by Julie Hyzy
“I’m Alex.”
“Alex?” she tilted her head. “This is name for boy, no?”
“I guess,” I said, sitting back down at the sink chair.
Sophia reached over and fingered my hair, making appraising noises as she did so. I couldn’t guess at what she meant as she lifted strands and slid them through her fingers.
“Cut?” she finally said.
“Just a trim.”
She led me to a different chair by the mirrors and I obediently sat. Standing behind me she pulled the ends of my hair up in such a way that it looked as though she’d lopped off a good four inches. The new length hit just above my earlobe. Way too short.
“Umm,” I said, “I like to keep it up in a pony-tail.”
“No pony-tail. No.” She lowered her head till it was next to mine and smiled into the mirror at me as she let my hair drop. “You see? You have long face. Long hair make it drag.” She pulled it up again, this time holding it, bun-like at the back of my head, then pulled a few wisps in front of my eyes and did some sort of contortion with them that made me look as though I sported bangs. “Look now. You see? Different. Pretty blue eyes. You got boyfriend?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“He will tell you how beautiful you are.”
I laughed. She obviously didn’t know Dan. “I’d rather keep it long,” I said, though I had to admit she was probably right. The shorter look did seem to frame my face better than the straggly brown mess I was used to. “Just a trim,” I repeated.
Her look told me she was disappointed in my decision. She stood back and gave me another appraising look. “You try maybe highlights?”
The broken English was starting to get to me. I thought life might be easier if I told her I spoke Polish, and then, once we got started on the hair I could put my feelers out about Milla Voight, but I was interrupted before I could start. The front door made its tinkling announcement and a young man strode in, every tense inch of him telegraphing anger.
He made his way directly toward us, waving a newspaper in my stylist’s face, calling to her in Polish, making her name sound like Zophia. My knee-jerk reaction was that he was her boyfriend, but the twin expressions of warning on their faces as they stared each other down made me reassess.
This had to be her brother. From the looks of it, younger, by about three or four years.
They spoke so fast, and with so much emotion, that I had a hard time keeping up with the conversation. I arranged my expression into careful nonchalance, but paid close attention.
“Matthew,” she said in English, her voice low. “I have client here.”
He gave me a cursory look, and a polite nod, as if to acknowledge my presence. If it slowed him down, the effect was temporary. Fair-haired and handsome, Matthew was a bigger, more masculine version of his sister. Over six feet tall, he had the clear, peaches and cream complexion, and bright blue eyes his sister had, but as though a sculptor had sat down to work with two identical lumps of clay, each maintained a strength of gender—though the resemblance was uncanny.
His face set in a scowl, I couldn’t help but think about how handsome he would be if he smiled. He was a bit too young for my tastes, but I could nonetheless appreciate his attractiveness. And while he had a small overbite, and the same large teeth that Sophia did, it wasn’t quite so pronounced on his larger frame.
Their Polish became clearer as I began to catch the rhythm of their speech.
“So tell me Sophia, tell me again about your great future in this place,” he said, hissing the sibilant consonants, “What kind of future does Milla have now?”
Milla? Had to be Milla Voight.
“Please,” she said. It wasn’t a request. “I have no time for this, Matthew.”
She placed both of her hands on my head, one on each side of my part, as though ready to commence styling. My inner alarm went off. No!
I sensed it was an attempt to dismiss him, but he walked around in front of me. Even if I weren’t a people-watcher by nature, my interest would have been piqued when he held up the article that had apparently precipitated this angry outburst. The Polish newspaper’s headline story featured a large picture of Milla Voight and a very small one of Father de los Santos. But it seemed that it was the priest who had gotten the brother’s ire up.
I felt like the salami in a sandwich, the two of them arguing over me, close, invading my space. Sophia’s hands had moved to my shoulders, preventing me from getting up. She couldn’t know that I was understanding this conversation and there was no chance I’d try to get away.
I caught a glimpse of her nails, ragged and bitten to the quick. She held a comb, tight in her right hand. “Please,” she said again in her native language, “this woman is a paying customer.”
“Yes,” he said, derision obvious in his tone. He wagged his head. “What would Mama think?”
Sophie moved closer to him, placing one hand on his arm.
He shook it off, but his tone softened. “We can go somewhere else. Another city. Start again.”
Her hands twitched with tension. “Matthew, let’s talk about this later. At home. All right?”
Behind me, at the back of the shop, a door opened. I might have missed the noise and the movement, had it not been for the reaction of the staff. By the time the knob clicked closed, everyone’s eyes had shot toward the sound. As of course, did mine.
A large man had emerged and was making his way toward us. Scary large. His clothes were not cheap, that much I could tell, but he wore them too small. My guess was that this bruiser did that on purpose, to emphasize the muscles in his chest and the bulge in his pants.
His thick dark hair was so short that it spiked out around his massive head, and he sported a neat Fu Manchu. Olive-complected, he was the sort of fellow who steps out of the shadows in movies just to make the protagonist nervous. Which is exactly the effect he was having on Sophie and her brother. I felt like a rapt audience member, itching to see what would happen next. Except I wasn’t used to sitting this close to the action.
“Problem, Sophia?” He asked in clear unaccented English. Despite the calm his dark eyes exuded, there was an alertness, a wariness, within them.
“Oh. … No. My brother has a disagreement,” she said with what looked like a forced smile, “with … with our landlord.” I watched Milla’s face disappear into the newspaper’s fold as Matthew tucked it under his arm.
Except for the old lady customer who sat reading Cosmo under the hum of a dryer, her foot tapping a rhythm that nobody else could hear, everyone’s attention was on us. No secrets in this place, I thought.
The receptionist called out: “Hey, Ro? When you have a minute?”
Like a bear in the zoo on a hot summer day, the guy turned with movements both graceful and powerful. This was not a man in a hurry. Ro looked at girl who’d called to him, nodded, then turned back to Matthew. “Let me know if there’s anything I can do. Any brother of Sophie’s is a friend of mine.” He didn’t wait for a response before heading over to the receptionist, who led him to the back of the shop.
As soon as he was out of earshot, Matthew lapsed back into Polish again. “I’m going to prove it to you,” he said, dropping the folded paper onto her shelf of supplies.
Prove what? I wondered.
“Matthew,” she said, but he’d turned to leave. “Please, don’t do anything foolish … Matthew!”
He yanked the front door open hard enough to send the bells into jangle spasms. They reverberated through the now-silent salon for what had to be seconds but felt like hours. Sophie bit the insides of her mouth, pulling her cheeks in, like a fish. Her fists gripped the gray comb so hard I could see the knuckles go white.
Chapter Four
My pager sounded just as I settled up with Sophie. Pressing my card into her hand, along with a sizeable tip, I whispered to her in Polish, “Call me, if there’s anything I can do; I might be able to help, somehow.” My sixth sense told me there was a story here.
The realization that I’d heard and understood the conversation between her and Matthew flashed into her eyes and she stopped for a moment, speechless. Pushing my luck, I continued, “If you ever want to talk about your friend Milla, or if you need help …” I left the statement intentionally vague, hoping she’d fill in the blanks herself and take a chance on me. She hadn’t exactly opened up during the hair styling, but we’d established a rapport of sorts. I could only hope.
When I left the salon, she hadn’t smiled, but I saw her pocket my business card.
I pulled out my cell phone when I got back into my car. The interior had been warmed by the October sun and now smelled a bit like French fries. I’d caught a glimpse of myself in the ubiquitous mirrors in the salon, but I just had to take another gander before calling in. I pulled down the visor mirror for a good hard look.
The first word that had gone through my mind at the salon was “beehive,” and my style hadn’t miraculously changed in the past five minutes. Unfortunately. The receptionist had pulled Sophie over to the side while the highlights I’d reluctantly agreed to, “processed.” I can only assume she told Sophie how much I liked the ‘do in that one book. My sarcasm had been lost on my audience. Well, it wouldn’t be the first time.
Grimacing, I flipped the visor back up. It came out of its little hinge-y thing and I spent another minute or so fixing it. As cars go, mine is pretty utilitarian. People make jokes about Fords, and when I bought this one, brand-spanking new four years ago, I’d half-expected problems to surface right away. So far, however, it had been a dream. My little white Escort was small, easy to maneuver, and cheap. Exactly what I wanted in a vehicle.
Settled, I punched in the phone number to the office.
Jordan answered on the second ring, “Alex St. James’ office.”
“Hey, Jordan, I got the page, but I’m running late. Think you can get Bass to stall the meeting for about— “
“The meeting’s been rescheduled for two, but you better get down here. That’s why I beeped you.”
“What’s up?”
She made a noise and I could almost see the look on her face. Combination annoyance and puzzlement. “Something big is brewing around here. Mr. Mulhall’s coming.”
“Hank? What for?”
“They’re making this new guy thing into a big deal. And—now this is just a rumor—so don’t quote me …”
Jordan’s rumors were nothing to be ignored. “Yeah?”
“I heard that they’re letting folks go. We’re supposed to find out right before the meeting, but I been hearing that heads are gonna roll.”
“But they just hired …”
“Yeah. Fenn-ton.” She elongated the name in a sing-song way.
“Have you met him?”
“Unfortunately.”
“And?”
Jordan snorted. A very unladylike sound. “I give him two months.”
I smiled as I pulled into traffic, my cell tucked safely back in my purse. Not enough time to make it home and revamp my hair, I stole another glance, this time in the foreshortened rear-view mirror. It wasn’t so bad, after all. And what the heck, I was on a story. Just one of the hazards of the job.
* * * * *
Maybe I underestimated my new look, I thought later, as I walked into the office. I’d given Sophie the go-ahead on highlights and a free hand in styling, hoping to get her to talk more about Milla. I’d been half successful. I had new hair.
Expressions on the assistants’ faces as I passed ranged from stunned to confused. That’s how I read them, at least. I couldn’t find Jordan at the moment which annoyed me to hell. She would have told me how it really looked.
Comments varied from benign, “Wow, Alex, new ‘do?” to “What in the world happened?”
Feeling as though I was running a gauntlet in order to get to my office, I felt my mood growing ever more dark. I wished I’d taken the time, now, to pull it down. But the meeting awaited and I figured I’d just take my lumps. Jordan had said heads were going to roll. I hoped mine wasn’t going to be one of them, but if it was, at least it would be stylin’.
Standing in the doorway to my office was a young man I’d never seen before. I took a chance. “Fenton?”
Okay, I’ll admit, with a name like Fenton, I expected someone older, and this guy didn’t even look legal drinking age. I wondered if he had to shave yet. He turned toward me with a head-to-toe raking glance. Too slowly, he forced his hand out toward me. “You must be Alexandra. Not too hard to figure out …” his eyes focused on my chest, then moved to my face with a self-satisfied smile. “My aunt told me there was a babe on board.”
His aunt? Who could that be, I wondered, as I shook his hand and pasted a smile on my face. “Nice to meet you. But call me Alex.” He wasn’t much taller than I was, maybe five foot seven, and his face was slim, with pinched-in cheeks, like a guitarist in an acid rock band. He had brown hair, lots of it, and it fell long and straight past his forehead to hang into his eyes. If he hadn’t been wearing Dockers and a button-down collared shirt, I would have taken him for a time-warped hippie.
He lifted half his mouth in a smirk. “I don’t do nicknames, Alexandra. So, if you don’t mind …”
I wanted to slap his silly little face. “As a matter of fact, Fenton, I do mind.”
“Well,” he said, affecting a huff. “If you like being called by a man’s name …” His eyes raked over me again and I could only imagine what was going on in his tiny brain.
We were off to a bad start here. I took a deep breath and decided to try again. But I could feel the bright lights of anger flash inside my head and my words came out sharp.
“First of all, Fenton, my given name is not Alexandra. And I do like nicknames. Mine especially. And unless you’d like me to come up with one for you …” With effort, I tempered my words, smiling, as though we were old buddies and I was making a joke, “I suggest you call me Alex. Just … Alex. Got it?”
I walked away before he answered and worried for a half-second about the repercussions about that little interchange. Sometimes I had such a hard time holding my tongue.
Dropping my stuff on my desk, I picked up a notebook and a couple of folders for the meeting and headed out the door, nearly colliding with Bass I did so.
“Geez!” he said, in a perturbed voice, “where are you heading?” His mouth dropped open and his eyes widened. “And what the hell happened to your hair?”
I gritted my teeth. “We’ve got a meeting scheduled, don’t we?”
“Yeah, but it’s not in my office, it’s in the conference room. And you won’t need that stuff.” He waited while I put the folders back, then started down the corridor. I fell into step with him. Ahead of us, Fenton sauntered into the conference room and I slowed Bass down with a hand on his arm.
“What’s up, Bass? And what’s with the conference room?” I was wary. We never used that. Not unless it was a big deal.
The look on his face before he spoke was unreadable. “We need the space. We’ve got two new men we’re introducing to the staff. I figured it’s best to gather everyone at once rather than walk desk-to-desk with them.” He gave an embarrassed shrug, “And the producer popped for some … appetizers and things. It’s all set up in there.”
Bass hadn’t walked me desk-to-desk for introductions when I started. And they’d certainly not put out hors d’oeuvres either. When I arrived my first day, Bass had looked up, handed off some files and pointed to my office. It’d been up to me to get to know who was who and what was what on my own.
Even though he’d hired me, it had been under duress. The station wanted to be seen as “with it” and forward-thinking. Sure. I was, in fact, the only female on the investigative team. Their token. I knew it, but I was good at my job and tried not to let the old-boy network get to me.
I wondered again what was causing Bass to behave in a manner completely foreign to him. When he’d said turning the priest story over to Fenton came from on hig
h, he must have meant it. “Two?” I knew about this Fenton fellow, but hadn’t heard about anyone else.
“Yeah, Fenton Foss and another guy, William Armstrong.”
“They’re both new investigators?” If they were getting a reception like this, I could see my control of the good stories going down the tubes. Fast.
“No. Just Fenton. Armstrong’s our new scriptwriter. I’m assigning him to you.”
I stopped in my tracks. “What?”
Bass faced me. “They’re waiting for us in there. Let’s go.”
“No, no, no. Wait a minute. What happened to Tony?”
His hands came up. “It will all be explained. There was a management shakeup over the weekend. The powers that be …” he stopped himself and I didn’t know why, but when he continued, his entire tone had changed, as though to convince me while he convinced himself. “We are really fortunate to get William Armstrong. He’s young. He’s energetic. And he comes to us with an impressive resume. I have no doubt he’ll infuse new life into your stories, Alex.”
Young? Like Fenton? Just what I needed.
My head gave one of those nasty wiggle-tilts that means I’m really mad. “I wasn’t aware that my stories needed new life infused into them, Philip.” I rarely used Bass’s first name. He had to know I was angry. “Tony Wender may be an older guy, but he knows what he’s doing.”
In fact Tony was my buddy. He’d taken me under his wing when all the other good old boys had shut their doors. He had some stodgy ways about him, and should probably have retired a decade ago, but I liked him. And I was worried for him. He hadn’t struck me as the type who’d go down without a fight.
“Just wait. You’ll like this Armstrong guy. I think you and him will make an excellent team.”
“Oh you do, do you? Well, if he’s anything like this Fenton character, you can keep him. I’ll write my own flipping scripts and you can tell golden boy number two to keep his greasy little paws off of my stories.”
Bass shot me such a look of panic as I finished my spiel that there could be only one possibility. I clenched shut my eyes for a half-second. Then turned around.