The Wisdom of Hair

by Kim Boykin

  “God, he’s good,” she said one day, still glowing with afternoon passion.

  After Sara Jane and Jimmy started their little rendezvous, I got the best tan I’ve ever had in my life. “Sara Jane.” I smiled as I turned over. “You are so crazy.”

  “Crazy in love, Zora. Crazy in love,” she said as she plopped down in the lounge chair beside me. “How ’bout you?”

  Sara Jane hardly ever spent an evening at my place anymore, although whenever her mama called, I told her she’d just stepped out for a minute or two. After a while Mrs. Farquhar quit calling. I guess she figured her daughter was up to something and I was covering for her. But I don’t think she really wanted to know what was going on because she never once asked me to have Sara Jane call her back.

  Most evenings, I sat on my porch, watching Winston all by myself. Before, when it was Sara Jane and me, we called it “Rear Window,” after the Alfred Hitchcock movie. The two of us watched the drinking room show with the same interest Jimmy Stewart had watching his neighbor after he murdered his wife. The only difference was that I watched all by myself now, and instead of burying Emma in the courtyard, Winston was trying to resurrect her in the drinking room.

  “Oh, he’s about the same,” I said when Sara Jane asked. “It’s not as much fun as when you’re here to give your running commentary.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just that, well, you know…”

  “I know,” I said, because I did.

  Having that kind of unspoken understanding was nice. I loved Sara Jane enough to want to see her happy, even if it didn’t include me, and I knew she felt the same way.

  “Jimmy’s saving up for a ring.” Her voice grew higher and higher with every word until the last word was a shrill squeal.

  “Oh, Sara Jane,” I said, pulling my bathing suit straps back onto my shoulders as I got up to hug her. “I’m so happy for you. When’s the wedding?”

  “This Christmas. Jimmy doesn’t work much during the winter, so he said it’d be the best time for it. We’re going to Mexico for the honeymoon and to visit his mama.”

  “Won’t she come for the wedding?”

  “He says she won’t be too happy if he tells her before the wedding, me not being Mexican and all. He says it would be a whole lot better if he just shows up and says, ‘Here she is, Mama.’ That way we can have a big wedding here, and I don’t have to worry about Daddy embarrassing my in-laws. Jimmy’s the one, Zora. He really is the one.”

  I knew Jimmy was a good man, and I knew Sara Jane loved him more than anything. But I also remembered times at the Sunday dinner table when Mr. Farquhar talked about the “wetbacks” who lived in the migrant camps just outside town, how they would come into the store and buy pounds and pounds of jalapeño peppers.

  “Wetbacks ain’t got no sense,” he’d laugh. “Wonder what’re they gone do with all them peppers?”

  “Maybe they’re going to make jelly,” Mrs. Farquhar would say and look at Sara Jane, smiling in such a way that I decided she must know what was going on. “I just love pepper jelly, don’t y’all?”

  Sara Jane never said a word when Mr. Farquhar got off on the migrant workers. But I noticed she always breathed a heavy sigh of relief when he moved on to another minority. She was certain she was going to marry Jimmy and have his children. She said they wanted lots of them, and it would just kill Jerry Farquhar for his daughter to marry a Mexican. But I was sure when that sweet, tiny culmination of Jimmy and his daughter came into this world, he would forget all that. Mrs. Farquhar would see to it.

  Sara Jane had been so excited to share the news about her and Jimmy getting married, it was kind of odd when she was suddenly quiet. I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t.

  “What’s wrong, Sara Jane?”

  She poured me some of her special sangria. “I’m not going to pass. I’m going to quit like Daddy did.” She looked at me with those sad green eyes and said, “I feel like I’m letting you down.”

  “No, you didn’t let me down. I’m proud of what you’ve done at school and I’m proud you’re getting married and I…”

  “But you worked so hard with me,” she said.

  “I know, but I did that because I love you. I didn’t want you to go through life being a shampoo girl someplace because you couldn’t get your license. Whether it’s Jimmy or fixing hair, I want for you what you want for yourself because I love you.”

  Sara Jane’s skills never suffered because of the passion that consumed her. She could still outdo all the girls at school and most any beautician in town, but the truth was, her heart just wasn’t in it anymore. She was too busy living out her own sweet romance with a man who loved her more than he loved himself.

  13

  Every night I tried to tell Winston I loved him the only way I knew how. Since I never had any real contact with the man, I had to make sure that the message was clear, right there on his plate. Sometimes I baked a cobbler using blackberries that grew in the woods behind the garage. I scored tiny new potatoes into red hearts, making V-shaped knife marks on the tops before whittling the bottoms into a point. I learned a lot about fancy food from Sunday dinners at the Farquhars’ house and even tied green beans into little bundles with spaghetti-squash bows. Those never made it out of my kitchen because they reminded me of the rattle Emma had left behind.

  I was alone again on Saturday night. Sara Jane and Jimmy had gone to the beach for the day. With nothing to do, I spent all day in the kitchen making dinner absolutely perfect. I’d just taken scratch biscuits out of the oven and set them by the window to cool when I noticed Winston in the hammock with one leg on the ground and one slung over the other side. I seriously doubted he could’ve eaten anything that night. I could tell he was already numb.

  Then the thought crossed my mind: What if he never ate any of the meals I made? What if he was too busy drinking to live that he never even noticed the love right there in front of him on his dinner plate?

  I shook off the thought and put roast pork and green beans on the plate alongside heartfelt mashed potatoes. I spooned the cobbler into a little coffee cup and covered everything with tinfoil and dashed into the bathroom. I checked my look in the tiny medicine chest mirror while I brushed my teeth. My hair was skillfully mussed; my glossy lips looked wet and inviting like Cover Girl swore they would.

  I put on a pair of short-shorts and a white eyelet peasant blouse Mrs. Farquhar had bought me to go with a church skirt. Looking in the mirror, I cocked my head to the side, unhooked my bra and pulled it out of the front of my shirt. There. I twisted up my hair in a sexy little knot, and forgave myself for being braless and desperate.

  Winston didn’t stir when the screen door slammed shut behind me. The stairs creaked, and my flip-flops slapped the bottoms of my feet, but he didn’t stir. I set the plate on the table then and sat down on the picnic bench, watching him sleep. I’d only been close to him once before, the day we shook hands; even then, he kept a distance between himself and the rest of the world that couldn’t be measured in feet or inches. I was close enough to reach out and touch him, but content to just watch him sleep.

  The wind blew from behind me and I could smell the heavy scent of a moonflower vine Jimmy had planted beside the garage. It was sweet and sexual and made me want to breathe it in deep, holding it in like a drug. The wind shifted around some more, mingling the smell of Scotch whiskey on his breath with that flower’s fragrance.

  His breathing was quiet and peaceful. His face looked pained but solemn. I wanted to stroke his hair the way Nana stroked mine when the world was against me. I thought if I could do it just right, his heartache might take to the breeze, mingle with the sweetness of that warm summer evening, and free him from his terrible sadness forever. But I didn’t dare.

  I watched his chest rise and fall. I lay my hand on my own chest and matched my breathing to each deep, slow breath. Sara Jane had taken his pulse once; I wanted to feel it, too, so my heart could beat in time with his. His
skin was pale, slightly olive, his cheeks a little flushed from the whiskey. Twice I reached out and nearly touched him. Twice I pulled away. Finally, I touched a few strands of hair that dangled through the holes in the hammock. They were soft and so precious that I nearly cried.

  It was getting dark. I was afraid to stay any longer. I touched his cheek with the back of my hand so slightly; it couldn’t have felt like anything more than a whisper. Then I turned to go.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  I froze.

  “For the dinner. Dinners.”

  I stood right by the picnic table and turned to face him in the twilight. I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t know I’d spent the better part of my nights watching him.

  “You’re welcome.” My own voice was so soft I barely heard it myself. I wanted to say something, something meaningful that would cut though the whiskey and stay with him forever.

  “Don’t stay out too late. It’s supposed to rain tonight.” I sounded like a stupid weather girl.

  “Oh, God.” He tried to sit up but smiled this sweet drunken smile, then fell back in the hammock. “I can’t get up,” he laughed and moaned, like a thirteen-year-old who had just been asked to roll out of bed early on a Saturday morning.

  “Can you help me?”

  My heart stopped beating. My breath caught in the pit of my stomach where hope and fantasy pretended I was more to him than a girl from the mountains cooking for my keep. I didn’t answer him. I went to him, leaned over, and put his arm around my neck. As I pulled him up out of the hammock, his hand brushed against my breast, but I don’t think he knew that.

  “Just help me get to the door, Zora.”

  He said my name. The first fat raindrops splattered on us, a preview of the coming storm. I guided him toward the kitchen door. His head drooped so close to my shoulder, I felt his breath on my neck. His scent made me dizzy. When we reached the door, he leaned against the wall with his eyes closed and smiled. My heart stopped again when his hands touched my cheeks and then disappeared into my hair. He fumbled with the clip until it came undone and leaned forward to smell my hair like it was a pretty flower. Smiling, he picked up a handful, held it up to his face, and breathed deeply. Then he disappeared through the door. I could hear him ricocheting off the walls as he walked down the hall and up the stairs to his bedroom.

  I wanted to follow him and make him smile again. As I turned to leave, I noticed the Styrofoam plate of food I’d set on the picnic table had a puddle of rain on top of the tinfoil. I didn’t think twice about the rules. I didn’t care. I picked it up, poured the water off the foil, and went into the kitchen. When I opened the refrigerator door, my heart broke. There were six or seven meals I had prepared. Some had taken hours to fix, and he had just shoved them into the refrigerator and never eaten them. I wanted to die.

  I ran out of the kitchen and stopped just shy of the stairs to my apartment. I thought about Daddy Heyward, my second daddy, and how he passed out on our couch every single night he lived with us. I hated Mama for fussing over him like a new puppy whenever he pissed himself or worse, and hated her even more for not knowing how to love somebody who wasn’t a drunk.

  A gust of wind blew the thick, damp smell of summer rain hard across my face. And there was the scent of the moonflower whose very purpose for existing was to bathe the night air with its own love potion. The combination of the two made the last few minutes I’d spent watching Winston snake around in my mind. I saw glimpses of his hand brushing against my breast and his smile when he touched my hair. I closed my eyes and remembered his earthy scent. He was more than Scotch and a pretty face; I would have bet my life on it. The rain came down hard enough to chase anyone with good sense inside. But I stood there as the downpour washed over me and convinced myself I could have him.

  14

  I could tell it really bothered Mrs. Cathcart when the crying girl and her fiancé, Harley, came in that morning, holding hands and inviting everybody in the whole school to their wedding. I’m sure she wished the two of them had just gotten married with the same privacy they had when they’d done the deed. But Harley Dimel was nearly forty, and his poor mama had all but given up hope that he’d ever tie the knot. Now that he had him a fertile young thing, Mrs. Dimel figured it was cause enough to celebrate.

  She paid for the entire wedding, right down to the bride’s dress and the cake, which was good because the Prices didn’t have any money to speak of. If they did, I don’t think they would have been cleaning the bank for a living. Harley’s mama had plenty because she’d put money away in a savings account ever since he was a baby.

  Since Nina was already pregnant, the Holiness Church she belonged to refused to marry her and Harley, so the wedding and the reception were held at the VFW Hall. On the big day, Mr. and Mrs. Cathcart and I walked into the hall together. Judging from the look on her face, I don’t think Mrs. Cathcart could have wound herself any tighter. It was a simple wedding with the chairs arranged in a little horseshoe and ferns with sprays of daisies in them all around the podium. Half of the chairs were metal with vfw stenciled on the back. The other half were wooden folding chairs from Mr. Platt’s funeral parlor.

  The organist must have only known two songs, because she played “Cherish” over and over again. But she did know “The Wedding March,” and when we all turned around to see Nina coming down the aisle, everybody smiled and laughed. In the entire history of weddings, there has never been such a tear-streaked bride. But there she was with her mascara running down her face and onto her dress. Still beautiful.

  After the happy couple left the reception, a bunch of us sat around and talked about graduating in just a few short weeks. We wondered where the time had gone and laughed about our first days of school and how everything was new and scary. Then Jeanetta Smith, who always made fun of Nina, sometimes to her face, started in all loud and drunk.

  “Oh, my God, to you remember how you’d hear that sound, almost like a siren far off and it would build and build?”

  Jeanetta tried to mimic the sound. Some of the girls thought it was funny and laughed right along with Jeanetta, and the others had a look on their faces like they’d better laugh, if they knew what was good for them if they didn’t want her making fun of them.

  “And why in the world did that girl even bother with mascara? Do you remember the time—”

  I’d seen girls like Jeanetta before and had always tried to be invisible around them. But with Mama flitting around as Judy Garland, I was easy pickings. Those girls just seem have a radar for people like me who silently pray they won’t be the butt of their jokes, and they’re more than happy to use it. Nina’s mother was looking over at our table. I’m sure she wondered what was going on. As loud as Jeanetta was, she probably knew.

  “All I can say, Jeanetta Smith, is that you can laugh all you want at Nina Price-Dimel, but she just left the VFW in a limo, with the man of her dreams, and you are still here.” I didn’t say it ugly. I just finished my drink, got up from the table, gave her a little smile that said, “No harm done,” and walked home.

  *

  After Nina’s wedding, Sara Jane couldn’t have waited another day to tell the whole world she loved Jimmy Alvarez. I believe if she had, she would have split at the seams from that intoxicated grin she wore across her pretty mouth. The only problem was that the whole world included her mama and her daddy.

  She had fretted for weeks over what they might say, but only because they were almost as important to her as Jimmy was. But the time had come, so she invited Jimmy to church and Sunday dinner, which I told her was a big mistake. I said she should let her folks get used to Jimmy in small doses. However, I did think the idea of a public place was good to prevent the temper tantrum I was sure her daddy would throw.

  It was hot that day, real hot. I stood there waiting on the church steps for a while but didn’t see them. I thought they’d probably chickened out, but just as I turned to go inside, I caught a glimpse of
Jimmy’s white truck easing down the street as he looked for a place to park. I could tell when Sara Jane got out of the truck, she was a little miffed about riding in the Toyota, but when he opened her door and she stepped out of the cab, he gave her hand a peck and said something.

  Sara Jane laughed the way she always did when he was around. I called it her “Jimmy laugh” because I never heard her laugh like that any other time. She could never stay mad at him for more than two minutes, and truth be told, I’m sure she would rather have come in that pretty red Pontiac Firebird her daddy bought her for her eighteenth birthday. But I think it was important for Jimmy Alvarez to come in his own truck, on his own terms.

  “Hey, y’all. I thought you’d never get here.”

  “Hey, Zora,” Jimmy said. “Are you here for the barbecue?”

  “Hush, Jimmy.” Sara Jane smiled as she took him by the hand.

  “They’re having barbecued Mexican for dinner at Sara Jane’s,” he said as he passed through the door and into the church.

  As soon as Jimmy entered the sanctuary, he had a reverence about him that I had never seen before. As we walked down the left aisle, Jimmy looked up toward the choir loft and saw the huge cross suspended from the ceiling there and instinctively crossed himself. Several people gasped.

  When we sat down, Sara Jane quietly filled Jimmy in on everything he needed to know about a Baptist service. When she told him Baptists never cross themselves, he looked at her like he didn’t believe her. I opened my eyes just long enough during the opening prayer to see Jimmy watching the congregation to see if Sara Jane was right. Poor boy, every time we prayed or the preacher read Scripture, I noticed he would squeeze Sara Jane’s hand and sit up extra straight, like the urge to cross himself was potentially lethal.

  I know Sara Jane’s daddy saw Jimmy, but he didn’t look our way the entire service. He definitely wasn’t his usual smiling-with-the-joy-of-the-Lord worshipful self and didn’t sing a note when the congregation sang. Mrs. Farquhar whispered to him every now and then and patted his hand the way she did at the dinner table the first day Sara Jane brought me home with her. She looked over at us and smiled several times, and Sara Jane squeezed my hand because it seemed half the battle was won.