Vanity Insanity (35 page)

“Oh! I almost forgot!” I yelled as I put the scissors on my station. I ran to the back room and came back with a bottle of wine and two wine glasses. Theresa’s smile came back. I would do anything to keep that smile on her face.

“Now I’m not trying to be romantic or anything here,” I said as I poured the wine. “I wouldn’t want Michael mad at me for hitting on you. I just thought that since it’s after hours, we could enjoy this appointment.” What great irony. Theresa knew we both needed a glass of wine.

“Awesome, Ben. Great idea.”

You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen
Dancing queen, feel the beat from the tambourine
You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life
See that girl, watch that scene, diggin’ the dancing queen.

We both took a big sip.

“Remember how Lovey would murder this song?” I set down my glass, picked up the scissors, and took a deep breath.

“Oh my gosh. In her little two-piece, she would act so cool walking around Brookhill singing at the top of her lungs: ‘See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen.’” Theresa sang loudly as she mimicked Lovey. We both laughed more loudly than we would have on a normal day. Today was not a normal day.

“But wait, there’s more,” I added. “Then she would sing: ‘Better want a watussie, Everything is fine, you’re in the mood to dance.’”

“‘Want a watussie’? What’s a watussie?” Theresa covered her nose as tears came out of her eyes while she laughed.

“Exactly.” I held her ponytail in one hand and the scissors in the other one.

“What are the real words anyway?” Theresa asked, laughing more.

“I don’t even know. If I listen to the music, I still hear watussie.” I looked down at her as I said this. I could see several large tears spill against her cheek. Theresa was trying to laugh, but the tears came stronger. She covered her face.

“You don’t have to do this, you know,” I whispered.

Do what? Get her hair cut? Shave her head? Have cancer?

Theresa took a deep breath as she wiped the tears from her face. She grabbed her glass of wine from the station and held it up toward the box that held her wig. “To Guido! My new little friend.”

I cut slowly through the thick hair just below her ponytail holder. I placed her long ponytail on Toby’s counter. I would need to clean up his station later. I took the electric razor and began shaving Theresa’s remaining hair from her head in long rows. The pieces of hair fell in clumps to the floor like an army of dying ants. Theresa smiled in the mirror. Even without any hair on her head, she was beautiful.

I opened the box and set it on her lap. I picked up my wine glass and held it above the box.

“To Guido.” I set down my wine glass, pulled out the wig, and placed it on her head. Theresa smiled at me in the mirror. I smiled at her in the mirror.

“You know, it looks pretty real, don’t you think?” I said.

“Not bad,” Theresa sniffled. “Just for a short time, so it’s going to be great.”

Theresa kept her new wig on as we finished our wine. The rain lasted into the night, hitting the roof tops of the homes in Omaha, like an army of uninvited cancer cells attacking a beautiful woman.

32

Octavia: Trim, Wash and Set

Friday, November 15

1996

“W
hat a hoot! I haven’t guessed the number of jelly beans in a jar since fifth-grade math!”

“Don’t even talk about the jar,” Virginia mumbled to Lucy as she walked by, her eyes big and threatening.

“OK.” Lucy looked at me, confused, and followed me to the back room.

“We had a little contest,” I said under my breath, “that didn’t work out so well…Actually, it divided the crew. Long story.”

“Oh, tell me. Please.”

I looked out at the staff and then shut the door to the back room. “The Head JAM saleswoman gave me a huge bag of products and a stipend that was to go toward a contest with clients. For someone to win the bag of products.”

“Sounds like a harmless little gimmick. Kind of fun.”

“No, not ‘kind of fun.’ So Virginia had the idea to buy a ‘humongous’ jar to fill with jelly beans. She bought the jar, the biggest I’ve ever seen. Jenae went out and bought a carload of jellybeans to fill the jar.”

“Still sounds fun to me.”

“OK, so Virginia hands out bags to each staff member with the instruction to count the jelly beans. Jenae, Caroline, and Patti felt that an estimated number found on the label of each bag would do. Toby and Kelly felt that the exact number was the whole point of the contest. More than anything Jenae did not want to count the jelly beans. Toby did not think he could trust the others, so he counted all 7,943 beans with a ‘humongous’ deal of jelly bean resentment.”

“Did you have the contest?”

“The jelly bean jar has been sitting on the UP desk since last week when Monkey Man won. He told me that he needed a giant jar of jelly beans and a bag of hair spray like he needed a hole in his head—or monkey head. So he didn’t take it. It’s been very quiet around here.”

“So the jar sits.”

“The jar is the center of tension around here. I vow never to have a contest again.” I held my hand up in a scout’s honor pledge. “Now what brings you in here today?”

“Not the festive energy, that’s for sure. I probably won’t help change the mood here. I needed to let you know that Theresa finished her stem-cell procedure last week.”

“I know you’ve told me, but what is a stem cell…?”

“It’s barbaric, that’s what it is. The doctors basically took Theresa to death’s door.”

“OK, but why?”

“It’s a pretty aggressive procedure that’s usually saved for high-risk patients. I didn’t hear that from Theresa, though. A friend of mine who’s a nurse told me. She said that the patient receives a high dose of chemotherapy with a bone-marrow or stem-cell transplant. I think since they didn’t get a good start on attacking the cancer in the beginning, they’re resorting to this.”

“Will it help?”

“I hope. She’s been so sick and weak. At the worst of it, in the hospital, Michael said that Theresa started mumbling about all of the little babies crawling around the room.”

“Babies?”

“Yeah, she saw them on the bed and crawling on the floor. She told Michael that one was sitting on his lap.”

“What?”

“The doctors told Michael she was hallucinating, but between you and me, I think she had little angel babies protecting her.”

“Wow.”

“The rosary group’s still meeting, so we’re just turning up the prayers. Your jelly bean contest and the story behind it actually cheered me up.”

“Any time my wacka-doodle staff can be of help.”

As Lucy walked out the back alley to her car, the bell rang above the front door. Elsie walked Octavia in the front door. Octavia stopped at the big jar of jelly beans on the desk and stared.

“Would you look at that, Octavia?” Elsie spoke in a beautiful, thick Irish accent, “Look at all of those jelly beans. Aren’t they beautiful!”

Several staff members looked at the jar and frowned. I helped Elsie take Octavia’s coat off as Octavia continued to stare at the jar.

“How you doing, Elsie?” I asked.

“We’re not having a very good day today. Perhaps we could make this a quick one.”

“Sure.”

The past few appointments had been the same. Octavia no longer needed her warming-up time. No more verbal banter. No more stories. She sat in her appointments holding her cell phone with both hands. She might comment on the music being too loud, but mostly she sat quiet. Elsie and I guided Octavia to my chair.

“How about those jelly beans, Octavia. Kind of crazy, huh?”

“Crazy,” Octavia muttered as she looked at her phone, her hands shaking. She sat down and looked at me in the mirror with a question on her face. “Amazing?”

“That’s me,” I said. “Pretty amazing.” I combed out her hair.

“Such a resemblance.”

“Who are you talking about, lady?”

“Your father. You look just like your father.”

Did Octavia even know my father? “My father?”

“Now, does he still farm outside of town?”

“Of what town?”

Octavia paused. “Oh, I thought you were… you look like Donald.”

“Donald?”

“A boy who lived by me in Fremont. We used to show sheep at the fair…” Octavia looked at the phone in her hand. “Such a resemblance.” Relief came over me like the buzz off a stiff drink. Just what was going on in the beautiful head in front of me? Octavia was quiet for most of the rest of the appointment. The group No Doubt filled the room with their song “Don’t Speak.”

As I finished Octavia’s hair, she mumbled, “I caught one of those TV shows late last night.”

“TV shows?” I’d never heard Octavia talk about television before.

“Where they interview someone and talk about their life.”

“Like a documentary?”

“Yes, yes, a documentary. With that Diane Sawyer lady. She’s doing something funny with her hair now.” Was I talking to the real Octavia here?

“
Twenty/Twenty
or
Forty-Eight Hours
?”

“Something like that. A documentary. Late. Very late. And I’ll be damned if they weren’t doing a whole segment on Elbert True… E.B. True.”

“E.B. True?”

“My old man,” Octavia spoke in a gruff voice. No, I wasn’t talking with my old friend Octavia.

“Your dad?”

“He talked about the farm and the bankruptcy.”

“They actually interviewed him?” What was I saying? Octavia’s father would have been dead for years now. “Maybe the man just looked like your dad.”

“You think I wouldn’t remember what my old man looked like?” Octavia shouted. Jenae and her client looked over at the old woman in my chair.

“Sorry.”

“Sounded like he’d been drinking, that ole son of a bitch. That’s when I knew it was him for sure.” Octavia stopped. Elsie saw that I was finishing up.

“Then Diane Sawyer asked about his twelve children.”

I put my combs and brushes away. I was intrigued.

“He answered. Right there on national television. He said that he didn’t care much for kids. Kind of a pain in the ass. That was what he used to always say about us. I tried to change the channel, and then the old man looked right at the camera and said, ‘Octavia, she was the homely one, downright ugly.’” Octavia’s lip began to tremble. “That’s what he said.” She held her phone and began to rock back and forth. Tears filled her eyes.

Elsie walked up as I placed my hands on each of Octavia’s shoulders. I consoled her, “Those shows are all a big setup, Octavia. All for ratings. Not real. Anyone who knows you knows that you’re beautiful.”

Octavia looked at me in the mirror and beamed liked a child being praised by a teacher. Elsie took her hand. “Octavia, dear, we need to be getting along now. We need to get lunch ready.”

“We need to go,” Octavia mumbled as Elsie and I helped with her coat. “It’ll be dark soon.”

I walked the girls to the car on the sunny Friday morning in November, relieved that I did not look like my old man.

33

Lucy: Protein Pack, Trim, Cafeteria Duty

Wednesday, February 19

1997

“W
hat’s wrong with you anyway?”

“Nothing. Not a thing, Lu,” I lied.

I had a lot on my mind since I had received a call from the friend of Toby’s client Cruella. Dale Sinnot had called to propose a business offer in which everyone stood to benefit, including Cruella, who had lots of upset friends sitting on the Vanity Insanity waiting list to get their hair done. Sinnot wanted to embark on a business journey as a partner in a huge renovation to Vanity Insanity with a major addition to the salon that could accommodate more room, more clients, and more services. I had been careful to conduct most of my interactions with Sinnot outside of the salon, all the while teetering between excitement at the potential growth of my business and consideration of leaving the industry all together. I hadn’t voiced that feeling to anyone yet.

“Well, you’re really starting to bug me with this serious and quiet thing you have going on. You haven’t even asked me about my girls.” Lucy and Tom had added one more girl to the sorority, as Tom called it. Delaney Rose was the fourth and final Ducey, according to Lucy. Tom and Lucy with their four beautiful girls around them had appeared in a picture on the front page of the
Omaha World-Herald
the day after Tom won his election for city council. When Lucy told me that Charlotte the Harlot had showed up at the kickoff party last year, I acted surprised and asked, “How did her hair look?”

“Did I ever tell you that Tom’s opponent in the election was Joe Weller?”

“I think I know that, Lucy. His name was on the ballot. The one I didn’t vote for.”

“Joe Weller, Ben. Do you not remember Joe Weller?”

I shook my head.

“Horror Hall Joe Weller. The jerk who broke up with me when I wouldn’t kiss him in the Horror Hall.”

“The guy who dumped you in sixth grade?”

“The guy who lied to Sister Annunciata when asked if he had ever been in the Horror Hall following junior-high games.”

“What a loser. Serves him right. We could have a devil running our fine city. What a relief.”

“Joe Weller’s not a devil.”

“You said so yourself.”

“No, I said he was the jerk who broke up with me. Joe Weller isn’t evil. But I do think evil exists in some people.”

“You’re telling me. I think one of Virginia’s clients looks like he’s related to the devil.” I laughed as I trimmed Lucy’s ends.

“Ben, I’m serious. I think that the devil is powerful to weak people, taking advantage of weaknesses, like greed, vanity. He keeps us busy. Don’t you ever wonder if at one moment in your life, you might have been standing right next to evil? Maybe in the line to order food at Burger King?”

I was still having a hard time keeping a straight face.

“Let’s say Johnny Madlin’s murderer was standing right behind me when I ordered a McRib sandwich as a kid,” Lucy continued.

I made a face. “You couldn’t get a McRib at Burger King. I remember McRibs. Nasty.”

“What if the devil himself sat under your nose in your chair?” she asked me.