“That means shelter,” Rose had patiently explained. “Access to food. Medical care. Those are your basic necessities, and you have them here. Hair care is just . . . luxury.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” one woman had argued. “We’re in the prime of our life, with retirement dollars to spend, and if I want to be able to get my hair done twice a week, is that too much to ask?”
Rose had finally caved and recruited Beverly, a hairdresser from the Supercuts down Highway 59, to be the village hair guru. At the residents’ insistence and under Beverly’s direction, Rose agreed to outfit the bottom floor of one of the empty cottages with a hooded dryer, a swivel chair, and a basin sink for hair washing. Rose thought the matter was closed, but it wasn’t long before the residents started complaining of Beverly’s manner of work.
“She washes hair like she’s scrubbing a casserole dish and chops like a drill sergeant.” And that came from a male customer.
“You asked for a hairdresser and you got one,” Rose told them all. “Beggars can’t be choosers.”
They’d accepted Beverly’s particular manner of scalp cleansing and her back-to-basics haircuts because they had to, but when Beverly started talking about moving away to be closer to family, no one tried to talk her out of it.
After almost a year of no hair service, Rose agreed to hire another hairdresser, if only to quiet everyone’s ranting and pleading. Tiny Collins wasted no time slapping up flyers on every window and bulletin board from Loxley to Orange Beach. And now someone had answered the call.
She wanted to ask the woman on the phone what her qualifications were, but she’d included right there on the flyer, in black-and-white, “experience necessary.” The woman did say she used to cut hair, but Rose wouldn’t put it past a person in desperate need of a job to inflate trimming one’s own bangs into a full-fledged hairdressing career. If the woman was applying with no experience, then that was her own bag of bad apples.
With a hard knot in the center of her stomach, Rose agreed to see the woman at two o’clock.
* * *
Rose waited on the porch of the office at 1:55, cup of coffee in hand. When she saw the unfamiliar white car pull slowly into the small parking lot, she stepped behind a wide sago palm so she could get a stealthy look at the prospective employee.
The woman sat in the car for a long moment with the engine running. Sunlight glinted off the windshield, making her face a mess of shadows and light. All Rose could tell was that the woman was sitting very still. Finally she cut off the engine, opened the door, and stood.
Rose sighed. She didn’t know what she’d been hoping for, but it wasn’t this. Demure white blouse with short sleeves fluttering in the breeze, pale blue skirt, flat shoes. Hair the color of burnished copper pulled partly up on one side, revealing a curve of cheek and the soft scoop of neck. Young. Lovely.
Of course, Rose thought.
Rose watched her for a moment, then stepped out from behind the palm. “Over here,” she called.
The woman shielded her eyes from the sun with her free hand. “Rose Carrigan?”
“That’s me. I assume you’re the one who called about the hairdresser position.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Rose opened the glass door, but when she looked behind her, the woman wasn’t following. “We can’t very well do the interview out here in the parking lot. It’s too hot. You might as well come on in.”
Inside, the woman stood behind the chair across from the desk. “I’m Lily Bishop. Thank you for letting me come,” she said, lowering herself to the seat.
Rose brushed nonexistent dust off the surface of her desk, then clasped her hands together and sat back in the chair. She anchored her feet firmly to keep the chair from swiveling and aggravating her vertigo. “I have to admit, you’re not quite what I expected.”
Lily’s eyebrows rose a fraction. “Why’s that?”
“It just seems that someone so . . . young . . . would want to work with people your own age. Most of the people who live here are more than twice as old as you. You’re, what—twenty-five?”
It was probably frowned upon—if not downright illegal—to ask a potential employee her age, but Rose needed to know. She had a knack for correctly assuming other people’s ages, as well as their personality type, and the only time she’d been wrong on both counts was with the original Safe Harbor Village receptionist, the scandalous Miss Joan Temple. She was not going to be wrong again.
“Twenty-eight.”
Rose lifted her chin. “Ah.” Close enough. “As I was saying, the residents here are all decades older than you. Most are over sixty. We have one who just celebrated his ninety-first birthday. Are you sure you would be comfortable cutting hair in this environment?”
Lily opened her mouth, but it took a moment for her to formulate words. “So this is . . . What type of village is this?”
“Did you not see it on the sign? Safe Harbor Village is an active lifestyle community.” Rose enunciated carefully to make sure the girl understood. “There are no rules per se dictating that people must be over a certain age to apply for residence, but you would be the youngest face around here by . . . well, by a large margin.”
Lily nodded. Her hands were in her lap and she was twisting a thin gold band around her ring finger. Rose could already tell what was going to happen. Any second now Lily would stand, thank Rose for her time, and walk out. Why would a woman like her choose to work among a bunch of old coots in a moss-draped spit of land miles away from any kind of activity frequented by the young? Nope. Lily Bishop was not it. Rose had a hunch for these things.
Lily took a deep breath and sat up straighter in her chair. “That doesn’t bother me at all.”
Rose cleared her throat. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself. Your family, where you live . . .”
She smiled. “I’m from Georgia. Fox Hill. But more recently I lived in Atlanta. I moved here with my—” She stopped, as if the words froze on her lips, then exhaled.
“Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” She gave a little shake of her head. “I moved here with my husband—Worth—but . . . well, I’m on my own now.”
She waited, as if to give Rose a chance to comment, and when Rose remained silent, Lily continued. “My mother had a hair salon at the back of our house when I was young, and I started cutting hair when I was a teenager. My mom passed away five years ago. I kept the salon going as long as I could, but I ended up having to sell it, and I moved to Atlanta to look for another job. A way to support myself a little more securely. Instead, I met Worth.”
“I see,” Rose said, although she didn’t see anything clearly. Not yet, anyway. “I’m sorry about your mother.”
A small smile and a quick nod. “Thanks. It was quick. Unexpected. At least I didn’t expect it.”
“Yes. Death is always unexpected, even when we know it’s coming.” The words slipped out before Rose had a chance to bite them back. Lily’s eyebrows rose, recognition flooding her face. Rose mentally chastised herself for letting her guard slip. There was no need to invite personal confidences in a business interview.