* * *
The courtyard behind their rental house was comprised of two squares—one of concrete supporting the rusty wrought iron table and two plastic chairs, and the other of thick St. Augustine grass in need of a good mow. Lily had been in charge of cutting the grass at the house she shared with her mom back in Fox Hill, but in Atlanta, she and Worth had employed a landscaping service that took care of all their lawn needs. Not only did they not own a lawn mower, but Worth had never learned to operate one. Needless to say, no lawn mower had made the trek to the rental house in Foley, but their patch of grass was so small Lily could have cut it with a pair of kitchen shears. Not that it mattered now. In three days she’d be gone. She just didn’t yet know where.
After dinner she sat in one of the plastic chairs and pulled her knees up to her chin. The air around her was tepid, like bathwater that had cooled just enough to make you want to get out and grab a towel. Above her she could barely make out the Little Dipper in the dark sky splotched with gray clouds.
Lily closed her eyes and ran her thumb across the paper resting in her lap. Help wanted. A flash lit up around her, and a moment later thunder rolled in the distance. The man who’d rung up her groceries at the store that afternoon had mentioned rain coming in. “After this, the heat will crank up. You just wait.” More thunder, louder this time, then a breeze as soft as a baby’s exhale lifted strands of hair around her face.
She lowered her knees and leaned forward on her elbows, staring at the piece of paper. She hadn’t given a real haircut in well over a year. Trimming her own floppy auburn waves didn’t count, and Worth always preferred to go to a ritzy gentlemen’s barber shop, one that offered steamy towels and a shave with a straight-edge razor.
Lily’s father had died when she was twelve, leaving her mother to try to make ends meet. As a house painter, her father had never made much money, definitely not enough to put any into savings, and after paying for the modest funeral, Lillian had to do something to keep the lights on. She started her salon with only a few female clients, offering trims and styles at their home in Fox Hill, a small mountain town fifty miles north of Atlanta.
Fox Hill was full of scrappy women who worked hard, mostly blue-collar jobs. Many of Lillian’s customers were waitresses, some drove buses, some worked at apple orchards or in nearby towns touted as “great family getaways.” Those women worked long shifts, then came home tired and bedraggled, and often found their way to Lillian’s salon for a haircut or just for the camaraderie. These were women who would rather go years without a cut than set a toe in one of the fancier places, those downtown salons offering ninety-dollar trims and a side of Botox.
Lillian made a place for these women. A place that felt comfortable, where they belonged. Her mother had a way with hair, drawing something out of a woman that had been hidden before. Something about the way she angled her scissors, brushed out a lock of hair, or added a curl or wave made her customers sit up straighter and lift their chins. They lost the hard edges around their mouths, their lips curving upward in a shy smile. Lily had seen it so many times, her mother’s magic.
As word of Lillian’s Place spread, more and more women came to the salon Lily’s mom had set up in the back room off the kitchen. The space was small but it had a big, light-filled window that overlooked the vegetable garden and the chicken house. As she was able, Lillian added a second chair, then a sink and a second dryer. What had started as nothing more than a way to make money turned into a respite, a bright spot in women’s otherwise hardworking days. The clean scent of shampoo and wet hair and baby powder against the simple dresses and worn shoes. The sharp snip-snip of her mother’s silver scissors, her prized possession. How she blew the lock of curls out of her eyes as she cut and pinned and combed.
Lily helped out after school and on weekends. She started with sweeping the floors, washing hair, and checking ladies sitting under the hooded dryers, but she was always watching her mother’s hands. As she learned the cuts and angles, the strokes and techniques, her mother let her do more and more, and when she was sixteen, she started cutting hair too. She even had some ladies request her when calling to make an appointment. Lillian was so proud. Every woman needs a gift, Lily, she said one day above the roar of a hair dryer. This is yours.
Thunder rolled, yanking Lily back to the present. A fine mist had begun falling from the sky, but still she sat. She wondered about the skill—the gift—her mother had been so proud for her to have. Would her mom still be proud knowing Lily had let that gift lie dormant for a year and a half? When she mentioned to Worth in the first year of their marriage that she was considering looking into renting a chair at a salon downtown, he’d been confused. “Rent a chair? And do what? Be a barber?”
“A barber is for men,” she’d said with a smile. “Women go to hairstylists. Salon Nouveau is a nice place. It’s where your mother gets her hair cut.”
“I know that, but don’t you think . . . Well, she might be a little embarrassed to have her daughter-in-law working at the place where she gets her hair done.”
“Embarrassed? What’s embarrassing about being a hairstylist?” When he didn’t respond, she shrugged. “Okay, so I’ll find another place. There are other salons around here. It’s not like I don’t have the time.”
“Lily, I— You don’t have to do this, you know. You don’t have to get a job. That’s why I work hard—so you can stay home.”
He never did understand that “staying home” wasn’t her goal. She’d been working for more than ten years by the time she met Worth, and sitting still wasn’t something she knew how to do.
“Look, if you really want to work,” he added when she began to object, “tell my mom. She’s been looking for someone to work in the front office a few days a week. You’d be perfect for it.” His tone indicated his pleasure at having solved the problem, and Lily let the matter drop. Now she wondered why she’d let it go—let her gift go—without a fight.
On the table next to her, her phone buzzed with a text. It was from Mertha.
When are you heading back this way? Harold probably can’t hold the house for you much longer.
Lily rubbed her forehead. Of course Worth’s mother knew the details of their corporate lease. She probably knew the details of their entire marriage. Possibly even where he was at this moment, although she’d denied any knowledge of his whereabouts every time Lily had asked.
The guesthouse will work for you just fine, her mother-in-law’s next text read.
Just until you and Worth sort things out.
Sort things out? The sorting had been done as far as Lily was concerned. And why was Mertha offering Lily a place to stay? Lily assumed Mertha would be glad to be rid of her, considering Mertha had never wanted Worth to marry her in the first place. Lily pressed the button on the side of the phone and darkened the screen. Then, on second thought, she opened the text message and tapped out a quick response.
I’m not coming back.
Mertha’s reply was instant:
Don’t be stubborn. Worth would want you back here with family.
Not family, Lily thought. Not anymore. If they ever were at all.