Page 23 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
She heads back to the salon floor and once again catches the eye of Evie, who is frowning.
‘All good, pet,’ she says, thinking that perhaps Evie needs to be reassured about their new staff member, then she turns to greet the next client coming through the door.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sam has only been working at the salon for a few days but Evie feels as if they’re old friends. He’s very good at putting people at ease. He flatters the clients, telling them he’s happy to see them, or that he likes their shoes, asking about their weeks, their families, their hobbies. It all seems sincere, that he is genuinely interested. Or at least that he looks for the best in everyone and finds it.
The other day he made even their grumpiest client, Mrs Klein, smile, and after she left, Trudy let out a whoop.
‘Sammy-boy, you worked a miracle!’ she cried, to his puzzlement.
‘She’s been coming here for years,’ Evie explained. ‘And not smiled once.’
‘Until today.’ Trudy kept combing out her client. ‘Isn’t that right, Babs?’
‘Sure is,’ Babs said. ‘She’s a terror, that Enid.’
‘That might be a little harsh,’ Trudy said, laughing.
Babs turned around so she was looking Trudy in the face. ‘You try playing her at bowls then tell me what you’d call her.’ Babs then nodded her head once and turned back around, picking up her cigarette.
Sam was working next to Evie, so it was she who saw his big smile.
‘That’s nice,’ he said softly.
‘It’s more than nice!’ Evie said. ‘It’s a miracle!’
He’d laughed, then given his full attention to his client.
Today he came in literally with a spring in his step. He starts at ten o’clock – part of the reason why Trudy wanted to take him on was so he could stay later in the day for the clients who need their hair done for a night out, so he starts later accordingly. It’s Trudy’s new thing: offering blow-dries only. Clients were asking for them. Evie thinks it’s because of the TV shows – all those American actresses have blow-dries. So the Central Coast ladies all want the Krystle Carrington. Well, blow-dries takes work so they all come back wanting Trudy or Evie or Sam, now, to make it look like it did that first day they got it done. Which is good for business, not so good for their hair with all the heat.
‘Morning!’ Sam called as he arrived, handing Trudy a bunch of flowers.
‘What are these for?’ Trudy asked.
‘For you. For the salon. I love having flowers around, don’t you?’
Trudy agreed. And so did Evie, although she didn’t say so, just silently marvelled at a man who could appreciate flowers. She’s long thought that kind of man didn’t exist. Her father never brought her mother flowers, even though her mother loved them. And Stevo … well, they didn’t reach that flowers stage, which is funny, considering they managed to conceive a child together.
‘How are you, Evie?’ Sam said as he wandered her way. ‘Did Billy go off to school okay?’
He knows all about Billy, and asks after him, and her, every day. No one has ever been this interested in her – including her own family members – and while she knows Sam is likely being polite, his conversation isn’t just about the comings and goings in her life. He wants to know more, go deeper. It’s flattering. It’s …
She doesn’t know what it is. When he looks at her with those big brown eyes and that thick, impressive hair, his square jawand his high cheekbones and his perfect eyebrows … No, she can’t think about him like this. They work together.
Besides, Trudy has noticed.
‘Listen to you, chatterbox,’ she said yesterday with this funny smile. They were in the back room and Evie was checking their supplies so she could do an order.
‘Hm?’ Evie kept looking in the cupboard.
‘I think you’ve said more to that bloke in a week than you’ve said to me the whole year.’
That made Evie stop, because she hadn’t realised she’d been talking that much, or that anyone was paying attention, and it made her feel a little embarrassed, like she was in Year 9 when her friends found out she had a crush on this guy Jason who arrived during second term. And they found out because she couldn’t hide it. Everywhere he went, her eyes followed. She embarrassedherself, forget her friends doing it for her. But they did. Eventually Jason found out and he avoided her, which was worse. She hasn’t had a crush since, and she’s not sure if it’s because she hasn’t met anyone crush-worthy or if she just pushed down that part of herself. Stevo didn’t count, because they kind of slipped and fell on each other.
‘Oh,’ she said in response to Trudy.
‘Be careful there,’ Trudy said, but it didn’t sound like a warning. Just a friendly note. Or perhaps that was how Evie wanted to interpret it.
