Page 57 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

After she had Stevo over for dinner the other night, things shifted between them.

They’ve always communicated well but now it feels as if they’re in on something together.

Not romantically – that’s never going to happen.

Instead they appear to be co-conspirators.

It’s almost as if he wants to help her get a boyfriend, whether it’s Oliver or someone else, and she really wants Stevo to find someone as well.

At the end of that night Evie still wasn’t sure if she should give Oliver a go but it was good to know she had time available should she choose to. A few days later she’d made up her mind, and she called him. He sounded surprised to hear from her.

‘How have you been?’ she said.

‘Worried,’ he said.

She waited for him to continue.

‘I didn’t know if I’d ever hear from you again.’

‘Guess you can stop worrying, then.’

She swore she could hear him smiling into the phone.

‘So, um …’ She twisted the phone cord in her hand. ‘Would you like to come over for dinner one night? Billy goes to his father’s on a regular basis so, um, it would just be the two of us.’

She wanted to make it clear to him that this wasn’t a clubby get-together with a kid around. It was dinner. It was … a date, maybe? Or something on the way to a date.

Oliver accepted her invitation and sounded very happy about it, so he’s coming over tonight, which means she has to get away from the salon on time.

Stevo is picking up Billy from school so Evie can go straight home and start preparing.

She’s going to keep it simple: pasta and a sauce, and she’s made a cake for dessert.

Despite never having been that keen on cooking – maybe because she has to do so much of it for Billy – she loves the idea of cooking for Oliver.

‘It’s flat out today, isn’t it?’ Sam says as he passes by her chair, rolling his eyes. ‘Is every woman in town getting her hair done or something?’

Evie laughs. A few weeks ago she would have tried to decode what Sam was saying, in case it might have greater meaning for her.

He’s flat out – that must mean he needs someone to help him and she could be that person.

Now she sees that none of it is personal to her.

It never was. She just wanted it to be. She desperately wanted someone’s words and feelings to be about her.

But that wasn’t Sam’s business. It was hers.

She should never have put it on him. If anything makes her feel abiding embarrassment bordering on shame, it’s that.

‘Maybe there’s a big do on?’ Evie tries to calculate what might be going on around the place. ‘You know how some ladies get their hair done in advance and keep it away from water until the day.’

Anna walks in just as Evie goes to look up her next appointment.

‘Hello, stranger!’ Evie says ironically. Anna’s been coming in once a week, and they’ve taken to chatting on the phone sometimes too. Like proper friends. In fact, they are proper friends.

‘Hello.’ Anna beams.

Earlier this week Anna told her that she and Gary are talking more and that she’s happy about it. She looks relaxed. Her face has lost the tension it’s been holding for months.

‘How are you?’ Anna says knowingly – Evie told her about Oliver coming to dinner, and it was Anna’s cake recipe Evie used for her dessert.

‘I’m … good.’ Evie smiles bashfully. ‘Really good. Looking forward to tonight.’

Anna glances over to where Sam is throwing his head back with laughter at something a client has said. ‘Does he know?’

Evie shakes her head. ‘Not unless Oliver has told him.’

‘I bet he hasn’t. When a man is serious about a woman he keeps his mouth shut until he’s sure about what’s going on.’

‘Really?’

For some reason Evie doesn’t know these sorts of things about men. Oh, that’s right: the reason is that she hasn’t had that much experience with them.

‘Men are gossips, don’t get me wrong – but my brothers didn’t breathe a word about the women they ended up marrying before they were well into the relationships.

Unlike other girlfriends. Couldn’t shut them up about those.

’ She pauses. ‘It’s like they’re superstitious or something. And they say women are weird!’

Evie nods and puts a cape on her friend. ‘Wash and blow-dry?’ she asks.

‘Um … how much time do you have?’

‘Why?’

‘Do you have time to do a colour?’ Anna’s smile is bright and hopeful.

A colour usually requires notice, but Evie can hardly say no.

Doesn’t want to, in fact. She has a cut coming in about half an hour, which she can fit in while Anna’s colour is taking.

Then one more client in for a wash and blow-dry but Trudy might be able to help.

Mainly because Trudy knows about the dinner tonight and will support Evie trying to get away on time.

‘What do you have in mind?’

Anna holds her gaze in the mirror. ‘I’d like to know what you have in mind.’

Evie thinks about this. Typically the clients have their own ideas for their hair, even if Evie doesn’t agree with them.

One lady wanted to go russet even though it really didn’t suit her skin tone, which Evie gently told her; once it was done she blamed Evie for the fact she looked sallow, and Evie then had to spend another hour fixing the colour with more chocolatey tones.

However, she’d prefer the clients make their own decisions as opposed to her having to do it.

Choosing a colour for a client is a lot of responsibility.

Especially when she knows the client well.

She swallows and looks at Anna’s brown hair, which is an average sort of brown, nothing remarkable about it.

Which can be good: it’s kind of like a blank slate.

But a woman who’s had an average hair colour her entire life usually doesn’t want to stand out.

Which means your options, as her hairdresser, are limited to mildly enhancing the average colour.

Except she doesn’t think that’s what Anna wants. A woman who didn’t want to stand out would not have kicked her husband out of the house.

‘You could go blonde,’ Evie says.

Anna’s eyes widen. ‘Ooh. Really?’

‘Sure,’ she says with a shrug. ‘It would suit you. Your eyes are blue and the blonde would make them pop more.’

‘You mean … blonde like Lady Di?’

‘Diana is quite blonde,’ Evie says, picking up some strands of Anna’s hair. ‘I’m thinking we start with some highlights and see how you like them. Then if you want to go blonder we can do it gradually. It’s better for your hair if we don’t go too hard too fast.’

‘I trust you,’ Anna says in such a way that it makes Evie smile. They didn’t know each other even a few months ago. Now here’s Anna saying she trusts her. Not that long ago, in the grip of her fantasies about Sam, Evie didn’t even trust herself.

‘Thank you,’ Evie says. ‘I’ll do my best.’

‘I know.’ Anna smiles then sits further back in her chair. ‘Let’s do it.’

They chat while Evie does the streaks, and after Sam’s seen his client out the door he comes over.

‘Going blonde – I thoroughly approve,’ he says with a wink to Anna in the mirror.

‘Says the man with the darkest hair in town.’

He pats his layered head of hair. ‘I may get streaks one day. Summer’s coming.’

‘Then I’ll do them for you,’ Evie says with a smile.

‘Wouldn’t want anyone else,’ Sam says, then he quickly kisses her cheek before moving away.

‘I heard that!’ Trudy calls.

‘I’ll let you wash them out,’ Sam says as he heads for the back room.

‘Lucky me,’ Trudy says then goes back to her client.

Anna catches Evie’s eye in the mirror. ‘Call me tomorrow and tell me how it goes,’ she says in a stage whisper.

Evie smiles and nods. ‘First thing.’

By the time she leaves, she practically walks on air back to her house.

It takes her a while to work out why: she has something to look forward to.

Something real. Not her fantasy of what might happen.

Not her need for something amazing to change her life.

She has a man and a dinner and anything could happen, and the uncertainty is delicious.