Page 127 of Never Forever
Though maybe I already was? This was all too confusing!
There was a knock on the door and we both went rigid.
“Do you think it’s the paparazzi? They were at the dock lingering around the ferry,” Annie whispered, like they might be able to hear us.
“No. There are rules about where they can go. Private property is off limits.”
Maybe it was Matt. Poor guy had to be freaking out, if he even knew. I doubted he got notifications from TMZ.
Annie and I walked to the front hall and through the wavy glass surrounding the door we could see a big mountain of blonde hair on top of a pin up figure.
I opened the door to reveal Star from Star’s Style Salon in town.
“Star! What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Oh, honey,” she said, breezing in and kissing the air beside each of my cheeks. “I know a hair emergency when I see one.” Star moved to town with her mom when we were in high school. They’d come up from Georgia and she sounded about as Southern as a peach pie, despite her years in Calico Cove.
I touched the tips of my ragged hair and she winced.
“Oh my, it’s even worse up close. Were you attacked by an animal?”
“No!”
“Did you use a saw?”
“An Exacto knife.”
She gasped, her hand on her chest.
“But then I cleaned it up with manicure scissors,” I said, defending my shorn locks.
Annie had to grab her before Star collapsed onto the floor.
“It’s not that bad,” I said, laughing.
“You clearly haven’t looked in the mirror,” Star said.
Star looked like Sandy in Grease, after the makeover by the Pink Ladies. She had tight shiny pants. A top that made the most of her impressive chest, and two-inch tiger print heels. Her platinum blonde hair was piled high on her head with pieces falling artfully around her face.
“Well, I’ll fix you up, sugar,” Star said, putting a gigantic black suitcase on the kitchen island.
Within minutes the kitchen had been turned into a miniature hair salon, complete with gossip.
“You know, once I regained consciousness after seeing that picture,” Star said. “I took a good long look at that kiss. All this time in town, why have I been sleeping on what a fox Matt Sullivan is?”
Something crinkled in my chest.
“I mean, he’s just such a fixture, I sort of stopped seeing him, I guess.”
“He’s kind of hard to miss,” Annie said from the stove where she was cooking oatmeal she’d brought over. From her bag of tricks, Star pulled out a bottle of champagne and some OJ, and Annie poured us mimosas – mine secretly without champagne.
“Well, I won’t miss that caboose of his anymore,” Star said.
“You sound like our Gran,” I told Star.
“Well, she’s a woman with good sense.”
“Hello?” called out another voice from the front of the house. Still not Matt.