My Way Home (St.Gabriel Series Book 1) (St. Gabriel Series) (5 page)

“You look too thin,” she said.

“I’m taking that as a compliment.”

“You’re not fooling me, Cammy. You are not this…” She threw her hands up and swirled them around in front of me. “…this okay.”

“If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll fall completely apart after we eat.” I offered her a plate of celery and carrot sticks. She just glared at me.

“Those were real tears at the door,” she said.

I ignored her. “We’re having lemon and garlic hummus, topped with a sprinkling of chopped scallions that will be lightly seasoned and tossed with olive oil and baked. We will have fresh veggies for dipping. Then, after that’s settled we’ll have citrus-marinated grilled salmon with arugula and roasted fennel salad. Bon Appétit.”

She wasn’t buying it.

“Okay, I’m lost, completely lost. Can we please talk about this later, on a full stomach?” I pleaded, she nodded, and I changed the subject. “How’s Marni doing?”

“She’s holding up. Mom flew out to L.A. to be with her while she goes through Chemo. And Robert’s been a rock.”

“Are you still planning on having that wig made for her?”

“Yeah.”

“You know how I thought about cutting my hair to give to Marni but Race didn’t want me to? I’m going to do it. I want to give Marni my hair unless she’ll think it’s creepy.”

“No, I think she’d be touched. But, Cam, your hair, you never really thought about cutting it, not seriously. You were relieved when Race asked you not to cut it. It hasn’t been above your shoulders for as long as I’ve known you. Your hair’s beautiful. You love your hair.”

“So did Race. But I want it off. All of it.”

Loretta folded her arms in front of her and looked at me with a mixture of doubt and disgust.

“I mean it, Lo, I’m doing this.”

“You’re irrational.”

“I’m serious.”

“Fine, cut it off.”

“I’m going to. And I want to do it while you’re here. You can take it with you.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.” I had a feeling of intense joy and I smiled, really smiled. Don’t you love the smiles that come all by themselves? Most smiles are formed on purpose. Pushed-up at the corners of our mouths to greet someone or show approval, every day lots of pushed-up smiles. I think my heart pulled that one up. That one was completely independent of my will, and it felt great.

I reached over and grabbed Loretta’s hand. “This may sound weird, but it’s the only thing I can think of that I’m completely sure I want to do right now.” I took Einstein from the counter, flipped to my contact pages and dialed my hairdresser. “Hi, this is Cammy Coleman. Does Tina have any openings tomorrow?”

“Hold on, I’ll check.”

I could hear chatter, the hum of hair dryers, and then a high-pitched scream followed by, “Cammy, darlin’, how are you?”

She’d heard, lovely. “I’m fine. I want to come in for a haircut.”

“A trim?”

“No, I want to do a Locks of Love thing. Except, I know who will be getting my hair. I want the woman who is getting it to have options for the style of wig she wants made out of it, so I want the cut short, really short.”

There was a long silence from Tina’s end.

“Tina, are you there?”

“I’m here.”

“So, can you get me in?”

“Tomorrow?”

“If you can. My friend is here visiting. It’s for her sister, and she’ll be taking my hair with her.” And then I envisioned Loretta boarding a plane with my hair in her carry-on, and I laughed.

“Cammy, is this a joke?”

“No, Tina, I’m sorry. I’m serious. I’m going to do this. Can you get me in?”

“I have a three o’clock. We can talk more about the cut when you get here.”

“Nothing to talk about, I’m serious. I want it short, little boy short. I’ll see you tomorrow at three.”

I said goodbye, hung up the phone and looked at Loretta who had a deer-in-the-headlights look. It was my hair, my marriage and my hair. I needed her to get a grip.

When we walked into the salon the next day, there was an awkward silence, and Tina was waiting for me. Her arms were stretched out wide and everyone looked on with pity as she wrapped me up in her full, soft body. She smelled of the musk oil that had always comforted me. But that day, I was overwhelmed by the odor and turned my head for a gasp of air.

I broke loose. “Tina, this is my friend Loretta Scott.”

Tina did a double-take as many people do. “Friend, not sister?” she asked.

“Friend and sister,” I said, and I stepped to Loretta’s side and circled her waist with my arm, “Since sophomore year of college anyway.”

“Nice to meet you, Loretta.”

I was ready to get started and walked toward the row of sinks in the back of the shop.

“I’ll wait out here,” said Loretta.

“No, I want you to come back with me. Tina, Loretta can come back too, can’t she?”

“Sure.”

Tina had a shampoo girl, two in fact, and never did that part of the gig herself. But that day was different. Tina wet my hair slowly, lathered slowly, and massaged my scalp slowly. It was like the last supper of haircuts.

It made me think of Race and miss him. We used to lie in our big bathtub and he would shampoo my hair, massaging my scalp, and then he’d massage everything else. I missed him. I missed being touched.

Had he shampooed her hair? The thought catapulted me back to the Anger Stage. I wished I could pass through those doggone stages and be done with them already. I didn’t realize that I shook my head a little to clear my mind while Tina was rinsing.

“Too hot?” she asked.

“No, fine.”

Tina finished the rinse, then with my hair wrapped in a towel, she escorted me to a chair as though I might not make it without her assistance. It took three clicks before she chose just the right snap to fasten the cape around my neck.

Carefully, she combed my hair out.

“So,” said Tina, standing behind me as she ran her fingers through my hair, starting at my temples, just as she always did and then she would ask, “What’s it gonna be?”

I would always answer, “Just a trim.” Then she would look disappointed at my lack of daring.
But not today. Today is a new day.

“Little boy short,” I said.

Tina inhaled deeply and then let it out slowly from puffed-up cheeks. She turned on the blow dryer and reluctantly pulled the big round brush from my scalp to the ends of my hair, moving the dryer back and forth as if she was conducting a symphony. Chopin’s Funeral March should have been playing in the background.

A hair salon with no talking, nothing but the whir of hair dryers and the clicking of curling irons, it was a little creepy.

When my hair was dry, she braided a fat ponytail from the base of my neck, to the ends of my hair, and tied it off with a band. When she was finished, she bounced the braid in her hand, looked at me in the mirror, and counseled me, “Cammy, darlin’, during a time of personal crisis is not the time to drastically change your hairstyle.”

“I’ve heard you say a new hairstyle can give a person a whole new lease on life.”

“Yes, a style, not a scalping.”

“Tina, please.”

Tina opened the vanity drawer and fished around for a pair of scissors. I got up from the chair, chose a pair, and handed them to her. “How ‘bout these?” I asked her.

She dipped them in the jar of the mystery-blue hairdresser’s solution and then wiped them dry. Looking at me in the mirror, she said, “Cammy, I just think—”

“Tina, should I go someplace else?” Tears glazed my eyes. She was stealing my joy and she didn’t even know it.

Loretta stood up from the neighboring chair and hit the air with her fist and yelled, “Off with her hair! Off with her hair!”

I looked at Loretta, her fist still in the air, and another involuntary smile spread over my face. I threw my fist in the air and yelled, “Off with her hair!”

Then Loretta yelled again, “Off with her hair!”

Then the woman sitting two chairs down with foil spikes protruding from her head echoed, “Off with her hair!”

Then one of the shampoo girls repeated, “Off with her hair!”

Then everyone in the joint, except for Tina, took up the cry, “Off with her hair!”

Tina took in another deep breath, opened the scissors around the braid, and worked the blades until she stood there with my braid of hair in her hand. What hair was still attached to my head fell forward in front of my eyes. It felt seriously light. I looked over at Loretta and saw a tear roll down her cheek.

It’s just hair
, I told myself. But it wasn’t just hair and everyone knew it.

Tina gently laid the braid to rest on the counter and I cried. Pretty soon everyone was crying and I thought of what Tennyson wrote about the woman whose soldier husband was killed, “She must weep or she will die.”

Yes, she must, no matter who’s around to see her tears.

Through a sob, I sniffled out the words, “Now, make me sassy.”

Tina tried to convince me that she could create an adorable short bob with what was left, but I didn’t want adorable. “Little boy short,” I demanded.

Tina sighed deeply and said, “Okay, it’s your hair.”

“It was my hair,” I said and held in another sob. “Now it belongs to Marni Scott-Robles.”

The Call

Nothing bunched up between my head and the pillow. Virtually hairless, I lay in bed the night after getting my hair cut, rocking my head from side to side and thinking about how I could make Race completely miserable. But just as I had done with all such thoughts, I pushed it away. I loved my children much more than I wanted to bring complete and total destruction to my unfaithful husband, their father.

Since Race had left, I had called Paul and Janie once a week. I didn’t want them to call the house and wonder why I wasn’t answering the phone. I kept the conversation to what was going on in their lives and didn’t tell them their father had left me. Deep down, I was still hoping Race would come back, and they’d never have to know. It was crazy.

Loretta stayed for a week and was screening my calls when one came in from Janie, crying, breathless. “Mom, why didn’t you tell me? Are you all right? I’m coming home. I can’t believe Daddy would do this.”

She had already spoken to Race and he had told her everything. I wanted to agree with her. Her father was a rat, an idiot, a selfish, stupid man. I wanted her on my side. It would be easy. She was almost there, and he was wrong.

But I listened to the hurting sobs and the warble of my little girl’s voice, and I couldn’t do it. She was a thousand miles away. I couldn’t hold her and make sure she would be okay. It was happening to her too. It was her family falling apart. The father she adored was breaking her heart.

In that moment, I decided that what was happening to our family would not be about me, at least not when it came to Paul and Janie.

I had wanted Janie to stay close to home for college. We only lived a few blocks from the school where Race taught, a good college. But Race insisted our children needed to go to a university where they would be exposed to other cultures, philosophies.

I was mad at Race at the time. How many times had I been mad at Race over things that didn’t really matter? UCLA, her parents’ Alma Mater, was where Janie chose to go, the place where her father and I had fallen in love. That part I had liked.

That night when Janie called, I was thankful she was away at school and not home where she could see my face and know what I was about to tell her was a lie, mixed with some truth but a big, fat lie.

“Baby, I’m fine, really. You need to stay right where you are and finish the semester. You’re almost done. I’m okay. I promise. I wanted to tell you, but for now you need to be focused on your studies. People change, honey, that’s not necessarily something you have any control over. Your father loves you and your brother very much and cares about me. I’ll be okay. We’ll be okay. We’ll get through this and be as happy as before. You hang in there. I’ll see you when you come home, and we’ll plant the vegetable garden and ride bikes out to Bear Falls and downtown to have lunch. It’s going to be fine. It’s just a few more weeks and then we’ll talk all about it. It’s going to be fine.”

It was the first time I had ever said anything to either of my children that I didn’t believe to be true. When I talked to Paul, I gave him the same spiel. And so it went. I did not share my grief with my children.

I hung up and hadn’t even set the phone down when it rang again. It was Race. When Janie had heard from a friend from home that her mom and dad had split up, she immediately called her father at his office to dispel the nasty rumor. Race had tried to warn me when he got off the phone with her, but the phone at the house was busy. Janie got her call through first.

“Cammy, how did Janie sound to you?”

“Upset, Race, very upset.”

“Do you think I should fly out there?”

“I don’t know, Race, that’s up to you. Don’t start asking me now what you should do, okay?”