Windfallen

"So it wasn't a success, then," Camille said when the mask was fully applied.

  "Oh, no. I took your advice, love. I bought two outfits in the end." Evie's voice lowered. "I've never seen Leonard's face like that in thirty-two years of marriage. He thought his ship had come in." She paused. "I thought I'd killed him afterward."

  "But he's not talking about getting that cable television thing anymore? The one with the Dutch channels?"

  "Nope, or taking up bowling. So you've done me a real favor there, Camille. A real favor. Can I have some of those eye pads again? They were lovely last time."

  Camille Hatton padded her way over to the cupboard and reached up to the fourth shelf where she kept her Cooling Eye Pads. She had been busy this morning; normally she didn't have this many appointments unless there was a wedding or a dance on at the Riviera Hotel. But the summer season was suddenly edging closer, and all over town the female inhabitants were treating themselves, priming themselves for the annual influx of guests.

  "Do you want the tea ones or the cucumber ones?" she called, feeling for the boxes.

  "Ooh. Tea, please. Speaking of which, Tess couldn't make me a cup, could she? I'm absolutely gasping."

  "No problem," Camille said, and called for her young assistant.

  "There was one thing that made me laugh, though. Just between you and me. Here, come over here. I don't want to shout it across the salon. Did I tell you about the feathers . . . ?"

  The onset of the spring months always seemed to make people want to talk more. It was as if the March winds that picked up, blowing in from the Channel, quietly shifted away the stasis of winter, reminding people of the possibilities for change. That and, in the ladies' case, the new influx of women's magazines.

  When Camille's boss, Kay, had opened the salon, nearly nine years ago, the women had been shy at first. They'd been reluctant to try the treatments, fearful that it looked in some way overly indulgent. They would sit rigid and silent as she smoothed and pasted, as if waiting for ridicule or for her to make some dreadful mistake. Then, gradually, they began to come regularly. And about the time that the Seventh-Day Adventists took over the old Protestant church, they began to talk.

  Now they told Camille everything: about unfaithful husbands, rec