Nowhere but Home A Novel - By Liza Palmer Page 0,17
asks.
“If you’re not Dee Finkel anymore, who are you?”
“I married Shawn Richter almost six years ago. You remember Shawn? He was a defensive lineman?”
“Sure . . . sure. I didn’t even know you guys were dating?” I ask, glad that she’s no longer trying to escape to the shampoo rather than talk to me.
“Yeah, we started dating a little after you left. His mom comes in here to get her hair done, so . . .”
“Sure . . . sure . . .”
“We have three little boys. I still want that little girl,” Dee says, pointing to an array of framed photos at one of the stylist stations out in the salon.
“So you’re trying to say that while I have come back to town low down and broken down, you—the former Ms. Dee Finkel—have gotten everything you ever dreamed of,” I say, nodding and trying to smile.
“You could say that, yes,” Dee says, her face flushing.
“I’m so happy for you,” I say.
We are quiet. Terribly awkward and quiet.
“I’m so sorry for being rude before, but I just couldn’t stand getting all friendly with you if you’re just passing through. You and this town are like outta sight, outta mind. I guess I just miss you, is all,” Dee says, speaking quickly, her face growing blotchier and blotchier as she speaks. Dee was always way too nice to be friends with me.
“You weren’t rude, seriously. I don’t know why I expect people to forget that I was terrible when I left here,” I say, breathing a bit easier.
“You weren’t terrible,” Dee says.
“You’re just too nice to say I was, but . . . I definitely was.” We fall silent again. I hear cackling laughter from the front of the salon. Fawn. I’d know that laugh anywhere.
“I’m glad you’re back however long you’re staying,” Dee says, her eyes darting around the room.
“You want to hug again, don’t you?”
“You know me too well, Queenie Wake!” Dee pulls me in for a hug. A real one.
“I’m cooking tonight for everyone. I’d love it if you, Shawn, and the boys could come over,” I say, knowing Merry Carole is always comfortable with a thousand people in her house. The realization that she gets to actually put the leaves in her dining room table will be like Christmas come early.
“Oh, you’re sweet, but I don’t think you really want our entire brood in your house. I barely want them in mine,” Dee says.
“I certainly do. Six?”
“That sounds perfect. Means I don’t have to figure out what to cook. That alone,” Dee says, exhaling. I notice the salon has gotten quiet; so does Dee. We both look into the front of the salon.
Laurel Coburn. Or as I like to call her, that bitch Everett married. I hate that she’s perfect. Her lemon yellow sundress, her leather sandals and pedicured toes. Her sunflower hair exists in its own bubble. Apparently it’s not a slave to the humidity as everyone else’s is. She is everything I’m not.
The door to the salon opens and Whitney McKay bursts through. Short black hair and elegant in that kind of way others, myself among them, might describe as “icy.” Laurel Coburn and Whitney McKay, along with Piggy Peggy, are North Star’s resident mean girls.
“So the rumors are true,” Laurel says, taking off her sunglasses and staring right at me.
“Did y’all have an appointment today?” Fawn asks from behind the front desk.
“Oh, no thank you. We just had to see it for ourselves,” Whitney says.
It.
Laurel and Whitney wait. I don’t move. Merry Carole thanks her customer as she hurries out and then walks over to the women.
“I’m so glad you decided to pop in for a visit,” Merry Carole says, her voice forced and high.
“How’s Cal? I heard he has quite the appetite,” Whitney asks.
“He’s home napping, saving up his energy for the second practice,” Merry Carole says, puffing up.
“Coach says he looked tired today,” Whitney says, pulling her compact out of her purse.
“He certainly didn’t say anything like that to me,” Merry Carole says.
“Probably just the heat,” Whitney says, touching up her face in the tiny mirror. I’m half surprised the mirror doesn’t break from the pure evil staring into it.
Whitney used to be Whitney Ackerman before she married Wes McKay. Wes McKay is North Star’s golden boy, former all-star quarterback and Cal’s biological father. At seventeen, Merry Carole made the mistake of thinking Wes loved her. When she told him she was pregnant, he renounced her and the as yet unborn baby.