In Her Way (9 page)

"I lost my phone and my Marshal is out of town and I think I might be in danger." She takes a long gulp as she listens to their response and then after a few seconds repeats all of the details she told me about her sighting when she first shoved her way through my door.

After a while, her forehead creases in what looks like frustration. She says "yes" a lot mixed with a bunch of "I understand"s and a few "no"s, then she holds the phone out in front of her, ends the call, and hands it back to me.

"So?" I ask.

She flops down on the couch. "They told me that they are quite sure I'm fine. I haven't broken any of the rules and no one who's ever followed the rules has ever been found. They're looking into it and will let me know if there's a cause for me to worry." The words seem to take everything out of her and when she's done, she looks like a deflated version of herself.

I bite my lip. "And they're not going to contact Andrew?"

"No." She shakes her head. "They think I take up too much of his time already, I'm sure."

Okay, so the actual people who are supposed to be protecting her don't seem worried. Maybe there really isn't any threat. The thought lightens the feelings of dread that have been pushing down on my shoulders since she arrived.

Right. Even if they are looking for her, they obviously don’t know where she is, because if they did… (gulp) she’d already be dead. Okay, I’m starting to relax. But regardless of if I feel a little better, the secretary slumping on my couch in front of me makes me start pondering what to do next, how to make her feel a little bit safer in the meantime.

I close my eyes and think, turning to my go-to way of figuring out a solution: what would they do in the movies?

My eyes flash open and look at her. She's biting her nail, staring back at me. "Your hair. We need to change it." I know it's silly, but that's the first thing I think of. That's what they did in all of those Bourne movies.

Kaylee's eyebrows furrow together seriously and she nods.

"And..." I scan up and down her for anything else we can do. "Let's make you tan." Her face drops a bit at my words. "Er! Tanner. Than you are now."

She nods again. I can tell by the tremble in her lip and the way her jaw is trying to look set, that this girl is all in. Seriously, if I told her to wear seven different kinds of animal print and a purple top hat, I bet she'd do it. (I wouldn't... obviously. Even though the thought is seeming quite funny at the moment.)

I hold my hands out and wiggle my fingers while I think.

"Hair. New hair." I twist my fingers through mine, grab onto a chunk, and stop. "Justin!"

Kaylee's eyes get big as she watches me, waits for more.

"He's my hairdresser." I pull out my phone and then check the time. "It's kind of late notice, but he'll do it. I'm sure." I press on his name and press the speaker button so Kaylee will be in the loop, too. I forget, of course, that Justin has one of those ring-back thingys where it plays a song instead of simply ringing. He's a little obsessed with Beyoncé and "Single Ladies" blares through my speakers. My toes wiggle nervously while we wait for him to pick up. It's almost impossible not to dance to that freakin' song and I find my hips swaying from side to side.

Kaylee stands stone still, though. Her reaction makes me reconsider my trust in the Marshal's decision not to take action. I mean, if even the queen of pop can't brighten a situation, maybe I really should be worried. Well, either way, changing her appearance can't hurt and -

"Hello?"

"Oh! Hey! Justin?"

"Of course, Jules. Who else would it be?" He scoffs at me.

"Um, yeah. Ha! So, I have a hair emergency. Do you think I could come over now?"

"Did you get your hair stuck in that sexy-wave-curling-contraption again?"

I roll my eyes and wish I hadn't put him on speaker for the second time. "No. I -- my friend needs a new look and it's like life or death here, man."

"Okay. Alright." I can picture him running a hand through his graying hair. "Bring her over."

I let out a sigh and put my phone in my pocket.

"He's a little out of town, since I went to him since before I moved here, but that's probably a good thing, right?"

Kaylee nods.

I look at her and tip my head. "But how to get you out of this town?" I bite my lip and look around my living room. My eyes stop on my front closet. "Ah!" I jog over and open it, looking to the inside of the door first, where I keep a good ten scarves hanging on hooks. I pull one out and throw it over to her.

"Wrap that around your head." When she holds it in front of her, looking super confused, I add, "You know, like a babushka." And then I remember that Russian culture is probably not on her list of safe topics right now. "Er -- old lady!"

I grab a long pea coat and close the door, running over to her and wrapping her up in it. Then I run to my purse and grab out my sunglasses, place them on her face, and am fully thinking we're going to get away with this when Kaylee points to me.

“What about you? What if they’ve followed me to work and recognize you?”

Rather than explain to her that the mob is more of a take-care-of-things-quickly organization than a reconnaissance one, I simply go with it and dress myself up the same way.

Heck, maybe I don’t know anything and I am in danger, too. The Marshals didn't quite believe her, but they're not here to see the fear creasing her face. Plus, Andrew trusts her and that's good enough for me to start taking this seriously.

"Okay," I say, even though it's super far from anything I'm feeling. "We're ready to go."

We face my front door, looking a lot more like ladies from an Audrey Hepburn movie instead of a freaking mob drama. Kaylee's hand reaches out and grabs onto mine. We take a deep breath and walk forward.

10

White Lightning

"I can't see anything." My face whips from side to side. Everything's dark. Even though it's summer, the sun has started to set and the darkness isn't lending itself to our sunglasses disguise. I push them up onto my forehead and hold a hand out to stop Kaylee. "You keep yours on. I'll drive."

I guide us down my front steps and toward White Lightning, hoping to baby Jesus that it lives up to it's name if we do in fact become involved in any car chases tonight.

I lock the doors when we're safely inside and start the car. The engine revs as my nervous foot presses down on the accelerator too much. The little bit of calm I felt after she talked to the Marshals is completely gone now. My left foot trembles on the clutch as I slowly let it out and back out of my driveway (Daddy never wanted me to buy anything but a manual -- said they were cheaper, got better gas mileage, and gave you more control in bad weather... or in high-speed chases).

Kaylee ducks down in her seat and is tucked into her mass of dark identity-hiding clothing like a turtle in its shell. So I guess that means her being my lookout is not going to happen. I take a deep breath, check my mirror for any murderers, and, seeing none, drive forward.

My regular radio station bumps dance music at us as we head out of my neighborhood. (What can I say? I like house music when I drive.) For a second, I'm tempted to turn it off. Then I remember that with silence, will inevitably come thinking. And right now, thinking will definitely mean freaking out. I keep the music on, turning it up a smidge.

The drive goes okay for the first five minutes. Sure my hands grip the steering wheel tight enough that my knuckles start to turn white-ish and my shifting is so choppy I feel like I'm back to the first week I learned to drive, but we're okay.

Until a car pulls up real close behind us at a light and I think my heart crawls up into my throat. Okay, those Marshals are officially wrong. Wrong wrong wrong. We are in danger here.

I can't see anything because of its headlights shining into my little car, or more like flooding it with some evil spotlight. I focus on my breathing, but I can't stop my lungs from contracting and pushing everything out just as soon as I bring it in. Pushing my shoulders back, I sit up straight and follow the car in front of me as it drives through the now green light.

Close-following-jerk-spotlight car zooms after us, staying only inches from White Lightning's plastic bumper as we head down the main street. My fingers start to sweat and my eyes continually flick up to check my mirror. Still there. I adjust my slipping grip. Yep, still there.

They could be some horrendous teen drivers. Really. Totally possible. They could also be Russian mobsters bent on killing my secretary and probably also me now, too.

Finally, my turn comes up ahead. I get ready, hand gripping the shift knob and feet tensed over the pedals. I guess I get a little too excited, though, because I turn early, my right front tire hits a bit of the curb and it sends us flying. The motion shoves my hand forward (along with the shifter which I'm gripping) and the car moves into neutral. The engine revs loudly like I'm looking to drag race. When we hit down, it takes me a second to get back into gear, but then we're off!

And so are the people following us.

They pull an equally tight (but slightly less embarrassing) turn and are back on us in less time than it takes for me to picture Kaylee and I coming to some sort of a Thelma and Louise type end to evade them.

"Okay..." I say to myself, hoping to convince the over-reactive part of my brain not to freak out Liam-Neeson-in-Taken style. But when the people following us take the next turn, too, I start bargaining. If they follow us on one more turn, they're definitely murderers and I will need to use my special set of driving skills (aka growing up with three older brothers who taught me to drive like a dick) to evade the crap out of this situation.

Kaylee watches me from in her clothing shell, tucking herself deeper and deeper into the wad of dark clothing I've swathed around her poor Trouble Magnet self.

I look at her in a manly "I've got this little lady" way, even though I'm neither a man nor do I completely have this, but it makes me feel in control and it's just what I need because the people following us too-closely do, in fact, take the next turn with us.

One turn, sure. You're in the same town; there are many places to go. The next turn even, great. Yeah, we're going in the same direction. But a third turn the same as me? Oh, hell no. You're trying to straight up murder us!

When they do, I set my jaw with a cold determination and look for my chance. I pass the road to Justin's house (because, come on) and then I see it, a nice long stretch in the road up ahead. My fingers twitch as they hover over the emergency brake. I can hear my brother Travis' voice as clear as the day he taught me to pull this move.
Stay calm, pull up, and let the car do the rest
. And I do.

The moment I have a little room, I jog the steering wheel right then left, slam my foot into the clutch, yank the steering wheel around, and pull up on the break. White Lightning spins around, I pop it into first, and then we speed out of the perfect J-turn. Holy shit would Travis be proud!

I check my rear-view mirror. The close-following-spotlight car's brakes tap for a moment, but it seems mostly out of surprise because after they get over what I've just pulled, they keep driving forward. No J-turn to follow us. My heart is pumping furiously from the scare and the adrenaline rush of my crazy driving, but it begins to slow. Maybe they were just going the same direction as us.

Regardless, I'm not about to stick around to find out. I zoom away from them, taking the turn to Justin's place so quickly I think White Lighting hops up on two wheels for a second. I take that as a warning and slow it down as I make another turn into his neighborhood. When I pull into his driveway and turn off the car, I sit there for a good minute breathing and listening to the pinging of the cooling engine after it performed way more than it was ever meant to. Kaylee cranes her neck up and her face shows through the folds of clothing.

"Are we here?" Her words tremble.

"Yup!" I unbuckle and pop myself out of the car. I know that we weren’t actually being followed, but the experience has me freaked out enough that my arms are covered in goosebumps and my feet are itching to get us safely inside. Now that the realness of the situation is hitting me, I wonder for a moment if this whole hair idea is the right thing to do, is the safe thing to do.

Before I can make a decision, though, Kaylee tumbles out the other side. It's dark out now and she looks like she's full-on blind the way she's feeling about in order to simply shut the car door behind her.

"It's probably safe without the sunglasses now," I say as I lock the car and start inside.

Kaylee props them up onto her head and follows me, only looking over her shoulder three or four times (that I can see).

The door swings open before I even have a chance to knock. Justin stands there, eyebrows hitched up onto his forehead, looking ready to hear the best story of his freaking life about why we just HAD to come over tonight. He's in his forties, has already-whitish-grey hair, and looks more like he could be the CEO of an outdoor sports company rather than a hairdresser.

"Hey! Come in!" His eyes take in our dark clothing choices and he gasps. "You said life or death, are we too late?"

I laugh and shake my head. "We're just trying not to be noticed."

Justin scrunches his nose. "Well you're doing a great job of that." His words are sarcastic as hell.

"Well, not not-noticed, I guess. Just not recognized. By certain people."

"I don't even want to know what that means, but I'm sure I'll find out." He ushers us inside and closes the door behind me.

"This is Kaylee." I gesture to my secretary as she sheds the scarf, coat, and glasses, leaving them on the coat hooks by his front door.

Justin's hands are in Kaylee's long, dirty-blond hair by the time I get my own coat and scarf off.

"Wait, why are we doing anything to this? This girl has the most gorgeous hair." Justin watches me. "You have the most gorgeous hair." He repeats the statement, but toward Kaylee this time.

She smiles and blushes (which, for the record, just makes her look like she spent a few hours frolicking in a sunny field picking berries or something whimsical). I push past him, tug his hands out of her locks, and drag her into the kitchen where Justin's converted a small eating nook into a little salon.

"Look, she's -- er -- got a super jealous ex and needs to look completely different. As different as we can make her." I put one hand on my hip and gesture for Kaylee to sit down in the chair with the other.

Justin shrugs his shoulders. "Different I can do. Any requests?"

"Can we do like dark with like red streaks?" Kaylee's voice gets all pitchy and excited. For a second, the fearful look on her face, the scrunched up body position, all of it's gone and a girl excited to have a make-over is all that's left. "I've always loved that, but never had the guts," she finishes with a sheepish grin.

I’m glad to see her smile again, but the business owner in me cringes a bit. Wholesome, wispy, bright, singing Kaylee was such a hit with the customers. I hope small town small business goers don't mind a bit of edge.

My worries are totally lost on Justin, who says, "Oh, can we!" getting over his not-wanting-to-mess-with-her-beautiful-hair qualms super fast. He almost giggles as he jets over to his closet full of supplies and pulls out colors to show her. I think he told me one time that having someone say, "Just go for it" is one of his fantasies (career fantasies, not sexual...).

"Are you going to cut it, too?" I ask Kaylee, eyeing her long locks.

She sighs. "Yeah. Maybe just a little, though. Really, whatever you think." She says the last part to Justin.

I swear his elbows squeeze tight to his sides a la Em and the whole thing makes me hope to goodness that Em is as cool with this change as these two seem to be. And then the tightness in my stomach returns and reminds me that business owner or not, this is someone's life at stake, and Em would definitely agree that style takes a backseat to safety -- not that she can know what's going on. Ugh. The thought of keeping a secret from her makes me uncomfortably warm and sweaty.

While I freak out about lying to my best friend, Justin and Kaylee (new BFFs) are moving to the washing phase of this whole process. Justin even turns on some music (Beyoncé, of course). And just as soon as they start shampooing, he's got her back in the chair and he's lopping off chunks of hair like it's spring and he's let a shrubbery get much too wild over the winter.

He chats with Kaylee as he cuts, letting his fingers go on autopilot it seems. The thing about Justin is that he's been cutting hair for forever and I think all the loud hairdryer noise has fried his hearing. So he talks
super
loud, almost like he's trying to talk over said hairdryers, even when there aren't any going.

As he yell-talks at Kaylee about his latest concert experience seeing Queen B, I can see the poor girl's face contort as she tries to get away from the word-loudness being shot at her. Her eyes catch mine in the mirror, but I just smile and nod, hoping I'm conveying that she'll get used to it. After a few minutes.

Once he's got some of the length off (it actually isn't too much shorter, just choppy layers), he pulls out the little dishes and brushes and squirt bottles for the dying process. I pull out my phone and read through my emails, unable to watch.

I sure can hear it, though. And I decide that this guy's Kaylee's perfect companion because he talks almost non-stop and either can't hear the weirdo things she says or just ignores them.

At some point, Kaylee's all foiled up and he puts her under a little heater to help with the blond that he'll later dye red. She shoots me a huge smile and I start to breathe a little easier for the first time that night.

"Do you have any tanner?" I look over to where Justin's washing out his dye containers in the sink.

He clicks his tongue. "Darn. No. Just ran out."

I bite my lip and nod. "No. That's cool. We've got to make one more stop anyway. We can pick some up there."

Kaylee's eyes brighten at the mention, but I'm not sure if there's excitement behind them or fear at stopping.

"Make up." I tip my chin up toward her. "If you're going edgy with the hair, I know just what stuff we need to pick up for your face."

She makes her mouth into a little O and nods like she's ready for whatever. It's a good thing this girl's open to change. I have a feeling we can make her look like a completely different person by Monday morning.

Justin finishes up her hair and I have to say, it looks pretty awesome. She's right to have "always wanted to do this" because it totally works. Her hair is dark, shiny, straight, and the red chunks peak out here and there, adding a pop of color.

We pay, tipping Justin extra for the last minute-ness of it all, thank him, and say goodbye. I drive us (a lot less maniacally) to the drug store. We head straight for the beauty section and I start throwing things into the basket Kaylee picked up at the front. Labels like eXtreme, Smokey Eyez, Drama, and Falsies make me cringe in their intensity, but they're exactly the kind of products I'm after. I toss a good spattering of them in and then move onto the self-tanners. I choose a few different kinds before giving Kaylee a quick nod.