A Dyeing Shame (3 page)

Myrtle thoughtfully fingered her hair. As usual, it stood up on end like Einstein’s. “Not really. My hair has a mind of its own.”

“Tammy has a new girl at the shop, doesn’t she? Kat—she’s her niece, right? I wonder if she does a better job with hair.”

Kat’s hair was dyed fuchsia and she sported rings through her nose, bellybutton, and probably other places Myrtle didn’t want to know about. So far the ladies of Bradley appeared reticent to entrust their precious locks to Kat’s care. But with Tammy incapacitated, Kat’s clientele might be on the rise.

“She probably knows what’s trendy. You could always try her, I guess.” Myrtle stood up. “I’m going home to put my feet up for a while. The DMV will sure take it out of you.”

Elaine snapped her fingers. “Before you go, I wanted to give you something.” She pushed open the kitchen door and Myrtle saw that it had been transformed into a sort of transient art studio. Not a very organized one, either. Elaine leafed through a short stack of canvasses on the table. “Let’s see. Here it is!”

Elaine held up a painting that made Myrtle immediately want to cover her eyes. “This is for you, Myrtle! What do you think?”

She was having a visceral reaction to the painting. A small, pained cry escaped from her, which Elaine fortunately attributed to delight. “See? This is you. And this is Miles. And you’re both surrounded with books!” Elaine smiled at her.

Myrtle, summoning incredible willpower, beamed right back at her. “I’m speechless. I’m…wow.” She nodded wordlessly at the painting. So, that blobby thing was her? And the other thing was Miles? But Miles looked more like a woman than she did! And the books seemed to meld into each other with more muddy blobbing.

“I thought you might need something for your mantel that represented your life with books and maybe also the friendship you found in books. And Miles is a literary friend!” said Elaine.

It all made wonderful sense. Except for the fact that what was being proposed to decorate the mantel was a complete abomination.

She hugged Elaine tightly. “Yes! It’s an amazing painting, Elaine. But I think it might be selfish of me to hog it. Miles and I could
share
the painting. Maybe a week at my house and a week at his.”

Elaine said in an excited voice, “What a nice idea! Because, really, it’s a painting about friendship. The friendship between the two of you and your friendship with books.”

“Exactly.” Miles wore glasses, after all. He could simply take them off when it was his turn with the painting. Without his glasses, it would probably seem like a lovely, vague Monet.

Jack came over to hug her bye before resuming wrecking his trucks into each other. Myrtle smiled bravely as she took gingerly took the painting in one hand, grabbed her cane with the other, and gratefully took her leave.

M
YRTLE WAS READY
especially early for her hair appointment the next morning. Lured by the prospect of juicy gossip or, God-willing, a scene, Myrtle set aside her bowl of Grape Nuts, haphazardly applied lipstick while pulling on a pastel pantsuit, and grabbed her cane.

Before heading in the direction of the Beauty Box, she walked a couple of doors down to Miles’ house. She placed Elaine’s painting in a bag on Miles’ porch with a sticky note that said
Thinking of You.
Myrtle hurried off without knocking on his door.

She smiled with satisfaction as she approached the salon, always relieved that Tammy hadn’t yielded to hyperactive punning when naming the shop. The town already had a barber shop called Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow and a beauty parlor called Hair-raisers. Puns made Myrtle queasy.

The inside of the shop was just as satisfactory as the outside. The ancient window unit spat out ice-cold air with a determined drone and the domed hairdryers noisily competed with it. Ladies hollered over the ruckus and it required skill and concentration to selectively eavesdrop.

The salon’s décor was eclectic and, although Tammy had decorated it in her pre-drinking days, that fact wasn’t evident. Bulbous, multi-colored Christmas lights covered the walls year-round and large posters prominently displayed unlikely-looking hair models. Red and yellow curtains clashed with avocado-colored vinyl drying chairs. Faux terra cotta walls completed the Spanish bordello look. The salon was designed as a duplex with the beauty parlor in one section and Tammy’s living quarters in the other. The manicurist also lived in one of the bedrooms in the other side of the duplex.

Myrtle immediately saw that Tammy was in rare form. She was gesticulating wildly with a liquor bottle and laughing hoarsely at a joke no one else apparently found funny. Instead of tranquil ladies settled in for their weekly soul baring and beautification, the shop was full of pinched faces. Agnes Walker looked grim as she got a manicure. The most anxious of the faces belonged to the victim of the moment, Bootsie Davenport. She sat stiffly in the chair with a martyred expression on her face. Judge Beauregard Davenport’s wife and local socialite, Bootsie had no desire to sacrifice her coif to Tammy’s binge-drinking.

“If y’all would loosen up and have a little cocktail, we’d all have a lot more fun.” Tammy knocked over a few bottles of hair product in accidental emphasis.

Making her grand entrance, Myrtle quoted dramatically, “
I lived on rum, I tell you. It’s been meat and drink, and man and wife, to me.
” Resurrecting these quotations from the depths of her memory was actually very validating. Red thought she needed to be shipped to a retirement home. Pooh!

Her arrival was greeted by an unusual sigh of relief at the distraction. “Myrtle!” said Agnes in a fond voice before guessing, “Kipling?”

“Stevenson,” said Myrtle. “
Treasure Island
.”

Agnes smiled. “I’m so glad you escaped being locked away at Greener Pastures Retirement Home, Myrtle. Whatever would we have done without you?”

“I won’t be an inmate at their asylum,” answered Myrtle dryly.

Bootsie said, “Asylum? Greener Pastures is a wonderful Home, Miss Myrtle. My own dear Mama is out there and is happy as a clam.”

“I stand corrected.” As soon as Bootsie was distracted by her ringing cell phone, Myrtle muttered to Agnes, “She’s happy as a clam because she’s half-baked. She entered the dining hall in nightie and robe and commenced a vigorous tooth-brushing when I visited Mirabelle the other night.”

Prissy Daniels peered myopically into her tatty, cavernous handbag for her checkbook. Her just-styled hair looked pretty good, considering Tammy’s present state. Pretty good for Prissy, anyway. Myrtle suspected that Prissy was the prototype for Old-Maid cards. She fit the part, right down to her knobby knees. Prissy patted her just-permed hair gingerly, made a vague goodbye and left the shop.

“Bye, Pris!” Tammy hollered as the door closed. She gave a derisive snort. “That Prissy.
Bless
her heart. She sure isn’t what she seems.” She winked at a frowning Agnes and said, “Prissy looks all prim and proper with her pearls and twin-sets. But you wouldn’t believe the real Prissy if I told you.”

“Then don’t,” suggested Agnes in a frosty voice.

Myrtle glowered. She’d have to have a talk with Agnes about stifling Tammy. The whole point of going to the beauty parlor was to learn gossip. What could she be thinking?

“I won’t. I’m no blabbermouth. Never have been! Although I could tell some real tales on Miss Priss—”

Bootsie’s loud cough interrupted Tammy. Prissy stood in the doorway, gaping at Tammy.

“Forget your specs again, Prissy?” asked Tammy. “I was just explaining to Bootsie here that you’re not as demure as you make out. Isn’t that right?” She gave a raucous bellow of laughter.

Prissy bleated something unintelligible, her long face turning blotchy red as she snatched up her glasses and fumbled her way out the door.

“Tammy,” said Agnes in a stern voice, “I know you’ve been struggling with alcohol again—”

“Sure have!” interrupted Tammy cheerfully as she waved a comb in the direction of the bottle, standing in the midst of a colorful array of mousses, shampoos and hair sprays. “Want some? Never mind, I’m not sharing, anyway.”

Agnes glared at Tammy disapprovingly. “Why are you drinking like this when you and Connor seem so happy together? I just don’t understand what precipitated this.”

“Ah, Connor. Mama’s pride and joy, isn’t he?”

Agnes ignored the jab. “You should consider getting some help.”

“No thanks, Mrs. Walker, I’m getting plenty of help from the bottle.”

It did seem like a strange time for Tammy to fall off the wagon. She’d had an amicable divorce from former husband Bo. Her shop was doing well, her niece lived nearby, and she was dating a good guy. Did she weather the hard times easier than the good ones?

Myrtle turned a critical eye on Tammy. She’d been pretty, although lately she’d let herself go. Dark roots and straggling gray hairs replaced the blond highlights she usually sported. The neat smock she’d worn over her clothes was nowhere in evidence, probably because the ratty sweat suit she wore didn’t need protecting. A cigarette dangled out the corner of Tammy’s mouth and from time to time a column of ash fell into Bootsie’s curls before disappearing.

The waiting area was full of old magazines that hadn’t been replaced by new ones in months. Tammy was really letting the place slide. Myrtle leafed through one magazine that she’d already read several times before tossing it back down. “Any excitement?” she asked the other women.

Tammy snickered. “There’s always something going on in Bradley. Isn’t that right, Bootsie?”

Bootsie gave Tammy a hard look through squinty eyes in the mirror before she answered brightly, “Absolutely! I’m on a committee to plan the next church fundraiser. It’s going to be a festival. It’ll be the third week in October, so mark your calendars now.”

Dina, the anxious-faced manicurist, nervously dabbed polish on Agnes’ nails. She said in her squeaky voice, “A festival. That sounds very nice.”

A church festival wasn’t the kind of excitement that Tammy was probably was referring to.

Tammy’s assistant beautician and niece, Kat Roberts, walked in while everyone stared. Kat was a tattoo-sporting, pierced, pink-haired anomaly in the town. “We were just talking about Bradley,” said Bootsie to Kat. “Not quite as exciting here as it was in New York, is it?”

Kat shrugged. “No, but it doesn’t matter to me. I’ve had enough excitement.”

Myrtle remembered hearing that Kat’s move was precipitated by her mother’s arrest for dealing drugs. Her father ran off long ago and Aunt Tammy was the only family Kat had left. Tammy had driven her to North Carolina and promptly enrolled her in beauty school.

But Bradley, North Carolina might not be quite ready for Kat. Her style sense turned heads, but it hadn’t inspired confidence in the Beauty Box crowd. Kat didn’t seem to have any regulars yet.

Myrtle patted her hair. As usual, it was standing on end. Surely Kat couldn’t make it any worse than it already was. Or as bad as a drunken Tammy might make it. “Since Tammy is tied up with Bootsie, could you do a wash and set for me, Kat?”

Kat’s tough features brightened and she spun a chair around. “Have a seat!” Kat was actually pretty when she smiled. Was that a shiny pimple on her nose, though? Oh. A nose stud. Myrtle sighed.

Tammy stubbed out her cigarette, then stumbled and nearly stabbed the shrieking Bootsie with her clippers. “You’re fine, you’re fine,” she muttered to Bootsie. Kat shot her aunt a disapproving look and Tammy put her hands on her hips. “What is this, the Ladies’ Temperance Society? You’re not some goody-two-shoes are you, Kat?”

Kat stayed stoically silent as she competently scrubbed Myrtle’s hair, but her hands shook with the effort of holding back.

The air in the room was heavy with disapproval. Tammy shrugged. “Shouldn’t matter what I do as long as I cut hair okay. I’m not breaking any laws.” She blanketed Bootsie’s hair with enough Aqua Net to annihilate the remainder of the ozone layer. “I’m a decent, good-hearted—would somebody
get
that phone?” She roared as the devil-possessed instrument rang and rang. Probably women canceling their appointments in droves. Dina, the mousy manicurist, obediently snatched up the receiver.

Tammy pieced together her scattered thoughts. “I’m a good Christian woman.” She whipped her head around in an unsuccessful attempt to pin down the source of the derisive snort behind her. “I’m giving Kat a fresh start.” Kat shot her a look that said where she could put the fresh start. “And I even put her up here with me until Kat got her own place.”

“And remember little Dina, too,” Tammy ordered, gesturing to the timid manicurist who had put down the phone and was again nervously filing Agnes’ nails. “She had to run away from that no-good cretin of a husband. When she needed a place to go, who took her in? Did
y’all
take her in? Give her a place to stay? Food to eat? Nope. It was me!”

Agnes gave a delicate cough. “Dina does have feelings, you know, Tammy. Don’t talk about her like she’s not in the room. She’s not some stray kitten.”

Dina pushed her glasses up her nose and shook her head, frizzy curls bobbing emphatically. “Oh, I don’t mind, Miss Agnes. Tammy’s been a lifesaver and I’m just so very grateful.”