Polished Off (5 page)

THE NEXT COUPLE OF HOURS PASSED IN A BLUR OF curling, combing, teasing, and fluffing. A fog of hairspray hung permanently in the little room and I made a mental note to ask Jodi for a fan. She’d come through with the chair, and the contestants sat in a swivel office chair that could be raised and lowered about a foot. Not perfect, but better than nothing. Some of the girls sat tense and mute in the chair while others chatted away like little magpies, telling me all about their childhoods, dreams and ambitions, BFFs, and how or why they’d gotten into the pageant. Nerves, I guessed.

Threading a red ribbon that matched the lederhosen buttons through the yodeler’s blond braids, I pronounced her done. “How many more girls are waiting?” I asked.

She peeked out. “Just two.”

“Please ask the next girl to come in.”

The elegant young black woman who’d been sparring with Tabitha glided through the door. She was average height but strongly built, with muscular arms and legs displayed by a sleeveless ivory vest over slim slacks. “Hi, I’m Brooke Baker,” she said, marching forward with her hand out.

“Nice to meet you,” I said, shaking her hand and introducing myself. Of all the girls I’d seen this evening, she was the most self-possessed by far. “What did you have in mind?” I studied her hair, running my fingers through the thick mass, which had obviously been relaxed and straightened so it hung to her shoulders with a slight flip at the end.

“It’s a mess, I know,” she said, as I worked my fingers through the dry strands. “But I have to straighten it. It doesn’t pay to be
too
black in the Miss American Blossom competition.” She said it matter-of-factly, not bitterly, with a smile that said she and I both knew how stupid that was, but what could you do? “And this bit flops in my face when I drum.” She tugged at a hank of hair.

“You’re a drummer?”

She nodded. “That’s my talent. I’ve played since I was five. I did marching band all through high school and I play with an all-girl band called The Fabulosas. I wish they could be on stage with me tonight, but they’ll be in the audience.” She beat the air with imaginary drumsticks.

“Have you ever considered bangs?” I asked, appraising her oval face with its high cheekbones, strong chin, and beautiful brown eyes. “I think bangs would really make your eyes pop and emphasize your facial structure.” I held up her hair to demonstrate. “And then your hair wouldn’t get in your way when you perform.”

She studied her reflection for a moment, then said, “Let’s do it.”

She held still as I cut, her eyes never wavering from the mirror. I could feel her assessing every snip, every bit of hair that fluttered to the floor. When I finished with her bangs, leaving them spiky and flirtatious so they just grazed her brows, I rolled and pinned the rest of her hair so it gently framed her face and hid the damaged ends.

“My eyes look so big,” she exclaimed when I finished. “You are totally talented!”

“Thanks.” I laughed, whisking hair snippets off her shoulders with a towel. “Good luck tonight.”

Her face sobered. “Yeah, thanks. I really need to win. The Miss American Blossom scholarship money is my only hope for vet school after I finish my undergrad degree next May. I’ve got it all figured out. With what I make waiting tables and the money from the band’s gigs, I still need to win Miss Georgia Blossom and be at least third runner-up at the national pageant. Thanks for the cut.” She strode out, leaving the door open.

With a focus like that, I had no doubt she’d end up as a vet, or whatever she wanted to be. I thought of my own lack of focus at her age, the two years at the University of Georgia drifting from art classes to business classes, the decision to attend beauty school, hanging on to the relationship with Hank long after it was clear we had different priorities and values, my return to St. Elizabeth after the divorce. Maybe I needed to be more Brooke Baker-ish in my approach to life, I decided, slipping combs into the container of germicide. I needed goals. Not vet school or fame as a rocker chick, but something beyond “work at Mom’s salon, live in an apartment, and see what turns up.” I was saving for a house, but not in a really determined way. Maybe I should go around with a Realtor and look at what was on the market. Maybe that would inspire me to get more serious about my saving. Maybe I’d even get a part-time job to make it happen quicker.

I had resolved to ask my best friend, Vonda Jamison, if she could recommend a Realtor, when the door edged open and a soft voice said, “I think I’m last.”

I turned, astonished, to see Rachel Whitley, the salon’s shampoo girl, hovering on the threshold, her expression a blend of amusement and embarrassment. “Rachel! What in the world are you doing here?”

“I’m, like, a contestant,” she said, plopping into the chair and spinning it around. The navy blue robe she wore over her costume belled out at her ankles.

“Really?” Seventeen-year-old Rachel, who would be a senior when school started up, had never struck me as the pageant type. With her style choices ranging from Goth to grunge and her makeup leaning toward kohl-rimmed eyes that made her look like a raccoon and matching black nails, Rachel struck me more as the anti-pageant poster child than a beauty queen wannabe. “Is this a joke?” I asked suspiciously, tempted to check the hall to see if Mom or Althea lurked out there, ready to burst out laughing.

“No,” she said with an impish grin. “It’s a dare.”

“A dare?”

“Yeah. Like, some of my friends bet I wouldn’t have the nerve to do this. If I make it to the finals, I get to drive Shannon’s new Mustang for a week. If I win, I get it for a whole semester.” She grinned at me and I noticed the Goth makeup was gone, leaving her great skin and Nile green eyes unadorned.

“What happens if you lose?”

She shrugged. “I have to wash it every week for the whole school year. And, like, wax it.”

I cocked an eyebrow at her.

“It seemed like a good idea at the time,” she said with a half shrug. “And it’s a slick ride.”

I surveyed her shoulder-length black hair with its multiple layers. She’d been known to hack at it with nail scissors and, for all I knew, hedge clippers . . . and it looked like it. At least it was free of the electric blue stripes she’d sported a couple weeks back. I didn’t think there’d ever been a beauty queen with hair quite like this.

Correctly interpreting my silence, she said, “I need you to make my hair look more . . . more mainstream.”

“How much time do I have?”

“I have to be on stage in forty minutes.” She looked at me hopefully.

“Okay. The best we can do for tonight is make a few surface changes. Let me get Stella.” I whisked out of the room to Stella’s lair next door. She was just finishing up M16 Morgan’s nails when I burst in. I explained the situation as concisely as possible and she rummaged in her purse for a makeup bag as she accepted Morgan’s thanks.

“Oh, Rachel, this will be such fun,” Stella greeted the girl with the first genuine enthusiasm I’d seen from her all day. “We don’t have much time, so let’s get to it. First things first: what’s your talent?”

“I whistle,” Rachel said, trilling a bar from “Whistle While You Work.”

I’d always found whistling shrill and annoying, but Rachel’s was surprisingly musical. “Isn’t that from
Snow White
?”

She nodded. “I do, like, a Disney medley with part of a song from
Mary Poppins
and one from
Cinderella
.”

“Let’s see your costume,” I said as an idea bloomed.

She rose and untied the robe, displaying a Cinderella-ish blue dress with white apron tied at the back, emphasizing her small waist. Lace-up black granny boots completed the look. “My mom loaned them to me,” she said, kicking out one foot.

“Kerchief,” I said, as Stella blurted, “Scarf.” We exchanged a triumphant look.

“Your hair,” I explained to the bewildered Rachel. “We don’t really have time to fix it, so we’ll cover it with a kerchief for tonight, like the one Cinderella wears when she’s scrubbing the floor. I’ll go find one. Stella, you get going on the makeup.”

“These brows—” Stella was saying as I hurried out the door and down the hall.

I paused before the first door I came to past Stella’s, ready to knock, when an angry voice from inside said, “You can’t do this! I have rights. Elise is my daughter and—”

“Oh, please, Mama,” a young girl’s voice said. “I don’t even want—”

“I will ban you from the pageant if you don’t return to your seat in the auditorium, Mrs. Metzger.” Audrey’s tone would freeze motor oil. “No one except staff and contestants are allowed backstage. I told you that yesterday.”

“That’s ridiculous. You can’t exclude
mothers
.” She tittered, but fury thrummed in her voice.

I backed away from the door, not wanting to interrupt the argument to ask for a scarf. Turning, I bumped into Marv, the bald man who found the mat sabotage. I didn’t know if he was the stage manager, the security man, or a combination of the two. I asked him.

“I own this place,” he said, apparently not offended by my assumptions. “For my sins.”

I was going to follow up on that, but the argument in the room behind us got louder and we both looked at the door.

“Here we go again,” he said lugubriously. “Just yesterday I had to show Miz Metzger out, but she’s not the sort of woman who
stays
shown out, if you know what I mean. Miz Faye called me a coupla minutes ago, said she was creating trouble again. I don’t know why I didn’t just sell this place when Aunt Nan left it to me. Probably because no one would buy it,” he answered his own question.

The door slammed open so hard it ricocheted against the wall. I jumped. A woman in her late forties stalked out—followed by Audrey and the young flautist—rage vibrating in every line of her massive figure. She probably topped out at close to six feet and two hundred pounds. Dyed blond hair showed darker at the roots. Her face with its slightly pug nose might have been attractive in an aging Doris Day-ish sort of way, if it weren’t knotted into a scowl that would put a gargoyle to shame. At the sight of Marv, she stopped. “If you so much as lay a hand on me, I’ll file assault charges,” she said. She crossed her arms over an ample bosom.

“This way, Miz Metzger,” Marv said, gesturing with one arm.

She wheeled to face Audrey. “Don’t think I don’t know exactly why you want to keep me out of here,” she said meaningfully. “I know what goes on.”

“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about,” Audrey said through clenched teeth. She held her clipboard like she wanted to bat the woman with it. “Nothing ‘goes on,’ Mrs. Metzger, except normal pageant activities.” Before the other woman could respond, Audrey said, “I’ve got a dozen things to do before the show kicks off in half an hour. Thank you, Marv, for taking care of Mrs. Metzger.”

“I don’t need taking care of!” the older woman shouted after Audrey, standing on tiptoe to see around Marv. “My baby Elise needs taking care of.” She clung to Elise’s arm. “If she weren’t so set on competing—”

“But, Mama, I don’t want—”

Mrs. Metzger cut her off. “I heard what happened today with that poor girl falling off the stage. This place is a death trap. If my Elise so much as scrapes an elbow, we’ll sue. I have a lawyer friend—”

“Okay, that’s it,” Marv said, his voice a good deal sterner. “Out. O-U-T.” His bulk blocked the hallway and he stepped toward Mrs. Metzger, herding her toward the lobby. No small business owner wants a litigious troublemaker on the premises. Not waiting to see who triumphed—my money was on Marv—I hurried after Audrey, catching up with her before she entered the Green Room. A hum of conversation leaked out, punctuated by vocal warm-up exercises and what sounded like a dozen cats yowling. Bagpipes. Good heavens. I wondered briefly how anyone learned to play the bagpipes in this area. I didn’t think you’d find much under “Bagpipe Lessons” in the Camden County yellow pages.

“Any chance you know where I can find a scarf or large handkerchief?” I asked Audrey.

She stared at me, distracted, and ran a hand through her hair. “I can’t be bothered with that. Ask the girls.”

 

 

I RETURNED TO RACHEL AND STELLA, TRIUMPHANTLY waving the blue and white kerchief a girl named Hayley had produced. Halting on the threshold, I gazed in wonder at the transformation Stella had worked on Rachel. She’d tweezed the thick brows into a clean arch and used liquid liner and earth-toned shadows to emphasize Rachel’s beautiful Nile green eyes. Sheer foundation and a peachy blush finished the look. Rachel’s squarish chin and strong jawline always looked a bit androgynous under the flat black-and-white Goth makeup she usually wore; now, she was striking.

“You look fabulous, Rachel,” I said. “Your friend better plan on walking to school next month.”

She beamed at me and could barely hold still long enough for me to secure the scarf around her head so just a few strands peeked out. “There. That’ll do for tonight. I have a plan for tomorrow, so show up at Violetta’s early.”