Poetry Man. Melanie Schuster

I’ve started liking the silver, believe it or not. I have a friend in Chicago who has the most beautiful white hair you ever saw. It’s more like platinum, actually. By the way, she’s going to be down here in a few weeks. Would you mind taking her as a client? I know how busy you are.”

      “Of course, Ms. Lucie, I’d be happy to. Any friend of yours is a welcome client of mine.”

      “Wonderful! I’ll give her your card and let her know to call you. Her name is Vanessa Lomax and she’s a fascinating woman. I think you’ll like her.”

      Lucie chatted happily while Alexis parted her hair, applied the protective base to her scalp and hairline and then carefully stroked on the cream relaxer to the new hair that had grown since then. After she smoothed the relaxer with the back of a wide-toothed comb and she could see that the hair was sufficiently relaxed, Alexis took Lucie to the shampoo area and made her comfortable before rinsing her hair thoroughly and washing it with neutralizing shampoo.

      Lucie was perfectly content during the process. “Alexis, you have the most relaxing hands in the world. I have trouble staying awake when you start working on me,” she confessed.

      “I have magic fingers,” Alexis said cheerfully. It was true, her customers always told her how sleepy they got as soon as her hands touched their heads. It was sometimes a problem when she was giving a haircut, especially to a man. It wasn’t too bad with Lucie; Alexis was used to doing Lucie’s long thick hair and the older woman’s silence gave her time to mull over what she’d said about Alexis being married with children. She was so far away from that territory she didn’t even know if she wanted to venture that direction. Maybe it was better if she stayed right where she was, doing what she knew best.

      Her day ended long after it had begun, but Alexis was still wired up, and it wasn’t from too much coffee. It was part exhaustion and part frustration that was making her edgy. After the spa closed its doors that night, she had to have a talk with her almost-always-tardy receptionist. They had gone into Alexis’s office and Ava, the guilty party, started spouting off a long list of reasons why she was late. Unfortunately, she chose the one phrase that was guaranteed to drive Alexis batty.

      “See, what had happened was…”

      Alexis held up a hand and closed her eyes. Every time Ava started an explanation with “What had happened was,” the end result was usually an argument.

      “Ava, stop. Let’s not go there, please. You have to get to work on time if you intend to keep this job. Any job, as a matter of fact. You can’t expect your employer to fill in for you when you can’t manage to get to work on time. You’re way too casual about punctuality which is why you’ve lost so many jobs in the past.”

      A glimmer of panic went across Ava’s pretty face. “You can’t fire me. You told Mama you’d give me a job until I went back to school.”

      Alexis squeezed her eyes shut before opening them slowly. “Don’t play the baby-sister card, Ava. It’s only because you are my sister that I haven’t bounced you out of here on your fanny. You have a lot going for yourself, kid. You’re good-looking, you’re smart and talented. Why you can’t seem to pull yourself together and do something with all the gifts God gave you, I just don’t know. But you need to stop playing the victim and start living up to your potential. Start with something small, like getting to work on time,” she said pointedly, “then work your way up.”

      As usual, Ava didn’t seem to absorb anything that Alexis was saying. Her next words were proof of that. “Can I move in with you? Mama is driving me crazy.”

      “You know, doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity,” Alexis said as she picked up her purse and set the alarm. “You keep asking me that question and the answer is always the same. No, you can’t move in with me. And from what I hear, you’re giving as good as you’re getting in the crazy department. Mama isn’t thrilled with you, either. I’ll give you a ride home, but I’m not putting a roof over your head. Let’s go.”

      “Can I have that purse?” Ava, having ignored all the advice her sister doled out, was on to the next thing, in this case, a fabulous Louis Vuitton bag she’d coveted for some time.

      “Don’t beg, it’ll make people hate you,” Alexis advised as she turned into the driveway of her mother’s pretty brick home.

      “I’m not begging, I just want to borrow it,” Ava whined.

      “You don’t have to borrow it. You can have one just like it when you finish school and get a good job. Until then, Payless is having a BOGO. Tell Mama I’ll call her after my book club.”

      “Book club, swim class, work, aerobics classes, my God, do you ever just sit your butt down and do nothing?” Ava got out of the car and slammed the door a little too hard for Alexis’s taste.

      “I’ll have plenty of time for that when I’m dead. Slam my door again and you’ll be walking home from now on, heifer.”

      * * *

      The rain was pouring by the time Alexis left her book club meeting. She didn’t mind, she was used to driving in the rain, even a downpour like this one. The meeting had been stimulating and enjoyable as always, even though the book wasn’t her favorite genre. The books were funny and well written, but nothing Alexis could fantasize about. There was no way she could hook up with a vampire. It made her shudder to think about it. The idea of cold skin next to hers was daunting and the thought of somebody sucking blood out of her body was… A sudden thud made her snap back to reality. She stopped the car and checked all the dashboard lights to see if there was something internal going on with her vehicle. Finally she bowed to the inevitable and got out of the car with her little pink flashlight.

      Damn, damn, damn. A flat friggin’ tire! She hopped back in and reached for her cell phone. She hit the speed dial for AAA and waited to get through to a human. An eerily bright blaze of lightning preceded an unnaturally loud crash and her head almost hit her roof when a huge branch fell down in a shower of sparks, barely missing her hood. Crap. If it was like this all over Columbia, it could be quite a while before she got help. Alexis patted her chest in the vicinity where she imagined her heart was. She was normally quite calm, but the past few minutes had her really unnerved. That’s why she screamed when she heard the tap at her window. Of course, when she saw a pale face with deep-set pale eyes and stringy wet hair she yelped again. “A vampire!”

      The man looked puzzled and touched his ear to indicate that he couldn’t hear her, thank God. She didn’t need him thinking she was crazy; he looked nutty enough for both of them. She let the window down a bit so that she could talk to him, but she prudently locked the doors as she did so.

      “Umm, yes, did you need something?”

      He smiled a crooked, surprisingly sexy smile that did funny things to her while she tried to compose herself.

      “I think you need something,” he said. “I can see that you have a really flat tire and I can change it for you if you will open your hatch.”

      Okay, that wasn’t what she was expecting. “Thanks, but AAA is on their way. I’m fine.”

      “Well, they’re likely to be a while with the weather and all. I can get you up and running in about fifteen minutes,” he offered.

      Nice. The stranger outside her door was certainly a rock and the flat tire was definitely a hard place. This was how people ended up on those true-crime shows, accepting help from a stranger. He said he wanted to help her but he could probably gut her like a fish and string her entrails on the fallen branch in the road.

      “No, really, I’m fine,” she insisted. “Thanks for the offer, but I’m sure they’ll be along in a few.”

      “Listen, I understand you not wanting to trust a man you’ve never met before. I have two sisters and you’re doing exactly what I’ve told them to do. Tell you what. I’ll just wait in my car until they get here so that no one bothers you, okay? I’m behind you and I’ll stay there until your help