Just My Type (28 page)
Sonya held out her hands for Sara to see. Her hands were dry, the nails short, calluses evident. Sara looked down at her own hands. “I’m pretty sure I’ve never even picked up an axe.” Angela snorted. “I’m pretty sure you haven’t either.”
The other women laughed and Sara even found herself smiling. “Pretty obvious, huh?”
“Um…” Sonya gave her a smile that could have been described as friendly. “Yeah, Sara, it is.” Sara thought about it. “I used a screwdriver one time.”
“What for?” Monica asked.
“To take the back off of my portable CD player to replace the batteries.” There was a long moment of silence. Then an outburst of laughter. Finally someone said, “One time?” Sara was smiling with them as she shrugged. “I’ve got a sister, her husband, a brother and three of his best friends looking out for me all the time. I never change batteries, light bulbs…anything.”
“Wow, you’re like a princess,” Sonya said.
Sara had to smile at the inadvertent use of her nickname.
“Yeah, tell us some more fairy tales,” Monica said. “About a land where a woman doesn’t have to do anything and has others to take care of her all the time.” Sara looked at her, but found Monica’s expression to be friendly.
“You all work really hard, don’t you?”
“Monica helps her husband milk cows every morning,” Nancy said.
Sara knew her eyes were wide. “You milk cows? With your hands?” Monica shook her head. “Not anymore. We have milking machines now, but we still have to get the cows in and hooked up, then unhooked. And we milk three times a day.”
“Seriously?” Sara looked around. “What about the rest of you?” They must have read the sincerity on her face because they started talking about one another. Nancy was a nurse, who worked the night shift at the nursing home. Sonya and her husband had the tree farm—
not just Christmas trees, it turned out—along with a large greenhouse. Kathy cleaned the school with her daughter after school hours, as well as the two churches in town. Cindy helped with the books for her husband’s construction business.
“So now tell us about you,” Monica said to Sara.
She shrugged. “I don’t do anything. I mean, I work with the teenagers at the youth center. A lot of that is talking, listening, just being there. I think it’s important, but it’s not…what you all do.” She turned to look over at Angela and the other girls. “I mean, I could never be on my feet all day long.”
“Makes it tough to wear heels,” Angela said.
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Sara looked down at her feet. “I do love my heels.” She wasn’t going to apologize. Maybe that’s what Angela and the others wanted, but she did love her heels.
“So tell us about having five men at your beck and call,” Cindy said. “Sounds like heaven to me.” She rubbed the side of her neck and rolled her head.
“You okay?” Sara asked.
“A headache. Nothing unusual.”
“Here, let me try something.” Sara stood and moved to stand behind Cindy’s chair.
“Oh, you don’t have to…”
“I get a massage every week.” She shot a glance at Angela who, predictably, rolled her eyes. “I’ve picked a few things up.”
“You get headaches?” Angela asked. “How is that even possible?”
“I don’t get headaches too much,” Sara admitted. She started rubbing Cindy’s shoulders. “And my blood pressure is extraordinarily low.” She was going to be herself with these women and they were going to see she was an okay person anyway. “I think it’s because of the massages and yoga.” She could feel knots along Cindy’s right shoulder in particular. She pushed her thumb in on the tender points, holding the pressure until she felt Cindy’s shoulder relax and then moving to the next.
“You do yoga?” Kathy asked.
“Of course she does.” Angela shook her head. “Just like we all would if we didn’t have a million other things to do.”
Sara shrugged. “I also like aromatherapy—I have lots of relaxation scents. And I try to get plenty of sleep.”
“Just like we all would…”
“Yeah, yeah,” Sonya interrupted Angela. “Go on, Sara.”
Sara didn’t dare glance at Angela. She moved her hands up to the back of Cindy’s head, pressing and rubbing in small, gentle circles. Cindy’s head dropped forward and she sighed. “I have another secret for relaxation,” she said.
“Hot kinky sex?”
Surprisingly this did not come from Angela. There wasn’t a sound for several seconds. Sara turned to face Sonya.
“I was going to say cartoons. I love them. Especially the old ones, Looney Tunes and stuff.”
“Oh.” Sonya looked around at the other women. “What? You were all thinking it.” Kathy and Monica looked embarrassed. “Sorry, Sara,” Kathy said.
“Um, no harm done.”
“It’s just…well, most of the women in town are a little intimidated by a woman who can keep up with Jason MacDonald. And maybe a little jealous.”
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Sara had to admit she liked having someone who was willing to be honest with her, even if—maybe
especially
if—it wasn’t complimentary. And as the words sunk in she felt a smile building. Maybe it
was
a compliment, come to think of it.
“I thought I was just annoying you all with my unwillingness to clean my own house and my high heels and my need for weekly facials.”
“Oh, honey, all of that is really annoying too,” Angela said.
The rest laughed and Sara just smiled bigger. She couldn’t completely explain it but she felt good.
These women gave each other a hard time, like Mac and the guys did, like friends did. She was growing on them. She could feel it. Besides, Angela had just called her honey.
“Oh, my
Gawd
,” Cindy sighed just then. “My headache is gone. This is the best I’ve felt in days.” Sara felt warmth spread through her. “That’s great,” she said sincerely.
Cindy smiled. “You have a gift.”
“Well, I don’t know about that, but I’m glad you feel better.”
“Seriously, Sara,” Kathy said. “The other day when you massaged my feet…wow. That was heavenly.”
Sara smiled and reclaimed her seat, listening to the women talk about how they deserved a good massage and how bad their husbands were at it.
The shop closed from eleven to three in the afternoon, opening in time for the kids after school and people after work. As the women left the shop, Sara hung back until it was only her and Angela.
“Um, hey, Angela?” Everyone else called her Angie or Ange, but Sara wasn’t feeling that brave.
“Hm?”
“Do you have Internet on the computer here?”
She knew they did their scheduling and accounting on the computer, but wasn’t sure what the Internet access was like in Oscar.
“What kind of net?” Angela asked from where she was scrubbing out her wash basin.
“The Internet. On the computer. You know…” Sara couldn’t think of anything to compare it to.
“Oh, we don’t have a lot of that fancy city stuff here.” Angie turned on her sprayer and rinsed soap bubbles down the drain.
“Do you know if somewhere else in town has Internet access?” Sara wished she’d just kept her mouth shut. She didn’t think that Angela would loan her a cup of sugar not to mention a pleasant conversational exchange.
Finally, Angela turned to face her. “Of course we have the Internet on the computer here. This isn’t Mars, for God’s sake.”
Sara felt her cheeks heat. “Oh. Would you mind if I looked at a couple of things while you clean up?” Angela tipped her head to one side. “Tell you what, you use my computer,
you
clean up.” 160
Just My Type
Sara looked around the shop and shrugged. “If you trust me. Considering I have very little cleaning experience.”
“Honey, we put harsh chemicals and dyes in these sinks and on this floor. I doubt you could hurt anything.” She took her apron off, tossed it over the back of her chair, grabbed the broom and dustpan as she walked past and handed them to Sara. “Don’t forget the corners.” She crossed to the counter, took a piece of banana bread, poured a cup of coffee and settled into the chair Sara had occupied earlier. “I think you’re going to need an emery board when you’re done here, though.” Sara said nothing. She didn’t know if Angela was picking a fight, trying to make conversation or was just pointing out a fact. So she just started sweeping.
She hadn’t checked her e-mail or Facebook in days. She hadn’t thought about it until now, though.
She had some high school and college friends she should let know about her wedding and new address, but it was nothing that couldn’t wait. She needed to talk to Mac—or an even higher power like her sister, Jessica—about getting a computer and access out at the farm.
What had prompted her question to Angela though, was the idea of massage therapy. She knew there was a school—or maybe even more than one—in Omaha. She had no idea how long it took or what was involved, but she felt a little flutter in her stomach when she thought about it.
She could do that. She liked people, making them feel better, making them happy. She was good at social work for all of those reasons, however Oscar didn’t seem in desperate need of its own social worker.
Besides, social work had seemed a natural degree to get for the work her sister and brother had already decided she would do at their dad’s youth center. They both wanted to keep it going but they’d been called into medicine—Jessica with her nursing degree and Sam as a paramedic—because of their experience with their father’s death. Social work was not, however, Sara’s dream job.
She didn’t know if she had a dream job. The idea of having her own business… She felt like she’d just gone over the biggest hill on the roller coaster. Something she did entirely on her own, exactly how she wanted, even with a few mistakes. Something she could do with her own hands, create or influence.
Something she could point to and say
that’s mine
. No help from anyone. She needed that.
“How long have you owned this business?” she asked Angela.
The woman was looking at a
People
magazine, sipping coffee.
“Eight years,” she answered without looking up.
“You started it all on your own?” Sara swept the pile of freshly trimmed hair to the wastebasket by the desk.
“I have the loan payment every month to prove it.” Angela flipped a page.
“So you got a loan from the bank?”
“Well, my money tree got uprooted by the tornado I call
life
so yeah, I went to the bank.” She took a drink of coffee.
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“I’m impressed.”
Angela glanced up. “What?”
“I said I’m impressed. I wouldn’t know the first place to start with something like that.” Angela looked wary but she said, “You just open the door, walk in and announce I need some money.
People come running with bags of it.”
Sara smiled. “Sure. That sounds about right.” She dumped the dustpan of hair into the garbage. “It must have been fun designing the place. I love the color blue you used.” Angela looked at the wall to her left. “Um, thanks.”
“I mean, it must have been exciting picking out what colors you wanted to use and the name of the shop…everything from scratch. All your own ideas. All yours.” Sara went to the middle wash sink. She took a towel from the shelf just below and began wiping the sink out. She wasn’t sure if she should use soap on it or not. Seemed that there had been a lot of soap on it already with all the shampoo and it didn’t
look
dirty.
“You have to
scrub
the sinks,” Angela said. She stood and crossed to the sink she used, grabbed the purple sponge sitting on the edge and tossed it to Sara. “That’s when you use the muscles in your arms.”
“You mean the ones I use to pick up my lattes and carry my designer bags?” Sara asked.
For just a moment Angela seemed startled by the banter. Then she said, “Those are them.” Sara hid her smile as she ducked her head and began scrubbing the sink. She did, after all, like lattes and had a lot of bags. If that’s what it took, her muscles were in great shape. Not to mention that she did scrub her own kitchen and bathroom sinks in her apartment. Which Angela probably wouldn’t believe anyway.
She finished scrubbing, rinsing and drying the third sink. Then she spotted the cleaning supplies under the front desk. She sprayed the mirrors with glass cleaner and wiped them, dusted the front counter and the shelves that held hair-care products by the front door and straightened the magazines on the table in the waiting room, stepping around Angela’s feet to do it.
Sara started to climb onto a chair to dust the light fixtures over the stylists’ chairs when Angela got to her feet.
“Okay, the computer’s all yours. Lock up when you’re done.” She went to the front door and opened it.
“You’re leaving?” Sara asked, climbing down from the chair.
“Yep. I’m starving.” Angela took one step out the door and turned back. “And yeah, doing everything to get the shop open was fun.” The door shut behind her before Sara could think of something to say.
She was humming, though, as she typed “massage therapy schools, Omaha, NE” into the Google search box.
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“And that space right next to Angela’s shop would be perfect. It’s too small for anything else and it would be pretty much the same people who go to Style that would want to come to my place.” Mac couldn’t believe he was naked in bed with Sara and her mouth was so busy with things
other
than what he’d had in mind. She was so excited about her idea to open a massage business. She’d apparently researched it extensively and had gone to Mary Stotten’s real-estate business the same day to ask about available spaces.
For some reason Mary hadn’t told Sara he owned the building.
“Princess, if you want a shop, let’s find one in Omaha.” He ran his hand over her bare hip.
She frowned. “I don’t want a shop in Omaha. I want to do it here.”
“Why? People in Omaha are a lot more likely to get massages.”