One Month, One Lifetime

4: Carpe the Freaking Diem

The butler who had showed me to my room the night before answered the intercom when I called for someone.

"Miss Indi? How can I help?" His voice was strong and lacked the lilt of a true southern, which made me uncomfortable. I had grown up hearing people talk one way and this guy talked like a yankee.

"Yes, could you send for my car? I need to pick something up at the grocery store," I responded with crossed fingers. If he asked why I couldn't just call someone myself I wouldn't know how to answer. I looked down at my phone, which I had drained of battery right after reading my first instructions from Aunt Minnie. No phone until you're done.

"Our cook is on her way to the store now, if you would like her to pick it up for you. Or I can call for a driver."

A driver. I had a feeling he wasn't talking about Uber. I could imagine pulling up to Walmart in a stretch limo in a seguin gown. Very over the top. Very fun. But I had a better idea.

"Actually, could you set up an appointment at the nearest hairdresser for a dye job? And call for a driver to take me there?"

"Of course, ma'am." He paused and I heard the faint scratch of pencil on paper as he wrote down my requests. Very attentive. "What time will you be leaving?"

"As soon as possible."

"Any requests for dinner?"

I paused with a smile as I ticked off the instructions in the little notebook. "I don't think I'll make it. I'm going out of town."

Dressed in the blazer and jeans that has been delivered to me in the morning with my breakfast, I was ready to face the world with the weight of a multimillion dollar fortune on my back. The town car that pulled into the circular driveway was definitely not an uber. The driver was dressed in a suit and hopped out to grab my door for me. The inside was orange scented leather and a partition divided the front of the cab from the back.

"To the hair salon, miss?" the driver spoke with a soft accent similar to my own. I could trust this guy.

"Yes."

The drive took us past a few cheap haircut places, the kind I would usually go to. Outside they had advertisements for five dollar trims and a cut and color for fourty five. That already sounded far beyond my price range. I had nearly two thousand dollars from Aunt Minnie for the tasks that she said would likely take just under a month. If I was spending fifty bucks for the first task, I was worried that I would run out of money too fast.

And, of course, those were the places we passed by. The driver eventually pulled up to a professional salon with a chic, minimalistic logo on the front. Everything was hyper modern, from the angular white exterior to the picture windows wrapping around the front. All the clients walking in and out of the building, mostly to and from hired cars like my own, were rocking multicolored hair or extensions.

Forgetting my limited budget, I giggled.

This could be fun.

First step: Color your hair to something other than that atrocious red.

I had always liked my red hair, not that it was really red. I was just pale enough that, though my hair should have been grouped into a shade of strawberry blonde, I was stuck with the ginger label. I didn't mind. It gave me an excuse to not reign in my temper on the few occasions it struck. Just giving into my nature as a fiery redhead, right?

But I wasn't going to argue with Minnie if she wanted me to change things up. Not only was it impossible to debate with her as she was currently six feet under in a polished cherry and silver coffin, but she also hadn't specific that it need to be a natural color. All she said was something other than that atrocious red.