by Kim Boykin
A text came back within seconds. Who the fuck is this? I stared at the screen in disbelief.
Now, there are two teams within a baseball organization, the Whore Dogs who chase anything and everything, leaving a trail of broken hearts in their wake, and The Romantics, good guys like Adam. Monogamous guys who make you believe in happily ever afters. Granted I signed up for this life when I fell in love with Adam, sort of. But him joining the Whore Dogs? No. It couldn’t be. I’d been around his serial cheater buddies, and that just wasn’t him.
There had to be an explanation. Maybe he was asleep. Maybe he was sick. Maybe he’d lost his phone and was too cheap to go get another one. Before I could guess again, the phone rang. I was afraid to pick it up.
“Hi.” Adam shouted over the background noise. “I’m at a party with some of the guys and saw your text. One of those boneheads was messing with my phone. Everything all right?”
I wanted to believe the text wasn’t from some girl he was with. “Everything’s good.”
“Hey, are you really coming out?” I couldn’t tell much about his tone over the noise level, and then the crowd sounded muffled, like he stepped outside.
“I had my last day at the shop and thought I’d come see you. Antwan’s babysitting Buster, so I’m en route.” Not a total lie. “I checked the team schedule, y’all are at home for the next ten days and you only have four games. So it looked like a good time to me.”
“Look Rainey, I love you. I’ll get you out here soon, I promise, but now is not a good time. I’ve got stuff going on.”
“What kind of stuff?” It wasn’t like he worked for the Secret Service, he played baseball for God’s sake.
“Just stuff.”
“And you’re saying I’d be in the way.”
“No, of course not, but please, just trust me on this.”
I swallowed hard. “It’s too late, Adam. I’m on my way. I wanted to surprise you, but now you know.” I felt my inner diva cursing a blue streak at me for not being more assertive, but mostly at Adam because she liked to get laid too. Truth was, if either she or I had any balls, we would have asked him straight up why he hadn’t called or returned my other calls. “Whatever stuff you have going on, you have five days to sort it out, and then it’s just you and me, baby.”
“So you’re dead set on coming?” He sounded nervous, angry, and he must have stepped back inside because I the party noise was louder. “I’ve got to go, Rainey.”
“I love you, Adam. So much.”
“Me too,” he said and ended the call.
Me too? My inner diva was screaming. Me fucking too? Adam was never a me too kind of guy, he was always the I Love You kind, no matter where he was or who he was with, he said it loud and clear. I tried to reason with her—maybe Adam was telling the truth. Maybe it was just one of the guys messing with his phone. But she was right, he was definitely acting different. For the first time ever, he didn’t ask about Buster, and in four years, he’s never told me I couldn’t come see him. If Antwan were here, he’d pour me another glass of wine and tell me to listen to my inner diva.
I was too busy telling her to shut the hell up. Adam had never given me a reason to doubt him. Until now, I’d been sure he didn’t play for the Whore Dogs. But how far was I willing to go to find out for sure? And if there was another girl, was I willing to fight for him?
CHAPTER FIVE
TUESDAY
I shed my cute wedges for a pair of flip flops, but didn’t have much of a choice as to what to wear. Adam was a leg man, and while my legs are short and are not my best feature, I’d packed an inordinate number of short skirts and dresses for his viewing pleasure. I pulled on a hot pink V-neck and a flouncy white skirt and started out toward Marietta early, hoping to beat the heat. Walking at a fairly good clip, I made sure I stayed on the pavement and watched for rattlers.
The scenery looked like something out of a fairy tale with sky-high mountains in the distance. The sky itself looked bigger and bluer than anything I’d ever seen, and being born and raised in Carolina, that was saying something. Even the forest seemed deeper, richer, inviting. But as pretty as the roadside scenery was, it wasn’t as beautiful as Beck’s view of the world.
I arrived on the outskirts of Marietta a little over two hours later, passing the high-dollar B&Bs and shops along the way. I went into the Big Sky Diner and ate a good breakfast. Folks there were used to having tourists come through. They were friendly, but didn’t ask a lot of questions. The big talk in town according to a half-dozen old women at the table next to me was Missy Wilson’s wedding. Apparently, it was going to be a big deal. Some of the women at the table were invited and some of them weren’t, and the ones that weren’t were miffed.
“More coffee?” The cute blonde waitress about my age asked.
“Just the check, please.” I paid my tab and did the math in my head of where I stood financially. I had eighteen hundred dollars in the bank before I left Columbia, after a lot of bad food, paying for gas, and really cheap hotels, I was down to fifteen hundred and change. I prayed Dillon would have pity on me, fix my car for a good price, and still leave me enough gas money to make it to Missoula.
How would that look to Adam, me rolling into town penniless, especially after he all but told me not to come? It would look bad, really bad. And with my being out of work, it might look like I’d driven two thousand miles just so I could leech off of him. But I’d never felt that way about Adam when he was between teams and stayed with me. I was so happy to have him, and Buster was too. It felt like we were a family, and then he’d get picked up by some farm team and leave. Hopefully, Adam would remember that part of our history the way I did. But either way, the last thing I wanted to do was show up in Missoula broke.
I knew I could probably charm Dillon into giving me the friends and family discount, but even with that, the look on his face yesterday had screamed expensive.
I sucked it up anyway and headed over to the shop.
“Hey, Rainey.” He blushed and wiped his greasy hands on his jumpsuit. “I haven’t gotten to your car yet.”
“It’s okay, I’ve got nothing else to do, Dillon. I’ll wait.”
“I told you I couldn’t get you an estimate until after lunch, and that’s still true. Wanna poke around town a bit and come back later?”
Not really, I wanted to find out where I stood with the car. With Adam. “Sure.”
I window-shopped down a street full of stores with expensive tourist trinkets and checked out a pretty turquoise ring I couldn’t afford. The sales lady oohed and ahhed over it.
“It’s expensive,” I said.
She shrugged, “But it looks fabulous on you. Just imagine how much better it would look with a good manicure. It would be stunning.” Red-faced, I slipped the ring off, thanked her, and got out of there fast.
Back home, I never bothered much with manicures… my nails were always soft from having them in a shampoo bowl all the time. But I did need a pedicure and thought it might be a good idea to get one before Dillon gave me the magic number. From the look on his face, I might never be able to afford one again.
Stepping into Nell’s Cut ‘n Curl was like stepping back in time. The row of dryers along the wall looked like they were from the fifties and prices on a piece of poster board tacked to the wall looked like they were from the sixties. An old spitfire of a woman was holding court while she cut a round, friendly looking woman’s silver hair.
“Hey,” I said.
“Hey, yourself,” the stylist sounded like she smoked twenty-four packs of cigarettes a day. “What brings you in today?”
“I was hoping to get a pedicure.”
“We haven’t done them since Doni passed away, and that was what? Twenty years ago. I’m Nell, what’s your name, cutie?”
“Rainey Brown,” I said. “Wow, you’ve been at this for a while.”
“Since 1957.” She looked me over, especially my hair. “You a beautician?”
�
�Yes, ma’am. Just passing through. So you’ve been fixing hair for more than fifty years? How do you do it?”
She laughed, reminding me that folks from Montana are never fixing to do anything, reminding me of Beck. “Fifty-five years, honey, and I’ve got the bad back, and bad feet to prove it. And don’t even get me started on my knees. But I can’t quit, my people need me.”
“We won’t let her,” the silver head chirped.
“Besides, I know if I quit, I’d be dead in a week. This place keeps me going, my people keep me going, although so many of them have passed on. I still have a handful. I’ll keep at it as long as they keep coming.”
“It’s the only place in town who’ll do an upsweep for eight dollars,” the woman in the chair added. It’s probably the only place in town that still does an upsweep.
Nell put her lady under the dryer and plopped down in the chair in front of her station with a big sigh. “Gets harder and harder every day, standing on my feet. Don’t tell anyone, but I’m almost glad to have less of my people.”
I smiled, loving that she didn’t think of her patrons as clients, they were people, her people. “If you don’t mind me asking, how do you keep your doors open charging those prices?” I nodded at the yellowed poster board.
“This place was paid for ten years after I opened. Insurance money from when my husband passed on. I just make enough to keep the power turned on. I’m not ready for my light to go out.” She smiled and fluffed up the front of her big do that was stiff as a board and as perfect as if it had come out of a plastic mold. Except for a little spot in the back.
“Do you cut your own hair?” I asked.
She blushed like a young girl. “Ah, hell. Does it show?”
I laughed. “Just this one little spot. May I?”
“Lord, Rainey, I haven’t had someone else’s hands in my hair since Earline passed,” she nodded toward the only other stylist’s station. It seemed to be a shrine with little knickknacks and pictures of the two women over the years. And let me tell you, Nell had been a looker. “That was fifteen years ago, but it’s getting harder and harder to hold that mirror and cut the back just right. My husband used to say, it’s the beautician’s equivalent of Annie Oakley using a hand mirror to sharp shoot behind her back.”
“I’d be honored to fix it—I mean cut it.”
After the sliver head left, Nell let me wash her hair. It had almost been a week since I’d had my hands in someone else’s hair, and it felt like home.
“I can’t believe I’ve been walking around all this time with my hair gapped up.”
“It wasn’t that bad, Nell. Really.”
“It’s bad advertising, that’s what it is.” I shaped up the back of her hair while she told me about how the town had changed over the years. Some of the things she liked, better roads and services from the city, some things she didn’t.
“Earline and I went to Florida once. Saw a bumper sticker I liked so much, I’ve still got it on my car. Says, if it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them?”
I laughed along with her, even though I was sort of a tourist.
Calling on every ounce of technical and artistic talent, I tried to fix Nell’s hair as big as she’d had it before, but my skills in that area were sorely lacking. Nell said it was fine, but I knew the minute I walked out the door, she’d fix it the way she wanted. “Thanks Rainey. It feels good. Looks good too.”
“Well it’s not as good as you fix it—I mean do it.”
“You know what? You’re right, honey, we do fix hair, and I’m going to start saying that from now on.” She hauled herself out of the chair, gave me a hug, and then held me at arm’s length. “So how long are you in town for, hot stuff?”
“Just till my car gets fixed. Then I’m headed to Missoula to see my boyfriend.”
“If he’s a cutie like you, I bet the both of you turn some heads. So what’s he doing letting you out of his sight?”
I’d been wondering the same thing for four years. “Adam played baseball. Got drafted pretty high, but hadn’t done as well as he hoped. He just got his first coaching job with the Missoula Osprey. You have to love a man who’s that committed to something he loves.” She raised her bushy gray eyebrows. What about me? “I’ll be honest with you, Nell, it’s hard loving Adam. I don’t get to see him much, but I do love him, and I didn’t want him sitting behind a desk when he’s forty, miserable because he didn’t chase his dream.”
“So he’s your dreamboat? Makes your day, every day?”
Except when he doesn’t call or I get WTF texts from someone who could possibly be another woman. “Yes, ma’am.”
“Well, Rainey Brown, you’ve sure made my day, coming in here and fixing my hair. If I can ever do anything for you, just holler, and if you’re still wanting a proper pedicure, there’s one of those places a little further west on Main Street.”
I hugged her again, too embarrassed to tell her that down south, we give right or left directions because who in the hell knows which way west is unless the sun is setting? I finally found the nail place. The pedicure cost fifteen dollars more than back home, but it was worth it. I looked at my phone and saw it was almost three o’clock, time to hear the bad news from Dillon.
“Hey, Rainey.” More blushing, eyes downcast. This was bad, really bad. “How was your lunch?”
“I had a pedicure instead.” I didn’t have time for this. “Just tell me, Dillon. Please.”
“Sit down,” he motioned to the ratty couch I’d napped on yesterday. I felt like I was going to throw up. “You blew a head gasket.”
He sounded like he was telling me I had a few days to live. “How much?”
“When that happens, Rainey, antifreeze gets all up in the engine. It’s a big mess. Lots of major damage to the—.”
“How. Much.”
“I didn’t charge you for the tow.”
“Dillon. Just tell me.”
“Twenty-two hundred. And change. It’s way more than the car is worth.”
“Oh my God, I don’t have that kind of money.” I would not cry. I would not cry. “I can pay you fifteen hundred dollars—how fixed would that get the car?”
“Not good enough to drive. Please don’t cry, Rainey,” he started to swipe at my tears with his greasy hand but thought the better of it. “Just pay me what you can, Beck said he would take care of the rest.”
“No. I pay my own way, I always have, and I’m not taking a handout now.” But where in the hell was I going to come up with seven hundred dollars? “How long will it take to fix the car?”
“I don’t know, it’s pretty bad, and I have some big jobs ahead of you. I’m guessing four days, maybe five.”
“Just do it, I’ll get the money.”
“Rainey, it would make more sense just to take whatever money you do have and buy a new car.”
“I can’t, Dillon, I won’t be able to get a loan. I’m two thousand miles from home and between jobs. You just fix the car and I’ll worry about the rest. Thanks for the tow, for everything.”
“Rainey, I really want to help you out, but I’ve looked at the numbers over and over again and that’s the least I can do it for. Beck is loaded and he wants to help you, why don’t you let him?”
“Thanks, Dillon. I’ll thank Beck too, but I can’t let him do that, no matter how loaded he is. It wouldn’t be right.” I left the garage feeling like I needed a drink.
The little bell over the door announced my presence. Nell poked her head out to see it was me and blushed a little over the fact that she hadn’t just fluffed her hair up, it was even bigger than it was when I met her. “Hey, hot stuff, what brings you back?”
I plopped down in her chair and looked at myself in the mirror. “I need a job, but I don’t have a license, at least not for Montana.”
“You can work here, fixing hair.”
“But if the state board came around, you could get in a lot of trouble.”
“What are they gonna d
o? Yank my license? After fifty-five years, maybe it’s time somebody did,” Nell huffed. “You set up shop here, Rainey. I’ve even got a big Saturday job for you, Missy Wilson’s wedding.”
“I can’t just come in and take business away from you.” I wasn’t even sure her silver heads would let me touch their hair. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“Truth is, you’ll be doing me a favor. I’m getting too old for this shit.”
“What do you mean Rainey turned me down?” Beck was checking in a shipment of wine that had arrived late while the restaurant bustled, getting ready for the dinner crowd.
“I told her you said you’d pay the difference, but she said no, she pays her own way.”
Beck stepped into his office and closed the door. “How short is she?” Immediately, his brain went literal on him. She was maybe five-four and if her arms were wrapped around him, the top of her head would hit him just above his heart.
“Seven hundred dollars.”
“That’s nothing.”
“To you maybe, but not to the rest of us, Beck. Besides, she’s out of work. She was trying not to show it, but I think she’s scared.” Beck’s cell buzzed, he looked down at the caller ID—Rainey. “I’ve got to go. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Hey, Rainey. I’m glad you called. How’s it going?”
“Hey, Beck. I think you know how it’s going, that’s why I called, to thank you for trying to save me—again.”
He loved the sound of her voice with the drawl turned off, still southern, still sexy as hell. “I like saving you, Rainey Brown.”
“Well, you don’t have to. I have a job, temporarily. If everything goes the okay, Dillon will have my car ready by Saturday so I can head out Saturday evening. I’m going to be fine”
“You don’t sound too sure of that.”
“Everything’s fine, really. Nell’s going to let me work out of her beauty shop, just for the week. She has a wedding to do Saturday and gave me that—twelve fussy bridesmaids and the bride for one hundred and twenty dollars. I’ll work my ass off charging Nell’s prices, but I think I can do it and have enough to pay Dillon. Nell said she’d put a pickle jar out for tips. And if I have to stay a few more days to pay him, I will.”