HELEN WAS DIGGING into a third issue of the Ladies’ Home Journal when the tippy-tap of LaVyrle’s stilettos on the floor caused her to look up from the pages.
“How’s it going?” she asked, hoping the “perk me up” pampering had actually done its job.
“Ah, we’re just about done,” LaVyrle told her. “Mary did up her nails real nice, and I gave her a cut. I added some highlights so she’s got that sun-streaked look without havin’ to spend all day outside pouring lemon juice on her noggin.” LaVyrle went behind the counter and scribbled out the bill. “I even got her smilin’ once or twice.”
“Ah, you’re a magician, LaVyrle. I tell you what.” Helen set aside the magazine and stood. She walked over to the reception desk and leaned against it. “I don’t know how the town would get along without you.”
LaVyrle glanced at her sideways with blue-lidded eyes. “Well, until this mess with Grace dyin’, it seemed like some folks did just fine. Half my old clients were doin’ their own hair to save a few bucks, and it cut into my bottom line something fierce.”
Helen sighed. “It’s the economy. A lot of people have fallen on hard times.”
LaVyrle sniffed. “Tell me about it.”
“You’re doing all right, aren’t you?” Helen asked.
LaVyrle tossed her blond head and pressed her painted mouth into a smile. “And what if I wasn’t, Mrs. E? Are you and your rich widow friends gonna throw me a fund-raiser?”
Helen slapped a hand against the reception desk. “You’re darned right we would. All you’d have to do is ask. We could always raffle off one of Erma’s handmade quilts.” At LaVyrle’s cocked eyebrow, Helen added, “Now don’t scoff. We raised a pretty penny on the last one. It bought a new organ for the chapel, as a matter of fact.”
“An organ, huh?” LaVyrle said and chuckled. “If you ladies got me one of them, I’d have your whole bridge club in here singin’ ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’ while I cut and colored the lot of you. I’d end up in the loony bin for sure.”
“And we’d scare Mary to death,” Helen said, joining in.
“It don’t take much to do that.”
Helen laughed.
LaVyrle gave the crowded waiting room a long look. “If things keep goin’ like they are, I won’t need one of Erma’s quilts to get the Cut ’n’ Curl back in the black.”
“Silver linings,” Helen told her, patting her hand. “What would we do without them?”
LaVyrle nodded.
Helen stepped around her and peered up the hallway. She could see a pair of heads tucked beneath the helmet dryers, but she couldn’t see LaVyrle’s private station from where she stood. “Could I check on Nancy?”
“Sure, go on back.” LaVyrle looked up as a woman brushed past Helen to approach the desk. The lady raised her hands in the air, as if a victim in a holdup, though from the whiff of nail polish, Helen realized she was just fresh from one of Mary’s manicures. “Tell Nancy I’ll be there in a sec t’ comb her out,” LaVyrle said to Helen before she turned to take care of her customer.
Helen’s sneakered feet squished softly on the vinyl floor as she made her way toward LaVyrle’s boxed-in station. She reached the opened doorway and peeked around it. Nancy’s back was to her. A lavender cape covered her from her neck to her bent knees. Fat hot rollers wound their way up and down her scalp.
Nancy’s reflection stared blankly into the mirror. Helen summoned up a smile and swept in. “Hey!” she said and squeezed Nancy’s shoulders, eliciting little more than a sigh from the girl’s lips. “LaVyrle take good care of you?”
“I guess so.”
“You like the cut, then?”
“It’s fine, Grandma.”
“And the highlights?”
“They’re okay, too.”
Helen brushed at wisps of hair curled upon Nancy’s temples. “We’ll go home in a minute,” she promised. “LaVyrle just needs to comb you out. Can you hold on till then?”
Tears slipped from Nancy’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. “Yeah, I guess.” The girl bit at her lip and nodded.
Oh, dear.
Helen dug into the pockets of her jacket but felt only the folded-up twenties she’d brought to cover Nancy’s makeover. How could she have forgotten to fill up with tissues?
Nancy sniffled and wiped at her nose with the back of her hand.
Helen turned around to face LaVyrle’s countertop. A box of Kleenex sat atop it, but the darned thing was empty. Helen tugged open a drawer below. “There’s got to be a tissue here somewhere,” she murmured, staring down at the mess of butterfly clips, hairbrushes, and combs.
She poked around with a finger. She found an unopened box of disposable gloves, the printed pad upon which LaVyrle wrote her clients’ tickets, and half a dozen pale chunks of paraffin wax. One bore the perfect impression of a bobby pin, reminding Helen of a fossil. And then she struck gold.
“Ah-ha!” she said, locating a sleeved pack of purse-sized tissues stuffed near the back. She pulled it out, dislodging several plastic hair clips, which fell to the floor and clattered about her feet. A small photograph fluttered to the floor not far behind.
Helen dropped the pack of tissues into Nancy’s lap, then bent to pick everything up, muttering all the while. She had the clips put away and the picture of a brown-haired boy in her grasp when she heard LaVyrle’s angry voice.
“What’s goin’ on here, Mrs. E?”
LaVyrle stood at the mouth of the cubicle, hands on hips.
Nancy sniffled and wiped at her tears.
Helen tried to explain. “Nancy needed a tissue, and the big box is empty, so I just . . .”
“You decided t’ go through my things,” LaVyrle finished.
“I didn’t think you’d mind,” Helen said.
LaVyrle took a quick step toward her and snatched the photo from her hand. “I’ll take that,” she snapped.
“Who is he?” Helen asked as LaVyrle pushed the picture into the pocket of her purple skirt. But LaVyrle acted like she didn’t hear and went about removing the rollers from Nancy’s hair, her motions brisk enough to make Nancy wince once or twice.
“Is he your son?” Helen asked.
“I didn’t say,” LaVyrle replied, using her fingers to manipulate the brown waves so that they softly framed Nancy’s pale face.
“I’m sorry,” Helen told her. “I didn’t mean to pry.”
LaVyrle grabbed a tall can of hairspray from her counter and let it loose on Nancy’s hair. Helen coughed as she breathed in the cloud.
“Look, Mrs. E,” the beautician said when she finally put the can down, “all everyone who comes in here does is yap, yap, yap, telling me who’s sleepin’ with who, who’s split up, who’s headin’ to Florida when the first snow falls. No one pays t’ listen to me gab about my life or my troubles. And that’s just the way I like it.”
Helen’s cheeks warmed. “I understand, LaVyrle. Your life is certainly your own.”
LaVyrle popped open the snaps on Nancy’s lavender cape. “You can pay up front, Mrs. E. I already got your bill written out. Mary’ll take care of it.”
“LaVyrle, I—”
But the beautician didn’t even glance up. She busied herself with a broom, sweeping hanks of fallen hair across the floor.
Helen took Nancy’s arm and headed out, all the while silently chastising herself for being so nosy. If LaVyrle wanted to keep her private life to herself, it certainly wasn’t her business to pry.