Sarah said nothing, but clamped her jaws shut to keep herself from crying for help—help that was miles away.
“Sarah?”
“Yes. Yes, you’re right.”
“Okay, then, I’ll see you later. Good-bye, hon.”
“Good-bye,” she said. “Alex—”
But he’d already hung up. Sarah slowly replaced the receiver in its cradle.
“Now, then,” Mrs. Green said, leaning close enough for Sarah to smell her sour breath, “may we begin? I don’t have all night, you know.”
Mrs. Green held out her arm toward the doorway.
Sarah hesitated. Her eyes fell to the letter opener, still clenched in Mrs. Green’s hand.
Go along, she thought fearfully. Don’t upset her.
Sarah led Mrs. Green to the back room. The room seemed brighter than Sarah had ever seen it—as bright as an operating room.
“What’s first?” Mrs. Green’s voice was filled with glee.
Sarah noticed that she’d brought along the letter opener. She was afraid to ask her to put it down, afraid to draw her attention to it.
“We, ah …” Sarah’s mind went blank. It was as if she were doing all this for the first time. “We … need to choose a color for you.”
She opened a cabinet and took out the color chart—a large book with thick pages to which were attached rows of small hair swatches. Each swatch was subtly different in color from the ones on either side. Sarah motioned to the padded hydraulic chair.
“If you’ll sit down, we—”
“I’ll stand,” Mrs. Green said, smiling. “Let’s have a look.”
Sarah opened the book and turned to the page of browns, which ranged from fawn through chestnut to chocolate. She glanced at Mrs. Green’s hair, which appeared to be a medium brown. It also appeared to be quite dirty—it even smelled dirty—and Sarah guessed that after it was washed and dried it would be at least one color level lighter.
“Perhaps one of these,” Sarah suggested, trying to keep her voice calm, trying to pretend that this was normal, that this was a normal customer. “Did you want it lighter or darker?”
“Oh, lighter, I think. Don’t you?”
Sarah nodded and wondered if she could escape now, just run for the door. She imagined Mrs. Green grabbing her from behind, perhaps by the hair, pulling her over backward, slashing down with the letter opener. …
“Perhaps this one,” Sarah said. She pointed to a light golden-brown swatch. Her finger trembled only slightly.
“Hmm. Yes, well, if you think it’s best.”
“It’s a nice color,” Sarah said. Then she added, almost apologetically, “I’ll have to wash your hair first.”
“Oh?” Mrs. Green reached up and touched a strand of her hair. She twisted it between a thick thumb and forefinger. “I suppose so.”
“Please.” Sarah indicated one of the chairs that was tilted back under a porcelain shampoo bowl.
Mrs. Green frowned.
“We have to wash it,” Sarah said, suddenly seeing a chance to escape. “Otherwise, the color won’t hold.”
Mrs. Green nodded, eyeing Sarah and then the chair.
“All right. Go stand on the other side of the chair.”
Sarah’s hope faded—the chair would be between her and the door.
“But I need to—”
“Over there.”
Mrs. Green motioned at Sarah with the letter opener. Sarah got a cape from the closet, then stood on the far side of the chair. Mrs. Green eased into it, letting her right arm hang loosely over the chair so that her hand brushed Sarah’s pant leg. Sarah draped the cape around her. Mrs. Green put her left hand—the one with the letter opener—in her lap above the cape, then leaned back until her head rested against the edge of the bowl. She looked up at Sarah and smiled.
“I’m all yours,” she said.
Sarah turned on the water, testing its temperature on her hand as it sprayed out of the flexible showerlike head. When it was warm enough, she began wetting down Mrs. Green’s hair. Then she squeezed shampoo into her hands and rubbed it into her hair.
Her hair felt at once greasy and gritty, as if it hadn’t been washed in days, perhaps weeks. Sarah had difficulty working up a lather. She had to rinse the hair and then apply shampoo a second time before the foamy suds began to build. All the while, Mrs. Green kept her eyes on Sarah’s.
At one point she moaned with sensual pleasure, making Sarah’s skin crawl.
Sarah again thought of escape. She didn’t think she was fast enough to run around the end of the long chair, especially not with Mrs. Green’s hand brushing against that side of her leg.
But maybe the window …
There were windows behind the counter and the shampoo bowls. They were closed and covered with Venetian blinds. Sarah remembered that the few times during the summer when she and Kay had opened the windows it had been a difficult task, for the wood frames were slightly warped and the windows often stuck. And she wasn’t certain if the screen could be removed from the inside.
I could jump up on the counter, she thought, yank open the window, kick out the screen …
“Sarah.” Mrs. Green’s voice was a stern warning.
“What?”
“Why did you stop?”
“I … we’re through.”
Sarah rinsed Mrs. Green’s hair, then hastily blotted it with a fluffy white towel. Without thinking, she moved toward the doorway. Mrs. Green leapt from the chair. Sarah froze.
“I … I need to get the tint,” she said.
“I want to see.” Mrs. Green’s voice was as bright as a child’s.
She followed Sarah across the room to the large cabinet near the doorway, then peered over her shoulder as Sarah selected the proper bottles. Mrs. Green looked on with rapt attention as Sarah mixed the chemicals in a plastic bowl, then poured the mixture into an applicator bottle and screwed on the top.
“You’ll have to sit down,” Sarah said, indicating the hydraulic chair.
“Fine. But don’t you dare get any of that in my eyes.”
Mrs. Green turned the chair so that it faced the doorway, so that Sarah would have to stand behind her.
Sarah wrapped her in a plastic cape. Then she combed her hair into four sections, parting it front to back and side to side. She put on plastic gloves and began squeezing the foamy coloring agent onto Mrs. Green’s hair, working it first to the roots. The mixture had a faint smell, not altogether unpleasant, but it seemed now to be overpowering to Sarah. She tasted bile in her throat and feared she might vomit.
She clenched her teeth and finished applying the solution.
Sarah set the timer for twenty minutes. She also glanced at her watch: 7:00. She wondered if Brian and Alex were eating dinner yet. Maybe they were finished already. She pictured Alex washing the dishes while Brian …
“Now what?”
Mrs. Green swiveled the chair, nearly pinning Sarah against the counter.
“We have to leave it on for twenty minutes,” she said.
Sarah moved away from her, into the room, and rinsed out the bottle, washed off her gloves, and laid them near the sink to dry. Mrs. Green watched her every move, her hair partially plastered to her skull.
“Tell me about your family,” she said from across the room.
“What?”
“Your family, Sarah,” she said, sarcasm dripping from her voice like venom from a fang. “Tell me about them.”
“I … I don’t know what you want.”
“I mean describe them, Sarah. Describe them.”
“What are you … why are you doing this?” she shouted, no longer able to hold back. “Please. You know all about us. Why can’t you just leave us alone?”
Mrs. Green was on her feet.
She walked slowly toward Sarah, the overhead light glimmering on her slick hair. The plastic cape hung over her hands, and Sarah could just see the shiny tip of the letter opener.
“I don’t know what you mean, �
��Leave us alone,’” Mrs. Green said. “I just want you to tell me about your family. Your husband. Now what was his name?”
“You know his name.” Sarah drew back until she was against the far wall.
Mrs. Green walked right up to her.
“Sarah.” There was scolding in her voice.
“His name is Alex,” she said softly, looking down.
“Alex. That’s right, I heard you call him that on the phone. That’s a nice name. A strong name. Do you love him?”
Sarah looked up at her. Mrs. Green’s face was neutral, expressionless.
“Yes,” Sarah said firmly. “Yes, I love him very much.”
Mrs. Green nodded.
“And your children?”
“I have a son,” she said, hearing the pride in her own voice. “Brian.”
Mrs. Green nodded.
“I have a son, too,” she said.
A bell rang. Mrs. Green spun around.
“It’s just the timer,” Sarah said. “I need to comb the tint through your hair.”
She followed Mrs. Green back to the chair. She was so tense that her joints ached. Mrs. Green sat down, and Sarah pulled a wide-toothed tint comb through her hair, then reset the timer for ten minutes.
“That’s why I’m getting my hair done,” Mrs. Green said.
“What?”
“For my son. I haven’t seen him for … for a long time.”
Sarah swallowed hard and looked more closely at her face, afraid of what she might see.
“We were separated some years ago,” Mrs. Green said. “But we’re getting back together. A reunion. And I want him to see me in my best light.”
Mrs. Green’s eyes were aimed at Sarah, but they’d lost their focus. Neither she nor Sarah spoke or even moved until the timer rang again. Mrs. Green snapped out of her trance.
“Now what?”
“We wash off the tint.”
When this was done, Sarah removed the plastic cape, wrapped her hair in a towel, and followed her out to the station. She could hear the faint sounds of traffic coming from the distant street. Mrs. Green turned the chair toward the front door, so Sarah was forced to stand behind her with her back to the shelf and the large mirror.
Sarah draped a clean cape around her, then ran a comb through her hair. She guessed it had once been squarely cut above the shoulders, but now it hung with ragged ends.
“Make it look real pretty,” Mrs. Green said.
“How much should … would you like taken off?”
“I’ll leave it up to you.”
“I … think a light trim.”
“Oh, well, you’re the boss.”
Sarah picked up her scissors from the shelf. Suddenly, Mrs. Green turned and grabbed her wrist, so quickly that Sarah saw her hand only as a blur. Mrs. Green’s grip relaxed almost at once, but Sarah could still feel the bite where the woman’s fingers had dug into her flesh.
“What an interesting pair of scissors,” Mrs. Green said. “May I see them?”
She took the scissors from Sarah and held them up, testing the points with her forefinger.
“They’re small, but they’re terribly pointed, aren’t they? Just like cats’ teeth.”
She handed the scissors back to Sarah.
“Please be careful, won’t you? I wouldn’t want you to accidentally stick me in the neck.”
That was something that Sarah never would have considered doing. But she considered it now, stabbing the woman in the neck and running out of the shop, shouting for help.
Sarah swallowed hard.
No, she thought. She’d jerk away from me at the last second and I’d miss. Or I’d only wound her slightly, just enough to enrage her. Or maybe I would hit her solidly and the scissors would crunch through her neck and the blood would spurt and …
No, she thought, I can’t.
She began to trim Mrs. Green’s hair. Her hands trembled so badly that she could barely hold on to the comb.
“Did you ever see a cat catch a mouse?” Mrs. Green asked suddenly, startling Sarah.
“I … no, I …”
However, she now remembered early this afternoon, when Patches walked toward her in the basement, a dead mouse dangling from his jaws.
“That’s too bad,” Mrs. Green said, “because it’s something to see. It’s instructive. It’s all about life and death. You see, the cat doesn’t kill the mouse right away. He has some fun first. He plays with it. He takes his time and enjoys it. He’s in no hurry. And the mouse, well, the poor little mouse can do nothing but let it happen. It knows it’s going to die.” Mrs. Green paused. “Of course, we’re all going to die.”
Sarah felt a chill go through her.
“Sometime,” Mrs. Green said. “Sometime.”
She said nothing more, and Sarah finished trimming her hair in silence. Then she blew it dry and carefully brushed it. Mrs. Green swiveled in her chair and looked past Sarah to the mirror, admiring her newly styled golden-brown hair.
“It’s very nice, Sarah,” she said, pulling off the cape.
She stood almost nose to nose with Sarah.
And for the first time Sarah noticed something about the woman’s eyes. More specifically, her eyelids. Her right eyelid drooped slightly lower than her left.
Two days ago, in her living room, Sarah had been shown a police photograph of Christine Helstrum. In that photo, Sarah recalled as clearly as if she were looking at it now, Christine Helstrum’s right eyelid drooped lower than her left.
“Good-bye, Sarah,” Mrs. Green said, and raised the letter opener.
Sarah jerked backward, the shelf jabbing her in the back. Mrs. Green leaned forward, quickly reached around Sarah, and placed the opener on the shelf beside the scissors. Then she turned on her heel, crossed the room, picked up her coat and scarf, and pushed out through the door.
25
SARAH COULDN’T MOVE. SHE felt paralyzed, leaning back against the shelf, staring at the front door, expecting Mrs. Green to walk right back in.
Except it wasn’t Mrs. Green.
It was Christine.
There was no doubt now in Sarah’s mind—Mrs. Green was Christine Helstrum. Somehow O’Hara was wrong. The people at the hospital were wrong. Christine wasn’t dead. She was alive, and she was here, right here.
Suddenly Sarah pushed away from the shelf and ran to the front door. She savagely twisted the metal knob, throwing home the lock.
Fully expecting Christine to come into view at any second, Sarah backed away from the heavy glass door and stopped only when she’d reached the desk. She picked up the phone and then nearly dropped it because her hand was shaking so badly.
She started to tap out her home number, then stopped. Alex could get to the shop in twenty minutes, she knew. But that meant twenty minutes of sitting here alone. What if Christine came back? What if she became enraged by the locked door and smashed through the window?
No, Sarah thought wildly. I’ve got to get out of here.
She yanked out the bottom drawer, tore open her purse, and grabbed her keys from it. She ran to the front door, then stopped, her hand on the metal knob.
Maybe she’s waiting right outside, Sarah thought.
She pressed her face close to the cold glass and tried to see if anyone was standing against the building. Her breath fogged the glass. She wiped it with her sleeve. She could see a light snow falling through the lights from the shop. The sidewalk and the parking lot were already dusted white. Far away, across the lot, cars were clustered near the department store. But in this corner of the shopping center, all the shops were closed, and the parking lot was deserted. The Jeep Wagoneer looked cold and abandoned.
Again Sarah pressed her face against the glass. She didn’t think anyone was out there, but she couldn’t tell for certain.
She took a deep breath, as if she were preparing to swim underwater. Then she twisted the knob, pushed open the door, and ran to her car, almost falling on the slick pavement. She dropped her keys,
bent down, and nearly kicked them under the car. They were wet from dirty snow, making her fumble with them for a few maddening seconds before she found the right one. All the while, her shoulders were hunched against the blow from behind, which could come at any moment.
She shoved the key in and opened the door, then scrambled into the Wagoneer, slammed the door, and locked it.
Sarah started the engine with a roar and flipped on the windshield wipers, then yanked the lever to “R” and spun the tires in reverse, suddenly realizing that a thin layer of snow covered the rear window, blocking her vision.
She blindly whipped the car around in a tight circle in reverse, barely missing a concrete-anchored light pole. When the hood was pointed toward a distant driveway, Sarah jammed the gear shift to “L” and flattened the accelerator pedal to the floor. The tires spun, making a whirring noise on the slick asphalt. The Wagoneer began to move forward, slowly at first, and then with greater speed.
By the time Sarah reached the entrance to the parking lot, she was going thirty miles an hour. The entrance led out onto Nevada Avenue, which Sarah suddenly realized was busy with traffic. She slammed on the brakes, throwing the Wagoneer into a sideways skid. She slid across one lane of traffic, barely missing a small sports car, which swerved wildly to avoid her. Sarah managed to regain control of the Wagoneer and hold her place in traffic as cars around her honked like angry geese.
She was shaking with adrenaline and with cold, and for the first time she realized that she’d left the shop without her coat or her purse. She turned on the heater and then—seeing something else she’d forgotten—the headlights.
Sarah drove for several blocks before she felt the heat from the blower. It was comforting, something warm and familiar. She began to calm down. She even allowed herself a dark smile: Christine had stiffed her for a color and a cut—she’d left without paying.
Then Sarah saw a shape move in the rearview mirror.
She slammed on the brakes, evoking more angry honks, before she realized that the shape was the top of a large truck that had changed lanes behind her. For a brief moment, though, she’d thought the movement had come not from behind the Wagoneer but from inside it. And she was seized with a new panic.
Night of Reunion: A Novel Page 18
