Page 1 of Homebody (The Long Road Home #21)

Chapter One

T he upstate New York village of Mudville, with a whopping population of just under one-thousand residents, had an official community center. The beautiful old building, a former Masonic Temple, was steeped in history and architectural detail.

But there was no doubt for anyone living there that the place designated for the purpose of gathering was not the true center of the Mudville community.

That honor was shared by the local dive bar, the vintage diner and the hair salon.

These three gathering places also happened to be the only businesses within walking distance that were hiring. So when it became apparent that it was get a job or not make rent that month, Tessa Hawthorne chose the least frightening, and the least social, of the positions available.

Ruby’s Hair Salon.

There were a couple of reasons that led her to make that decision.

First and foremost, for an introvert like Tessa tending bar or waiting tables might as well have been Dante’s Seventh Circle of Hell. Not to mention she’d never done either, tend bar or wait tables.

Mensa-level IQ aside, she wasn’t sure she could learn those skills without doing damage, either mental or physical, to herself and the businesses’ patrons.

Sweeping up hair from the floor, laundering towels, and refilling supplies at the salon, though? That she could do. And do it with her head down, mainly in silence with her own thoughts for company. Just the way she liked it.

It was very nearly the perfect mindless job every introspective person dreamed of. Low pressure. Requiring little to no thought. Giving her time during the day that her brain could rest or, more often, work out at its leisure the problems waiting for her back home in her thesis research.

And for all this, she was getting paid. It might only be minimum wage, but it provided much needed income. Enough she didn’t need to go through the embarrassment of asking her retired parents for financial help.

This morning the salon was bustling around her as she performed her duties.

It was early, at least for the youth of town who kept later hours than the old timers. But it was prime social time for the senior citizens of Mudville.

The men of the community congregated in the chairs along one wall, take-out coffee cups in hand while they waited for their turn in the single barber chair that serviced the males of the community.

All the while they grumbled to one another about the state of the world, or today’s youth, or the price of gas.

The subject changed but not the complaining or the complainers.

Meanwhile, in the chairs in front of each mirrored station two women in various stages of beautification chatted animatedly with each other and the hairstylists.

The two clients’ monthly root touch-ups seemed secondary to the gossip session, which was fine with Tessa. The more they talked with each other, the less anyone spoke to her.

But the longer she worked at the salon the more she was starting to wonder if she was missing some gene that the women patrons had and she didn’t.

She’d never dyed, or highlighted, or done anything else to her boring brown hair except trim the ends a few times a year with the scissors she kept in her kitchen drawer.

She was just pondering her lack of beauty ritual when snippets of the conversation penetrated her own thoughts…

“I just don’t understand. Your son’s a handsome man. And he’s got a great job, which is more than I can say for some guys his age that I know.” Red, the local thrift shop owner, shook her head, sending the foil strips encasing her highlighted hair rustling.

“I know,” Susan Sinclair agreed. “Dean should have his choice of the cream of the crop. Yet that boy without fail gravitates to the worst women he can find. Always has. Even back in high school. Heck, junior high, now that I think about it. It’s like he’s a magnet attracting only the worst of the worst.”

Red let out a chuckle. “Maybe you need to find a good girl to pretend to be his usual type of bad girl.”

Losing interest in Susan Sinclair’s son’s love life, Tessa tuned out the conversation.

Her mind turned to working through the various thoughts and challenges of her own existence. She had a dozen problems, but her lack of a love life was not one of them.

The position of shop girl at the salon had proven good for her.

She was making slow but steady progress on her graduate thesis.

And in the couple of months since she’d been working there, the time spent doing the rote chores had yielded an amazing epiphany or two when it came to her thesis.

But she’d reached a stumbling block in her research.

Lately, even giving her brain a chance during her mindless chores to work on the problems didn’t yield any solutions.

Give it time . She could hear her undergrad psych professor’s words still. Like a pot set to slowly simmer on low on the back burner of a stove, the mind continued to work in the background.

Eventually, it all would work out. It had better. She’d devoted too much time, and accrued too much debt, for it not to.

Until it did work out, she’d be the best shop girl she could be… and ignore that she wasn’t using her degree to work in a field that was even close to what she’d studied.

Deftly, she swept the broom around the pedestal base of the chair, collecting most of the hair clippings with that single sweep, all while considering what angle she needed to make the focus for her thesis. But her mental block still remained. Her mind spun and churned to no avail.

Switching gears, she moved on to a mental review of her current To-Do list instead.

The round-up of things waiting for her when she got home—pay bills, do laundry, buy some real food that wasn’t a frozen meal—streamed through her head.

Mindlessly, with rote repetition that had become familiar over the past months since getting the job, Tessa went back in with the broom to grab the single shorn lock of hair that had escaped the first sweep.

Unfortunately, Tessa’s timing was perfectly imperfect.

She swooped in with the broom at the same time Janelle, the stylist who worked part-time for Ruby, pivoted.

Janelle’s single step landed her high heel right on the broom.

The stylist had to grab the back of the barber chair where Red sat to keep from toppling off those spikes she insisted on wearing to work each shift.

The mishap earned Tessa a glare from Janelle.

With a quick glance at her boss Ruby who was working on Mrs. Sinclair, Tessa said, “Sorry, sorry. I’ll just, uh, get that later.”

Tessa bore the full weight of the blame and guilt for almost tripping the stylist. Even though, technically, it would be much safer and infinitely more practical for Janelle to wear different—meaning flat, supportive, less stripper-like—footwear while working.

Then maybe Janelle wouldn’t be in danger of falling over from one little broom encounter.

One sharp raise of a brow was the stylist’s only response to the apology.

Tessa didn’t wait around for more. She took her broom and swept her way toward the back and to the dustpan and garbage pail, where she deposited the sweepings.

“Tessa!”

The sound of her name had Tessa whipping up her gaze to find her boss’s eyes focused on her.

Uh-oh. Was she about to be fired? For making one little mistake?

Ugh . She needed this crappy part-time gig, even if it wasn’t a great job. Definitely not a career-making or breaking position, but it was perfect for her right now.

She needed the money. Not great money, but money that enabled her to be able to live until she finished her thesis and then found her dream job.

Broom handle clutched in her white knuckles, Tessa swallowed hard and then said, “Yes, Ruby?”

“Can you come over here, please?”

“Oh, um, okay. Yeah. Sure.”

She moved closer, glancing at the floor at her boss’s feet. It was already hair-free so needing Tessa to clean up wasn’t the reason for the summons. Crud.

“Did you need me to do something for you?” she asked, hoping this was a request for her to replenish the hairspray or something.

“Not for me, but perhaps there is something you can do for Mrs. Sinclair.” Ruby’s smile looked almost devilish as she tipped her head toward the older woman in the chair.

Judging by the foil strips that adorned Mrs. Sinclair’s head, it looked like she’d opted for highlights too, just like Red, along with getting her roots dyed today.

For a person who didn’t even own a hairdryer and had resorted to using dish soap on her hair when she’d run out of shampoo, that Tessa knew all about highlights now was not a good thing.

It was a glaring indication she’d been spending too much time here at her part-time job rather than on her thesis—the one thing upon which her entire future rested.

But it couldn’t be helped. Money made the world go round, whether you had it or did not. And right now she was in the not category.

She forced her gaze off the halo of foil that formed a kind of surreal futuristic hairdo and focused on Mrs. Sinclair’s face. “Hi. What can I do for you?”

They’d probably send her down the block to the diner for coffee or a pastry. Which would be good actually. She’d forgotten breakfast this morning and besides the mints in the bowl on the register there was nothing for her to eat here.

“I can’t ask her...” Mrs. Sinclair began, breaking eye contact to glance from Red to Ruby.

“Yes, you can,” Ruby countered.

“You have to,” Red agreed with feeling.

Tessa knew she had a habit of living in her own head and not listening when others spoke, but this conversation captured and kept her attention. How could it not? The discussion, and this mysterious question or request Mrs. Sinclair couldn’t bring herself to ask, was apparently all about her.

The question was, why? What was this about?

Whatever it was, Tessa didn’t see that she had much choice in the matter. Her boss seemed all in favor of it.

Seriously, why was she even worried? How bad could it be? Not as bad as getting fired.

Maybe the woman needed a dog walker or a house sitter or something. She could handle that.

“Uh, sure. You can ask me,” Tessa said with new confidence.

Susan Sinclair bit her lower lip and drew in a breath that audibly rustled the cape draped over her. She let it out on a whoosh of air while saying in one quick burst, “I want to hire you to date my son.”

Tessa’s jaw dropped open. When she could speak again, she only managed, “Um, what?”