Time Flies by Claire Cook Page B

invention, much better than Post-its. I think you should change your profile to say that you invented flip-flops and have been living off the proceeds at an undisclosed location on a private island in the Caribbean.”
    B.J. held on to my shoulder as she stepped out of her jute espadrilles. “Ooh, good one. Do me a favor and remember that so I can write it down when we get back to the car.”
    “Whoa,” I said, finally noticing. “What happened to the beach?”
    The ocean came right up to the seawall. A few huge rocks broke through the surface. The sandy beach I remembered had completely disappeared.
    “Erosion,” B.J. said. “I guess you have to wait for low tide to walk the beach now.”
    “Oh, that’s so sad.”
    We climbed a ladder and walked along the top of the seawall for a while, then turned around and walked back the other way. A young couple in bathing suits was out walking the seawall, too. They stepped way off to one side and teetered on the edge to let us pass.
    “Did you see that?” B.J. hissed. “It was like they thought they were helping two little old ladies cross the street.”
    “Shh,” I said. “They’ll hear you. And they were just being polite.”
    “My point exactly,” B.J. said. “If they thought we were still inour prime, they would have staked their claim and made us walk around them.”
    My cell phone rang as we were climbing back down the ladder. I fished it out of my shoulder bag as soon as I hit the ground. Kurt’s name smirked up at me.
    “Nooooo,” I said.
    B.J. looked over. “What’s wrong?”
    I pushed the IGNORE button. “Unbelievable. I thought I’d blocked Kurt’s number, but apparently not.”
    B.J. shrugged. “Roaches are like that, too. You think they’re gone and then one day you open a cupboard—”
    “Wait,” I said. “I need to concentrate.” I opened up the block app again . B.J. shrugged and reached for her own cell.
    I triple-checked when I tapped Kurt’s number in this time, then pushed the SAVE button.
    “Damn, she’s still not answering.” B.J. looked up from her phone. “What was that all about anyway? Can’t you just answer, tell Kurt to go screw himself, and then hang up?”
    “Like I haven’t done that before,” I said.
    “Give it time. Maybe you were married so long he’s temporarily forgotten how to screw himself.”

CHAPTER 15
    B.J.’s stylist’s former boyfriend, Sam, lifted two handfuls of my hair up over my head and then let them fall. I assumed this was part of his process—maybe he was trying to get a glimpse of the hairstyle within the way I could sometimes see a fully formed sculpture in a hunk of rusty metal.
    We looked at each other in the mirror. His eyebrows were perfectly arched and his black hair was short and spiky with a long burgundy piece on one side that reminded me of a raccoon-tail hat on sideways.
    He shrugged. “So, what were you thinking?”
    “Actually,” I said as I checked out my boring brown hair, “I wasn’t. To tell you the truth, I don’t really spend a lot of time on my hair. I usually just pull it back into a ponytail, so as long as you leave me enough for—”
    “Don’t listen to her.” B.J. popped up from her pedicure chair. “Short and perky. Get rid of those wiry gray stragglers and add some highlights. We’re going for youthful .”
    “Youthful?” I said. When I looked in the mirror, my expression reminded me a little bit of Linda Blair in The Exorcist , right before her head started to spin around. Or maybe Macaulay Culkin after he slapped on the aftershave in Home Alone .
    B.J. got the rest of her pedicure, followed by a manicure. After her nails finished drying, she came over and coached Sam while my color cooked. Then she paced around outside in front of the plate-glass window and talked on her cell phone.
    Two and a half hours later, I was pronounced youthful.
    “Really?” I said. “You don’t think it looks too much like the pixie I had in third