When he pulled into the lot out front of the spacious building he had to ask his mom what happened to Ms. Evelyn, the woman who had styled her hair for years.
“She put me down, literally,” his mom said, fingering the cream scarf under a knit beret. He wanted to tell her she looked fine; that she looked exactly like a woman who had to endure treatments, but he caught himself. She didn’t want to reflect her treatments. She wanted to look like herself before the cancer. “I thought I’d be doing this with her, but she couldn’t handle it. After I told her, you know, she was like a doctor who looks at you like he can’t do anything for you. I know you can’t stop the hair from falling out, but doggone it, make me comfortable,” his mother griped.
Corey sat silently until his mother was ready to exit the car. They entered a lobby of what seemed like a building with all different stylists who had their own space in there. He stood so not to be mistaken as the client. He thought nothing of it when a receptionist came to take them to a suite marked Beauty by P in a generic temporary sign.
He did not see her behind the cabinet door, but his wife emerged with two mannequin heads styled with wigs. She looked at him as strangely as he imagined he was looking at her.
“Hey,” Corey said, watching his wife hug his mother before taking her coat. He turned to his mom as if he had been hoodwinked. “This is your stylist?”
“Sure is. She called me up, told me she heard about my illness, and that she’d be praying for me. Asked me what I was going to do about my ’do. My daughter-in-law is going to help me get my diva back, and I surely appreciate it too.”
“So this is your new gig? Wasn’t I just with you this weekend? You couldn’t tell me then that you had already picked out a new spot?” Corey queried his wife from the door frame.
“A girl’s got to work,” Pill said, going back to the cabinet for a few more wigs still in their protective covering.
He was on her heels while keeping watch of how close his mother was to their very personal conversation. “I mean, what’s the rental on this suite? A space to yourself must run you more than just a chair at a salon. I guess I’m wondering why you didn’t go the traditional salon route like you had at Epic Beauty.”
“Do you really care if it ain’t costing you?” Pill said, slamming the cabinet shut, but lowering her voice. “I’m not content living off of you if you don’t know if you want to be home with me. Like you, times are also uncertain, real uncertain.”
His mom plopped into the styling chair near them ready to intervene. “Tell him, Pam. We don’t tell our business to strangers, and we don’t tell our daddies everything.” His mother turned toward Corey. “So don’t drop in and out of her life like a stranger, questioning her like you’re her daddy.”
He watched his wife raise an eyebrow to him as if those were her sentiments exactly. He took that as a sign to shut up and sit down. He wanted to be anything but a daddy to her. He wanted to be her husband, her lover, and her friend. He just didn’t know how to take control of his life without being controlling. He needed to take a hint from his own daddy and learn when to go with the flow sometimes. This was her career—her salon.
He sat in one of the chairs around the perimeter of her suite and looked around. The shelves appeared to be well stocked, and if he knew Pill, her calendar was booked solid.
Corey watched as his wife hooked a black cape around his mother’s neck and carefully coaxed her out of her hat and scarf. There was no hint of shock or surprise on Pill’s part. She palmed his mom’s scalp and massaged it as if it were pleasurable for her.
“Now, I’m going to take off the rest of this stubble for you before I wash and condition your scalp, all right, Ma?” Pill said with all the sensitivity of a surgeon explaining a procedure.
“I can’t believe some of those strands refused to fall off with the others,” Corey’s mom said.
“My best friend, Shae, always blesses the strength of our natural hair. It’s resilient, she’d say, and stubborn. I’m thinking about going natural myself, letting the perm go,” Pill confided. “Get a new look to coincide with the new me.”
Corey watched his wife at work, intrigued by her “new me” comment. First, she gave his mother’s dome a clean shave with the clippers. Then she escorted her to the wash bowl. His mother shuddered at first to the spray of water. Pill adjusted the temperature and pressure, gently massaging first shampoo and then an oily substance with the pads of her fingers. He remembered the times Pill used to wash his hair for him. She was thorough and thoughtful with her touch. He imagined the feel of her fingers in his own hair.
A few times, Pill would look up to find him staring. He winked at her the last time, hoping to convey how cool he thought it was of her to help his mom out like she was doing. He could see restored hope in his mother’s eyes. Through Pill’s skilled hands came the strokes of love and humanity his mother was starving for.
“Now it’s going to be important to keep your scalp moisturized because I’m told this cap can itch something terrible,” Pill explained.
Several caps were fitted on his mother’s bald head before she began to look through the wig selection. Corey sat up straighter in his chair, poised to give his opinion on styles. His mother forgot he was even there as she asked for Pill’s viewpoint as Pill assisted her in fixing each hairpiece in place for the optimal fit. They all were medium lengths with mixed amounts of grey hair except one. It was long, brown, and straight, resembling a weave.
“Who is that for?” Corey questioned.
“For me, or shall I say, your father,” his mom said with a devilish grin. She attempted to put on the wig herself. She looked like another person to Corey—a frisky, much younger person.
“It’s a vintage Tina Turner,” Pill smirked.
“Might as well have a fantasy piece,” Wilma said, shimming and shaking her head like Tina. “I’ll take this one too.”
That was too much information for Corey. He was looking at his fantasy. “Give me short, in every way.”
“I hear that,” Wilma said, smiling up at Pill who was biting the inside of her cheek to keep herself from blushing.
Pill tapped his mom on the shoulder. “Tell your son that talk is cheap.”
“Your wife said talk is cheap, son. You need to show and prove,” Wilma said, shamelessly instigating.
“I heard her, Ma,” Corey said, wondering when his wife and mother got so close to form this alliance.
“I didn’t think you could hear anything she’s saying or will say because you’re so far away,” she laughed. “Tell him, Pam; my house is too far away.”
The two of them thought that was hilarious and laughed at his expense. Either his wife had his mother on her bankroll or his mother was getting tired of him and was ready to kick him out.
Taking everyone by surprise, Corey’s father knocked on the outside of the suite frame. Corey watched his mother snatch the fantasy wig off her head as if to hide it.
Emory Taylor strolled in as if he had been there all along and had just returned from a bathroom break. He kissed Pill on her forehead before bending down to give his wife a peck. Then he extended his hand for Corey to shake before taking a seat beside his son.
“What are you doing here?” Corey asked.
“I’m here to take my wife home,” his dad said.
Corey looked up in confusion as his mother settled on a wavy midlength bob wig. She checked her reflection from each vantage point as Pill shared pointers on maintenance. When she was satisfied, Wilma joined her husband and son with her fantasy wig in a bag under her arm.
“I guess you didn’t need me to stay after all?” Corey questioned, not losing sight of Pill who was clearing away the unwanted wig variety.
His mother turned to him before he could get up. “That’s what I’ve been meaning to tell you. Do you remember what I told Dani the night I told you all about my illness?”
His dad was shaking his head, but Corey faintly remembered. “Um, I think
you told her to stay home if she was going to cry every time she saw you.”
His mother fished around in her purse for something. “I’ve watched you dote over me for the past couple of days. You’re crying without the tears, Corey. I need you to be okay because now that I got my hair right, I’m fine. Plus, see this man right here?” Wilma pointed to her husband. “I believe he was next in line to fawn over me, and I’m going to let him. See, I don’t have any problem being spoiled or accepting a gift from family members who think that money is all they have to give. I live to support my family. That’s worth the fight I’m up against.”
He watched his mother sashay across the floor to his wife and palm a few bills in her hand. She held on while kissing her cheek. Then she turned, prepared to make a general announcement. “The both of you can visit as much as you want. This is my way of making up for the mistakes I made in raising you. We talked about you never finishing things, and me never requiring you to. I’m not going to allow you to walk away from your marriage any longer. You told me you love this woman. Now, I’m going to my home. Son of mine, it’s time you go to your own.”
Chapter 36
Pill felt she needed something else to go with her beef cutlets dinner. She ran inside the grocery store for a five-pound bag of potatoes. At the counter, she leafed through a Jet magazine while she waited. The weekly review of African American culture ran the article of the very public breakup of supermodel Madge Rose and Rico Proctor. The caption under the Photo of the Week simply said, “Dumped.” The picture showed Rico on the cell phone as he walked a dazzling M. Rose down the red carpet at a fashion event. A correspondent had a microphone up to interview the beauty.
Pill closed the periodical, thinking the still photo could not display the justice Rico had been served like the live footage she and Corey saw on TV that morning before church. A reporter asked M. Rose about her hairstyle change, to which she told the entire viewing audience, “I was in the mood for change. So, if you would be so kind to tell my date it’s over when he gets off the phone . . .” Of course the cameraman was more than willing to oblige her and tape it for the world to see over and over. TMZ was having a field day with the footage.
Surprisingly, Corey and Pill didn’t celebrate or even remotely find humor in Rico’s embarrassing misfortune. Pill’s only comment was that it was a shame that Madge didn’t mention her glam squad, including her new stylists, Mercedes, Candy, and Deena, who Pill and Shae sent to work with the model in their stead across the nation.
Pill fingered the magazine, contemplating whether she should buy it as a memento. That brought to mind her hair mentor. Ms. McQueen kept a running subscription to Jet magazine delivered to her shop. Pill didn’t think she threw away a single copy. She remembered sitting clients under the dryer with at least four issues to help them pass the time.
She decided she would go to the Sunrise Senior Living Facility to visit Ms. McQueen like she kept promising her Morning Glories. Corey was at home taking a nap, which gave her a little time to visit and return home before he woke and became hungry.
Pill signed in and was given directions to Ms. McQueen’s room after being told she had recently left the community room to get some rest. The hallway leading up to Ms. McQueen’s room smelled vinegary and antiseptic. She tried to rehearse her explanation of why it took so long to finally visit as she approached.
Pill thought she was at the wrong room as a few young boys crowded in the hallway outside Ms. McQueen’s door. She panicked at first, fearing something had happened to her. Lord, I’m too late, Pill thought. She met a man in blue scrubs at the door that explained that Ms. Mable, as he called her, became irate when she wasn’t allowed a second piece of cake in the community room. That sounded very much like the mentor she remembered, and Pill expelled a sigh of relief. He told her that her daughter was trying to get her ready for bed.
Pill dipped her head in the room to see two female members of the family trying to get a lavender housecoat over the elderly woman’s head.
“Hi,” Pill said tentatively. “I came to visit Ms. Mabel. I’ll step out in the hall with the others until you’re finished.”
The taller of the two gestured for Pill to come in. “Those are just my boys out there. We’re getting Mama ready for bed; then we’re taking off.”
Pill noticed her mentor staring stubbornly ahead of her. She grimaced as the tall woman forcibly bent the old lady’s arms into the shirt sleeves of a long gown.
“This has not been a good day for Mama,” the same woman said. “Sometimes she is not as lucid as other days. Ever since the stroke, things have gotten worse.”
“And it seems to get worse when she gets upset. You noticed that, Marsha?” the shorter sister said, crouched and tugging at the shoe on her mother’s foot.
“Well, they should have just given her the second piece of cake. It wouldn’t have hurt anything,” Marsha said.
“That’s right,” Ms. McQueen finally said in her soft, familiar voice.
“Are you kidding? Have you forgotten she’s diabetic?” the shorter sister asked incredulously.
Pill wondered why they spoke around Ms. Mabel as if she weren’t there. Could she have a touch of dementia as well? Pill thought. Ms. Wilamae said Ms. Mabel had asked about her on numerous occasions. Now Pill wondered if that was just a ploy to get her there.
It irked Pill to see Ms. Mabel’s daughter yanking at an elastic band used to pull her totally gray mane back from her face.
“Your hair is a mess, Mama. I wonder when the last time was that they washed her hair. Does she have some rollers over there?”
“Leave it pulled back. I’m not fixing to wait for you to fight with Mama over her hair.”
“Please, let me do that. Ms. Mabel gave me my first job at her shop,” Pill said fully entering the room.
She stood in front of her mentor who still smelled of Palmer’s cocoa butter cream and grabbed her delicate hand. “Ms. Mabel? Hey, it’s me, Pam, remember? It’s so good to see you. It’s been so long, I know. I’m going to see what’s going on with your hair, okay? Maybe grease your scalp.”
Although the full-faced woman only stared up at her, Pill thought she noted a hint of recognition in her eyes.
“Sorry, but she don’t remember you, honey. Sometimes Mama acts as if she barely knows us.”
Pill heard Ms. Mabel humph and wondered if she was playing possum with her own daughters.
“You got a comb?” Pill asked, becoming agitated with the pair. She swung around with her palms out as if she were a surgeon awaiting a surgical instrument from a nurse. Marsha went into the drawers of her mother’s nightstand and extracted a tattered scarf with rollers inside and a jar of Blue Magic Hair Dress.
Pill felt more useful with the comb in her hand, and even handier with a brush. It was a stiff bristle brush she couldn’t find in beauty aisles anymore. She used the heavy grease sparingly to lubricate Ms. Mabel’s scalp and create an immediate sheen. Then she brushed her chin-length hair, giving more attention to the hairline.
Ms. Mabel closed her eyes and began to hum as a response to the sensation. “That’s right, baby girl.”
Pill ignored the sponge roller and went in her purse for loose hairpins she kept there. She tucked the loose waves into a makeshift French roll in the back of Ms. Mabel’s head while her daughters stared as if Pill had just performed a magic trick.
“What did you say your name was again, honey?” Marsha said, coat in hand.
“Pill—Pamela Taylor, used to be Jones,” Pill said, admiring Ms. Mabel from the front. She gave her a smile and then a hug around the neck. “I’ll come back and give it a wash if they’ll let me.”
“This can’t be the one Mama was talking about?” the younger sister asked.
Marsha sized Pill up. “I don’t know.”
Ms. McQueen was a mannequin come to life “She most certainly is, and you know full well what I’ve asked you to get to her.”
Pill floated home from the
nursing home. She concealed her mystery gift even from Corey until her potatoes were mashed and dinner was plated. She and Corey dined at their pub-style dining-room table when she decided to let the cat out of the bag.
“I have a proposition for you,” Pill said matter-of-factly.
Corey swallowed hard before answering. “Okay.”
“Why are you looking so scared?” she swatted at him. “I promise you, this could be a good thing, a blessing, but I can’t do it without you. I don’t want to do anything anymore that you don’t support.”
She grabbed his free hand and squeezed it. Corey stopped eating, and she could tell that he knew she was serious. The proposition was lofty, but she knew it was all God’s doing. For that reason alone, she had to go for it, but only with Corey’s blessing. Ms. McQueen had made it plain to her daughters that she wanted to turn over the deed and keys to the property of Beauty, the first shop Pill ever worked at that stood alone in the now-historic district. The property taxes were in arrears, but if she could pay them, the shop was hers to do as she pleased.
She thought about the small brick building with a screened-in utility closet resembling a porch on the side that felt like her childhood home. It had infinite possibilities even though it had only two styling chairs. She thought about the dream she threw out to Corey in a separate conversation, and how the porch would be a perfect spot to sell her surplus of handbags and accessories. As for the second chair, she knew of only one person she wanted to style beside day in and day out. It would be like back-to-basic-hair-design-meets-the-latest-trends boutique. It could be perfect.
“This must have been where you were all afternoon. Tell me what this all about,” Corey said, shaking her hand that he still held to bring her back to the present.
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