Tansy Taylor (8 page)

Chapter Eight

“Okay, so what do you have on the agenda today?” Jeni asked, taking a steaming pan of Death by Chocolate brownies out of the oven. The smell of chocolate nirvana momentarily stunned me. She cleared her throat, and I shook myself out of the chocolate coma. It was Wednesday, and I was calling in ‘sick’ to work.

“Oh, right. So I have to take my car in to the shop to see why it keeps stalling out at stoplights and then I’m going to get my hair done. I think I need something different. Spice things up a bit. Any suggestions?” My hand involuntarily went out toward the brownies.

“Stop! You’re going to burn your hand!” Jeni smacked the back of my hand with her orange Martha Stewart rubber scraper.

“Can’t-help-it-must go toward the light” I stammered.

“No Caroline! Stay out of the light!” Jeni quoted one of our favorite drinking movies, Poltergeist, and burst out with another snort.

“No snorting!” I yelled. “You know that I have a weak bladder! I just changed into my playing sick but not really sick outfit!” I had opted for a comfortable yet slightly fashionable outfit of faded Levis, an old faded t-shirt and my favorite chocolate mid-length trench. This way, if I happen to run into someone out running an errand, or some other freak connection occurred I was prepared to explain myself. My story today was that my best friend in the world had to cancel her hair appointment and since it was my ‘Aunt Flow’ that was causing my suffering I sucked it up, doubled dosed the Pamprin, and drug myself down to the salon for a bit of pampering.

“Why do you always make up these elaborate stories when you call in sick? Haven’t you ever heard of a mental health day? No one expects you to ever not need to just get away for a day!” Jeni rolled her eyes at me.

I shrugged. “If I am not prepared, the worst will happen. I’m sure of it.” I watched Jeni cut the brownies and felt the saliva building up in my mouth.

“Why exactly did you have to bake these today? You just made cookies yesterday.” I asked as I reached out only to get my hand smacked by the spatula again.

“Staff meeting, and somehow a bunch of cookies from yesterday are missing. You wouldn’t know anything about that though, I suppose.” She narrowed her eyes and waggled the cooking utensil my direction.

I ignored the accusation. “What staff?” I squeaked. “It’s you and two part-time sales gals! I should automatically qualify for a brownie. I am critical in your success-I tell you what is good and what sucks.” I grinned and wiggled my eyebrows at her.

She huffed and then thrust the pan toward me. “Here, take a brownie for heaven’s sake! But mind the roof of your mouth, they are still hot and I am not liable for any burnt mouths! And, as for your hair, maybe a new color would be good on you. Think about it.” She took the pan back and resumed her work.

I stuffed the brownie in my mouth and it scorched the roof of course, but the chocolate tastiness made me go weak in the knees. “Awthum,” I said through my mouthful, trying not to drool.

“Here, take one for the road. But, remember, you must wait fifteen minutes for full potency.” She wrapped a brownie up in a doubled up paper towel and held it forth like a prized possession.

“What’s with the drinking game movie quotes this morning? First Poltergeist, now Miracle Max?” I accepted the brownie as instructed and knew it would be hard, if not impossible, to wait fifteen minutes.

I dropped my car off at my mechanic’s and then grabbed the MAX, Portland’s light rail system, to head downtown to the salon. I was being adventurous and trying a new one that Becca had suggested. My last hair stylist had run off to Mexico with her illegal boyfriend when he was arrested for possession, so, I was in need of someone new. I was slightly nervous as I got off the MAX and took a look around. I double checked the address that I had written on the back of a receipt. I appeared to be in the right place. Somehow I’d expected the location to be closer to the Northwest district, a nice hip trendy area of Portland, but instead, it looked like I had missed it by several blocks. There were bars on the windows here and what appeared to be someone’s cardboard home tucked into a slim alley. I had a block or two to go, so maybe things would look better when I got to the salon.

Nope, I thought, looking at the facade of the building. The sign read ‘Head to Toe’ and matched what I had written down. The receptionist told me on the phone I was lucky they’d had a cancellation; but there appeared to be only one other person in the salon.

Becca’s hair looks quirky, yet good, I thought; so be brave and try something new, after all, it’s just hair, and it grows back. I fingered my out of control frizziness and decided that if I was going to do this that I had better do it up right and go all the way.

Denize, the stylist, walked me back to her station after emphasizing that the correct pronunciation of her name was not ‘Denise’, but instead ‘Deneezzzz’. I was a little nervous since she had at least ten piercings in various visible body parts and at least twice as many tattoos. I consoled myself by thinking that it must be that she is just expressive of her creative soul. I sat down at her station and flipped open a week old copy of ‘US’ magazine. An hour and a half later, Denize told me that I was a new woman. I squared my shoulders, looked in the mirror, and screamed.

“I have pink hair!” I swiveled toward Denize and narrowed my eyes. “Denize, did I say anything about pink hair?” She shrugged at me and popped her gum, which, actually, was the same shade as my hair.

“You said you wanted something new and daring. Everybody has highlights and lowlights.” She gestured at my head with her scissors. “This is something new and daring.” Then she popped her gum again.

“Well, I would think that any rational person would know that unless I was specifically asking for a color outside the realm of normal hair colors that pink was not something I was considering!” I scowled at her and let out a low growl. “What did you do to my bangs? They are shorter than short!” My voice cracked as I gingerly fingered what was left.

Denize took on a defensive stance, her head starting to bob. “Hey! That’s how everyone who has pink hair wears their bangs!” I signed and sank back into the chair. She must have recognized my resignation.

“So, how do you like the rest of the cut?” She reached out and plumped the back of my hair, displaying the layering she had done. For once, my curls were behaving and I looked like I had a normal sized head.

“Hmmph. Actually, I like the cut.” I really did like it, aside from the extreme bangs and the pinkness of it all. She had taken about six inches off. Normally, I was afraid of short hair, my curls tended to go all crazy and I wind up looking like I have a gigantic ‘fro.

Denize shrugged again and started to sweep up around the chair. “Sorry if you don’t like the color and the bangs. I won’t charge you for the color, and you can come back in a week after your hair has recovered a bit and I will make you blond again.”

“Tell you what. I will pay for the cut now and the color when I come back and you can maybe make it a dark brown or something. Just not another non-hair color, okay?”

She smiled and popped her gum. “Deal. I think you’d look fantastic with really dark brown hair or maybe a dark cherry red.” I wasn’t so sure about the red, but the dark brown sounded nice.

“So why didn’t you do that in the first place?” I grumbled, pulling out my wallet. I paid her and then scrounged around in my backpack and found my REI baseball cap and pulled it on as well as a pair of oversized black glasses. Checking my reflection in the wall mirror I realized that I sort of looked like a rock star trying to be incognito. Cool, maybe I could use this to my advantage and find out some more about Buster.

“Thanks Denize, I’ll see you a week from Saturday!” I’d scheduled the appointment so that I wouldn’t have to fake a second illness. Crap, how was I going to explain my pink hair at work tomorrow? I’d have to think something up on the way to see Callie at the diner. My tummy grumbled and I realized a Reuben was sounding really good right about now.

I definitely got some attention on the MAX. Maybe pink hair was a turn-on. When I walked into Dixie’s, I really got some looks, but not the good kind. These were the disapproving looks from all of the grandmotherly types out for lunch. I sat myself at a booth in the back and kept my hat and glasses on.

“Hi there. Can I tell you today’s specials?” It was Callie standing in front of me, totally oblivious to the fact that it was me. I decided to try and push it to see how long it would take her to figure out it was me.

“No thanks. Reuben, extra thousand on the side, two pickles and a diet coke with lemon. Please.” I tried talking in a curt, no nonsense way that I would guess a disguised celebrity rock star might do.

“Okay. I’ll have your diet right out. Thanks.” Callie jotted it down and headed back toward the grill. Ah ha! I was unrecognizable!

Callie brought my drink, but no lemon.

“Hey! No lemon! I need lemon!” I pouted.

Callie turned back toward me and I thought for sure I was caught. “Oh, sorry! Be right back with that!” She spun on her heel and turned with a frown. She had dark circles under her eyes and I felt an awful stab in my heart. She had just lost the love of her life and here I was messing with her.

“Callie! Wait!” I called out as I peeled off my glasses.

“Tansy?” I couldn’t tell if she was just confused or if she was angry.

“Ya, it’s me. Sorry, I was testing out my new disguise.”

“Is that a wig?” The corners of her mouth turned up into a small grin. Phew, she seemed to be taking this all in good humor, but I still sensed exhaustion in her voice.

I grimaced. “No, unfortunately it is not a wig.” I pulled my hat off to reveal the full pink effect.

“Oh, my, it’s, well, um, very pink. I do like the cut.” She bit her lip, and I was pretty sure it was so that she wouldn’t dissolve into a fit of giggles. Well, at least I’d brought a tiny bit of brightness to her day.

“Ya, it’s very pink. Not exactly what I was going for when I told the stylist to give me something new and exciting. I can’t go back to get it fixed until next week though, so I have to live with it for now.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now?” She checked her watch.

I nodded, taking a sip of soda. “I called in sick, although, I think it may have backfired. Now I have to figure out how to go to work tomorrow without giving away the fact that I wasn’t really sick but playing hooky instead. I really just wanted a day for myself, you know. I have all this sick leave building up and well, I never get sick, so I decided to burn a day and treat myself.” I snorted. “So much for a carefree day, now I’m sitting here worrying about how to get back to work.”

“Well, don’t dwell on it now. I’m sure something will come to you.” A bell dinged in the background. “Oh, that’ll be your sandwich. Listen, I’ve got to work a double today, one of the other girls called in sick, so I can’t help out with the stakeout. Will you be okay?”

“Actually, I was thinking I’d go to the dealership with my new do and act like I’m interested in buying a car. If you didn’t recognize me, I doubt they will. And, I can use my own name even.” I took a sip off of my soda and noticed a couple of little old ladies in a corner booth whispering and pointing at me. I rolled my eyes; for goodness sakes, pink hair in Portland wasn’t that unusual.

“Sounds good. Be right back with your sammy so you can get on your way.” She hustled off in her cute white and teal waitress outfit.

I ate my sandwich all up, wishing I could lick the remnants of the Thousand Island off my plate. I leaned back into the cushy booth and rubbed my tummy. I’d better watch it though, with all the brownies and yummy sandwiches I could end up having to invest in a whole new wardrobe. I paid my bill and took off for the dealership.

It was a good thing I had to walk to Big’s because the Reuben was sitting in my gut and making me feel more like napping than investigating. I told myself I still had a couple of hours before my car would be ready so I should make the best of it.

I crept in from the side, trying to check out who all was working without drawing the sharks to me right away. I saw Ronnie inside, talking to Mr. Big. It looked like it was a pretty heated discussion. One of the other salesmen was out talking to a customer over a red convertible, and I saw one other shark standing off to the side; he appeared to be picking his nose. Gross, I’d try and avoid that one. I headed inside to see if I could draw Ronnie out. He liked to talk about himself, and appeared to be somewhat overconfident of his skills with the ladies. I was hoping I could use his arrogance to gain information. Maybe if I could get him to be interested in me as a potential date and not just a potential customer, I could get him to talk himself up even more and get some clues as to what was going on here; I was sure it involved money. Ronnie didn’t seem the type not to be involved in doing whatever he could to get a piece of the action. You didn’t have to be psychic to see that he would use every trick in the book to try and make a buck. He over typified a used car salesman, to the point that the tacky clothing and demeanor seemed to take on a bizarre attraction of its own. It was actually a very clever tactic.

I hustled in the doors, trying to act like I was in fact, in disguise. The fact that I’d worn my faded jeans and the trench jacket with kitten heel boots worked to my advantage. I’d rooted around in my giant purse and found a pair of my large hoop earrings and sunglasses. Along with the hat and hair, I really pulled together the rock star image. I was in fact quite impressed with my own ingenuity. I was even starting to like the hair; after all, without the pink hair, the look would not have worked anywhere near as well. I tugged my shirt down and hoisted my bra up to create some cleavage. I screamed incognito slightly famous with cash to spend.