Kissed (The Thorn Chronicles) (12 page)

Ginny looked at me before she put on her sunglasses. “I didn’t think you know how to ask questions. Why the sudden curiosity?”

“There’s something familiar about him. I like him.”

“Everyone loves Alejandro.” Ginny sighed and turned on the blinker. The road disappeared around a corner.

“How old is he?’

“Late thirties. I’m not exactly sure. He looks younger though.”

“How’d you meet him?”

“Right after your grandma died he sought me out in New York and asked me to come here to be a stylist.”

This puzzled me. I’d forgotten that Grandma had been her mom as well. “How come Grandma never told me about you?”

Ginny shrugged. “I’m not sure. She talked about you quite a bit when she called and I did see you when you were very young. Your mom was pretty angry that I’d left town so I expect that Grandma didn’t want to upset her. New York called to me. Becoming a stylist is all I’d ever wanted to do. After a few years, I’d gained a good reputation and Alejandro heard of me through a mutual friend. He claimed there weren’t enough stylists here. Before my plane even landed he had me lined up with six clients plus himself. He likes me so we do dinner once a week or so and I go with him to all his fancy parties.”

She did a pretty good job of changing the subject. I played along even though I was still curious about her relationship with my grandma. “Is he your boyfriend?”

Ginny blushed and laughed. “Alejandro is decidedly single. No girlfriends for him.”

Is it the same for Kai? Decidedly single? I knew nothing about him. I slumped back in my seat. The thought depressed me. Kai could come to Vegas and want to date a lot of girls like Ricki. What if I was just a fling? No, I couldn’t believe that. He loved me. He had to.

#

We stumbled back into our hotel, our arms full of Chinese takeout. A first for me. I didn’t like the egg rolls, but cashew chicken was delicious.

“You should probably sleep on the couch again. I use the spare room as an extra closet so there’s no bed. I did order you some furniture today, but it won’t arrive until tomorrow.” Ginny sat on the couch opposite me. “We’ll need to do something about your clothes as well. I’m taking tomorrow off. First we need to get your hair done, then we’ll hit the Forum and Fashion Show Mall.” She sighed and checked her phone. “I’m going to sleep, see you in the morning.”

And poof. She was gone. I’d gotten so used to having her close that it seemed odd to be alone. I opened the patio door and looked out over the strip. The air smelled stale and it was still noisy. Not a green leaf, besides the palm trees, was in sight. I hated all the metal. The small apartment had no plants. I would need to change that.

#

“She’s hopeless, Ginny. You really think a new hairstyle and clothes will make her hip? She a freakin’ hick. And she doesn’t talk.” Ricki’s voice came from the kitchen the next morning.

“Be nice. She’s overwhelmed and scared. Give her a couple of weeks and I bet she’ll be every bit as street savvy as you.”

“No. Flippin’. Way.”

“You will show her around though, won’t you? And let her hang out with you and your friends. Seriously, how is she supposed to meet people her own age unless you help?”

“She’s never going to fit in.”

I laid there for a little while listening. My stomach clenched hearing Ricki’s words. I didn’t want to be her friend if she didn’t want me around. Ruth was so much better than Ricki. I couldn’t wait to call her and tell her all about Vegas. She’d love it here.

“We’ll see. She hardly speaks. I can’t believe my sister kept her cooped up like that.”

Time to get up.
No sense waiting to hear the horrible things she said about my mother. Not that I wasn’t curious about her past, but the details needed to wait. My head already hurt with this new world that I had entered. I didn’t think I could handle any more earth shattering news. I wandered into the kitchen and sat down on one of the stools. Ginny and Ricki stopped talking.

Ginny glanced at the clock. “We’ll need to leave in a half hour. Will that be enough time to get ready? You don’t need to wash your hair again. Rita will do that for you.”

#

Based on Ginny and Ricki’s style, I thought Rita’s place would be a fancy salon in a casino or mall, but it was far from it.

The windows were covered in a dusty floral shade. A bell tinkled when we entered. Ginny’s heels clicked on the floor as she approached a middle aged Hispanic woman.

“Rita, thanks for fitting us in. I know this was last minute.”

Rita fussed with my hair and muttered in Spanish. She was interrupted no less than three times by customers coming into the shop. She told them all the same thing. “I’m not taking any new clients.” And they all left disappointed or angry.

Finally, she beckoned Ginny over. “Her hair has been over treated. We’ll definitely want to put some color back in, but we can’t do anything dramatic. I’m thinking a light brown with copper highlights, though even highlights may be a bit too much. I’m also inclined to go shoulder length with long layers. Does that sound okay to you?”

Ginny didn’t answer, but looked at me. I shrugged. No one ever asked my opinion before and one color is as good as another as long as it wasn’t blond. I was sick of blond.

Over in the corner Ricki chatted with the girls. She whispered to the one with long black curls and handed her something.

Rita hollered at the girls and they came running. They listened intently as Rita barked instructions about my hair. They asked a few more questions, again in Spanish and the one with short spiky hair grabbed a pair of scissors and started snipping away. She had flipped the chair around so I couldn’t see the mirror, but long blond locks fell to the floor.
Good Riddance
.

My stomach began to twist. The Master says that cutting your hair is a sin and if you do cut it, you’ll have to shave it all off in shame. If my parents didn’t really murder someone and I had to go home, I’d have to shave my head. Then father would probably kill me out of his shame. But I wanted Ginny to like me. Was that a sin?

Rita watched from a chair for a bit while she and Ginny chatted.

“We’re going around the corner for some coffee, will you be okay?” Ginny asked.

I nodded.

“Good. Rita’s daughters will take good care of you. You need to have your toes done. It’s nearly summer and you’ll want to wear sandals. I’ll not have my niece run around with bare toes. Maria does a great job.”

They swept out of the shop and left me alone with the three Hispanic girls and Ricki.

Ricki came and sat on the other salon chair. “Maria, do my toes first. Ginny said I could get a pedi if I came with her today.” Maria, who had bright pink hair, laughed.

“Sure she did, Senorita. Pick your colors.”

The one cutting my hair paused and looked directly at me. “What’s your name?”

“Naomi.”

She nodded and continued clipping.

“I’m Gloria. How come your hair is so long? It’s dreadful for your face. Not to mention completely fried.”

“My mother wouldn’t let me cut my hair. And my father wanted me to be a blond.” Her face betrayed no emotion. Ricki also shut up. It was very quiet in the room. The girl that Ricki had given money to disappeared in the back and Maria painted Ricki’s toes a bright red. After a while, Gloria seemed satisfied with my hair but didn’t let me turn around to look.

“I don’t want you to see until we are finished. Anita will do your color and then I’ll finish styling it. While the color is setting we’ll take care of your pedicure, wax and face. Is it okay if we do your make up? Ginny will most likely take you to get make up, but I don’t want you running around Vegas naked.”

Out of all the sisters I liked her best. She seemed up front and honest. And she talked to me.

I did not like Anita. She tugged and pulled and the color smelled awful. Like cat pee and fertilizer. Finally she put a cap on my head. Maria held out a few bottles of nail polish and asked me to pick one. After some deliberation I picked the amethyst.

Ricki looked at the color before Maria began and scoffed. “Purple is tacky. You should pick a pink or red.” I blushed. I didn’t want to look tacky. And I wanted Ginny to approve. I started to point at the red one, like Ricki’s, when Gloria spoke up.

“Cállate Ricki. Purple is perfect. Red is so commonplace. The purple will stand out more because it is different. And you yourself are different, in a good way. You have unique beauty that Ricki’s jealous of. She doesn’t know what she is talking about.” Oh no. I didn’t know who I was supposed to listen to. Ginny seemed to value both Ricki’s opinion and the salon. I liked Gloria and she was the one taking care of my hair so I decided to listen to her.

“Okay, Purple.”

Ricki rolled her eyes and took out her phone while Gloria came at me with a huge pair a tweezers. “This is going to hurt.”

And hurt it did. I think she ripped out half my eyebrows. But apparently that wasn’t all she was ripping out. She frowned at my legs.

“Why are you so hairy? Were you protesting something?”

I shook my head. “My mom wouldn’t let me shave my legs.”

Maria handed Gloria a bowl full of sticky stuff that she smeared all over my legs and covered with a thin cloth.

“Take a deep breath,” instructed Gloria. I did and on the exhale she ripped the cloth off my leg.

I was proud of myself for not screaming. But it hurt worse than when Gloria ripped out my eyebrows. Why did beauty have to be so painful?

Finally the cap came off and Anita rinsed out my hair. Gloria had disappeared into the back of the salon. When I settled back into the chair Maria gasped.

“Anita, what have you done?”

Anita grinned and popped her gum.

Ricki looked up at me from her phone and hissed. “It was supposed to be a streak. Ginny is going to kill you.”

At that moment, Gloria came out of the back of the salon and screeched. Then let out a stream of curses. All in Spanish. She grabbed Anita by the arm and yelled in her face.

I turned around and looked. My hair. I’d never seen anything like it before. I stared, dumbfounded.

After a few moments Gloria looked at me and smiled a tight smile. “Well, it’s a good thing you picked the purple nail polish.”

The whole salon was silent after that. Ricki didn’t take her eyes off me while Gloria brushed and dried and straightened my hair. I kept my eyes on my purple toes. I liked them. They looked like petals.

Rita and Ginny came back into the Salon as Gloria finished with a spray. Ginny had a drink carrier in her hands full of coffee which she dropped when she walked in the door. Rita shrieked as the coffee splashed up on her legs. Ginny covered her mouth with her hands.

Then, I looked in the mirror.

I didn’t recognize myself. That girl staring back at me had neatly trimmed eyebrows, a bit of mascara and glossy lips. Her cheekbones appeared prominent and her wide eyes looked larger than mine. But her hair.

It was green.

Roses are beautiful from the roots to the stems. Healthy rose leaves are glossy and shiny and deep green. Even its thorns carry a strange sense of beauty. My favorite part, of course, is the smell. But, a rose wouldn’t be a rose without its petals.

The hair matched my eyes. Ginny called it leprechaun green. At least that’s what I think she said, it was hard to tell between the screeches. I let them carry on while I simply stared at myself in the mirror. Ricki never took her eyes off my hair either. Somehow Ginny missed the fact that Ricki was involved. She must’ve paid Anita well.

Rita was all apologies. She said we could come back in a few weeks and she’d fix it, but that I’d have to use a deep conditioner every night to heal my hair.

The longer I stared at it, the more I liked it. My father would kill me and the guilt gnawed at me, but I felt a bit like a fairy or a flower. And that pleased me.

Ginny despaired all the way to the car when I finally spoke up.

“I like it,” I said.

She looked at me for a moment and shrugged. “We’ll have to be careful shopping this afternoon. No red or you’ll end up looking like a Christmas tree.”

#

We walked through a casino. Ginny walked with a purpose through hundreds of machines and past tables. Women in short dresses carried around drinks, and men dressed like Roman soldiers wandered around taking pictures with tourists.

After a few minutes, Ginny looked around like she’d forgotten she had others with her. “Have you any idea what kind of style you’d like? The green hair lends well to punk and Goth, but you don’t have to do that.”

I had no idea what she was talking about. “I’m not sure. I don’t know much about styles.”

We entered a mall. At least I thought it was a mall. It had a tall ceiling painted like the sky and shops surrounded us. Mother took me down to the mall in Fayetteville once, but it looked nothing like this. The mall in Fayetteville had worn carpet and old women walking in circles. And it was mostly empty. This one was full to bursting with people and energy. The floor was marble and huge statues surrounded us.

“Hmm, well what inspires you?”

This mall, I thought.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry I still don’t understand.”

“For example, when I designed my own style, I centered it around a beach. Most of my clothes are soft beiges and blues with a touch of pink here and there. You’ll notice even my apartment reflects that. And Ricki is mostly a party girl. You should see her room. Loud and obnoxious. If you have something that inspires you, you’ll be easier to dress.”

Oh well, that was easy.

“A flower garden. Roses.”

Ginny laughed. “Fitting. Come on then, my little green haired elf.”

Shopping with a stylist and her minion is humiliating. Ricki sat in a corner ridiculing everything I tried on. I was nervous about showing too much skin, so the shorts I picked were longer and I refused to put on a bikini. Mostly though, I let Ginny make the decisions. It seemed easier somehow. Every time she held up two shirts and asked which one, I said, “You pick.”

Ricki rolled her eyes and would say something like, “Take the one that shows more cleavage.”