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and that worked well for them. He loved work now , a nd he owed it to his grumpy girlfriend.
    “ Do you think he’s sleeping with her?” his client asked about the latest “it” boy in Hollywood.
    “ Honey, he’s gayer than I am!” Ken flashed a smile in her direction and covertly checked his eyes again. He still wanted to cry , but he would not . To try and cover how much he was hurting, he did a very flamboyant pose.
    “ Embracing the stereotype, Ken,” Lenore drawled from across the shop as she checked in their latest shipment of hair extensions.
    “ This coming from the classic stereotype of the angry black woman ?” Ken batted his eyelashes at her and returned to his poofing of Mrs. Chentworth’s classic Texas bouffant.
    Lenore harrumphed from across the room. “I ain’t angry. I’m grumpy. There is a difference.”
    “ You gonna get all sassy at me, snapping your fingers and flipping your weave?” Ken teased.
    She glowered. “One, I ain’t sassy. Two, the only one who snaps their fingers around here is you. Three, what I do with my weave is none of your damn business.”
    Ken stuck his tongue out at her.
    Lenore dismissed him with a look and went back to work.
    He chattered on to his customer as he worked and ignored the TV playing in the background. He always felt happier when he was working in the shop . He may have received it as a goodbye gift from his rich ex, but he had decorated to make it his own. The walls were a deep burgundy and decorated with lots of swanky artwork depicting hairstyles and fashions over the ages. Fresh flowers were tucked into hand - painted vases and soft trip hop music played in the background. He may have gotten stuck in P odunk , N owhere, but he was doing the best he could to make it work.
    When h e finished with Mrs. Chentworth’s hair, he took her check gratefully, waved to her as she walked out the door, tucked the check into the cash register, and burst into tears.
    “ W hat’s wrong?” Lenore asked from across the shop.
    “ That bastard is getting married in Canada!”
    “ Oh,” Lenore said, and then added mat t er - of - factly, “But he’s no good for you.”
    “ I know! I know! But all I wanted was a good husband, a nice home, my own beauty shop and...and...”
    “ One out of three ain’t bad,” Lenore reminded him.
    Ken sniffled a little and shrugged. “I just thought he was the one.”
    Ken was always looking for the one. He had hid that he was gay quite successfully all through his childhood and into his teens until he had fallen madly in love with the student council president. On impulse he had written the boy a love letter. The next day his crush had read it over the school intercom and outed him in the most vicious manner possible. Ken had tried to sneak out of the school, but the jocks had found him, beaten him senseless, and sent him off to the hospital.
    When he’d woken up, his father had been sitting at his beside with a grim expression on his face. His father had stared down at him for a long moment, then said, “Serves you right for being queer.” Standing up, the man who had once given him piggybacks around the backyard while Ken shouted giddy-up! had walked out of the room and out of Ken’s life.
    When Ken was released from the hospital, he was sent to live with his grandmother in San Antonio. His father still wasn’t talking to him and wouldn’t until he “straightened up.” His mother called him in secret and sometimes sent him gifts , but his childhood had ended at seventeen and so had his relationship with his parents.
    “ The ‘one’ ain’t going to ditch you for some bitchy queen and run off to Canada and get married,” Lenore chided him. She put one hand on her plump hip and glared at him. “You should know that by now. If they love you, they stay by you.”
    Ken wiped a tear away and some of his makeup came off with it. “I know! I know! But I gave up everything I had in Dallas to move here to be with him