The Lost Years

61

At eleven o’clock, Alvirah was sitting on a chair near the receptionist’s desk in the beauty salon at Bergdorf Goodman waiting for, but not expecting, Lillian Stewart to keep her appointment there.

When she’d arrived fifteen minutes earlier, she’d explained to the receptionist why she was there. “I’m an old friend. I help Ms. Stewart out by covering at her apartment when she has a repairman coming in. She’s not answering her cell phone, and she told me a couple of days ago that she had a refrigerator guy coming in today at one o’clock and she might need me to let him in.”

The receptionist, a trim sixtyish woman with ash-blond hair, nodded. “I understand. I waited my whole day off for the television guy and he never showed up. And you know what drives me crazy? They give you a window of time for when they’ll be there and it doesn’t mean a thing.”

“You’re so right,” Alvirah agreed. “Anyhow, since I couldn’t reach her, and you know how impossible it is to even get an appointment with anyone who fixes anything, never mind reschedule it, I decided to come over here and find out when she’ll be finished. If she has a long appointment, I’ll meet the repair guy. The way I figure it, with school starting next week, she’s probably getting the whole works done today.”

The receptionist smiled and nodded. “Yes, she is. Manicure, pedicure, haircut, coloring, highlights, and blow dry. She’ll be here at least three hours.”

“That’s my Lillian,” Alvirah said, smiling broadly. “She always looks so perfectly put together. How long has she been coming here?”

“Oh, my goodness.” The receptionist frowned in concentration. “She was already a regular client when I came to work here and that’s almost twenty years ago.”

At a quarter past eleven, Alvirah went back to the desk. “I’m getting a little worried,” she confided. “Is Lillian usually on time?”

“You can set your clock by her. She’s never forgotten any appointment before, but maybe something important came up. If I don’t hear from her in the next twenty minutes, I think I’ll have to cancel the rest of her appointments.”

“Maybe you should,” Alvirah said. “Maybe something important really did come up.”

“I just hope it wasn’t any big problem, like a death in her family.” The receptionist sighed. “Ms. Stewart is such a nice person.”

“I hope there wasn’t a death in her family,” Alvirah agreed quietly. Including Lillian’s own, she thought grimly.