The Wisdom of Hair (15 page)

As I turned to follow Mrs. Cathcart, I heard Ellen whisper, “Sorry.”

I wanted to look at her and smile so that she would know that I’d walked in her shoes, but I couldn’t. It was too much like looking at my old self.

“Sorry,” I said back.

I don’t know why Mrs. Cathcart chose me, because I had a customer waiting for a haircut. I guess she figured if I could handle old Ethyl, I could handle Ellen Snellgrove’s mama.

I sat down at the table and asked her twice to slip her shoes and socks off. She didn’t. So I bent down and slipped them off for her, and before I could raise up, she propped her legs up on my back and cackled as loud as she could. I rolled my chair to the side and let her feet fall to the floor and pretended like nothing had ever happened.

“Mrs. Snellgrove, would you please put your feet in the tub? It’ll feel real nice.”

She put her feet in and wiggled her toes around in the bubbly pink solution like a little child. I poured a green solution into two
finger bowls and placed her fingers in them. She fussed because the solution wasn’t pink, which she said was her favorite color.

“Ellen’s mad.” She looked at me with a wicked smile.

I didn’t say anything. I thought if I didn’t contribute to the conversation, there wouldn’t be one. I was wrong.

“I hate Ellen,” she said, waving her hand around for effect.

I put her hand back in the solution.

“Ellen hates me,” she said, loud enough for everybody to hear.

“Shhhh,” I said, real soft, the way I had heard mamas quiet their children during church.

“
Don’t you shush me
.”

Mrs. Cathcart rushed over to the table. “Nadine Snellgrove.” Mrs. Cathcart got right in her face and whispered so loud, anybody could have heard her. “You can either be quiet or leave, because if I hear another word out of you, I’m gonna call the cops.”

“Don’t let her call the cops. You stop her, you hear? I’ll talk pretty; I swear I will.”

Mrs. Cathcart walked away in a huff.

“Nobody’s calling the cops, Mrs. Snellgrove. You just have to quiet down, that’s all.”

I put her hands back in the solution. Her fingers jumped about so it looked like the solution was boiling.

“Cops is bad,” she said. “They lie. They say I took prescription papers out of Dr. Hess’s office. I got back problems, in pain all the time. Pain…lots of pain.” She wiped her forehead like her fingers weren’t dripping wet.

“Ellen doesn’t think I’m in pain and her daddy don’t, either, but I am.”

She buttoned her lip for as long as she could.

“They say I’m a drug addict. Have you ever heard of anything so ridiculous in your whole life?”

I shook my head and worked faster.

“I have all kinds of aches and pains, especially in my back. Got that one when she come along. Clovis says that’s not so, but what does he know? He ain’t never had a baby.”

I’m sure I must have set some kind of record for the fastest manicure and pedicure. “All done,” I said with a big smile.

“There’s no paint on my fingernails,” she whined.

“Your nails are filed and shaped and your cuticles look good. That’s the best I can do today, Mrs. Snellgrove, with your hands shaking like that.”

“I want paint.”

She picked out the ugliest color of orange, and her hands looked awful because she couldn’t be still. Her toenails looked better, because her feet were the only part of her body that didn’t shake. She paraded out toward Ellen’s station barefoot, sashaying and waving her hands about, trying to make everybody laugh, but nobody did. It took her a few minutes to realize Ellen wasn’t there.

“I want my cut and perm.” She pounded on the back of Ellen’s chair with freshly manicured nails.

Mrs. Cathcart marched out from her office, took that woman by the arm, and threw her out the door and into the street, where she proceeded to give Nadine Snellgrove a piece of her mind. Ellen’s mama defended herself at first, going nose to nose with Mrs. Cathcart, who I am sure after everything was said and done was appalled that she had participated in such a display. By the time it was over, Mrs. Snellgrove was on her hands and knees crying, right there in the middle of the street with cars honking and people
cussing at her. Mrs. Cathcart just walked back inside and left her there.

Nobody asked where Ellen was, although later I found out that Mr. Cathcart had driven her to her daddy’s feed store. She didn’t come back to school until a few days later.

“Thank you for putting up with my mama,” she said. “I couldn’t do it anymore. Me and Daddy put her away.”

“I’m sorry. I hope she gets better.”

“Mama don’t get better. She just steps out of the mire so she can take a running jump right back in,” she said dryly.

If Ellen had a choice between never being and living with the woman, who regretted the very day she was born, I’m sure she would have chosen to just never be.

“I bet your mama’s normal, not crazy like mine,” she said as she swept the hair from her last appointment into a dustpan.

I wanted to put my arms around Ellen Snellgrove and tell her she wasn’t the only child who wanted to swap out her mother. I know I would have given anything to trade mine for one like Mrs. Farquhar or Mrs. Cathcart. I wanted to tell her about seeing Mama in front of the mirror primping to go out to the roadhouse so that a bunch of drunks would fawn all over her. I wanted to tell her about the time I spent down on my knees praying she’d never come back and then, after she was gone for days, praying she would come home.

But I didn’t say anything. I just smiled my Bo Derek smile and acted like I already had a TV mom while that poor girl went right on thinking that she was the only soul in the world who felt the way she did.

Raymond O. Hawkins
was the great-great-granddaddy of Mrs. Farquhar, and even though he was long gone, he was honored every year by Mrs. Farquhar’s people for being one of the founding fathers of near-perfect barbecue. The Annual Raymond O. Hawkins Barbecue was a big to-do with “connoisseurs” sampling barbecue and the biggest spread of food I’d ever seen.

Since they would have nearly two hundred people milling around their backyard waiting to sample the sacred pig and all the fixings, Sara Jane offered to pick her grandmother up from the nursing home in Myrtle Beach. I saw Sara Jane’s car pull up out front and Mama Grayson with her big old Dolly Parton wig, but when Jimmy got out of the backseat, too, I knew there’d be trouble.

Mr. Farquhar dropped his basting mop and stomped toward the house. “Now, Jerry, this is a special day. It comes once a year
just like Easter and Christmas. Let’s not ruin it,” Mrs. Farquhar said. “Please.”

He looked helpless and fired up all at the same time, but the poor man could do nothing when she spoke to him like that. I knew it, he knew it, and so did every soul in that room. It wasn’t like she was pleading or demanding; she was just letting him know what was important and what was not. I’d seen this before at the Farquhar’s house, but I never saw Mr. Farquhar just wheel around like he did and walk away from her. Judging from the look on Mrs. Farquhar’s face, I don’t think she had, either.

“Mama’s in here, Grandma,” I heard Sara Jane say.

“Watch your step, Gracie,” Jimmy said.

Even Mrs. Farquhar looked a little unnerved when she heard Jimmy call her mama “Gracie,” but she rinsed her hands off, wiped them with a dishrag, and met the three of them at the door.

“Mama.” Mrs. Farquhar wrapped her arms around her mother and closed her eyes.

“Who are you?” the old woman said, with the most surprised look on her face.

“It’s me, Nettie, Mama. I’m your baby girl, remember?”

“Well, Nettie, this is my beau,” she said, as she gripped Jimmy by the forearm.

“You’re my girl, Gracie,” Jimmy teased.

“Don’t you be taking my boyfriend now, Grandma,” Sara Jane said. “You look so pretty today, though, I don’t stand a chance.”

Mrs. Farquhar stepped back and surveyed the situation. Her mama, who wasn’t quite right, was standing there holding on to Jimmy like they were courting. Sara Jane was teasing her grandmother and looking at Jimmy like she could eat him up.

“It’s good to see you, Jimmy,” Mrs. Farquhar said, as she surprised us all by hugging him, too. “I like your new beau, Mama.”

“Well,” Mama Grayson snapped, “don’t you be hugging on him, either.”

We all laughed, even the churchwomen. Mrs. Farquhar pried her mama’s hand off of Jimmy’s arm and told her she was taking her to the bathroom to freshen up a bit. Sara Jane introduced Jimmy to everybody in the kitchen, and I guess he must have melted every heart there with the kindness he showed Mama Grayson, because all of them were polite to him in a very real sort of way.

“I’m gonna go speak to your daddy,” Jimmy said, and the whole room went silent again.

Sara Jane didn’t say a word. She just raised her eyebrows like she wasn’t too sure he should do that just now. But Jimmy looked so strong inside and out, he wasn’t about to let anything deter him from becoming a part of that family, not even Sara Jane’s daddy.

She came over to where I was slicing onions and gave me a hug, but the whole time she had her eyes on the backyard.

“Your mama already spoke to your daddy,” I whispered. “She told him to behave himself in not so many words. I don’t know, though, he just walked off in a huff.”

We stood at the window and watched Jimmy walk across the yard to the tables where the men had just set the pigs on large wooden slabs. He extended his hand to Mr. Farquhar, who didn’t offer his at first. But the preacher was standing right beside him, and he shook Jimmy’s hand, so I guess Mr. Farquhar felt like he had to.

“Jimmy brought his books to show Daddy,” Sara Jane said, keeping her eye on Jimmy.

“What’d you say, honey?” Mrs. Farquhar said, as she ushered her mama into the kitchen.

“I was just telling Zora that Jimmy brought his books to show Daddy. He’s got a good business, Mama.”

“I’m sure your father will be impressed,” Mrs. Farquhar said, “whether he likes it or not.”

“Where’s my Jimmy?” Mama Grayson called out real loud.

“He’s right out back, Mama. I’ll take you to see him,” Mrs. Farquhar said.

“He’s such a sweet man. Has the prettiest brown eyes.” Mama Grayson smiled.

“Such a sweet man,” Mrs. Farquhar echoed.

There were so many people at the barbecue that Sara Jane’s daddy could avoid Jimmy all day and half the night without making himself look bad. But poor Jimmy was so anxious to get to know his future father-in-law he didn’t get the message. I was glad that some of the guests had begun to leave because judging from the look on Mr. Farquhar’s face, I don’t think he could have taken being shadowed for another minute. Everybody offered to help clean up the aftermath, but Mrs. Farquhar was adamant that the cleanup was as much a part of the family tradition as the barbecue itself.

Sara Jane said this was all new to her, but I suspected Mrs. Farquhar was exhausted from feeding two hundred guests and watching her husband stew all day. At any rate, nobody put up a fight when they were told to go on home and not worry about cleaning up.

Sara Jane was tired. Jimmy told her to sit down and prop her feet up, but she refused, which made Jimmy work all the harder so
there would be less for her to do. Every once in a while I would see Sara Jane’s mother speak to her daddy without turning her head toward him and looking at him. She didn’t seem happy. Mama Grayson sat in a big rust-colored Barcalounger the men brought outside for her, sound asleep.

It took almost two hours of hard work to get the yard back to normal. The rental company would come and take the tent down Monday, according to Mrs. Farquhar, and there were only two things left to do—wake Mama Grayson up and take her home, and carry the Barcalounger back inside the house.

“Mr. Farquhar, I’ll help you get this chair inside,” Jimmy said when he came back from loading bags of garbage onto the Red & White grocery truck parked out front.

“Sara Jane and I’ll get it. You go on home now,” he said without even so much as a thank-you for all Jimmy’s hard work.

Sara Jane and I were standing there with Mama Grayson while she stretched her legs a bit. Sara Jane just looked at her daddy and walked off. If she had not left me there holding Mama Grayson’s arm, I would have left, too, because I didn’t want any part of what was coming.

“Well, sir, I’d like to finish up here and maybe if you got a minute—”

“I don’t have a minute,” Mr. Farquhar said dryly. “You get now. Go on home.”

“Show him your books, honey.” Mama Grayson sounded like Jimmy really was her boyfriend. “Jerry, hush up and listen to Jimmy.”

Nobody ever looked at Mama Grayson like she was a senile old woman. She was loved and revered by everyone, but just then her
son-in-law cut his eye around at her like she’d better not say another word if she knew what was good for her.

“Books,” he said with a laugh, “you say you brought your books?”

Now even Jimmy’s patience was wearing thin, and rightfully so, but he didn’t let up. “Yes, sir. I thought we could sit down and you could take a look and see—”