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Grace made a gurgling sound that was close to a laugh. Then she pulled away and walked back to the mirror. She moved her head experimentally. Her hair swung with each movement, smooth and silky.
“How many times have you done this cut before?”
And now they’d reached the awkward part.
Audrey stood on one leg and then the other. “That might have been the first time.”
“You don’t normally cut hair short?”
“I don’t normally cut hair at all.” Mmm. Probably should have lied about that, Audrey.
Grace frowned. “But you said you worked as a hairdresser.”
“I said I worked in a hairdressing salon. I wash the hair. Do treatments. Toners. Head massages. That kind of thing.”
“So this is the first time you’ve actually cut hair?”
“Yeah.” She waited for Grace to freak.
But she didn’t freak. “In that case I think we both know what career direction you should be taking. You have real talent, Audrey. Tomorrow we are going to your salon together so that we can show them what you’ve done.”
“I can’t cut hair here in France. I don’t speak French.”
“Hair is a universal language.” Grace swung her head from side to side again. “So what should I wear on my date?”
Audrey finally relaxed. “You really are going?”
“Too right I’m going.” Grace turned to look at her and there was an expression on her face that Audrey hadn’t seen before. “I need to show off my new hair.”
Grace
Grace turned her head from side to side, admiring her hair in the mirror.
She felt excited but also nervous, which was crazy, of course. What did she have to be nervous about?
She was having dinner with an old friend, that was all.
Except, Philippe had been more than that, hadn’t he?
First love.
When she’d left Paris without even having a chance to say goodbye, she’d cried the whole way home on the flight. She cried for the life she was leaving and the life she was returning to. The crew had kept her plied with tissues.
She’d stepped off the plane into the chaos and conflict of her life. It was like plunging into freezing water after swimming in a tropical ocean. Suddenly she was negotiating a world filled with jagged edges instead of smooth curves. The only solid thing had been David. It had been like grabbing a tree, knowing that it wouldn’t move as the floodwaters of life rushed over her.
David had put her back together, piece by piece.
Eventually he’d replaced the piece that had belonged to Philippe. It was as if he had never existed.
“Grace?” There was a hammering on the bedroom door and Audrey’s voice. “What are you doing in there? You’d better not be messing with your hair! Are you ready?”
“Yes.” She took a last look at her reflection.
She didn’t see David’s wife. She saw herself.
Maybe beauty wasn’t what you saw in the mirror. It was what you felt inside.
The woman in the mirror didn’t have a plan. She didn’t ever glance at a list. She went where the impulse took her.
