the glass.
Thoughts of Dad’s cryptogram messages danced through my brain, mixing with Diane’s challenge to feel alive.
My common sense dulled by the smell of leather and the nagging desire to change my life, I walked inside and asked for a new look. Even worse, Diane found what she termed the perfect style in a folder of photos.
Lost in the moment, caught up in the promise of a new me, I told the stylist to go for it.
Forty-five minutes later, the new me staring back from the mirror was not the sleek, sexy woman I’d envisioned, but rather a young boy with a really bad haircut.
“Holy sh--”
“Short.” Diane yelled. “Fabulous.” She clapped her hands, apparently wanting to spare the stylist my true reaction.
Red splotches, however, had blossomed all over her face. She might be putting on a good show, but deep down, she knew she was about to suffer a slow and painful death at my hand.
Sure, the haircut had been my idea, but every woman knew drastic hair choices were not to be made while high on the power of new boots. Diane’s role should have been to talk me down from the ledge. Instead, she’d not only helped me climb up, she’d pushed me over.
Hell, she’d driven me to the mall.
There wasn’t a court in the state that wouldn’t find her guilty of abusing the laws of friendship.
I stared at my reflection in the mirror, fighting the urge to gather up the discarded clumps of hair and run screaming toward the nearest wig maker.
“It’s sassy,” Diane said as we headed for home.
I shot an evil glare in her direction. “Don’t you dare tell me I look sassy, or cute, or hip, or whatever other bullshit you’ve got up your sleeve.” I leaned over the console to make sure she heard me clearly. “I look like a prepubescent boy. So not what I was going for.”
Diane’s lips quirked into a smile, but she quickly pressed them tight.
“I saw that.” I sank back into my seat, arms crossed.
“What?” she asked.
“You smirked.”
“Gas.” She patted her stomach. “Awful heartburn today.”
Her voice faltered on the last word and a burst of laughter slipped across her lips.
My only response was to narrow my gaze, hoping the sheer intensity of my sulking would intimidate her into silence. No such luck.
“Here’s what I’m thinking.”
That particular phrase, when uttered by Diane, had always signaled impending doom.
She’d spoken the words once in junior high, moments before we’d been arrested for climbing through the window of an abandoned estate home--an estate home inhabited only by ghosts--or so she’d thought.
She’d uttered the phrase again on the day we doused our heads in peroxide and spent ten hours on the beach in the blazing July sun.
I’d fallen for the phrase later that same day when she convinced me over-the-counter hair color would correct the resultant day-glow orange hair I’d shoved up under a ball cap.
If I remember correctly, my hair had finally settled into a deep shade of lavender.
History had taught me to pay attention when Diane had one of her ideas. Doing anything else was just plain stupid.
“Start over again from the beginning,” I said, knowing I’d already missed part of her spiel.
She frowned, shot me a glance, then refocused on the road.
“Speed dating,” she said.
Speed dating? Wasn’t my speed separation, speed grieving, and speed baldness enough to hold me for a while?
I pressed a finger to my left eyelid to still a sudden twitch. “No.” I spoke the word forcefully and with conviction. Diane never missed a beat.
“I’ve already signed you up.” Her tone grew bright and cheery, as if the higher and faster she talked, the less likely I’d be to grab the wheel and crash her van into the curb.
“You what?” The few hairs left at the base of my neck pricked to attention.
“Signed you up.” She maneuvered the minivan into my driveway. “You start next week. New Year, New You.” Again with the hand wave. “All that good stuff. You’ll like it, you’ll see.”
“Like it?”
She nodded, blinking a half dozen times in rapid succession, a sure sign she realized just how close to snapping I was.
I pushed open the passenger door, gathered my bags and climbed out. I took great satisfaction in the fact the entire neighborhood rattled when I slammed the door shut.
Diane’s smile had grown by the time she lowered the window and leaned to shout out at me. “Your welcome packet should be here any day. You’re going to thank me, you’ll see.”
I stooped