The Liar

Four of the six hair stations were working, and two of the four pedicure chairs were occupied. She saw two women getting manicures and glanced at her own nails. She hadn’t had her nails done since right before Christmas.

While the Relaxation Room stood as a sanctuary of quiet, the salon rang with voices, the bubble of footbaths, the whirl of dryers. Five people called out to her—three beauticians, two customers—so she got caught up in conversations, acknowledged offers of sympathy and of welcome before she found her grandmother.

“Perfect timing. I just finished doing Dolly Wobuck’s highlights, and my next appointment canceled, so I’ve got time to give you a facial. Go put a robe back on.”

“Oh, but—”

“Callie’s fine. She and Chelsea are having a tea party, with costumes. Ada Mae said they hooked together like two links in a chain and reminded her of you and Emma Kate.”

“That’s good to hear.” Shelby tried not to think of that cool look in the eyes of her childhood friend.

“She’ll have your baby home in a couple hours. That’ll give you time for a facial, and us time to talk.” Viola tipped her head, and the light through the front window tipped gold in the red. “Vonnie did you some good, didn’t she?”

“She’s wonderful. I don’t remember her being such a little thing.”

“Takes after her mama.”

“She may be little, but she has wonderfully strong hands. She wouldn’t let me tip her, Granny. She said Mama had seen to it, and anyway, we’re family.”

“You can tip me by giving me an hour of your time. Go on, get a robe on. The facial rooms are in the same place. We’ll be in the first one. Get!”

She did as she was told. She wanted Callie to make friends, didn’t she? To have someone to play with, to be with. It was healthy and right. And foolish to feel so anxious because she was spending the day at her grandmother’s salon.

“I’ve got just the thing for you,” Viola said when Callie came in. “It’s my energizing facial. It’ll give you and your skin a boost. Just hang that robe on the hook there, lie down here and we’ll tuck you up.”

“This is new, too. Not the room, but the chair, some of the machines here.”

“If you want to be competitive, you’ve got to keep up.” Viola took out a bib apron and tied it over her cropped pants and bold orange T-shirt. “I’ve got a machine in the next room that works on lines with electrode pulses.”

“Really?” Shelby slipped under the sheet onto the inclined chair.

“Only two of us trained to use it for now, that’s me and your mama, but Maybeline—you remember Maybeline?”

“I do. I can’t remember a time she didn’t work for you.”

“Been some years, and now her girl’s working here, too. Lorilee’s got the same good touch on nails as her mama. Maybeline’s training on the new machine now, so we’ll have three can use it. Not that you have to worry about lines for some time yet.” She laid a light duvet over the sheet, then banded back Shelby’s hair. “But let’s have a look at things. Your skin’s a little dehydrated, baby. Stress’ll do that.”

She started out with a cleanse, her hands soft as a child’s on Shelby’s face.

“There are things a girl can tell her granny she might not say right out to her mama. It’s that safety zone. And Ada Mae, she looks at bright sides, she’s blessed with that outlook. You’ve got trouble, and it’s not grief. I know how grief looks.”

“I’d stopped loving him.” She could say it out loud, with her eyes closed and her grandmother’s hands on her face. “Maybe I never really did love him. I know now he didn’t love me. It’s hard knowing that, hard knowing we didn’t have what we should have and he’s gone.”

“You were young.”

“Older than you were.”

“I got awful lucky. So’d your grandpa.”

“I was a good wife, Granny. I can say that and know it’s true. And Callie—we made Callie, so that’s something special. And I wanted another baby. I know maybe it’s wrong wanting another when things aren’t the way they should be, but I thought maybe it’s just how it would be, and it was all right. It could be good if there was another baby for me to love. I had such a hunger for another baby, such a yearning in me.”

“I know that hunger well.”

“And he said that was fine. He said it’d be good for Callie to have a brother or sister. But it didn’t happen, and it happened so easy and fast the first time. I had tests, and he said he had tests.”

“Said he had?” Viola repeated as she worked a gentle exfoliant into Shelby’s skin.

“I . . . I had to go through all his papers, and his files after. There were so many things to go through.”

Lawyers and accountants and the tax people, the creditors, the bills and debt.

“And I found a doctor’s receipt or invoice, whatever. Richard, he kept everything. It was from a few weeks after Callie was born, the time I brought her home, her first visit, and he said he had a business trip. He was so good about us coming home, he made all the arrangements. Private plane and a limo to get me to it. But he went to a doctor in New York and had a vasectomy.”