Honey

  Beauty salons, like churches, are places where people tend to unburden themselves and bare their souls. Bee-Bee never gossiped herself, but she was a good listener and heard more than her share of confessions over the years. Secrets in a small town are about as easy to keep as a snowball on a radiator, but when it came to Bee-Bee Churchill, even the juiciest of secrets was safe with her.

  One day, on a whim, Bee-Bee bought a lottery ticket at the 7-Eleven on the corner of Marion and Main and, against all odds, wound up a winner. After that, everything changed. It wasn’t an astronomical sum of money she’d won, but it was enough to make it possible for Bee-Bee to quit her job and begin searching for the perfect spot to open up a salon of her own. There wasn’t room enough in Cloverhitch for two beauty salons, so Bee-Bee began contacting real estate agents in neighboring towns and found something that looked promising twenty-five miles east, in Royal.

  The Frosty Boy had seen better days, but the minute she laid eyes on it, Bee-Bee knew she had to have it.

  Mabel Matthews, the real estate agent who’d arranged to meet Bee-Bee and show her around the place, couldn’t have been more pleased.

  “Shall we go back to my office and get the paperwork started?” she suggested, eager to strike while the iron was hot.

  Bee-Bee hesitated.

  “I need to make a phone call first,” she said.

  Mabel stepped outside to give Bee-Bee some privacy.

  The phone call Bee-Bee Churchill made that afternoon lasted only a few minutes, and by the time she hung up the phone, she’d been entrusted with another secret.

  “Mabel?” Bee-Bee called out when she was done. “Could you come in here, please?”

  Mabel was certain Bee-Bee was about to tell her she’d changed her mind. And why wouldn’t she? The place was practically falling down.

  “I could show you something else,” she told Bee-Bee. “There’s a darling little storefront downtown with a partial view of the river and original —”

  “I don’t need to see anything else,” Bee-Bee interrupted. “You can draw up the papers. This is the one for me.”

  Bee-Bee Churchill’s plan was to open her new salon on Memorial Day. There was a lot of work to be done before then, but Bee-Bee could hardly wait to roll up her sleeves and get started. The previous owner had built a cozy little apartment behind the ice-cream parlor. After all the major repairs and renovations had been completed, Bee-Bee and her ten-year-old French bulldog, Mo, moved in and quickly made themselves at home. Every morning at eight o’clock sharp, an army of workers would arrive with toolboxes in hand, and at five o’clock sharp they would climb back in their trucks and drive away. Bee-Bee worked right alongside them. When they left, she would start dinner and take Mo for a walk. Later, after the dishes had been washed and set to dry, she’d sit down at the kitchen table and make nail polish.

  Bee-Bee had decided her salon would feature only homemade polishes. She spent more than she really should have on a beautiful antique glass cabinet to hold them. According to her calculations, it would take exactly one hundred bottles of polish to fill the shelves, and she wanted them all to be ready by opening day.

  It had been quite some time since Bee-Bee Churchill had made a polish, and her first few attempts were a bit lackluster, but after a while she got the hang of it again and soon the shelves began to fill with an amazing array of one-of-a-kind colors — deep reds and playful pinks, tropical oranges and luminous blues, greens, yellows, silvers, and golds. Using a mortar and pestle to grind up the powder, she’d place a tiny funnel in the mouth of a bottle and spoon in the colors one at a time. Then she’d add the ball bearings and clickity-click-click shake until it was smooth. Night after night, Bee-Bee worked her magic, and when at last she was finished, the nail polish cabinet glowed like a stained-glass window, filling the room with a heavenly light.

  Slowly but surely the salon came together. Bee-Bee chose a sunny shade of yellow paint for the outside and installed long wooden flower boxes filled with a medley of pansies, sweet peas, and petunias. Along the front walk she planted honeysuckle and six large snowball hydrangeas, carefully sprinkling coffee grounds and grass clippings around the roots so that the blossoms would turn blue. In lieu of a traditional sign, she commissioned a local artist to carve a giant honeybee, which she hung above the door on a sturdy wire.

  Inside the salon, the bee theme continued. The walls were stenciled to look like honeycomb, the styling chairs upholstered in black vinyl with bright yellow stripes, the pedicure tubs were made of golden glass, giant silk flowers hung from the ceiling, strings of tiny lights shaped like bees wound around the base of the pink porcelain shampoo sink, and along the back wall of the salon was a row of dome-shaped hair dryers hand-painted to look like beehives.

  Most of the original fixtures from the Frosty Boy had outlived their purpose, but Bee-Bee did keep a few souvenirs — an ice-cream scoop with a wooden handle, a large glass bowl that she scrubbed out and filled with candy to place on the counter beside the cash register, and an old photograph which the previous owner had left behind. It was the first thing Bee-Bee had seen when she’d walked through the door of the Frosty Boy with Mabel Matthews, and she had taken it as a sign that she was meant to be there.

  A week before the opening, Bee-Bee sent out flyers printed on bright yellow paper, offering a free manicure to anyone who stopped by the salon before noon. Then she crossed her fingers and waited for the big day to arrive.

  On Saturday morning of Memorial Day weekend, Bee-Bee woke up early. After a light breakfast of ginger tea and wheat toast, she got dressed, put a dab of vanilla behind each ear (she preferred it to perfume), and took Mo for a long walk to calm her nerves. By the time they returned, a line of customers was already forming outside the salon. Bee-Bee was so happy she practically jumped for joy.

  “Welcome!” she cried as she hurried up the steps to greet them. “Welcome to the Bee Hive.”

  Mo had no memory of his mother. His eyes were barely open when she was taken away. The runt of the litter, he felt small and insignificant in comparison to his older brothers and sisters. Food at the puppy mill was scarce, and with all those hungry mouths to feed, more often than not, Mo went to bed without supper. He wasn’t much to look at, with his bowlegs and bony chest.

  One day Mo was out in the yard, watching two of his brothers play tug-of-war with a ratty old dish towel, when a shiny new white car rolled up the driveway. A thin man with glasses and a large woman in a yellow dress got out of the car, carefully picking their way around the piles of melting slush until they were standing next to the chain-link fence. The large woman rested one hand on her belly and shielded her eyes from the sun with the other, searching. After a moment she pointed to Mo.

  “That’s him,” she said. “That’s the one.”

  The next thing he knew, Mo was sitting in the backseat of the white car. The thin man with glasses kept glancing in the rearview mirror at Mo and the large woman was singing, “You are my sunshine, my only sunshine …” in a high clear voice as they sped down the road toward a new chapter in Mo’s life.

  When they arrived at the big house, Mo could hardly believe his good fortune. For the first time in his life he had more than enough to eat, a soft bed to sleep in, toys to play with, and every day from dawn till dusk the house was filled with beautiful music. The thin man with glasses was nice in a quiet way, but the large woman quickly became Mo’s favorite. She smelled like lilies of the valley and delighted in spoiling Mo with treats, fussing over him like a mother hen. Mo finally knew what it felt like to be loved. He filled out and grew stronger, and thanks to the large woman’s patience and gentle reminders, learned to mind his manners and do as he was told.

  One day the large woman surprised Mo with a gift, a heart-shaped silver pendant with his name engraved on it. “You’re a good boy,” she said as she fastened the chain around his neck. Mo was so excited he raced around the room wagging his stubby little tail until it was nothing but a blur. He
loved the way the pendant jingle-jangled when he moved and the way it made him feel like he belonged. What would his brothers and sisters think of him now? How envious they would be of his wonderful life!

  Mo loved his new life, and hoped it would never change, but one morning in mid-March, he awoke to a strange sound coming from upstairs. High-pitched and urgent, it hurt Mo’s ears and set his teeth on edge.

  No one came downstairs to give him breakfast, and soon the house began to fill with strangers. The hurried clicking of their heels on the steps frightened Mo. He took refuge in the back room, curling up on the blue velvet couch to wait for everyone to leave. There was no music that day. Dinnertime came and went, and when the last of the strangers had finally left, Mo crept upstairs to the bedroom. The large woman was asleep, her hair spread out on the white pillow behind her like a halo. Beside her on the bed lay a small bundle wrapped in gray cloth. An unfamiliar odor lingered in the air, something damp and fresh, like new-cut grass. In the corner of the room, near a window, stood the thin man, his head bowed, his shoulders slumped. Behind the lenses of his glasses, his eyes were like two bottomless black holes. When he saw Mo, his face crumpled and he began to cry.

  “Go away,” he told Mo. “Please, just go away.”

  The next morning the thin man with glasses came downstairs to give Mo his breakfast, something he had never done before. The man didn’t warm up Mo’s food the way the large woman always did — he dumped the can straight into the dish, and he forgot to fill the water bowl and give Mo his vitamin. A few hours later, the man went out, carrying the gray bundle in his arms. As soon as he was gone, Mo went looking for the large woman. He searched the house from top to bottom, but she was nowhere to be found.

  That afternoon, more strangers came to the house, all of them dressed in black. Among them was a tall woman with a kind face and a soft voice. She smelled like sugar cookies and there was something about her manner that immediately put Mo at ease. She was the last of the strangers to leave that day, and before she did, she knelt down beside Mo and spoke to him gently.

  “Don’t worry, Mo,” she told him. “Everything’s going to be okay. You’re going to come live with me for a little while. Won’t that be nice?”

  The tall woman took Mo home with her. That night she fed him leftover chicken and dumplings and lit a fire in the potbelly stove to help take the chill out of the air. Mo curled up on the couch in front of the stove but he couldn’t sleep. He was grateful for the tall woman’s kindness, and the delicious chicken and dumplings, but he couldn’t stop thinking about the big house and the wonderful life he had left behind. Where had the large woman gone? Didn’t she love him anymore?

  Right before Mo had left, the thin man with glasses had bent down and patted him on the head.

  “Just for a little while,” he’d said as he undid the clasp and slipped the silver chain from around Mo’s neck.

  Now Mo missed the jingle-jangle sound and the way it made him feel. Like he belonged.

  Exhausted, he finally closed his eyes. As the fire crackled in the potbelly stove and the moon hung like a shiny gold pocket watch in the sky, he had the dream for the first time.

  The image of a girl danced behind his eyelids. Sunlight caught in her long yellow hair, and when she threw back her head and laughed, Mo’s breath quickened and his heart began to race. The girl stopped laughing and looked at him with wide eyes. “It’s you,” she whispered. Then she ran to him, threw her arms around his neck, and Mo followed her home. This was where he belonged. Where he was meant to be. With her. If only he knew who she was.

  Things were really hopping at the Bee Hive. By ten o’clock there was a line of customers stretching halfway around the block. Everyone made a big fuss over the décor, and there was much oohing and ahhing over the selection of homemade nail polish colors — the one-hundredth bottle of which Bee-Bee had finished mixing at midnight the night before.

  Her customers were in good spirits, laughing and chatting with each other as Bee-Bee flew around the salon flitting from hand to hand, soaking, filing, clipping, buffing, and painting fingernails. That morning, she gave manicures to the mayor’s wife, the pharmacist’s sister, a pair of identical twins, and the church organists from both the Methodist and the Presbyterian churches. Even the elderly widow of the former owner of the Frosty Boy stopped in to have her nails done. She recognized the glass bowl sitting on the counter right away.

  “George used to keep his sprinkles in that, back in the day,” she said wistfully as she plucked a bottle of ruby-red polish off the shelf and held it up to the light. “Of course I remember that, too,” she added, pointing to the old photograph Bee-Bee had rescued from the Frosty Boy and hung on the wall behind the shampoo sink. “Once upon a time that little girl was quite famous, you know.”

  The happy chattering of her clientele reminded Bee-Bee of the flocks of catbirds that used to come to feed in her mulberry trees back in Cloverhitch. She worked steadily, humming softly to herself. By noon she had managed to give thirty-six manicures to a total of thirty-five satisfied customers.

  The lone discontent had been Teeny Nelson’s mother. Mrs. Nelson had frowned at her fingernails when Bee-Bee was finished painting them and complained that the color had looked different in the bottle. Bee-Bee quickly apologized and offered to start fresh with a new color, even though there were other customers waiting. Then she told Teeny to help herself to a piece of candy from the glass bowl on the counter and asked if she’d like to go say hello to the dog while her mother got her nails repainted.

  “Does he bite?” Teeny had asked, digging around in the candy.

  Bee-Bee shook her head.

  “He’s a perfect gentleman,” she told Teeny. “Unless you happen to be a cat. Go right down that hall and through the white door. My guess is you’ll find him napping on the couch.”

  By noon the rush was over. Bee-Bee scribbled out to lunch on a piece of paper and taped it to the front door, then went back to the apartment to make herself a bite to eat.

  Having finally finished his chores, Nick Woo arrived at the Bishops’ house just in time for lunch.

  “I thought you’d never get here,” said Melody as she let him inside.

  Gramp-o slapped together a couple of baloney-and-cheese sandwiches and poured Melody and Nick each a glass of milk.

  “I’ve got some errands to do in town this afternoon, Melly,” Gramp-o said. Then he frowned and snapped his fingers. “Darn. I just remembered I left the tuna noodle casserole in the trunk of my car — would you mind bringing it in? The keys are on the hook by the door.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Nick.

  As they walked across the lawn to the driveway, where Esmeralda, Gramp-o’s banged-up old white car, was parked, Melody filled Nick in on what Teeny had told her.

  “I’m telling you, it’s not a coincidence,” she insisted as she popped open the trunk. “Teeny Nelson was talking about my dad — he’s the Henry who’s been bitten by the love bug, and somebody at the Bee Hive knows about it.”

  Melody lifted the large Tupperware container out of the trunk. Gramp-o had made enough tuna noodle casserole to feed an army. They’d be eating leftovers for weeks.

  “Is it my imagination or is that new?” Nick asked, pointing to a dent in the rear bumper.

  Grampo’s driving was about on a par with his cooking.

  “He backed into a fire hydrant last week,” Melody explained as she slammed the trunk closed. “It came ‘out of nowhere’ like everything else he’s hit.”

  “What does your grandfather have to say about what’s going on with your dad?” asked Nick.

  “He doesn’t get it,” said Melody. “He thinks the reason my dad’s been acting weird is because it’s the end of the school year. But I’ve already started a list of potential honeys. I have to know who she is.”

  “Maybe your dad told your grandfather about his new girlfriend, but he swore him to secrecy or something,” said Nick.

  T
hat hadn’t occurred to Melody. On their way back inside, she decided it couldn’t hurt to ask.

  “Thanks,” Gramp-o said when Melody set the heavy container on the counter, “I’ll take it from here. But first I’m going out to the garage.”

  “To look for the hammer?” asked Nick.

  Gramp-o shook his head.

  “Don’t you get started with me, young man,” he said, unhooking the oxygen tube and draping it over the back of a chair.

  “Before you go,” said Melody, “can I ask you something?”

  “Fire away,” Gramp-o told her.

  “Has Dad mentioned anything to you about having a girlfriend?”

  Melody studied her grandfather’s face carefully as he answered. She’d played enough games of gin rummy with him to know that his eyebrows twitched when he was being shifty about something.

  “If your father has a girlfriend, it’s news to me,” Gramp-o said, his eyebrows unmoving. “What makes you think he might?”

  “All the signs are there,” Nick chimed in.

  “You said yourself you noticed Dad’s socks didn’t match,” Melody pointed out.

  Gramp-o laughed. “This from the person who gave me grief about a non sequitur? Listen, Melly — I’d like your father to find someone special as much as you would, but if he was seeing somebody, he would have told us. Mark my words, the minute he’s done with school, he’ll straighten up and fly right again.”

  “Like I said,” Melody told Nick after her grandfather had left. “He doesn’t get it.”