Chapter 28
I wake up the next morning a little more in love with love than I ever have been.
The missing ingredient—hope. I don’t know for sure how Tai is going to respond to my revelation, but for the first time in a long time I have hope that a man—that Tai—will still see me as a woman he wants to be with whether I have a full head of hair or my scalp is as shiny and smooth as a cue ball.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m still quaking-in-my-boots scared.
I admit that my heart is on the line here.
The thought of rejection . . . well, it’s enough to chase me to the toilet to toss my cookies.
But there’s also anticipation. Fear and hope, battling it out like two WWE wrestlers using my stomach as their ring.
Unfortunately, I have to wait until tomorrow until I can see Tai again.
I’m headed to Granny and Grampie’s today, and Tai has a client that’s going to keep him busy all evening.
But tomorrow we have plans to picnic at Chilhowee, a nice spot overlooking the Ocoee River.
That’s where I’ll tell him about the alopecia and let him see me without my wig.
In the meantime, I’m not giving up on matchmaking.
Poor Stacey at Cotton-Eyed Cup of Joe is probably wondering what happened to her secret admirer since I haven’t written her any other letters, not since the dumpster fire results of the first one.
Time for that to change. After reading Grampie’s letters to Granny for inspiration, I’m ready to try again.
An hour later, with two letter-stuffed envelopes in hand and the addresses of Caleb and Stacey that I pilfered from the library’s system loaded into my GPS, I depart on my morning’s love mission.
Stacey lives downtown in an apartment above the hardware store, and I slip the envelope with her name on it through the mail slot.
Caleb is fixing up an old Victorian-style house on the outskirts of town.
Much easier to leave his letter in his mailbox instead of hiking to the middle of nowhere, like I had to with Dalton’s workshop.
I have a good feeling about these two. This time my matchmaking scheme is going to work out the way the others were supposed to. In fifty years, they’re going to be telling people how they met and fell in love, just like Mrs. Goldmann does.
I point my car south down the 411 toward my grandparents’ house.
As usual, once I hit I-75, I strip off my wig and set it gently on the passenger seat next to me.
I haven’t cued up the audiobook I’m in the middle of, opting instead to bebop to an oldies station.
Aretha Franklin and I are demanding a little r-e-s-p-e-c-t when a deer teleports itself right into the middle of the road.
I scream, slamming on the brakes and holding the steering wheel in a death grip.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight, bracing myself for impact, the crunch of bones and metal, and the torment of knowing I killed Bambi’s mom.
But the impact never comes. My car stops, the smell of burned rubber singeing my nostrils, and I finally allow my eyes to slit open.
The deer stands there, looking at me like she doesn’t have a care in the world.
Like I didn’t almost mow her over with my Toyota or that I’m now recovering from a mini heart attack.
The doe picks her way across the rest of the road and then disappears into the woods.
My pulse is still pounding, and I think the fright has shaved at least a few years off my lifespan, but that seems to be the only lasting damage done. I wiggle my fingers and toes, mentally cataloging my limbs and torso. Yep, intact. I look around the inside of the car. Everything seems—
I suck in a sharp breath through my teeth.
There, on the floor, is my wig. My wig that is changing color right before my eyes as it soaks in the tea that apparently got knocked out of the cupholder and onto the floor.
I groan but leave it. There’s nothing I can do about it now.
Hopefully the wig isn’t completely ruined and a good washing with a special shampoo and conditioner for synthetic hair, along with some time to air dry, will make it as good as new.
Finally, I ease my foot off the brake and on to the gas pedal. I drive ten miles per hour under the speed limit and scan the surroundings on either side of the road like my gaze is a metal detector and any animals that might jump out are made of alloy instead of flesh and bones.
Five minutes from my grandparents’ house, my cell rings with an incoming call, Granny’s name showing on the screen. I accept the call with the car’s Bluetooth and practically yell to make sure she hears me. “Hey, Granny.”
“Sweetie, you there? I need you to go to the store for me. I’m making potato salad, and we’re out of mayonnaise. Make sure you get the good stuff. Duke’s mayonnaise, Evangeline. Can you hear me?”
“I can hear you, Granny. A jar of Hellmann’s. Got it.” I shouldn’t tease her, but it’s too easy and too fun.
“Duuuuuke’s.” She draws the syllable out long and loud, then sputters, “Hellmann’s. Don’t even know a good mayonnaise. Where did I go wrong with this girl.”
I laugh, the last of my nerves sliding back into their rightful places. “I’ll pick up the mayo, Granny.”
“Duke’s,” she clarifies.
“Duke’s,” I agree.
The call disconnects, and I steer my car to the neighborhood Kroger.
Once I kill the engine, I sit back and worry my lip, looking at my hopefully-only-temporarily ruined wig.
I have two choices. I can put on the wet, stained, stinky hairpiece and look like I have a dead drowned rat on my head, or I can walk into the grocery store naked as a jaybird from the chin up. Either way people are going to stare.
You shouldn’t care so much what people think. It just holds you back. Tai would say something like that if he were here and could read my mind. He’d encourage me to live my life more uninhibited.
I flip down the windshield visor and stare at my reflection in the small mirror.
The top of my head is a pale, ghostly white.
As soon as I step out of the car, the astronauts aboard the International Space Station will probably be blinded by the reflection of the sun off my scalp.
From now on, I’m going to at least sit outside in my backyard without my wig so my head can match the same palette as the rest of my face.
Staring at myself isn’t helping and Granny is waiting and this situation isn’t changing, so I flip the visor back up, step out of the car, and march into the grocery store like I’m heading to the front lines.
If I’m lucky, I won’t run into anyone I know.
It’ll just be strangers picking up groceries during a midmorning lull.
No one will recognize me, and I won’t have to smile politely and answer questions like How have you been lately?
that sound innocuous but are really code for oh, you poor jilted girl.
There’s no way you can be doing all right because you no longer have a man, and by the looks of you, you won’t be snagging one any time soon. If I’m lucky, I won’t—
But I’m not lucky. I’m the unluckiest woman on the planet. Brett turns the corner to enter the condiments aisle. And he’s not alone.
“Evangeline.” Brett’s voice is familiar in a way I wish it wasn’t. Like leftovers in a Country Crock container forgotten for who-knows-how-long. Once something delicious that could make you groan with pleasure but now a rancid, rotting mess that makes your stomach turn at the mere sight.
I’m crouching down because the Duke’s is on the bottom shelf. There’s no quick escape from this position. Instead, I slowly rise, bringing the jar of mayo in front as if it can shield me from what’s happening.
The woman beside Brett has her arm threaded through his the way couples do. She’s tall and slender, wearing a cute summer dress and a cropped denim jacket that shows off her figure. Her hair—
My throat thickens, and I try to swallow past the lump that’s formed.
Her blond hair is long and flowy, naturally wavy with a healthy shine.
She has beautiful hair. The kind that makes you want to reach out and touch it to see how soft it is.
The kind that hypnotizes you with the way it bounces and moves when she walks.
The kind that chips away at the small fragments of my self-esteem—the same ones where the glue has barely dried at holding them back together.
“Hello, Brett,” I finally manage to say.
He’s looking at me the way I’d been studying the woman with him. I can only imagine what’s going through his mind. None of it flattering.
I lift my chin. But then my gaze snags on something shiny encircled around one of the woman’s fingers. An engagement ring. My engagement ring.
Brett must notice where my attention is because the next words out of his mouth are, “It’s good to see you, Evangeline, but we’re in a hurry.
Maybe we can catch up some other time?” He whispers something in his fiancée’s ear, then pushes the cart around my comatose body before I can kick my brain back into functional mode again.
I pay for the mayonnaise, climb back in my car, and drive the rest of the way to my grandparents’ house on autopilot.
There are too many thoughts taking up space in my head, and I want to shout at them to GET OUT, but of course I can’t because that’s not how thoughts work.
I have to get ahold of them somehow, though.
Organize them into groups instead of letting them have free reign in the space between my ears.
In one corner I push thoughts of Brett. I saw him again. I didn’t instantly want to murder him or imagine him a victim in one of Grampie and Penelope’s miniature crime scenes. He still looked at me with a mixture of pity and revulsion.
That look brings up the doubts, which I shove into another corner. Will everyone who sees me without a wig for the first time have the same reaction? Will people ever be able to look past the baldness? Will Tai?
I need a practice round. A neutral person I can reveal myself to. Someone I care about and who cares about me but doesn’t have the same emotional risks involved as with Tai.
I put the car into park and reach for my cell.
Hey Hayley. Can you come over after your shift? I want to show you something.
Hayley
What is it? If it’s weird Chuck Norris fanfic, I’ll pass.
Hayley
No, wait. I take it back. I’m sorry Chuck Norris! Don’t roundhouse kick me into another galaxy!
Hayley
You know why there aren’t any streets named after Chuck Norris, don’t you? Because no one crosses Chuck Norris.
It has nothing to do with Chuck Norris.
Hayley
I’m oddly disappointed.
Can you swing by or not?
Hayley
See you around 7:15