Sunset Beach(111)

“I can do that.” Drue gave her the address, and they set the time for two o’clock.



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Neesa Vincent showed up at two-thirty, at almost the exact moment Drue was about to give up hope.

She bustled into the house carrying a large plastic shopping bag and an open liter bottle of Mountain Dew. The platinum-blond wig was gone today, and her long hair hung straight past her shoulders in ombré shades of lavender to violet.

“Ooh, this is a nice house,” she said, fanning herself as she unloaded her supplies onto the tiny kitchen counter. “But how come you don’t run the AC up in here?”

“I don’t have air-conditioning,” Drue said.

“Girl, that’s crazy! A house like this, right on the water?”

“I inherited it from my mother. My grandfather built this house back in the 1950s,” Drue said. She looked at the line-up of bottles emerging from the plastic bag and felt a new twinge of anxiety. “Wow, that’s a lot of chemicals.”

“That’s why I got to charge you my surge price,” Neesa said. “I spent a hundred dollars on supplies at Sally’s just now.” She turned and took a strand of Drue’s hair, rubbing it appreciatively between her fingers. “You got a lotta hair, you know? I bet you got more hair on your bathroom floor than some of these old lady clients I get at cosmetology school put together.”

“Thanks,” Drue said. “Can I get you something to drink? I’ve got some beer and some prosecco in the fridge, and I’ve got a bottle of Tito’s too.”

“Okay, yeah,” the hairdresser said, holding up the Mountain Dew. “You could just pour some of that Tito’s right in my soda bottle. My nerves got kinda worked driving over here.”

Drue siphoned a good six ounces into the bottle and Neesa took a sip. “That’s smooth,” she said. She took another sip, and then another, and then snapped her fingers. “Damn. I shoulda told you about the coconut oil.”

“What about it?”

“At cosmetology school, we tell our clients to put coconut oil all over their hair the night before and sleep on it like that. You know, to protect the hair from getting damaged by the bleach.” She shrugged. “Oh well.”

“How badly could it get damaged?” Drue asked nervously.

“I mean, the ends could break off, but then we just trim it.” Neesa took a long gulp from the Mountain Dew bottle and held it out to Drue. “How about you top me off, and then we’ll get started?”

Drue did as she asked. “How far along in cosmetology school are you? I mean, you’ve done platinum-blond before, right?”

“Yeah, well, on a wig, I’ve done it twice. And my instructor said my toning technique was excellent. Tell you what,” Neesa said, handing Drue a small plastic tub of coconut oil. “Why don’t we put some of this on your hair now and let it sit for a while? You know, just have a cocktail, and then after an hour, that oughtta be good enough to get started.”

“Great idea,” Drue said, seizing on any delaying technique available. “Be right back.”

She went into her bedroom and shut the door. Rae Hernandez sat on the bed, paging through a magazine, looking bored.

“Are you hearing everything okay?” Drue asked.

“Good thing there’s no insulation in this old house. I can hear every word,” the detective said. “But if I were you, I wouldn’t let that stupid bitch touch my hair.”

“That’s why I’m stalling,” Drue said. She turned to the mirror over her dresser and began lathering coconut oil into her hair.

“Try to get her talking about the Gulf Vista,” Hernandez urged. “How much vodka has she had?”

“A lot. Like, half a fifth,” Drue said. “If I’d had that much, I’d be on the floor.”

Drue went into the bathroom, grabbed a towel and wrapped it around her head, turban-style.

When she returned to the kitchen, she found Neesa mixing chemicals in a large plastic bowl. The odor of bleach filled the room and stung her nostrils.

“How’s it going?” Drue asked.

“Okay,” Neesa said. “Lemme see your hair?”

Drue removed the towel and before she had a chance to protest, Neesa grabbed a pair of scissors, flipped up the back of Drue’s hair and cut a long strand.

“What the hell!” Drue said, when she saw the hunk of hair Neesa was clutching. “What did you do that for? I didn’t want my hair cut.”

“This is for the test strand,” Neesa explained. She laid the hair on some paper towels, dipped a flat plastic brush into the bleach mixture, then painted it onto the test hair. She turned to Drue. “This way we see how long it takes the bleach to lighten up your hair like we want. You got an oven timer? Let’s give it fifteen minutes.”

Drue started the timer and noticed that the Mountain Dew bottle was now empty and in the trash, along with the Tito’s bottle.

“Did you say you have some wine?” Neesa asked, seating herself at the dinette table.

Drue retrieved the bottle of prosecco she’d bought earlier in the day and held it up.

“Ooh, perfect,” Neesa said. “Bubbles.”



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