The Prince Charming List (9 page)

“Do
you
have a list?” I turned this into a
What Would Jesus Do
moment and answered her question with a question.

Bree cleared her throat. “A believer. Helps my dad. Likes horses and isn’t afraid of them. Has good personal hygiene. Employed.”

Those were her Top Five? Bree
was
practical. Employed wasn’t even on my list. In my defense, though, I’d written the list when I was sixteen and only updated it once since graduation. It wasn’t too late to add an amendment.

“Okay, your turn. Spill it.”

“Intelligent. Sense of humor. Loves to read. Adventurous. Not afraid to show affection.” I took a breath after my Top Five and decided I might as well keep going. When Bree’s eyes began to glaze over, it clued me into the fact that maybe my list was a wee bit longer than hers.

“You have the whole thing memorized?” Bree asked carefully when I finished.

“I may have forgotten one or two.”

“Your list is really…detailed.”

Wait a second. Did she mean detailed as in you’ve put-a-lot-of-thought-into-this or detailed as in picky? Unrealistic? It’s never gonna happen?

“It could be subject to change, I guess.” I bravely straightened my shoulders. “Tell me the truth. Is one of them too extreme?”

Her slight hesitation told me there was more than one.

“The
he knows exactly what kind of gift to buy me no matter what the occasion?
” Bree bit her lip. “I’d let that one go, Heather. A guy who knows that wouldn’t be the kind of guy who asks a girl to marry him.”

Maybe she had a point. “And? Come on. I can tell there’s more.”

“This is
your
list. I’m not going to tamper with it.”

“Bree!”

“All right. Maybe the
isn’t afraid to wander into the purse department with me.
”

“Unrealistic?”

“Totally.”

“I’m sticking to the
no pierced tongue
.”

“That’s okay. I’m adding it to mine.”

When we got back to the farm, Elise, Bree’s mom, was waiting for us with a plate of brownies and a pitcher of lemonade. I told her about Bernice’s phone call while we sat on the porch swing, but when Bree started yawning at the end of every other word, I knew it was time to go home. On the way to my car, I checked my cell. No messages. No missed calls.

Jared and I had spent only one evening together and I wasn’t supposed to be this disappointed he hadn’t called back.

When I got back to the apartment, my breath whooshed out of my lungs when I saw something propped against the door. A canoe paddle. Right next to it was an extra-large can of bug spray. I couldn’t prevent a giddy smile, especially after I read the words he’d scrawled on the paddle in permanent marker.

Should we try it again? JW

M
onday morning. Everyone complains about them, but Mondays hadn’t gotten to me yet. Maybe it was because I’d only worked one. I had a full week at the Cut and Curl behind me and life had already begun to ease into a routine.

At seven forty-five I’d go down to the Cut and Curl and start the coffee. The three-minute brewing time gave me a chance to scoot over to Sally’s and buy a raspberry Danish. When I got back to the salon, I’d turn the radio to WSON, which I could count on to provide a soothing background of uplifting praise and worship music. It also put me in the right frame of mind for the next thing on the agenda—listening to the messages on the answering machine. This usually meant I had to do some creative rescheduling of appointments. I was amazed at the drama that took place in Prichett between closing time on one day and eight o’clock in the morning on the next.

The messages the women left were usually long. And way too honest. They were rescheduling a haircut, not an international summit with world leaders. I didn’t need to know that my eight-thirty had been up all night helping a cow (insert detailed description) give birth, my ten-o’clock was weaning her baby off breast milk and couldn’t get her to take a bottle (okay, I know it’s perfectly natural,
but still
) and my eleven-o’clock was experiencing a hot flash strong enough to “melt the polar ice caps.”

Sometimes I think they forgot that I was the one listening to the messages instead of Bernice.

Sure enough, when I opened up the salon, the light on the phone was blinking. I ignored it because I was running a few minutes behind schedule. Maybe because I’d spent more time than I should have staring dreamily at the canoe paddle I’d propped next to the window. Now I had to sprint to Sally’s if I wanted my Danish.

Dex was sitting at the counter when I walked in. I knew he saw me, because his eyes shifted in my direction but he didn’t even say hello. What was it with this guy? Maybe he just wasn’t a morning person.

“Hi, Dex. Kitchen cupboards today, right?” I sat down next to him and gave him a friendly smile. Burning coals, you know. It’s biblical.

“I’m going to use one of these.” Dex fished around in his pocket and dumped a handful of crumpled paper in front of me.

Paint samples. And every single one of them was a variation of the color beige. Sand. Linen. Wheatgrass.

Three strikes and you’re out, Dex.

“I was thinking of something with more visual impact.”

“Visual impact?” He blinked owlishly behind his glasses.

“Something a little more…jazzy.”

“Jazzy?”

How to put this in words he’d understand? “Something with
color,
Dex.”

“Sure.” He rubbed his hand across his face in the same weary gesture I’d seen my dad use after he worked all night. Maybe Dex was rude and antisocial, but I felt a rush of sympathy for him. He had more part-time jobs than my aunt Jackie had Hummels.

Sally swept out of the kitchen and snapped a kitchen towel at me, her sentimental way of saying hello.

“Hi, Sally. The usual.” This was something I had to tell my parents. I, Heather Lowell, had a usual. I didn’t know this until I hurried into the café last Thursday morning and Sally asked if I wanted
the usual.
In the Cities, I’d gone to the same coffee shop for six months and ordered the same thing—a French vanilla latte—but every single time the girl behind the counter stared at me like she’d never seen me before.

Small towns were great. There was camaraderie. There was depth. There was loyalty….

“Sorry, Heather. You’re running a little late today. I sold the last raspberry Danish to your friend here.”

So maybe there wasn’t loyalty. “Blueberry?”

Sally shook her head. “Marissa stopped in a while ago, muttering something about meals not being in the contract, and bought half a dozen. All I’ve got left now is prune.”

Dex snickered into his glass of Pepsi. Now there was a palate-pleasing combination—raspberry Danish and soda.

“Prune’s good for you.” An elderly man one stool down from me suddenly leaned closer. “Keeps things moving.”

Gross!
That pearl of wisdom I could have done without.

“Um, no thanks, Sally. I’ll just have a bagel and cream cheese. Please.”

Dex and I ended up walking out of the café at the same time. He strode ahead of me even though we were going in the same direction. To the same place.

“What’s your rush?” I couldn’t resist giving him a hard time as I tried to keep up. “Are you late for your morning nap?”

He didn’t even glance back at me. “I have to go to the hardware store and pick out some paint with
visual impact.
A guy shouldn’t even know what that means.”

I found myself laughing. Despite his evil snicker over the prune Danish. “It’s good to expand your vocabulary. Think of it as your word for the day.”

“Peace and quiet. How’s that for a word of the day?” He veered off course and headed across the street where his Impala was parked.

“That’s
two
words!” I shouted.

“So is visual impact,” he shouted back.

Argh. He was right! I had this terrible habit of needing to get the last word in, but this time I didn’t get the chance. Dex practically dove into the driver’s seat and pulled the door closed.

“Chicken!” I huffed at the car’s retreating bumper. “That’s one word.”

Amanda Clark was my last appointment for the day. She was so quiet I didn’t even hear her come in but suddenly there she was, sitting in the chair next to the coffeepot. She looked like she was in her mid-to-late thirties but judging from the clothes she was wearing and the uneven blond stripes in her hair, she was still a hostage to the eighties.

“Mrs. Clark?”

She nodded and ventured over.

“I’m Heather Lowell. I’m managing the Cut and Curl for Bernice this summer.”

“I heard that.” She glanced at me once and then looked away.

“Sit down.” I grabbed a plastic cape. “Did you have something specific in mind today? I have you down for a cut, but you are the last appointment…” This was a broad hint that I was willing to stay longer if necessary.

“I don’t know.” Amanda wouldn’t look at herself in the mirror and her fingers drummed nervously against her knees. “I have a job interview tomorrow.”

“So you want to update your look.” Maybe she hadn’t said that
exactly,
but I could read between the lines. “We can do that. Where is your interview?”

“At Whiley.”

Whiley Implements. It was tedious, repetitive work but I knew there wasn’t much to choose from in Prichett. The truth was, she could probably get away with the same hairstyle she had now, but it wouldn’t hurt to boost Amanda’s confidence a little. She looked like she could use it.

“Your natural color is auburn, isn’t it?” I could see the pretty autumn tones hiding underneath the ten-dollar dye job.

“Kind of. Mostly it’s just brown.”

“What do you say we try an experiment? Go back to your natural color but add some gold highlights just to kick things up a notch?”

Amanda moved listlessly. “I don’t care.”

She didn’t care? I had women who watched me mix up their hair color with the intensity of a chemistry professor grading a graduate student’s final project.

Lord, what’s going on here? Please let me know if there’s something I can do for Amanda.

I hate to admit there are times I complain that God is slow to answer. I know He wants me to be faithful in prayer and that’s why answers don’t always come as quickly as I’d like them to, but in this case His response time was pretty good. In fact, it was
immediate
. There wasn’t a mysterious hand jotting something on the wall or anything. Just a divine nudge that told me to look. So I looked.

Amanda was rubbing her ring finger. Only there wasn’t a ring there, just a barren strip of white skin visible against her tan. Where a wedding ring must have been recently.

Panic set in. I had nothing. And I’d never watched Oprah or Dr. Phil so I couldn’t even fake it.

Okay, God, I can see she’s hurting, but what can I do besides give her some highlights and a ten-percent discount?

This time I didn’t get the answer as fast. As a matter of fact, I didn’t get one at all but I knew about faith. And faith meant that even when God was silent, He was still there. I wasn’t in this alone. So I did what I could. Which was talk.

“I remember my first job interview,” I said. “It was at the Fun Fruit Factory, a smoothie shop in Minneapolis. I was so nervous I changed clothes three times that morning, but when I got there I found out the newest employee had to wear the smoothie suit. They stuffed me into a rubber costume that looked like a smoothie glass, pushed a gigantic strawberry on my head and turned me out into the mall to see how many people I could draw in. Fortunately my mom was lurking around outside and pretended she was a customer or I may never have become one of the frozen chosen.”

“How old were you?”

“Sixteen. I only had to wear the costume for a day because it turned out I had sensitive skin and the latex made me break out in hives.”

“That’s the last time I had a job, too.” A smile flickered in her eyes. “Believe it or not, my first job was washing dishes at Sally’s. Only her parents owned the place then.”

“So you’re a stay-at-home mom?” That would explain why she’d been out of the workforce all these years.

The silence that stretched between us was so long I didn’t think Amanda was going to answer. Then she shrugged. “My youngest is leaving for college in the fall and my divorce was final last month. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure
what
I am anymore.”

I said the first words that came into my head.

“That’s easy. You’re Amanda.”

“It’s only easy when you’re what…nineteen or twenty?”

My eyes met Amanda’s in the mirror and for the first time I saw some emotion in hers. Anger. Oh, well. Anger was better than numb and I got the feeling it wasn’t directed at me.

“Twenty-one. And believe me, this isn’t the easiest age, either. Everyone thinks I should know exactly what I want to do with my life.”

“Aren’t you doing it right now?”

Good question. And one I didn’t have an answer for. Yet.

By the way—still listening, Lord!

“This is what comes easy for me, but I’m still not sure it’s what I’m supposed to be doing. I keep asking God to show me where He wants me to go. I’m going to be like that widow in the New Testament who keeps bugging the judge until he answers her.”

As soon as I said the words, I wondered if mentioning God was a no-no. This was where my tendency to talk first and think later got me into trouble. When Paul talked about spiritual gifts, I knew the gift of gab wasn’t included on the list.

Amanda didn’t seem offended. “I always thought it would be fun to own my own café. Not like Sally’s—one of those cute little places with comfy chairs and books everywhere.”

“There are foundations that help women start small businesses.” I knew this because Mom served on the governing boards of several charities in the Twin Cities and she always kept me up to speed on what she was doing.

Amanda’s entire body jerked like I’d poked her with a curling iron. “I’m forty-two years old. I can barely afford to send my son to college let alone go back to school myself.”

“But you’ve got an interview with Whiley Implements tomorrow,” I reminded her.

“There’s only one opening.” The weary look came back in her eyes. “And I heard there’s over a dozen applicants. I probably don’t have much of a chance.”

You’ll have even less if you can’t look the interviewer in the eye.

The verse in Psalms about God being the One who lifts our heads unfurled in my memory. I wondered if Amanda had ever heard it, but she didn’t know me so I wasn’t sure how to tell her without sounding like an infomercial spokesman pushing health supplements.

Maybe I didn’t know how to encourage her, but I could make sure she stood out during that interview. God was the one who could influence Amanda on the inside; my specialty was the outside.

There you go, Heather. Changing the world, one haircut at a time.

I plunged back into the conversation. “What are you going to wear tomorrow?”

“Wear? I hadn’t thought about it.” She blinked down at her oversize T-shirt and gray leggings. Which she was wearing with plastic flip-flops. Shudder.

“Okay, we’ll do a virtual inventory of your closet while we’re waiting to rinse your hair. And don’t leave anything out, not even the whitewashed denim jacket with the plaid collar and cuffs.”

Amanda laughed out loud. “How did you know?”

“Mom refuses to part with hers. I’m going to start wearing it as vintage pretty soon.”