Page 7

Tressa Fay hummed along with the Cranberries, taking a moment to circle her ass and close her eyes, to put her hands over her head when the beat hit against the rising layers of sound in the chorus.

Unlike the yearning lyrics, she was happy to let herself linger in this moment.

Mary had left early for a tattoo appointment, having finally saved enough money for a piece on her hip inspired by nudes in art deco posters, and due to the gloriously warm, sunny, dry afternoon, with a blue sky that was literally glowing, Tressa Fay’s appointments had been dropping off the book in favor of a boat ride on Lake Michigan or a beer in a lawn chair with friends.

As it should be , she thought, opening the door to the salon and propping it with a rock. She snapped a few pictures of laughing groups of people in small clothes that were really a bit too small for May in Wisconsin—it would probably be in the high forties tomorrow—and of a dog, panting, leashed outside the deli next door, which was doing a brisk business in brightly colored granitas.

She had also worn too-small clothes today, cutoffs that were largely cut off from being proper pants or shorts and a crochet halter top that had been her mother’s, had in fact been made by her mother, which she’d recently found in a box of things her dad wanted to get rid of. The transfer of this box, and then of other boxes that her dad also gave her, was shocking. Tressa Fay hadn’t thought her dad would ever get rid of her mother’s things. She wasn’t sure why now as opposed to any other time in the last almost three decades.

She loved this top. The boxes and what they contained had sent her on a journey of thinking about her mom, her life, her dad, and what she wanted from him, which was making Tressa Fay feel hopeful and…better.

Actually very good. For the first time since Amy.

She finished taking pictures, turned up the music, and started to mist the plants in the salon as the warm breeze through the open door ruffled their leaves and her hair.

So the door didn’t jingle, because it was propped open, and Tressa Fay didn’t hear the greeting, because of the music, and her professionalism could not be located, because she had arched her back, wiggled her hips, closed her eyes, and started spraying her face and chest with the plant mister in time to the beat.

She did, however, feel the tap on her shoulder.

“Eye-yikes!” she yelped, turning around.

“Sorry!” A long-haired, freckled, curvy bit of business stepped back and held their hands up, grinning. “Um, you couldn’t hear me.”

Oh. This person was extremely yes .

Tressa Fay shunned her libidinous warm-day brain and turned on her fancy-salon-owner brain. She didn’t ordinarily hit the a-woo-gah horn so hard for a stranger. “Oh, God. No worries. Let me turn down this music.” She used her phone to slide the volume down to the background, where it belonged. “I’m so sorry I didn’t notice your coming in! I’m Tressa Fay. Here, follow me.” She walked over to Mary’s reception desk, where she kept her book.

This person, who had waves of peachy auburn hair that Tressa Fay couldn’t wait to get her hands on, wore a tight red shirt that…yes. It was an East High mathlete shirt. She wondered if it was a thrift store find or if this person was mathy and adorable. If so, that would be bad, because Tressa Fay generally did not ask clients on dates. It wasn’t a rule, and she had done it a lot more when she was starting out, but as her platform grew, she couldn’t be sure it would be a fair start even to something casual.

If Tressa Fay were someone who did casual. Which she was not.

“Okay. Let me find you here.” Tressa Fay slid the book toward her client. “What’s your name?” She smiled and hoped her question didn’t sound like a come-on. “Once I find it, you can write down in the entry any or none of the info we request. You know, email. Pronouns.” General status of the romance-y type. Tressa Fay sternly slapped that thought away.

“Um. Meryl Whit, she and her, and, well, that’s the thing. I was walking by and saw the salon, and the open door, and okay, so, I’ve been meaning to get a trim forever, but work has been a lot lately. I was kind of hoping for a walk-in appointment?” The question was accompanied by a hopeful smile that wrinkled the bridge of this confection’s nose, making the glittery glasses perched there slide down. Then Meryl ’s pretty eyes swept over Tressa Fay in a manner that belied sweet politeness.

Well.

“I don’t usually take walk-ins, but…” Tressa Fay motioned to the empty salon. “And you only want a trim?” She had to assume that her walk-in didn’t know about the salon and its reputation for haircuts that sometimes took Tressa Fay a couple hours to get right. Aside from her dad’s monthly clipper cut, the only trims she ever did were to freshen a repeat client’s look, and even then, Tressa Fay didn’t strictly believe they were trims .

Every cut changed things, at least a little.

“For the moment.” Another nose wrinkle and smile combo from Meryl . “An inch or two, and I’ll be out of your…well.”

Tressa Fay laughed, and so did Meryl while she looked around the salon like people did when they did follow Tressa Fay’s socials and needed a moment to make everything they saw line up with the way they’d expected it to be. When she turned back to Tressa Fay, she still had that expression, excited and expectant, as though she knew something amazing was about to happen.

It was a direct hit to Tressa Fay’s professional intentions. “Okay, but you’ll have to promise to look at my Insta and maybe book something in the future. I’d love to work with your hair.” She turned the calendar around and held out a pen. “If you’d just fill in those three lines for me.” Tressa Fay tried not to openly stare as all of that hair fell from shoulders over arms, breasts pushed against the nerdy T-shirt, but it was difficult. Meryl adjusted her glasses for the second time, and Tressa Fay got a sprinkling of hot prickles across her nape.

Did she have a bit of a thing for smarty-pants types? Yes. Yes, she did. And redheads. And women who looked at her like she glowed, like they had already spent hours with her. Probably, in truth, Tressa Fay had never been looked at by a woman like that until now, but she liked it. So much.

Normally, for a trim, the service wouldn’t include a shampoo unless the client requested it and was paying for it. However, there wasn’t anyone scheduled for the rest of the afternoon, Tressa Fay could trim a single inch in her sleep, and also, Meryl’s arms must get so, so tired washing all of that hair. A shampoo would be the real service of this appointment.

A service to Meryl , she reminded herself.

“Lemme just shut the door while you hop up in the shampoo chair.” Tressa Fay shut it and flipped the sign over to Closed , trying not to overthink that move, then grabbed one of the organic cotton drapes Mary organized on hooks and a waffle towel from the stack on the live-edge shelves. “Here.” Tressa Fay put the drape around Meryl, lifting the hair at her nape away from the closure with practiced fingers.

Meryl’s goose bumps met Tressa Fay’s fingertips. So that was fun. Tressa Fay took a deep, slow breath as a way to bank excitement and feelings and anticipation that were doubtless mostly the result of how long it had been, which was a while . And the sun was out. The music was good.

Meryl looked up at her and smiled.

It was not just the music and sun and deprivation.

“And then you can lie back. I’ve got the towel right here.” Tressa Fay guided Meryl’s neck over the lip of the shampoo bowl. “If you’ll let me.” Tressa Fay slid Meryl’s glasses off gently. “I’ll put them at my station.”

Was taking off a woman’s glasses undressing her? She thought about this, and about the gentle clench between her legs, as she set Meryl’s glasses on the shelf of her station. Probably not. But also, it would be what happened before other things could happen with a woman who wore glasses. So.

“I really appreciate your fitting me in.” Meryl had a pretty, husky voice. “I was afraid it wouldn’t work.”

Tressa Fay stopped in the middle of setting the temp for the water on the faucet’s digital display. I was afraid it wouldn’t work. It made her feel like she’d missed a step going down a flight of stairs.

But Meryl just meant that she hadn’t been sure Tressa Fay would agree to trim her hair, didn’t she? “It’s no problem. I wasn’t busy.”

“But you were getting down.” Meryl smiled as the little light on the faucet told Tressa Fay it was ready.

She laughed. “I was.”

“Bit of a smoke show, actually.” Meryl’s grin was not shy or polite.

She’s flirting , Tressa Fay thought with delight. She turned on the water and smiled. “I will absolutely take that. Is this temperature okay?”

Meryl closed her eyes as the water sluiced over her hairline and seeped into her waves, darkening them to deep auburn. “Yes. This is perfect.”

“Are you allergic to anything? We use a very ultra-hypoallergenic co-wash here, which is a great shampoo alternative for curls like yours, but it’s okay if only water will work for you.”

“I’m not allergic.”

Tressa Fay lifted up Meryl’s hair, heavy with water, directing the spray over it in slow sweeps. Meryl’s eyes were closed, so Tressa Fay gazed at her freckles, noticing how there were so many in so many different colors, and the way her eyebrows and eyelashes matched her wet hair.

Oof.

Tressa Fay hadn’t washed a client’s hair in some time. Mary typically did it. But she had no complaints about washing Meryl’s hair. She poured out a handful of the creamy co-wash from the aluminum bottle and dunked her other palm into it. The steam from the water meant that she could smell Meryl—sunscreen and windy sun and something sweet that reminded her of vanilla. When her hands were full of product, she picked up the dripping rope of Meryl’s hair and slid her hands down it, making it as slick and soft as the weeds growing up through the fine sand at the lake in Algoma. Then Tressa Fay slowly moved her fingertips into the hair over Meryl’s scalp, rubbing the rest of the clinging product through but mostly, mostly, massaging her warm scalp.

This is perfect. The satisfied echo of Meryl’s words kept her company as she worked her hands through Meryl’s hair, watching her throat hollow when she moved her thumbs in twin circles at her temples. Clients were typically very quiet and still when their hair was washed, taking it in with a tender mix of relaxed pleasure and social anxiety, but Meryl felt completely present and alive, pushing back against Tressa Fay’s hands like a happy cat.

Meryl sighed, her face soft. Her upper lip was a little bigger than her lower, and her lip line had been invaded by freckles. That was what Tressa Fay stared at while slowly moving her strong fingers over Meryl’s head in wide rakes, sometimes pressing her thumbs and holding them against Meryl’s soft temples and those lower edges of the skull that get sore at the end of a long day, always brushing her fingertips lightly against her nape when she moved to the back before returning to stronger strokes.

“God,” Meryl said, keeping her eyes closed. “This feels so good, I might fall asleep or float away or kiss you.”

Tressa Fay swallowed, then scratched her nails over Meryl’s scalp. Meryl made a noise in her throat. “Too much?” Tressa Fay asked.

When Meryl opened her eyes, they looked a little drugged. She shook her head, and Tressa Fay made her close her eyes again by running her nails over her scalp another time.

Meryl wore shorts. Ordinary black chino shorts with a little cuff and a button and fly. But there was a hot pink flush over her legs from her knees right up to the cuffs. And under the cuffs.

Tressa Fay had to take a moment. She’d turned herself on washing Meryl’s hair, bending over her in the steam, touching her, breathing her in. Not professional behavior, obviously, but the rough, shocky tingles over her skin and between her legs did not care even the tiniest bit.

“I’m going to rinse now.” Tressa Fay pulled her hands from Meryl’s hair slowly, then tapped the water back on with her elbow. She pointed the water with one hand and picked up, tugged, and slid Meryl’s hair through her fist with the other, over and over again. Meryl had one of her arms draped across her middle, the other at her side. She’d bent a leg up. She was wiggling around with her eyes closed. Tressa Fay lifted, pulled, and stroked while watching Meryl, knowing she should be stern with herself but unable to muster the effort.

Meryl opened her eyes. “I’ll pay you a thousand dollars to wash my hair again.”

Tressa Fay went still, then laughed, but she could tell she was blushing as she finished rinsing Meryl’s hair. She carefully put her hand at her warm nape and got the towel up and over it, squeezing it damp. “I’m a cheaper date than that.” She quickly looked away, her embarrassed gaze landing on her barrel cactus, solemn as a soldier in the front window, her hand still on the back of Meryl’s neck—but Meryl was laughing again.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She raised her eyebrows.

Tressa Fay choked only a little. She guided Meryl out of the shampoo chair and to her station, where she readjusted the drape and touched the button on the floor to raise the chair up. She picked out a big wide-toothed comb and started detangling, comforted that her brain had kicked back on and determined where the hair was trained to part, where the ends were uneven, what condition it was in. Tressa Fay didn’t talk, and Meryl didn’t, either, but that was nice. The music had moved on to Tracy Chapman, and the quiet hush of the empty salon felt comfortable.

Cozy. Like a bowl of her favorite tortellini soup and a record playing on a blustery fall day while she snuggled on her sofa with Epinephrine and a redheaded woman.

Tressa Fay came back to herself enough to give herself a lecture. This is a client. She came in here for a trim. Yes, she is fire. She flirted, possibly first. She smells like eating ice-cream cones at the swimming pool. No one would argue that her T-shirt isn’t a felony. However, Tressa Fay Catherine Louise Robeson, you are a licensed stylist with the State of Wisconsin and have built a spotless reputation. This is not the moment to get goatish.

She leaned over where she kept her tool holsters and grabbed the one for her shears, buckling it on.

“Wait,” Meryl said.

Tressa Fay met her eyes in the mirror. “Yeah?”

“You put your scissors in a holster?”

“And my comb.”

“You, right now, are strapping a leather holster to your hip.”

“This one. The one for my razor goes on my thigh.” Tressa Fay pulled a comb and her shears from the drawer where they had been placed after disinfecting and put them in her holster, then fastened several clips to her waistband to be ready to section Meryl’s hair.

“But that’s unfair.” Meryl’s dark eyes were so pretty, looking into hers from the mirror, like she knew how Tressa Fay was fighting for her life here.

“Why?” Tressa Fay parted and flicked out and sectioned the smooth, damp locks.

“Because you took away my glasses, and now I can’t watch you holster about with all the detail that I need to really take it in.”

Tressa Fay’s belly was damp with water from the shampoo bowl, and her self-mastery had been cut from her like the dusty piles of hair they swept from the floor all day. Something was happening with this woman. It felt like the time Linds had talked her into skydiving—how Tressa Fay’s heart had hammered in her chest as she looked out the open door of the plane at the patchwork of Wisconsin farmland below. “I’m sorry. I have to ask, are you flirting with your stylist?”

God, she’d loved that jump, though.

“Absolutely I am.” Meryl smiled. “Is that okay? I could retire to my thoughts.”

Tressa Fay dusted Meryl’s ends with her shears, glad she hadn’t given Meryl’s glasses back, so Meryl couldn’t look in the mirror and see Tressa Fay grin and bite her lip and privately rejoice. “It’s okay.”

They both went quiet again while Tressa Fay trimmed Meryl’s hair. Changing her, one snick of the scissors at a time, and who could say what those changes would bring about in Meryl’s life?

“What do you do?” Tressa Fay asked after a while. “I see that you’re a mathlete, but I wasn’t sure if maybe you were just at the amateur level.”

Meryl laughed. “I’m a stormwater engineer for the city.”

Oh. Well . “Sure. Just hit me with your game without warning.”

“You’re teasing me.”

“I’m not, actually.” She checked her line, then tipped her shears into the disinfectant, grabbed an airbrush, and plugged it in. “I might have a bit of a thing about, you know. The smart girls.” She pulled a section of Meryl’s hair around the airbrush, going slow.

“You’re really not kidding about that.” The way Meryl said it, she sounded almost fond, as though Tressa Fay had proven…she didn’t know what. Something between them.

“Mm-mm. I don’t joke about girls with brains.” Tressa Fay brushed out another section, the warm air of the brush against her palm as she slowly smoothed Meryl’s hair dry. “Tell me everything about what a stormwater engineer does.”

Meryl smiled. “It’s a type of civil engineering. I’m responsible for quality control of stormwater projects, like city storm sewer upgrades and studies on where stormwater goes, where it floods, where it gets hung up. We try to responsibly plan our natural watershed and wetlands areas. And I plan the maintenance for the stormwater facility.” Meryl said all of this with her eyes closed as Tressa Fay slipped sheets of glossy hair through her fingers and over the humming airbrush.

“I didn’t even know that was a thing. But of course it is. Wow. Look at you. That’s amazing.”

Tressa Fay thought about those girls in high school with their organized folders and binders and long hair in low ponytails, rushing to classes with “AP” and “Honors” in the name, their heavy backpacks almost tipping them over. Those girls had always been her favorite. She’d loved their serious faces as they walked down the halls. They seemed so precise, even how they unzipped their backpacks, pulling out pencil cases and bags with skinny mechanical pencils and writing in their notebooks, bent over them with complete concentration. They carried cello cases to school. Put little red-and-yellow tubes of Carmex in their pockets and slid it over their lips in class on an unpredictable schedule.

Tressa Fay had yearned for those girls, and when they grew up, they were even better. They had serious jobs and serious senses of humor and were seriously, secretly wicked and delicious, and Tressa Fay could bask in them forever.

Meryl was watching her, something careful in her expression. “I have a confession.”

“Tell me everything.” Tressa Fay put down the airbrush and dipped her ring finger into the little metal tin of hair wax she kept in her holster, rubbing it into her palms to finish styling Meryl’s hair.

“I knew about you.”

Tressa Fay pulled her hands away from where she had been piecing the waves. “Me?”

She nodded. “Your salon. But also…you. I saw the open door and wanted to meet you in person and made up needing a trim.” She bit her lip. “Don’t run away. I swear my typical moves involve little to no subterfuge.”

Tressa Fay smiled and went back to styling Meryl’s hair, partly to think, partly to get her hands into the rosy golden mess of it. I knew about you. It should have been a red flag, but instead it felt like everything she had been feeling—a gift, a jump through the sky, familiar, sexy, shy, bold. “I have a confession, too.”

“Oh, good.” Meryl raised a single eyebrow, with a tiny smile.

Tressa Fay handed Meryl her glasses, which she slipped on. Tressa Fay met her eyes in the mirror. “I really liked washing your hair.” She raised her eyebrows, too.

“I’m relieved to hear that, because I was for sure not thinking about my split ends when you were washing it.” Meryl spun her chair away from the mirror to look right at her.

Tressa Fay reached out and tucked Meryl’s hair behind her ear. “So?” she whispered, though she hadn’t meant to.

“What do you think about getting a granita and going for a walk?”

“I think yes .” Tressa Fay thanked her lucky stars for the serendipity of canceled appointments and Mary’s tattoo and a pretty day.

Meryl slid out of the chair, forgetting Tressa Fay still had it elevated, right at the moment Tressa Fay remembered it was still elevated and reached out to help. Meryl stumbled forward, her body against Tressa Fay’s for a moment as they both laughed.

Perfect timing. All of it.