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Of course, that was her mother’s dream. “Let’s go to the kitchen. I think I can fix this.”
And the thing was, Mya was sure she could.
Millicent Donahue owned a hair salon, aptly named Millie’s Hair Salon. Despite the fact that the term had gone out of style in the eighties, she still called herself a beautician. For years the salon had been a bone of contention between mother and daughter. Eventually they’d called a truce of sorts. Now, Mya needn’t feel obligated to have her hair trimmed at her mother’s salon, and her mother needn’t feel obligated to shop at Mya’s store. Not that Mya carried red sweatshirts with glitter and sequins, anyway.
Mya pulled out a chair, her mother started clipping, Claire uncorked the wine and Suzette began unwrapping the trays of food she’d gotten from her favorite deli over on Market Street. The wind howled and rain pelted the windows. Sitting in her warm kitchen, surrounded by these quirky women who loved her, Mya relaxed. She liked her house. Built some eighty years ago of stone quarried from the area, it was a good house, Cape Cod in style, small and sturdy with a steep roof and a bay window overlooking the street. Oh, it wasn’t on Keepers Island, and it was old and drafty, but it had character and was close enough to the Atlantic to feel like home.
“I thought Jeffrey was going to be here,” Millicent said around the hair clip in her mouth.
“He had an emergency.”
“An E.R. doctor,” Suzette grumbled. “Do you have any idea how many women aspire to marry a doctor?”
“I didn’t aspire to marry anyone.”
“Go ahead. Rub it in.”
Mya smiled into her chest.
“I still say it isn’t fair,” Suzette said.
“What isn’t fair?” Millicent asked.
Pouring the wine, Claire said, “Don’t mind Suzette, Ms. Donahue. She’s just bitter because Jeffrey saw her naked first and still chose Mya.”
“My daughter is a goddess.”
Drolly, Mya said, “No goddess ever had this haircut.”
“Rolf’s an idiot.”
For once, Mya wasn’t even tempted to argue.
In seemingly no time at all, her mother stepped back and handed Mya a small mirror. Although still slightly shocking, evened up here and there, the tousled style looked pretty good on her, all things considered.
Her mother said, “You haven’t had hair this short—”
Their gazes locked.
With the barest lift of one penciled-on eyebrow, Millicent said, “—in a long, long time.”
Mya should have known she needn’t have worried.
Her mother was the first to look away, and Mya was left feeling a dozen emotions, none of them pleasant. So what else was new?
Oblivious, Suzette said, “What do you say we move this party out to the dining room and away from any airborne hair?” Taking a small tray in either hand, she headed for the door, disrupting Jeffrey’s three cats that had somehow wound up at Mya’s place.
“What do you have there?” Millicent asked.
“There’s crab dip with tofu and whole-wheat crackers, goat cheese and fruit and honey, and—” The door swung shut on the rest of the recitation.
Millie reached into the cabinet for the chips and into the refrigerator for the dip. “Forget the health food. I need all the preservatives I can get.” When she was certain Suzette was out of hearing range, she lowered her raspy voice and said, “If that girl gets any perkier, I’m going to bite through my tongue.” She followed Suzette to the dining room.
Mya’s thoughts exactly. It was no wonder she worried.
It was quiet in the kitchen suddenly. Too quiet. Finding Claire watching her, Mya handed over the other tray.
Claire put it right back down again. “You’re really going to do this, aren’t you?”
“Serve red wine with cheese? I’m living dangerously.”
Claire didn’t pretend to be amused.
And Mya said, “Not you, too.”
“I’ll say my piece, and then forever hold it. You’re going to get married.”
“I thought you’d be happier for me.”
“I am happy for you.” She must have read Mya’s expression, because she said, “This is my happy face.”
Another time Mya might have smiled.
Claire forged ahead. “You don’t find it at all unsettling that you accepted Jeffrey’s marriage proposal because of something Dr. Phil said on national television? Love is a decision. Where does he get this stuff? Will I take a cruise or climb Mount Everest? Shall I fix green beans for supper, or corn? Should I flunk the kid I caught cheating today or call him in and talk to him? Those are decisions. Trust me, love is not a decision.”
“You don’t believe I love Jeffrey?”
“I think you’re fond of Jeffrey, much the way you’re fond of your new living-room rug. Jeffrey is a nice guy. In fact, there should be a law against anybody being that nice, Suzette notwithstanding.”
“What’s wrong with nice?”
Claire gaped. “You chew up nice people for breakfast and spit them out before lunch.”
“How flattering.”
“Come on, Mya. A woman like you hasn’t remained single this long for lack of opportunities. Don’t even try to tell me Jeffrey’s marriage proposal was your first.”
Mya floundered for a moment. “Now I really am flattered, because the truth is, I haven’t had all that many marriage proposals.” She prayed Claire didn’t expect her to be more specific.
“That’s because you almost never let a man close.”
Relieved, Mya said, “Jeffrey is attentive, intelligent, ardent and imperturbable.”
Claire fanned herself with one hand. “You’re making me hot. Tell me something. Why is it that your every description of Jeffrey begins with a vowel?”
Leave it to a high-school English teacher to notice that.
The kitchen door opened, and Suzette stuck her head inside. “Did you talk to her?”
Mya threw up her hands. “You two planned this?” Looking at these women whose personalities were at opposite ends of the spectrum, she said, “Let’s just suspend my personal belief for a moment. Let’s say love isn’t a decision, and the fact that Jeffrey makes me think, makes me feel special and safe, and he’s a good kisser isn’t enough reason to marry him. How does a woman decide who to marry?”
With a flourish, Suzette took a sheaf of papers from her oversize purse. “I put that question to my second graders this morning. Claire, did you ask your class?”
“That was an assignment gone wrong. Trust me, you don’t want to hear the results.”
Suzette nodded. “My students’ answers were problematic, too.”
Now Mya was curious. “What did they say?”
“Nobody believes in true love anymore. Not even eight-year-olds.”
“Maybe they’re too young to make a decision,” Claire said.
New lease or not, Mya gave her the finger.
Waving as if at a bothersome insect, Suzette said, “I asked my students how they would decide who to marry. The smartest girl in the class said you wait until you’re old, at least twenty, and you go on a date, and if you believe half his lies, you go on another, and at the end of the summer you get married.”
Mya smiled.
Suzette didn’t. “Her best friend said you don’t decide. God does. You have to wait until you’re grown up and see who you’re stuck with. The boy who sits next to her stood up and declared that no age is a good age to get married. You got to be a fool to get married.”
“Nine will get you ten he’ll be sitting in the back of my class ten years from now,” Claire said. “If he’s still in school then.”
“That’s awfully judgmental!” Suzette admonished.
“You say judgmental, I say realistic. Potato, po-tah-to.”
It was like watching a tennis match. Times like these, Mya understood why she’d started watching Dr. Phil’s program every chance she had.
“Are you bringing more chips?” Millie called from the next room.
Suzette dashed toward the door with the bag of chips, practically tripping over one of Jeffrey’s cats. When the door stopped swinging, Claire said, “And that’s another thing, Mya. You’re a dog person. You don’t even like cats.”
Mya scooped two of the oversize fur balls off the kitchen counter before they sampled the crab dip. Depositing them, none too ceremoniously, in the back room, she closed the door and brushed at the cat hair they’d left on her green silk blouse. “You have it all wrong. Those sneaky, obese, flea-ridden creatures don’t like me.”
“What’s not to like?”
Back in control, Mya let that go.
Claire looked worried, but she said, “Listen. It sounds like Jeffrey’s here. We’d better get out there and save him from Suzette.”
Right behind her, Mya said, “You mean from my mother.”
Oh, sure. Now Claire laughed.
“You’re positive you don’t want something to drink?” Mya held up the bottle of wine.
Jeffrey put it back on the coffee table where she’d gotten it. “Booze and E.R. duty don’t mix.”
The man was just about perfect, no doubt about it. “You’re not hungry?” Mya asked. “Not even for apple slices dipped in honey?”
Everyone had gone, and Mya was trying to put things away. Uninterested in putting anything away, Jeff put his arms around her. “I’d rather have a different kind of honey.”
Claire was right. Jeff was so nice he was corny. Corny wasn’t all. Thirty-two years old, Jeffrey Anderson stood six feet three inches tall, had linebacker shoulders, a wash-board stomach, hands and feet like a Labrador puppy and the sex drive of a seventeen-year-old. The thought burned through Mya’s mind before sliding away to a place she didn’t go anymore.
Nuzzling her neck, Jeff said, “I have to be back at the hospital in thirty-eight minutes. We can spend the next half hour doing anything you want, anywhere you want.”
Now what kind of woman could complain about that? He knew all the moves, and she would have to be a fool to waste them. And yet she always had the feeling he was asking for permission. Jeff was a gentleman. There was nothing wrong with that. Still, sometimes she wished he would just take her, devour her, infuse her with passion and delight until she writhed in ecstasy.
He turned her gently into his arms and kissed her again. Holding her to him, molding and kneading until she groaned, he eased her backward toward the sofa, where they’d last made love. She’d had a crick in her neck for two days.
“I think what you have in mind is best suited to a bed, Doctor.”
His face lit up as she reached for his hand. He’d lit up this way when he’d first laid eyes on her earlier tonight, too, although he still hadn’t said anything about her hair. He would either say something nice, or he wouldn’t say anything at all, of that she was certain. Jeff was a nice guy. Mya’s relationship with him was the most calm and rational one in her life. Until recently, she and her mother had rarely missed an opportunity to argue. Claire was of the opinion that the Donahue women weren’t happy unless they were miserable. Claire should talk. She could learn a great deal from Dr. Phil, if only she would tune in.
There was no reason in the world to be thinking about this, especially when a virile, nearly naked man was undressing her, caressing her, kissing her. Where was her blouse, anyway? Jeff peeled away her bra and covered her breasts with his big hands. Pleasure surged through her.
Mya was five-four-and-a-half, and at times Jeff seemed as big as a house. He was her safe place in the storm of life. She’d discovered it that night in the emergency room. It was the first time she’d set foot inside a hospital in years. She wouldn’t have then if she’d had a choice. She’d managed to remain stoic through the harrowing drive to the hospital, Suzette whimpering in the seat next to her. And then she’d managed to get Suzette into a wheelchair and through the automatic doors. She’d given the night nurse all the pertinent information. After they’d wheeled Suzette away, and Mya was alone in the cold, austere hospital, panic had set in. She’d shaken with the effort to hold herself together. And there was Jeffrey coming off duty, bringing her a cup of steaming coffee and the offer of a broad shoulder to cry on.
Jeffrey Anderson was just about the nicest, kindest man she’d ever met, and she’d found herself wondering if she’d been holding the wrong kind of man at bay. He’d asked for her phone number. And she’d given it to him. She was sure he wouldn’t call, even more sure she wouldn’t go out with him if he did. She was wrong on both counts.
He’d called, and it had felt good to talk with him over dinner. And later, it had felt good to kiss him. After a few dates, it had felt good to make love with him. What was so wrong with feeling good? He didn’t curl her toes. So what?
The wind howled and rain ran in sheets down her bedroom window. The room was shadowy and drafty. Goose bumps rose on her skin as he lowered her to the bed and eased down next to her. Heat emanated from him, drawing her closer.
The mattress shifted and their breaths mingled. She was tangling her legs with his when she glanced at the foot of the bed. Two cats sat nearby in the oblong patch of light spilling from the hall. A third had stopped in the doorway. All three were watching.
“Jeffrey. The cats.”
He groaned when she stopped doing what she’d been doing and removed her hand, but he heaved himself away from her and gathered up his cats. “I swear you guys do this on purpose.” Shooing them all into the hall, he closed the door. “Now, where were you?”
She laughed, and it almost sounded wicked. It had been a long time since she’d been wicked. He returned to her, and she enjoyed it so much she couldn’t help laughing again. He kissed her, stroked her, caressed her, until a deep feeling of peace entered her being. She spoke his name on a whisper, and he came to her, the joining of man to woman pure and pleasurable. Those first delightful tremors were just beginning when one of the cats yowled in the hall. The other two took up the cry.
Feeling her stiffen, Jeff said, “Pretend we’re in the jungle.”
Mya laughed, and he smoothed one fingertip along her cheek, down the length of her neck, skimming the outer swell of her breast, her waist, until he found what he was after. He was an ardent lover, mindful of her needs, and vocal about his. And yet she was distracted. Who wouldn’t be distracted with three cats yowling outside the closed bedroom door?
A memory came, unbidden. Hazy and as if from a great distance, she glimpsed for but a moment, two lovers too young to know what they were doing, and a passion so consuming nothing could have kept them from doing it. She stopped the thought, her mind suddenly blank, her body and soul empty.
“I love your hair.”
Mya started. “What?”
“Your hair. I like it. Very sassy.”
He’d waited until it was pitch-dark to tell her. But it made her smile, and it brought her to him once again.
She moaned softly.
