Picket Fence Promises. Kathryn Springer

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СКАЧАТЬ just like I accept the way my hair has a stubborn wave that can only be tamed with a curling iron the size of a rolling pin.

      My favorite thing about Elise is that there’s more to her than pretty packaging. We’ve been friends for ten years but it wasn’t until Heather contacted me and I started to unravel that I realized that true friends are right there, winding you back up and tucking in the loose pieces of your heart.

      Alex was polite but his eyes didn’t linger on Elise, like a tourist getting his first glimpse of the Mona Lisa. What on earth was wrong with him? He was looking at me.

      “I almost woke you up to go running with me this morning.”

      Elise was too polite to laugh but out of the corner of my eye, I saw her shoulders jiggle. “Well, I better start my day. Sam and I are going over to Munroe to pick up some parts for the tractor.”

      “How is Annie feeling?” Mindy would be thrilled that I’d tried out her delay tactics but I really did want to know. I’d been so wrapped up in my own troubles that I hadn’t even thought to ask until now.

      “Anxious to start the nursery. With the holidays coming, she’s going to be busier at church.” Elise moved toward the door just as Jill Cabott pushed it open.

      “Elise!”

      Jill hugged her and Elise disappeared momentarily in the depths of Jill’s sheepskin coat. When she reappeared, she was smiling. Wonders never ceased. A few months ago I practically had to hide my scissors when the two of them were in the same room together. Elise had blamed Jill’s son, Riley, for her daughter Bree having second thoughts about going to college. But Bree and Riley were taking their romance slowly and she was in Madison—at least for the next four years—so Elise could breathe a little easier.

      “Hi, Jill. All set?”

      “Just let me hang up my coat.”

      Elise gave me a little wave that promised we’d get together soon and slipped out the door. Alex was sitting on a chair, his hands clasped behind his head and his legs stretched out in front of him with a cup of coffee wedged between his knees. Right next to the coatrack.

      I knew the second Jill realized who Alex was because her sudden gasp sounded like a blown-out tire.

      I hustled her over to the chair and sat her down. “Now, what do you want me to do today?”

      “The same as always. Trim a little off the sides. It’s getting a little shaggy. Better go shorter because with Thanksgiving coming, I know I won’t have time to come back before the middle of December.”

      I tried to ignore Alex but it wasn’t easy. Especially when he jumped up and prowled over to the chair. Jill’s eyes got so wide I was afraid they were going to roll out of her head.

      “Wait a second. You’re telling her what to do?” He leaned over until he was eye to eye with Jill, who shrunk farther into the chair.

      “Alex!” I snapped out his name but he ignored me.

      “Yes…” Jill obviously thought it was a trick question.

      Alex looked at me and shook his head. “They have no idea, do they?” he muttered.

      “You’re not helping,” I said through gritted teeth. “Have some more coffee.”

      “Tell Bernice to cut your hair the way she sees it,” Alex said.

      I stepped on his foot, wishing that I’d worn my one pair of stilettos, an impractical impulse buy that lurked in the back of my closet but I didn’t have the heart to part with. “Alex, Jill just wants a trim.”

      “What do you mean, the way she sees it?” Jill was confused but willing to be enlightened.

      “You aren’t supposed to tell her how to cut your hair—she’s supposed to tell you how your hair should be cut.”

      “She is?” Jill glanced at me. “You are?”

      “Jill, I’ll cut it any way you want me to.”

      Alex said something under his breath that made Jill gasp again but she swallowed bravely. “Go ahead.”

      “Jill…”

      “I mean it, Bernice. Do whatever you think you should.”

      Alex grinned and stalked back to the row of chairs. “My work here is done.”

      The work of messing up my entire day? And he was willing to do it for free. How sweet.

      An hour and a half later Jill was staring at her reflection in the mirror, touching the ends of her hair with shaky fingertips. Every four to six weeks for the past ten years I’d been trimming a conservative inch off Jill Cabott’s puddle-brown blunt cut, knowing that the style was hopelessly outdated and didn’t show off her features to their full advantage. I had to admit that I went a little crazy with the unexpected power I’d been given.

      “I…Old Dan is going to faint when he sees me,” Jill whispered.

      Old Dan is Jill’s husband and he isn’t that old. Unfortunately, his firstborn son was named after him and to differentiate between the two, they had to split into Old Dan and Young Dan. People should really think these things through in advance, if you ask me.

      “He’s going to buy you roses and take you out for dinner,” Alex, the eavesdropper, said.

      “I’m sending this bottle of gel home with you…” The tears in Jill’s eyes stopped me cold. “Jill, I’m sorry. What can I do? Do you want me to take the highlights out?”

      “No, I love it. I look…like I always wanted to.” In a daze, she wrote me a check with a tip big enough to pay my monthly cable bill. She even gave Alex a timid smile as she walked out the door. Oh no, his first convert.

      “Thanks a lot.” I grabbed the broom and started to sweep the floor, resisting the urge to use it to chase him down Main Street.

      “Do these people know anything about you, Bernice?”

      “They know what I want them to know.”

      “I get it. You’d rather pretend that all you know how to do is follow directions. If they knew who you are, what you can do, it would wreck your whole small-town beautician persona, wouldn’t it? You might not feel like you fit in after all.”

      Without knowing it, Alex ripped a Band-Aid off a wound I’d been trying to keep covered for years. I knew I didn’t fit in with Prichett. All the years I’d lived and worked here and no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn’t blend in with the natives. But why did Alex have to see it? And why did he feel the need to point it out?

      “Don’t even think you know me. That was twenty years ago. We were practically kids when we met. Don’t think for a minute I’m still the same person.”

      “You haven’t changed that much.” He actually had the nerve to laugh. “You still aren’t afraid to tell me what you think.”

      “Somebody has to. Honestly, just because people are gorgeous and have money СКАЧАТЬ