Lowcountry lost, p.6
Lowcountry Lost, page 6
“No!” My steps gained momentum, even though my legs felt weighted, not from my work boots but the debilitating grief he’d nearly unleashed from inside me. I needed to get away from him and fix the lid back into place.
That’s the thing with grief, long expanses of time can go by with it lying dormant, but one tiny phrase or suggestion can trigger it. It happened to me about a year back. Out junking with Maudie, I found a family tree made out of a slice of a tree trunk at an estate sale so similar to the one I’d made a long time ago. The names were etched along the tree rings instead of in a traditional tree branch style. I thought I was so original with my idea. Clearly, that hadn’t been the case. Eyes blurred, I stared at the tree slice, thinking that family did the same thing with their family that I did with mine. Just carelessly discarded it. Surrounded by people milling around the dusty house, an invisible monster attacked me. Crushing my heart in its fist while slamming the air out of my lungs.
As the splintering sound of wood being snapped at the jaws of the excavator reached me from behind, I dodged through an alley so I couldn’t turn and see the destruction. Mad at Rowan and mad at myself, even though the exact reason for the anger eluded me, I hid out for the remainder of the workday in the chapel.
Avoidance had become a dance quite familiar to me. Avoid a subject or situation altogether. That had been my first approach with grief. Just avoid facing any part of it. At some point, after hitting rock bottom, I started counseling. Then I attended one session of group grief counseling at my counselor’s insistence, but I figured out real quick that was not my cup of tea. One guy was there to discuss losing his pet, I think it was a cat, and how he hated that animal with a passion. Yeah, hated. Another woman spoke extensively about her grief over losing her grandmother, a woman she’d only met two times, but how horrific it had been on her anyway. No judgment here about either, but it made me realize sharing my heartache of losing my children with complete strangers who had different losses didn’t work for me. I found no appeal in airing laundry, dirty or otherwise, so that had been the first and last group session I attended.
Sure, grief never looks the same from person to person. I get that, I just had no desire to express mine so vocally. Some like to critique others’ expressions of grief. She didn’t cry enough. She cried too much. He shouldn’t have been smiling at such a tragic time. I could go on and on, but the point is everyone mourns differently. Just as there are many ways to grieve, so are there many different forms of therapy. My therapy came in the form of demolition and restoration.
While hiding, I swept out the chapel, dusted away the cobwebs from underneath the pews and along the rafters, and took down two broken chandeliers. Even managed to order the parts needed to fix them with my handy-dandy smartphone. With nothing else I could do without my tools, I made a punch list of everything that still needed to be done. Wood floors refinished. One of the side windows had a cracked windowpane that needed replacing. Central heating and air. A small side room behind the altar would be transformed into a restroom.
By the time the last work truck pulled out and left the town silent, the sun had set. With an excess of frustration to work out of my system, I hauled a portable battery-operated light over to the feedstore.
As I finished setting up the high-powered light and focused it on the floor, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and read the text from Desmond.
You’re not in the feedstore, are you??
I huffed a slight laugh. Since we tended to work all over the place, Nita decided we needed to follow each other on the Life360 app. It cut down on the repetition of asking each other where we were. I liked the idea of someone knowing my whereabouts since I’d started staying in the ghost town alone.
I typed a reply. You’re not stalking me on that app, are you??
Just making sure you haven’t disappeared. FYI—the feedstore is still off-limits.
IK. I won’t be long. I glanced around the dusty space. The floor planks matched the ones in the mercantile. Between the water damage and some staining, there was only enough salvageable flooring for one building. Since we didn’t know what to do with the feedstore just yet, I decided to swipe some to patch the mercantile floors. Definitely, a robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul flooring situation.
With my face mask lowered to block out some of the funky stench and potential mold spores, I walked along the creaking floor, noticing that it gave in some spots. It felt like being on a rickety boat on the verge of going under. I feared this building would end up sinking, so to speak. Rot had gradually encroached around windowsills and doorways. Plus there was a good bit of water damage due to a hole in the roof. Every surface appeared swollen from moisture and coated in mildew. And where the water hadn’t gone, termites had. Feeling uneasy, I gave the run-down building a sweeping glance. Too many shadows and cobwebs. Shaking off my apprehension, I placed my portable speaker on an upturned bucket and pulled up my Imagine Dragons playlist with the tempo full of attitude. “Enemy” filled the small room as I picked up my tools and scoped out the perfect spot to begin destroying something.
“Sorry about this,” I whispered to the building before stabbing between two loose boards with my crowbar and wiggling it until the nails began popping free. I gave the loose board a good yank, losing my balance and stumbling into the vegetable bin. Rubbing the sore spot on my hip, I looked down and noticed something behind the bin.
“Someone lost their shoe?” I mumbled, picking up the little blue canvas sneaker and glancing around for the other one. Not finding it, I tossed the shoe aside and refocused on tearing out the flooring.
Soon I got into the rhythm of the music and floor demolition, losing myself in both. As I turned to stack another board, movement in my periphery jolted me out of my headspace. I looked to the right. A low-hanging cobweb swayed in the breeze coming through the broken window. I huffed a laugh and got back to work, but it happened again only minutes later. This time the fine hairs on the back of my neck rose. I remembered Desmond talking about the Lizard Man and darned if I didn’t picture him lurking outside. With the crowbar clutched firmly in my fist, I paused the music and eased over to the back window, fully expecting to find a green scaly monster with yellow eyes there. Nothing but darkness showed past the stoop.
“Get a grip, Avalee,” I muttered, taking a step away from the window. As I turned away, something rustled nearby. Holding my breath, I strained to hear, but minutes passed with nothing. Sound or no sound, I’d had enough. I was sure it was just my overactive imagination, but I decided to call it a night anyway. Pulling the mask off, I took out my pocketknife just in case and made a mad dash to the saloon.
I fumbled to get the door open and once I got inside, I slammed it shut and leaned against it. After a few moments, my heart rate settled down and I felt foolish. I started to head upstairs but paused. Before turning in for the night, maybe I should take a look at the mess next door. I could wait until morning, when there would be better light. But maybe not having better light would help lessen the sting of losing the flower shop.
I opened the door again and checked the street. Seeing no sign of any type of boogeyman, I rounded the building and came to a halt in front of the pile of rubble that no longer resembled potential. Nope. It stung anyway. It astonished me that something that had stood for decades could be so easily taken down. Gone within a few hours.
I aimed my phone’s flashlight over the pile of splintered wood, where it caught on something shiny. Climbing over a few boards, I squatted down and could now see that it was actually a metal box about double the size of a cigar box. I reached in and wiggled it out, almost losing my balance in the process.
“Des would kill me if he knew . . .” I stumbled back to solid ground without breaking my neck and popped the lid open, finding inside a dozen or so metal crosses. I picked one up and shined the phone light on it. In loving memory was engraved on the front. “Figures I’d find funeral keepsakes.”
Shaking my head, I straightened and stretched my aching back. With the box wedged under my arm, I stood there as a sad thought surfaced from the debris. This building was my relationship with Rowan. It started off with so much potential, but we weren’t as structurally sound as I thought. One devastation after another chipped away at our stability until our marriage collapsed. Damaged hopes and dreams left scattered and discarded in disrepair.
I checked the time on my phone. Only a little after ten. An entire night lay before me, which would be fine if sleep would be gracious. But that wouldn’t be happening with all the memories stacked in my head, waiting their turn to pester me. I pulled off my work gloves and inspected my nails. Several had chips in the Welcome to the Jungle green. My eyes lifted to the withering vines among the pile of rubble. How fitting.
After a quick Google search, I found a nail salon located inside a tattoo parlor with late-night hours. It was only a thirty-minute drive from town. The ratings and reviews were great, and a quick phone call secured me an appointment for eleven, so I changed out of my dirty work clothes and took off. Fun thing about manicures, my world could fall apart in both the literal and physical sense, but shiny, pretty nails was something I could control. If I felt like pink nails, done. Purple, absolutely. Never a no in the nail world. I was so sick of nos.
I followed the GPS to Ink & Polish. Shades of red and black decor with metal and glass accents, it was everything I pictured for a tattoo parlor. Buzzing from tattoo guns could be heard over the alternative rock music. Those guns and the clients receiving the ink were hidden behind privacy partitions, but several people were scattered around a waiting area.
A few college-aged girls, dressed in hip-hugging jeans and crop tops, were sitting on a leather couch, giggling over photos in a portfolio. The lone brunette looked up and smiled.
“You can sit with us.” She scooted over. “They said to wait here.”
I glanced around, wondering who they were, but finding no one behind the counter. “Uh, sure. Thanks.”
“Are you here for the half-off special?” Her hazel eyes glittered with enthusiasm as I settled down beside her.
“Half off?” I shrugged. “I didn’t know anything about it but I’m down for a discount.”
Moments later, a door opened from the far left and a tiny woman appeared. She had a stark-white mohawk and was wearing a red skater dress. Her arms were covered in exquisite watercolor designs. “I’m Dayley. Y’all can come on back.” She turned on her biker bootheels and vanished again.
The brunette sprite stood and turned to me. “Let’s go.”
I tried to wave her off. “Oh, I can just wait here for my turn.”
“Don’t be silly. You should totally join us. It’ll be more fun in a group.” She smiled with lifted eyebrows. I would have been willing to bet she was captain of a cheerleading squad.
Giving in, I shuffled behind the lively group, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to see what sort of nail art they went with. It might give me some inspiration.
We stepped into a fairly large room. A long metal counter housed displays of earrings and more unusual jewelry.
Dayley pulled on a pair of black latex gloves. The little snap echoed around the brightly lit space. “Who’s first?”
I gave the area another scan and found no nail polish or manicure tables. Only a few leather chairs, similar to the ones at the dentist, and a rolling stool. Suddenly, that same feeling I got every time I walked into the feedstore came over me. The one that said something was off.
“She is!” The brunette gave me a little shove, making me step forward. This girl was starting to annoy me. Refraining from giving her a withering side-eye, I moved to join Dayley.
“Pick your hardware.” Dayley pointed at the jewelry as I caught one of the girls sizing up her belly button in the mirror beside the counter.
Realization finally hitting me, I sputtered a nervous laugh. “No, no, no. That’s . . . I don’t want my belly button pierced.”
“Aww. You poor thing. No need to be scared.” The brunette, who seemed to have designated herself as my guide for this evening’s bad decisions, latched on to my arm. “I’ll hold your hand. How about that?”
I shook her off and put some distance between us. Seriously, someone needed to school this chick on personal space. “Piercings aren’t my thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with them. It’s just that I saw a video one time of a girl getting her piercing stuck in her zipper. They ended up ripping that sucker completely out!” I shuddered, pressing my hand over my hidden belly button. “And you know how the video rabbit hole goes. The next video I watched showed an infected belly button piercing. Seriously gross. It was super swollen and—” I buttoned my lips when I noticed everyone looking up at me with slack jaws. One glance at Dayley told me not to unbutton them. I wanted to hunch down to make myself smaller, but that was impossible when surrounded by a group of petite women that I towered over.
All at once, an intense chatter broke out. Some started chickening out while the others tried guilt-tripping them into going through with it. The room grew hotter.
Dabbing the sweat from my upper lip, I added in a higher-pitched voice, “Not that you girls would have any of those issues. I’m sure Dayley here keeps everything sanitized and your pants are so low on your hips, no way will the zipper-ripper happen to you!”
Two of the girls moved toward the door but before they could make a run for it, a heavily tattooed man walked in, making them jump. “Day, what’s going on in here?”
Dayley shot me a severe glare while pointing at me. “This woman is freaking everybody out.”
I whirled around to the big guy. “I didn’t mean to! I just wanted a manicure!” I held up my hands and wiggled my fingers.
The big guy’s lips twitched. “What about a tattoo instead?”
My back stiffened. “Nothing against them, but I read this article about allergic reactions to the ink and . . .” I stopped myself when he barked a deep laugh.
“I’m just messin’ with you.”
Dayley nearly growled. “Good grief. Kline, get this woman out of here before she runs off all your business!”
Still chuckling, Kline motioned for me to follow him. “Come on. Starla is in the back room.”
I trailed behind him, ready to make a detour to the exit if need be. “Does Starla have nail polish?”
“That she does.” He led me to another door, this one to the far right. Sure enough, the back housed a nail studio. This rambling building reminded me of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, one room leading to another one and then another.
The tension began to slowly drain away from my shoulders as I moved inside.
“Yo, Starla!” Kline shouted. “You got a client.”
A woman with purple hair and a killer winged eyeliner emerged from a storage closet, carrying an industrial-size bottle of acetone. “Hi.” She had to be at least a half a foot shorter than me but gave off a boss babe vibe large enough to make a grown man feel small.
“You might have a troublemaker on your hands, hon,” Kline said from behind me.
Shoulders stiffening right back up, I shook my head. “I promise I’m not. That was just a misunderstanding.” I hitched a thumb over my shoulder like that explained it all.
Kline let out another deep chuckle as he exited the room.
Starla disregarded the big guy’s comment and my rebuttal, as if trouble was nothing new. “What color are you in the mood for?” She showed me to her manicure table with a giant rack displaying every shade of polish imaginable.
“Something dark,” I insisted, settling into the black velvet high-back chair. The tufted back felt luxurious. Dimly lit with wrought iron chandeliers and perfumed with a spicy scent that hung subtly in the air, the salon was goth glam with a spa-like ambience. “This place is gorgeous.”
“Thanks.” Starla ran a long pointy nail in matte gold over the bottles of polish, clinking against each one until stopping on a bluish black with flecks of silver. “Dark like this?”
“What’s the name of it?”
She plucked it from the rack and read the bottom, “Insomnia.” She raised a pierced eyebrow.
“That’s perfect.” Seriously, that choice was a no-brainer. At least I’d have something pretty to look at while I lay awake in bed.
As Starla began removing my old polish, I replayed the ridiculous scene that just went down in Dayley’s room of terror. Rowan would have gotten such a kick out of that. Knowing him, he would have picked out the jewelry and gone along with it until the last minute just to mess with them. He’d always been a quicker thinker than me.
The smile creeping onto my lips vanished. I’d ventured out to this place in the middle of the night to get my mind off that man, not sit here and muse over him. Unable to stop my train of thought, our argument about the flower shop from earlier highjacked my mind.
Some things can’t be saved. You of all people should know that. I rubbed a free hand over my heart, feeling like a zipper-ripper had gotten ahold of it.
CHAPTER 7
BEING A GENERAL CONTRACTOR MEANT I WORE VARIOUS HATS—or gloves. Today’s were yellow rubber gloves, perfect for cleaning a blackened fireplace. The hope was that after washing away decades of soot, salvageable stonework would be revealed. It would lend ambience to the coffee shop and help make it a perfect place to gather. I admired my sparkly dark blue nails before slipping on the rubber gloves. I’d made it back to my apartment a little after midnight, but by my estimate, I’d only managed to get about two good hours of sleep.
Sighing, I dipped my sponge into the bucket of soapy water, and sharp fumes of vinegar wafted from it. It smelled like progress to me. Only an hour in, I’d made just that. A fourth of the fireplace now showed off beautiful gray and creamy red bricks.
“Little Avalee,” Fred announced as soon as he shuffled inside the coffee shop.
I dropped the sponge into the bucket of water and sat back on my haunches, amused that he continued to call me “little” after all these years, when I was at least a foot taller than him and his brother. All through school I was the tallest in my class, until senior year when Rowan and a few other guys finally caught up and passed me by a few inches. “What’s up?”
That’s the thing with grief, long expanses of time can go by with it lying dormant, but one tiny phrase or suggestion can trigger it. It happened to me about a year back. Out junking with Maudie, I found a family tree made out of a slice of a tree trunk at an estate sale so similar to the one I’d made a long time ago. The names were etched along the tree rings instead of in a traditional tree branch style. I thought I was so original with my idea. Clearly, that hadn’t been the case. Eyes blurred, I stared at the tree slice, thinking that family did the same thing with their family that I did with mine. Just carelessly discarded it. Surrounded by people milling around the dusty house, an invisible monster attacked me. Crushing my heart in its fist while slamming the air out of my lungs.
As the splintering sound of wood being snapped at the jaws of the excavator reached me from behind, I dodged through an alley so I couldn’t turn and see the destruction. Mad at Rowan and mad at myself, even though the exact reason for the anger eluded me, I hid out for the remainder of the workday in the chapel.
Avoidance had become a dance quite familiar to me. Avoid a subject or situation altogether. That had been my first approach with grief. Just avoid facing any part of it. At some point, after hitting rock bottom, I started counseling. Then I attended one session of group grief counseling at my counselor’s insistence, but I figured out real quick that was not my cup of tea. One guy was there to discuss losing his pet, I think it was a cat, and how he hated that animal with a passion. Yeah, hated. Another woman spoke extensively about her grief over losing her grandmother, a woman she’d only met two times, but how horrific it had been on her anyway. No judgment here about either, but it made me realize sharing my heartache of losing my children with complete strangers who had different losses didn’t work for me. I found no appeal in airing laundry, dirty or otherwise, so that had been the first and last group session I attended.
Sure, grief never looks the same from person to person. I get that, I just had no desire to express mine so vocally. Some like to critique others’ expressions of grief. She didn’t cry enough. She cried too much. He shouldn’t have been smiling at such a tragic time. I could go on and on, but the point is everyone mourns differently. Just as there are many ways to grieve, so are there many different forms of therapy. My therapy came in the form of demolition and restoration.
While hiding, I swept out the chapel, dusted away the cobwebs from underneath the pews and along the rafters, and took down two broken chandeliers. Even managed to order the parts needed to fix them with my handy-dandy smartphone. With nothing else I could do without my tools, I made a punch list of everything that still needed to be done. Wood floors refinished. One of the side windows had a cracked windowpane that needed replacing. Central heating and air. A small side room behind the altar would be transformed into a restroom.
By the time the last work truck pulled out and left the town silent, the sun had set. With an excess of frustration to work out of my system, I hauled a portable battery-operated light over to the feedstore.
As I finished setting up the high-powered light and focused it on the floor, my phone vibrated in my pocket. I pulled it out and read the text from Desmond.
You’re not in the feedstore, are you??
I huffed a slight laugh. Since we tended to work all over the place, Nita decided we needed to follow each other on the Life360 app. It cut down on the repetition of asking each other where we were. I liked the idea of someone knowing my whereabouts since I’d started staying in the ghost town alone.
I typed a reply. You’re not stalking me on that app, are you??
Just making sure you haven’t disappeared. FYI—the feedstore is still off-limits.
IK. I won’t be long. I glanced around the dusty space. The floor planks matched the ones in the mercantile. Between the water damage and some staining, there was only enough salvageable flooring for one building. Since we didn’t know what to do with the feedstore just yet, I decided to swipe some to patch the mercantile floors. Definitely, a robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul flooring situation.
With my face mask lowered to block out some of the funky stench and potential mold spores, I walked along the creaking floor, noticing that it gave in some spots. It felt like being on a rickety boat on the verge of going under. I feared this building would end up sinking, so to speak. Rot had gradually encroached around windowsills and doorways. Plus there was a good bit of water damage due to a hole in the roof. Every surface appeared swollen from moisture and coated in mildew. And where the water hadn’t gone, termites had. Feeling uneasy, I gave the run-down building a sweeping glance. Too many shadows and cobwebs. Shaking off my apprehension, I placed my portable speaker on an upturned bucket and pulled up my Imagine Dragons playlist with the tempo full of attitude. “Enemy” filled the small room as I picked up my tools and scoped out the perfect spot to begin destroying something.
“Sorry about this,” I whispered to the building before stabbing between two loose boards with my crowbar and wiggling it until the nails began popping free. I gave the loose board a good yank, losing my balance and stumbling into the vegetable bin. Rubbing the sore spot on my hip, I looked down and noticed something behind the bin.
“Someone lost their shoe?” I mumbled, picking up the little blue canvas sneaker and glancing around for the other one. Not finding it, I tossed the shoe aside and refocused on tearing out the flooring.
Soon I got into the rhythm of the music and floor demolition, losing myself in both. As I turned to stack another board, movement in my periphery jolted me out of my headspace. I looked to the right. A low-hanging cobweb swayed in the breeze coming through the broken window. I huffed a laugh and got back to work, but it happened again only minutes later. This time the fine hairs on the back of my neck rose. I remembered Desmond talking about the Lizard Man and darned if I didn’t picture him lurking outside. With the crowbar clutched firmly in my fist, I paused the music and eased over to the back window, fully expecting to find a green scaly monster with yellow eyes there. Nothing but darkness showed past the stoop.
“Get a grip, Avalee,” I muttered, taking a step away from the window. As I turned away, something rustled nearby. Holding my breath, I strained to hear, but minutes passed with nothing. Sound or no sound, I’d had enough. I was sure it was just my overactive imagination, but I decided to call it a night anyway. Pulling the mask off, I took out my pocketknife just in case and made a mad dash to the saloon.
I fumbled to get the door open and once I got inside, I slammed it shut and leaned against it. After a few moments, my heart rate settled down and I felt foolish. I started to head upstairs but paused. Before turning in for the night, maybe I should take a look at the mess next door. I could wait until morning, when there would be better light. But maybe not having better light would help lessen the sting of losing the flower shop.
I opened the door again and checked the street. Seeing no sign of any type of boogeyman, I rounded the building and came to a halt in front of the pile of rubble that no longer resembled potential. Nope. It stung anyway. It astonished me that something that had stood for decades could be so easily taken down. Gone within a few hours.
I aimed my phone’s flashlight over the pile of splintered wood, where it caught on something shiny. Climbing over a few boards, I squatted down and could now see that it was actually a metal box about double the size of a cigar box. I reached in and wiggled it out, almost losing my balance in the process.
“Des would kill me if he knew . . .” I stumbled back to solid ground without breaking my neck and popped the lid open, finding inside a dozen or so metal crosses. I picked one up and shined the phone light on it. In loving memory was engraved on the front. “Figures I’d find funeral keepsakes.”
Shaking my head, I straightened and stretched my aching back. With the box wedged under my arm, I stood there as a sad thought surfaced from the debris. This building was my relationship with Rowan. It started off with so much potential, but we weren’t as structurally sound as I thought. One devastation after another chipped away at our stability until our marriage collapsed. Damaged hopes and dreams left scattered and discarded in disrepair.
I checked the time on my phone. Only a little after ten. An entire night lay before me, which would be fine if sleep would be gracious. But that wouldn’t be happening with all the memories stacked in my head, waiting their turn to pester me. I pulled off my work gloves and inspected my nails. Several had chips in the Welcome to the Jungle green. My eyes lifted to the withering vines among the pile of rubble. How fitting.
After a quick Google search, I found a nail salon located inside a tattoo parlor with late-night hours. It was only a thirty-minute drive from town. The ratings and reviews were great, and a quick phone call secured me an appointment for eleven, so I changed out of my dirty work clothes and took off. Fun thing about manicures, my world could fall apart in both the literal and physical sense, but shiny, pretty nails was something I could control. If I felt like pink nails, done. Purple, absolutely. Never a no in the nail world. I was so sick of nos.
I followed the GPS to Ink & Polish. Shades of red and black decor with metal and glass accents, it was everything I pictured for a tattoo parlor. Buzzing from tattoo guns could be heard over the alternative rock music. Those guns and the clients receiving the ink were hidden behind privacy partitions, but several people were scattered around a waiting area.
A few college-aged girls, dressed in hip-hugging jeans and crop tops, were sitting on a leather couch, giggling over photos in a portfolio. The lone brunette looked up and smiled.
“You can sit with us.” She scooted over. “They said to wait here.”
I glanced around, wondering who they were, but finding no one behind the counter. “Uh, sure. Thanks.”
“Are you here for the half-off special?” Her hazel eyes glittered with enthusiasm as I settled down beside her.
“Half off?” I shrugged. “I didn’t know anything about it but I’m down for a discount.”
Moments later, a door opened from the far left and a tiny woman appeared. She had a stark-white mohawk and was wearing a red skater dress. Her arms were covered in exquisite watercolor designs. “I’m Dayley. Y’all can come on back.” She turned on her biker bootheels and vanished again.
The brunette sprite stood and turned to me. “Let’s go.”
I tried to wave her off. “Oh, I can just wait here for my turn.”
“Don’t be silly. You should totally join us. It’ll be more fun in a group.” She smiled with lifted eyebrows. I would have been willing to bet she was captain of a cheerleading squad.
Giving in, I shuffled behind the lively group, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to see what sort of nail art they went with. It might give me some inspiration.
We stepped into a fairly large room. A long metal counter housed displays of earrings and more unusual jewelry.
Dayley pulled on a pair of black latex gloves. The little snap echoed around the brightly lit space. “Who’s first?”
I gave the area another scan and found no nail polish or manicure tables. Only a few leather chairs, similar to the ones at the dentist, and a rolling stool. Suddenly, that same feeling I got every time I walked into the feedstore came over me. The one that said something was off.
“She is!” The brunette gave me a little shove, making me step forward. This girl was starting to annoy me. Refraining from giving her a withering side-eye, I moved to join Dayley.
“Pick your hardware.” Dayley pointed at the jewelry as I caught one of the girls sizing up her belly button in the mirror beside the counter.
Realization finally hitting me, I sputtered a nervous laugh. “No, no, no. That’s . . . I don’t want my belly button pierced.”
“Aww. You poor thing. No need to be scared.” The brunette, who seemed to have designated herself as my guide for this evening’s bad decisions, latched on to my arm. “I’ll hold your hand. How about that?”
I shook her off and put some distance between us. Seriously, someone needed to school this chick on personal space. “Piercings aren’t my thing. Not that there’s anything wrong with them. It’s just that I saw a video one time of a girl getting her piercing stuck in her zipper. They ended up ripping that sucker completely out!” I shuddered, pressing my hand over my hidden belly button. “And you know how the video rabbit hole goes. The next video I watched showed an infected belly button piercing. Seriously gross. It was super swollen and—” I buttoned my lips when I noticed everyone looking up at me with slack jaws. One glance at Dayley told me not to unbutton them. I wanted to hunch down to make myself smaller, but that was impossible when surrounded by a group of petite women that I towered over.
All at once, an intense chatter broke out. Some started chickening out while the others tried guilt-tripping them into going through with it. The room grew hotter.
Dabbing the sweat from my upper lip, I added in a higher-pitched voice, “Not that you girls would have any of those issues. I’m sure Dayley here keeps everything sanitized and your pants are so low on your hips, no way will the zipper-ripper happen to you!”
Two of the girls moved toward the door but before they could make a run for it, a heavily tattooed man walked in, making them jump. “Day, what’s going on in here?”
Dayley shot me a severe glare while pointing at me. “This woman is freaking everybody out.”
I whirled around to the big guy. “I didn’t mean to! I just wanted a manicure!” I held up my hands and wiggled my fingers.
The big guy’s lips twitched. “What about a tattoo instead?”
My back stiffened. “Nothing against them, but I read this article about allergic reactions to the ink and . . .” I stopped myself when he barked a deep laugh.
“I’m just messin’ with you.”
Dayley nearly growled. “Good grief. Kline, get this woman out of here before she runs off all your business!”
Still chuckling, Kline motioned for me to follow him. “Come on. Starla is in the back room.”
I trailed behind him, ready to make a detour to the exit if need be. “Does Starla have nail polish?”
“That she does.” He led me to another door, this one to the far right. Sure enough, the back housed a nail studio. This rambling building reminded me of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, one room leading to another one and then another.
The tension began to slowly drain away from my shoulders as I moved inside.
“Yo, Starla!” Kline shouted. “You got a client.”
A woman with purple hair and a killer winged eyeliner emerged from a storage closet, carrying an industrial-size bottle of acetone. “Hi.” She had to be at least a half a foot shorter than me but gave off a boss babe vibe large enough to make a grown man feel small.
“You might have a troublemaker on your hands, hon,” Kline said from behind me.
Shoulders stiffening right back up, I shook my head. “I promise I’m not. That was just a misunderstanding.” I hitched a thumb over my shoulder like that explained it all.
Kline let out another deep chuckle as he exited the room.
Starla disregarded the big guy’s comment and my rebuttal, as if trouble was nothing new. “What color are you in the mood for?” She showed me to her manicure table with a giant rack displaying every shade of polish imaginable.
“Something dark,” I insisted, settling into the black velvet high-back chair. The tufted back felt luxurious. Dimly lit with wrought iron chandeliers and perfumed with a spicy scent that hung subtly in the air, the salon was goth glam with a spa-like ambience. “This place is gorgeous.”
“Thanks.” Starla ran a long pointy nail in matte gold over the bottles of polish, clinking against each one until stopping on a bluish black with flecks of silver. “Dark like this?”
“What’s the name of it?”
She plucked it from the rack and read the bottom, “Insomnia.” She raised a pierced eyebrow.
“That’s perfect.” Seriously, that choice was a no-brainer. At least I’d have something pretty to look at while I lay awake in bed.
As Starla began removing my old polish, I replayed the ridiculous scene that just went down in Dayley’s room of terror. Rowan would have gotten such a kick out of that. Knowing him, he would have picked out the jewelry and gone along with it until the last minute just to mess with them. He’d always been a quicker thinker than me.
The smile creeping onto my lips vanished. I’d ventured out to this place in the middle of the night to get my mind off that man, not sit here and muse over him. Unable to stop my train of thought, our argument about the flower shop from earlier highjacked my mind.
Some things can’t be saved. You of all people should know that. I rubbed a free hand over my heart, feeling like a zipper-ripper had gotten ahold of it.
CHAPTER 7
BEING A GENERAL CONTRACTOR MEANT I WORE VARIOUS HATS—or gloves. Today’s were yellow rubber gloves, perfect for cleaning a blackened fireplace. The hope was that after washing away decades of soot, salvageable stonework would be revealed. It would lend ambience to the coffee shop and help make it a perfect place to gather. I admired my sparkly dark blue nails before slipping on the rubber gloves. I’d made it back to my apartment a little after midnight, but by my estimate, I’d only managed to get about two good hours of sleep.
Sighing, I dipped my sponge into the bucket of soapy water, and sharp fumes of vinegar wafted from it. It smelled like progress to me. Only an hour in, I’d made just that. A fourth of the fireplace now showed off beautiful gray and creamy red bricks.
“Little Avalee,” Fred announced as soon as he shuffled inside the coffee shop.
I dropped the sponge into the bucket of water and sat back on my haunches, amused that he continued to call me “little” after all these years, when I was at least a foot taller than him and his brother. All through school I was the tallest in my class, until senior year when Rowan and a few other guys finally caught up and passed me by a few inches. “What’s up?”
