Page 10 of Dependable Cowboy

But that didn’t ever have the chance to happen at Salon 406.

“Whitney Duncan is having twins. Have you heard?” Bonnie chattered to either Christine or Christine’s customer, she wasn’t sure which.

She knew her cousins had married into the Duncan family, but she couldn’t remember who this Whitney was.

“Yes, and now she’s on bedrest, poor thing. My little sister had to be on bedrest for all three of her pregnancies. It’s horrible. She about went stir crazy laying there. There’s only so much TV you can watch and sleeping you can do, you know? This was backbefore everyone had the internet at their fingertips, though. I can scroll on those reels sometimes and hours go by.”

Joy had seen it. Joy had done it. On those rare occasions when Kara would be at school while she’d been off from work, she’d scroll through social media site after social media site, but she’d been searching for her husband.

Maybe it wasn’t quite the same.

For that first six months of Wayne’s absence, she’d been religious about checking every place she could think of. She’d walk up and down any streets she knew he frequented, would people watch on the beach or in shopping centers, and would check in with the LAPD so often she grew to know several of them on a first-name basis.

Since then, however, much of that vigor had dissipated. As much as she craved the knowledge of what had actually occurred, if he had passed away in some sort of violent manner or if hecouldn’tcontact her for some reason, she didn’t think she could cope. That had been one of the most painful parts of this, how her imagination had tossed her a bunch of worst-case scenarios.

Although in those cases, he might not be such a reprehensible husband or father.

Maybe.

“Girl, you are just whipping that hair into a frenzy,” Christine remarked, and Joy blinked, realizing she’d been referring to her. She’d been teasing the ends of her customer’s bob haircut and gotten absolutely carried away.

She incorporated a few more minor moves and called her done, letting the lady go.

“That was amazing,” Bonnie agreed. “You make it look effortless.”

“Just plenty of experience,” Joy downplayed it. “I could probably curl, braid, and blow-dry people’s hair in my sleep.”

“You’re awfully young to have ‘plenty of experience.’ Not to pry, but how long have you been doing this?” Bonnie asked.

“A while,” she blew her off until Christine doubled down.

“You’re so young. Where were you working where you got that much experience?”

She braced herself. People had different reactions when they found out who her last employer had been. “I had to prep a lot of people every day. I had to be both swift and meet everyone’s exacting requirements.”

“You still haven’t explained where you worked,” Bonnie pointed out. Figured she wouldn’t let that one fly under the radar.

“I worked with actors and actresses on a set.”

“You mean like for a play?” Bonnie asked.

“More like a daily show.”

“For streaming? Or YouTube?”

“For television, actually.”

For once the entirety of the salon fell silent. “You worked on a television show?” It was Christine asking this time.

Joy nods. “It was a soap opera. Ever heard ofFutile Passions?”

“Heard of it? I grew up watching it,” Christine cried. “You did hair and make up for a real, live soap?”

“Just the hair. Unless there was some sort of emergency.”

“So who all did you work on?”

That next topic of conversation went on for the next hour. Joy had worked on the hair, weaves, or wigs of dozens of famous people, from the stars of the soap itself to the many guest stars and even sometimes the extras who filled up the background of a scene.

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