Part 65 (1/2)

”It's a miracle!” she cried.

It was, indeed, a very attractive hairstyle.

”You look lovely, my dear.”

She got close to where I was sitting, bent over me and started plucking carefully at my hair with expert attentiveness. ”Gads, Franka, I see what they've done. Released some of the buoyancy by cutting layers into the length to take off the weight. Extraordinary,” she breathed, leaned back and examined my face. ”And your brows are quite lovely, arched like that. All in all, I must say, you look even more beautiful than normal,” she declared. ”Mas...I mean, Noc will be even more enamored with you when he sees you.”

I had no doubt this would be true.

And the reason why was not my hairstyle, which was really quite lovely, a change but not much of one, however it made an impact. Or my brows, which were always arched but the delicate sweep of them now was most effective.

It was simply because Noc was enamored with me and it seemed anything I did made him more so.

I tucked that thought safe close to my heart and smiled in a way I knew how it felt having it there showed on my face.

And it did, for Josette asked, ”He's lovely to you in all ways?”

”He's more than lovely to me in all ways,” I answered.

”I knew he would be,” she whispered. ”And this makes me happy.”

It did me as well.

I didn't share that.

I reached out a hand and took hers, giving it a squeeze.

”Franka? Josette?” a woman called.

We both looked to her standing at the mouth of the area we were in.

”Time for mani-pedis!” she exclaimed, as if she'd said, ”Time for you to select your sapphire the size of your palm!”

Josette, my sweet adventurer who greeted every new experience with excitement and delight, gave me an eager look then rushed to the woman.

I pushed up from my seat and followed more slowly, doing it realizing that for some reason I'd taken on this other-world adventure with trepidation. Perhaps because nothing had gone well for me in my past and I could not imagine a future where I could expect even a modic.u.m of that and I was living in unconscious dread of when my luck would turn. Perhaps it was because I was Franka Drakkar and I had not yet gotten used to the new me, I feared I'd lapse into the old, and it would be me who would drive away all the good I seemed to be earning.

I followed Josette and the woman slowly, also realizing this was foolish and feeling my shoulders straighten at the thought.

Antoine had been right.

Kristian had been right.

Josette had been right.

And Noc had been right.

The four people I had allowed closest to me knew me better than I did myself.

The new me was me.

As such, it didn't seem I was earning anything.

I simply was earning it.

So I should b.l.o.o.d.y well enjoy it.

As I felt a smile curve my lips, my step increased and I sallied forth on my next adventure of allowing someone (not Josette) to shape my nails.

It was not hand to claw combat with a bear.

But it was my adventure, my life.

I was going to cease fearing it.

I was going to embrace it.

Every second.

”By Hermia,” Josette whispered loudly from her place beside me, her entire body vibrating from the apparatus that was inside the seat that whirled and kneaded, tapped and pounded against our backs. ”Another miracle,” she whispered, waving her pink-tipped fingernails my way.

I'd noted, with some envy, Valentine's varnished nails, something we did not have in our world.

Now both Josette and my nails were the same, shaped and varnished, and the ladies were attending our feet, an utterly sublime experience.

Josette had chosen pink.

I had selected a rich burgundy, the color of my favorite Fleuridian wine.

”We must come here every week, Franka,” Josette carried on whispering.

This, once Noc taught us to drive a vehicle, we would do.

”Agreed,” I declared.

She again smiled hugely.

I looked down at the woman sitting on a low stool at my feet.

”Hail, young woman,” I called, her head twitched and she tipped it back to blink at me. ”Can you please inform me of when you're close to finished?” I requested. ”Not,” I went on quickly, ”that I'm not enjoying your ministrations. I am. Thoroughly. Just that my, well...erm...”

I looked to Josette and lifted my brows, uncertain how to refer to Noc.

She shrugged.

Ah well.

I turned back to the woman at my feet. ”My lover requires me to text him when we're nearly finished so he can collect us. We've both enjoyed our time here, tremendously. But I, for one, am quite famished and he's to take us out to luncheon.” At her continued stunned expression, I amended, ”Lunch and I'd rather not delay in waiting for him to arrive by texting too late.”