Coryn stepped inside LaMode Beauty Salon and was immediately swept into a pink perfumed world. The assorted fragrances of lotions, cosmetics and shampoo mingled in the warm air. Blow-dryers whirred and women’s voices murmured. A constant hum of conversation flowed from the pink-leather quilted booths and manicure tables.
A high-fashioned coiffeured blonde with vividly blue-shadowed eyes and incredible long, curved false eyelashes sat behind the reception desk. She was new since Coryn had last been here, and when Coryn asked if her mother was finished, the young woman ran long sequin-lacquered fingernails down the page of her open appointment book.
“Mrs. Dodge? Oh, yes. Are you her daughter? Well, she left a little while ago.”
“Are you sure? I was to meet her here.”
“I’ll ask Justine, her stylist. But I’m almost certain…I’ll find out,” she said, and got up and moved into one of the nearby booths.
Coryn recognized the woman who followed the receptionist back to the desk as her mother’s regular hairstylist.
“Hi, Coryn. Your mom wasn’t feeling so well when we finished and I called a cab to take her home. She left her keys and said you could drive her car home.” With her free hand she dug into her pink nylon smock pocket, brought out a set of keys and gave them to Coryn. “Has your mom been sick? I didn’t think she looked good when she came in…pale, sort of shaky. I thought maybe she’d had flu or was coming down with it.”
“I don’t know. I hope not,” Coryn said.
Justine tapped the hairbrush she was holding against her palm. “Lately she’s seemed…I don’t know…not quite herself.”
Hearing someone else put into words what Coryn had felt about her mother since coming home made her suddenly tense. “Thanks, Justine. I’ll go right home and see how she is.”
Coryn drove home quickly, her heart beating hard, her breathing shallow. Something was wrong with her mother. But what?
She didn’t know what prompted her to do it. But when she pulled into the garage, before going into the house, she unlocked the trunk of the car. Inside she found two large shopping bags filled with beautifully wrapped Christmas packages. The tags bore the same names of the friends and relatives her mother had put on her list to buy gifts for that very morning at the breakfast table.
But when had her mother bought these gifts? She’d been in the beauty parlor all morning, Coryn realized. She must have purchased the gifts days ago—and forgotten.
After staring at the presents for a few stunned minutes, Coryn slammed down the trunk and went into the house.
Rita, their weekly housecleaner, was vacuuming in the living room. In a hushed tone of voice she told Coryn her mother was napping.
“How did she look when she came home?” Coryn asked.
Rita frowned, leaned on the vacuum handle. “Not good. When I seen the cab pull up front, I looked out the window, not expecting anyone since you both were gone. Then I saw your mom come up the walk, ever so slow. I went right to the door and opened it. ‘Mrs. Dodge, you look beat and that’s for sure,’ I told her. She said something about not feeling well, so I helped her up to her bedroom. She said she’d be all right if she’d just lie down for a bit. I took her up a cup of tea later but she had a cloth over her eyes and was just stretched out on the bed. I pulled the quilt over her and just tiptoed out.” Rita shook her head. “Never saw her look that bad before.”
“Maybe it’s the flu,” Coryn said through stiff lips, fearing it was something much worse than that.
Still shaken by the discovery of the Christmas presents in the car, Coryn went upstairs. She opened her mother’s closed bedroom door, peeked in, saw she was sleeping and went on into her own.
What should she do? Ask her mother about the wrapped gifts, tagged and ready to give? Could her mother possibly have forgotten? She seemed to forget so many things these days.
Was something seriously wrong with her? All sorts of possibilities crowded into Coryn’s mind. Some kind of emotional break? Some kind of amnesia?
She still hadn’t decided whether to bring up the subject an hour later when her mother emerged from her bedroom, refreshed and fragrant from her rest and bath. She seemed perfectly fine. The explanation she gave for leaving the beauty salon early seemed perfectly logical.
“I should have eaten something before I went there. I rushed around shopping and then-it was so hot in there with all the steam and the smells of nail polish and blow-dryers going, I just felt faint. I didn’t want to spoil your luncheon with Cindy and Lora, so it was simpler for me to come home in a cab.”
Momentarily Coryn felt better. That evening, even with Coryn’s observation, her mother seemed her usual self. They watched TV together, a Christmas program. It was like a hundred other evenings Coryn remembered at home. But she couldn’t forget those packages in the trunk of the car. There was something going on here she didn’t understand. But what?