“My hair, or the mess your nephew thinks I’m making of the ranch?” I ask dryly.
She ruffles my hair. “Keep talking. I’m gonna start cutting.”
“I didn’t actually mean I agree with this plan to cut so—”
“Get the pixie cut, Mom,” Junie says. “You’ll be so adorable I’ll have to screen all of your gentlemen callers, which will be so gross that I’ll be glad to go to school. And then if Mr.Jackson gets too annoying living there at the gatehouse and not letting me on the soccer team, we can move in with one of your sugar daddies. That’s way preferable to letyouhave a sugar daddy who’ll hire me a driver. Win win win win win, right?”
I squeeze my eyes shut. “Okay. Okay. Pixie cut it is.”
“And no more swings,” Junie says.
“Or hanging out around men with pocketknives.”
“Unless they’re handsome,” Opal says.
I peek out of one eye. “Not funny.”
“You don’t want to date?” she asks.
“Moving here is about reconnecting with Junie—”
“Because there’s literally nothing else to do, so she’smakingme spend time with her,” Junie interjects.
“Clearly,” I agree dryly. “Almost being eaten by a bear and burying a cow and almost setting the oven on fire making breakfast this morning, since I didn’t know it was broken, and going shopping for cowboy boots and out to dinner yesterday and making new adult friends and then cutting me loose from a swing yesterday wasso boring.”
She rolls her eyes.
I roll mine back even bigger just to prove that I can.
Opal visibly stifles a laugh.
“And moving here is about finding myself again, and I don’t meanfinding myself with a new man.”
“Girl power,” Charlotte says. “Welcome to the awesome divorcée club of Hell’s Bells. We meet a couple of times a week for book club. And bybook club, I mean wine and whine club.”
“I amsoin.”
She lifts an imaginary glass. I clink with my own imaginary glass, and look at that.
I think I have a new friend.
Opal grabs my head and turns me back to stare at myself while she snips a gigantic chunk of my hair off.
It takes a herculean effort not to whimper, but I manage it. Moving here is about embracing change. I can do that with my hair too.
“So your daughter plays soccer,” she says softly while she snips more of my hair.
“Lives for it.”
“And she missed tryouts.”
“There was an issue with my—with some family stuff and then another issue with the movers and—yes. Yes, I was late, and I failed to call the school early and ask the questions I should’ve asked, and—”
“Late cherry crop this year,” she muses. “Did you know cherry crisp is one of the very best things about Wyoming?”
“I didn’t. What else—”
“Very best thing,” she interrupts. Strongly. With emphasis.
