Chapter 4 Jade
Jade
Amateur hour. For freak’s sake. Jade scrubbed the red dye off her hands.
How, after doing hair for almost twelve years, did she apply colour without her gloves?
Red colour, no less, one of the most potent pigments.
She didn’t want to leave her client hanging, so when she realised her mistake, she slapped her hand with a towel, put on gloves, and finished applying.
Thirty minutes later, after saturating the last strand, the dye had seeped into every pore and was surely making its way to her internal organs.
Her focus had been off this week. Even Mrs Dieterman called her out for not paying more attention to her stories.
Hearing her ex-wife’s voice for the first time in almost a year had rattled Jade to the core.
She hated that Elizabeth’s voice still held power over her, this draw to the life Jade left behind, to the shattered dreams that were once so profound.
A year and a half ago, when she signed the divorce papers and packed up her belongings for a new life in Minnesota, she didn’t think she’d hear from Elizabeth again.
Ever. In fact, she prayed she wouldn’t hear from Elizabeth again.
She needed to cut her ex-wife out of her life completely, because Jade knew herself – a moment of weakness reminiscing about some rose-coloured memory would unravel all the healing work she’d done on herself.
It wasn’t vindictive on Jade’s part. Not at all. It was simply that Elizabeth had made her choice. A distinct, bold, hard-lined decision that didn’t include Jade: after eight years of marriage, Elizabeth decided she wanted to start a family.
Jade didn’t.
She never had, and she’d been upfront about that with Elizabeth from the start.
She’d thought they were eye-to-eye, heart-to-heart, and then …
and then the love of her life, her person, her wife, drew an impossible line.
The ultimate ultimatum. And in the aftermath, Jade knew she’d never be whole again.
The pain was guttural, the type that buried deep into your bones and infected everything.
Even now, the wounds had healed as much as they could, but the scars would be there forever.
But the worst part of it all, as much as she ached to hate Elizabeth, she couldn’t. Part of her soul had been branded by her ex, and Jade wasn’t sure that she’d ever be able to fully let her go.
Jade grabbed a fresh box of latex gloves from the cabinet and ripped open the top as painful memories of her marriage flooded through her.
Elizabeth had begged, pleaded, bribed, and borderline threatened to have a baby with or without Jade.
Jade didn’t budge – she couldn’t budge. She had never wanted to be a mother. Being an aunt, great. Motherhood, no.
What hurt the most was that Jade and Elizabeth had been on the same page since freshman year of college when they first met. Careers, early retirement, travelling the world – that was their future. A family was never on the cards. And then – wham.
After months of begging, haranguing, and outright disparaging Jade for her ‘cold heart’, Elizabeth finally said she’d take care of the baby on her own, and Jade could just be there for moral support.
‘You don’t even have to change a diaper,’ Elizabeth had yelled outside their locked bedroom door as Jade buried her face into a pillow.
Even though Jade had no motherly bones in her body, she knew that was a terrible way to raise a kid.
The Dark Night flashed in her mind – the moment she knew their relationship would never recover. A document slapped on the table. Elizabeth crossing her arms. Jade bursting into tears.
Not divorce papers. Or at least not yet. No – they were adoption papers. Elizabeth had gone ahead and applied for adoption on her own. She said Jade could be with her on this journey, or not.
Jade left their home a week later.
The next several months, Jade downward-spiralled through bouts of anger and self-doubt.
Her only relief came from her hyper-fixation on building up her salon.
She spent eighty to ninety hours a week for those first few months getting Jade’s on 7th off the ground.
Blistered feet, bloodied hands, nearly falling asleep at the wheel on the drive home …
everything was a welcome distraction from the ugly truth: Elizabeth hadn’t chosen her.
Jade wasn’t enough for her wife. Her self-worth faded, slipped between her fingers.
For months, she battled to regain some sense of value.
A year plus later, she wasn’t sure if she had fully succeeded.
The magenta soap suds swirled down the drain, and Jade wiped her hands.
Her fingers would stay pink for a few days, but after some hefty exfoliation, the dye would fade.
She zoned out, staring at bottles of colour.
‘What am I doing …’ she mumbled and tapped her fingers against the ceramic counter. Oh yeah, coffee for the client.
Admittedly, hearing Elizabeth’s voice wasn’t the only thing pestering her brain.
She’d perked up one too many times when the salon phone rang, scoured the upcoming appointments log, and not-so-casually asked Amanda, ‘Any new clients this week?’ hoping she’d see Lucy’s name.
A strange tug-of-war between relief and disappointment occurred every time a new client was someone other than Lucy.
And the relief was a much safer emotion to process.
‘Here you go.’ Jade brought her client a coffee and chocolate and set the timer. ‘Forty-five-minute processing time. I’ll be back in a bit to check on you. Need anything else?’
The client shook her head. Jade gathered up her tools and returned to the back room. While she ran the brush and bowl under the water, Amanda popped in.
‘I’m so irritated right now,’ Amanda said, her dark eyebrows scrunching. ‘The delivery driver just said I looked like Halle Berry.’
‘Yikes,’ Jade said through gritted teeth as she stuffed the brush into the drying rack. ‘I mean. She’s beautiful, but you’re twenty, not fifty. I literally just saw her on this amazing program talking about menopause. And you don’t even look like a young Halle Berry. Maybe he meant Halle Bailey?’
Amanda rolled her dark brown eyes. ‘Like, why say anything at all? Whatever. Anyway, he dropped something off for you.’
Jade tightened the top of the developer bottle and set it on the shelf. ‘Shipment doesn’t come in until tomorrow.’
‘It’s not shipment. It’s a basket. Kind of … a random basket.’
The twinkle in Amanda’s voice piqued Jade’s ears. ‘Random basket?’
Amanda inched closer with a grin. ‘All I have to say is I am soooo curious what the thought process was behind the selection. You know, in my forensic psychology course, we’re examining motivations for certain behaviour.
Tomorrow, I’m looking up what would compel someone to send …
that.’ The phone rang and she bounced away.
I’m so confused. But also, so damn curious. Jade pushed through the swinging door, smiling at a client in Shayna’s chair. When Jade rounded the corner to the reception desk, she stopped.
Facing her was a lovely wicker basket with three bottles of sriracha, a chocolate bar, and a … huh? … bottle of organic eucalyptus lemon cleaner. She picked up the card tucked in the middle.
Jade—
Funny story. I stopped at a pharmacy, and they had a huge display of sriracha!
Who knew you can get aspirin and an (apparently) delicious sauce at a drug store?
Not this gal, that’s for sure. Wondered if you found any, so I thought I’d get some and put it in a thank-you basket.
But then I thought, a thank-you basket should also have chocolate.
But the chocolate seemed weird in the mix, so I thought I’d throw in this cleaner, which is also kind of weird, but whatever.
It smells amazing, by the way. Anyway, this is the longest note in the world to say thank you again for returning my wallet. Cheers! ~ Lucy Sunshine Green
The flutter in Jade’s chest shot straight to her head. She flipped over the card. Huh. No phone number. Maybe that meant Lucy didn’t want Jade to contact her. Or maybe she wanted to leave her number but didn’t want to be presumptuous. But Jade had to thank her for the thank you, right?
She cracked open the cleaner and sniffed. A burst of citrus and spring floated to her nose. Okay, wow. It did smell heavenly.
Amanda dipped her head towards the bottle. ‘Dang, that smells good. But, what the hell? Sriracha and cleaning products?’
Jade bit back the smile forming and tucked the note in her back pocket.
‘I found a lost wallet at the grocery store the other day, and the wallet owner just sent a thank you.’ Maintain calm demeanour.
Despite being nearly fifteen years younger than Jade, Amanda was one of the most intuitive people Jade had ever met.
And Jade was in no shape to describe the surprising goosebumps on her neck, nor the reason the sensation scared her so much.
Amanda twisted her lips. ‘Well, it’s definitely an odd mix, but I can get behind that.’
Odd, but also kind of perfect. Lucy was sweet.
With her intense work schedule and strict policy of not getting too friendly with clients, Jade hadn’t made a single friend in town.
She’d made that mistake a few years back.
And when one of her stylists royally screwed up an ash-blond balayage on Jade’s friend, Jade defending her employee ruined their relationship.
Oof. Now what? Lucy wasn’t a client, so Jade wouldn’t be breaking any personal protocols by reaching out.
But this was Stillwater, not Chicago, and even though Jade had been here for a year, she wasn’t privy to all the cultural and societal norms of the small-ish town.
Would she be considered a grade-A creep if Jade found Lucy on social media and shot her a message?
Back home in Chicago with a population edging towards three million, that was the norm.
But here, when you have a legitimate chance of running into that person several times a year, that might be totally frowned upon.
And does she want to contact Lucy? Yes. But also … no. It had been a long damn time since tingles fluttered in her belly the way they were now, and as warm and fuzzy as they felt in there, bouncing around, they also made Jade’s stomach knot.
Jade stood at the counter way too long staring at the assortment, like somehow the sriracha bottles had a magical genie stuffed in there, and if she rubbed the side, the mythical entity would tell her what to do.
Finally, she walked the basket to the break room, set it on the counter, and contemplated – hard – on her next move.