Chapter Ten #2
“Nope, but you need a new do.” Lexy continued to tap her finger, her eyes narrowing, her head nodding. “I can fix that. A little snip here, a little snip there.”
“Snip?” Jo put both hands to her hair in defense. “What do you mean, snip? I’m not letting you cut my hair.”
“What do you care? It’s just hanging there anyway.”
“Exactly.” Kate breezed back in. “Lexy’s got a nice touch with hair. She trims mine up if I can’t get over to the mainland. Go wash it, Jo. Lexy, go get your scissors.”
“Fine.” Defeated, Jo threw up her hands. “Just fine. If she scalps me I won’t have to go sit on the sand with a bunch of fools half the night listening to somebody sing ‘Kum Ba Yah.’ ”
Fifteen minutes later, she found herself sitting with a towel bibbed around her and bits of hair falling. “Jesus.” Jo squeezed her eyes tight. “I have lost my mind. It’s now official.”
“Stop squirming,” Lexy ordered, but there was a laugh in the order rather than a sting. “I’ve barely done anything. Yet. And think how long this is going to keep Cousin Kate off your back.”
“Yeah.” Jo forced her shoulders to relax. “Yeah, there is that.”
“You’ve got great hair, Jo. Good body, a nice natural wave.” She pouted a little, studying her own wildly spiraling mane in the mirror. “Don’t know why I have to pay such money for curl, myself. My hair’s straight as a pin.”
With a shrug for life’s vagaries, she concentrated again on the job at hand. “A decent cut’s all you need. What I’m doing is giving you one that you won’t have to do a thing with.”
“I already don’t do a thing.”
“And it looks it. This won’t.”
“Just don’t cut off too . . .” Jo’s eyes went huge, her throat closed as she watched three inches of hair flop into her lap. “Christ! Oh, Christ! What have you done?”
“Relax, I’m giving you bangs, that’s all.”
“Bangs? Bangs? I didn’t ask for bangs.”
“Well, you’re getting them. A nice fringe to the eyebrow. Your eyes are your best feature. This will highlight them, and it’s a nice, casual look that suits you.” She continued to comb and snip, stood back, scowled and snipped some more. “I like it. Yes, I like it.”
“Good for you,” Jo muttered. “You wear it.”
“You’re going to owe me an apology.” Lexy squirted some gel in her palm, rubbed her hands together, then slicked them through Jo’s damp hair. “You only need a little of this, about the size of a dime.”
Jo scowled at the tube. “I don’t use hair gunk.”
“You’re going to. Just a little,” she repeated, then switched on her blow-dryer. “You can air-dry it too, but this’ll give it a little more volume. Won’t take you more than ten minutes in the morning to fuss with it.”
“Doesn’t take me more than two now. What’s the damn point?” Jo told herself she didn’t care about the cut. She was tired of sitting there being fussed with, that was all. She wasn’t nervous.
“Fine.” Lexy switched off the dryer, tugged out the plug. “All you do is bitch and find fault. Go ahead and look like a hag. I don’t give a shit.” She stormed out, leaving Jo to tug the towel aside bad-temperedly.
But when she caught her reflection in the mirror, she stopped, stepped closer.
It looked ... nice, she decided, and lifted a hand to brush the tips.
Instead of hanging, it skimmed, she supposed, angled over the ears, graduated toward the back.
It was sort of . . . breezy, she decided.
The bangs weren’t such a bad touch after all.
Experimentally, she shook her head. Everything fell back into place, more or less.
Nothing drooped into her eyes to irritate her.
She picked up her brush, ran it through and watched her hair rise and fall in nice, neat blunt ends. Tidy, she mused. Fuss-free, but with, well, style. She had to admit it had style and the style flattered.
The memory snuck through of sitting on the edge of her bed while her mother brushed her hair.
You’ve got beautiful hair, Jo Ellen. So thick and soft. It’s going to be your crowning glory.
It’s the same color as yours, Mama.
I know. And Annabelle laughed and hugged her close. You’ll be my little twin.
“I can’t be your twin, Mama,” Jo whispered now. “I can’t be like you.”
Wasn’t that why she’d never done anything more with her hair than scrape it back into an elastic band?
Wasn’t that why there was no tube of mascara in the bathroom?
Was it stubbornness, Jo wondered, or was it fear, that kept her from spending more than five minutes a day on her appearance? From really looking at herself?
If she was going to keep herself sane, Jo thought, she was going to have to learn how to face what she saw in the mirror every day. And facing it, she realized, she would have to learn to accept it.
Taking a bracing breath, she left her room and walked down to Lexy’s.
She found Lexy in the bathroom, choosing a lipstick from among the clutter of cosmetics on the counter.
“I’m sorry.” When Lexy said nothing, Jo took the last step forward. “Lexy, I am sorry. You were absolutely right. I was being bitchy, I was finding fault.”
Lexy stared down at the little gold tube, watched the slick red stick slide up and down. “Why?”
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“Everything.” It was a relief to admit it, finally. “Everything scares me these days. Even a new haircut.” She managed to work up a smile. “Even a terrific new haircut.”
Lexy relented enough to smile back when their eyes met in the mirror. “It is pretty terrific. It would look better if you had some color, fixed up your eyes.”
Jo sighed, looked down at the personal department store of cosmetics. “Why not? Can I use some of this stuff?”
“Anything there would work. We’re the same coloring.” Lexy turned back to the mirror, carefully painted her lips. “Jo ... are you scared of being alone?”
“No. I do alone really well.” Jo picked up blusher, sniffed at it. “That’s about all that doesn’t scare me.”
“Funny. That’s about the only thing that does scare me.”
* * *
THE fire speared up, rose out of white sand and toward a black, diamond-studded sky. Like some Druid ritual fire, Nathan thought, as he sipped an icy beer and watched the flames. He could imagine robed figures dancing around it, offering sacrifices to some primitive and hungry god.
And where the hell had that come from? he wondered, and took another swig to wash the image away.
The night was cool, the fire hot, and the beach, so often deserted, was filled with people and sound and music. He just wasn’t quite ready to be part of it. He watched the mating dances, the ebb and flow of male and female as basic as the tide.
And he thought of the photos Jo had shown him that morning, those frozen slices of lonely. Maybe it had taken that, he realized, to make him see how lonely he’d become.
“Hey, handsome.” Ginny plopped down on the sand beside him. “Whatcha doing over here all by yourself?”
“Searching for the meaning of life.”
She hooted cheerfully. “Well, that’s easy. It’s living it.” She offered him a hot dog, fresh out of the fire and burned to a crisp. “Eat up.”
Nathan took a bite, tasted charcoal and sand. “Yum.”
She laughed, squeezed his knee companionably. “Well, outdoor cooking’s not my strong point. But I whip up a hell of a southern-style breakfast if you ever . . . find yourself in my neighborhood.”
As a come-on it was both obvious and easy. There was her acre of smile, slightly off center now from the tequila she’d been drinking. He couldn’t help but smile back at her. “That’s a very attractive offer.”
“Well, sugar, it’s one every single woman on the island between sixteen and sixty would dearly love to make you. I just figure I’m getting to the head of the line.”
Not entirely sure how he was supposed to respond now, Nathan scratched his chin. “I’m really fond of breakfast, but—”
“Now don’t you fret over it.” This time she squeezed his arm as if testing and approving the biceps. “You know what you’ve got to do, Nathan?”
“What’s that?”
“You’ve got to dance.”
“I do?”
“You sure do.” She hopped up, shot down a hand. “With me. Come on, big guy. Let’s kick up some sand.”
He put a hand in hers, found it so warm and alive it was easy to grin. “All right.”
“Ginny’s got herself a Yankee,” Giff commented, watching Ginny pull Nathan toward the damp sand.
“Looks like.” Kirby licked marshmallow off her thumb. “She sure knows how to have a good time.”
“It isn’t so hard.” With a beer dangling between his fingers, Giff scanned the beach.
Some people were dancing or swaying, others were sprawled around the blazing fire, still others strolled off into the dark to be alone.
Kids whooped and hollered, and the old sat in beach chairs exchanging gossip and watching the youth.
“Not everybody wants to have a good time.” Kirby glanced toward the dunes again but saw no one coming over them from the direction of Sanctuary.
“You know, you got your eye cocked for Brian, and I’ve got mine cocked for Lexy.” Giff threw a friendly arm around her shoulder. “Why don’t we go dance? We’ll keep our eyes cocked together.”
“That’s a fine idea.”
Brian came over the dunes, Lexy on one side, Jo on the other. He paused at the top, took a long, slow survey. “And this, my children, all this, will one day be yours.”
“Oh, Bri.” Lexy elbowed him. “Don’t be such a grump.” She spotted Giff immediately and felt little toothy nips of jealousy as she saw him slide Kirby into his arms for a slow dance. “I’ve got a hankering for some crab,” she said lightly and started down toward the beach.
“We could probably escape now,” Jo began. “Kate’s still dragging Daddy down. We could head north, circle around, and be back home before she gets here.”
“She’d only make us pay for it later.” Resigned, he jammed his hands in his back pockets. “Why do you suppose we’re so bad at social occasions, Jo Ellen?”
“Too much Hathaway,” she began.