Valerie, silent the entire time Maria had quickly and expertly transformed her hands, chatted incessantly while her feet were pampered.
“I can’t believe that in another two months I’ll be a college freshman,” she sputtered, waving her hands to facilitate drying her fingernail polish.
Maria did not look at Valerie as she applied a layer of thick oil over her legs and feet before she massaged the muscles to stimulate blood flow. “Where are you going?”
“Spelman. My mother went there.”
“Excellent school. What’s your major?”
A slight frown furrowed Valerie’s forehead. “I haven’t decided on a major. I don’t know if I want to follow in my parents’ footsteps. My mom is a lawyer and my dad was a dentist.”
This time Maria’s head came up as she met her client’s direct gaze. “Was?”
Closing her eyes, Valerie slowly nodded her head. “He died two years ago. He was waiting to cross a street and a taxi driver tried to pass a bus, lost control of his cab, and jumped the curb. Daddy died instantly.”
Maria’s fingers tightened slightly around Valerie’s slender ankles. She could not imagine her own father not being alive. Even though Raymond Parker was now sixty-five, she never thought of a time when she could not pick up a telephone and hear his voice. From the time she drew her first breath to cry, she had become her father’s little princess. He had been the proud father of three sons, but yearned for a daughter. After two years of relentless urging, Raymond had finally convinced Ynez Rivera-Parker to agree to having a fourth child, and when they were told it was a girl, he celebrated for a month.
“I’m so sorry, Valerie.”
Nodding, the teenager opened her eyes while biting down on her lower lip. “My Uncle Ronnie acts like my father now.”
Maria flashed a reassuring smile. “You’re very lucky to have an uncle like him.”
“I don’t know about that, because I think he’s more strict than my father ever was. Daddy was ten years older than Uncle Ronnie, but everyone says that Uncle Ronnie always acted like the older brother.”
The topic of conversation switched abruptly from Cameron King to the names of the celebrities who frequented Della’s House of Style for their extensive beauty services. Valerie revealed that she had read a two-page spread about the salon in a back issue of Essence magazine, and decided she wanted to come to Della’s for a beauty makeover for her prom.
And there was no doubt after Kimm Gilmore completed her facial regimen and applied makeup to the young woman’s face that she would definitely turn heads. She was tall, standing five-seven, and claimed the supple, slender body of an adolescent girl on the threshold of full womanhood.
Her manicure completed and her feet ensconced in the rubber thongs she had worn into the salon, Valerie was shown to the area where she would undergo the last service of what had turned into a half day of beauty.
* * *
It was nearing five-thirty when Maria sat in the employees’ lounge area with a colorist and a stylist, her bare, professionally groomed feet propped up on another chair, waiting for the arrival of her last client, when a shampoo girl stuck her head in the door.
“Maria, there’s a man out here who wants to see you.”
Running her fingers through her curly hair, she shifted on the chair and stared up at Kiki. “Who is he?”
“He sure ain’t one of your brothers,” she drawled sarcastically, visually examining her airbrushed nails. “He’s that stiff dude that came in earlier with his niece.”
Reecie DuBois, Della’s chief colorist, sat up quickly, slipping his bare feet into a pair of clogs. Brilliant streaks of a flamingo pink blared from the straightened, blunt-cut strands of hair secured off his long neck by a neon green elastic band.
Maurice “Reecie” DuBois, formerly known as Michael Dixon, was Della’s resident cause célèbre. A brilliant, non-practicing attorney, Maurice won a high-profile discrimination case when he sued a very conservative law firm who summarily fired him because he favored wearing colorful suits to court for a trial. The partners at the firm were willing to overlook the expertly tailor-made garments in varying colors of yellow, orange, red, and green, but drew the line when Michael Dixon appeared before the bench sporting a matching shade of hair dye. He settled out of court for a high six-figure sum, invested it, then went to school for cosmetology.
“I just need one peek at him to see if he’s real.”
“Don’t bother yourself, Maurice. He’s real, all right,” the stylist remarked, not moving or opening her eyes. “He’s the type of man who will spend the rest of his life by his lonesome because he will claim that he can’t find a woman to come up to his standards.”
“How do you know he isn’t married?” Maria asked at the same time she pushed her feet into a pair of sand-colored espadrilles.
“Is he?” the colorist and stylist questioned in unison.
“I’ll find out for you,” she teased as she left the lounge and walked through the salon to the reception area. She noticed the noble tilt of Cameron King’s head as he studied some of the signed head shots of many well-known celebrities who had passed through the doors of Della’s House of Style.
Her gaze was drawn to his hands clasped behind his back. Again, she admired the impeccable cut of his double-breasted jacket, doubting whether the suit had come off a department store rack. She surveyed him from head to toe and found him lacking for nothing. He was fastidiously groomed and his bearing indicated that he was in control—at all times.
“Mr. King.”
Cameron turned at the sound of Maria’s voice, his gaze narrowing in concentration behind the lenses of his glasses. He smiled at her, the gentle expression transforming and softening his stoic features. She did not know how she had missed it, but she had not noticed the attractive cleft in his strong chin.
He inclined his head. “Miss Parker. I came back to see you because when I returned to pick up Valerie, the receptionist said you had stepped out.”
“Did you come back to let me know that you’re not pleased with my work?”
His smile widened, the gesture displaying a mouth filled with large, sparkling white teeth. Seeing his teeth prompted her to wonder if his late brother had been his dentist.
“Quite the contrary, Miss Parker.” Reaching into the breast pocket of his jacket, he withdrew a white envelope and held it out to her. “Please take it,” he urged softly when she stared at his long, slender brown fingers.
Chancing a quick glance at the receptionist, she frowned at Ramona, who had put down the telephone receiver to listen to the interchange between her and Cameron. Ramona did not seem the least bit embarrassed that she had been caught eavesdropping.
Maria took the envelope and slipped it into the large pocket of her black smock. A small smile of enchantment caressed her lush mouth. “Thank you, Mr. King.”
Cameron inclined his head again, sucking in his breath. Her smile was radiant, reminiscent of a sunrise where all of her face lit up with the sensual gesture.
“You’re quite welcome, Miss Parker. Have a good evening.”
“You, too.”
He hesitated, then said, “Thank you.” He turned to walk out of Della’s, leaving her staring at his back at the same time her heart pumped wildly against her ribs.
A slow, knowing smile curved Ramona’s mouth. She could not wait to tell everyone what she saw. The normally loquacious Maria Parker was practically a mute, and she knew it was because of Cameron King.
“Maria, your five-thirty says she’ll be ten minutes late.”
Cameron overheard the receptionist as he opened the door and stepped out onto the crowded avenue. Now he knew Miss Parker’s first name. He had wanted to question his niece about the woman who had worked her artistic magic on Valerie’s hands, but did not want to appear over-zealous about a woman whose very presence elicited a spark of desire in him for the first time in more than five years.
Those who were familiar with Cameron King would have been surprised to know that a woman had garnered his attention. What would shock them more was the fact that she was a manicurist.
* * *
Maria ignored the questions thrown at her about Cameron King’s marital status as she prepared for her next client.
“Leave me alone, Maurice,” she hissed under her breath. “I didn’t ask him if he was married.”
“Well, why didn’t you?” he questioned.
“Because that’s too personal. And besides, why would you want to know? You wouldn’t be interested in him.”
Despite the fact that the former Michael Dixon dressed flamboyantly, he was all man under the flashy threads and brightly colored hair. He had confessed he dressed the way he did because he liked shocking people. And most times he was very successful.
Maurice folded his hands on his slim hips, shaking his head vigorously, ponytail swaying. “I’m just trying to help out the single sisters. You know a good man is hard to find, and your Mr. Cameron King looks like a very good one.”
“He’s not mine,” she argued softly, removing her cuticle clippers from a sterilizing tray.
“He could be.”
Maria’s head came up and she stared up at Maurice. A slight frown furrowed her forehead. She liked Maurice—a lot. He was the only one of two stylists at Della’s she permitted to cut her hair. He badgered her incessantly to allow him to highlight her very dark hair, but she refused. She liked her sable brown hair color.
“Why would you say that?”
Leaning in closer, Maurice curved an arm around her waist. “Many people look at my clothes and hair, forgetting that I am a man. And because you’ve been without one for so long, you’ve forgotten how a man looks at a woman when he’s interested in her. And despite the fact that your Mr. King exhibits as much emotion as a robot, that still doesn’t stop his testosterone from going into overdrive.”
Her large eyes widened until they resembled silver dollars. “You saw all that?”
Maurice hugged her, the top of her head coming under his chin. “That and a lot more, Maria. Girl, you know I like you,” he continued, whispering close to her ear. “Now, if you’d give me the chance to show you how much I like you, I’d cut my hair, get rid of the color, pull my conservative Brioni suits out of my closet, and trade in my hair dye, scissors, and bumper curler for a cubicle in any rinky-dink law firm.”
Tilting her chin, she smiled up at him and wrinkled her delicate nose. “No, thank you, friend.”
“Don’t you want to see what I look like without the costume?”
Her gaze swept over his perfectly balanced features and smooth nut-brown face. Even wearing his “costume,” Maurice DuBois was an extremely attractive man. He stood six-two and weighed an even one hundred seventy-five pounds, and whenever he walked down the street he always turned heads—male and female.
Maria patted his clean-shaven jaw. “Not at all. I happen to like what I see.” She knew she liked Maurice DuBois, whereas she was not certain whether she would have liked the former Michael Dixon.
Pulling her closer, he brushed a gentle kiss over her parted lips. “Thank you, friend.”
“I’m sorry to break up this very tender moment, but you know what Miss Della says about fraternizing on the salon floor.”
Maurice glared at KiKi. They got along like oil and water. “Did you want something, Miss Furor Loquendi?”
The shampoo girl rolled her eyes. “Don’t you be calling me names in your lawyer language, Moe-reese.”
“It’s Reecie to you.”
Waving her hand, KiKi drawled, “Whatever. Miss Della wants to see you, Reecie. And I gonna tell her that you’re callin’ me names.”
Winking at Maria, Maurice followed the shampoo girl to Della’s private office. “Well, you do have diarrhea of the mouth,” he mumbled under his breath, translating the Latin.
Maria smiled to herself as she sat down and waited patiently for her last client for the day. All she wanted was to finish up and go home. Her work schedule for the past three weeks had been exhausting. All of the salon’s services were utilized, with a steady flow of clients coming in for full sets of nails, perms, braids, weaves, facials, and massages for weddings, graduations, confirmations, communions, and proms.
Perusing her appointment book, she breathed a sigh of relief. There were a number of days over the next two months she had crossed out; she made it a practice to work only four days a week during the summer. Della had finally hired two additional backup manicurists, which allowed Maria to work a Tuesday-through-Friday schedule during July and August.
She spied her client, offering her a warm smile. “How are you, Mrs. Austin?”
An attractive middle-aged woman with flawless ebony-hued skin sat down on the other side of the manicure table, dropping her handbag on the floor beside her chair. “Fine, thank you. I’m sorry about being late.”
Maria reached for her hands, quickly assessing what needed to be done. There was no way she could repair the tattered silk wraps. The woman would need a complete new set, and knew it would be close to seven o’clock before she would leave Della’s House of Style to go home.
* * *
At exactly seven-fifteen Maria walked into the two-bedroom apartment, which was twenty stories above the streets of East Harlem. Kicking off her shoes, she walked on bare feet across the cool, highly polished parquet floor; she placed her handbag on a massive beveled glass-topped table positioned between two matching love seats before making her way to the narrow utility kitchen. She withdrew from a small shopping bag several containers filled with prepared shrimp, cucumber, and pasta salads she had purchased at Della’s adjoining café and stored them in the refrigerator.
Then she performed what had become a ritual since she had moved into the spacious, modern apartment building—she lit dozens of candles—oil and scent-filled ones. The ritual was one she had established once she had married Tyree Johnston. She had fallen in love with Tyree on sight, married him less than a year later, then buried him within six months of becoming his wife. Their time together was short, but filled with an overflow of love, passion, and pain. A lasting pain she had not recovered from, even though she had been widowed for nearly seven years.
She was twenty-one when she met Tyree. Both were attending Baruch College as business majors. They married a month after graduating, and a week after Tyree celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday he was diagnosed with testicular cancer. His suffering was merciful because he did not survive the year, and when Maria stood at his graveside to say good-bye for the last time, she felt as if she had buried part of herself with her young husband.
Each time she lit a candle she felt reconnected to the light Tyree had radiated whenever they were together. She loved everything about him: his smile, voice, sensitivity, humor, and most of all his passion. And it had taken years for her to realize that she had not permitted another man in her life because she still wasn’t willing to let Tyree go. She was still in love with her dead husband.
Returning to the living room, she stood at the floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall window and stared down at the traffic moving along the FDR Drive. Her gaze shifted upward to the many bridges connecting Manhattan with the other boroughs. It was one of those rare New York City late spring days when a light breeze and low humidity swept away the smog that made the city’s air quality so unhealthy. This would be one night when she would be able to see many of the constellations with the naked eye.
Turning away from the window, she moved over to the table, picked up her handbag, and removed the envelope Cameron King had given her. She slipped a fingernail under the flap and withdrew a crisp new fifty-dollar bill.
A slow smile parted her moist lips as she chuckled softly. He had given her a fifty-dollar tip! There was no doubt that she had pleased not only Valerie but also her uncle.