Wedding Bell Blues - [47]

there after we get our hair fixed, and spend some of the McGilly boys’ money.”

And so here Lily sat, swilling beer in the morning, waiting for Sheila and Tracee to come get her.

If Ben hadn’t already taken Mimi to Jeanie’s, she’d be tempted to grab her daughter and flee, before theperoxided pod people could turn her into one of them. She disposed of the empty beer bottle and went tothe bathroom to brush her teeth. Just as she was spitting, she heard the horn of Sheila’s Lexus.

Lily had hoped that the stylist at the Chatterbox would be a gay man—a Faulkner County queenwho, out of allegiance to his family, had chosen to live and work in Versailles. Lily had no such luck.

Instead, the Chatterbox was run by a creature who called itself Doreen and who worked with the theorythat one could make more money in the beauty industry by undermining the self-esteem of one’scustomers.

When Sheila and Tracee presented Lily to Doreen, she shook her head and mumbled, “My, my,my. Look what the cat drug in.”

Not that Doreen looked that hot herself. Her straw-textured hair was dyed neon orange, and hereyelids were shadowed with bright turquoise. But the most fascinating thing about Doreen was hereyebrows— or her simulated eyebrows.

The old lady (how old was impossible to tell beneath the layers of pancake makeup) had pluckedor shaved her naturally occurring brows and painted on violent black slashes that began at the bridge ofher nose and ended up at her hairline above her temples. If this was the woman who was in charge of hermakeover, Lily thought she was more likely to end up looking like an extra from Star Trek than anordinary wife and mother.

Doreen turned Sheila and Tracee over to her assistant for their trims and root touch-ups. Shelooked at Lily, stubbed out her cigarette, and said to no one in particular, “Well, I reckon I’ll have to rollup my sleeves to deal with this one.” When she finally addressed Lily directly, she ordered, “Sit down,honey. And get comfortable. This is gonna take a while.”

Lily tried to sit still while Doreen yanked on her hair. “Never seen so many rat nests in my life,”Doreen muttered, her cigarette clenched between her teeth. Lily was fairly sure she felt a few ashes dropon her head.

She knew her hair was a mess. She hadn’t done anything to it except wash it since Charlotte died,and her once-funky white-girl braids had turned into mats and tangles. Doreen pulled and combed so hardthat Lily was sure her hair was being torn out by its roots. Tattoos and body piercings were painlesscompared to this torture.

“Well, I reckon I got it combed out enough to wash it anyway,” Doreen said finally. When Lilyturned her head to look in the mirror, she was greeted by the image of Elsa Lanchester in Bride ofFrankenstein.

“Lord, girl, don’t look at it yet. We ain’t even halfway there. It’s a good thing I eat my Wheatiesthis mornin’.” She tucked a towel into the collar of Lily’s plastic smock. “Lean back in the chair now.”

After Doreen scrubbed Lily’s scalp as though it needed de-lousing, Lily sat up again. Doreenfluffed her hair with her red talons. “We’re gonna hafta take a lotta this length off,” she muttered. “Yougot split ends on top of your split ends.” Doreen’s scissors began snip-snip-snipping in a seeminglyrandom pattern, and Lily sucked in her breath as large hunks of hair fell onto her smock and the floor.

“How’s it going?” Sheila asked brightly. She and Tracee stood together, their coiffures trimmedand touched up.

Doreen looked Lily over and frowned. “It’ll be another hour at least.”

“Hmm,” Tracee said, “Well, I guess we’ll go grab some lunch at the Bucket. We’ll be backdirectly.”

Doreen snipped until Lily figured she’d run out of hair, then mixed up a plastic bottle of somevile-smelling chemical solution and squeezed it on Lily’s hair. Lily’s eyes teared, and her nose ran. Shehad always drawn the body-piercing line at below-the-belt piercings, but right now a labia piercingseemed a comparative piece of cake.

“All right, back in the sink,” Doreen barked like a cosmetology drill sergeant. Lily pondered theanalogy as Doreen rinsed the chemicals from her hair. Just like a drill sergeant, Doreen was stamping outLily’s rebelliousness and taking away her individuality to make her an acceptable member of a team.

Hair—its color, length, and style — was always tied to individuality. After all, what was the firstthing the army did to new male recruits? They gave them identical haircuts.

Lily reflected on the symbolic significance of hair as her own shortened tresses were blown dry,hot rolled, brushed, sprayed, and spritzed. When Doreen finally turned the chair to face the mirror, Lilygasped. Doreen bared her yellowed teeth in a grin, mistaking her client’s shock for delight.

Lily’s new short hair was not the carefree crop of a dyke. Her ashy tresses had been highlighted asunny blonde and were now pouffed on top of her head, coming down in perfectly arranged petals aroundher face. It was a soccer mom’s haircut—short, sassy, and sprayed so stiff that neither rain nor sleet nor