Modern Wicked Fairy Tales: Complete Collection (28 page)

Well, this was news. Rachel was stunned into
silence.

“Has it been that long since I’ve been in?
It’s been three months since it was final.” Nina followed her over
to the styling station, taking a seat, smoothing her skirt. “We’re
both dating again.”

“I didn’t know,” Rachel murmured, squirting
thick white lotion into her hands and kneading it through Nina’s
hair. It was shorter than her daughter’s, only shoulder-length,
more appropriate for a woman her age, but still long and thick. She
required a lot of the conditioner.

“Well, we didn’t tell anyone until it was
final.” Nina cleared her throat and Rachel saw her looking at her
left hand as if there was still a ring there to admire. She
remembered the thing—three carats, platinum, so shiny it could have
blinded any magpie coming to steal it.

“You have a daughter, don’t you?” Rachel
gathered Nina’s hair up with clips and covered it with a plastic
cap.

“Emma?” Nina smiled, relaxing a little.
“She’s with her father this weekend.”

Well that explained it. Rachel listened to
Nina talk about her date—an Illinois congressman. That was a step
up from a corporate lawyer, wasn’t it? Nina’s eyes seemed to ask.
Rachel didn’t say anything, she just led her client over to the
dryer and handed her a stack of magazines.

“Okay, I’ll be back in ten minutes. You stay
here and get conditioned.” Rachel smiled and turned the blower on,
raising her voice so Nina could hear her. “Your hair will look ten
years younger when the heat treatment’s done.”

“Ten years?” Nina touched the plastic cap
tentatively. “Can we do twenty? Then Emma and I could be
twins.”

Rachel laughed, setting a timer for ten
minutes and putting it on the counter behind Nina. “If I could do
twenty, I’d be a magician, not a hairdresser.”

“I’m sentimental about hair, I admit.” Nina
flipped through the magazines, choosing a
People
with a
smiling Brad and Angelina on the cover. “I haven’t let Emma cut her
hair since she was ten.”

“It must be very long.” Rachel swallowed,
remembering that a decidedly less hirsute Emma and her father were
waiting for her to return.

“It’s gorgeous.” Nina flipped the magazine
open, situating herself in the chair. “She wanted to get it cut for
some charity. I told her I’d write them a ten-thousand dollar check
before I let her cut her hair.”

“I’ll be back in ten minutes,” Rachel said
faintly, really realizing for the first time just how big of a deal
it was going to be when this woman found out what she’d done to her
daughter’s hair. Maybe she won’t have to know it was me personally,
Rachel thought as she swept past the stations and rounded the
corner. Then she saw Emma, sitting back in the chair, laughing at
something her father had said.

You’re a coward, Rachel Lange
.

She was. Here was this young girl who had
given up her mane of beauty as a sacrifice for a friend, who was
going to have to face Nina Malden at the breakfast table every day
with that fact, and Rachel was worried about one little
confrontation with the woman?

She touched her wig, checking the
adhesive—she did this obsessively all day long—and put on a
professional smile. “Are you ready to get your style on?”

Emma’s returning smile was radiant, making
her even more beautiful, and Rachel got to work, spraying her hair
down to wet it and picking up her scissors. The girl’s hair was a
joy to cut, thick and healthy and truly, as her mother had
remarked, just gorgeous.

“I bet you feel lighter,” Rachel
remarked.

“Loads. For so many reasons,” Emma agreed,
glancing over at her father. He sat back in the stylist chair, arms
crossed, just smiling. Rachel wondered if he was gloating, if this
was some sort of payback to his wife. Ex-wife, she reminded
herself.

“Your mother is going to kill me,” Jake
said, crossing one very expensive Prada shoe over the other as he
watched more of his daughter’s hair fall to the floor. “But I’m
pretty sure my life insurance is all paid up, so you’re set,
Em.”

“Very funny.” Emma rolled her eyes. “I’m
almost seventeen. It’s my hair. It’s my life.”

“In theory, that is correct.” Jake grinned
and looked at Rachel. “Hey, I bet you know my wife. She comes in
here to get her hair done.”

“Really?” Rachel’s scissors only stopped for
a moment before she decided to continue to play dumb. “What’s her
name?”

“Nina,” Emma piped up, holding her head
straighter when Rachel gently tilted her chin.

“Same last name?” If she was going to play
dumb, she might as well play really dumb, Rachel decided.

“Yes. Malden,” Emma offered again before her
dad could speak.

But Jake was quick to point out, “We’re
divorced.” He glanced at his watch and then back at his daughter.
“How much longer, do you think?”

“A few more minutes, not long,” Rachel
remarked. She was cutting Emma’s bangs.

“Dad, you’re not missing anything.” Emma
rolled her eyes again. She was quite good at it, but most teenagers
Rachel knew had perfected the gesture. “The game will be on DVR
when we get home.”

“But it’s the finals, Em!” Jake looked at
his watch again.

Rachel perked up. “Hockey?”

“Yeah.” Jake looked at her
speculatively.

“Game one.” Rachel positioned herself in
front of Emma, checking the sides of her hair, pulling them forward
to see if they were even. “Blackhawks and the Wings.”

“You like hockey?” His voice had changed
entirely, Rachel noticed. It had gone from that formal chit-chat
tone she heard all day to something more rich and warm, like
chocolate.

“Love it,” she agreed, picking up the blow
dryer.

“Me too.” Jake looked a little blindsided,
like he’d rarely come across a woman who loved hockey before.

Well, she supposed that might have been the
case, but she’d grown up with it. Her father had been a huge hockey
fan and she’d gone to all the games with him. It was his one
indulgence. He had been Rachel’s whole world, but he’d been gone
two years now. Cancer. Ah, life’s little ironies.

Jake’s words brought her out over her
reverie. “I’ve got season tickets.”

“Don’t tell me that.” Rachel sighed. “I
tried to get tickets to game two. I even went to the scalpers on
Craigslist, but no luck.”

“I’m not surprised.” Jake shook his head
sadly. “They’ve been sold out for a month.”

“I know—the Blackhawks and the Wings—such a
big rivalry.” Rachel turned on the blow dryer and talked over it,
using a rounded brush to style Emma’s hair. “They’re two of the
original six.”

Jake sat up, looking incredulous. “I
know.”

“I think my dad has a death wish,” Emma
remarked, a little non sequitur. Rachel gave her a puzzled smile.
“He’s a Red Wings fan living in Chicago,” the girl explained. “And,
you know, then he takes me to get my hair cut…” She shrugged in
that awkward way teenagers had, so caught somewhere between adult
and child, knowing it but not quite sure what to do about it.

“Well, if that’s the case, then you
are
brave, Mr. Malden,” Rachel teased.

“Jake,” he insisted, shrugging. “And I’m not
all that brave.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Rachel turned off the
blow dryer, combing out the girl’s hair. “I’ve met your wife.”

Jake laughed. “You have a point.”

Rachel grabbed the hand mirror off the
counter and turned Emma around in a circle in the chair. “But I
have to admit, I’m secretly rooting for the Red Wings myself.”

“Do you have a death wish too?” Emma asked,
looking at the back of her hair in the reflection of the hand
mirror.

“Hardly.” Rachel swallowed the irony of her
response and changed the subject. “How do you like it?”

“It’s so short!” Emma ran a hand through her
hair, fluffing it and cocking her head to the side. Her bright eyes
met Rachel’s. “I love it!”

“Truly lovely, Em.” Jake stood, pulling out
his wallet. “What do we owe you, Rapunzel?”

Rachel raised an eyebrow at the platinum
Visa in his hand. “Come on up front. You can pay there.”

This was the dangerous part. Nina was still
under the dryers in the back, facing the front of the salon, and
she could probably see the lobby from where she was sitting. If
Rachel didn’t want a big scene, she was going to have to get them
out of there—fast. She wrote the ticket up quickly and gave him the
total.

Jake gave a low whistle, handing over his
Visa. “And that was just a haircut. No wonder Nina spent a mint
here every month.”

“The price of beauty can be very high.”
Rachel smiled and ran his card, glancing over her shoulder. Nina
was still reading, that was good. But ten minutes was almost up and
the timer she’d set would be going off. She didn’t want the woman
to come hunt her down, that was for sure.

“Well it must be some sort of sign, both of
us being Red Wings fans in Blackhawks country.” Jake leaned on the
counter as Rachel waited for the authorization. Emma wandered
through the lobby, picking up a bottle of styling product and
reading the back.

“A sign of what?” She glanced over her
shoulder again, trying not to be too obvious. This time Nina saw
her. Damnit. She moved a little left, hoping to block her view of
Jake. “The apocalypse?”

“Could be.” He laughed. “Hey, I have an
extra ticket to game two…if you’re interested.”

Rachel handed his card back as the
authorization came through on the machine. “How much?”

“Free. You’d just have to put up with my
company the whole time, if you could stand it.” He took his card
back, slow, his fingers brushing hers and Rachel looked up in
surprise. His eyes were smiling but he had a nervous sort of look,
an expression she didn’t expect to see on his confident face.

She stared at him, forgetting everything,
including the receipt in her hand and the fact that this man’s
ex-wife had been sitting in the back of her salon while Rachel had
just willy-nilly lopped off a foot-and-a-half of her daughter’s
precious hair. “But that would be like…a date.”

“Yeah, that was kind of what I was
thinking.” His whole body posture spoke anxiety. If he’d been a
teenage boy, Rachel swore he would have been hopping from one foot
to the other like a two year old who had to pee. His nervousness
appeared more subtle—a shift of his weight, the way his card missed
the slot when he was trying to slide it back into his wallet—but to
her, it might as well have been a neon sign.

“Oh.” Rachel swallowed, considering the
offer. She hadn’t been out on a date in…god, she couldn’t remember
when. Two years? It wasn’t that she hadn’t had opportunities. And
she couldn’t be considered on the rebound anymore, since she and
Stephen had been broken up for five. He’d married a woman ten years
younger than they were and had moved to Georgia to be near the
girl’s family, last she heard. And it wasn’t that she didn’t like
men, because god knows, she did.

It was mostly work at
Rapunzel’s
that
had her so busy, keeping her from starting or, god forbid,
maintaining a relationship. At least, that’s what it had been
before she got sick. Now she had even more reasons for her
self-imposed exile.

But what harm was there, really? And this
was game two of the Stanley Cup Finals! The Chicago Blackhawks and
the Detroit Red Wings! Could she really turn that down? All these
thoughts ran through her head in an instant—but it was long enough
for her to hear Nina Malden calling out her name from behind and
Jake’s head to snap up in surprise.

“You’ve got a deal.” Rachel handed over his
receipt with a business card stapled to it. She’d quickly scrawled
her name and cell phone number on the back. “Call me.”

Jake took the paper and folded it, putting
it into his wallet. He opened his mouth to say something but Rachel
cut him off, speaking in a harsh whisper. “Your ex-wife is here. I
suggest you take Emma home. Now.”

Jake’s eyes widened and they both heard Nina
this time. “Rachel! My timer went off!”

“I’ll call you.” Jake grabbed Emma’s hand
and he practically dragged her out the door. She protested but they
were gone before Nina made it to the front of the store, looking
very put-out.

“My time’s up!” Nina announced.

Mine too, Rachel thought, watching Jake’s
retreating back. He was still holding Emma’s hand but they were
walking at a more normal pace through the mall, heading home.
Rapunzel’s
was located on the lower level of a high-rise
apartment complex in downtown Chicago, just one shop in the midst
of many. The residents didn’t have to go anywhere if they didn’t
want to. They had all the amenities located on the bottom
floor.

“Okay, let’s get you rinsed.” Rachel touched
Nina’s shoulder and turned her away from the store front, nudging
her down the aisle. “Sorry I missed the timer, I had to ring up a
customer.”

“Do you do everything around here?” Nina
inquired as she settled herself into a chair at a sink.

“Pretty much.” Rachel turned the water on
and began to rinse Nina’s hair. The woman started talking and
Rachel just listened—this time it was Hollywood gossip, something
about Charlie Sheen and a meltdown. That was easy to say “uh-huh”
and “oh really” to without too much effort, and that was a good
thing, because it took Rachel an hour to finish Nina’s hair to the
woman’s satisfaction and the entire time, she was thinking about
Jake.

That, and wondering what was going to happen
when Nina found out her daughter’s hair had been cut off—and that
Rachel had been the one to do it. While Nina herself had been
sitting at the back of the salon drinking cappuccino and reading
Cosmo.
Of course, that was probably nothing compared to what
the dragon-lady would do or say if Nina had known her hairdresser
was going to go on a date with her ex-husband.