Cocoon Read Online Free PDF Page A

response.
    Seana didn’t mind this from her lifelong girlfriend. She smiled and nodded.
    â€œThat’s good to hear. I was afraid you’d let ’im slip away.” Joanie, blonde and Kewpie-Pie cute in her white uniform and platform sandals, winked one of her eyes, enhanced from day to day by colored contact lenses. Lashes long enough to fan away flies framed her orbs, which today sparkled like green emeralds. Her blonde curls, heaped high atop her head, loosed long, slim tendrils to frame her porcelain, perfectly blushed cheeks.
    â€œLike she’s done so many times before,” joined in Sadie Tate, seamstress extraordinaire and town gossip. But Seana loved her anyway. She was harmless. Most of the time. Just loved to talk. An hour early, as usual, Sadie’d slipped in and took the chair next to Seana, already playing with her ever present Smart cell phone. This time at Joanie’s was one of Sadie’s most fruitful social connections.
    â€œI never met anybody before who appealed to me,” Seana said, laying the magazine aside. And she had not, despite all the matchmaking attempts of Paradise Springs’s locals.
    â€œSo this time’s different, huh?” Sadie gouged, pocketing her phone for more crucial fodder. Her raisin-black, piercing eyes glittered with anticipation. She crossed her spindly legs, poking from beneath a bright Hawaiian floral shift, and angled more toward Seana, sending whiffs of Tabu to Seana’s nostrils. A pleasant, spicy floral fragrance, one that sent Seana’s yesteryear melancholy spiraling. Back to when she’d worked at the downtown five-and-dime store.
    â€œUm-hmm.” Seana turned and smiled at her, seeing only childlike curiosity. In turn, Sadie’s eyes warmed and her vivid red slash of a mouth curved into a smile. “That it is,” Seana said.
    Sadie’s swollen, rheumatic fingers reached over to pat Seana’s hand. “I’m glad for you. I truly am. You had a long, hard time of it with Ansel and all. It’s time for you to get on with living.”
    Seana stared at her for a moment, seeing only genuine care. Sometimes, Sadie went beyond caring and into meddling. Not today. “Thanks, Sadie.”
    At her station, Joanie’s small hands flew hummingbird swift in plastering Louann Melton’s red hair onto smooth rollers and in a blink depositing her under the hair dryer. Pastor Keith’s wife waved at Seana from beneath the hood, then blew her a kiss.
    Seana responded in kind. Such giving people, the Meltons. They had, through the good and bad times, been there for Seana. And now, that bond included Barth, a bond that went back to Barth’s and Keith’s boyhood days in Canada.
    â€œSeana, you’re next.”
    At the shampoo sink, Seana and Joanie decided to add a few more blond highlights to Seana’s thick light ash brown hair the next time. “The silver threads are about to overtake, honey. The blond highlights will camouflage that,” Joanie whispered in her ear. Then, “How’s Zoe taking things?”
    Seana’s heart skipped a beat. She blinked up at her from proneness as warm water sluiced over her scalp and through her hair. “What do you mean?”
    Was Joanie psychic? The thought flitted through her mind like a startled cat.
    Since she’d been seeing Barth, Seana and Joanie’s intimate chat times had dwindled from cozy house visits to once-a-week salon time, such as this. Not intentionally. But Barth had consumed her prime time.
    Joanie’s fingers, strong as a brick mason’s, massaged and lathered. “I can tell she’s not happy about you and Barth. Last night at the festival, she watched you two like a chicken hawk ready to swoop.”
    Seana sighed and closed her eyes. She trusted Joanie, had been a client and friend for years and years. Knew Joanie’s makeup and had never known her to be unkind or unwise. Had, many times,