After Delaney opened the salon, she grabbed a poster of Claudia Schiffer, her perfect body squeezed into a lace Valentino, her golden hair curled and blowing artfully about her beautiful face. There was nothing like a glamorous poster to draw attention.
Delaney kicked off her shoes with the huge buckles and climbed up on the window bay. She’d just stuck the poster on the plate glass when the bell over the door rang. She glanced to her left and set the tape on the ledge. One of the Howell twins stood just inside the entrance gazing about the salon, her light brown hair held back from her pretty face by a wide red headband.
“Can I help you?” Delaney asked as she carefully climbed out of the window, wondering if this was the twin who had jumped on the back of Nick’s Harley last Saturday night. If she was, the woman had bigger problems than split ends.
Her blue eyes raked Delaney from head to toe, scrutinizing her green and black striped tights, green lederhosen, and black turtleneck. “Do you take walk-ins?” she asked.
Delaney was desperate for clients, desperate for anyone who didn’t qualify for a senior citizen discount, but she really didn’t care for the woman’s close examination, as if she were looking for faults. Delaney didn’t care if she lost this potential customer, and so she said, “Yes, but I charge twenty-five dollars.”
“Are you good?”
“I’m the best you’ll find around here.” Delaney shoved her feet into her shoes, a little surprised that the woman wasn’t already out the door, running down the street toward a ten-dollar haircut.
“That isn’t saying much. Helen sucks.”
Perhaps she’d rushed to judgment. “Well, I don’t suck,” she said simply. “In fact, I’m very good.”
The woman reached for the headband and pulled it from her hair. “I want the bottom trimmed and layered up to here,” she said, indicating her jaw-line. “No bangs.”
Delaney cocked her head to the side. The woman standing before her had a great jawline and nice high cheekbones. Her forehead was in proportion to the rest of her face. The cut she wanted would look good on her, but with her big blue eyes, Delaney knew something short and boyish would look stunning. “Come on back.”
“We met briefly at a party on the Fourth of July,” the twin said as she followed Delaney. “I’m Lanna Howell.”
Delaney stopped in front of a shampoo chair. “Yes, I recognized you.” Lanna sat and Delaney draped the woman’s shoulders in a silver shampoo cape and white fluffy towel. “You have a twin sister, right?” she asked, when what she really wanted to know was if this was the sister who’d glued herself to Nick the other night.
“Yeah, Lonna.”
“That’s right,” she said as she analyzed her client’s hair between her fingers and thumb. Then she adjusted the cape over the rear of the chair and carefully eased Lanna back until her neck rested comfortably in the dip of the shampoo sink. “What did you use to lighten your hair?” She grabbed the spray nozzle, then tested the water temperature with her hand.
“Sun-In and lemon juice.”
Delaney mentally rolled her eyes at the logic of some women who spent big bucks at the cosmetics counter, then went home and dumped a five-dollar bottle of peroxide on their heads.
With one hand she protected Lanna’s face, neck, and ears from the spray while the other saturated the hair with warm water. She used a mild shampoo and natural conditioner, and as she worked, the two women chatted idly about the weather and the beautiful colors of autumn. When she was finished, she wrapped Lanna’s head in a towel and led her to the salon chair.
“My sister said she saw you the other night in Hennesey’s,” Lanna stated as Delaney blotted the water from her hair.
Delaney glanced in the big wall mirror, studying Lanna’s reflection. So, she thought as grabbed her comb, it was the other twin who had been with Nick. “Yeah, I was there. They had a pretty good R &B band up from Boise.”
“That’s what I heard. I work in the restaurant at the microbrewery, so I couldn’t make it.”
As Delaney combed out the tangles and secured the hair into five sections with duckbill clamps, she purposely moved the subject away from Hennesey’s. She asked Lanna about her job, and the conversation turned to the big ice sculpture festival the town held every December. According to Lanna, the festival had turned into quite an event.
As a child, Delaney and been shy and introverted, but after years of attempting to put her clients at ease, she could shoot the bull with anyone about anything. She could moon over Brad Pitt as easily as she could commiserate over cramps. Stylists were a lot like bartenders and priests. Some people just seemed compelled to spill their guts and confess shocking details of their lives. Styling chair confessions were just one of the many things she missed about her life before she’d accepted the terms of Henry’s will. She also missed the competition and camaraderie between stylists and the juicy gossip that made Delaney’s life look tame in comparison.
“How well do you know Nick Allegrezza?”
Delaney’s hand stilled, and then she blunt cut a section of hair at the center of Lanna’s nape. “We grew up here in Truly at the same time.”
“But did you know him very well?”
She glanced into the mirror again, then back down at her hands, snipping a guideline from left to right. “I don’t think anyone really knows Nick. Why?”
“My friend Gail thinks she’s in love with him.”
“Then she has my sympathy.”
Lanna laughed. “You don’t care?”
“Of course not.” Even if she thought Nick was capable of loving any woman, he wasn’t her concern. “Why should I care?” she asked and removed the clip at the back of Lanna’s head and clamped it on the bib of her lederhosen.
“Gail told me all about Nick and you and what happened when you lived here.”
Delaney wasn’t all that surprised as she combed out tangles and cut the new section. “Which story did you hear?”
“The one where you had to leave town years ago to have Nick’s baby.”
Delaney felt as if she’d been hit in the stomach and her hands stilled again. She shouldn’t have asked. There had been several rumors churning the gossip mill of Truly when she’d left, but she’d never heard that one. Her mother had never mentioned it, but then she wouldn’t. Gwen didn’t like to talk about the real reason Delaney had left Truly. Her mother always referred to that time as “when you went away to school.” Delaney didn’t know why such old news should bother her now, but it did. “Really? That’s news to me,” she said, ducking her head and sliding strands of Lanna’s hair between her fingers. She laid the open scissor across her knuckle and cut a straight line. She couldn’t believe the town had thought she was pregnant. Well, actually, she guessed she could. She wondered if Lisa knew of the rumor-or Nick.
“I’m sorry.” Lanna broke into her thoughts. “I thought you knew about it. I guess I’ve stuck my foot in my mouth.”
Delaney glanced up. Lanna looked sincere, but Delaney didn’t know the woman so she wasn’t real sure. “It’s just a little shocking to hear I’ve had a baby when I’ve never been pregnant.” She let down another section and combed it free of tangles. “Especially with Nick. We don’t even like each other.”
“That will relieve Gail’s mind. Lonna’s too. The two of them are kind of competing for the same man.”
“I thought they were friends.”
“They are. If you go out with Nick, he lets you know right up front it’s not marriage he’s interested in. Lonna doesn’t really mind, but Gail’s trying to get in the house.”
“Get in the house? What do you mean?”
“Lonna says Nick never takes women to his house for sex. They go to motels or wherever. Gail thinks if she can get him to make love to her in his house, than she’ll get him to do other things too. Like buy her a big diamond and walk down the aisle.”
“Nick must have a huge motel bill.”
“Probably.” Lanna laughed.
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Me? Maybe if I were the one going out with him, but I’m not. Me and my sister never date the same
