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She was not! She did hair, not plastic surgery. If Mrs. Steele wanted a miracle, she should have gone to church. Missy bit her lip to keep in the angry words.
Now everyone in the salon was staring, all the other last-minute holiday customers no doubt thanking God that they hadn’t gotten stuck with the incompetent stylist, all the other stylists thankful that they hadn’t gotten stuck with Mrs. Steele. Missy could feel the heat of embarrassment over this undeserved criticism from her collarbone to the roots of her powder-blue dye job.
“I’m sorry you’re not happy,” she said.
“I’m certainly not. The color’s wrong and the cut is awful. I’m not paying for this.”
Oh, great. Mrs. Steele was going to walk, and that meant it would come out of Missy’s paycheck.
“And I’m not coming back here,” she added as Missy removed the plastic cape.
“Good riddance,” muttered the stylist next to Missy as Mrs. Steele stormed out the door.
“I thought her haircut was pretty,” said the woman sitting in the chair.
It was, darn it all. Well, never mind. In another hour she’d be done and out of here and on her way to having the best Christmas ever. She got her broom and swept up the raven’s-wing black locks left behind by the old crow, all the while hoping that a big tipper would come in before they closed.
The door opened and in came—oh, no, not this guy. Again, all the other stylists started cutting in slow motion. Nobody wanted Larry the lech.
“Welcome to Style Savings,” sang out Shiloh, their manager. She went to where their cash register and appointment schedule sat to get old Larry checked in.
Larry was somewhere in his forties and, more than anything, he resembled the Pillsbury Doughboy. He was the king of the boob grazes, and there wasn’t a stylist in the salon he hadn’t hit on, including Missy. And she’d bet that today he was going to be all hers. Goody.
Sure enough, Shiloh was giving her The Look. She set aside her broom and came over to conduct Larry to her chair. She could practically feel his pervy stare burning her butt as they crossed the salon. Ugh.
She settled Larry in his chair and fastened a cape around his neck. “What would you like today, Larry?”
“You,” he said with a wink.
Gag. If she was married she could flash him her ring.
But marriage had never happened for her. Men had happened, two to be exact, one for each kid. Man Number One had been what some might have considered a youthful mistake, but she’d loved him like crazy. And when she got pregnant, they’d planned on getting married...until he tried to break up a bar fight and got killed for his trouble. Right before he’d been about to enlist in the army, too. Even though she’d had a child with him, his parents hadn’t bothered to make a connection with their grandchild. Hardly surprising considering that they’d pretty much written off their son.
That was sick and wrong if you asked Missy. People could change. She would never write off her kids. They were the best part of her life, even if things hadn’t worked out with their dads.
And boy, things really hadn’t worked out with Man Number Two, who was also out of the picture but for a completely different reason. She’d jumped into that relationship, driven by loneliness, anxious to find a father for Carlos. Man Number Two had been separated from his wife. They’d been ready to get a divorce...until wifey informed him she was pregnant. He told Missy just as she was about to break the news of her own pregnancy to him. (She’d read somewhere that condoms were 98 percent effective. Leave it to her to land in the 2-percent category!) His family was happy that he’d finally “come to his senses” and was reuniting with his wife. They’d never said anything to her face but she knew they’d never approved of her. She wasn’t about to stay around and be accused of screwing up the man’s life. So, figuring a pregnant wife trumped a pregnant ex-girlfriend, Missy had decided to let him go and stick with single parenthood. She was already raising a child on her own. What was one more? By Man Number Three, she was using more reliable birth control, but she wasn’t making smart choices. He hadn’t been good father material. He hadn’t even been good boyfriend material, the cheating rat.
After a couple more short-lived love attempts, she wised up and realized it was better to be alone than to settle. In fact, better to live up to her own potential as a woman than to worry about meeting a man who’d make everything fall into place.
Still, every once in a while she’d see a happy couple strolling the mall and sigh. Why were there so many Mr. Wrongs out there and so few Mr. Rights?
That wasn’t all she wondered. Sometimes she wondered how she was going to give Carlos and Lalla the kind of life they deserved.
But when those grim thoughts came along she pushed them firmly away. Yes, she’d made some mistakes and not everything had gone according to plan, but she had two great kids and she’d manage somehow. She was only twenty-six. She had time. Someday she was going to work at a fancy salon and be successful. And someday maybe her prince would come, ready to exchange his Corvette for a minivan, and carrying a wedding ring in his shirt pocket. Meanwhile she had...Larry.
“Larry, you know I’m not into guys,” she lied.
“I think lesbians are sexy,” he said.
“Let’s soak your head, er, wash your hair,” she said.
Larry always wanted his hair washed. That gave him a close-up view of the boobage.
She got him all washed up, trying to keep her boobs out of range. (Larry often had to scratch his nose during the process and his hands usually got lost on the way there.) Then it was time for a cut. His hair was thinning so he kept it long and shaggy in an attempt to compensate. He always reminded the stylists that he only wanted a little trim. After the incident with Mrs. Steele, Missy was going to take off barely anything.
She began, oh, so carefully, snipping.
“Could you take a bit more off here,” he said, pretending to reach for his ear. Before she could dodge his pudgy paw he’d scored his first boob graze. “Oh, sorry,” he said.
Yeah, that was why he was leering.
Was it the final straw, or rather follicle? Had she inhaled too many fumes while giving Bessy Hart her perm a couple of hours ago? Was she going insane? Who knew? But something got into Missy. Maybe it was the spirit of the Grinch.
She gave Larry a wicked smile and cooed, “No problem.” Then she picked up a section of hair and made a radical cut. Oh, that felt good. Let’s do it again. Another section of hair disappeared.
“Whoa,” said Larry. “Just a trim. Remember?”
“Trust me. I know what I’m doing,” she said with a Grinchy grin, and more of Larry’s hair vacated his head. Then she got out the clippers.
“Whoa, stop,” Larry cried.
Too late. She was already running the clippers up the back of his head.
“Hey,” he protested, trying to move his head. That got him a nick in the ear. “Yow! What’s with you?”
“Just giving you a trim,” she told him sweetly. “Like you said.”
“That’s no trim! It’s a scalping.”
“Oh, Larry, I’m sorry,” she said. “I guess we’d better stop.” With half his head buzzed and the other half shaggy. Hee, hee.
“You can’t stop now! I look like a freak.”
Yeah, it would be a shame to look like the freak he was. “Well, Larry, if you promise to keep your hands to yourself we’ll finish this.”
“What do you mean?”
She didn’t say anything, merely stood there, staring at him in the mirror until he actually made eye contact.
Then he scowled. “Okay, okay.”
She rewarded him with a smile. “You’re going to look totally buff.”
“Buff, huh?” He thought a moment. “Yeah, buff is good.”
When she was done, Larry’s hair was ready for the marines. Too bad the rest of his body wasn’t.
She handed him a mirror and turned the chair so he could see the back of his head.
He nodded approvingly. “Hey, it’s not bad. I kinda like it.” He smiled up at her. “Nice job.”
Oh, great. She’d earned the undying devotion of Larry the lech. “Um, thanks,” she said.
She took off the cape and Larry forgot his promise and decided to stretch. She was too fast for him this time and danced backward, away from his lecherous paws. He frowned.
But when he paid, he gave her a ten-dollar tip.
She watched him go out the door and sighed. “Why do I feel like a pole dancer?”
Shiloh was next to her now. “You should be so lucky. Pole dancers make a lot more than we do.”
Two more cuts, two more decent tips and then she left to collect the kids from the babysitter and hit the road for their Christmas adventure. So far their Christmases hadn’t exactly been something you’d put on a greeting card. Often there’d been a boyfriend involved and a fight, or a tipsy neighbor stopping in to share the yuletide cheer, drink in hand, always a scraggly bargain tree with cheap presents that broke by the end of the day or weren’t what the kids really wanted.
She wasn’t going to come through in the Santa department this year, any more than she had last year, since Carlos still wanted a dog. It was hard to produce a dog when her landlady didn’t allow pets. “All that barking, my nerves couldn’t take it,” Mrs. Entwhistle said whenever Missy broached the subject.
Mrs. Entwhistle lived in the other half of the duplex Missy rented and was hard of hearing. She probably wouldn’t hear a Saint Bernard barking in her ear. She sure never heard when the teenagers down the block were partying till all hours of the morning or racing their cars. Or when the couple across the street had too much to drink and started yelling loud enough to drag Missy out of a sound sleep.
“Dogs are so messy,” Mrs. Entwhistle would add, strengthening her argument.
So were children. Missy never pointed that out. The last thing she wanted was Mrs. E. deciding she didn’t want children living next door, either. So, no dog for Carlos. They couldn’t really afford a dog, anyway. But how did you explain that to a seven-year-old?
And then there was Lalla. Oh, how she wanted a grandma. This was even more impossible to produce than a dog. It had just been Missy and her mom when she was growing up. So there was no grandma by marriage. And Missy’s mom was no longer on the scene. After wrapping her car around a tree while under the influence, Mom had gone to climb inside that great whiskey bottle in the sky.
Still, in spite of the no-dog-no-grandma thing, Missy was going to give her kids a wonderful Christmas this year. They were going to Icicle Falls to stay at the Icicle Creek Lodge, a big, beautiful place with a fireplace in the lobby and rooms that had fireplaces, too. At Christmas, the B and B not only provided its usual breakfast but dinner on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. One of her clients had told her about the place, and she’d been saving for it all year. This was going to be a Christmas her kids would never forget.
She could hardly wait to get up there and show them the real, live vintage sleigh in the lobby, decorated with greenery and ribbons and filled with presents and teddy bears. There’d be no dog and no grandma in there, but staying in such a cool place should make up for the fact that Carlos was getting a stuffed dog and Lalla was getting a princess doll.
The kids were literally bouncing with excitement when she picked them up. Or maybe it was a sugar buzz, since her girlfriend Miranda’s three kids were also bouncing. And yelling. And jumping on Miranda’s tired couch. Miranda was very fond of Oreos and thought them an excellent afternoon snack, usually ignoring the carrot and celery sticks Missy gave her to dole out. (“Hey, the kids like Oreos better.”) Carlos’s pants were muddy and ripped, a sure sign he’d been playing in the run-down playground half a block away, hopefully not unsupervised, and Lalla’s dress had a chocolate stain on the bodice while her ever-present tiara sat crookedly on top of her cornrows. Obviously, they had enjoyed themselves.
“Are you guys ready for fun?” she asked, hugging them both.
“As if they don’t have fun here,” snorted Miranda.
Of course they had fun at the babysitter’s. She gave them junk food and they could watch cartoons all afternoon. Miranda had a good heart, but was she a good influence? If only Missy could afford to put the kids in some fancy day care with planned activities and...carrot sticks.
Well, down the road. She wouldn’t always be at Style Savings. Oh, no. She was already looking at employment sites online. She’d done makeovers for a couple of her friends and was putting their before-and-after pictures in a notebook so she could show just how expert she was when she finally went to interview at that high-end salon. Unlike her mother, who never got beyond waiting tables at the nearby breakfast place, she was going to make something of herself. She was going to make her children proud.
And, meanwhile, this Christmas, they’d be making a memory worthy of the Hallmark Channel (which she’d be able to afford someday). She thanked Miranda, then said, “Okay, guys, let’s go,” and with a squeal they bolted for her beater Honda.
“Have a great time,” Miranda said, giving her a hug. “And don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.” Which pretty much left the field wide-open.
The kids were already buckled in when she got to the car. She put on her own seat belt and then turned on the radio, choosing a local station that was playing Christmas carols. All right. Now they were ready. They pulled away from the curb, singing “Jingle Bells.”
They’d only just entered the freeway when Lalla yelled from the backseat. “Stop it, Carlos!” This was followed by, “Mommy, he’s poking me.”
“Carlos, cut it out,” Missy said in her firm mommy voice.
“I’m bored,” Carlos complained.
“Well, look for Priuses,” she suggested. Dumb suggestion because this game called for the first person who saw a Prius to say “Beep-beep” and slug the other Prius hunter in the arm. “Never mind,” she amended. “Just...” She fumbled around in the paper bag on the seat next to her and found what she was looking for. She tossed the plastic bag of munchies into the back. “Have a carrot.”
“Yuck,” said Carlos.
“Yuck,” parroted Lalla.
“Well, you guys sure aren’t getting any more sugar,” she informed them.
“Are we there yet?” Lalla demanded.
Hmm. Maybe she should’ve picked someplace closer for their perfect Christmas.
Chapter Three (#ulink_bdda3345-bb0a-5c40-b906-e9df310f03db)
It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas
Olivia Wallace’s Icicle Creek Lodge was decked out for the holidays. Her oldest son, Eric, and his burly friend Bubba Swank had hauled in her antique sleigh from the lodge’s storage garage and it was now set up in the lobby, brimming with brightly wrapped faux presents. The staircase banister was dressed in greenery, and mistletoe had been hung in various key spots around the lodge and in the private family quarters. The big tree on the front porch was decorated with lights. Red poinsettias filled in any gaps.
Olivia Wallace smiled as she surveyed her domain. George would have been so proud.
That thought always comforted her. And made her a little wistful. How she wished her husband was here to help her run this place. Not because Eric wasn’t doing a wonderful job. He loved the lodge as much as Olivia did, and would probably take it over someday. No, it was more because she knew how happy she and George would have been. They’d shared the vision for this place and he’d never lived to see what a huge success it had become. They’d grown, added on, developed a reputation. Oh, yes, George would have loved this.
Well, most of it. Olivia hid a frown as one of her more difficult guests came down the stairs with his wife, his rolling suitcase thump-thumping behind him. He missed the last step and went tottering off sideways.
Oh, no! Please don’t fall. This descendant of Ebenezer Scrooge would sue her by New Year’s Day if that happened.
He righted himself, thank God, and she could hear him muttering all the way across the lobby to where she was manning the reception desk. “Those stairs are uneven.”
At times like this Olivia really didn’t like being an innkeeper. She braced herself for the barrage of complaints.
Sure enough, Mr. Braxton marched to the reception desk, his wife walking behind him like a reluctant shadow, and slammed down his keycard. “We didn’t sleep a wink last night.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Olivia said.
“The people down the hall were up partying all night.”
There had been two younger couples who’d been en route to Seattle to spend Christmas with family and had decided to stay the night. Olivia had suggested they try Zelda’s for dinner and they’d gone merrily off, full of good cheer. They’d probably overindulged in huckleberry martinis or the other house specialty, a Chocolate Kiss. She imagined they’d been a bit noisy on the way back to their rooms. Still, that wasn’t her fault.
“Making a racket in the hall at all hours,” Mr. Braxton continued.
“I’m terribly sorry,” Olivia said. “I do wish you’d come down and said something to me. I’d have been happy to talk to them.”
“Ha! Come down in my bathrobe and pajamas? I think not. And breakfast this morning.”
Olivia stiffened. “What about breakfast?”
“All those carbs.”
No one made crepes like Olivia. She served them stuffed with wild huckleberries and berry-flavored whipped cream. And she always served some sort of protein along with them. “If I remember correctly, breakfast also included sausages,” she said, some of the sweetness seeping out of her voice. “And fruit.”
