, his presence a support and a comfort while my ex married someone else. Dancing with him while Brad seethed.
Now who’s being petty?
“Still, I think I’ll pass.”
“I’m looking for a date myself. Not to the wedding, but to a client dinner I’ve got coming up. I’ve asked everyone I know.”
“No takers? You’re joking.” A handsome guy like Andrew had to have young women lined up.
“Not one. Wait a second.” To the receptionist, he said, “Are you free Monday night?”
Her mouth dropped open. “Omigod. I’d love to! Go with you. Anywhere.” Then her excited smile flipped over, and she regained the power of coherent speech. “But it’s my mom’s birthday Monday. I could…”
“No!” Andrew’s expression was horrified. “Don’t skip out on your mom’s birthday, not for me. I’ll find someone.” He chuckled nervously. “Carly, I don’t suppose you’re free to act as my fake girlfriend?”
“It’s not just a date? It’s a whole fake girlfriend?”
“Unfortunately, yes. I got carried away.”
I wished I could help, but a fake girlfriend? There was no way that wouldn’t get back to his mother. Besides, it would be ridiculous for Andrew to pretend to date someone my age. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”
His shoulders slumped, but he flashed me that knee-weakening half-grin. “It was worth a shot.”
“You flatter me.”
“Any chance I get.”
Blushing again, I turned back to the receptionist. “I’ll take that appointment the last week in December, please.”
After she emailed me the appointment confirmation, I said goodbye to Andrew and floated back into the salon without a second glance.
That was a lie. I did look back. And found him looking at me too.
“We have to stop meeting like this,” he called out.
We definitely did. Because having Andrew call me gorgeous was a temptation I didn’t trust myself to resist.