Like C’ndee, D’Vora was a fan of the “If you’ve got it, flaunt it” school of fashion. They shared that, along with the fanciful use of apostrophes in their self-created first names.

“I saw y’all through the window at Gladys’ this morning,” D’Vora said to Mama, who’d stepped in to help her shelve the hair products.

“You should have joined us, honey.”

“She was running late, as usual.” Betty shot D’Vora a sharp look as she rang up the bank president’s wife.

“Sorry, Betty,” D’Vora recited by rote. “Anyways, who was that gorgeous guy at your table?”

Mama supplied the details on Anthony Ciancio as I leafed through People. What is it about Hollywood that makes celebrities go crazy? The star of a kids’ show arrested for porn. A pop singer out in public with no undies. A famous actor caught in a racist rant. I tuned in to the beauty shop chat again.

“I should have known that guy was related to C’ndee,” D’Vora was saying. “She’s so glamorous!”

“That’s a nice word for it,” Mama said dryly. “But I have to admit, I do like that nephew. Maybe he can be a backup beau for Mace, once she screws things up completely with Carlos.”

“Hello? I’m sitting right here!” I said from behind my People.

Mama clapped a hand over her mouth. My presence in the shop was so unnatural, I’m sure she’d forgotten I was there.

Ignoring her editorial comments on my love life, I said, “I’ll give you the fact Tony is charming …”

“And gorgeous,” D’Vora chimed in from near the shelves.

“Right,” I agreed. “But doesn’t it seem a little strange he and his aunt have those plans for a new catering business? I mean, Ronnie Hodges isn’t even in the ground yet.”

Betty was already snipping at the wet hair of her next appointment, a woman I didn’t recognize. Scissors flying, she added her two cents’ worth. “Everybody can agree it was horrible what happened to Ronnie, girls. But you have to strike while the iron is hot. That’s the business world.”

None of us had anything to add to that. The break in the conversation gave me time to think, not for the first time, that I was happy I worked mostly in the animal world.

Expertly navigating the lull, Mama steered the talk to her favorite topic, my marital prospects. “Betty, you’ve got to do something extra special with Mace’s hair for Saturday. Weddings are fertile fields for romance. Maybe Carlos will pop the question once he sees Sally and me tying the knot.”

All of a sudden, I was fed up. The dresses. The hair. Mama’s constant meddling. Not to mention the assumption that Carlos was the one dragging his feet. I slammed my People onto the purple chair beside me.

“Let’s put aside for the moment that seeing you get married for the FIFTH time might have just the opposite effect on Carlos, Mama. And on me. Have you given a bit of thought to the fact I might want to be certain things are right between us before I run off to the altar? I mean, I don’t want a long string of ruined marriages, like some women I could mention.”

Mama’s hand flew to her throat. She looked at me like I’d put my boot to her three-tier, buttercream-frosted wedding cake. No one else said a word. All of us knew which woman in the shop had a history of ruined marriages. I felt my face getting hot. My stomach churned around a leaden ball of biscuits and sausage gravy. Funny how you dream of saying just what you want to say, but it never feels as good as you think it will once it comes out.

The customer in Betty’s chair stepped into the strained silence and saved me. “I didn’t mean to eavesdrop earlier,” she said quietly. “But I heard y’all talking about C’ndee Ciancio, and I wondered if you knew she’d been staying at Darryl’s Fish Camp, out by the lake.”

Mama and I both burst out laughing at the same time, which felt good. Almost normal.

“C’ndee? At a fish camp? That’s like hearing Madonna’s been dishing up chili dogs at the Dairy Queen,” I said.

“Well, she was. I know, because I’m renting one of the cottages out there. Just until I find something better.”

I took in her cheap tennis shoes and bad teeth, and remembered how she’d told Betty she’d take just a haircut today: No shampoo, no blow dry, and no color. She had the look of hard times, and it’d probably be a good long while before she found “something better” than that rundown cottage at the fish camp.

“C’ndee could have been out there. Stranger things have happened, Mace.” Mama’s tone to me was snippy, but she smiled encouragingly at Betty’s customer. “What’s your name, honey?”

“Luanne. The only reason I mention C’ndee is because she’s gone now, and a lot of us wondered what happened to her.” She looked around, like she expected C’ndee to be lurking in the closet, listening in. Lowering her voice to a whisper, she said, “She really did a number on Darryl Dietz, the guy who owns the camp. He’s been mean as a striped snake and drunk ever since she left.” She paused. “Well, he’s always mean. But he’s been drunker than usual.”

“So C’ndee—Jersey accent, flashy clothes, cherry red Mustang—was going out with this Darryl?” I asked.

Luanne nodded, her newly trimmed hair a pretty frame for her worn face. “Darryl walked out on his wife and everything. The same wife he’s now trying to crawl back to since C’ndee disappeared.”

D’Vora nodded. “Oh, I’ve been there, Luanne. After I found out my no-account husband was cheating, I smashed the headlights on his truck and tossed his sorry butt out of the trailer. He can beg all he wants. He ain’t coming back, and neither is that stupid Rottweiler of his. Both him and Bear are as dumb as dirt.”

Betty pointed her scissors at us: “Can’t trust a cheater.”

“Amen to that,” Mama said. “Or a liar.”

Our spat was forgotten now, in the face of this fresh gossip.

“Cheating with C’ndee wasn’t the worst of it with Darryl,” Luanne whispered. “He’s beat on his wife more times than I can count.”

I didn’t know Darryl, but I could picture him, having visited more than my share of fish camps in my rowdier days. I thought about his wronged wife, and for some reason Alice Hodges’ face popped into my head. But, try as I might, I couldn’t conjure up an image of C’ndee running around with a guy with cheap beer on his breath and fish-gut stains on his shirt.

“What happened?” I asked Luanne. “Why’d C’ndee break it off?”

“We all heard she took up with somebody new. She left Darryl for another guy. He lives up here, in Himmarshee.”

Somebody at Darryl’s Fish camp was a fan of classic rock. Guns N’ Roses blasted loud enough to spook the cormorants off their perches on the boat docks. Maidencane grass vibrated on the canal banks. Cypress branches trembled, even though there was barely a breath of wind. “Welcome to the Jungle,” indeed.

Luanne hadn’t known who C’ndee took up with after she dumped Darryl. And, of course, that’s what all of us wanted to know. A little voice niggled at my brain, telling me that information might be important.

I left Hair Today, Dyed Tomorrow, and decided to poke around at the camp to see what I could learn. Between that or looking at hair in a picture book, it was no contest. Anyway, I’d pretty much given in to Mama’s will on the wedding. I’d likely regret that when I saw what hairstyle she’d chosen from that book.

My Jeep bounced over a rutted driveway into an open yard circled by a dozen or so ramshackle cabins. A rusted-out muscle car sat up on concrete blocks, hood popped. The stadium-volume rock came from a boom box on a lawn chair next to the car. A big guy in jean overalls and no shirt held a wrench and bobbed his head to the beat. By the looks of the ancient car and the size of him, he might have more luck just adding some tires and pushing the old heap wherever he wanted to go.