Page 13 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER TWELVE

Sam has only been working at the salon for a few days but Evie feels as if they’re old friends.

He’s very good at putting people at ease.

He flatters the clients, telling them he’s happy to see them, or that he likes their shoes, asking about their weeks, their families, their hobbies.

It all seems sincere, that he is genuinely interested.

Or at least that he looks for the best in everyone and finds it.

The other day he made even their grumpiest client, Mrs Klein, smile, and after she left, Trudy let out a whoop.

‘Sammy-boy, you worked a miracle!’ she cried, to his puzzlement.

‘She’s been coming here for years,’ Evie explained. ‘And not smiled once.’

‘Until today.’ Trudy kept combing out her client. ‘Isn’t that right, Babs?’

‘Sure is,’ Babs said. ‘She’s a terror, that Enid.’

‘That might be a little harsh,’ Trudy said, laughing.

Babs turned around so she was looking Trudy in the face. ‘You try playing her at bowls then tell me what you’d call her.’ Babs then nodded her head once and turned back around, picking up her cigarette.

Sam was working next to Evie, so it was she who saw his big smile.

‘That’s nice,’ he said softly.

‘It’s more than nice!’ Evie said. ‘It’s a miracle!’

He’d laughed, then given his full attention to his client.

Today he came in literally with a spring in his step.

He starts at ten o’clock – part of the reason why Trudy wanted to take him on was so he could stay later in the day for the clients who need their hair done for a night out, so he starts later accordingly.

It’s Trudy’s new thing: offering blow-dries only.

Clients were asking for them. Evie thinks it’s because of the TV shows – all those American actresses have blow-dries.

So the Central Coast ladies all want the Krystle Carrington.

Well, blow-dries takes work so they all come back wanting Trudy or Evie or Sam, now, to make it look like it did that first day they got it done.

Which is good for business, not so good for their hair with all the heat.

‘Morning!’ Sam called as he arrived, handing Trudy a bunch of flowers.

‘What are these for?’ Trudy asked.

‘For you. For the salon. I love having flowers around, don’t you?’

Trudy agreed. And so did Evie, although she didn’t say so, just silently marvelled at a man who could appreciate flowers.

She’s long thought that kind of man didn’t exist. Her father never brought her mother flowers, even though her mother loved them.

And Stevo … well, they didn’t reach that flowers stage, which is funny, considering they managed to conceive a child together.

‘How are you, Evie?’ Sam said as he wandered her way. ‘Did Billy go off to school okay?’

He knows all about Billy, and asks after him, and her, every day.

No one has ever been this interested in her – including her own family members – and while she knows Sam is likely being polite, his conversation isn’t just about the comings and goings in her life.

He wants to know more, go deeper. It’s flattering. It’s …

She doesn’t know what it is. When he looks at her with those big brown eyes and that thick, impressive hair, his square jaw and his high cheekbones and his perfect eyebrows … No, she can’t think about him like this. They work together.

Besides, Trudy has noticed.

‘Listen to you, chatterbox,’ she said yesterday with this funny smile. They were in the back room and Evie was checking their supplies so she could do an order.

‘Hm?’ Evie kept looking in the cupboard.

‘I think you’ve said more to that bloke in a week than you’ve said to me the whole year.’

That made Evie stop, because she hadn’t realised she’d been talking that much, or that anyone was paying attention, and it made her feel a little embarrassed, like she was in Year 9 when her friends found out she had a crush on this guy Jason who arrived during second term.

And they found out because she couldn’t hide it.

Everywhere he went, her eyes followed. She embarrassed herself , forget her friends doing it for her.

But they did. Eventually Jason found out and he avoided her, which was worse.

She hasn’t had a crush since, and she’s not sure if it’s because she hasn’t met anyone crush-worthy or if she just pushed down that part of herself.

Stevo didn’t count, because they kind of slipped and fell on each other.

‘Oh,’ she said in response to Trudy.

‘Be careful there,’ Trudy said, but it didn’t sound like a warning. Just a friendly note. Or perhaps that was how Evie wanted to interpret it.

‘So, Mary,’ she says into the mirror, where Mary’s eyes meet hers. ‘What are we doing today?’

‘Mmm.’ Mary moves her head from side to side while not breaking her gaze into the mirror. It has a rather odd effect. ‘Not sure. Time for a change, maybe?’

Mary tried a fringe last year, then decided she didn’t like it. She’s been growing it out. Her hair’s been long forever so cutting some of it to make a fringe was a big step.

‘What sort of change?’ Evie asks, not wanting to guess.

‘Off.’ Mary nods once, definitively. ‘Chop it off.’

‘What?’ Evie says, and detects Trudy’s head turning in their direction. Yes, Trudy would understand the import of this.

‘Yep.’ Another nod. ‘I want the Lady Di.’

That’s the other haircut they’ve been asked for over the past few years.

It also requires blow-drying, which the clients say they understand but don’t really.

It requires thick hair too, which the princess has and Mary does not.

Moreover, Mary has always struck Evie as the no-nonsense type whose plain hairstyle suits her.

‘Why?’ Evie says.

‘Less work,’ Mary says.

‘Um …’ Evie turns in Trudy’s direction and raises her eyebrows. Trudy responds in kind.

‘It’s not actually,’ Evie goes on. ‘What you have now just needs a shampoo and a condition and you’re done. That Diana haircut needs blow-drying to look good. You don’t blow-dry at the moment, do you?’

‘No.’

‘Do you really want to start?’

‘Hubby tells me I’ll look good with it.’

And there it is: wait long enough and the client tends to cough up the truth.

So many times a lady will come in wanting something done that is ostensibly for her and it turns out that the husband wants it, usually because he’s bored of her or he fancies a particular celebrity.

Evie wants to point out that Mary’s husband is no oil painting, yet here he is telling her what to do with her hair.

She wishes she could ask Mary what her husband would look good with, but that likely wouldn’t end anywhere positive, so like everyone who works in a service job she keeps her thoughts to herself and tries to figure out a way to make this right for the client.

‘All right. Well. If you’re sure …’ Evie stares at Mary in the mirror, hoping she’s making her point.

In response Mary pulls out a photo of Diana around the time she gave birth to Prince Harry, when her hair was long and thick from the pregnancy and she had these big, dramatic layers.

It is not a look Mary will ever achieve.

Especially since Diana matched it with eyeliner and lots of mascara. No wonder she’s called ‘Dynasty Di’.

‘I want that,’ Mary says and Evie thinks she can hear Trudy sighing from across the salon.

The next thing Evie knows Sam is beside her, his hip bumping hers as he bends over to look at the photo, and Evie wonders if he did it purposely, as if he wanted to touch her, and if that’s the case she really wants to know, because she’ll tuck it into a corner of her mind and pull out the memory when she’s feeling down on herself.

This beautiful man touched her on purpose.

This man who looks like the man she’s long had a crush on – Paul McCartney – with his doe eyes and thick hair, come to life right here in Terrigal.

Evie feels her heart rate quickening and she swallows and looks away.

Oh dear. Maybe Trudy was right – she should be careful.

Because this feels like desire, and she knows from reading romance novels that desire is inconvenient and essential and overwhelming and amazing, and she also knows that she has never felt it like this before.

‘Darl,’ Sam says, still bent over the photo.

When he calls the clients darl they titter, as Mary does now.

Then he straightens and puts a hand on Mary’s head. ‘I’m going to be blunt, darl,’ he says. ‘I’d love to see you keep this hair long.’

Mary opens her mouth and he holds up a hand.

‘I don’t care what hubby says. If he wants you to have short hair you can put it in a French roll from time to time, okay?’ He winks. ‘Long hair is something a lot of ladies want and can’t grow, isn’t that right, Evie?’

Now he’s turned to her, gazing into her eyes, and Evie swallows again.

‘Um, yes,’ she says.

‘So we don’t lose the long if we don’t have to, Mary.’ He pats her head. ‘But if you want to make some sort of change I’m sure Evie can work out something.’ He smiles at Evie as if she’s hung the moon, then goes back to his client.

‘Isn’t he lovely,’ Mary whispers, looking like a giddy schoolgirl.

‘He is,’ Evie whispers back, taking Mary’s lengths into her hands.

‘Now, let’s have a think about this.’ She gazes down and sees, in a way she hasn’t before, that Mary has lovely chestnut tones in her hair that could work well with some contrast. ‘How about we do some streaks in your hair?’ she suggests.

Mary blinks rapidly. ‘Streaks? Oh no, that’s for …’

Evie isn’t sure what Mary was going to say but she can guess.

‘For models?’ Evie says.

Mary nods.

‘They’re for other people too,’ Evie says. ‘And I reckon they’ll look great on you. Do you trust me?’

Now Mary smiles along with her nods. Evie grins back.

This is part of what she really likes about this job: making clients happy.

Her mother would tell her that she needs to make herself happy too – mums are always right about that stuff – and she does, but she’ll settle for making these ladies happy in the meantime.

As she heads to the back room to mix the colour she catches Sam’s eye and he smiles at her as if she’s made the sun come out. That makes her happy. He makes her happy. Which is a lot to put on a man she barely knows but she can’t help it. And she doesn’t want to.