When I came out of the room—hairless—twenty minutes later, Beth was reading a magazine, with her hair in a towel, waiting for her haircut. I must’ve been white as a sheet because she got up and took my elbow to lead me to a seat.
“You okay?” she said. “You want a glass of water?”
“I’m fine. Just a little sore.”
“It hurt? I can’t believe that, Momma. I mean, like, they say it stings a little, but shoot, you look reeeeeallly bad.”
“Think about it. First they spread warm wax over your bikini line and cover it with a strip of cotton and then, in a single movement, they rip it off, pulling a patch of pubic hair out by the roots. I almost fainted.”
“I don’t want to think about it,” Beth said.
“The legs weren’t bad and the eyebrows were nothing, but the bikini line was a virtual religious experience. I saw Jesus, Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa.”
“Man, what we women have to go through,” she said.
I was thoroughly amused that she classified herself as a woman. She was growing up so quickly.
“See you later,” I said and left to get my pedicure.
The girl who did my pedicure was a heavenly creature who massaged my feet until I was so happy and relaxed I forgot about the waxing experience. After she was finished I hobbled to a waiting area thinking that my toes looked like ten perfect strawberries.
A very handsome man approached me. “Hi! Ms. Hayes? I’m Kim.”
I got up, shook his hand and followed him. He was about fifty, gray hair cut very short, diamond stud earring. He wore a black cashmere turtleneck pushed up over his elbows and perfectly creased black wool trousers. This was a very cool guy. Elegant, in fact. I sat in the chair and looked at him in the mirror’s reflection.
“Great belt,” I said, “where’d you get it?”
“Thanks. Bergdorf’s in New York—it’s Kieselstein,” he said.
“Well, no wonder!” I said, pretending to know who Kieselstein was. The ornate silver buckle was molded in the shape of a dog’s head.
“So, what are we looking for today?” he said.
I looked at his eyes and with the straightest face I could muster, I said, “I’m a woman of realistic expectations. If you could make me look like Catherine Deneuve, that would be fine.”
“By the time I’m finished with you,” he said, “Catherine Deneuve will want to go hide in a dark closet!” He picked through my thick head of hair and walked all around the chair fingering his chin. “Low lights,” he said.
“Well, at this stage, we all look better in low lights,” I said.
“No, no, no! You’re funny! What I meant was that your hair needs low lights. We’re going to foil the frame of your face. It’s a very subtle process, and it takes a little time, but the result is a soft glow that will bring your face to life.”
“Oh.”
“Then we’re going to take away about three inches from the bottom of your hair, give you a few layers to use the advantage of all this fabulous body you have, and round brush the devil out of it. You’re going to shine like patent leather!”
I began to fret. How much was this transformation going to cost? He saw the concern on my face.
“Don’t worry,” he said, “just go with Fran and get shampooed.”
Not worry? Okay, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’d send the bill to Tom. Fran massaged my head so beautifully that I almost fell asleep. I had forgotten how good it felt to have someone work my scalp. In minutes, I was back in Kim’s chair and having my hair combed out.
“Are you from Charleston?” Kim said. He sectioned my hair with the long end of a fine-tooth comb and pinned it up.
“Yep, for about a zillion years.”
“Married? Lean your head down a little, okay?”
“Okay. No, getting a divorce.”
“I just moved here,” he said.
At least four inches of hair from the nape of my neck fell to the floor. “Oh, where are you from?” I said.
“New York. Used to manage the Sassoon Salon, finally tucked away enough money to open a salon of my own. My friend is an architect and has been nursing this insane dream of owning a plantation forever. We found a perfectly grand plantation out Highway 17, almost in Walterboro, and snapped it up! Of course, it needs everything done to it, but Jeremy, that’s my friend, is so talented. Next thing you know Architectural Digest will be in there with cameras!”
“Gosh, it sounds wonderful.”
“Oh, it is, or it will be. So do you live in the city?”
“Yes, I have an old Victorian on Queen Street.”
“Aren’t you smart? That certainly makes life convenient.”
“Yes, I can walk to work. But I grew up on the beach. My sister lives in that house.”
“Oh? And what does she do? Ms. Hayes, you need to keep your head straight.”
“Sorry. Maggie does what a surgeon’s wife is supposed to do. Manages the house, runs the Garden Club, volunteers her brains out. She runs events for the wives at the Medical University. In between all that, she has two teenage sons who keep her pretty busy.”
“I’ll bet so. Oh, this is looking good. When’s the last time you had a haircut?”
“When Nixon was president.”
“You are too funny.”
He looked at me and smiled. He had perfect teeth and two dimples on either side of his mouth. Precious.
“Ms. Hayes?”
“Call me Susan.”
“Susan? I’m going to make you a proposition.”
“How wonderful!” I said.
“No, no,” he threw his head back and laughed. In a friendly gesture he rested his hands on my shoulders and spoke to my reflection. “Here’s my proposal: I am going to cut and color your hair on the house. If you like it, I want you to tell your sister to come see me and I’ll cut and color her hair and all the wives of the doctors at the Medical University for twenty-five percent off. The offer’s good until Christmas. How does that sound?”
“I think you are going to be a very busy man.”
“You know what? It’s much cheaper than advertising. I’ll give you a stack of business cards to take with you, okay?”
“Consider it a done deal.”
I was thrilled. Maggie couldn’t resist a bargain and neither could any woman I knew. Beth was finished and she came over with the cutest haircut I’d ever seen. It was swinging and shining.
“Mom! I totally love my hair! What do you think?”
“I think your hair looks beautiful but the concept of lime green nail polish escapes me. Say hello to Kim.”
“Hi,” she said. “Mom, I’m gonna go cruise the mall and I’ll be back in an hour, okay?”
“Sure, have fun.”
“Cruise the mall?” Kim said, watching her leave.
“Don’t ask.”
For the next two hours, he spun me around and foiled my head, rinsed my hair, conditioned it, glazed it, trimmed a little more and at last he was ready to blow it out. A gal on a low stool manicured my fingernails on a lap pillow while he worked. I felt like the queen of a lovely kingdom.
Finally, he spun me around to face the mirror and I barely recognized myself.
“Lord have mercy!”
“Like yourself?” Kim said and started to laugh. “I should’ve taken a ‘before’ picture, don’t you think?”
“Amazing,” I said. “You know, I’m not an arrogant woman, but I think this is the best I’ve ever looked in maybe my whole life! How can I thank you?”
“Tell your friends and your sister. Don’t forget we have our agreement.”
Kim stood there smiling. I wanted to be his friend forever.
“Well, I suppose there is a big difference between professional care and cutting my bangs with the same scissors I use to cut cardboard, right? Kim?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t ever leave me.”
He wouldn’t let me pay for Beth either but I tipped the shampoo girl heavily
and the manicurist too. I was floating on air.
Out in the mall, Beth came toward me with a shopping bag from Record World.
“Whoa! Do I know you?”
“Very funny!”
“Seriously, Mom. That old codger did a number on you! You rock! I bet you could pass for thirty-something!”
“Thanks.” Her compliment made me actually blush, something I hadn’t done in a long time.
“Got some new tunes,” she said, “want to see?”
“Sure. Come on, let’s get a cappuccino.”
What a cheery little monster I turned into with a little effort. All I had done was starve myself for six months and accidentally hustle a free makeover! Not a bad day’s work at all. God, it was all so shallow.
Saturday night arrived and I wondered why I was so nervous. I was dressing for dinner with a man, that’s why. Given my relationships with men, I should break out in a rash. Maggie may have been right, he might try to seduce me and I wasn’t ready for that at all.
Beth was in her room packing a duffel bag to take to Tom’s apartment to spend the night. I worried that she would let it slip to Tom or Karen that I was on a date. Not that they would care, but it was only a few days until the papers for our divorce would finally, at long last, be signed. I zipped the back of my dress on the way down the hall to Beth’s room.
“Hi, doodle!” I said.
“Hi! Mom! You look great!”
She had the look of someone who had reconciled the facts of her life. I had a date, her father had a girlfriend and it was normal for her.
“Thanks, honey. Listen, do me a small favor, will you?”
“Sure, anything.”
“If your dad or Karen mentions my social life just tell them I don’t have one, okay?”
“No problem. None of their business, right?”
“Right. And don’t mention my column in the paper either, all right?”
“Sure. How come?” She pulled on a pair of jeans that were ripped out at the knees and a faded Gap sweatshirt.
“Are you gonna wear that outfit to go out to dinner with your dad?”
“We’re just going to Pizza Hut.”
“Oh, okay. Fine. Look, it’s not a huge deal if he found out, but we are supposed to sign our papers very soon and I don’t want him to think that we don’t need his support. Understand?”
“Right. He’d think that, like, this doctor is moving in and paying all our bills. And that you’re getting totally rich from your second job. Am I a genius or what?” She zipped her bag and gave me a crooked smile of mature knowing.
“Honey chile, baby heart, you are a certified rocket scientist. Just be cool.”
“Hey, Mom. I’m a teenager. It’s my job to be cool.”
The doorbell rang.
“I’ll get it,” she said. “It’s probably Daddy and if he sees you looking like that he’ll be way suspicious.”
“Thanks, honey. I’ll see you tomorrow night.” I kissed her head and she stopped and turned to me.
“Try to get home at a decent hour, Mom. You want me to call you? You know, bed check? Then, if you want him to leave, you can use me for an excuse.”
“Great idea, but I think I can handle it. Go on now, Daddy’s waiting.”
“Love you!”
The front door opened and closed and she was gone. How priceless was that, I thought. I went downstairs to the living room to turn on some music. I caught a glance of myself in my mother’s huge mirror and, for the briefest moment, didn’t know it was myself. I stopped and gave myself a full appraisal. Not bad. I had on a deep brown, short, sleeveless dress that had a coat to match. My arms weren’t too flabby. My hair looked really good with its auburn “low lights” and my face seemed to have less stress. My new makeup was doing its job. I looked like a woman who was perhaps going out to do the town, not like the one who, just a few months ago, had sunk to the floor and wept.
I flipped on an old favorite CD, Clifford Brown with Strings, and relaxed as his music warmed the room. I poured myself a glass of wine from the cooler on the coffee table and lit some candles on the mantel. The candles were sandalwood, my absolute favorite. Maggie had given me a box of them for my birthday. Old houses like mine would take on musty smells but sandalwood perfumed the rooms with the perfect amount of richness.
I hoped Roger would like Brie baked in puff pastry with peach jam. It was a recipe I clipped from the newspaper and hadn’t burned beyond recognition. Hopefully he’d think that I possessed some domestic skills. At least my house looked clean. Beth and I had spent the better part of the day cleaning and waxing. She was a good girl, I thought. The doorbell rang and my date began.
“Hi! Come in!” I said.
“Hi! God, what did you do to your hair? Here, I brought you these. You look great!”
“Thanks, you don’t look so bad yourself.” I ran my hand through the side of my hair. “Just cut it a little, that’s all. Gosh, these are so pretty! I love freesias!”
We went in the living room and I added them to the vase of grocery store flowers on the end table next to the sofa. I poured Roger a glass of wine. He touched the side of my glass with his and took a large sip.
“That’s some mirror,” he said.
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“Educate me,” he said, running his hand around the side of the mirror’s wide gold frame. “It looks old. Historical significance?”
“Well, this may seem hard to imagine, but way, way back in time, before the War of Yankee Aggression, over on Sullivan’s Island there were resort hotels. People went there to escape the summer fevers. This mirror hung behind the bar of the Planters Hotel until 1830. Later, it was installed in the Moultrie House on the Island in 1850. The Moultrie House was a hotel and a legendary spot for summer dances. It was built right down the street from my family’s beach house, right on the harbor. It even had a ballroom! Would you like a bit of this?”
I put some warm Brie on a cracker and offered it to him.
“I’ve never heard that. Thanks.”
“Yeah, seems hard to believe, doesn’t it? You can only imagine how much bourbon and whiskey has been poured out in front of this mirror. How many men twirled the tips of their handlebar mustaches, how many ladies adjusted their bonnets? God, I love history. My grandfather got his hands on it somehow and it was in our house on the Island for years.”
“What a great story!”
“Anyway, there’s an old Gullah belief that the mirror holds your soul. Same thing with photographs—that a little bit of your spirit becomes trapped in the mirror or on the film.”
“Incredible what some people believe, isn’t it?”
“Well, who knows? They might’ve been right. I mean, there have definitely been times when this old mirror gave me the creeps.”
“So what happened to the Moultrie House? Do you want some more wine?”
“No, thanks. I’m all set. Well, it seems there was this Yankee soldier during the beginning of the war who fired a cannonball on it. It was filled with guests and they all ran outside in a fit of terror with their bloomers on fire. When they asked the Yankee why he fired on a civilian building, do you know what he said?”
“I can only venture a guess.”
“Go ahead, guess.”
“Because the last time he stayed there he got a bad room?”
“God, you are so smart. Do you know that?”
“Come on, let’s go to dinner,” he said. “I read that somewhere.”
“You rascal! You let me tell you that whole story!”
“Madam, I am neither a rascal nor a rogue. And, in the style of the true southern gentleman, I have left my Beamer in the garage so that I could stroll the boulevard with your beautiousness.”
His little speech made me giggle. “I’m not sure beautiousness is a word.”
“Poetic license. Shall we go?”
We walked to a small restaurant in the historic area, up an old alley that I had neve
r even known was there. We had steaks, beautiful things, thick and rare with a wonderful mustard sauce and an incredible bottle of cabernet sauvignon from the Napa Valley. We shared a Caesar salad and discovered neither one of us liked anchovies, but we loved garlic and croutons. For dessert we had something decadent in flames, cherries jubilee.
After dinner we walked arm in arm and under the marquee at the Dock Street Theater he told me I was beautiful. I thought he meant it. It must’ve been the wine or the streetlight. Whatever. It was nice to hear.
“That was a wonderful dinner, Roger. Thank you.”
“Oh, you’re welcome, it wasn’t anything really. I wanted to cook for you, but another time. I had so much stuff going on today I couldn’t figure out how to make dinner.”
“I have a lot of days like that,” I said.
“Well, I thought it might be nice to go back to my place and have a cognac or some coffee.”
“Sure. I’d love to see where you live.”
We walked by the old cemetery and heard the voices of teenagers deep inside the rows of tombstones. They were probably in an open mausoleum, drinking beer and fooling around. It was all terribly romantic. He held my hand and talked about growing up in Aiken and how he had married a girl he met in medical school.
“Was she a medical student?”
“No, no. She was the sister of a friend of mine. Family was from Boston, old-line and very particular about everything. She was like the Holy Grail to me. I always wanted what I couldn’t have.”
“I know how that is,” I said.
“Well, she got pregnant and we got married and it was downhill from there. Her parents hated me. I was southern and no matter what, even when our second son was born and even though we stayed together for almost twenty years, I wasn’t the man they wanted for their daughter.”
“God, that’s awful. People are so stupid.”
“Well, it was a lot of years ago and I did my best for Adelle—that’s my ex-wife’s name. She was okay, I guess. Anyway, I have two great sons, and she’s remarried—to a Brahmin—and living in Boston during the winter and the south of France in the summer, as they always intended she would. All’s well that ends well, right?”
“I suppose so,” I said.