Polished Off (2 page)

“I just stopped by to tell you I love you in sickness and in health, with hair or without hair.”

“That’ll come in handy if I ever go completely bald,” she said with a watery chuckle.

He frowned. “Why’d you go and try to iron out your curls, anyway? I like ’em. They’re part of you.”

“Oh, Jarrett.”

They kissed.

“It’s romantic, the way he came rushing over here.” Stella had come up behind me and whispered in my ear.

I faced her, noting a wistful look in her eyes. Even at forty-one, her pale complexion usually had the sheen of a magnolia blossom, but today she looked pasty. She’d secured her auburn hair at the nape of her neck with two enameled chopsticks, but one lock escaped to straggle across her cheek. Strain was visible in the lines around her eyes.

“It’s sweet. Young love.” I fluttered my lashes in an exaggerated way. I remembered when Hank and I felt that way about each other. High school, maybe. I hoped I wasn’t too old at thirty to fall in love like that again.

Stella’s eyes brimmed with tears and she rushed toward the bathroom.

Before I could decide whether or not to follow her and ask what was wrong, the door opened to frame a woman on the threshold. She paused a moment, like the diva in an opera making sure the audience notices her entrance, before gliding into the salon. With russet hair and a sharp nose in a heart-shaped face, she reminded me of a fox. She was petite, maybe three inches shorter than my own five-six, but she wore heels and a tailored teal dress that made her seem taller. Her businesslike air suggested she wasn’t one of the tourists that flocked to St. Elizabeth, Georgia, in the summer, enchanted with our Southern hospitality, white-sand beach, and antebellum mansions.

“Violetta Terhune?” Her drawl, honey dripping from each drawn-out word, told me she grew up around here. She looked from me to Mom, waxed and plucked brows arched.

“That’s me,” Mom said, leaving her station and the still smooching couple to shake her hand. “How can I help you?”

“I’m Audrey Faye,” the woman said. “My friend Simone DuBois recommended you.”

Mom had been accused of murdering Simone’s mother, Constance DuBois, at the start of the summer. We had found the real murderer and kept him from doing away with Simone in the bargain, so she felt she owed us.

“I can fit you in after I do Penny,” Mom said. “Or Grace can take you now.”

“Oh, I don’t need a haircut,” Audrey said, flicking the idea away with a wave of her hand. “I’m the coordinator of the Miss Magnolia Blossom pageant, which, as I’m sure you know, is being held right here in St. Elizabeth this week.” She beamed. “Girls from across the region are competing for the chance to wear the crown and move up to the Miss Georgia Blossom contest next month. And then . . . Miss American Blossom.”

She breathed it in the awestruck tones my Catholic roommate at UGA used when talking about meeting the Pope.

“I’m not sure—” Mom started, looking confused.

“I want to hire two of your staff to do the girls’ hair and nails,” Audrey Faye interrupted.

I got the feeling she interrupted a lot. She came across as one of those women who wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral, as my Granny Terhune used to say. She probably still said it, but she’d moved to Maryland with my Uncle Graham’s family and I didn’t see her often.

“This is my first year as pageant director and I can tell you I’m making some changes in the way we do things. Some long-overdue changes.” She shot a sideways glance at her image in the mirror and brushed a speck of mascara off her cheek. “It helps to have a real beauty queen directing a pageant, don’t you think?”

Mom nodded, although I was sure she’d never given it a thought.

“I was Miss American Blossom once, you know; it seems like yesterday.” A reminiscent smile curved her full lips.

Since she was clearly in her mid-thirties, “yesterday” probably meant “fifteen years ago.” Meow, I chastised myself, unsure why I felt so catty about the woman.

“It’s like being queen for a whole year. I like to think I accomplished a lot during my reign.”

I didn’t think wearing a rhinestone crown and going to supermarket openings put her in the same league as Marie Curie or Eleanor Roosevelt on the accomplishments front. I put the brakes on my uncharitable thoughts; maybe she’d done good work with literacy or raising money for a disease. Just because she came across as a tad superficial didn’t mean she was ungenerous.

Audrey Faye took a deep breath. “Anyway, some of the contestants are old pros at the pageant thing, but several are neophytes. I want to level the playing field”—she smoothed the air with beautifully manicured hands—“so we can send the best woman to Atlanta. Isn’t that a brilliant idea? I’m determined that our Miss Magnolia Blossom will win the Miss Georgia Blossom crown this year.” Her lips tightened. “That’ll show them.”

That would show who what? She’d lost me. “Show who?”

She looked at me, apparently surprised I’d spoken. “The state pageant directors who don’t think we have a rigorous enough program here on the coast to compete successfully for Miss Georgia Blossom.”

“Well . . . what did you have in mind?” Mom asked.

“Today’s Tuesday. The finals are Saturday night. I need a stylist and a manicurist to do the contestants’ hair and nails for their appearances and the competitions. Talent tonight, swimsuit tomorrow, local appearances on Thursday, semifinals Friday, and the crowning on Saturday.” She ticked the events off on her fingers. “I’m running it just like one of the national pageants. Isn’t that brilliant? I’m paying three hundred a day. Each.”

Mom cast me a questioning look.

“I’m not too busy this week,” I told her, turning the pages of the appointment book. August was our slowest month as many of our customers fled the sweltering heat of coastal Georgia for cooler holidays in the Carolina or Tennessee mountains. I turned to Mom. “You could take my clients, couldn’t you?”

It sounded fun. I’d never been closer to a beauty pageant than a televised broadcast and I could use the extra money. I’d decided it was time to buy a house—I was thirty, after all—and was saving for a down payment. I was pretty sure Stella and Darryl could use the money, too. I looked around for Stella, but she was still in the bathroom.

Mom nodded. “If you want to, Grace. Althea can put in a few more hours.”

Althea Jenkins, Mom’s best friend, was our part-time aesthetician. She was a good stylist, too, but didn’t much like cutting hair. Still, she could fill in.

“Super,” Audrey said, taking Mom’s comment as agreement. “We’re at that old theater on Pecan Street. We’re sharing it with a community theater group doing
Phantom
. The stage is perfect. I can just see our Miss Magnolia Blossom, wearing her new crown, crying, waving to the audience . . .” She gave a royal wave, hand cupped, and hummed a snatch of the familiar Miss American Blossom theme song.

I had a feeling she was seeing herself, not the soon-to-be-crowned winner.

“Anyway”—Audrey’s tone snapped back to businesslike and she looked at me—“plan to be there at noon. The girls will be rehearsing their talent numbers and you can meet them then.”

“Sure,” I said.

“Super.” She turned on her designer heel and left just as Stella emerged from the bathroom.

“Who was that?” Stella asked, drying her hands on a paper towel.

“A woman who’s hired us to do hair and nails for a beauty pageant,” I said. “For three hundred a day.”

I expected Stella’s face to light up, but instead it twisted in consternation.

“You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to,” Mom said, eyeing Stella with concern. “I thought you’d be interested.”

“I am,” Stella said with an effort. “We need the money.” Looking wan, she settled into her chair and coaxed Beauty onto her lap. Stroking the cat, she stared at the door, a faraway look in her eyes.

MOM FINALLY UNGLUED JARRETT FROM PENNY AND got on with cutting the bride’s hair. Other customers trickled in and the three of us were busy for a couple of hours. Rachel Whitley, our shampoo girl, had asked for the week off and so we were doing our own shampoos, which put me a little behind. At eleven, I had a gap in my schedule and grabbed a diet root beer from the mini fridge. Taking an appreciative swallow of the foamy liquid, I slipped my sandals off and scrunched my toes—standing all day is murder on your feet. Stella had left for an early lunch, promising to meet me at the theater. My thoughts drifted to my last trip to Atlanta to see Marty, a man I’d been dating since we met in May. A political reporter for the
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
, he’d mentioned an upcoming interview with the
Washington Post
. We weren’t serious or anything—he lived four hours away, for heaven’s sake, and I’d only known him three months—but I’d miss him if he moved north. The clatter of the wooden blinds against the door brought my head around. I stared for a moment at the tall, African American woman crossing the salon. I almost dropped my root beer. “Althea?”

Althea Jenkins, our aesthetician, was the same vintage as my mom, give or take a couple of years, and had been her best friend since before they both lost their husbands in the early eighties. Althea’s husband was murdered, and my dad died of pancreatic cancer. They’d started the salon, Violetta’s, together as a home business to make ends meet, doing hair and facials for friends in my mom’s kitchen. Over the years, the business had expanded and taken over the front rooms—dining room, parlor, half bath—of the old Victorian my mom inherited. Althea was salt of the earth: a no-nonsense, Baptist-church-going, outspoken woman who had no tolerance for fools. I’d never seen her wear anything but polyester-blend pants and tops or loose cotton skirts and blouses from fashion emporiums like J.C. Penney and Sears. Today . . .

“Althea?” My mom’s voice held the same disbelief swirling through my head. “What in the name of heaven are you wearing?”

A tall woman with a proud bearing, Althea always had a commanding presence. In the ankle-grazing—what was it? a caftan? a tunic?—red, green, and black patterned garment, she was impossible to miss. Her gray-flecked afro was shorter than when I’d last seen her, following the curve of her skull and throwing her prominent cheekbones and deep-set eyes into sharp relief. Large circular earrings—some kind of bone or a facsimile—dangled from her lobes. At my mom’s question, Althea’s chin, always tilted up a hair like she was ready to take whatever the world threw at her, jutted forward.

“Like it?” Her tone dared any of us not to. “It’s a traditional African kente caftan.” She spun slowly so the full sleeves, really just slits in the fabric, belled out.

“Is it machine washable?” Mom asked. She plugged in a curling iron to finish her client’s hair. Close to eighty, Euphemia Toller had faded blue eyes that widened as she took in Althea’s new attire.

“It’s striking,” I offered.

“Are you going to a costume party?” Euphemia finally asked, shifting on the booster Mom had to use to raise her high enough to cut her hair.

Althea glared at her. “I’ve decided it’s time I explore my heritage,” she said loftily, “and reclaim it for myself.”

“Your hair? Did you lose it?” Euphemia asked, cupping a hand to her ear. She was deaf as a tree stump, except when it came to gossip; then, her hearing put a bat’s to shame. “It does look shorter.”

“Not hair. Her-i-tage,” Althea said loudly. “My roots. My cultural history.”

“What prompted this, Althea?” I asked. I crumpled the A&W can and tossed it in the recycle bin.

She looked down her nose at me, trying to decide if I was making fun of her. Apparently satisfied, she said, “Kwasi says it’s important to know where you come from in order to figure out where you’re going.”

I didn’t point out that she came from small-town Georgia, as did her parents and grandparents. She’d never been nearer the African savannah than watching
The Lion King
on DVD.

“Kwasi’s the man you’ve been seeing? The teacher from the community college?” Mom asked, removing Euphemia’s cape and escorting her to the counter. Euphemia counted out the correct change in crumpled dollar bills and quarters and left with a last disbelieving glance at Althea.

“He’s a professor,” Althea corrected her. “He’s designed a cross-disciplinary major in Multicultural and Oppression Studies.” Correctly interpreting our blank looks, she went on, “He enlightens students about the plight of oppressed peoples and cultures throughout history and shows the consequences of imperial and discriminatory mind-sets.” She sounded like she was reading from a course catalog.

Mom and I exchanged a covert glance. “Sounds interesting,” Mom said. “I hope we get to meet him soon.”

One of Althea’s neighbors had introduced her to Kwasi whoever six weeks ago and they’d been on several dates. She hadn’t shared many of the details with us, but if appearances were anything to go by, she was more involved with him than I’d realized.