On Mystic Lake

“I take risks. I don’t floss every day, and sometimes I mix florals and plaids. Once I wore white shoes after Labor Day. ”

“I mean—”

Annie laughed—the first real, honest-to-God laugh since the shit hit the fan. “Haircut. ”

“What?”

“Blake always liked my hair long. ”

Hank grinned. “Well, well. I guess you’re a little angry after all. That’s a good sign. ”

Lurlene’s Fluff-n-Stuff was not the kind of salon Annie usually patronized. It was an old-fashioned, small-town beauty parlor housed in a Pepto Bismol–pink Victorian with glossy white gingerbread trim. A porch wrapped around the front of the house, offering shade to three pink wicker rocking chairs.

Annie parked beneath a hot pink sign that read: PARKING RESERVED FOR LURLENE’S CUSTOMERS ONLY. VIOLATORS WILL BE SUBJECT TO A CUT AND PERM. As she followed a walkway of heart-shaped cement stones up to the front porch, a tinny rendition of “It’s a Small World” seeped from a single black speaker by the door.

She stopped, suddenly afraid. She’d had long hair forever. What was she thinking—that a pair of scissors could recapture her youth? Calm down, Annie. She took a deep breath, draining away everything except what she needed to take a single step forward, to walk up those steps and get a haircut.

She had almost reached the top step when the front door whooshed open and a woman appeared. She had to be at least six feet tall, with a pile of Lucille Ball red hair that pooched up to the doorway. Someone had poured her statuesque body into a pair of sparkly red spandex pants (either that, or it was a coat of glitter paint). A tight-fitting angora sweater in a black-and-white zebra print strained across breasts the size of the Alps. A huge zebra earring dangled from each ear.

The woman moved—an excited little shiver rippled along her whole body, right down to the gold Barbie-doll mules that encased her canoe-size feet. “You must be Annie Colwater. . . . ” She pronounced it Colwatah in a Southern drawl as thick and sweet as corn syrup. “Why, darlin’, I been waitin’ on you! Your daddy said you wanted a makeover—why, I couldn’t believe my ears. A makeover in Mystic!” She bounded down the creaking steps like a Rose Bowl float. “I’m Lurlene, sweetie. Big as a moose, you’re thinkin’, but with twice the fashion sense. Now, sugah, you come on in. You’ve come to the right place. I’ll treat you like a queen. ” She patted Annie and took hold of her arm, leading her up the steps and into a bright, white and pink room with a few wicker-framed mirrors. Pink gingham curtains shielded the view and a pink hook rug covered the hardwood floor.

“Pink is my color,” Lurlene said proudly, her drawl spinning the sentence into pink is mah colah. “The twin shades of cotton candy and summer glow are designed to make you feel special and safe. I read that in a magazine, and ain’t it just the God’s truth?” She led Annie past two other customers, both older women with their gray hair twined on tiny multicolored rods.

Lurlene kept up a steady chatter as she washed Annie’s hair. Oh, Lordie, I ain’t seen this much hair since my Disco Barbie doll. After she’d clamped a fuchsia plastic cape around Annie’s shoulders and settled her into a comfortable chair in front of the mirror, Lurlene peered over Annie’s shoulder. “You sure you want this cut? Most women’d give their husband’s left nut for hair like this. ”

Annie refused to give in to the flutter of nerves that had settled somewhere in the region of her stomach. No more halfways. Not anymore. “Cut it off,” she said evenly.

“Of course you’re sure,” Lurlene said with a toothy grin. “Somethin’ shoulder length, maybe—”

“All of it. ”

Lurlene’s painted mouth dropped open. “Off? As in . . . o f ?”

Annie nodded.

Lurlene recovered quickly. “Why, darlin’, you’re gonna be my crownin’ achievement. ”

Annie tried not to think about what she’d done. One look at her own chalky, drawn face in the mirror, with her hair slicked back from her thin face, was enough to make her slam her eyes shut . . . and keep them shut.

She felt a tug on her hair, then a snip of steel blades, and a whoosh of hair fell to the floor.

Snip, whoosh, snip, whoosh.

“I shore was surprised when your daddy called. I’ve heard stories about you for years. Kathy Johnson—you recall her? Well, Kath and I went to beauty school together. ’Course Kath never actually finished—something about the scissors bothered her—but we got to be best friends. She told me tons o’ stories about when y’all were kids. I reckon you’n Kathy were wild and crazy. ”

Kathy Johnson.

It was a name Annie hadn’t heard in years. Kathy and Annie, friends 4-ever. 2 good 2 be true. That’s what they’d written in each other’s yearbook, what they’d promised as the end of high school neared.

Annie had always meant to keep the friendship up, to stay in touch, but somehow she never had. Like so many childhood friendships, it had dwindled to nothing. Christmas cards for a few years, and then even that had stopped. Annie hadn’t heard from Kathy in years. The separation had started before high school was over, when Nick proposed to Kathy.

Nick.

Annie could still remember the day she’d first seen him. Junior English. He’d walked in arrogantly, his blue eyes challenging everyone in the room. He was wearing ragged Levi’s and an overwashed white T-shirt, with a pack of cigarettes rolled up in his sleeve. He wasn’t like anyone she’d ever seen before, with his wild, too-long black hair and don’t-mess-with-me attitude. Annie had fallen in love on the spot; so had every other girl in the room, including her best friend, Kathy.

But it was Kathy he had chosen, and with that choice, Annie had tasted the first salty wounds of a broken heart.

She smiled at the memory, faded and distant as it was. Maybe she’d go see them, try to kick-start the old camaraderie—God knew it would be nice to have a friend right about now. If nothing else, they could laugh about the old days. “How are Nick and Kathy?”