“Oh no, you’re beautiful.” She smiles. No front teeth. How adorable. Just then we hear Bea’s voice from the kitchen announcing that lunch is ready.
Harper yells back, “We can’t come now. We’re playing.”
Bea yells back, “Right now, Harper. It’ll get cold.”
Harper reluctantly puts down the dolls and starts to get up. She grabs my hand and pulls me into the dining room.
Fred greets Harper and tussles her hair. “Hi, Cookie, brought you a present.”
“I know what that is…more books!” she says with a grin.
Fred hands her the books and we sit down at the table. Bea starts making small talk, obviously trying to avoid the issue of Lorraine’s absence. Harper doesn’t mention it and neither does Fred, although he is hunkered down in an uncharacteristic sulk. The air in the dining room is stifling and Bea gets up to turn on the fan. A welcome breeze moves through the room.
The lunch consists of brisket cooked in dried onion soup mix, fresh green beans, and old-fashioned whipped mashed potatoes that never come out this way when I do them. Bea has baked a peach pie for dessert and obviously has spent a lot of time and effort on this meal.
“It’s such a treat to have a great home-cooked meal,” I say to Bea.
Bea gives me a deep, low belly laugh and says, “Fred thinks it’s too heavy. But I think it’s comfort food.”
Bea has this way of talking in sentences that end with a sigh or a “my, my, my.” She also uses gospel chorus-like asides such as “amen” or “all right” or “yes, indeed.” At several points during the meal, Harper asks if she and I can be excused so we can “play some more.” Bea smiles at her indulgently and tells her to wait a few more minutes.
I’m amazed that there is still no mention of Lorraine. I say to Harper, “What a beautiful name you have. Were you named after the writer of To Kill a Mockingbird?”
Harper looks puzzled and turns to Bea. “Was I, Grandma?”
“Harper, you know how you got your name.”
“Do we have to go into this right now?” Fred asks.
Bea ignores him. “My daughter named her after my profession. I was a Harper Lady.”
I am about to ask her what that is, when the telephone rings and Bea’s shoulders tense. I get the feeling that when the telephone rings around here it’s not good news.
Bea gets up, goes to the kitchen, and answers the phone. It’s uncomfortably quiet as we listen to her side of the conversation.
“Oh, dear. Oh, no. Okay, okay. We’ll come get you.” Fred jumps up and goes into the kitchen. Bea hangs up. We hear Fred’s angry voice.
“I’m not getting her.”
“Please, Fred, I told her we’d come,” Bea pleads.
“Let her take a taxi.”
“She doesn’t have any money and I can’t get ahold of her now.”
“Jesus, Bea. It’s the same old shit around here. How do you expect her to ever get any better if you constantly bail her out?”
I look at Harper’s stricken face. “My mommy must be sick again.”
“Yes, I’m so sorry. Let’s go play some more.” I take her hand and lead her back into her room. She sucks her thumb as we walk. As soon as we get to her bedroom, she grabs her small pink blanket off a chair.
I try to divert her attention. “Is that your special blanket?”
“Yes, Bea calls it my pinky dinky.”
“That’s a good one. I like that.” I look up and see Fred in the doorway.
He motions for me to follow him down the hall. There’s something amiss, that’s for sure. He’s holding a cigarette that has been smoked right down to the filter.
“What’s going on?” I whisper.
“I’m stalling,” he answers with no emotion.
“Are you going to go get her?”
“Of course. It’s Mother’s Day.”
“Do you want me to come with you?”
“Why would I want you to come with me?”
“I don’t know. Moral support?”
“Yeah, right. Believe me, I’ve done this so many times I could do it in my sleep. I’m in a shitty mood and I’m lousy company. Look, Dora, I’m sorry about all this.”
“It’s fine. Really.”
He softens. “This may take a while. Do you mind waiting here?”
“No problem.” What can I say?
He’s relieved. He kisses me on the cheek and says, “I owe you.”
The Woman with
Phenomenal Tresses
“Wisdom is not wisdom when it is derived from books alone.”
~ Horace (65–8 B.C.) ~
It’s a long afternoon. I help Bea with the dishes while Harper watches TV. After that, I read Harper The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl while we sit in plastic chairs on the porch and watch clouds appear on the horizon. Bea’s backyard at twilight seems almost like an enchanted garden. There are homemade birdhouses crafted from petrified gourds hanging in the trees, and a pair of small bamboo wind chimes faintly tinkle in the breeze. Just before sunset, gulls circle the neighboring houses and call to each other in guttural deep-throated tones. I love this time of day. The colors in the sky are rich and luminous like stained glass scenes in a cathedral and Harper and I watch as the light fades and the vibrant reds and pinks in the sky grow weak and anemic. Someone is barbecuing next door and the smell of Matchlight and mesquite perfumes the air. When the sky finally darkens, Harper and I retreat inside.
I help Harper take her bath because Bea’s back is acting up, and amazingly enough, Harper is hungry again. There is something wonderful about the way a child smells after a bath, moist, fresh, flowery, and talcy, and I inhale the sweet aroma as Harper slips into her robe and heads for the kitchen. Bea still isn’t feeling well, so Harper and I make little tea sandwiches and bring them to her room, where we have a Barbie tea party. At seven thirty she starts to rub her eyes. I was a teenager the last time I babysat for a child this age, but I still remember what that means. I watch her mechanically brush her teeth and tuck her into bed. Bea comes in and gives her a kiss good-night and I do too.
“Why don’t you lie down too? You must be exhausted,” Bea says to me as we turn out the light.
And I am. I go into the guest bedroom and pull a paperback out of my bag, the new David Mitchell book, Cloud Atlas. It’s all about the transmigration of souls across four continents and three time zones, but I quickly decide that it is totally unreadable. I lie on the bed and watch the fading sun filter through the window, casting shadows on the oversized bureau, the rocking chair, and the side table.
Outside in the yard, I see a clothesline and a long covered sandbox. When I get up to wash my face in the bathroom, dust speckles dance furiously in the gauzy light. Maybe I should just call a cab and go home. How far from civilization am I really? Twenty minutes? I guess I shouldn’t do that. It would be so rude. I know, I’ll just pad my way down to the kitchen and see if I can find a bottle of something. Bea served sherry at lunch, but hopefully I can find something with a little more teeth.
As I start down the hall I hear a dog bark and someone, maybe Bea, cough and then yawn. There is the muffled sound of a TV sitcom with canned laughter coming from her bedroom. When I reach the kitchen, the birdcage is covered with a dishtowel, and I’m aware that any noise would start them chirping. Where to look? Maybe the cupboard? Bingo. Two bottles of Paul Masson chablis and a pint of Cutty Sark. Normally, I’m not a Scotch person, but I don’t want to open the wine, so I’ll just take a little nip. I pour it into a plastic cup and take a swig. The alcohol burns up into my center forehead and warms my solar plexus. I take one more swig, rinse out my mouth with a Diet Coke from the fridge, and head back to my room. I look at the clock. This is taking longer than I thought. What could he be doing? I turn back to my book and decide to hunker down and wait it out.
Later that evening, with Fred still gone, the house quiet and dimly lit, Bea lightly taps on my door and says, “Knock, knock.” I jump up to let her i
n.
“I didn’t mean to disturb you, Dora.” She is carrying what looks like a heavy brown leather satchel stuffed with brushes and plastic bottles along with rollers and combs. The satchel looks ancient, like something from a seedy port town. The leather is cracked and noticeably water stained, and it has the stale, musty smell that always seems to go with used-clothing stores.
“Would you like me to brush your hair?”
“What?” I answer, confused.
“Would you like me to brush your hair? I used to do it for a living when we all lived in Delaware, a hundred years ago. Before we moved to New Orleans.” She laughs nervously.
“Oh, I see. Why not? Were you a hairdresser?”
“Not really. Not the way you mean it today. I was a Harper Lady.”
“A Harper Lady,” I repeat. I have no idea what she is talking about, so I just smile.
“Yes, I used to do the loveliest ladies. It was such a joy. Yes, indeed. The DuPonts and the Rothschilds. I did them all. And they all had such lovely families.”
I watch as she pulls out her brushes one by one and then her tortoiseshell combs and bottles of castile soap, tar shampoo, and white vinegar.
“I guess I’m not exactly sure what you did, but I’d love for you to brush my hair,” I say, trying to sound enthusiastic. Frankly, I thought it all sounded a little weird, but I was loath to let her know it.
Bea tells me the Harper method was an in-home hair treatment embraced by the social elite that involved neck and shoulder massages along with a special shampoo concocted with natural ingredients and a long brushing-dry session. The business was started by a Canadian woman named Martha Harper who had such gorgeous chestnut hair that P. T. Barnum tried to sign her up for his circus as “The Woman with Phenomenal Tresses.”
“Oh, all the celebrities and first ladies had Harper Ladies come to their homes,” says Bea. Apparently, the emphasis was on healthy hair, and the trained ladies used natural hair dyes, special tonics, and other methods of stimulating the scalp and hair growth. “Beauty comes from cleanliness and good circulation. That’s what we all preached.”
“Where did you learn all this, Bea?”
“Oh, well, there were these training salons all over the country, but they all died out eventually. I had a girlfriend who used to work in one downtown and she helped me learn. I had some customers for twenty-five, even thirty years. Every night, Monday through Friday, I’d drive up to Wilmington and even to Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia to do my ladies. My Whiz, that was my husband, Whizwald, he’s passed on now, used to wait for me until I got home. Then we’d sit down to dinner at nine thirty or even ten. He was a good man, my Whiz. He was an electrician by trade, but he had a green thumb and he was a fine dancer. I guess you noticed I’m not such a success with my garden out there.”
“Not at all, Bea. It’s charming. Did you really go dancing?”
“Oh, yes. We were the oldest charter members of the Delaware Square Dancing Society and we’d go to their socials once a month and dance all night. I had a closetful of the most beautiful outfits and so did Whiz. He looked so dapper back then.”
Fred never told me this. Any of it. His mother was a hairdresser to society mavens and his father an electrician. They went square dancing on Saturday nights in those insane, garish costumes with corny rickrack and silver fringes that seniors wear to hoedowns. No wonder he left for New York at seventeen. A mortifying combination of factors for a young intellectual who viewed himself as an artist. Still, there was something so lovely and decent and pure about Bea. You’d think by now he’d appreciate her.
“Come sit here, Dora. I can reach your head easier,” she says, motioning me over to the rocker. “I have such bad arthritis in my fingers and joints, I can’t do the job I used to…”
“Oh, that’s okay, Bea, you don’t have to. Really.”
“No, I like it. It keeps me calm, gets my mind off my troubles. I worry so about Lorraine. We’ve tried everything, god knows. She’s been in and out of rehab a dozen times, but after a few days she gets desperate and calls me. I always go fetch her and bring her home. I can’t help myself. She sounds so pitiful. It’s the devil, that drug. Her boyfriend got her into it and then he up and leaves her when she gets pregnant. I thought if I moved out here, I could help her. But she just keeps getting worse. It’s just Harper and me most days, and that’s the truth.”
Bea is quiet for a minute as she brushes my hair. I can’t think of a thing to say.
“Harper loves for me to do her hair. It’s our way of comforting each other. Gee, Dora, you have such nice hair, so thick and healthy. Good for you.”
Bea brushes my hair with a natural boar’s bristle brush imported from England. Her movements are firm and strong, and soon my whole head starts to tingle as the circulation in my scalp is stimulated. Every so often, she dabs what smells like a combination of tar and vinegar on my head, rubs it in with her fingers, and brushes my hair again in long, methodical strokes. First this way, then that. Then she flips my hair over my face and brushes in a circular motion at the nape of my neck. I think this is the next best thing to my Thai masseuse who comes over to my apartment and charges ninety-five dollars plus tip. No. This is better. This is nirvana. Mrs. DuPont was a cagey old broad.
“How much did you charge for this, Bea?” I ask, clearly in bliss.
“My fee was thirty-five dollars to come twice a week, but on their birthdays and Christmas, I’d do it for free. They liked that.”
“Did you get a tip?”
“Shhh, Dora, you’re supposed to relax.”
“I know but, Bea, this is brilliant. I absolutely adore it.”
Bea keeps brushing until the streetlamps outside the window flicker on and I can see the domed rings of light reflected on the pavement. She pauses briefly to switch on the bedside light and to check on Harper.
When she comes back, I stand up. “Bea, that was hypnotic. Thank you so much.”
“Oh, don’t thank me. I loved doing it. Maybe you’ll get a good rest now. It’s good for that. That’s why I always did my ladies at night.”
After Bea leaves, I lie in bed in the dark and watch the headlights of passing cars dance across the ceiling. When I was a child, I remember doing the same thing and then listening to the far-off sound of the local train roaring through the station, its whistle blasting through the distant neighborhood. I turn over on my side and thread my fingers through my hair. It feels silky and thick and squeaky clean. For the first time ever, I don’t pick up my book to get to sleep. I just drift off in a daze.
Along Came a Spider
“…out of the darkness came a small voice…”
~ E. B. White (1899–1985), Charlotte’s Web ~
I wake up to see Fred standing stiffly at my bedside, staring down at my face. The early morning light is filtering through the bedroom window and I feel like I’ve been sprinkled with angel dust. I haven’t been this relaxed in years. He leans over and gives me a perfunctory kiss on the cheek. He has dark, puffy circles under his eyes and he looks like he’s slept in his clothes.
“What time is it?”
“Nearly six.”
“Did you find her?”
“No. By the time I got there she was gone. I looked for her in the usual places, but I guess she got a better offer. This happens all the time, Dora. Let’s get out of here.”
I pull myself together, go into the bathroom, and notice that my hair is gleaming. As Fred and I quietly start to walk out, Bea appears in her bulky lavender chenille bathrobe. The pockets are stuffed with Kleenex and there are a few coffee stains on the lapel. Harper is still asleep.
“Oh. You’re leaving? Can I fix you some breakfast? How about some fried eggs?” Bea asks.
“No thanks, Bea,” Fred says. “I have to get back.”
“So, what should I do now, do you think?” Bea asks carefully.
“They’ll call when she turns up. You know the drill,” he says, brushing her off. I’m a lit
tle embarrassed at his abruptness.
“I hope everything works out okay. Thanks again for the, you know.” I touch my hair.
“Oh, for goodness sakes, it was my pleasure, dear.” Bea gives me a hug. I really like this woman. She stands in the doorway and watches us leave.
Fred’s pretty silent on the ride home.
“Maybe you should have stayed to help Bea,” I suggest.
“Dora, do you have any idea what it’s like to live with someone like Lorraine?” he says angrily, cutting me off.
“No, I guess I don’t,” I reply, feeling that I’ve overstepped my bounds.
“She hacks through your love and the love of everyone who knows her. You plead with her to stop, you drive her to therapists, AA meetings, probation officers, doctors’ appointments, you lend her money, you lend her more money, you take away her keys, it just goes on and on. She’s indifferent to your appeals. And, finally, you throw her out of the house and tell her not to come back until she’s sober. And then you’re grateful that the whole ordeal is over until the phone rings in the middle of the night and someone’s found her on a street corner and she’s incoherent and dirty and helpless. And she needs to come home. Bea has run through most of her savings paying for all this stuff. The private rehab places cost thousands of dollars up front and Lorraine doesn’t even stay a week. The first time she went she couldn’t handle the detox or the rules, so she called Bea screaming in pain and agony. Bea freaked out and picked her up. Then the courts sent her to a lockdown for a month, and as soon as she got home, Bea gave her some cash for the market and that was it. You can’t reason with Bea when it comes to Lorraine. She gives in every time, it turns into a disaster, and then Bea comes crying to me for help.”
“I had no idea.”
“It’s worse when Lorraine just holes up in her room, locks the door, and won’t let Bea or Harper in for days and days. Then she’ll come out and tear up the place looking for money. She’s stolen Bea’s jewelry, her silver, her camera, anything she could hock. She even wiped out Harper’s piggy bank. Bea finally found a great facility, which is where Lorraine was supposed to be now. But, as you heard, she’s obviously bolted.”
Literacy and Longing in L. A. Page 14