LOVELY IN EYES NOT HERS a novel

Supernatural drama

Leah is an aimless hairdresser, haunted by a failed romance and unable to move past her ex. Until the beginning of a more sinister haunting that threatens her most treasured relationships, her sanity, and her survival.

Excerpt from a POV chapter: Lorraine, the psychic

I awoke to a feeling of intense sadness.

In the kitchen, the tin of coffee weighed heavily in my hand. Scooping tablespoons of dark grounds into the thin paper filter of my machine took effort, my elbow was fatigued by the lifting. 

Once the coffee was ready I slopped in extra creamer, craving the sugar. I took my cup outside to my little porch overlooking Main Street. Most of the other houses along the road had been converted to businesses: nail salon, accountant, daycare, bakery, several antique shoppes. My house had also been purely a business, until the divorce. At the time, I had been grateful for the instinct to keep my establishment set up as a home – it helped my customers feel more comfortable, certainly, but when the crisis came it was a convenient place to stay. My original intention was to live here only until I was back on my feet, but that was five years ago. My ex-husband paid for the house in cash when I first set up business, so there was no mortgage. It was a little run down, but it fit the shabby-chic aesthetic of the street. Occasionally I look up apartments nearby, but not with any seriousness. I’ve come to like living here.

Houses block the sunrise, so my view was of a slowly lightening sky above pink-lined rooftops. People passed by, only a few, the early morning joggers, and they smiled or nodded.  I tried to lift my hand in return but couldn’t. When the strollers began to roll by, I went back inside.

            Standing over the sink, my body went numb and the empty cup simply dropped out of my hands.  It clinked loudly, didn’t break.

            “Alright,” I said out loud.  A stillness came over the room and I felt I was being heard.  “I don’t know what this is, or what it means.  Am I supposed to do something?”

            Nothing happened.  A hummingbird flew to the window in the next room, hovering a moment over a bowl of potpourri before turning away.  I waited.  Slowly, the weight in my joints lifted, but that was the only answer I got.           

After a shower, I regarded myself in the mirror.  Greying hair, skin growing leathery.  Not bad over all, but a little frumpy.  Trending more towards grandmotherly than I like. I frowned at myself, frowned at the Universe, then grabbed my purse and keys.

The hair salon was just opening as I reached it. The woman at the front desk hadn’t unlocked the customer door yet, but she responded to my knock with an apologetic smile.

“Are you for Phillip?” she asked, gesturing me inside the door and then flicking a switch on the desk that sent classic 90s music flooding through the room.

I shook my head, “I’m just a walk in.”

“That’s okay. Jen’s free.” She turned towards the back wall, “Jen! Walk in.”

A little scarecrow of a girl came up, wearing a black smock open at the front, a thin strip of taut belly above Britney Spears-low jeans. She silently led me to her station, swiveled the leather seat around and then draped a green cape over my shoulders, snapping it closed over the chair.

The florescent lighting of the hair salon brought out shadows and lines in my face that I hadn’t noticed before. The cape reflected a sickly glow under my chin. I sat in the low chair and glared at the mirror. It made me look even worse than at home.

“I want something daring,” I said. “I’ve been playing it safe too long.”

            The hairdresser was wary.  She stomped on the metal ring that lifted the chair higher and glanced over my hair briefly.  I could feel the girl’s eyes slip over my gray hair, the wrinkles. 

“What are you looking for?” she asked mechanically.

            The Universe was with me. My face peeped over the green cape like a puppet, but I met the girl’s gaze through the mirror with as much gravitas as I could. I put on my work voice, low but authoritative.  “You are a professional, honey,” I said.  “You’re going to pick the right cut and color.  I know it.”  And I really did. 

            The girl looked flatly back.  Then reluctantly, half rolling her eyes, she went and collected a stack of fashion magazines.  “Let’s see what strikes you,” she said, plopping them down.

            I shook my head. “No. I’m putting myself entirely in your hands. I have a spidey-sense for these things.” She shifted uncomfortably, glanced around the room at the other hairdressers, most of them now chatting lightly with the early morning regulars. “They can’t help you,” I insisted. “You’re the one who knows what to do. Trust me on this.”

            The girl silently lifted a comb from a clear container filled with antiseptic. She began to comb out my hair slowly. I watched her closely with a growing sense that something big, something important, was about to happen.

            “I don’t want to give you a cut you don’t like,” she said.

            I smiled broadly, feeling that the point of this visit wouldn’t turn out to be the best haircut of my life, but it would be a nice side effect. “You won’t.”

By the time she chose my color, we were great friends.  I, if I may say so, deftly tuned the conversation to the girl’s youth; I asked about her exercise regime, her diet, the lotions she used on her smooth hands, and in return she began to bloom. Her name was Jen, she was devoted to Sephora, and she was unlucky in love.  She split my hair into painstaking slivers, then slathered each with a thick red goop and wrapped it in foil, chirping away the entire time it took to set.

            “The last guy was a disaster,” she said when we returned to her chair after a rinse, my hair now a damp burgundy.  “We’d hooked up a couple of times, and I thought he was nice so I asked him to dinner. But he ended up asking me personal questions, like not normal stuff. He was, like, intrusive.” She glowed a little at the fancy word.

            The station next to us was empty, except for another hairdresser who slumped in the swivel chair, long honey hair covering half her face. She had been flipping through the discarded magazines listlessly, but at intrusive she snorted and looked up.  A faint antiseptic air wafted by when she moved. Hung over, I thought.  

            “Oh, stop it.” Jen shot down, breezily, a friendly glare at her neighbor. “I didn’t even know his last name, why should he know anything about me?”

            The other girl slapped her magazine shut and looked up at Jen, frowning pointedly.

            “Leah doesn’t approve of me sleeping around,” Jen explained.  “She dated the first guy she met after high school until last February, and it made her a prude. Lean your neck down just a little, please.”

            “I’m not a prude,” said the other girl.

            “Whatever.  Your one guy does not make you the relationship expert you think you are.”

            This was clearly a pet argument between them.  The other girl set her magazine aside and leaned forward, about to attack, but Jen intercepted her.

“Now, I will say this.  I can’t blame Leah for being dissatisfied with other guys.  Jay was a catch.  Lean your head down again, please.”

I leaned my head down and Jen brushed the stray hairs off my neck gently.

“Huge biceps.  Like, huge.  That guy was built like a tank.  A really hot tank.”

Leah laughed.  Tiny snips of the scissors tickled my neck as I peered up.  “He must have had more than biceps to ruin all men for Leah.”

Jen spun the chair, casting a critical eye over her work. “British accent,” she listed.  “Super smart, like, really super smart. Went to CMU for robotics. But not stuck up.  Rich.  Funny.  And, I mean, just sexy as hell.  Probably the sexiest guy I’ve ever seen, and I’m not even into Black guys.”

“Don’t be racist,” Leah piped in. She picked at her nails, spoke without looking at Jen.

“It’s not racist. I just know what kind of guy I like. I’m speaking my truth.”

“You just said he was the sexiest guy you’ve ever seen.”

“Because he was, like, transcendent. He transcended race.”  Jen smiled with pleasure at her wording. “You can lift your head up.  And his accent. Oh God.”

I stretched my sore neck. Beside her, Leah answered quietly, “His accent is amazing.”

Until now, Leah had been a silhouette in my periphery. Now I turned to look at her.  The girl’s eyes were large and darkly marbled and arresting.  I held my breath.  In the boundaries of my vision, a waving cloud encased the seated girl in a dusky violet.  The cloud carried with it a whispering moan that hit my upper register, the way I suppose dogs hear high whistles. It was an entirely new experience for me, but instinctively I knew it as sorrow, an old, old sorrow.  Passed down wrapped through the moan.  I could feel how the girl’s spirit bowed before such intense emotion.  And it was old, much older than the girl herself.  This was something ancient.  How had this hairdresser gotten herself mixed up in something so old?

            Leah looked away and shook her head and the moment passed. “You’re talking about him as though he’s dead,” she said.

            “He might as well be,” Jen insisted. “You need to move on, girl.”

            I could not speak. I felt suddenly, strangely, on the verge of tears. I sat quietly while Jen finished my hair, trying not to stare at Leah, trying to keep my hands from shaking. Jen prattled on and didn’t notice.

            By the time Jen was finished, proudly swirling the chair around to reveal my new look, I had already decided to tip generously.  I was nonetheless surprised by how dramatic the change was: my hair swept around my face with youthful body. I turned my head slightly to the side, watching my hair come to a graceful point just at the tip of my jawline. Long ago, in my backpacking-Eurorail days, my hair had been similar. The soft brush of it against my cheek was a sense memory of that time, filled with confidence and excitement. My ex always preferred my hair long, but how had I forgotten the pleasures of a bouncy short bob?

            “Thank you,” I said as I stood, reaching out, pressing a wadded up 50 into Jen’s hand.  “It’s just what I was hoping for.”

            “I’m so glad you liked it,” Jen replied. When she looked down at the money, her face exploded into a deep, splotchy blush.  

            “You should come see me,” I kept my eyes steadily on Jen, not a flicker towards Leah.  “I do palm readings, things like that.  My place is just down the road. And you have interesting hands.”  I passed my card over.  With a casual smile, I handed one to Leah as well. 

            “Oh!” said Jen.  She shook my hand again, and I knew it had worked.

            Back at home, I took another look at my new hair.  It was warm and soft, bounced slightly when I shook my head.  The woman in my mirror looked back saucily, ready for adventure. I remembered a pair of amber earrings I wore in my college days, heavy stones set in silver, and how they used to dangle below my hairline. I wondered if I still had them.

            As I dug through my collection of jewelry boxes, I tried to discard the image of the quiet Leah and her ancient sorrow from my mind.  Thinking would distort my impressions.  When I found the earrings, I sat back on my bed, holding them in my hands. It had been several decades, but the silver was still shiny, the stones were clean and clear. They were heavy in my hand.

As I slipped the posts into my ears, I was compelled to say out loud to the Universe, “I’m doing what I can.  Ball is in your court.”

My answer came exactly one week later.