Making Waves

by Cassandra King

  “Come on, sugar,” she said to me finally, grabbing my arm. “Miss Maudie’s back here. She’s the only one here now.”

  She turned down the hallway and I followed close behind her. It was dark except for little globe lamps on the wall, the hall papered with really dreary, dark wallpaper. I didn’t like this place one bit.

  Miss Mary Frances stopped before a closed door that had a small brass sign on it: KEEP OUT. She turned to me before opening the door.

  “Donnette, the hardest thing is to wash the hair. Usually we use a dry shampoo unless they’ve been sick a long time and it’s too dirty for that. Since it’s your first time, I went ahead and washed her hair for you, but next time that will be part of it, you understand.”

  She opened the door and took my arm again, feeling that I needed to be pulled in, I guess.

  The room was bigger than I expected and very cold, cold as a refrigerator. I glanced around quickly and noticed that it looked like a doctor’s office, with examination tables, big hanging lights, and lots of strange-looking equipment. I wouldn’t look at any of that equipment, turning my eyes away soon as I saw strange hoses and things hanging above one of the tables. Instead I stared at the aqua-silk back of Mary Frances’s dress. Oh, God, the room smelled funny! Unless that was Miss Mary Frances’s perfume.

  Miss Mary Frances stopped right in front of me as she led me toward the back of the room, and I almost ran into her.

  “Also, honey,” she said to me in her loud whisper, “I did you another favor, too. Since Miss Maudie’s hair’s so thick and would take so long to dry, I went ahead and set it for you, too. I told you I’d help you since it was your first. I do believe it looks real natural the way I fixed it.”

  As she said this to me, Miss Mary Frances moved out of my way.

  Right in front of me, on a long metal table, was Miss Maudie. I was so completely startled that I just stared down at her. Then I caught my breath and let it out real slow, relieved.

  Oh, my God, it wasn’t Miss Maudie after all! It was some horrible dummy they’d made to look like her. It didn’t even look that much like her, but instead was a small, shriveled old dummy, way too little to be Miss Maudie. Though her eyes were closed, her white lifeless face was slack and her jaw sagged, making her mouth hang partly open. They’d dressed her boney shrunken body in a navy blue dress, with white lace at the collar and cuffs, like something Miss Maudie would wear. And Miss Maudie’s cameo, the one she’d never go without, was pinned ever so neatly at the neck. But she looked funny all dressed up, because she had no shoes on. The dummy had no shoes or stockings on—she was barefooted! The neat dark dress was way too long for her, and I started to laugh. Her little wax feet looked so silly, sticking out at the bottom of her dress. I started to laugh real loud, and Miss Mary Frances grabbed my arm, hard.

  “Donnette—,” she gasped. “What on earth—?”

  I dropped the roller bag and my hand flew up to my mouth to try and stop the laughter. I saw then that all around the shrunken wax face was pincurls, held in place with little plastic clips. Miss Mary Frances had fixed up the dummy of Miss Maudie with thick white pincurls.

  “No, no,” I cried. “That ain’t right—no, Miss Mary Frances!”

  I couldn’t help myself, causing Miss Mary Frances to grab both my arms even harder.

  “Oh, honey, I know, I know,” she crooned. “But the poor thing is better off—”

  “No, ma’am—that’s not Miss Maudie—what have you done with her?”

  I was crying for good now, tears rolling down my cheeks. So that was what funeral homes did—replaced people with wax dummies made to look like them, laid out in coffins. Now I knew why dead people always looked so unreal.

  Miss Mary Frances was about to panic, I could tell. “Donnette, stop this—you are hysterical—let me get you out of here!” She tried to pull me closer to her, but I pushed away and stared at her.

  “If y’all are going to fix her up to look like Miss Maudie, the least you can do is get her right.” I sobbed loudly, no longer remembering to whisper.

  Miss Mary Frances dropped my arms and stepped back, looking at me as though I’d lost my mind. “What in God’s name—” was all she could say.

  Still sobbing, I turned back to look at the dummy again. Very slowly and carefully, I stepped over to her.

  Bending down, I forced myself to look at the dummy of Miss Maudie, staring at the colorless waxen face. The snow-white hair of big fat curls held in place with pink and blue clips was a glaring contrast to the dummy face. I made myself stop sobbing by taking deep breaths as I stared down at it. Then, reaching out with trembling hands, I touched the pincurled hair gingerly. Still damp.

  “Miss Mary Frances?” My voice was trembling so much I could barely hear it myself. Miss Mary Frances leaned closer to me so she could catch what I said. “Could I have some water, please?”

  Miss Mary Frances looked paler than Miss Maudie. “Water, hell! I’m going to get you and me both a shot of whiskey. Cleve always keeps some back here.”

  I couldn’t help it, that really made me laugh. Maybe I was hysterical after all. “No, ma’am—I don’t want to drink it. I need to wet Miss Maudie’s hair again.”

  Miss Mary Frances stared at me, but she turned quickly and went over to a sink in the back of the room where I heard water running. I took another deep breath and began to pull myself together. Reaching down below the table, I picked the roller bag up off the floor.

  With shaking hands, I took a comb and began to comb through the dummy’s thick white curls after I yanked the plastic clips out. Miss Mary Frances came up beside me then and quietly handed me the glass of water.

  I dipped the comb down in the water glass and combed through the hair to wet it, being real careful to look only at the hair and not at the white wax face. Miss Mary Frances then pushed a stool up for me, and I sank down gratefully. It was only after I sat down that I realized how badly shaken I was. My hand shook so hard that drops of water fell from the comb, splattering on the metal table.

  Then, as slowly and as carefully as I ever saw Aunt Essie do it, I set Miss Maudie’s hair in big neat waves, clipping each one in place with the curved metal clips. It took me a long time because I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking, but finally I’d made perfect waves all around the face of the dummy. I got hairspray and sprayed the waves thoroughly, and for a minute the sharp misty smell of hairspray covered the other smell. Mary Frances Floyd must have held her breath the whole time, because when I finished, I heard her let out a trembling breath.

  I then took the bottle of Shell Pink nail polish from the roller bag. Biting my lip, I reached ever so carefully for Miss Maudie’s withered hand, which lay beside her on the metal table. Her little hand was white as marble and ice-cold, so I took it into my palm as though it was a fragile baby bird.

  Carefully I polished the tiny nails Shell Pink. When I finished that hand, I laid it back down beside her, then I reached across the navy blue dress for the left hand and polished those nails, too.

  There. That looked more like Miss Maudie. I felt her hair again, and decided it was dry enough for me to remove the clips. When I did, each wave stood on its own, perfect. I couldn’t help but feel like Aunt Essie would be proud of me, and I leaned back with a sigh.

  Miss Mary Frances had been watching me carefully. The whole time I’d felt her eyes glued to my face. Now she leaned over and looked down at Miss Maudie instead.

  “That looks so good, sugar, that we ought to go ahead and do her makeup. Usually I do it, but sometimes the hairdresser does.”

  I shook my head and wished for a minute that I had that shot of whiskey she mentioned earlier.

  “I think I’d like to do it myself.” I didn’t really want to, but I could just imagine poor Miss Maudie with frosted aqua eyeshadow on. “Only thing is, I didn’t bring any with me.”

  “You can’t use regular makeup, Donnette—it won’t last a day. We have a special kind. Stay here a minute and
I’ll go get it.”

  It wasn’t near as bad as I thought it would be. Miss Mary Frances brought me a palette of makeup and I leaned real close to Miss Maudie again. At first I could hardly stand to touch her ice-cold face, but as I applied the thick waxy makeup I began to feel better, because I was making the dummy look more like Miss Maudie. Once the foundation was in place and powdered, I touched the shrunken cheeks with just a bit of color and was astonished at the difference.

  For some crazy reason, as I added the rouge to Miss Maudie’s face, I thought of Cat. I reckon because Miss Maudie once made Cat sit in the corner when she came to school with some makeup she’d stolen from her mother and put it on all the girls in the class, making us look like a bunch of ten-year-old tarts.

  Then I remembered another time when Cat got into even more trouble. Only a couple of years later Miss Maudie caught Cat and Sonny Clark in the cloakroom, Cat with her skirt up around her waist and her legs around Sonny, young as they both were then. Poor virginal Miss Maudie was so horrified. She was a smart woman, had Sonny’s number all along, but she never knew what to make of Cat, the preacher’s daughter. Cat could be so loving and affectionate, and Miss Maudie loved her in spite of everything, her wild ways.

  So Cat got in big trouble with Miss Maudie, and had to stay after school every day for a week and listen to Miss Maudie lecture her on the dangers of playing “certain ways” with boys, but that was all that happened. Miss Maudie never told the principal, or Cat’s daddy. Cat swore to me it was just because Miss Maudie never got any herself that she didn’t know what she and Sonny were doing, but I didn’t believe that. I don’t think Cat did either. I think Miss Maudie was such a kind-hearted person, she didn’t want Cat to suffer the consequences if her daddy found out.

  I decided then and there that I’d try again to get in touch with Cat, let her know about Miss Maudie dying. Thinking that made me feel somewhat excited—maybe she’d even come home for the funeral. Well, probably not. Cat swore she’d never set foot in Clarksville again, and she hadn’t.

  Gently I touched a little rouge to Miss Maudie’s icy lips, then powdered them. When I sat back to look at the results, I felt much better.

  I saw, however, that this was not a wax dummy after all, that it was Miss Maudie, the life gone from her forever. Looking down at her, I realized the difference between a live body and a dead one. And it’s not that bad, knowing the difference. The difference is life itself, of course—movement and stillness. I realized as I surveyed the results of my hairdo and makeup that Miss Maudie would never move again. She would never twitch or raise an eyebrow or yawn or stretch. She wouldn’t reach up and pat her hair in place, or hold a mirror before her, turning this way and that, looking for changes. She’d never again stand at a blackboard, chalk in hand, before a room full of restless children. Not in this life she wouldn’t, anyway.

  Miss Mary Frances leaned over my shoulder, then she patted me. “Why, Donnette!” she said in a whisper. “You did a wonderful job. She looks so natural, doesn’t she?”

  Yes, ma’am, I thought to myself. She looks real natural all right—naturally dead. But I had to admit that she sure looked better than she did.

  “Can I tell Cleve that you will be available from now on? The pay is real good and I know y’all need all the help you can get.”

  I picked up my roller bag and began packing it quickly, throwing in the clips and combs and hairspray. I was real anxious to get out of there.

  “Yes, ma’am. Just tell him to call me.” Surely none of the others could be this hard. And as everyone in town knew, we could use the money.

  I grabbed my purse and jumped up. Suddenly I couldn’t wait to get out of that building. Miss Mary Frances came with me to the door.

  “Bye now, honey.” She smiled at me as she let me out the door. “You did a good job—see you next Wednesday, my regular time.”

  “Bye, Miss Mary Frances. See you then.” I hurried out as fast as my legs would take me.

  I went down the dark hall and let myself out the back door. Once outside of the freezing cold building, the heat swept over me. I hurried to my Toyota, passing the big white hearse without looking at it. The sun was just setting, a big ball of blazing pink over the pine trees behind the cemetery.

  “And good-bye, Miss Maudie,” I whispered as I cranked up the car and hightailed it out of there, tires screeching as I pulled onto the Columbus Highway. “Rest in peace.”

  My hands were still shaking as I drove back into town. I turned the air-conditioner up full blast and took big gulps of the icy air.

  Turning my car off the highway onto our street, Preacher Street, I headed toward our house. Soon as I did, I realized I’d planned to stop by the football field first. I sure didn’t want to; I’d rather have pulled into our driveway and started frying those fish. Make some hushpuppies and coleslaw to go with them. Tim loves my hushpuppies. But I felt a strong urge to go on to the field. Tim didn’t let on one bit—matter of fact, he was real casual-acting about the whole thing—but maybe he needed me there.

  I turned the car down Preacher Street, so-called because three preachers, the Baptist, the Methodist, and the Holiness, all had parsonages on this street. Aunt Essie’s big old house—ours now—was at the end of the street, before the highway, then the little brick Methodist parsonage was next to it.

  As I drove down the street, I waved to folks out doing the usual late-evening chores. Miss Bobbie Dyer was in her garden, getting tomatoes for supper. Old Man Estes was watering his front yard, which always looked like it was manicured. Sometimes you’d drive by and see the old fellow on his hands and knees with scissors, cutting sprigs of grass that dared to grow between the cracks in the sidewalk. There were little kids playing ball or riding bikes, waiting for the call to supper. I reckon it was the same in every little town everywhere this time of day. There was something real peaceful about it.

  I didn’t feel very peaceful when I turned the car down the street and headed toward the football stadium, though. I couldn’t decide what to make of Tim going to football practice lately, whether it was a good sign or not. Coach had given us season tickets, and me and Tim had gone to the home games last fall—he wasn’t able to go the first year, of course—and we’d sat in the stands just like everyone else. Some people acted funny around Tim, almost embarrassed, and they’d avert their eyes when they saw us. Both of us just sat quietly and watched the game, not standing up cheering and yelling like everybody else, which probably called even more attention to us. Sometimes somebody from the other side would recognize Tim as we walked past the visitors’ side, and they’d stare at him like they’d seen a ghost, nudging their friends as we walked by, eyes straight ahead. I know that Tim must’ve seen them, but he never let on. ’Course after all he’d been through, something like that didn’t seem real important, anyway.

  Unexpectedly I felt tears sting my eyes. Lord, maybe going to the football practice was going to be too much today, after that business with Miss Maudie. Tim would certainly understand if I decided to turn around and go back home, have supper waiting for him when he got there. But I drove on past the high school and pulled into the big grassy parking lot by the stadium. It wasn’t quite dark yet but the stadium lights were already on. I parked the car and got out.

  Outside the car I was pleased to notice that it wasn’t quite so hot now. Maybe it was my imagination, but there was just a little hint of coolness in the air, touching my bare arms ever so slightly as I walked across to the stadium.

  I breathed deeply of the heavy, sweet-smelling summer air and felt better. Honeysuckle covered the chain-link fence surrounding the parking lot, and its perfume was the smell of late summer evenings. I could hear the noises now from the field, the grunts and the hits and the coaches yelling and clapping their hands.

  Every time I walked into the stadium, regardless of the season, I saw it the way it looked filled with people in the cool nights of autumn. Football season. It was always filled, every single hom
e game. The Clarksville Blue Devils were the pride of Zion County, state champions in their division three years in a row now, written up in newspapers all over the state.

  But Clarksville never had a team quite like the one Tim quarterbacked his senior year, with Joey Housel and Tater Dyer and Matthew Pate all seniors that year too. All of them getting those big scholarships—Joey and Tater at Alabama now, Matt all the way up north, playing for Notre Dame. Almost every boy on that team got a scholarship somewheres, it seemed like.

  That spring, reporters were calling every day to see where Tim would choose to go—he had so many offers and visited so many colleges he couldn’t make up his mind. Coach Mills got to where he wouldn’t even answer his phone, finally got him an answering machine. They’d had some great teams in Clarksville, but never another quarterback like Tim, with that throwing arm he had. Lord, the press coverage we got! Suddenly Clarksville was on the map, with coaches from all over the nation coming to our games. People were turning their cameras as much in toward the stands as they were toward the field during those days, snapping pictures of Bear and Pat Dye and Vince Dooley. First time ever, the dinky little motel outside town did a booming business with coaches and recruiters and reporters here every weekend. It was really some kind of goings-on for a little town on the back side of nowhere, as Daddy used to say. Never be anything like it again.

  Unexpectedly, I felt my eyes sting with tears and a lump come up in my throat. I had to get ahold of myself—I sure couldn’t stay here if I was going to cry. Tim would never forgive me, not after he’d been so brave and never shed a tear through the whole thing. Well, none that I knew of, anyhow.

  Soon as I walked past the concession stands into the big open stadium, I spotted Tim. You could never miss that pale blond hair, the way it shone under the stadium lights. I remember how jealous I used to get of all the attention he got, not just for his quarterbacking but for his all-American good looks, too. When the defense would take over and Tim’d go to the sidelines, he’d drink his Gatorade, then pull his helmet off as he stood and watched the action on the field. Never fail, there’d be a collective gasp from the girls on the other side, the stupid little cheerleaders and majorettes nudging each other and giggling like nitwits. Lots of women, young and old ones, too, from all over the state, came to our games just to see him. Made me want to hang a sign on him—he’s mine, girls, eat your hearts out!