Page 67 of Heidi Lucy Loses Her Mind

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Betty’s Cutsand Dyes is a little hole in the wall off of Fifth, which is part of the historic downtown area. I guess technically Sunshine Springs does have a Center Street, but it’s residential; Fifth is the most commercial road in town. It’s the road that feeds into the town square, and it’s lined with eateries, shops, and everything else the tourists might need. Heidi’s brother’s shop is there, an equipment rental service, and they do a booming business, especially in the summer.

The thing that makes Sunshine Springs so great is that we’re close to so many great places. Yellowstone and the Tetons aren’t far, and there are natural hot springs nearby too. There’s even an old ghost town within a days’ drive. There’s always something to do here, or somewhere to go.

Which I suppose makes it ironic that I spend most of my time doing nothing and going nowhere except for Paper Patisserie, but what can I say? I’m a man who knows what he wants.

The breeze alleviates the warmth of the spring day, and I’m grateful that my hair is pulled off my neck so I can feel the cool air. When we step into Betty’s, though, the temperature drops some fifteen degrees, and I shiver, rubbing my arms at the sudden chill.

“Hi, kids,” Betty herself calls from where she’s standing behind a salon chair, painting what I think is some sort of dye onto a customer’s foil-layered hair. Betty is more energetic than you’d expect from someone her age; her hair is silver and spiky, and her purple cat eye glasses reflect the overhead light as she nods at us. “Got my hands full or I’d come shake yours. What brings you back so soon?” She directs this question at Heidi. “Do you want more off?”

“No,” Heidi says quickly. “It’s perfect how it is.”

“Oh, good,” Betty says as she continues to work on the lady’s hair. “And what happened to your head, sweetie?”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually,” Heidi says, approaching Betty. Her eyes jump to the lady in the chair and then back to the hair stylist. “Could we wait over here until you’ve got a free second?”

“Sure thing,” Betty says, nodding at the chairs off to the side. They have those helmet things over them, but they look comfortable, so I head on over and settle down in one of them. “I’ll be with you in a bit.”

Heidi joins me a second later, sitting in the chair next to mine. I look around, examining the place.

“What’s that smell?” I say, sniffing.

“That’s any number of hair products,” she says. “All salons smell like this.” Then she looks up at my hair. “But I don’t suppose you have to use anything on your hair for it to be perfect like that.”

I shrug, trying to hide my smile. “I use shampoo and conditioner.”

“Just regular shampoo and conditioner?”

“I grab whatever’s cheapest or on sale,” I say.

She shakes her head. “Unbelievable,” she mutters. “I don’t know what you did to deserve all that golden perfection when so many women would kill for that color and softness and thickness.”

“Not a dang thing,” I say as my smile finally slips free. “But if it makes you feel any better, my hair was a frizzy mess when I was younger.”

“It does make me feel a little better,” she says, still eyeing my hair. “Thanks.”

We wait for probably twenty more minutes, talking aimlessly about whatever comes up, until Betty puts her foil-headed client in the seat next to ours and turns on the helmet thingy. Then she gestures to Heidi and me, and we stand, following her.

“What can I help you with?” Betty says once we’ve rounded the corner into the back hallway. “I got the sense you wanted a bit of privacy.”

“Thank you,” Heidi says. “I wanted to ask you about the day I came in to have you cut my hair.” She touches her forehead. “I’m currently suffering from some memory loss, thanks to this. I wondered if you could tell me how I was acting, or how I seemed to be doing, or if I talked about anything odd.”

“Oh, dear,” Betty says, her silver eyebrows flying to her hairline. “That’s no good. But you really seemed fine. You said you’d had a good day, and we talked about books.”

Heidi’s not much of an actress; she can’t hide her disappointment as she says, “That’s all?”

“I’m afraid so,” Betty says with a nod. “Is something the matter? Did something happen?”

Heidi sighs and folds her arms. “I don’t know. It’s just that the next day, Carmina Hildegarde died in my café. And so I’m a little shaken, not remembering the day before or if Carmina had been there or if anything had happened.”

“I heard about that,” Betty says, lowering her voice. “That’s just awful.” She hesitates, and some of the wrinkles around her mouth and eyes deepen as she frowns. “But you didn’t mention anything about her.”

And once again, I can tell Heidi is disappointed by the way her face falls.

Betty doesn’t seem to notice, though; she just keeps talking. “You know she had beef with that fancy restaurant at the edge of town, don’t you?”

“What beef?” I say, just as Heidi says, “What restaurant?”

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