Page 104 of Legally Mine
Chapter 24
On Friday, right after class, I found myself riding to New York in the back of Brandon's Mercedes while his driver, David, chatted amiably in the front with an extra bodyguard that Brandon had hired for the night.
Brandon had insisted on accompanying me to New York himself. After trying and failing throughout the week to convince me that going was a bad idea, he'd been just as stubborn about the fact that he was going too. I couldn't lie; I was sort of happy to see that he was willing to travel with me outside of his apartment. He hadn't heard from Miranda since last weekend, but that didn't mean he wouldn't. Kieran assured him she was expecting a call from Miranda's lawyers daily. Brooklyn, in other words, was a good distraction.
The security Brandon had assigned to my family had helpfully supplied the fact that Katie had her hair done every Friday afternoon at a salon in East New York, which made my job easy. The only people who would be in a salon would be other women––a potentially safer environment than trying to confront her somewhere else. Brandon wanted to go in with me, but I convinced him that he would only attract attention just by being a tall, handsome, obviously wealthy man standing in a roomful of money-hungry women.
We spent most of drive down working peacefully together. Brandon participated in several conference calls while I sat in the opposite corner studying, trying (and failing) to ignore the way his fingers massaged my feet propped in his lap. I was dreading the task I was on my way to do, but the car ride down was the most normal I had felt with Brandon in months.
We pulled up in front of Connie's Cutz just after five, when Katie's appointment supposedly began.
"Are you sure I can't go in?" Brandon asked again as I opened the door.
I turned to him. "Yes. Like I said, you'll only call more attention to yourself. If she's a pawn for Messina, it's better that she doesn't know you're in the picture. Besides, maybe I can handle this woman to woman."
Brandon watched me regretfully, then finally nodded. He leaned in and threaded a big hand around the nape of my neck.
"Come here," he said, and he pulled me close for a quick, but very thorough kiss. "I'm right here if you need me, and Andy is going to stand just outside the shop. Be careful."
"I'll be fine," I murmured. Then I kissed him again, and stepped out of the car.
The shop door jangled with a bell when I entered, causing the five women inside to swivel quickly at my presence. Four of them boasted identically massive heads of long, barrel-curled hair, all teased and styled to at least four inches above their scalps.
I had known girls like this my whole life. They were the remnants of a certain part of Brooklyn that yearned for the New York of the seventies and eighties: big-haired Italian girls who wore their acrylic nails and pancaked makeup like armor. They attached themselves to the small-time crooks of the neighborhood, bragging to each other about the newest rock or Gucci bag their boyfriends had bought them with dirty money. Some of them ended up married to these guys; others were content just to be sidepieces. They were walking clichés, caricatures inspired from The Sopranos and Goodfellas, but with none of the glamor.
Two of the women sat together in the back of the shop, chattering happily while one did the other's nails. Another lounged in an empty seat while a fourth stood at the shampoo station. Katie Corleone lay there with her head in a sink.
"Can I help you?"
The woman who was currently wrist-deep in Katie's hair looked me up and down with a critical, faux-lashed eye. Her ashy, bottle-blonde hair was partially piled on the crown of her head, the rest flowing down her back in a cascade of dry ringlets. Like the rest of the women there, she wore a revealing, ostentatious outfit: leopard-print skinny jeans, a black tank top that revealed more of her red bra than it concealed, and sky-high gold heels that couldn't possibly be comfortable to wear all day in a salon.
I had to force myself not to follow her gaze. In my simple black pants, loose gray tank, and flat sandals, with my hair tossed into a messy bun, I was clearly not a part of this tribe. But I wasn't here to fit in. I was here for my dad.
"I'm looking for Katie," I said.
"Who's asking?" said the woman with a quick glance down at her client.
Steeling myself, I stepped farther inside. "Skylar Crosby. I'm Danny's daughter."
Katie pulled herself up to look at me, her wet hair falling onto her plastic-covered shoulders with a splat.
"Hi Skylar!" she greeted me with enthusiasm that obviously masked both surprise and irritation. "Girls, this is Danny's daughter. Ain't she gorgeous?" She sighed with a terrifically fake smile. "She's so lucky she can pull off that natural look."
"That's one way to put it," one of the women at the nail station said, and the other snickered.
"Listen, sweetie, can this wait?" Katie asked, pointing to her soaking hair good-naturedly. Without her bouffant, she looked like a wet rat with a face painted like a doll's. "A girl's got to take care of herself to impress her man. You know how it is."
"Does she?" the woman at the empty hair station wondered a little too loudly to be under her breath, causing another round of low laughter to flutter around the shop.
"Um, sorry, but it can't wait," I said more loudly than I intended.
I forced myself to walk all the way to the back of the shop, ignoring the stare stabbing my back as I came to stand next to Katie.
"This won't take long," I said. "I just came to tell you to leave my dad alone."
The hum of the shop stopped completely, and Katie's pleasantness evaporated.
"Excuse me?" she asked in a way that clearly wasn't a question. "Just who do you think you are?"