Movie night on Friday went very, very late.
So late that I fell asleep twenty minutes into Toy Story, much to Jayne’s horror. But Levi wouldn’t let her wake me up, and I promised the next morning to watch it over the weekend.
I would watch it while reading the stack of books William wanted me to read.
“Seriously?” Jayne said when she saw the stack. “Wow. If you need to cheat, let me know. I had a journalism class in college that taught how to skim books for research. I’m willing to share my wisdom come to that.”
“It might,” I said. William could boss me around all he wanted, but the fact of the matter was that I had two days off, and I had a skirt to make. Rather than experiment with my new machine using my nice wool, I used a few of Jayne’s donated quilt squares. I practiced loading the bobbin, running a line of stitches, and backing up to secure the row.
The speed of the machine amazed me. Though my grandma was Mennonite and lived in a house with electricity, she used an old treadle machine. Said she liked the pace of it. Until now, I’d never even watched someone else use an electric machine. A part of me didn’t think I’d like it, but now? I found it energizing. All I had to do was depress the pedal attached to the cord, and whoosh! The tricky part was getting the tension correct so the threads on the top and threads on the bottom matched, rather than looping or pulling so tight the fabric gathered.
As I cut the fabric pieces, I felt the familiar surge of anticipation. Starting new projects made me feel that anything was possible. Every length of fabric held so much potential. The wool I’d purchased could just as easily become something else—a jacket, a shift dress, even a children’s toy.
I thought back to the Godey’s Lady’s Book sitting in the back room at work. It occurred to me that many of the subscribers were women who couldn’t afford the designer gowns of the time and either made or designed most of their own garments. In a way, Godey’s Lady’s Book made it possible for women all over America to be fashionable. And not only fashionable, but well read. I determined to do more reading on Godey’s Lady’s Book and Sarah Josepha Hale.
But not until I’d finished William’s books. Or the skirt that lay in pieces on Jayne’s floor.
Sunday morning before church dawned cold, dark, and drizzly. I rose early as usual and showered. Most days I would braid my long hair wet and wait for it to dry, but the idea of going outside with a head of wet hair held no appeal. I rooted around for Jayne’s hairdryer and set about the dull task of drying my lengthy strands.
Long hair really was a pain.
During the church service I found myself eyeing Jayne’s shorter hair. It hung just past her shoulders and probably took a fraction of the time to dry. I looked at the other women’s hairstyles at the service. Some were short and puffy, others short and sleek. Other women wore their hair longer, but only one woman I saw had hair as long as mine. She wore a long, gauzy skirt with socks and odd-looking sandals. Not fashionable at all.
I turned my attention back to the pastor’s words, guilt heavy in my heart. I was at church to hear about God. Hair would have to wait until later.
“Do you think the other girls at the Art Institute will have short hair?” I asked Jayne on the way home from church.
Jayne’s eyes widened like a trapped animal’s. “Um, I guess. Probably. Most of them shorter than yours, but there may be an exception. You thinking about cutting yours?”
“It’s long.”
“True.”
“And takes forever to dry.”
“I imagine.”
I leaned against the headrest. There were practical aspects to my thoughts of a haircut. The other fact was that I wanted to fit in with the other students. I didn’t want to be “the Amish girl” or even “the ex-Amish girl.” I didn’t want my hair to set me apart for any reason. I told Jayne as much.
She shrugged. “Don’t cut it unless you would really like it short though. You have lovely blond hair. Don’t dye it brown because it sets you apart from a largely brunette class.”
“I wouldn’t do that. I don’t know that I’d recognize myself if I had different-colored hair. I don’t understand the people who change their hair color.”
Jayne smirked. “That’s because you grew up in a culture without much hairstyle change. I’ve had red tips on my hair and even blue tips for a bit. Liked the red better. Went blond for about two weeks in college. Used to highlight my hair before I got tired of paying for it. Now it’s just brown, but I like it. Sometimes it’s fun to look in the mirror and see something different—that’s all I’m saying. I’ve had lots of friends cut their hair short after a bad breakup.”
“Really? Over a boy?”
“Kim was in a two-year relationship with a guy. He dumped her three weeks before Valentine’s day. She chopped it up to where it is now—used to be pretty long. Now she says the best two things she’s ever done is to lose the guy and the hair.” Jayne shifted down as she turned the car. “Hair’s just hair, really. It grows. You can change it all you want, but it’ll still grow back.”
“True.” I lifted a shoulder. “Not that I’ve ever tried to grow a hairstyle out.”
“Well, if you’d like a cut, Gemma has a hair lady she swears by. I tend to walk into a salon whenever the urge strikes me and suffer the consequences. You probably want to listen to Gemma when it comes to hair. And clothes. And makeup…”
“Most things.”
“Hey. I’m a killer feature writer. I make people cry with the power of my words.”
I laughed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound the way I did. You’re good at lots of things. You know things.” I sobered. “You’re English, you grew up English. You don’t have to pretend that you understand what someone means when they talk about Barney the purple dinosaur.” I shook my head. “Still makes no sense to me. Purple dinosaurs?”
“Children’s TV show,” Jayne supplied between chuckles. “Most people find it annoying, but after babysitting my niece, I can say that people who hate Barney have never watched Teletubbies. Anyway, back to hair. I’m all for letting go of deadweight. If you want a cut, go for it.”
Go for it. Go for it. I repeated Jayne’s words in my head as I sat in the hairstylist’s chair after work on Tuesday.
A lot of things had surprised me in the English world. Drive-through coffee. A different version of Santa Claus at every shopping mall. But nothing could have prepared me for the experience of being in a salon. The air smelled odd and tangy. Bottles of every color lined the walls. There were mirrors everywhere. Nearly all of the salon employees wore black. Several of them painted things onto their clients’ heads. Others snipped at the ends of clients’ hair, mouths moving just as fast as their hands.
My stomach clenched. I was terrified.
A strange woman named Stella ran her hands through my hair. I wanted to bat them away.
“Your hair is generally healthy, but there’s breakage here.” She indicated where my hair used to be pulled back. “What do you think about taking some of the weight off and giving you some volume?”
“That sounds…okay.” Volume? Like, making my hair louder? As always, I didn’t ask. I just pretended to understand.
“Did you have a length in mind?”
“Shorter.” I gestured near my shoulders. It occurred to me that perhaps that wasn’t the best indicator—I was so nervous, my shoulders were located somewhere near my ears.
“Shorter. I can do that. Let’s get you washed up.”
Was I dirty? Obediently, I followed Stella toward a row of sinks attached to chairs and sat when she told me to. My head landed in the sink. Stella turned on warm water; I jumped when it hit my scalp.
Never in my life had a stranger washed my hair, but here I was, with Stella’s hands massaging my scalp and carrying on a one-sided conversation about the weather.
After a few moments, my hair was scrubbed clean, wrapped in a towel. She walked with me back to the chair in front of the mirror and then set about the painful process of brushing my wet hair out.
I closed my eyes and thought of clothes.
“Safe to open your eyes now,” Stella said quite a while later. “Didn’t want to ruin the surprise?”
Something like that. Dread curled around my stomach. Maybe if I told myself it would be awful, whatever my hair looked like, I’d like it when I saw it.
I opened my eyes. And blinked. My head looked…bigger.
Now that my hair wasn’t three and a half feet long, it had a lot more puff to it. Not in an unworldly way, but it wasn’t plastered down to my scalp anymore. The blond strands were still as straight as ever, but now they floated around my neck.
Stella ran her fingers though my dry hair, repositioning it this way and that. “I used a razor to give the ends texture. Had to go short because of the breakage. All of this…” She lifted my hair again. “Healthy hair. As long as you don’t style it repetitively—ponytails all the time, that kind of thing, as you grow it, all you’ve got is strong hair.”
“It’s…short.”
She frowned. “That’s the length you showed me…”
I felt my eyes fill with tears. “Yes. It was.” Because of my stupid tense shoulders.
Jayne and Gemma put down their magazines as I reentered the waiting area.
“You look so cute!” Gemma exclaimed. “Excellent job, Stella!”
“Sara?” Jayne’s eyes narrowed.
“That’s the length we talked about…” Stella’s voice trailed off.
“It’s perfect.” Gemma jumped up and put her arm around me. I saw Jayne write a check out of the corner of my watery eye. Once Stella was paid, Gemma and Jayne shepherded me out of the salon.
“I’m sure it’s a shock,” Gemma said as we walked, my shorn head all but tucked under her arm. “But it’s very, very cute. Very face flattering. Very modern…”
“Sara, take a deep breath,” Jayne said in a stern voice, startling me with its severity. She pulled me away from Gemma and placed her hands on my shoulders. “This was your first haircut. No matter what, the change was probably going to shock you. Hair grows. Whether you have a good haircut or a bad haircut, it just keeps on growing. You need to take a deep breath and snap out of it!”
I stared at her as if she’d just slapped me.
“Wow. Quite the speech.” Gemma said.
Jayne smiled. “Thanks. It’s vintage—at least, the part about hair growing and deep breaths. I got a horrible cut in high school, and that’s what my mom told me.”
“And it worked?” Gemma asked.
“Perfectly. This was before I dyed my hair rodeo red. After that, no hair speeches for a while. So…” Jayne put her hands on her hips. “Who’s up for cupcakes?”
I studied myself in the mirror. Like the trees outside, I felt I’d lost my foliage by cutting my hair.
“It dries fast. Remind yourself of that,” Jayne called from the kitchen.
Levi came over for dinner shortly after. “I heard the haircut was a bit rough,” he said, reaching out to fluff the ends. “I like it. You look English.”
A smile stretched across my face. “Really?”
“Yup.”
“For Pete’s sake, she looked English before. Crescent roll from a tube?” Jayne offered. “They’re hot.”
“How’s the skirt coming?” Levi asked.
He might have asked because fabric pieces and wads of thread covered a moderate portion of the kitchen table. Jayne’s untidiness was rubbing off on me.
“Good,” I said, snagging a crescent roll from the basket Jayne offered. “Hoping to be done with the skirt tonight.”
I’d wanted to be done with it over the weekend, but I found myself wrapped up in reading. William hadn’t asked about my progress. Yet. I stuck the roll in my mouth and examined the fabric pieces I’d assembled so far. Perfect.
On Wednesday morning, I walked into work feeling pretty good about myself. I wore my new skirt with the high-heeled tall boots, the ones I had finally figured out how to walk in. My hair…well, I was still getting used to it. But Jayne introduced me to the novelty of hair product. With my strands slightly stuck together in artful clumps, I rather liked my new look.
“Morning, William!” I called out as I entered.
“Mornin’,” he said, with the look on his face that he got when he was about to say something critical. But he didn’t. He looked up at me, and his mouth snapped shut.
Odd. But nice. I put my things down and set to work.