“I mean it, Junie. I’ll get you a private coach or find another league somewhere in the state for you to play in, no matter how far we have to drive, and—”
“Mom. It’s okay.”
Seven thousand pounds lift off my shoulders even though I don’t entirely believe her.
“I don’t think it is.” I squeeze her hand. “I know this is hard, and I keep disappointing you.”
“I don’t want to play soccer if he’s the coach.”
“Junie—”
“Stop, Mom. I get it. You have to do this life-adventure thing and figure out who you are now that you’re not Dad’s second fiddle and everyone hates you for what Grandma did. And I’m stuck in the middle, the semikid, semiadult who has to finish high school because that’s what society says I have to do, even though I could take care of myselfjust fineif I faked an ID and a diploma and got a job and an apartment.”
I ignore the amount of thought she’s clearly put into this. Junie’s conversations only show you the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what she’s researched.
Teenagers are smart, and they haveentirelytoo much information at their fingertips.
“You forgot the part where you have to learn to drive,” I say.
“I’m also going to get a sugar daddy who comes with a chauffeur.”
Hand me a paper bag. I need to hyperventilate. But I stuff it all down inside to peer at her in the growing darkness. “You’re not mad anymore?”
She snorts again, but this one is decidedly less funny. “Right now. Right now, I’m just glad to still be alive.”
Right now.
I’ll take it.
Chapter 6
Maisey
Getting to know a new stylist wasn’t supposed to be the first thing on my to-do list this morning—our stuff is being delivered in a few short hours, and I still need to finish clearing out the last of Uncle Tony’s things from the room Junie picked as her own, plus formally register her for school—but here we are, with my hair taking priority over turning my inherited house into our new home.
“Oh, you did a number on this, didn’t you?” Opal of Opal’s Cut ’n Curl says as she studies the crazy clump of hair sticking out sideways over my ear.
No amount of washing, combing, styling, or hiding it with my longer hair worked to pin it down.
My options were spending the next year in a bandanna or moving a haircut to today’s top priority.
When I called Opal this morning and said I was new in town with an emergency, she knew exactly who I was and told me to come on in.
I’m having regrets.
Don’t get me wrong—the salon is charming, and I adore it. The bright-white walls are tastefully covered with artistic silhouettes of chic women having good hair days. There are two massive windows on either side of the glass door, letting in a ton of natural light. Translucent globelamps hang at various lengths through the space, supplemented with recessed lighting. The waiting room chairs are bright and fun, in yellows and pinks and purples, and the end tables have piles of recent celebrity-gossip and women’s magazines.
Please don’t ask how I know they’re recent.
All I’m saying is, in the six years that I played the comic, inept supporting role inDean’s Fixer Upper, it never got popular enough to warrant pictures of us on the covers of celebrity magazines. We were a D-list show that the network kept renewing because we weren’t controversial and Dean was a smooth talker. The tabloids never even picked up on my mom’s trial.
But my regret in being here isn’t even about being confronted with my ex-husband and his new girlfriend on the cover of a second-rate gossip rag, since he’s apparently at least B-list now that he’s dumped me and moved on with a new show in a more prime-time slot.
My second thoughts are all courtesy of how packed this place is.
I swear half of Hell’s Bells is crowded into this building. The salon has eight chairs, seven of them currently in use, and nearly all the chairs in the waiting area are occupied.
It’s a Wednesday.
