Hostile Makeover by Wendy Wax Read Free Book Online

door closed safely behind her.

chapter 6
    S helley spent the next three days in her pajamas, wallowing. It wasn’t a conscious decision. She just couldn’t seem to make herself get out of bed. Or answer her phone. Or go to her job. Or keep her appointments. Voice mails poured in from her colorist, her manicurist, her electrolysist, her masseuse, and her personal trainer. Her misery was affecting profits at salons all over Buckhead.
    In the kitchen the dishes were piled in the sink and the remnants of all the food she’d eaten lay wherever she’d consumed it. The empty quart of Cherry Garcia with the spoon sticking out of it stared her down every time she walked past the coffee table, but she couldn’t summon the energy to remove it. The one time she answered the phone without checking her caller ID her mother caught her. Possibly sensing Shelley’s vulnerability, she charged right through the pleasantries and then zeroed in for the kill.
    “Shelley?”
    “Mmm-hmm?” Lazily, Shelley examined her fingernails and was surprised to note that her polish was chipped and one of her acrylic tips had disappeared.
    “Are you all right?”
    “Mmm-hmm.”
    “You don’t sound all right.”
    Normally Shelley would have argued or changed the subject, but her mind was moving much too slowly to successfully feint and parry with her mother.
    “I’m fine,” she managed. Then she yawned.
    “If I’m keeping you awake, I’d better get right to the point.”
    It was a sign of how tired she was that this seemed like a good idea. Plopping onto the living room sofa, she put her bare feet up on the cocktail table and edged the empty ice cream carton aside with her toes, which she now realized were also unusually . . . ragged. When had the hair on her legs reached the Brillo stage?
    “I had a call from Thelma Horowitz.”
    Shelley’s antennae must have been as numb as the rest of her, because they failed to spring up and warn her of the danger ahead.
    “Her son just moved back to Atlanta and he needs a date for . . .”
    Shelley knew there was something she should be saying or doing now, but she couldn’t seem to remember what it was.
    “. . . a client dinner.” Her mother paused for the briefest of moments as if waiting for objections to brush aside, but Shelley couldn’t seem to come up with any.
    “So I told her of course you’d be glad to go. And I gave her your phone number to give to him.”
    Shelley closed her eyes and lowered her head to her knees. She knew something bad had just happened but she couldn’t summon the energy to protest.
    “OK. So . . . that’s all I wanted to say.”
    There was a stunned silence as they both recognized that Miriam had accomplished in thirty seconds what normally took a good week of nagging. Then her mother hung up before Shelley could “come to.”
    Shelley laid down the phone and went back to bed.
     
    She was still sleeping that afternoon when someone started banging on her front door. Groaning, Shelley pulled a pillow over her head and burrowed deeper under the covers, but the pounding didn’t stop.
    Finally, she shrugged into a robe and shuffled to the front door. It was two P.M.
    “You look like shit,” Nina said as she swept into the foyer. “And so does your place.”
    “Do you
ever
not say exactly what you think?” Shelley asked.
    “To you? No. Now tell me what’s going on. I’ve been trying to reach you all week.”
    So Shelley told her. In detail.
    “And you didn’t explain how important this was to you?”
    “Well, I tried, but—”
    “Or how completely ready you are to buckle down and prove yourself?”
    “Well, I tried, but—”
    “You
are
ready to buckle down and prove yourself.”
    Shelley nodded, still numb. “But it’s too late. He’s already given the business to Morgan. And I’m an addendum to their contract!”
    Talking about things was supposed to make you feel better, but that was definitely not the case. Tears pricked the backs of her