Speak of the Devil

by Shari Shattuck

  “Thanks,” mumbled Sheldon Tucker. He sloped over to the condiments, where he hoisted up the sugar dispenser and let it pour into his coffee as he picked up a discarded paper and started to read. Leah wondered if he would finish the article before he stopped adding sweetener.

  Weston fixed Leah with a bemused smile and said, “See you around, I hope.” Then without waiting for a response, which was good because Leah’s jaw had locked again, he turned and left the shop, the bells jingling as the door closed behind what might possibly have been his better side.

  Jenny and Leah watched him through the plate-glass windows until he had climbed into his truck and driven away, and then Jenny wheeled on Leah. “What the hell?” she said. “Why didn’t you talk to him? He obviously thought you were . . .”

  But Leah was wringing her hands, her face so twisted into a mass of self-hate and fear that Jenny’s intended recrimination trailed off.

  Leah stuttered, “I just can’t. I mean, it’s been a while, I know, but ever since . . . I just . . . Ahhr!” She let out a frustrated growl.

  Jenny lifted the flap in the counter and came out to put an arm around her friend. After leading her to a small table near the back, Jenny waited until they were both seated and then patted Leah’s hand. “I understand. It’s okay. I know that what happened to you was horrible. I get that. But, girl”—Jenny’s face had become fierce, even through the gentleness she was expressing—“you deserve to be happy. You deserve a good man. And I’m not saying you should rush it, but it is gonna mean taking a chance.”

  Feeling ambushed by the depth of her emotional paralysis, Leah vented a rush of anger at her friend, at life, at all the fucked-up men in the world. She snatched her hand away and flared, “I know that! Don’t you think I fucking know that?” Yet even before the words were all out, she realized that her fury was not really directed at Jenny but at herself, and mortified, she apologized in the same breath. “I’m sorry. It’s not your fault.”

  But Jenny hadn’t even flinched. Too much violence had marred her own young life for her to think for a moment that she was the true target of her friend’s animosity. It was that unique sympathy that had made them—so unlikely a pair—such close friends.

  “Listen, girl. It would be stupid for me to say that I know how you feel, because I’m not you. But I’ve come back up from a long way down once or twice myself, as you know, and there’s one thing I am absolutely sure of.” Jenny put both her palms down on the table and leaned toward Leah. “You chose not to be a victim, but as long as what happened then controls your actions now, you are still the victim.” Before Leah could summon an outraged denial or a defense, Jenny went on. “Don’t let that son of a bitch own you. Make the choice not to be a victim now either. Do you understand?” There was a hardness in Jenny’s voice that told Leah, more than any of Jenny’s words, what she meant. “You own you,” she ended emphatically.

  Leah’s indignant rage, which had swelled with the injustice of it all, subsided like the slap of a wave on rough rock and ebbed away, leaving her feeling as mushy as wet sand. The debilitating sponginess that had overtaken her chest and throat kept her from responding, but she nodded.

  Jenny took a hit in her heart as she watched Leah’s fingers brush unconsciously in a repetitive motion across a fine white scar that intersected the gentle bend of her upper lip.

  The bells on the door rang again as more customers came into the shop. Jenny stood and her usual mischievous grin split her gorgeous face. “Now, if I were you, I’d bake some cookies and take them by the firehouse.”

  In spite of cradling a heart that felt battered and bruised, Leah couldn’t suppress a barked laugh. Jenny winked and walked back to the counter, leaving Leah wondering desperately if she would ever be able to let a man touch her again.

  Chapter 9

  Midmorning Monday at Eye of the Beholder found the salon buzzing at about half speed. Greer was delighted to have Mindy, the hostess of Jenny’s baby shower, as a new client. Mindy had an infectious cheerfulness and chatted animatedly with everyone within earshot of her pedicure. Whitney, who had been friends with Mindy for years, was there too, sitting in Dario’s chair, getting her thick black tresses trimmed, and throwing the occasional comment across the floor, which would have been fine, except that she kept turning her head to do it.

  “Woman,” Dario said to her severely, “you do know that I’m working around your jugular vein with a very sharp instrument and you keep presenting a moving target.” He was an intimidating man. Six foot four, dark haired and as handsome as midnight, with a personality just as daunting, he had a voice that could shake the mirrors in the salon, and it did now as he delivered his warning.

  Whitney, however, knew Dario to be the large and cuddly bear that he was, and their repartee had always been quick and easy.

  “Don’t you sass me.” She smiled up at him in the mirror through her wet, plastered-back bangs. “I’m sorry if I move my head when I speak. Most people do, you know. You should be used to it. What would you do if I wanted a whole new short style?”

  “Give you four Valium and a neck brace,” Dario retorted, but he smiled as he placed all ten huge, strong fingers on either side of her head and turned her face forward and down. “Now stay put.”

  “Yes, sahib,” Whitney intoned obediently.

  “Whitney!” called Mindy from across the room.

  Whitney’s head snapped up, and Dario snatched back the razor-sharp scissors just in time to prevent puncturing the base of her skull.

  “That’s it!” Dario crossed to face Mindy in two long strides. “I’m going to have to separate you two. Now, who wants to stand in the corner?”

  Mindy looked up, way up, at the huge, famous hairdresser, dressed entirely in his signature black, towering above her. “I’m sorry,” she squeaked.

  Dario leaned down and pointed his comb at her face. “Listen up. She can’t control herself, so I’m going to ask you to refrain from shouting her name for the next five minutes. Could you do that for me, you gorgeous, fabulous woman?” There was such an overtly flirty purr on the last line that Mindy actually blushed as she nodded, caught in his powerful, masculine spell.

  Watching from the front, Greer laughed quietly. It was always the same. Dario charmed them all, and the fact that he was gay and overtly vocal about it never seemed to deter the fluttering devotion he inspired in his female clients.

  The circular conversations, which rose and fell as people came in and out of the salon, were centered mostly on yesterday’s fire. Greer found this interesting because the subject had seldom been mentioned, as though to speak of the devil would make him appear. But now that the first fire of season had broken out—and been suppressed—the taboo had somehow been lifted.

  A huge pickup truck, fitted for off-roading, pulled up in the parking lot out front, causing Greer to frown as she watched it through the plate-glass windows. Ripping up the environment was never something she could define as a sport. She watched as Mindy’s husband, Reading, emerged from the cab and paused just outside the glass door to finish his cigarette and toss it onto the sidewalk. Her frown deepened. When had cigarette butts ceased to be litter?

  As Reading grabbed the handle of the door and pulled it open, the heat from the parking lot behind him bent the light. Greer saw him surrounded by a rusty brown aura. The color faded away as he entered the salon, but not before she identified it for what it was: an indicator of greed and imbalance. The aura was not black, which to her signified evil, but it showed her that this was a man who felt vaguely lost and unsure how to prove himself. She sensed confusion, and constant restlessness. This was so common with men in today’s world that, instead of passing a judgment, Greer actually felt sorry for him.

  So she greeted him warmly. “Reading, how nice to see you again. Have you come to pick up your wife?”

  He looked a little taken aback to have his name recalled, and he seemed to fumble for a moment. Greer didn’t let him squirm for long. “I
’m Greer Sands. We met at the shower. I was one of a dozen women that day, but I remember you because you stood out somewhat.” He still looked confused, so she added, “You being the only male within a ten-mile radius.”

  “Yes, I remember. How you doing?” He looked around, seeming unsure of himself in the sleek surroundings. “Is Mindy about done?”

  “I think so. She’s right over there.” Greer pointed toward the back of the salon where his wife, bound by her vow of silence, was gesticulating wildly in his direction, indicating that she would be another five minutes. He waved hesitantly back and then crossed his arms and looked for something to do with himself.

  “Did the fire come anywhere near your ranch?” Greer asked politely as a conversation opener.

  “No, thank God. We’ve got a plan to evacuate all the horses if it ever does, but I sure as hell don’t ever want to have to test it out.” He seemed to relax into the topic. “I’ve seen some pretty hellacious wildfires, and let me tell you, they move fast and unpredictably.”

  “So I’ve heard.” Greer nodded.

  “I remember watching one, out in Malibu, from a friend’s ranch. We were a good ten miles away, but it was awesome.” His eyes had lit with a strange fire of their own, and it was clear that the memory stimulated him. “It was like a live thing, clawing its way down the hills, like some kind of huge cougar, crouching and then pouncing forward.”

  “How terrifying,” said Greer, chilled by his enamored tone.

  “But beautiful, and awesome.” He used the word again, as though he could find none better. Looking into Greer’s eyes, he leaned forward a little across the counter and almost whispered, “It was a powerful thing. You know what I mean?”

  Greer felt a creeping tingling on her skin. “Yes, I think I do. An out-of-control fire is a very terrifying thing.”

  Reading straightened up and glanced around the salon, a bemused look on his face. “Same thing,” he commented.

  Before Greer could summon a response to that, Whitney had spotted Reading in the mirror and she called out from her bowed position. “Reading, come over here! I’m not allowed to move.”

  “You can move now,” Dario said. “I’m through with the dangerous part.”

  Greer drifted with Reading over to stand between the two stations where Whitney and Mindy were receiving their respective treatments. Whitney introduced Dario and Reading, who did not shake hands since Dario’s were otherwise employed, and the conversation about the fire continued.

  “A lady who was in here before,” Mindy was telling her husband, “said that the fire department suspects arson.”

  Reading grunted and shrugged. “Could be,” he said. “But there’re other things that can start a fire.”

  “Like what?” asked Whitney.

  “Like stupidity. A beer bottle with a few drops of dew in it. The glass can act like a magnifying glass when the sun passes through it, and in just the right conditions, create enough heat to turn this dry brush into tinder.”

  Dario sighed. “We’ve certainly had the right conditions. If it gets any hotter and drier, I won’t have to bother with this.” He motioned toward the blow-dryer in its holder. “I’ll just send my clients outside for five minutes.”

  “Save on electricity,” Whitney commented.

  They talked about the number of people in the hills who had no access to city water and how the forest and fire services dealt with that. Reading seemed very well informed about all the procedures.

  When Greer asked how he knew so much about it, it was Mindy who explained. “Reading used to be part of the volunteer fire department when we lived up in Oregon.”

  “Lumber town,” Reading filled in.

  “That’s what he used to do,” Mindy said with a grin. “I married a lumberjack.”

  Dario looked amused at the thought. He asked, “What do you do now?”

  “Security systems,” Reading said. “Started up my own company back in ’ninety-five.”

  “Going well?” Dario asked out of politeness.

  “Very. I just got the contract for the new development. Seven hundred homes, all told, in one easy place.”

  “Sweet,” said Dario, but there was a tinge of sour in the word. He didn’t think much of paving the hills either. “But I thought there were four hundred homes.”

  “Planned so far, but there’s a stage three that will add another three hundred on the back side,” Reading told them.

  “That’s not for sure yet though, is it?” Greer asked, thinking of her conversation with Susan and Rowland Hughs the night before. “I thought the zoning wasn’t passed through yet.”

  “Oh, it’s a done deal.” Reading looked smugly confident. “With Susan Hughs, I don’t see it not happening. That is a woman who gets things done. She’s the best thing to happen to this community in years.”

  Greer could see the muscles in Whitney’s jaw working and knew her friend was biting back a sharp retort. When Whitney did speak, she kept the barb sheathed. “That depends on your point of view,” she said.

  “Really?” Reading’s willingness to argue was less disguised; his tone was loaded for bear. “Do you have any idea how many people have been employed on this project and how much money it will bring into the community?”

  Whitney let loose. “Do you have any idea how much traffic and noise and trash it will bring to the community? How much sensitive wildlife habitat it will destroy?”

  “It’s progress,” Reading said coldly. “And if you’re afraid of progress, then you’re willing to let things stagnate and die.”

  “Oh, I’m not afraid of progress,” Whitney fired back. “I just have a hard time distinguishing it from destruction in this case.”

  “Okay, okay,” Mindy interjected. “Everybody gets to have a different opinion. Now, be nice, honey,” she said soothingly to her husband. But she also quickly defended him. “Whitney, you know that Reading is a hunter and a camper, he has as much respect for the open space as anybody, but there has got to be a balance. I mean, people need a place to live, right?” She appealed to Greer and Dario, as though asking them to mediate.

  “Well,” Dario said in a low rumble, “I think there’s a flip side to that too. I’m sorry, but the fact is it’s the developers who are making out like bandits, putting up these communities with no regard for the effect they have on the environment, and then they ditch with a wad of cash. It’s not like they live in these cardboard cutouts themselves, do they?”

  Reading’s stance had switched, Greer noticed, from casual to firmly planted. Like the fire he had described, he looked a bit like a cougar ready to pounce. “The Hughses are. They kept the four acres at the top to build a house for themselves.”

  “Oh,” said Whitney, “so their house will be on four acres. I see.”

  “You know what?” Reading said bitterly, “I’m about done having this same tired conversation. The fact is, the homes are going in, so if you don’t like it, too fucking bad.” With that, he turned on his heel. “I’ll be in the truck,” he threw over his shoulder at Mindy.

  “Honey, please,” she called after him as the others looked uncomfortably away, but to no avail. “Shit,” she muttered as he left. “Now he’ll be in a bad mood all day. The truth is, I think he’s sort of torn himself.”

  “I’m sorry,” Greer said sincerely. “I hope he isn’t too upset. You know we didn’t mean to offend him. It’s a touchy subject. That’s not the first argument we’ve had in here over those homes.”

  “It’s funny though,” said Whitney in her still-cheerful tone, “how it seems that people’s point of view is always in direct proportion to how it will effect them. There’s very little principle involved. I mean, you guys are for the development,” she said to Mindy, “because he’s going to get a lot of work from it. The developers are for it because they’re going to get richer. The people who are buying the homes are for it, I guess. Those whose views are ruined don’t want it, the people defending the environment don’t
want it, and the naturalists don’t even want to consider whether it’s reasonable or not. You know what I mean?”

  Dario’s assistant, Jonathan, had come around the corner from the shampoo area. Blond, tan, twenty-four and as sassy as they come, he had listened to the tail end of this argument. Now he piped up with his own words of wisdom.

  “It’s like Us magazine,” he said sagely.

  “What?” Dario narrowed his eyes at his assistant, wary of what might be coming next.

  “Well, if you’re a star and you want publicity, you’re glad to be all over that cover, every damn week. ‘Look at her new baby, look at her new boyfriend, look at her new dress. Isn’t she glamorous!’ But when that same celebrity wants to get away with something, the last thing they want to see is their own ugly, pimpled, makeupless mug, wearing a startled expression staring down at the masses waiting in line at the grocery store, with the caption, ‘Star caught on naked cocaine binge! See disgusting cellulite photos on page three!’ It’s all a question of how it serves you.” He pulled the wet towel from Whitney’s shoulders and gave her a dry one as Dario picked up the blow-dryer. “It’s a selfish world.”

  Dario frowned at the young man. “Bit cynical, don’t you think?”

  “Depends.” Jonathan grinned.

  “On what?” asked Greer.

  “On what’s in it for me.” Jonathan flashed a brilliant smile and sashayed away.

  Greer turned to Mindy, who was watching the young man’s back retreat and looking utterly lost. “Never mind Jonathan,” she said. “He’s obsessed with being famous.”

  “No,” sighed Mindy. “He’s absolutely right. If it weren’t for Reading making so much money on this project, I’d probably be down there with the Sierra Club gathering signatures on a petition to try to stop it. I am just as selfish as anybody.” She looked absolutely disgusted with herself.