45

Lida walked along Connecticut Avenue, straining to see if her car was still padlocked in place in front of the restaurant. But when she reached the Elizabeth Arden salon, she was still too far away to tell.

She pulled at the solid red door. Then she saw the little brass plaque directing her to push. A woman behind her gave a “tsk” and tapped her foot impatiently. Lida looked down at the foot, at the little black pump with the initials, back to back, on the leather: Givenchy. “Tsk,” Lida returned, pushing open the door and then not bothering to hold it.

She took the elevator to the third floor. The wrinkled black man at the controls nodded at her, as though she were a regular. In fact, Lida had been here only once before and had been sent away in ignominy, dismissed as not hairy enough for the waxing procedure to be performed.

She walked to the reception desk. “Half-leg and bikini,” she said with authority.

The woman behind the desk gave her a once-over. “You haven’t shaved?” she questioned, her eyelids at half-mast.

“Nope,” Lida answered.

“For at least four weeks? Are you certain?”

“I’ve been in a funk,” Lida said, “so I haven’t, honest.”

“I think Danielle is free.”

The woman in the Givenchy shoes reappeared. She was Danielle.

“How are you today?” Danielle asked, leading Lida into the pastel privacy of one of the narrow rooms along the corridor.

“Very hairy,” Lida said, disrobing warily while Danielle clanked and puttered with some utensils. When Lida was naked, Danielle handed her a pink kimono and gestured at a table. It was very much like a gynecologist’s table, but without the stirrups.

“I have a few hairs on my nipples,” Lida said, eyeing the vat of hot wax and attempting, therefore, to be friendly.

“We don’t do nipples,” Danielle said, pulling the robe aside and arranging Lida’s leg on the table. She rolled a tiny pink towel and placed it over Lida’s vulva. “Hold this,” she said.

Lida raised herself on her fists and watched Danielle spoon the hot wax along her groin. “Is this going to hurt?” Lida asked, wishing she had held the door.

Danielle patted ice chips over the wax and tapped at it. She looked at Lida and smiled for the first time. “Yes,” she said. The smile broadened when she pried up a corner of the hardened patch. “Lean back,” she directed, “and take a deep breath.”

And then she yanked. It was like a thousand Band-Aids being pulled off all at once. A thousand Band-Aids taped where none had ever been taped before. It took the hair out to the roots.

“Skip the other side,” Lida said, sitting hurriedly, “and skip the legs.”

Danielle poured some pink lotion onto a wad of cotton. “Come on, now,” she said, “this will make it feel better.”

“What is it? Hydrochloric acid?”

“It’s a soothing lotion.” She motioned Lida back onto the table. She arranged her leg again. And then she patted the lotion on.

“It does feel better,” Lida said.

“Of course.” Danielle walked back and took up the spoon.

“Wait a minute.” Lida sat up and looked down at herself. Her dark isosceles triangle of pubic hair had gone scalene. “I look silly with only one side done, don’t I?” she asked, hoping Danielle would soften and tell her, no, it was the in thing this year to look like King Kong on the left side and a ballerina on the right.

Danielle didn’t reply. She stood, stirring the thick brown wax. Finally, transferring some from the caldron to a small aluminum pot, she spoke to Lida. “Well,” she said, “is he worth it?”

“So far.” Lida sighed, reclining again. But she still had the rest of the bikini and two half-legs to go.

Lida wondered if her Blue Cross policy would cover this. The way she felt, it ought to. And did she have to tip Danielle for this? Obviously she did. Danielle stood and waited. “What now?” Lida groaned.

“Your underarms,” Danielle said.

“Oh, shit.” Lida raised her arms, exposing the pits. In true surrender, she thought.

“Still worth it, huh?” Danielle said, spooning.

And finally it was over. Danielle was gathering up her equipment, arranging it on a tray. “Next time,” Danielle said, “make a forty-five-minute appointment. Then we can do something about”—she propped the door open with her well-shod foot, preparing to slip into the hall—“your little mustache.”

The door whooshed closed behind her.

Lida handed the receptionist a nickel. “This is for Danielle,” she said.

They were probably over Philadelphia by now, although he couldn’t see the ground because of the cloud cover. He reached up to ring the little bell over his head, and the stewardess approached, smiling.

“Can I get you something, sir?” she asked.

“You can get me a bourbon. And a Washington newspaper. You have a Washington newspaper?” He looked at her breasts and then back at her face.

“Yes, sir,” she said, the smile still very much in place.

What would it take, he wondered, to knock that smile off her face?