How Lulu Lost Her Mind

by Rachel Gibson

  I stand corrected. That bird makes only two sounds: a shrill scream when I tell him to behave or a nasty screech when he dive-bombs Lindsey. “He has good taste in women.” I play along.

  Mom’s smile turns into a yawn as she rolls on her side toward me. “He doesn’t like Lindsey.”

  “True, but I don’t think he likes me very much either.”

  “Probably because you’re in a hair rut.” She tosses my braid out of her way and slides her arm across my abdomen to snuggle. “You’re too pretty for bad hair.”

  “Thank you.” I think. I stiffen and refuse to roll onto my side. If I don’t escape now, I’m afraid she’ll spoon me until sunrise. I have to work and can’t play Earl tonight.

  “Pretty and smart and a good girl. Not a bit like Wynonna’s girl.”

  I don’t believe Wynonna had a girl, but that’s beside the point. Mom paid me three compliments in a row. I don’t think she’s ever done that before. Not that I can recall, anyway. My insides melt. I am reduced to putty and turn on my side. Mom takes advantage of my weakened state and molds herself against my back.

  “I love a good snuggle,” she says, and I melt even more at the warm breath on the back of my neck.

  I tuck this evening away with the other good memories of Mom and me to be recollected and relived after she is gone.

  I wait until Mom is snoring to carefully extract myself from her arms. I check on Raphael and find him asleep in his cage. If Mom wants to believe that dumb bird whistles at her, who am I to burst her bubble?

  My back aches from lying so still. I’m too tired to work, but my mind is too restless for sleep. I download a new app, Powerful Guided Meditation, Wish Manifestation. The others haven’t worked, but I’m willing to keep trying. I figure I can concentrate better if I’m fulfilling some wishes, but after fifteen minutes, I think of a perfect addition to Mom’s routine. She needs more than family photos and mementos to keep her mind active. I grab my phone and less than a minute into my internet search, I find The Joy of Painting website. I order everything Mom will need to beat the brush with Bob Ross and, because I’m the queen of swag myself, I add a pair of “Let’s Get Crazy” socks. Mom’s going to love painting happy little clouds again.

  I think about tapping a few sentences in my day planner, but I yawn and toss my phone on the bedside table. I finally fall into a deep sleep and wake the next day feeling restored.

  The new clothes Mother and I bought at Nordstrom online arrived several weeks ago, and I packed away my winter wool and flannel in favor of summer cotton and knits. I join Mother and Lindsey in the dining room wearing my black Alice + Olivia cuffed shorts and a black jersey tank.

  “Why do you always wear black?” Lindsey asks as I grab one of great-grandmother’s silver coffeepots.

  This from the girl who wears scrubs 90 percent of the time. “I don’t always wear black.” Only 90 percent of the time. “It’s versatile and perfect for business trips.” I pick up one of the royal-blue-and-gold cups I’d carried down from the attic a few days ago.

  “You’re not traveling now.”

  I shrug. “Habit.” I like black and don’t see a problem.

  “I like pink.” Mom looks up from the matching Staffordshire plate. “It’s a good color,” she adds, and points to the sleeve of her pink seersucker dress. Of the three of us, Mom is the resident fashion maverick with her rebellious choice of white sandals before Memorial Day. Her hair is pushed back from her face with a flower headband and her lips are bubble-gum pink.

  After she finishes her mushroom omelet and toast, we jump in the Escalade and head toward a small strip of brightly painted stores. I “kink” Mom’s neck only once, but it’s hard to take her seriously when her hair is flying around her head like Medusa.

  “Do you want to roll that window up now?” I ask for the third time.

  “Nope.” She breathes deeply through her nose. “The air smells like the river.”

  And touches of swamp.

  Monique’s Chic Boutique is such a bright fuchsia that I find it without getting lost. The old stucco clothing store is sandwiched between the neon-green Lagniappe BBQ and the red Boots ’N’ Roots.

  Even before we pulled into the small parking lot, I didn’t have high expectations for Monique’s Chic Boutique. I didn’t expect that we’d share the same definition of chic. I was right, but it hardly matters. Monique takes one look at Mom and me and hears ka-ching in her head. She masterfully herds us into separate dressing rooms divided by a pink curtain, and despite a slight language barrier, she sets about selling us everything from matching crawfish T-shirts to Mom’s high-cut swimsuit with a mesh insert.

  “Dis’ll look fabulous on you, cher. Très bien.” Monique’s chubby hand parts the curtains, and she shoves a cheetah-print one-piece into Mom’s side. “It’s on trend dis season.”

  I adjust a tank top with the outline of Louisiana on it and wait to hear Monique walk away. “Mom,” I whisper, but when she doesn’t answer I say a little louder, “Mom!”

  “Is that you, Lou Ann?”

  Who else? “Yes.” I pull my braid from the back of the shirt and lean closer. “You don’t have to try on a swimsuit if you don’t want.”

  “I got it on one leg already.”

  Monique’s hand appears again and pushes a pair of jean shorts at me. “Dis is da last pair of dese cutoffs. Vonda Richard, she called and had me put dese aside for her, but she has a flat bottom like me. Dese are made fo’ a woman with a pretty figure like you. Très bien. Hot hot.”

  “Thank you,” Mom and I say at the same time.

  I don’t know if I even own jean shorts. I think I gave them up years ago, and so I’m really surprised at how much I like them. The hemline is raw, and the back pockets are distressed enough that they look worn-in. I’m not really a shredded-edge girl, but Mom’s not the only fashion rebel in the family.

  “How do dey fit?” Monique asks through the curtain.

  “Good.” I look at my butt in the mirror. Really good. “Too bad this is the last pair.”

  “Lou Ann?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t hook this thing. I need help.”

  I stare at the curtain for several long seconds before I gather the courage to push it open. Mom’s back is to me and she’s holding her hair aside. I quickly hook the ends around her neck and say, “There you go.” She spins around and poses with a hand on her waist, and I fight the urge to throw an arm over my eyes.

  “What do you think?” she asks, as if she doesn’t have eyes in her own head.

  The suit is cut high on her hips and shows way too much of her Attends. On the other hand, it’s also cut high on the top and is tight enough to keep her boobs in position halfway to her belly button. “It’s one of your favorite animal prints.”

  She points to the mesh in back. “How does that part look?”

  It could be worse; she could be wearing a bikini. “I think Monique is right. It’s on trend and you look fabulous. Très bien.”

  “Good. I could use a swimsuit.”

  I want to ask why, but I don’t. At least it’ll match her cheetah shower cap.

  “You’re not goin’a believe dis.” Monique shoves a stack of shorts through the curtain. “I just got dese in.”

  She’s right. I don’t believe it.

  “God provides.”

  I seriously doubt God’s in on Monique’s hustle. The only difference between the shorts I’m wearing and the three pairs she’s handed me is that each is a darker shade of denim.

  The last things Monique shoves our way are T-shirts with a dancing crawfish and the words “I’m Cray Cray” on the front. I take one look at Mom and she at me in our matching shirts and we crack up. I laugh at her and she laughs at me, and we manage to get dressed without losing it only by not looking at each other.

  Monique waits for us at the register, two stacks of clothes beside her. The size of the stacks reminds me that, while I like to support small-business owners,
I’m clearly being hustled.

  “This has been so much fun.” Mom adds the crawfish shirts to the pile. “I love everything you recommended for me.”

  “Merci bien.” I hand over my Visa before Monique can think to shove a preserved alligator head at Mom.

  “Goodness gracious! I thought you looked familiar.” Monique looks up from my business credit card. “My sister read your book and got herself a man. Of course, he wasn’t wort’ a darn.”

  “That happens.”

  “My daughter is Lulu the Love Guru, and she’s a big deal,” Mom says, as if she just remembers my life beyond the confines of her world. She lifts her chin with pride and adds, “She’s very smart. You better believe that.”

  “Ahh, thanks, Mom.” The backs of my eyes pinch and I blink back tears. Bragging is Mom’s way of letting me know she’s proud of me. I don’t need her to say the exact words.

  “She makes lots and lots of money and got the plumbing fixed so I can have my bathroom back.”

  “I never had anybody famous in here before. Well, except for if you count da wife of a Jerry Lee Lewis impersonator.”

  Mom gasps and clutches at her heart. “Breathless,” she whispers. “I loved Jerry Lee in the worst way.”

  Monique hands me back my card. “Nancy’s havin’ a big shoe sale at da Boots ’N’ Roots next door. You don’ wanna miss dat.”

  Noooo, my mind screams.

  “Okay,” Mom says, and a half hour later, we are the proud owners of Saints cowboy boots. Mom’s are red and mine are turquoise. I don’t know if either of us will have occasion to wear “Who Dat” boots, but it could be worse. Mom could have thrown a fit over a pair of acrylic slides she’d been eyeing.

  The checkout counter is near the back of the store, which is an odd place to put it until you notice the empty salon chair sitting next to a woman getting her feet sanded at a pedicure station. Thus, Boots ’N’ Roots. Two seemingly incongruous businesses in one building. Like a grocer selling ponies, but I have to give Nancy credit for her entrepreneurial drive. “You cut hair, too?”

  “We’re a full-service salon,” she says, and I hand her a personal credit card this time. “You needin’ a shampoo and set?”

  If Nancy’s hair is any indication, she’s a shampoo-and-set master craftswoman for the seventy-and-older crowd. Mom will never sit still long enough for what Nancy might have in mind.

  “Cut ’n’ color?”

  Nice try.

  “Do you have one of those hair books with pictures?”

  Shocked, I look at Mom standing next to me. “You want your hair cut?”

  “No, I’m not in a hair rut.”

  “Me?” Mom’s hair has been loose and unruly all day. “You’re the one who needs a trim.”

  “You’d look good wit’ a bob,” Nancy helpfully suggests.

  “Listen to Nancy.” Although a bob is pushing the extreme and I doubt Mom will go that far.

  “I mean you.” Nancy hands me the credit card. “About an inch beneath your chin would frame your face pretty pretty.”

  “Ha!” Mom smirks. “Told ya.”

  13

  Mom tests shock absorbers for her final journey.

  I’m in pieces. She puts me back together.

  NEVER LET your Alzheimer’s mother pressure you into getting a twenty-dollar “trim.” You’ll get what you paid for, and she’ll forget her role in your bad decision.

  “It’s not ugly,” Mom assures me, sipping a Dr Pepper and eating from our huge Swamp Platter inside Lagniappe BBQ.

  The worst part is, Nancy promised she’d take only an inch off the ends, and I knew better than to believe her. The most embarrassing part is, I knew better than to get a backroom haircut in a discount boot store.

  Our waitress, Tana Mae, shakes her head as she refills my water glass. “Nobody round here lets Nancy near der hair.”

  That might have been good to know an hour ago, before she cut my hair longer on one side than the other and just kept cutting to correct her mistakes. I stopped her after her third “Darn it, your hair’s curly.” Now it’s curlier and the right side is still shorter than the left. I’m trying not to freak out, and I just thank God I’m not on tour.

  The bell above the door rings and Monique rushes in like there’s a fire. “Lord, I heard Nancy cut your hair.”

  Good news travels fast. “How’d you hear about my hair?” I bite into a spicy hush puppy and wash it down with Diet Coke. I like hush puppies. I know what I’m putting in my mouth, unlike the rest of the Swamp Platter.

  “Giselle called me after her pedicure, and I called Tana Mae and she said it’s true.”

  “The gator’s really good,” Mom says as she chomps on a deep-fried hunk of meat.

  I think of the skinned gators at Gator’s and say, “I’ll pass.”

  “When I told Giselle you’re Lulu da Love Guru, she told Nancy, and Nancy yowled like a scalded cat and run out da back door. Last anyone saw, she was headed down da bayou.”

  “It tastes like chicken.”

  “I’ll stick with shrimp, Mom.” I recognize shrimp.

  “Da frog legs are good and fresh,” Tana Mae tells us as she points them out.

  I’m grateful. Now I won’t accidently eat one. I’m not a snob, but I draw the line at amphibians and reptiles. And rodents. I had a pet rat in the sixth grade. I don’t want to eat Miss Gertrude.

  “Mais, la.” Monique raises her hands, palms up. “Nancy’s a good woman, bless her heart, but never let her near you with a pair of scissors in her hand, no no.”

  Again, that might have been good to know know.

  “I’m sure it’s trendy somewhere, très bien.” She drops her hands and tilts her head to one side. “I can recommend a good stylist.”

  She’s also the woman who recommended the shoe sale at Boots ’N’ Roots. I thank her, but I’ll find my own. Someone who works in an actual salon. Someone who knows how to cut thick curly hair without butchering it. Someone who can get me in asap, but that’s the problem. Four-star salons are booked solid for months in advance, and I officially start to freak out. No one will book Lou Ann Hunter, but Lou Ann Hunter has an ace up her sleeve. I call my assistant in Seattle and have her book an appointment in New Orleans for Lulu the Love Guru and special guest Lindsey Benedict. Lindsey has to drive to make sure I don’t get lost, and she’s the only person I know who needs her hair cut more than I do.

  I don’t like to use Lulu to get special treatment, but this is an emergency, and the owner of Shear Masters in the New Orleans Warehouse District gets us in after the salon has closed for the night. His name is Fabian LaFleur and he is a shears master. He corrects the length and thins the volume until soft messy curls fall to my jawline. It’s a nice change and I like it a lot—but there’s a reason I always wore it long and braided.

  “When did your hair get so curly like that?” Mom calls out, her voice vibrating and arms jiggling from the plush massage chair where she sits attempting to drink tea.

  “For as long as I can remember.” I glance up into the mirror. “Sorry,” I say, and Fabian continues to tell me how to keep my hair from looking like I stuck my finger in a light socket. By the time the three of us head home, my hair looks fabulous. Lindsey’s hair is short and sassy, and she can’t quit touching it or looking at herself in the rearview mirror. Even Mom got into the act and let Fabian trim several inches from her hair.

  We’re exhausted, especially Mom, and I don’t think she snores all night. If she does, it doesn’t matter, because I don’t crack my eyes open until ten the next morning.

  I can’t believe I slept so late and jump into the pink tub for a quick bath. The water remains hot and rust-free, and it cost me only eleven grand. I was told I’m lucky because it could have been a lot worse. If the pipes throughout the house had needed to be replaced, I would’ve had to add an extra zero to the final invoice. Which reminds me, the electrician’s bill came yesterday, but I’m afraid to open it.

  From
the top of the steps, I can hear Simon’s deep voice and deeper laughter. The last time I saw him, he told me to learn to zigzag and that instant grits aren’t grits. Which I still think is ridiculous, but my Alzheimer’s mom can tell the difference. It must be a Southern thing.

  There’s a different energy with Simon here, and I can feel it as I walk downstairs. It’s more than just his being a man. I had electricians and plumbers all over the house for several weeks, but it never felt like we were being exposed to alarming levels of testosterone.

  “How were your grits?” he asks Mom as I enter the room.

  “Horrible. They were instant.” She pretends to spit before she adds, “I about choked to death on those lumps.”

  “Simon’s come to take his bird back home,” Lindsey tells me.

  “I never said that. I’m just…” Simon glances my way and stops in mid-sentence. Raphael is perched on his finger and the two stare at me without blinking.

  They stand in front of the fireplace, Simon in a tight black T-shirt like he’s got something to prove, and the bird in a bright pink sweater like he got dressed in the dark. Raphael is the first to react and he bobs his head as if he approves of my hair and dark-red lips.

  I walk across the room and take a closer look at the trendy bird. “Is Lindsey right? Are you here to take your bird home with you?”

  “Mais no, tee Lou.” Simon’s gaze slides across my hair, stopping here and moving there. “I’m just here to give an estimate on the rail and bring Ray-feel his plucking vest.”

  “You work on Sundays?”

  “Don’t tell anyone.” The marbled stone behind him accentuates the variant depths in his green eyes. “I like your hair.”

  I resist the urge to fluff my curls and feel sorry for the women who aren’t immune to good looks and smooth drawls. “Thank you.” I glance at Raphael and see that it’s not a sweater but a fleece and it’s Velcroed across his back. “That vest is pink.”

  “Magenta,” Simon corrects me. “It takes a confident man to wear magenta.”

  “Can he fly in that thing?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “Dang. He’s been getting out of his cage.”