Mama Sees Stars: A Mace Bauer Mystery by Deborah Sharp Page A

pointed her purple styling comb toward the pile of fabric swatches and folders, untouched on Mama’s table. “So, how are you coming with that color chart, Rosalee?’’
    Color Me Beautiful , the folders said in purple script across the front.
    “Don’t fret, Betty. This won’t take but a few minutes to put together. Lori from the Chamber has the same coloring as Mace. She’s a pure Winter, just like Mace. I know the colors that will flatter her the most. I could pick them out in my sleep.’’
    I lifted my face out of People . “It’s true, Betty. She could. She’s only told me a thousand times or so exactly what colors I should wear.’’
    Mama speaks with authority on the topic. For $35, she gives a diagnosis on whether a Hair Today customer is a Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall. She offers counsel on wearing warm tones or cool ones, dark colors or pastels. She also throws in an aromatherapy candle, and the cardboard folder with fabric samples in colors to beautifully complement eyes, skin tone, and hair.
    She leaned over and held a bubble gum-colored swatch to my face. I’d sooner be hog-tied and dunked in a pit full of gators than wear pink.
    “I just want you to make the most of what God gave you, honey. Is that so wrong?’’
    “Your mama is one-hundred percent right, Mace.’’ Betty approached with a gleam in her eye, wielding that comb like a weapon. “When are you going to let me go to work on that gorgeous hair of yours? It has so much potential.’’
    I tented the People over my head, protecting every snarl and split end of my thick, black hair. “I was just here. How could I forget those Scarlett O’Hara ringlets you gave me for Mama’s wedding?’’
    “That was over three months ago.’’ Betty picked up a pair of scissors and made snip-snip noises around my ears.
    “Oh, leave her alone, honey. If Mace wants to go around looking like a possum crawled in her hair and built itself a nest, that’s her business.’’
    Betty sighed, and holstered her scissors. I let out the breath I’d been holding. Inhaling, I got a nose full of the shop’s warring scents: fruity shampoos and flowery conditioner, nail polish and permanent solution. I’m sure some people found a beauty parlor’s signature smell pleasing, but it made me think of a fruit roll-up dipped in ammonia.
    Ducking behind the magazine again, I made my way through pictures of fashion faux pas from the Hollywood red carpet, through a story about a 911-dialing dog that saved his owner, and through a profile of the movie industry’s troubled young stars. Jesse was prominently featured, slouching in a booth at some New York nightclub. Her eyes were at half-mast; she clutched a drink and cigarette in her hand.
    “Mace, what are you so interested in over there? Why don’t you come over and tell me what you think of the chart I’ve put together?’’
    “I’m just getting to a story about a family that staged a kidnapping of one of their kids so they could get on a reality TV show.’’
    Shaking her head, Betty stabbed a handful of combs into a sterilizing solution. “What is wrong with people today?’’
    “Some folks will do anything to be famous,’’ Mama said. “Forget about the trash in that magazine, honey. We’ve got a better story right here in Himmarshee than anything in People .’’
    Mama ran a glue stick across the top edge of some of the intense Winter colors I knew by heart: royal blue, imperial red, emerald green. She pressed them into her folder. I hoped poor Lori Whoever wouldn’t mind being bossed by Color Me Beautiful.
    Betty’s apprentice, D’Vora, came from the back with her arms full of fresh-laundered purple smocks, still wrinkled from the dryer. “Have you got the movie set murder solved yet, Mace?’’
    “No interest, D’Vora. I’m staying out of this one. Plus, I may be too busy trying to keep Sal and Mama from killing each other.’’
    D’Vora’s brows went up in a question. Her purple