Three Bedrooms, One Corpse - By Charlaine Harris Page 0,62
just realized I’d taken on more than I’d anticipated,” I said, giving him the condensed version.
He looked at me quizzically. I was so tired that my judgment was impaired, and I went on. “You’re a dangerous man, Martin,” I said.
“Not to you,” he told me. “Not to you.”
Especially to me, I thought, as I watched him drive away.
I had completely forgotten to make an appointment to get my hair put up. Of course, all the hairdressers who were open on Saturday were fully booked. But with some wheedling and bribing, I got my mother’s regular woman to stay open late to work with my mane. I would be done barely in time for the dinner.
That suited me just fine. I climbed wearily up my stairs and went back to bed. It was becoming a habit.
When I woke again at two o’clock, the gray day didn’t look any more inviting, but I felt much better. I decided to cram the night before into a mental closet for the time being, to take some pleasure in going to a social function in Lawrence-ton with Martin for the first time. I was human enough to relish the anticipation of eyebrows lifted, of envious women. I was convinced any woman with hormones would want Martin.
I even turned on my exercise tape and got at least halfway through it before getting fed up with the dictatorial instructress. Madeleine watched me, as usual, her eyes round and disbelieving. She followed me upstairs for my shower, watched me put on my makeup and dry my hair. I changed my sheets, too, and ran a carpet sweeper over the bedroom hurriedly.
I would be running so short on time I decided to put on everything but the actual dress before I left for my hair appointment. So I looked through my closets. I’d wear the dress I’d worn the year before. Martin hadn’t seen it, even if everyone else had, and I’d only worn it that once. It was green, and after simple long sleeves and a scoop neck, the bodice descended to a point in front, and the short skirt flounced out in gathers all around. I’d have to wear black heels ... I needed some of those shiny lame-looking shoes that were so popular now, but I didn’t have the energy or time to go shopping. Black would have to do. I had a little black evening purse, too. So I put on the right bra and slip and hose, and a dress that buttoned down the front over them.
I hurried out to my car and started across town to my mother’s hairdresser. I’d looked up an address before leaving home, and I took a little detour. There was the Ulrich house, a three-bedroom ranch style in one of Lawrenceton’s prettier middle-class neighborhoods.
And there was a FOR SALE sign in the yard.
Chapter Fourteen
“HOW DO you want it done?” Benita asked briskly. It was clearly the end of a long day for her. Her own red hair was wild and dark at the roots, and the beige-and-blue uniform all the operators at Clip Casa wore was rumpled and—well, hairy.
“Could you do it like this?” I’d spent my waiting time leafing through professional magazines.
“Yes,” Benita said briefly after a thorough look at the enigmatically smiling model, and set to work.
It was one of those hairdos with the braid miraculously inside-out. French braiding, I thought it was called. I’d never understood how that was done, and now it was about to be accomplished on my very own head. In the picture the model’s hair wasn’t pulled back tightly but puffed around her face. The length of hair at the base of the neck was also braided, and the model had a ribbon around the end. I had no fancy bows, but Benita had some for sale, including a gold lame one I thought would be pretty. I didn’t know if Martin would like the hairstyle, but it struck me as very fashionable.
Plus, it didn’t seem possible that my hair could come loose, as all too often happened when I put it up myself.
“Roe,” drawled a voice close by, and I recognized the apparition under the dryer as my beautiful friend Lizanne Buckley.
“I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age!” I said happily. “How are you doing?”
“Just fine,” said Lizanne in her slow sweet way. “And you?”
“Pretty good. What have you been doing?”
“Oh, I’m still down at the power company,” she said contentedly. “And I’m still dating our local representative.”