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She smiled at me in the mirror. “Great. I’ll wash your hair and then get started.”
I moved to the washing station and after she shampooed my hair, she gave me one of the best scalp massages I’d ever had. It was so relaxing, I was surprised she didn’t lull me to sleep. When she finished, she wrapped my hair in a towel and led me back to her station.
“So, Audrey, tell me about you.” She gently dried my hair and set the towel aside. “I know you’re new in town and you work for the Tribune. I also heard that your real name is Daisy and you’re a billionaire heiress, but I’m pretty sure that one was made up.”
“Daisy? Who said that?”
She shrugged as she combed out my wet hair. “I don’t remember. The Tilikum gossip line gets a little crazy when a new person moves in. Most of us know to take what we hear with a very large grain of salt.”
“I’m definitely not that interesting. I grew up in Pinecrest, moved away and thought I’d never come back. A layoff and a stint with unemployment cured me of that delusion. By the time I applied for the job at the Tribune, I was getting a little desperate.”
“If you grew up in Pinecrest, that basically makes you a local. What’s your last name again?”
“Young.”
“Hmm, it rings a bell but I guess we’d both remember if we knew each other. Unless you do remember me and I’m the jerk who forgot and I’m currently making this situation extremely awkward.”
“Not at all. Actually, I’m the worst at that. I forget names and faces so easily, it’s embarrassing.”
“I’m glad it’s not just me. Can I ask how old you are?”
“I’m thirty-five.”
“Thirty-four, so we’re close. We must have been in high school at the same time, although I don’t think I knew many kids from Pinecrest.”
“I was a cheerleader, so I mostly knew the other cheerleaders or athletes from Tilikum. Even then, I’ve probably forgotten most of them.”
“I tried out for the cheerleading squad my freshman year. Fortunately for me, I didn’t make the cut. I thought my life was over at the time, but it was probably a good thing. I would have been terrible. After that, I embraced my identity as the school bookworm.”
“Did you have one of those makeover moments when you got older? Because honestly, you don’t look like the school bookworm.”
She smiled while she kept cutting. “I was really into historical fiction, so books led me to costuming and fashion, which led me to hair and makeup. And I did get Lasik in my twenties, so that did away with the glasses. But it wasn’t so much that I had a makeover moment as learning to make my bookworminess work for me.”
“Did the cute boy you’d always had a crush on finally notice you?”
“No, but like my failed cheerleading career, that’s for the best too.”
“Are you married now?”
“No,” she said on a sigh. “Always a bridesmaid. My friends say my standards are too high. I don’t think my own Mr. Darcy, complete with title, estate, and impeccable manners is too much to ask for, but they think I have my head in the clouds. Or in my books. I do hair but I’m still a bookworm at heart. What about you?”
“Not married, much to my mother’s disappointment.”
“Don’t get me started on the suffocating disappointment of a marriage and grandchildren obsessed mother.”
I laughed. “Tell me about it. And I’m an only child, so all her hopes are pinned on me.”
“Same,” she said, meeting my eyes in the mirror. “So much pressure. I don’t think that helps the situation.”
“It really doesn’t. My mom still hasn’t forgiven me for not marrying my high school boyfriend.”
“How dare you,” she said with a smile.
“I know, right?”
“Do your parents still live in Pinecrest?”
“My mom does. My dad passed away a couple of years ago.”
