you like a side part on the left, correct?”
He nodded.
“And it looks like…are you having these strands near your temples colored gray?”
“Yes. They decided I looked more statesman-like with a little silver around the edges.”
Marly pursed her lips. “I don’t have anything with me to do color. All I can do today is a cut.”
“Isn’t that a shame. Guess you’ll have to see me again, won’t you?” His lips twitched.
“You know,” said Marly severely, “if you were anyone but the governor, and if you were even a smidgen uglier, I wouldn’t put up with you.”
“Even though you’re curious?”
“Who said I was curious?”
“Your eyes, your voice, your body language. The fact that you’re still here and haven’t run screaming out the door—even though you think I’m crazy.”
She glared at him. “I don’t think you’re nuts. I know you’re nuts.”
“We’ll see about that. History often repeats itself.”
Again, a shiver spiraled around her spine before dispersing into hundreds of tiny ions of unease. Marly dug her spray bottle of water out of her nylon bag and depressed the nozzle several times, soaking the man’s head.
“I guess that’s one way of telling me I’m all wet,” said The Hammer. “But by the way, if we’re going to ride into the sunset together one day, you should call me Jack.”
3
RIDE INTO THE SUNSET together?
“So you see,” Marly said later to her business partner Alejandro, “the guy is off his gubernatorial rocker!”
They stood on the salon side of After Hours, on the zebra floor cloth and in front of a tangerine wall. The spa was funky and colorful, with Italian glass lamps, walls of all colors and a distressed concrete floor painted to look like the ocean. Every time she looked at it, Marly felt a mixture of pride and horror: she had painted it, crawling around on her hands and knees to do every lovely little blue-green swirl. Ugh. She had, in fact, driven the design of the whole place, since she’d studied art during her three years of college and had a knack for interior design.
Alejandro stretched his six-foot-four, muscular frame. A yawn overwhelmed his classically handsome face. He rubbed the day-old bristle on his square chin and sipped at a beer, his treat for passing his business school exams and squaring the books. “Oh, I don’t know, mi corazón. If I didn’t think of you as a sister, I might fall into instant love with you.”
“Be serious!”
“I am.” He rubbed absently at an uncharacteristic stain on his elegant linen pants.
Shrieks of drunken feminine laughter rolled over them, coming from the pedicure stations in the back. Marly lifted an eyebrow. “Let me guess, the Fabulous Four are here? Aren’t they early?”
The Fabulous Four was a group of women in their forties who booked their appointments together each week and got blind drunk on After Hours’ wine. At first Marly had thought it was cute. But after an entire year, it was getting a little out of hand. The Fab Four took over the place and got so loud and raunchy that sometimes other clients complained.
“They’re all going on a cruise together tomorrow,” Alejandro explained. “So they moved their pedicures—and happy hour—back to lunchtime.”
“Did they fight over you, honey?” Alejandro was often in demand for hand and foot treatments, as much as he hated to give them.
“No—when I found out they were coming, I deliberately crossed myself off the book for that time slot.” He grinned. “Now, tell me more about the governor.”
Marly frowned. “He’s feeding me lines, and I’m not going to fall for them. How many times a week do you think he tells the story of his great-great-grandfather and the mail-order bride?”
“I’ll go to bed with him,” her coworker and fellow stylist, Nicky, said with a leer. “He’s hot…for a Republican. Yeow, baby! I’d leave nothing on the guv but one of those royal-blue neckties….”
Marly shook her head at him. “I don’t think he’s bent your way, Nicky-doll. And I didn’t get the feeling he’d care much for orange spandex, either.”
“Oh, gawd.” Nicky shook his blond hair. He was like Princess Di in drag, with a California accent and a lisp. “It’s back to the Internet for me, then. Did I tell you about my date last week? Finally, finally, I thought, yay, this guy is gonna be it. He was good-looking, head to toe Calvin Klein, makes tons of money as a designer. I was ready to marry him—Even though we’d have to go to Massachusetts to do it! And then he shows up wearing those plastic food-service gloves. He wouldn’t even take them off to shake my hand! Fuh-reak, freak, freak.”
“But, Nicky,” said Alejandro. “You wouldn’t know what to do if you had a normal date. You’d have no stories to tell us and nothing to complain about.”
“So true,” said Nicky with a frown. “Do you think I should see a shrink about this?” He wandered off, one hand on his spandex-encased hip.
Marly sighed. “He makes the governor seem normal, honestly.”
Alejandro laughed. “Don’t you mean Jack?”
“I’m not going to call him by his first name. And besides, even if I was dumb enough to fall for his lines, how can I ignore the fact that he’s been seen all over the state with that debutante…you know, the one they’re expecting him to marry, like, yesterday?”
“Carol Hilliard?”
“Yeah—the one in the pastel Chanel suits and the Ferragamo shoes.”
“Nobody’s seen a rock on her finger, Marly.”
“They’re probably still excavating it, all hundred carats, from Daddy’s diamond mine.”
“Meow!” Alejandro winked at her. “What has she ever done to you?”
“Nothing,” muttered Marly. “She’s just perfect for him and I’m not. Do you know the guy had never even seen blue toenail polish before? I guess it’s not fashionable among the little debbies.”
“Marly, chica. Why does it bother you that you’re not perfect for him?”
“It doesn’t.”
“Right. That would be why you’re obsessing.”
“I’m not obsessing! I was just sharing my morning with you. A morning that happened to include a half naked governor who’s a big flirt.”
“Ooooh, is he cut?” Nicky was back again.
“Um, well, yeah.”
“Six-pack?”
