Chapter 13 Lottie
LOTTIE
As fate would have it, Noah and Everett checked the security cameras, and sure enough, a few dark figures in dark hoodies and darker masks were seen doing the egging—but not a single one of them was identifiable. Pixelated blobs of delinquency, that’s all we got.
They were disappointed, to say the least. But the two of them were still pretty determined to confront the Pickens clan and let the justice system work, which in Everett speak means he’s going to weaponize every subsection of the Vermont civil code and, in Noah-speak, means he’s going to glare them into next week while making sure they understand that he’s armed at all times.
Me? I wish none of it had ever happened.
I wish I’d never driven down that street on the way home that day.
Of course, that day was cursed from top to bottom, seeing that it was the very same day Vivienne Pemberton-Clarke was taken out by a psychopath wielding a cast-iron frying pan named Big Bertha.
But I digress.
Once Everett and Noah took off to make their rounds—legal ones and otherwise—I got dressed and took Lyla Nell to preschool, where I was fully expecting blubbering tears and kicking and screaming on both her part and mine.
But my feisty baby girl toddled into the classroom like she owned the deed to the place, spared me a quick look over her shoulder, and said a hearty, “Goodbye, Lottie,” before she went over to the clay station and dug her hands into something that looked suspiciously like red soil.
Abandoned. By my own two-year-old.
I stood there another full minute waiting for the separation anxiety to kick in. Mine did. Hers never came.
After that ego hit, I did what any rational mother of three under three would do. I called my own mother and tried to pawn off the twins for a few hours.
“Glam Glam,” I said the second she picked up, “how would you like to spend some quality time with your favorite grandsons? They’re extra cute today. I think Corbin might have dimples on his elbows.”
“That’s not a thing, Lottie,” she chirped. “And as much as I would love to soak up the sweet babies, I’m afraid I’m up to my eyeballs in petticoats and pearls.”
“Of course, you are.” I slumped into the driver’s seat and buckled my seat belt with a sigh. “Let me guess. Daughters of Honey Hollow?”
“Today is an extremely important event,” she says as if she were announcing a national emergency. “We’re holding the Pin-Curl Pageant over at Blanche’s shop on Main. I simply cannot miss it. Suze is counting on me to help wrangle the contestants.”
I perked right up. “Blanche’s shop? As in Blanche Baumgartner? Blanche Baumgartner, who has been turning sweet little Honey Hollow grandmothers into blue-helmeted cotton candy clones since 1973?”
“That’s the one.” Mom actually giggles. “Blanche’s House of Hair. We’re calling it the Pin-Up Parlor today. You should come! Bring the boys. We’ll pass them around like party favors.”
I look in the rearview mirror where Ozzy and Corbin are seated in their car seats, cheeks chubby, eyes wide, little fists already at the ready to wreak tiny havoc.
“I thought nobody under seventy was allowed within ten feet of Blanche’s House of Hair,” I say. “Isn’t that in the bylaws?”
“Oh, nonsense. Anyone is welcome.” Mom pauses. “They just rarely come back.”
That checks out.
Blanche’s House of Hair sits on Main Street just a few steps from the Cutie Pie Bakery.
I’d walked past it a thousand times but never once ventured inside.
Mostly because every single person who exits the premises comes out with the exact same hairdo—tight, electric-blue perm shellacked to their ears like a Smurf had been taxidermied and hot-glued to their skull.
It’s like watching a conveyor belt for cotton-candy helmets.
“Fine,” I say, mostly because I’m a nosy sleuth. “Keep an eye out for me. I’ll swing by.”
Mom squeals. “Perfect! I’ll tell everyone my precious Lottie Lemon is coming. They’ll be thrilled. And I’ll clear my arms for my beautiful grandsons. See you soon!”
She hangs up before I can tell her this was supposed to be a babysitting handoff and not a bring-your-babies-to-the-beauty-pageant situation.
Figures.
Ten minutes later, I’m parallel parking in front of Blanche’s House of Hair and trying not to psych myself out.
The bell over the door jingles as I push the double stroller inside, and a wall of scent hits me so hard I nearly stagger back out—cloying perfume, perm solution, hairspray strong enough to stun a moose, and coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.
The salon itself looks like time has stopped somewhere around 1957 and decided to unpack.
Chrome hair dryers line one wall like shiny domes of impending doom, each with an avocado-green vinyl chair in front of it.
A row of styling stations runs down the other side, all Formica countertops and giant oval mirrors edged in scalloped frames.
The black-and-white checkered floor has seen things—I’m talking wars, divorces, and at least three generations of bad bangs.
Plastic slipcovers squeak under the weight of women in full 1950s regalia.
Petticoats fan out around them like frothy cupcakes, saddle shoes tap against the gleaming linoleum, and pearls glow at almost every throat.
The soundtrack to the afternoon is a mix of hair dryer whooshes, gossip, and Elvis crooning softly from a radio perched next to the register.
And the hair.
Oh, the hair.
Every station is occupied by a woman mid-transformation.
Pin curls meticulously clipped into place, rollers the size of soup cans, barrel curls, bumper bangs, bouffants reaching precariously toward the acoustic-tile ceiling.
It is less salon and more military operation.
Operation: Recreate the Decade that Invented Hairspray.
“Lottie Lemon!” My mother comes swirling my way in a gorgeous baby-pink shirtwaist dress, heels clicking, a strand of pearls gleaming at her throat, and a white scarf tied over her impeccably curled hair like she’s just hopped off the set of a detergent commercial.
She scoops Ozzy right out of the stroller without missing a step. “Give me that sweet baby.”
Ozzy coos and immediately buries his face in her shoulder like they’ve made a pact.
A second later, Lainey appears at my side, snagging Corbin with the ease of someone who’s been popping babies off my hip her entire life.
“Well, well, look who decided to leave her crime scenes and join civilization,” she teases. Her caramel hair is twisted into a gorgeous set of victory rolls, and she wears a fire-engine red dress that makes her look like she’s stepped out of a pin-up calendar.
“You’re one to talk,” I say, giving her outfit a once-over. “You look like you’re about to sell cigarettes on a Vegas stage.”
“Thank you.” She kisses Corbin’s chubby cheek. “Where’s Lyla Nell?”
Cue panic.
I slap a hand over my heart. “Lyla Nell. Oh my goodness. Who’s watching my baby?”
Both Lainey and Mom laugh.
“Relax,” Lainey says. “She’s still at preschool. Keelie volunteered to stay an extra hour and help with afternoon clean-up. Last text I got, Lyla Nell was reorganizing the art supplies and lobbying for extra snack time. She’s practically running the place.”
“That child is bossy,” Mom announces proudly. “She must get it from you.”
“She gets it from Foxy,” Carlotta cuts in, popping up on my other side out of absolutely nowhere like an inappropriate jack-in-the-box.
She dons a tight black pencil skirt and polka-dot blouse knotted at the waist in full pin-up glory, with a red bandana tied Rosie-the-Riveter style over her caramel curls.
Red lipstick, cat-eye liner, the whole 1950s nine yards.
She looks like trouble, and I’m fairly certain that’s the point.
“Told you, Lot. The girl was giving orders the second she popped out. That one’s gonna start her own crime family by kindergarten. ”
“As long as she doesn’t join yours,” I mutter.
“What was that?” Carlotta gives me a wink. “Because if she does, she’ll be my favorite little enforcer. I’ll call her the Yipper Skipper.”
I try to ignore the fact that my toddler has been described as both bossy and an enforcer before the age of three.
“Lottie!” Suze Fox waves from the shampoo area, clad in a crisp mint green dress and an apron with scissors embroidered on it, her hair set into pin curls so tight they might be permanent. “Look at you! You finally came to Blanche’s! I never thought I’d live to see the day.”
“That makes two of us,” I mutter. And I’m starting to understand why she asked for the day off.
“Isn’t this fun?” Mom spins us in a slow circle so I can take in the full effect. “The Daughters booked out Blanche’s for the afternoon, and everyone is getting a full vintage look for the Pin-Curl Pageant. Blanche is in heaven.”
As if conjured by name, Blanche Baumgartner emerges from behind one of the dryers.
She is in her seventies, compact and sturdy as a fire hydrant, with steel gray hair arranged in a cloud of tiny curls that might actually be bulletproof.
A pair of glasses hangs from a chain around her neck, and she wears a lipstick shade that could best be described as Defibrillator Red.
“Miranda.” She marches over and pinches my mother’s cheek like they’re still seventeen. “This is your girl?”
“This is my Lottie,” Mom says, glowing with maternal pride. “Owner of the Cutie Pie Bakery and mother to these two delicious boys and that precocious little doll we call Lyla Nell. And she even has one in college. Everett’s daughter, whom she adopted.”
Blanche gives me a once-over that takes in everything from my sensible flats to the flour smudge I just then notice on my sleeve. “You need a haircut,” she declares. “And some color. You want to look like a washed-out throw pillow when you’re my age?”
“Um… no?”
“Good answer.” She snaps her gum. “You sitting for the pageant, cupcake?”