Chapter 33
AT A QUARTER past twelve the next day, I told Betty that I needed fresh air. “I’m going for a walk and have a hamburger somewhere. Can I bring anything back for you?”
“No, thanks,” she said. “Craft Services has Swedish cabbage rolls today. I’m going to fill up a plate and eat lunch with the makeup twins.”
I flashed my cell phone at her. “The electronic leash. Call me if there’s a crisis.” Giving her an affectionate salute, I left the Global Network building and hurried up the street toward the subway entrance at Sixty-sixth and Central Park West.
It was hot and noisy under the city streets. Even in the middle of the day, when the tunnels weren’t crammed with people, the odor of sweat was the heaviest perfume in the air, but for traveling long distances around New York City, there’s no transportation that’s faster or cheaper than the subways. I bought a MetroCard at a vending machine and caught the A train.
There were a few vacant seats in my car as it sped north, but I was too full of nervous energy to sit. I hooked one elbow around a standing pole and watched the stations flash by the subway car’s dirty windows.
It took almost half an hour to get to my destination: Dyckman Street, in the Inwood section of the city.
The neighborhood of Inwood, at the northern tip of Manhattan, is one of many small town-type areas in New York City, with schools, a lovely big park, high-rise apartment houses on tree-lined streets, and many local businesses. It was to three of those businesses that I was headed today. I’d chosen to come to Inwood on this shopping trip because no one who worked on the show lived up here, nor did anyone else I knew. The chance of my running into someone who recognized me was about as low as a chance could get.
Using the Yellow Pages, I’d found a wig shop on Dyckman Street. Next, I’d looked up stores that sold the other items I wanted, and found everything within a three-block radius.
Armed with my list of addresses, I made my way through heavy pedestrian traffic on Dyckman until I reached Marilyn’s House of Hair. The shop occupied a narrow space between an Italian grocery store and a three-story commercial building with a blue and white sign that advertised the office of a CREDIT DENTIST on the second floor.
Wig stands with painted faces, sporting a variety of hairstyles and colors, filled a shelf in the shop’s front window. Propped on a display easel at the end nearest the entrance was a faded eight-by-ten framed publicity photo of Marilyn Monroe.
A little bell jingled over my head as I entered. There were no customers, but a girl with rainbow-streaked hair came through a curtain that screened the front of the store from whatever was in the rear.
Rainbow Hair was about twenty. She stopped within a few feet of me—close enough to see the pair of little silver rings that pierced her eyebrows, and the silver stud on her chin. In a bored voice, she asked, “Help ya?”
Forcing my eyes away from her face hardware, I said, “I’m looking for a black wig.”
“Real hair, or fake?”
“Real.”
“We got three styles made with human.” She ticked them off on her fingers. “The Snow White model—ya know, like in Disneyland? We got a Diana Ross Afro. An’ the Cleopatra. I saw all about Cleopatra on TV. A snake bit her on a boob.”
“I’m not superstitious. Let me see the Cleopatra, please.”
She removed a wig from a glass case below a display of beaded necklaces, and gestured for me to sit in the chair that faced a tabletop mirror. The Cleopatra looked like it was going to be exactly what I needed: straight black hair, shoulder length, with bangs.
In seconds, the girl had expertly pinned my own hair flat against my scalp and fitted the wig to my head.
The transformation was amazing. When I added the pair of nonprescription eyeglasses I’d bought in a drugstore, I was pretty sure that not even Nancy would recognize me, at least not at first glance. If anyone in Belle Valley, Ohio, ever described me, their details wouldn’t match Morgan Tyler.
As I stared at my reflection, the girl asked, “Wha’cha want this for?”
“A costume party.”
“Oh, good!” She sounded relieved. “I was afraid you were gonna have chemo an’ lose your hair. If that was the problem, then I was gonna recommend a blonde wig, something close to the color of your own hair. That way, nobody would have to know.”
Nobody would have to know. In the mirror, I saw genuine concern in the girl’s eyes and realized that I’d formed a wrong impression of her. By focusing on the piercings, I hadn’t looked for the person beneath the metal. Shame on me.
I paid for the wig in cash. Waiting for a receipt, I asked if she worked on commission. When she said she did, I bought a hundred dollars worth of the beaded necklaces that hung on a Plexiglas stand next to the register.
Back out on Dyckman Street, I went to the end of the block and turned left. My next stop was a store called The Blessed Event, to buy a maternity dress. After I selected one, I’d leave the necklaces in the dressing room, for whoever might like to have them.
Finally, I would go to the hardware store a block farther down for the last two items on my list: a roll of duct tape, and a pair of needle-nose pliers.