Page 55 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
Given that they haven’t spent any more time together outside of the salon since they went to the movies, Evie suspects he has no idea she has a crush on him. Which is good on the one hand – the at-least-it’s-not-awkward hand – but bad on the other, which is the hand that desperately wants him to sweep her into his arms.
So she needs todo somethingin order to make him realise it. She’s just not sure what. Seduction has never been in her repertoire and she can hardly turn herself into Kathleen Turner overnight. The sort of confidence of a woman like that probably involves some kind of training class, or an older female relative who knows what’s what.
No, she just needs to be even nicer to him at work, and try to spend as much time with him as possible. Which is why she beams when he strolls in, smiling, not at her directly but close enough.
‘Good morning, lovely ladies!’ he announces as he heads for the back room, where he will leave the battered brown satchel he brings every day.
‘Good morning, Sam!’ some of the clients coo back, and Evie feels that pang of jealousy she always gets when another woman says his name, even if she knows that woman is not a legitimate rival for his affections. Which is the case for all of the retirement-home ladies, who are several decades older than him, for one thing.
‘Ev-e-lyyynnn,’ he singsongs as he brushes past her on the way to his chair. He started using her full name after their night at the movies. She doesn’t know why, and she doesn’t know how he knows she’s an Evelyn and not an Eve who added a syllable. Trudy had to have been the one who told him. Otherwise it’s a lucky guess, and as she hasn’t corrected him he’d presume, as he should, that he has the name right.
‘Such a character,’ says Mrs Behar, an irregular client. Some of the ladies come weekly, some fortnightly, some when they feel like it. The irregulars know the drill if they wander in without an appointment: regulars have first dibs on chairs so they may have to wait a while, but given most of them are well into their seventies or eighties they don’t have jobs or children to attend to, so they never object to waiting. It just happens that Mrs Behar is in luck today as a couple of the regulars haven’t turned up, or maybe they’re running late.
‘He is.’ Evie smiles as she feels Mrs Behar’s hair. She hasn’t done her hair before, which means she wants to get to know its texture before they start. Unusually for a woman of her age, the hair is not entirely grey – she still has quite a few dark strands. It’s long and straight, and Mrs Behar wears it in a bun, so Evie guesses she’s just having a trim.
‘So … a centimetre or two off?’ she asks.
‘No.’ Mrs Behar shakes her head.
‘No?’
‘All off.’
Evie’s mouth drops open. ‘All?’ She hadn’t planned on a complete makeover this morning.
‘I want it short.’
‘But …’ Evie picks up lengths that are healthy and in no need of chopping. ‘Haven’t you always had it long?’
Mrs Behar holds up a hand. ‘I’m sick of it. It takes me all night to wash.’
‘Oh … okay. So …’ Evie narrows her eyes as she looks at Mrs Behar’s face and tries to think of a cut that would suit her. She has a round face and a short hairstyle could make her look a little like mutton-dressed-as-lamb. Or, as Trudy would call it, having ‘a case of the mutts’.
‘You really want it all off?’ Evie checks.
‘I want it short and easy to care for.’
‘How about a bob?’
Another shake of the head. ‘No.’
Evie feels as if she’s dealing with a toddler: every answer isno.
‘All right. Well, I’m not sure having it really short will suit you. How about I chop it shoulder length to start and we take it from there?’
Mrs Behar purses her lips. ‘All right.’
Evie relaxes a little. Now she needs to get a tougher pair of scissors – cutting off that much hair requires something closer to shears.
When she returns with Trudy’s tough scissors, she notices that Mrs Behar is observing Sam, who is laughing as he chats to his client and Josie, who is no doubt about to wash the client’s hair, as that’s her usual job.
Mrs Behar sighs. ‘Bit of a waste, isn’t it?’
‘Hm?’ Evie starts brushing. She wants to see how much hair she’s dealing with.
‘That young man – Sam, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
