Bad Heiress Day

She was out the door in seventeen minutes flat.

“Mercy! What have you done with Darcy Nightengale? I know she went in there half an hour ago. Where’d you put her?” Kate let the magazine she was holding fall into her lap. Darcy reveled in the way Kate’s eyes lit up. Kate’s look was exactly the way she felt.

Ernestine came up behind her. Ernestine, whom she’d never met before today. Yet, the minute she sat in her salon chair, Darcy felt one of those instantaneous, giftlike connections with the woman. Ernestine picked up immediately why Darcy had come to the salon and seemed to know just what to do. A large woman with complicated black hair and a South Seas type of accent, Ernestine winked at Kate and made a clucking sound with her tongue.

“It does do wonders for the woman, don’t you think?”

Kate nodded from above her pedicure. “Dar, you look wonderful.”

“Comfortably drastic,” Darcy quoted, using Ernestine’s perfect phrase for what she needed. Turning to the mirror, she admired again the oh-so-up-to-date flippy thing her hair was doing. “I’m just hoping I can achieve the home version. What do you think about the color? I’ve never done highlighting before.”

“It suits you. Really. Hey, when do I get to do ‘comfortably drastic’? And Ernestine, would you consider moving closer to Cincinnati? Tomorrow? One look at Darcy and I could garner you a full client base in about forty minutes.”

Ernestine smiled. “You drove out here once. You’ll drive it again. I don’t plan to be going anywhere. And as for you, redhead, I get my hands on you in twenty minutes—after your toes dry.”

“Mmm,” sighed Kate, wiggling her toes, “I can hardly wait.”

The idea to come here had sprung itself on Darcy in a heartbeat. She’d scrambled through the yellow pages to find a full-scale salon sufficiently out of town and ordered the works for two. She wanted no chance of encountering a judgmental eye wondering why a grieving daughter was popping for beauty treatments two days after the funeral.

Darcy eased into the pedicure chair next to Kate and accepted a fantastic-smelling cup of tea. “I feel like a snake shedding its skin.”

The hip young man filling her tub, who looked suspiciously like a relative of Ernestine’s, gave her a wide grin. “I am looking at these heels and thinking you are not too far off. These feet have been through a lot, mmm?” Somehow he managed to make such a potentially judgmental comment come off as warm and understanding. That made Darcy sure he was a relative of Ernestine’s.

“Uh-huh.” Both women agreed simultaneously, and then broke into a giggle fit worthy of middle school girls.

“Oh, I can’t believe how good this feels,” murmured Darcy as her feet slid into the warm bubbles. “I swear, I feel like I’ve just joined the human race again.”

Kate looked at her. “I think you have. Welcome back.” She hesitated just a moment before adding softly, “We’ve missed you.”

She had been gone, hadn’t she? Lost to a world of crisis and catheters. Far away from many of the people she loved. Who loved her. Caught up in her dad’s ever-tightening world until she couldn’t see beyond its edges. And Darcy was just now coming to see the cost. That didn’t mean the attention she gave her father wasn’t worth it, but somehow—maybe even for her own sanity—she’d managed to ignore the consequence of that drastically narrow focus.

She fingered her wispy hair again. “Do you think Jack will like it?”

Darcy was sure Kate was going to say something like, “He’s missed you most of all.” But she didn’t. As a matter of fact, she didn’t say anything. She just sneaked her hand over to give Darcy’s hand a quick squeeze. The gesture said a million things at once.

Something was happening. Something was seeping into Darcy’s skin along with the creams, lotions and treatments. The outward pampering was becoming a foothold of sorts back into a life she’d almost forgotten. The non-urgent facets of life. Something inside her was remaking itself. Coming up for air out of the deep sea of crisis. It was hard to describe and felt a bit shallow coming from hand cream and hair dye. But it was there. And remarkably potent. Almost magical in how the outward care changed her on the inside.

“I’d have to say you’ve pretty much covered Christmas and my birthday on this one. I’m definitely liking the best-friend-of-heiress gig. Although, I’m rather certain this isn’t what your dad had in mind when he told you to ‘give it all away.’”

Darcy’s heart felt like it stopped beating momentarily.

There.

Yes, that. That was it.

Kate kept gushing on about marvelous everythings but Darcy didn’t hear her. She was staring into thin air, watching the pieces of an extraordinary idea weave themselves together in front of her.

As if it wasn’t even her own thinking. As if the concept came pouring down out of somewhere to coat her consciousness. Faces came into view. Faces from the hospice center. Hands cracked and drying from the disinfectant and endless washing. Bodies aching from nights in vinyl armchairs. Drawn cheeks and red eyes. The haphazard griminess of clothes and bodies roused in the middle of the night for what might be a loved one’s final hours. Unkempt. Ignored. Unnurtured while nurturing someone else. They were like dried leaves, all of these people—herself included, colorless and brittle and swirling at the mercy of the death’s unpredictable wind.

Within the space of four seconds she could name six women who needed this as much as she. Needed that inexplicable renewal that comes from caring for a body long overlooked. And the faces and names kept coming. Piling into her thoughts. The gallery of faces became like walking through a brown and sere garden….

…And…

…And…

She’d just been handed water.

Gallons and gallons of it.

Darcy’s body hummed with the realization. She stretched her limbs, practically testing their pliancy. She wasn’t dry and brittle anymore. Certainly not on the outside, and less than she had been on the inside. There was something about this reckless luxury—the pampering, the time with Kate, the permission to do something nice for herself—that healed her.

“Kate. Oh, Kate, I’ve got it.”

“Got what?”

“The Dad thing. What I’m going to do. I’ve got it.”

“Who knew a good manicure could solve life’s major problems?” quipped Kate, staring a bit quizzically at Darcy.

“I got it,” Darcy said again softly, still reeling from the power of this idea. And it was powerful. She recognized its power the moment it sprung into her thoughts.

“Okay,” Kate said slowly, cueing, “So you got it. And it is…”

“Time to do something with this amazing red hair of yours, madam,” came Ernestine’s voice from the next room. Her wild braids popped around the doorframe. “It’s Kate, isn’t it? Come, lady Kate, let’s see what we can do for you.”

Kate eased up out of her chair. “Dar, you look like you’re going to explode. You okay?”

“Fabulous,” said Darcy. “I’ll tell you all about it over lunch.”

Darcy didn’t even remember the rest of the pedicure. Her brain launched somewhere far away. This was the right thing to do. She knew it, down to her newly cranberry toenails. It felt right. The plans kept zinging into her thoughts until she was working it out to the small details by the time Kate appeared from under Ernestine’s magic hands.

And appear Kate did. Ernestine was an artist. Kate’s hair had always been beautiful before, but it was just plain stunning under Ernestine’s hand. Silky red layers framed Kate’s face and made her look younger. In the space of twenty minutes Kate had gone from suburban mom to babe. Major, head-turning, knock-your-socks-off babe. Kate knew it, too, for a swingy little bounce had found its way into her walk. In fact, it was edging closer to a strut. Who could argue with the woman? Darcy had to admit she felt the same way.

“Man alive, Kate, Don is going to go nuts when he sees you tonight. You look fantastic.”

Kate admired herself in the same mirror that Darcy had. “I do, don’t I? Ernestine, you sure you won’t move to Cincinnati? Today?”

“You sure you’re going to come back to me again?”

“Uh-huh,” confirmed Kate, still eyeing herself in the mirror from different angles.

“Then I don’t have to go anywhere, now do I?”

“No, ma’am, I think I’d probably crawl over broken glass to get back to you.”

Ernestine clasped her hands together like a teacher making an announcement. “Now, you go two doors down to Stephano’s for lunch, there are some splendid salads waiting for you and some dessert that’s going to make you feel like the treasures you are. I’ve had his chocolate mousse, dears, and it’s absolutely heavenly. Off with you now. You come back at one-thirty for facials and massage.”

“Oh. Oh, this is fantastic. I’d ask for seconds if I didn’t feel like such a pig already. And even that might not stop me.” Kate was leaning back, eyes closed, savoring the chocolate dessert before her.