Page 57 of A Love Most Fatal
“Now aim and shoot.”
I take a deep breath, steadying myself, and then pull the trigger. It goes almost where I want it, much closer to the middle than my last attempts at least.
“Good. Empty both magazines, and then we’ll move to the bigger guns.”
Vanessa stalks off in her clopping heeled boots to Mary’s bay, leaving me with my homework and the feeling of her hands lingering on my torso.
I blink away my lewd thoughts and raise the gun again.
I feelbeyond strange in my new clothes, but I will not deny that I look. . . hot in them. A man measured my whole body a few days ago, and when we came back from the shooting range today, I had a whole new wardrobe filling half of the walk-in closet. Dress clothes, semi-formal, business casual, and even exercise options are hung up or laid out in the drawers. There are five pairs of new shoes, too, all which fit great and probably cost more than any shoes I have ever once owned.
In preparation for our first interviews, I put on a fitted gray button-up and pants that were hanging next to it. I thought maybe they were too small at first, but when I looked in the mirror, I realized that, no, this is just what clothes look like when they fit me.
I look like a new person.
There’s a light knock on the door followed by Claire poking her head inside.
“That looks handsome,” she says and comes in fully. She’s much sweeter than her daughters. Mary, especially, bears little resemblance personality-wise.
Ranger circles at her feet until she picks him up and scratches his neck. Spoiled dog.
“Thanks,” I say. “For all of it, I mean. The clothes, and the compliment.”
“Thank the girls,” Claire says. “They’re the ones with the style.”
I look in the mirror again and nod.
“The hairdresser is here,” she says. “Come on down when you’re ready. I’ll have her cut Leo’s first.”
“Great, um, thank you.”
It still feels wrong accepting all this treatment from them. First living in their huge house, now wearing hundreds of dollars’ worth of clothes picked out just for me and getting in-house haircuts? I need to remind myself that I didn’t choose this. It’s not like I’m asking to be here and mooch off them, more like living in a house of criminals was somehow the safest of my choices.
Claire takes Ranger with her on her way out, leaving me alone in the room to assess myself in the mirror.
The hairdresser is a young woman named Anette who smacks gum and chatters with Claire and Mary about people I’ve never met. She pulled a stylist’s chair from a closet I’d never peeked in and she leans it all the way back so she can wash my hair in the sink, talking all the while.
She then uses the pedal on the back of the chair to raise me up and down while she snips pieces of my hair seemingly by vibes only. Leo’s hair looked good when I came downstairs, which is the only reason I’m not more concerned by her practices and lack of focus.
“You have good curls,” she says. “You Jewish?”
“No. But thank you.”
“Girlfriend?”
“No,” I say.
“The dog is his, though,” Mary says. Anette looks long at Ranger who’s sleeping in the dog bed Claire bought him for downstairs. He’s lightly snoring—it’s not his fault, he’s old.
“Cute dog. I’ll cut his hair, too, if you want.”
After twenty minutes of spritzing my head with a spray bottle, cutting the sides with an electric trimmer, snipping at thetop, and snapping her gum, she gives me one last long look and nods. Various creams are applied, which all smell fantastic.
“Here.” She hands me a handheld mirror and, maybe it’s because I’ve only been to Great Clips for the last decade, but I didn’t know that my hair could look like this. Smooth on the sides, not cut too short, and softer than it has ever, ever been. No frizz. I think this must be how Vanessa feels every morning when she wakes up perfect.
Leo walks back into the kitchen, where Anette, Mary, and I are still quiet, assessing my SteveRogers level transformation. “Oh shit.”
“I think I see it now,” Mary says, squinting.