A Minute on the Lips by Cheryl Harper Page A

newest person in town. I just can’t see that nice young man doing something so terrible.”
    Andi bit her tongue. It was nice to hear her giving a newcomer the benefit of the doubt. Andi’s burgeoning hope for mankind was dashed when Margaret added, “He’s too handsome for something like that.”
    Edna snorted. “Handsome doesn’t mean innocent, Margaret. You ought to know that by now.” Much as Andi hated to agree with Edna, this time she was right.
    Margaret flapped her hands as Sue walked her over to sit under the dryer next to Andi. “Of course I do. But it certainly doesn’t hurt, does it?”
    She had a good point there.
    “All right, Sheriff. Come on back, and we’ll rinse that out of your hair so I can add the highlights.”
    Warm water nearly always made Andi sleepy. Despite her certainty that she’d lie awake contemplating every single thing she’d said to Mark Taylor and pondering every one of his smirks, she’d slept much better than the night before. But she kept waking up from weird dreams. All of them had featured Mark in some form or fashion, but her favorite had been seeing him launched to the moon with a monkey companion. She had watched a show about the space program before bed. That had to be it. She didn’t even want to think about the symbolism.
    After she rinsed the color out, Lynn led Andi back to her chair and gave her hair a quick rough cut and dry. As Andi watched her work through newly cut bangs, she listened. Margaret, Edna and the rest of the ladies were on a juicy topic.
    Edna took the lead. Sue was removing the rollers she’d used to set her hair so clearly time was winding down. A few fluffs and Edna would run out of prime beauty shop time.
    Edna casually studied her nails to ratchet up the suspense. “Well, I don’t know whether or not y’all have heard this, but I got the news from Rosa down at the grocery store. She saw it all herself so it’s the honest truth.”
    There was that word again. Truth .
    If those crickets had miraculously shown up in the Hair Port, they would have been able to hear a pin drop right then. Lynn had lifted the dryer to check again or Andi would never have heard Edna’s intro.
    Into the tense and expectant silence, Lynn said, “All right, Sheriff, let’s go get you a rinse.”
    Andi hoped she’d be fast. The shampoo was usually her favorite part, but she wanted to hear Edna’s hot lead. Andi made a mental note to start spending more time in the grocery store and monitoring Facebook. For work purposes, of course. It would be sort of like listening to the police scanner but in reverse.
    When Andi thought about it, her growing interest in the sources of all this “information” worried her. Growing up as the focus of the stories that spread through town, she’d been certain other places were different. They weren’t really, mainly because Andi was the same. Whether Andi was in Tall Pines or Atlanta, she wanted to know what was going on. And even worse, she wanted to drop something juicy just to watch eyes light up. There was power in knowing something no one else did. She imagined Edna felt the same and squirmed in her seat. If she stayed here where she knew everyone and everyone knew her, someday she might be sitting in this same chair, wearing a blinged-out tracksuit, happy to share the latest thing she’d overheard. She might be Edna someday. And eighteen-year-old Andi, the one who’d hated being the focus of that interest, would be gone.
    Secrets, Andi. You wanted to know them. Pay attention.
    When Lynn finished rinsing her hair, all the ladies in the shop were discussing who had the best source of up-to-date news. The Hair Port was the undisputed winner.
    Miss Margaret cut through the chatter. “All right, so everybody’s got a different source, but I want to know what the story is, Edna.” Oh, me, too. Thank you, Miss Margaret.
    “Well,” Edna said, and paused dramatically. “I hate to be the one to spread the news, but