Shy Charlotte’s Brand New Juju (Romantic Comedy)
Page 19
“Nope.”
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“Okay then.” She swung her legs out of the white coverlet. They looked warm. She pulled her nightgown down around her knees. “So to what do I owe this change of heart?”
“To Leopold, I guess.”
“Ah. Leopold. What a wonderful man he is.”
“You know. I’m starting to come around to his charm.”
She smiled. “I think everyone does eventually. At least all women do. Men…not so much.”
They both laughed together; Charlotte unsure of exactly what she was laughing at.
***
“I know precisely what I am going to do today,” Fiona said, snapping the black cape and wrapping it around Charlotte with a flourish, then securing it tight against her neck.
“Do you now?”
“I do.” She patted Charlotte’s shoulders. “But you have to promise to trust me. I know what I’m doing.”
“Will you at least describe it before you start?”
“Ah. See? You aren’t trusting me.”
“No, no, I trust you. But can you show me a photo of what you are going to do?”
“Charlotte. Seriously. Just let me do it.”
The salon was closed to other patrons on this day, and so the conversation rattled between just the two of them. It was a place ordinarily so bright, so loud, so filled with human drama, and to experience it in its hushed state was unexpectedly soothing.
First, Fiona applied an all-over color to Charlotte’s hair, smearing on a thick crème, from roots to ends. Once this was rinsed, she pulled strands of hair with a tiny comb and painted at them with long, deft strokes. Then she buried them in square sections of foil.
“So what happened to Kamal the other day?” Charlotte asked. “Change of plans?”
“Yeah,” Fiona stared at the top of Charlotte’s head. “But he’ll come home. Another time.”
“Sure. Yeah, of course.”
They sat together in silence, no sound but the slap of Fiona’s highlighting brush.
“Is that color pretty dark?” Charlotte asked after a time. “Because it looks pretty dark.”
“Trust in me, Charlotte.”
“Okay, yes. Sure. I do.”
“Really. I’m good at this. I’m not the Cheetos-munching middle schooler that you think I am. Not anymore. I have found my thing. One thing I’m good at. So trust me.”
“Okay.”
When Charlotte’s highlights had been processing for what seemed an eternity, Fiona walked her back to the shampoo bowl. She tipped her back, then brushed a stinky chemical on her eyebrows. “This only takes a minute.”
“I think you’re doing a little more than I had in mind. I mean, if you have to change the color of my eyebrows….”
“Shh,” Fiona said. “Darkening your eyebrows will just add a bit of drama.”
“I’m not big into drama.”
“But you will love it on your brows.”
Fiona rinsed Charlotte’s hair, then. Leaning her back against the cold porcelain bowl, she scrubbed at her scalp, then wrapped her head in a fleecy white towel.
She clapped her hands together. “You are going to adore this color, honey bunny. It’s perfect. Divine. Gorgeous. Now,” she began, leading Charlotte by the hand through a door toward the back of the salon. “This might seem a bit unconventional, but I’m taking you into our break room so I can do the cut and style.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s the only place without a mirror. And I want you to be certifiably shocked at your Big Reveal.”
“You have a salon chair in here, too?”
She bobbed her head around. “We do a lot of makeovers. It’s, like, my favorite thing.”
Fiona led Charlotte into a cramped backroom where she began to snip and razor and smile and smile and razor and snip. Her hands were moving quickly, in controlled but grand bursts. Charlotte couldn’t help but watch the clumps of hair fall to the floor. Each was so dark, nearly purple. Like Rachael’s. She squeezed her eyes shut.
When the hair had stopped falling, Fiona took a long paddle and a flat iron. She used the blow dryer for what seemed like ages, and then the iron. Charlotte was sure she was treating each strand of hair individually. Occasionally, Fiona would wiggle her chest about and squeal, “You are going to love it. Love it! Love it!”
“Okay,” Fiona said, finally. “Close your eyes until we get back out to my station.” Fiona led her gently by the hand then eased her into the chair. She could hear Fiona unsnapping the cape and giving it a flip, then spraying her head one last time. A blast of hairspray landed on Charlotte’s lip.
“Okay! Open!”
Charlotte had to blink a few times before she could take it all in. Her bangs swept to the side in jagged clumps. Edgy. Edges were everywhere, in fact. Each roll and curl and tumble had been replaced with a tip, a fringe, a bite. And it shone with a luster.
The color was a deep scarlet, with highlights of glowing copper. She had to move her mouth and wiggle her nose, then, to reassure herself that it was indeed her reflection. It was a new Charlotte, staring back at her. Where Old Charlotte was soft, New Charlotte was hard. Where Old Charlotte was tousled, New Charlotte was ordered and kempt.
She blinked again. Maybe she should give this New Charlotte a chance. If Old Charlotte was soft and bored, then New Charlotte was strong and spicy. She felt a soaring sense of pity, suddenly, for this New Charlotte, who would have to step into the life of the old one. New Charlotte didn’t look like a mother, nor did she look the type who would chase after men because they smelled like bread, or who would shy away from a romp in NYC with a sexy author just because she was married to him. This New Charlotte would never pee in restaurants or run down the road in see-through pants. She closed her eyes and opened them again to her reflection. How did she get to be this old and still not know who she was?
All these thoughts were racing through Charlotte’s mind as Fiona bounced on her toes and teased the tendrils that were particularly edgy and severe, creating still more spikes and edges. She sprayed aerosol as she talked. “Red is hard to maintain, ordinarily, and I know you are just the eensiest bit low maintenance, no offense, so I did a deeper copper at the ends, and a brighter shade at the root. It’s exactly as I had envisioned. Exactly.” Fiona clapped her hands together, then spun the chair away from the mirror. She bounced from foot to foot and let out a throaty laugh. “Let’s go show the girls.”
***
“They are somewhere in the forest, fishing.” Charlotte said, as they neared Fiona’s home.
“Oh, you must have that wrong. My boys don’t fish.”
“They are fishing for toys.”
“Oh. That sounds right, then.” Fiona scanned the landscape as she drove along.
“Let’s just get out and find them. They can’t be far. Probably around the back of the house.”
“Someone with hair like that doesn’t just go walking off into the woods. Her heels would get stuck.”
Charlotte lifted her face toward Fiona. “You don’t get to change someone’s personality based on her hair color.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. I’m going to put my old jeans back on, you know. Probably my sneakers, too.”
“Not if I burn them first.” She winked at Charlotte. “Seriously, you hardly look like yourself. I have done a pretty amazing job. If I do say so myself.”
Charlotte stepped out of the car just as Hannah and Gracie burst up the hill, each wearing a different colored cape marked with silver duct tape in the shape of her initials.
Hannah’s face was flushed. She stopped short, just in front of Charlotte. “Woah. Mom. You look different.”
“Isn’t it hot?” Fiona squealed, popping up and down in the soil with her tiny heels, where they sunk in suddenly and nearly tripped her.
“Like, really. You hardly look like yourself,” Hannah went on.
“What do yo
u think of it, Mom?” Gracie asked in a steady voice.
Charlotte leaned forward and blinked a few times. She tucked a piece of hair behind her hair. Fiona gave it a slap. “Stop that! it looks perfect before you do that ‘Mom thing.’” She laughed again, in that throaty way.
“What do you think, Gracie?” Charlotte wanted to know.
“It makes you look… different. Like, really different. Like…someone else.”
Charlotte stood there, looking at them all judging her hair. She felt a thickness in her throat, which she smiled through.
“It really does,” Hannah said. “I guess your plan is really working, Aunt Fiona.”
“I know!” Fiona clapped her hands together. “C’mon. I’m taking us all to lunch. Arturo’s!” she said, “So go round up the boys and take off your capes and dress-ups.”
Then she turned to Charlotte. “People will hardly recognize you. This is the start of something great.”
Chapter Fourteen
Each morning, Charlotte tied her deep scarlet hair into a high ponytail, she munched two Musclebars in the car, and she worked out with Leopold. The day of the race was fast approaching, so they lifted weights only on alternating days, and then they ran. And ran. And ran some more.
Then she would go to the preschool and she would sit with the children who sought her out in what was coming to be known as The Quiet Corner.
On the days when she had class, she would sit and talk with Special Ed. He hadn’t even noticed her hair. Or at least he had never said anything. When she arrived, he would smile at her, and she would smile back, and they would paint and chat about the dreams they had the night before or which brand of dishwashing detergent they each preferred, or what, exactly, was the meaning of their starry existence. Typically, the rest of the room was more or less quiet and she felt as though everyone was listening in on their conversations. But when she was with Ed, she found that she didn’t particularly mind. After class, he would take up her hand, and he would squeeze it, and he would ask if she would like to drink more hot cocoa and walk with him along the river, and she would say yes.
Rachael Whitmore hadn’t appeared in class since Caleb left for his publicity tour and the professor who had taken over didn’t seem to know many details of her sudden disappearance, leaving Charlotte to feel just fine about these evening strolls with her Adonis of Gluten. Whenever she began to feel a little guilty, all she had to do was imagine Rachael sitting somewhere off to the side of the camera, or making remarks to the interviewers, or lying naked in a hotel room waiting for Caleb to return, and she regained her stamina for a simple stroll with a simple, kind man.
As they walked along one evening, she moved closer to him. The mosquitoes flitted here and there, and she turned to smack one off his forehead. He gave her a shy smile, and it all suddenly came clear. She burst out, “I know who you remind me of! God. It’s been driving me crazy. But I’ve got it.”
“Who?”
“My husband.”
“Oh.”
“Not now. Not now. At all.”
“Oh.”
“But when we first dating. He was so, so…goofy.”
“Thanks.”
“No, no. that’s not what I meant. Not that you’re goofy. Now. It’s just that he was. Then.”
“Go on.” Ed smiled at her, hesitatingly. “I think.”
“He was so goofy and sort of awkward, but also so supportive and kind.”
“Ah. That’s the part that reminds you of me, right? The supportive and kind part.”
“Oh. Absolutely.”
Ed shuffled his feet on the asphalt, and Charlotte went on. “When Caleb and I were first together, he was so…funny. In that dry, wry way that comes out in his novels now. But, back then, it was a side that only I got to see. My private Caleb. Each day, he would teach and write, and I would help him and we’d make love in our tiny, tiny apartment.”
Ed cleared his throat.
“Sorry. And then in the morning we’d blast this really dumb music, I don’t even know how we got this CD, but we would dance around to it. Banjos and silly guitar riffs. He used to say that I danced like a Peanuts character. Just swinging my head back and forth and hopping from one foot to another. And that’s the Caleb you remind me of. Silly and fun and kind.”
She remembered, then, the way Caleb would hold her face after they made love. “Eskimo,” he would say, brushing her nose with his nose. Then, “Butterfly,” and he would sweep his long eyelashes along her cheekbone. And then she thought of that first night they had spent in the first house they had bought together. All of their possessions were stacked up around them in cardboard boxes and they sipped champagne from tall skinny glasses, clinking them each time they thought of something new to be happy about or thankful for.
This first home was a fixer-upper, with a leaky roof and peeling floorboards and a wood burning stove. It smelled like tuna and mildew and the sweat of an older man, and yet she remembered thinking, that first night they spent there, that she had never been happier in her life. Swept away by a sense of limitless possibility.
And then she fast forwarded, a decade or so into their marriage. Maybe he forgets to shower. And she starts to wear socks to bed. And when she sees him cooking, she knows exactly what everything will taste like. The pork chops will be nice and peppery, but a little dry. She knows what it will feel like when he starts making love to her. What it will feel like when he finishes.
Ed spoke now. “You think I’m silly?”
“Sure.”
“I’m not silly.”
“Oh.”
“I’m pretty freakin’ serious. Dead serious.”
Oh, he was kidding. Special Ed really was special.
“No. I think it’s just a way about you, really. Maybe no trait specifically. Just a way I feel when I’m around you.”
“Hmm.”
“Also, though this isn’t like Caleb, you have the most delicious aroma.”
“Would you stop with the bread stuff? You’re going to have to tell Leopold to let you have some more carbs. Because I can’t explain anything about this, other than the fact that maybe you are missing something in your diet, and you are projecting your cravings onto me.”
“It is peculiar. And I haven’t been cutting back on carbs. Not at all.”
“So do you long to go to bed with a guy who reminds you a little of your husband? When he was younger? And who smells of baked goods?”
“Nice try,” she said, but as she looked at him, something in her shifted. She felt a blooming inside her. Something quiet but magnificent.
***
Finally, it was the day before the race and Charlotte’s stomach twisted each time she thought of it. She and Leopold had skipped the workout this morning, so their muscles would be rested for the run. This put her at work a little early, and, as soon as she pulled in, she wished she had stopped for coffee to kill some time.
As soon as she entered the purple doors of the preschool, Tabitha skipped toward her, and then gave a final leap, landing just inches from Charlotte’s shoes.
“I just got off the phone with Grandpa, and he gave me an idea…a way to really figure out what to do with you.”
“Okay,” Charlotte said, but she already knew what they should do with her. It was called The Quiet Corner with Miss Charlotte.
“We are creating a whole new room. For you.”
“Oh.” Great. Maybe The Quiet Corner would be in a room of its own now. It could cordon off the craziness that was permitted to go on in the rest of the school.
Tabitha was talking fast now. “So you know how each of our rooms is named for a different animal species…one that is ingenious to the area.”
Indigenous, Charlotte thought, but she didn’t correct her. This was actually an aspect of the preschool that she considered clever and sweet. The babies were in the River Otter Room. The two-year-olds were in the Jackrabbit Room. The three, four, and five-year olds were in the Black Bear Room.
“Okay.” Please let this new room be called The Silent Ermine Room. Or the White-Tailed Deer Room, she thought. Something peaceful.
“We have you scheduled to work the Children of the Corn Room, effective immediately.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. It was Grandpa’s idea. We take the kids out who just can’t…thrive…in these other rooms. And we put them with you. Grandpa says what these kids need is someone with more experience. Someone who is a little more upti….” She flicked her eyes upward. “rule-oriented.”
“Does your grandfather know you’re calling it ‘The Children of the Corn Room’?”
“That’s what he called it. I don’t even know what that means.”
“Um. We can’t call it…them…that. That’s a horror movie from the…Look, never mind. Let’s just call them the Grizzly Bears. Or the Wolverines.”
“Okay. Whatever.” She shrugged. “So, I’ve already started dividing them up. Your class is waiting right in there.” She pointed to the room just off the office where Charlotte sometimes huddled to eat her lunch. It was just a small bit of space. No windows. A door that was always closed.
Tabitha turned with a flounce and then snapped back to look at Charlotte once again. “Oh, and Grandpa wanted me to ask you…Are your shots up to date?”
“Yeah. I think so. Why?”
“Because some of these kids bite. But just some of them. Two. I think.”
“Are their shots up to date?”
Tabitha shrugged. “How should I know? Probably.”
So Charlotte began as lead teacher of the Grizzly Bears, but what she should have called them was the bees. A great swarm of them, attacking, retreating and then attacking again. Charlotte found herself adopting that too-calm-teacher voice she disliked and saying things like. “We don’t eat the pages of our books,” “Let’s not lick the carpet,” and “Oops. That might make me bleed.”
Halfway through the day, Tabitha pushed another child in, gently, by the back of his head. “Please don’t let this one near any spoons, or anything with a scoop, really, because he likes to drink the toilet water. Okay?”