Page 70 of Love at Teamsgiving
“My mother would never let me work on Sunday, but I hadn’t thought of that.”
“But you have crafted a no-fail business plan, completed all the steps to make the salon official and legal in the state of Nebraska, and found a way to bring your vision together with your mom’s old-world inspiration,” Margo says, having heard that saga and hyping me up.
“But then there’s her. Part of moving here was to break her out of her funk.”
“Mission accomplished,” both women say at the same time, having had more than one close encounter with the dynamo Guiliana Popovik has become ... the same one she used to be.
“She’s swung so far in the other direction, I have whiplash. She started a Cobbiton canasta club, has weekly cook-offs with Carlotta, and is taking her salon assistant role very seriously. She keeps sending me links to salon sites with suggestions for towel vendors, comb suppliers, and is in talks with an all-natural hairmask maker. I wasn’t aware she knew how to use the internet, never mind forward me website links.”
They laugh.
“It’s not funny. I also have to plan the grand opening.”
Margo says, “These seem like reasonably good problems to have and you can leave that last one to me.”
“Thank you, but there’s also Erica and Shane’s wedding. It’s exactly a month away. The caterer and cake contracts are signed. The best man said he’s handling the music and the DJ. I offered to order the flowers. That just leaves favors, and?—”
Margo raises her hand as if we’re in class. “And we’re your friends. Here to help.”
Gracie nods and sets her arm on mine and takes a deep breath. Again, without words, she’s reminding me to breathe. To catch my breath.
“So, as I was saying about the favors?—”
“Have you ever heard of Candlegram?” Margo tells me about the small business and Gracie shows me a custom one she had made for the bookstore called “Romantiscent.”
I tip my head from side to side. “I like it. Could work, but I’ll have to ask Miguel.”
They exchange a knowing glance, which I do my best to ignore, especially the way I get all toasty inside when I say his name.
“Side note: he keeps asking me to cat-sit Purr-t Reynolds.”
Margo nearly splutters her tea all over the table. “He named his cat?—?”
Gracie politely covers her mouth and smiles.
“Technically, the cat is named Burt Reynolds. I refuse to call him Burt. Humans get human names. Cats get cat names.”
“Which brings us to what I think the real issue is ... Mikey—” Margo starts.
Not going to lie, I haven’t forgotten him for one hour, never mind one day and he is the issue because I want his pinky in mine, his arms around me, our lips pressed together.
“He’s reinserted himself in my life and that’s not a bad thing. It’s proving to be a very good thing, but I don’t know how I feel about it because we can only kick the can so far down the road before we have to ...” I trail off as I follow Gracie’s gaze out the window.
I’ve been watching the workers come and go from the salon today, but they’re at the sandwich shop on Main Street for lunch. Right now, smoke filters through one of the salon’s windows, and someone races down the block.
Margo says, “That cannot be good.”
Gracie calls the fire department.
I rush outside. Conventional wisdom says to run away from a burning building, but the salon is my baby. Only, when I reach the other side of the street, I don’t smell smoke even though it fills the windows. There aren’t flames or heat.
Still, I step back in case it’s a chemical leak or something like that.
The familiar sound of sirens fills the air less than a minute later and soon the fire engine is on the scene as men in uniform bustle around.
Then I hear laughter.
The engineer approaches me and says, “Miss Popovik, you’re the salon owner, right?”
