Wave Good-Bye

by Lila Dare

  “Uh, I wasn’t suggesting that you come with,” he said in a tone that showed he was surprised I’d even think it.

  “Oh.” That hurt. I guess it showed on my face.

  He set down his piece of pizza and wiped his mouth with a paper napkin. “I’m not sure what to do or say, Grace Ann. I can tell you’re disappointed.”

  “It’s a bit of a shock. And you didn’t tell me about your…proposal.”

  “We don’t really have that kind of relationship, do we? Look, I care about you, and I want us to stay friends, but you know how much my work matters to me. I’m finally getting a shot at the big leagues—so this isn’t the right time for…us. Heck, right now, we don’t even live in the same state. I mean, when we did, that was different, but now…And I never led you on. In fact, I never asked you to move in with me,” he said gently.

  Mom always told me that the biggest problem couples had, in her opinion, was that they took a position and quit listening. “Being right becomes more important than hearing the other person out. I get women in my chair all the time who go on and on about how mistreated they are. When you sort it all out, they aren’t mistreated. They’re convinced their position is right and their man is wrong. The emotion gets the better of them, and they fight instead of working together to find common ground.”

  Her wise words came home to me. I fought the urge to react. Instead, I told myself to listen carefully, rather than rush in with an accusation. Pushing aside the sting of his rejection was tough, but I did it, and once I did, I realized he was only being honest. “That’s right. You never did ask me to move in. However, you did encourage me to come to DC and find a job.”

  “Right. If you want to move up to Washington, I can still help you. In fact, I still have the lease on my apartment. You could move in and live there while I’m gone. I wouldn’t charge you anything. It’s furnished.”

  “Why would I? I mean, why would I want to move to DC if you aren’t there?”

  “Why not? There isn’t anything for you here, is there? I mean, you’re marking time, bumping into your ex, not really going anywhere. I should think a smart woman like you would have ambitions.”

  “Whoa! I like living in St. Elizabeth. There’s nothing wrong with this town. Sure, I’d love to get rid of Hank, but my mom lives here…” And then I stopped, because she wouldn’t live here for long. “And we have a business…” And I stopped again, because that might be kaput, too. “Well, I have friends here.”

  “But it’s not like you have a career. I mean, what’s the best you can aspire to? Taking over your mom’s small shop? Two sinks? I know enough about the beauty business to know you can’t be making much money.” His voice was entirely matter-of-fact, without judgment.

  Worse yet, if he knew how I’d allowed Lisa Butterworth to steal all our customers, he’d know we’d gone from not much money to zip, nada, zilch.

  But now my blood was boiling. Suddenly, I felt like I actually did have a lot to lose. I didn’t want to see my mother’s house sold to some pretentious young couple from Savannah who wanted a weekend getaway. I didn’t want to face Althea and Stella and Rachel and tell them they no longer had jobs. Yes, I would like to have expanded Violetta’s, although for the life of me, I couldn’t see how.

  In fact, right now, I was fresh out of options. With a sinking feeling, it came to me that I might have to take him up on the offer of an apartment. Unless Mom sold her house and split the profits between Alice Rose and me, I had no seed money. Yes, I had three months’ worth of income in savings, but that was all. Certainly not enough to start my own salon. I took a big gulp of my beer and wished I had something stronger.

  “There isn’t much for you here, is there?” Marty repeated himself.

  I let him lead me into my bedroom because I couldn’t face telling him good-bye. Not right then.

  As his hands slid over my body, I realized that he wasn’t taking advantage of me. The comfort he offered was exactly what I needed right now…and I would take it.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  TRUE TO HIS WORD, SPECIAL AGENT DILLON BANGED on my front door at six A.M. “Rise and shine. I have a gift for you,” he said to me, although he carefully avoided my eyes as he pushed his way into my living area. Or maybe he was avoiding looking at me altogether, since all I was wearing was a thin cotton yukata, a Japanese-style housecoat that Vonda had made for me.

  “Thought you might need this. We’re going down to the station.” He handed over a box in the familiar pink and tan colors of Dunkin’ Donuts.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” I said grumpily. Although I did lunge for the coffee and grab the bag of donuts out of his hand. After polishing off the chocolate cake donut in two bites, I took a long sip of the java. Cream and sugar both, exactly the way I liked it.

  Hearing a rustling sound behind me, I set down my brew, went over, and carefully pulled away the cloth from Sam’s cage.

  “New roommate?” Marsh asked in a gruff tone.

  “No, Marty’s on his way—” Then I realized he meant the bird. “Yes. His name is Sam. Like Sam I Am.”

  “Dr. Seuss. One of my favorite authors.”

  “That’s right! I couldn’t remember where it came from.”

  “Green Eggs and Ham, a classic.” Marsh peeped through the bars to inspect the bird. “What happened to his eye?”

  “Shh. He’s very sensitive about that. Another bird pecked it out.” Slowly I put my hand inside the cage, wrapped my fingers around Sam, and withdrew him so I could put a dab of ointment on his wound. “I think it’s healing. I don’t know that he’ll ever be able to see out of it. Of course, he falls off perches occasionally. And his feathers need to grow back, too.”

  Marsh nodded. “He needs time to adjust to the change in depth perception. But if you can get him through the trauma of the loss of his eye, he or she should do fine. Have you clipped his wings?”

  “Why would I do that?” I tugged at my housecoat. Vonda made it for me out of a pretty flowered sheet. Each year she gets stuck on a craft, and so my Christmas gifts from her are a record of her passions: a scrapbook, a crocheted throw, felted slippers, and this wrap.

  “So he won’t fly away. What if you accidently don’t get the cage door shut and he gets out? You come home from work, he sees you, flies toward you and outside. He’d be lost.”

  “Oh. How do you clip his wings? Does it hurt him?”

  Marsh leaned so close to me that I could see the vein throbbing in his throat. “No.” He said hoarsely. “No, because you don’t damage the bird. You trim a bit off the tips to keep it safe, like clipping your nails. That’s all. It’s an act of…love. Not possession.”

  Marty banged around in my small bathroom.

  “Got any scissors?” Marsh stepped away from me. “Guess you probably do, since you cut hair.”

  “Actually, I make it a point not to keep shears in the apartment.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because when you style hair for a living, there’s a tendency to hack at your own whenever you get distressed. If the scissors are in the salon, that’s almost impossible to do.”

  “I see,” he said. “Do you get in these hacking moods often?”

  “Lately, yes.”

  Carefully transferring Sam to Marsh’s big, warm hand, I went to my bedroom, rummaged through my sewing basket, and retrieved a small pair of sharps. As I straightened, I saw myself in the mirror. Sometime during the night I’d removed most of my makeup. My skin glowed with that special radiance from good sex. My lips were redder than usual for the same reason. My hair was tousled. Appealing? Unappealing? I shrugged. Who knew what men thought?

  “Here.” I handed him the sharps.

  With delicate pressure, Marsh coaxed Sam into extending his wing. Speaking to the bird in a soothing voice as he manipulated the feathers, Marsh positioned the blades and deftly trimmed the first longest feather away from Sam’s body so it was the same length as the second feather, its neighbor.
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br />   “I’m only taking enough off to hamper his flight. He can still fly, so if a cat would get into your place, he can save himself. But he can’t go any distance. Notice how little I took off. I’ll do the same on the other side. Like fingernails, you don’t want to disturb the quick.”

  I sank down next to him, engrossed in his expertise. “How did you learn this?”

  “Grew up on a farm. Learned a lot of useful stuff. Mainly, I learned to be self-reliant, and I got a great respect for nature.”

  “Is that where you learned to ride? I mean, I assume you can, since you own a horse.”

  “Owned a horse. I had to put Groucho down last month.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too. He was a good horse. A bunch of teenagers were goofing around and left his paddock gate open. Groucho got out, trotted over toward the road, was nearly hit by a car, then to avoid it, darted over a cattle grid. His left foreleg snapped.”

  “Couldn’t you have had it set? I mean, there was that racehorse that broke a leg. They put him in a sling and put a cast on the leg, I think.”

  His smile crinkled the corners of his eyes. “That’s right. Barbaro. In the end, they put him down. A horse can’t heal lying down because it weighs so much that the pressure on the internal organs will disrupt their functioning. To get a sling, well, not many places have them. And Groucho’s leg was shattered. Sometimes it’s better to let something you love go than to struggle to hang on to it, especially if the alternative is pure pain.”

  “What do we have here?” Marty stomped in, hoisting his Dockers. “Room service?”

  There was a bit of a strut in the reporter’s step. That ticked me off. I wasn’t a prize that he’d won. I’d needed comfort and distraction and Marty had provided it.

  “By the way, the showerhead works great. Thanks for playing plumber.” Marty’s smile stayed around his mouth. His eyes hardened, and I wondered why. He didn’t care for me—not much anyway—so what was all this male preening about?

  “Marty was just leaving.” I got up and walked to the door.

  “Nah, I can stay awhile. Where’d the bird come from? I didn’t notice last night because we were…busy.”

  I explained about Sam, as Marsh rose from the sofa and put Sam back on a perch.

  Marty helped himself to a donut. “And he’s only got one eye? I bet that makes him pretty ugly.”

  I’d had enough of Marty. Fortunately, I had a great exit strategy. Turning to Marsh, I said, “I’ll get dressed and you can take me down to the station.”

  Chapter Twenty-six

  MARTY TRIED TO GIVE ME A BIG SMOOCH ON THE mouth, as I said good-bye, but I turned my head slightly sidewise so his kiss took a miss. “I’ll call you. We can get together. I won’t be leaving for another month. Caitlyn has to get her passport arranged.”

  “Caitlyn?” I choked on the name and started coughing. Instead of walking ahead to his car, Marsh had stayed at my side after I locked the apartment door behind us. Was he protecting me? Or escorting a criminal? I didn’t know and I didn’t care.

  “I thought I told you. I’m sure I did.” Marty adjusted his aviator sunglasses and dangled his arms over the roof of his blue Honda so he could keep talking. “She’s doing her doctoral dissertation on Middle East commerce, so she’s coming along. Her research will help me with my articles.”

  “Caitlyn,” I said, as I seethed with rage.

  “Yep.” Marty tossed his car keys in the air and caught them. “Like I said, you’re welcome to come to DC. You’ve got a place to stay.”

  A slow burn started under my collar and warmed my neck. We both knew he was talking about an empty apartment. This was all for show, to be a big shot in front of Marsh, and I was tired of it.

  “Good-bye, Marty,” I said, as I grabbed Marsh’s hand, tugging him toward his car.

  “Hey! Grace Ann!” Marty called after me, but I didn’t turn around. I practically hauled Marsh to his big Crown Victoria and stood there with my back to Marty as the lawman opened the passenger-side door for me. Once we’d both buckled up, Marsh pulled around Marty’s still parked Honda and we drove off a little faster than absolutely necessary.

  Neither of us talked for a while. Marsh pulled into Dunkin’ Donuts and ordered us both more coffee. “That stuff at the station is toxic waste,” he muttered.

  Somehow this visit had my knees knocking. The first visit had been a joke, but this felt serious. The “source” had called me a person of interest. You can’t prove a negative, so how could they prove I’d done something I didn’t do? Then I remembered that old Henry Fonda movie, The Wrong Man. Hadn’t I been married to a cop? Didn’t I know they could “find” evidence? Hadn’t Hank bragged about doing just that? I told everyone that I divorced Hank because I caught him cheating on me. The truth was murkier than that. I knew Hank was a crooked cop, and his cheating was the last straw.

  As Marsh pulled into a space at the SEPD and turned off the engine, I found my voice. “Am I in trouble? Do I need my attorney?”

  He shook his head. “No.”

  We sat there quietly.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why am I here?”

  “You didn’t tell me about visiting Snippets. The security camera also picked up your car driving through their parking lot.”

  I nodded. Now I was really scared. Sick-at-my-stomach, I’ve-got-to-use-the-bathroom scared. “Rachel, our shampoo girl, had been inside. They offered her a job. She told me the place was gorgeous. Especially the fish tank. I figured that Lisa wouldn’t let me in, so since I was in the neighborhood, I thought I’d drive by.”

  “Tell me exactly what you did. Don’t leave anything out. Grace Ann, this is important. I need to know everything. Trust me.”

  I closed my eyes and tried to remember. I told him about getting the parakeet, about the light in the back office, about leaving my car and losing my balance. Touching the glass window. Seeing the light blue Toyota Camry with the Georgia plates. Driving away.

  When I opened my eyes, his were soft with emotion. Affection? I couldn’t tell.

  “We found fingerprints on the back window of Snippets. Your ex claimed they are yours and ran them through the system without consulting me. Seems he collected your prints without your knowledge while you were married.”

  “What!” I gagged.

  “He’s a real SOB, Grace Ann. As you know, that sort of behavior won’t wash. But it’s enough to make you look bad. Really bad.”

  “So he’s the source that told the newspapers I’m a person of interest?”

  “I’m not sure about that. I promise you, I’ll get to the bottom of this. Now try to put it all out of your mind. Can I drop you off at the salon?”

  “Y-y-you aren’t taking me to the station?”

  “No. I just needed for us to talk. In private. You aren’t working today?”

  I dipped my head and studied the Chuck Taylor Converse shoes I’d paired with a pink tee and black jeans for what I’d thought of as my jailhouse rock outfit. “No.”

  “It’s usually better to keep busy than to worry.”

  Plucking a loose thread on the hem of my tee shirt, I said, “The salon is closed. Indefinitely. We’ve got black mold. Mom has to see if her insurance will cover the remediation. Besides, we didn’t have any customers left. Lisa Butterworth took all of them.”

  And I started to cry.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  I’M NOT USUALLY A CRIER. I HADN’T CRIED ABOUT what Lisa’d done. Southern girls learn the fine art of crying at their mother’s knee. Most of my friends can sob without mussing up their mascara or having their noses turn red. Me? I’m a mess when I cry. Suddenly, my troubles piled up, tumbled down, and knocked me to my knees. Fighting my emotions took all my concentration. I was not going to give in.

  A tear leaked out. One tear. Okay, maybe two.

  “Let’s get you home.” He turned the engine over and we retraced the route we’d taken, i
ncluding a stop by Dunkin’ Donuts, where he bought me an assorted dozen donuts. “There isn’t much in life that sugar can’t fix,” he said with a sigh.

  At my place, he took his spot on the sofa, his deep blue eyes regarding me curiously as I mopped my face with a tissue. “What’s your plan? I know it’s early, but you seem like the sort of person who does best when she’s considering her options.”

  “Right. Um, I figured I’d look at the want ads. Someone in the area has to have an empty chair. A stylist rents her chair, so I won’t add any raw costs.”

  He nodded. “When’s the last time you went job hunting?”

  I thought and did a bit of calculating. “Twelve years? When I first graduated from high school, the summer before I went to University of Georgia. Why?”

  “No one uses the want ads anymore. Got a computer?”

  I dragged out my Dell laptop, the one I mainly use for searching the Internet or going to Pinterest.

  “I suppose I could apply over at Chez Pierre. We’ve always been friendly with Peter Wassil.”

  “You could, but I’ve already talked to him about Lisa Butterworth. She pulled the same trick on him less than two weeks after she took your customer list.”

  “Oh. Just like you suspected.”

  “It’s no fun to be right about this. Trust me. He’s laying off people right and left.”

  As he spoke, his fingers moved deftly over the keyboard. Within seconds, he’d turned up several employment sites. Turns out no less than three salons within a twenty-five mile radius of St. Elizabeth had openings.

  “This one looks perfect for you. I think you should consider it.” He clicked on “Salon Manager Wanted.”

  “But I’m not a manager.”

  “Before you say that, read the qualifications. You’ve done scheduling, right? You deal with employees, correct? Payroll? Advertising? Customers? You’ve had five years or more in the business?”

  “Y-Yes. I guess I have. You’re right.”