A bell clanged loudly Friday night as Ellie pushed open the door to Wylene’s Beauty Spot. The place hadn’t changed one molecule since Ellie’s high school days. Wylene stood in one corner arranging hair-care products. She wore a pale pink smock embroidered with her name on one side in swirly letters. Her head was piled high with a mountain of yellow-white hair so shellacked in place that as a child Ellie had believed Wylene took it off at night like a motorcycle helmet. The shop owner gave up a hoot and waved her arms. “Ellen May Buckton, as I live and breathe.” She shifted back on one hip and took in Ellie from head to toe. “Well, look at you, all citified.”
Each of the six women in various stages of various treatments looked up with various degrees of welcome. Ellie, in a pair of cropped khaki pants and a patterned shirt that wouldn’t draw any attention in Atlanta, looked at the collection of young moms in T-shirts, jeans, yoga pants and ponytails. She had known each of these women when they were all teenagers, yet the older, parental faces they had now made them seem like total strangers. She’d talked herself into coming here—determined to make more substantive connections with Martins Gap’s twentysomethings—but now doubted the choice. She was the same age as these women, but Ellie didn’t feel nearly old enough to be a mom, much less a mom to twins like Dottie was. It had been a mistake to come. “Hi, y’all,” Ellie said as she waved, hoping her reluctance didn’t show in her meek greeting.
“Dottie has filled us in about your unfortunate heartbreak,” Wylene commiserated. With a gulp Ellie remembered Wylene was on husband number four. “There’s no better balm for a broken heart than pretty toes and fingernails. Unless you want to go dramatic and become a redhead or some such thing.”
“LuAnn Marker did just that,” said a woman from the pedicure chair in the corner. Ellie eventually recognized her as cheer captain Lydia Jacobs. “She cut her hair short and dyed it bright red when Archie joined the army.” Lydia, once the owner of long blond tresses half the high school boys had drooled over, now sported a sensible bob. “’Course, LuAnn always was one for the drama, bless her heart.”
“One of my finest hours,” Wylene boasted as she led Ellie toward a chair. “It was like watching a phoenix rise from the ashes, it was.” Without asking, she began running her fingers through Ellie’s hair. “That man was thunderstruck when he came home for Christmas. They named the baby after me that fall.”
Laughter filled the room. “They did not!” called Dottie from the manicure table. “That baby’s name is Walter.”
“Well, you can’t very well name a boy Wylene, now, can you?” Wylene returned to her examination of Ellie’s hair. “I got the W, and that’s all I need.” She clicked her tongue. “Darlin’, what have you been doing to this hair? It’s as dry as a hay bale.”
Ellie had seen enough salon breakup disasters to know now was not the time to ponder a dramatic change in her hair. “I’m always busy at work,” she offered. She’d been growing her hair out so she could put it up for the wedding, so it probably did look a bit shaggy. She and Katie had planned a spa day for next month to start getting Ellie ready for the wedding. One more thing to cancel. “I really just want to do my nails tonight. Nothing else.”
“You sure? Give me two hours and I can make you positively dreamy.” Wylene tilted Ellie’s chin this way and that as if collecting ideas. “Those Buckton eyes. What a color. My sister in Galveston says you can buy contacts to turn your eyes that blue even if they’re brown. Can you imagine?”
Ellie had disliked her turquoise eyes and honey-colored hair as a child. They marked her identity before she ever said one word. Back then she hadn’t liked being just “another Buckton,” but now she held great affection for the family characteristic. She loved her family—most of the time. She just often felt overshadowed or misunderstood by them. It hadn’t been that much fun to be sandwiched between a memorable brother like Gunner and dynamic twins like Luke and Tess.
“Long layers?” Wylene persisted. “Maybe highlights to really make those eyes sparkle?”
“No, thanks, Wylene. Not today. Maybe in a few weeks.” She’d committed now to the six weeks of the girls’ knitting classes, but after that, where would she be? Even if she chose to end her career at GoodEats, Atlanta apartments weren’t that hard to sublet—she could end up just about anywhere.
Dottie came up to them, holding her hands upright to protect the fresh manicure. “Now, Wylene, our Ellie’s smart enough to avoid the trap of breakup hair. Don’t you go nudging her toward anything drastic.” She wiggled her bright pink fingernails. “Keep the red to your fingers and you’ll do fine. Here, take my station while I dry.”
Ellie sat in the manicure chair and spread her fingers on the small counter. Her eyes fell upon the empty spot on her left hand and the familiar sting returned to her chest. She’d kept her nails so pretty when she was engaged, eager to show off Derek’s sizable ring, but the ranch work and simple neglect had made her hands look shoddy and inelegant. “I need the works,” she said to the technician.
Dottie sat down in the next chair, admiring her own nails. “I’ll probably go home to a mess of a house tonight with Ted watching the twins, but at least my nails will look nice.” She gave Ellie a look. “I love the twins to bits, but they are a handful. The other day, when Jackson made me a rose out of clay, I thought my heart would melt, and then I laughed till I cried when Jason said the thing looked more like an octopus.”
“You look really happy,” Ellie offered, because it was true. Dottie had said she wanted to be a television newscaster in high school, and she was pretty enough to have had a shot at a media career. She’d never pursued it, though, opting instead for marriage right out of high school. Family life wasn’t a wrong choice—Jackson and Jason looked to be adorable boys—but Dottie looked content in a way that felt nearly impossible to Ellie right now. “Motherhood agrees with you,” she offered.
“It’s exhausting, but, yeah. Those boys make me happy.” Dottie leaned back. “I’m just glad I had twin boys while I’m young enough to keep up with ’em. Ted’s talking about a third, but I don’t know if I’ve got enough energy to be outnumbered like that.”
Lydia, whom Ellie now realized was considerably pregnant, wiggled her toes in the pedicure chair. “Wayne says we’re gonna have to shift to zone control when this one comes.” Of course, Lydia had married Martins Gap’s star quarterback Wayne Jacobs. Tiny little Lydia expecting her third child—Ellie could hardly get her mind around the idea. Sure, Martins Gap felt as if it hadn’t changed, but the people in it sure had.
Only, had they? Or had they just continued along the expected track she’d fought to avoid? She’d gone off in search of a career and found one. She had done really well for someone only a year out of college. She had nice clothes, a sleek portfolio of public relations campaigns and a good apartment. She had professional prospects. She’d eaten food from all over the world and had even met celebrities.
And been cheated on by your fiancé with your best friend, her heart reminded her with a surge of ice to her veins. How long would it be before that black spot would stop wiping out five years of achievements and adventures? It didn’t seem fair that Derek and Katie could steal so much of her confidence and the pride she used to feel for the life she’d built when she wasn’t the one who had done anything wrong. Why weren’t they the ones hurting and running home? Why did it still feel as though they’d won and she’d lost when they were the cheaters?
“Bright red, please,” Ellie declared to the technician.
“There you go!” called Wylene as she opened a box of blondies from Lolly’s and began setting them on a cake plate. “You shout your fine self to the world, honey.” She pointed to the technician. “What’s the name of that new color came in last week, Jean?”
Jean reached behind her to pull out a bottle of very bright red nail polish and held it up to squint at the label. “Damsel Undistressed.”
“That’s the one for you,” Wylene called. “And maybe get one of them bitty rhinestones on your ring finger. You know, just for a little extra oomph to make up for what ain’t there no more.”
Ellie didn’t think she had to go that far. She’d had enough of shiny things on ring fingers for a while. “Just the red polish, please. Skip the bling for now.”
Wylene slid a napkin topped with a large blondie on the counter next to Ellie. It had a bright pink fork stuck in the top. “I find the fork makes it easier to eat one-handed. No chance of ruining Jean’s good work that way.”
The tiny bit of consideration sparked a welcome warm glow in Ellie’s heart. “Thanks, Wylene.”
“Tell us about your big-city career, Ellie. It has to be exciting.” Lydia shifted in her chair, one hand on her bulging belly. “I could use a dose of the good kind of exciting, not the ‘Mom, Billy just ate a spider’ kind of exciting.”
Ellie’s Atlanta life felt hectic and crazed, but she supposed it would appear exciting by Martins Gap standards. She allowed herself a tiny pleasure at the admiration in Lydia’s voice. Back in school, how often had she looked at cheerleader-perfect-prom-queen Lydia and her handsome prom-king-quarterback boyfriend and envied their lives? What passed for important had been so different back then. It made her want to gather the knitting girls and find a way to make them understand how real life wasn’t anything like high school.
“Do you go to lots of elegant parties? Ones with celebrities?” another woman asked.
“Sometimes,” Ellie replied. “Although sometimes when you meet the celebrities, they don’t end up being nearly as nice or glamorous as what you expected.” Ellie told the story of the swanky singer known for his velvety romantic voice who turned out to be a mean, demeaning boor in person. “I went home and threw out all of his CDs,” she told the wide-eyed group of women. “Our janitor is more of a gentleman than he is.”
Just to balance things out, Ellie told the story of the beautiful woman who played everyone’s favorite meanie on a popular soap opera. “She was even more beautiful in person. And she was so nice. Not a thing like her character. She sent a huge basket of muffins to the office after her party to say thank-you. Turns out, she’s only a witch when the camera’s on.”
Everyone laughed, and Ellie felt the knots in her chest start to loosen. Maybe tonight wasn’t such a mistake after all. Maybe reconnecting with these women she’d known as girls wouldn’t be as difficult as she’d imagined.
By the end of the night, Ellie had gained more than pretty fingers; she’d gained a few new old friends. And that was the best pampering of all.
* * *
At the second garage session, Nash noticed that one of the boys—Mick—came to the church garage an hour early for the after-school program and was the last to leave. That Friday, Nash had noticed Mick repeatedly passing by the sheriff’s office on a bicycle. Saturday morning, Nash looked up from sweeping out his house garage and caught sight of Mick leaning against a fence across the street. The boy was trying hard not to look as though he was watching Nash, but it was easy to see. Mick’s body language told a familiar tale—he wanted to come over, yearned to connect, but wasn’t quite ready to take the leap of being friendly with a lawman.
This was the open door, the foothold into a kid’s life that used to get Nash so excited. Back in LA, it meant that all the time and energy he was pouring into troubled kids was finally taking hold.
Don’t go back there, a corner of Nash’s heart shouted in warning. You’re not ready to get into this again.
Nash went back to sweeping for another five minutes but ended up stealing another look at Mick and the conflict in his eyes. The kid wanted to talk—needed to talk—but couldn’t bring himself to come launch a conversation. Nash knew that look. He knew exactly the opportunity that look presented.
Nash’s fingers tightened their grip on the broom, resistance warring with a call he knew would never truly disappear. Yes, he could stay safe and just deal with the kids as a group. It would do a little bit to help. Or he could risk going deeper and truly connecting with these young men. Put himself on the line and risk ending up hurt...again.
It surprised him how fast his old life—the burden to help, from which he now carried scars—sucked him back in. Was this who he was? Would always be? He could choose not to dive in. Then again, the way his gut reacted to Mick’s cautious eyes and his hard-set shoulders, did he have a choice?
You could choose to be selfish. No one would blame you for protecting yourself after what you’ve been through, his sensible side argued.
And do this halfway? His other side retaliated. These kids’ lives were filled with people who cared halfway. Teachers, neighbors and even parents who knew of them but didn’t know them. The urge to help hadn’t gone because the gift of helping hadn’t gone. Whether Nash chose to recognize it or not, his heart still carried a burden for kids such as Mick. Besides, hadn’t he already made that decision in some ways when he’d said yes to working with these kids?
Nash felt his new life slip a bit from his careful grasp as he put down the broom. He walked over to the small refrigerator set up beyond the tool bench. Out of force of habit—or was it something else?—he’d stocked it with a variety of sodas, as it had been in LA. Back in California, kids came to his garage “for a drink,” but always stayed for much more. He would be opening up more than his garage to Mick if he walked across that street. Nash could shield himself from the pull of their lives and their stories as a group, but not one-on-one. The torn confusion in Mick’s eyes gave him no choice.
Stay close, Lord, he prayed as he opened the fridge and took out two colas. I still feel like I’m in over my head here.
He opened both cans and walked across the street to where Mick stood trying to look as if he’d just happened to choose that particular fence to lean against. “Hey, there, Mick. Didn’t see you till just now.”
Actually, Mick had been there for half an hour, but Nash knew better than to call the boy out on that.
“You live here?” Mick acted surprised, as if it was pure happenstance that he was standing outside Nash’s garage. It was almost amusing how the whole game came back to Nash with ease. Kids were never as unpredictable as everyone said.
Nash handed Mick the drink. “Got a minute? I need a hand with something.”
Mick shrugged, paused to show a respectable amount of reluctance, then shrugged again. “I suppose.”
“Good.” Nash started back toward the garage, wracking his brain for a two-man job that could need doing just this minute. He settled on just letting Mick start the ignition and rev the engine up and down while he “checked” a few things under the hood. Simplistic, unnecessary, but it would give him the opening he needed. As they crossed into the garage, Nash fished in his pocket and tossed the keys to Mick. “Start her up, but don’t put her in gear. You know how to drive stick?”
“Well, yeah.” Mick said it as if Nash had just asked him if he knew how to breathe. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Not these days.” Nash opened the hood as Mick got in the car—but not before Nash plucked the soda from his hand. “No open drinks in my baby.” Mick rolled his eyes as Nash set the pair of cans down on the workbench.
They went through a series of “tests”—Mick revving the car at various levels while Nash pretended to fiddle with engine parts. The car was running fine, but Nash made sure to call out things like “Finally!” and “Glad that’s working now.” After a sufficient number of trials Nash leaned around the hood and called, “Shut her down.” It did not surprise him that Mick got in one final roar of the engine before killing the ignition—it was a pretty sound to the right pair of ears.
“Do you know the firing order for an engine like this?”
Mick came around to stand beside Nash over the engine. “You mean like the spark plugs?”
“Exactly.” Nash pointed to the distributor cap with the six spark plugs underneath.
Mick hovered his finger over the six plugs. “Um...1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6?”
Nash swallowed a laugh at the novice assumption. “Nope. It’s 1, 5, 3, 6, 2, 4,” he said, hopping his finger across the line of plugs to show the alternating pattern. “That’s why you need to read the repair manual before you just dive in. Lots of it you can do by instinct, but sometimes you need to get the right information or you just end up stumped.”
“Well, it’s a foreign car. Nobody I know drives an import.”
Nash had heard some version of such sentiment before. “Maybe, but reading the manual is good no matter what you drive. What do you drive?” He already knew the answer to this question, but wanted to hear Mick admit his Chevy wasn’t running at the moment.
“A hunk-of-metal Chevy that don’t run right now.”
“So let’s change that. Sometimes you’ve just got to work with the car you have. Me, I like Datsuns—well, now they’re Nissans, but you get the picture. I drove a Chevy myself for years before I could afford this car. Sturdy stuff. I learned the ropes on a Chevy. You can, too. It’ll be good practice for you, and if money is tight, working on your own car can be a very good thing.” Nash took a long drink. “Besides, if you see a pretty girl stuck by the road, you can stop and help her and be a hero.”
“You know, that’s how I started dating Marny.” Mick took a long swig of his own drink. “She got a flat tire out by the highway, and I stopped and helped her change it.”
Nash kept his tone casual. “So you and Marny, huh?”
A flush of teen infatuation filled Mick’s features. “Yeah. She’s...” He ran his hands through his hair—a gesture so close to what Nash had done thinking of Ellie that it made his breath hitch. “Well...amazing, you know?”
Nash handed Mick some greasy socket wrenches and a rag, then picked up one himself. Kids talked more openly while doing something else. He settled on one stool while Mick settled on the other. “How long have you two been a thing?”
“Since February. That’s when her tire blew out. My car was still running then.” Mick looked down. “Now we mostly take her car.”
Ouch. Nash could feel the dent in Mick’s pride. “So we should get your Chevy up and running. Do you know what she needs?”
Mick rolled his eyes. “What does every car need? What does every girl need? Money. Two more shifts down at Shorty’s Pizza and I’ll have the forty dollars more I need to buy the parts.”
Nash remembered those days. In high school he’d had a coffee can in a dresser drawer that he’d stuffed with cash from his lawn-mowing business until he had enough funds for whatever part his car needed next. Twenty bucks had felt like twenty miles back then. “How about your folks? Will they help?”
Mick finished wiping one wrench and picked up the next. “Mom wants me to save up for tech classes at the community college. She still thinks you can do high school on a bicycle.” He made a face that clearly showed his disagreement with that premise.
Nash had to agree. “Hard to date on a bicycle. And your dad?”
“Dad likes cars, but since he’s been out of work he don’t pay much attention to anyone. I think he and Mom are splitting soon. They think I can’t tell, but come on. I’d have to be blind. Marny’s folks split up right after her dad lost his job. We’re just hoping her mom doesn’t make her move to Waco once school’s out.”
That was a lot for a boy his age to be handling on top of school. “Waco’s not that far.”
Mick groaned. “It is without a car.”
Nash took another long drink. He thought about what it had been like to zoom down the road with Ellie beside him, her hair flying every which way. And then he thought about how it would feel to be denied the freedom of the open road. His heart pinched in on itself, and he had to tell his hand not to reach for the pair of twenty-dollar bills sitting in his wallet. “When you finish those shifts, give me a call. I’ll come over and help get you up and running.”
He saw it then. That startled look kids got when they realized someone actually gave a hoot about how life felt for them. Lots of teens expected the world to love them, practically walked around demanding it. But some kids? They seemed to forget anyone even ought to notice.
“Yeah,” Mick said, the hint of a smile crossing his usually sour face. “Okay, I will.”