Beauty Shop Tales. Nancy Robards Thompson

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      MIRACULOUSLY, I do manage to sleep most of the nonstop flight. My eyes flutter open to the sound of the flight attendant’s announcement asking everyone to secure their tray tables and return their seats to the upright position as we prepare to land in Orlando.

      I stretch and rub my stiff neck.

      “See, that wasn’t so bad, was it?” says the cowboy.

      “It’s not over yet.”

      Vaguely wondering what a guy like him was doing in L.A., I retrieve my purse from under the seat, pull out my Lancôme Dual Finish compact and the red lipstick I got in the free gift when I purchased the powder. Something to distract me while we get this last part of the journey over with.

      Out of the corner of my eye, I see him watching me primp.

      “Are you visiting Orlando or coming home?”

      “Neither.” I blot my lips and check the mirror to make sure my lipstick is on straight. “I’m from a small town over on the east coast.”

      “Cocoa Beach?”

      I shake my head. “Sago Beach.”

      He nods. “It’s pretty over there. Visiting family?”

      I snap the compact shut, drop the cosmetics into my purse and look him square in the eyes, ready to give him the polite brush-off. Only then do I realize just how cute this guy is. Nice face. So totally not my type.

      For a split second, I hope I didn’t do something repulsive while I slept, like drool, or snort, or sit there with my mouth gaping open.

      I could only do things like that around Chet. My foot finds the bag with his ashes, and I blink away the thought. It doesn’t matter how I appeared to the cowboy while I was sleeping. Rubbing the place where my wedding ring should’ve been with my thumb, I say, “I’m moving back.”

      “Welcome home.”

      “Thank you.”

      Home. Hmm. I suppose Sago Beach has always been home, even when I was away.

      Hollywood certainly never was.

      It was something I had to get out of my system—like a bad boyfriend who treated me unkindly and sent me running back to my mother. Only this bad relationship lasted seventeen years and cost me my husband and my youth. Chet was really the one who wanted to live there because it was good for our careers. But come to find out, I can take my career anywhere. Just like now that I’m bringing it back home to my mother’s salon.

      “The name’s Max Wright.” He extends a hand. I shake it. “What’s yours?”

      “Avril.”

      The plane hits another air pocket. I grope for the armrests. In my panic, I end up grabbing his arm and releasing it as if it burns.

      “Sorry.”

      He smiles, a little half smile, and I like the way the outer corners of his eyes tilt down. “Just relax, Avril. The worst part is over.”

      Hollywood truths one and two kick in and I want to believe him.

      Yeah, now that I’m home the worst is just about over.

      I believe that for about fifteen minutes—until we deplane and make our way to baggage claim, where my mother and half the population of Sago Beach are standing under a banner that proclaims Welcome home, Avril!! Sago Beach’s very own beauty operator to the stars.

      CHAPTER 2

      I want to die.

      Truly, I do.

      Because I hate surprises. My mother knows it. Still, once she gets an idea in that red head of hers, she tends to forget everything outside the scope of her plan.

      The surprise banner-flying airport welcoming committee—a collection of at least twenty of Sago Beach’s finest—has my mother’s name written all over it.

      The scene unfolds as the escalator carries me from the main terminal down to baggage claim, and I reconcile that, ready or not, this is small-town life. It’s nothing like Hollywood, where you’re invisible unless you’re the It Girl of the Moment.

      I have two choices: I can either turn and hightail it back up the escalator, or suck СКАЧАТЬ