I thought I knew what she’d started to say. That Mrs. Dunningham had even made her feel she could be attractive if she’d lose that twenty pounds and gain some confidence instead. The more she talked—and she was fairly launched, now—the clearer picture I got of a lonely, self-conscious, homely girl getting her first taste of hope from this queer but kind old woman, who had made her feel she could do what she liked if only she believed in herself and tried. I also gathered—from frequent quotes of what Mom Always Says—that Wynola’s mother had taught her just the opposite. Maybe she was trying to protect Wynola from the sort of lumps she’d had to take herself; anyway, she’d warned her over and over not to expect any luck in life, not to expect anything.
“Mom always says a person who sets his heart on something is just stupid. She says if you don’t want anything, you don’t mind when you don’t get anything. I guess she’s right. But—”
“But you’ve got your heart set on something anyway?”
“Well—yes, but it’s silly.” Wynola glanced at me and blurted it out. “An airline stewardess. I always did wish I could be an airline stewardess. But gee, they’ve got to be so slim and pretty and all and have a lot of training, and—”
“So get slim and take the training! There’s no rule that says you’ve got to be a raving beauty.” Wynola looked at me big-eyed and swallowed, and I couldn’t help it, I went on. “Besides, you might look entirely different once you lost that weight.”
I suddenly realized I wasn’t talking much like Georgetta, but Wynola was too hypnotized by what I was saying to notice how I was saying it. “Entirely different?” she repeated.
“Well, different enough,” I said, resuming my Midwestern twang. “You ought to’ve seen my sister Charmeen before she got slim. You couldn’t even find her waistline. Besides, her hair was all— Say, have you always worn your hair that way?”
“Oh, I know it’s awful.” Wynola’s hand flew self-consciously to her hair as she glanced admiringly at mine. “I don’t know how to do hair. Not even after I finally got my permanent. And that’s nearly grown out now anyway, so—”
“I don’t think you ought to have permanents,” I told her, trying to envision her without the frizz. “Say, come over to the mirror a minute—let me try something.”
I know it was idiotic. I should have ignored Wynola’s beauty problems and got on with my detecting. But I couldn’t resist finding out how she’d look with that whole bushy mass cleared away. I brushed and brushed until I’d tamed the top, then pulled the rest back into a ponytail and kept it there with a rubber band. The tail part now closely resembled a thorn bush. But the effect from side and front was good and revealed the fact that she had a nice turn to her chin. The severity only needed softening and her forehead covering.
I said, “I bet you’d look good in bangs.”
Wynola was staring, fascinated, at her reflection. “Cut some and let’s see,” she breathed.
“Me? Oh, I might ruin you. Besides, you ought to have the back cut, too. Real short. With just a little dab in front of your ears.”
“Cut it. Go on. I don’t care if it ruins me or not!”
Our eyes met recklessly in the looking glass. I said, “OK, but for heaven’s sake get it trimmed up later at a hairdresser’s.”
“I will, I promise! Go ahead.”
I did—I couldn’t resist her. Well, I’m no Opyl. Naturally, I hacked up the back something shocking, but I left enough so that it wasn’t beyond professional rescue. And even rough, the effect was a good one—clean and simple and off her neck, which immediately looked less thick. She did not turn into a beauty. But when you’ve a lot of pounds, you simply don’t need a lot of hair, and any pruning would have improved her. She was tremendously excited—less about her hair than about the fact that I was fussing over her, I think. Her eyes had begun to have a worshiping expression when they turned my way.
As soon as I noticed this, I began to feel uncomfortable; then guilty because I’d fooled away another half hour of spying time on beauty counseling and undoubtedly needed my head examined. While Wynola helped sweep the clippings off the floor, she chattered happily about how surprised everybody would be, and how wonderful I was to take so much trouble, and how sure she was that she’d lose ten pounds by mid-July—and I tried to get back on the subject of Mrs. Dunningham. Suddenly, she did it for me.
“. . . and then maybe I’ll have those sky-diving lessons, only I don’t see how I could ever learn to do that—it’s so—”
“What kind of lessons?” I said, so abruptly that I rattled her.
“Oh—nothing. I probably won’t get to do it—” She laughed self-consciously and started backsliding into the old Wynola, but I caught her before she got there, and soon she was telling me all about it. “Well, Mrs. Dunningham and I saw this exciting thing on Miss Heater’s TV once—these people would dive out of an airplane just like you’d dive off a diving board. Only lots more gracefully . . . I don’t know, they sort of flew, and soared, and—it was like sea gulls. Then their parachutes would open, and they’d float down, and it was just wonderful.”
I gathered this was a performance by experienced instructors she’d seen; both she and Mrs. Dunningham had been entranced. Later they’d seen a follow-up program about the students these instructors taught—ordinary nonacrobatic people, who’d still behaved like a lot of gulls, and this had not entranced Wynola—it had depressed her. She couldn’t even dive into a swimming pool. She was fat. The kids at school thought she was a creep. She was a creep. She couldn’t do anything. And so on. Mrs. Dunningham had said, “Nonsense, you never know what you can do until you try. You could do this sky diving if somebody taught you and you practiced.” Wynola had said no she couldn’t, either; she was too fat and clumsy, and anyway she just couldn’t. Mrs. Dunningham had said she probably wouldn’t be fat if she took up sky diving in earnest, but of course nobody could do anything if they wouldn’t even try.
“And I said did she think sky diving would really—well, do something for me, if I tried. Make me more interesting,” Wynola told me earnestly. “And she said no, not the sky diving. But the trying would. Do you think that’s so, Georgetta?”
“I don’t know. Maybe so.” I was too startled to think it through. “Was that all she said about it?”
“That’s all, she never mentioned it again. But—she left me some money, in her will. For sky-diving lessons. Maybe she was just—sort of joking. Anyway, Dr. Edmonds said I mustn’t count on that working out. And Mom says—” She was frowning and studying her fingernails. Suddenly, she stood up. “I better go. I’ve got to string the beans for dinner.” She touched her shorn head and smiled, in an odd, wistful way. “I sure do thank you. For cutting my hair and—just everything.”
I couldn’t get her to stay or say another word about the will. But just as she was leaving, I said, “How did Mrs. Dunningham happen to turn up here, anyway? To rent this room, I mean?”
“Oh, that was just so lucky. Mr. Mulvaney just brought her here one day.”
I nearly shrieked, “Not Brick Mulvaney?” as if he were a long-lost chum of mine, but I restrained myself and asked carelessly who that was.
“He lives down the block a ways; he’s a taxi driver. Haven’t you ever seen him around the Rainbow? Great big, with red hair—only not like yours, more carroty. Well, ’by, and I sure do thank you.”
I closed the door, flipped rapidly through my mental pictures of people who came often into the café, and found Brick Mulvaney. At least, I found a great big man—not tall, but bulky—with hair more carroty than mine and a round, jovial face that he was always mopping as he walked in taking off a—yes, a taxi driver’s cap. So he’d brought Mrs. Dunningham here in the first place? I’d better ask him to tea.
I washed the cups and then sat down with my feet up and just thought for quite a while, about Mrs. Dunningham and Wynola. There was a lot t
o think about, and when I was finished, I understood some things but was more mixed up than ever about some others. However, I didn’t believe Wynola’s legacy was a joke—not any more, I didn’t. I believed it was a challenge. It looked to me as if that old lady had known she was going to die soon and had searched for some good death-defying way to go right on prodding Wynola to try, to have some gumption, to believe she could do things. It might have worked, too.
The trouble was, Wynola was almost certain not to get that legacy. In a way, it was a shame.
4
It was nearly six o’clock when I finally came out of my trance and took my feet down. I’d had a go at a lot of questions, including Sherry’s trip to England with Mrs. Dunningham, and though I’d found no answers, merely having some facts to think about gave me a nice brisk feeling of accomplishment. The sole item I never gave another thought to was Wynola’s haircut, which says precious little for my woman’s intuition.
The day had held good, in weather as well as in my devious little private affairs. Mrs. Hockins was out cutting roses in the fine late sunshine, and two girls in Sherry’s boardinghouse next door were dressing to go to a fireworks display that evening—I couldn’t see them, but their voices floated out their open windows and into mine. I hoped Sherry wasn’t going anywhere except to the Rainbow for dinner as usual, because I wanted a little chat with him about that English trip.
I freshened up a bit and walked down the hall to the front door, where I met Mrs. Jackson coming in with the evening paper. She stopped dead, looking up at me sidewise from under her dark brows, and totally ignored my greeting.
“What right you got to cut Wynola’s hair?” she demanded.
The attack was so sudden that it caught me unprepared. In fact, I had to scramble about mentally to think what she meant; then I was further off balance because I had no answer. What right had I to cut Wynola’s hair? Obviously, none whatever.
“Wh—why? Don’t you like it?” I said in a slightly shaky voice.
“Never mind. Took her months to grow all that hair! It was a permanent, too. Cost me eight dollars. All cut off now. Just throwed in the wastebasket!”
She was furious. That shook me as much as anything else; I’d never seen her exhibit emotion about anything before.
“I’m terribly sorry,” I said, forgetting all about Georgetta’s furry r’s. My lips felt as stiff and unmanageable as a couple of tongue depressors.
“Lot of good that’ll do. Sorry don’t put the hair back, does it?”
“No, it doesn’t.” Suddenly, I was angry, too. “Wynola doesn’t want the hair back. And a good job, too—she’s a hundred percent better-looking without it.”
“None of your business to say whether she is or isn’t.”
“That’s perfectly true,” I told her coldly. “I’m saying it anyway. Wynola loved it. It made her feel better. More—more hopeful.”
“What’s she got to hope for?” Mrs. Jackson flung at me.
“Whatever she wants to hope for—same as anybody else!” I flung right back. We were both talking rather loudly by now. “Hope doesn’t cost anything, does it? Neither does looking and feeling a bit prettier.”
“Pretty, with all that hacked-up stuff on her neck?”
That knocked the props from under me. “Of course it’ll—it’ll have to be evened up by a professional,” I faltered.
“That’ll cost something.”
“Well, I’ll pay for it! Oh—Mrs. Jackson, didn’t you ever cut your hair when you were a girl?”
Whether this touched any chord I don’t know; she had no ready answer for it, but on the other hand her face didn’t change nor her eyes soften. She just seemed to look through me, instead of at me, for a minute.
At this point a light, nervous little laugh sounded from the living-room door just opposite us. “I’m sure I did, many times,” Miss Heater said gaily. “My mother despaired of me, I know, but then it’s a girl’s privilege to change her mind, as everyone admits!”
This little speech failed to hew very fast to logic or even to good sense, but I’ve seldom been more grateful for anything. We both turned to Miss Heater, who stood, fluttering and beaming, in the doorway. She blinked and nodded and did her best to twinkle reassuringly at both of us as she added, “And really, Mrs. Jackson, Wynola’s hair looks quite stylish short, I think. She came and showed me.”
“Oh, I’m so glad you liked it, Miss Heater,” I said fervently.
Mrs. Jackson said nothing, but her hackles more or less subsided, and she turned abruptly and went off, muttering, toward the kitchen. This left Miss Heater and me standing there—rescuer and rescuee—feeling rather close-knit and tremulous about each other, but not knowing precisely how to talk about it. I was still upset and showed it, which probably saved the situation.
“Mrs. Jackson gets a bit cross sometimes. You mustn’t worry,” Miss Heater said in a comforting undertone. “She only acts this way about Wynola.”
“She acts like a dog with a bone about Wynola!”
“Yes. She does, doesn’t she? You’re quite right.”
“No, she’s quite right,” I said distractedly. “I hadn’t the least business cutting her hair, even if she doesn’t treat her as she ought to. I shouldn’t have let her talk me into it.”
Wisely making no attempt to sort these pronouns out, Miss Heater advised me again not to worry about it—and I began to realize I hadn’t flattened a single vowel during the entire little fracas.
“Well, thanks a lot for sticking up for me,” I said, climbing hurriedly back into my characterization.
Miss Heater told me it was nothing and asked me if I were going out to celebrate the Fourth. When I said no, only over to the Rainbow for dinner, her colorless eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Not going to the fireworks display? My, I thought all the young folks were attending that.”
“I guess I didn’t know about it,” I said, feeling awkward. “Probably it’ll struggle on without me, though.”
I smiled and was backing toward the door when she startled me by stepping forward and putting a hand impulsively on my arm.
“I wonder—would you care to come up to my room later on and watch some fireworks on my TV? It’s a special program, The Glorious Fourth. Nine o’clock. That is, if you haven’t anything else to do, or—”
She appeared to feel a bit awkward herself and broke off with a nervous smile, which changed to a relieved one when I said I’d love to come. “Till nine o’clock, then,” she said, and fluttered a hand at me as I left.
Well, what do you know, I asked myself. Miss Heater feels sorry for me.
5
Sherry was in the Rainbow as I’d hoped, studying the menu—can’t think why, because he invariably ordered shrimp or steak. I wasn’t sure how I meant to invite myself to join him and was too upset to think it out. I simply walked straight over and asked him why he wasn’t at a Fourth of July picnic like every other self-respecting, red-blooded American college student.
“Got rid of my self-respect, finally,” he answered, lounging to his feet and giving me a welcoming smile followed by a rather penetrating glance. “Why aren’t you? Just can’t stay away from this place, hm?”
“I’m having dinner, if I can find a place to sit down,” I said, looking at the other bench in his booth and not around the café, which was almost deserted. Sherry grinned, dusted the bench with a flourish of his napkin, and I sat down and appropriated the menu. “Are you having shrimp or steak?”
“Chicken,” Sherry said gently, just to prove I didn’t know as much about him as I thought I did. “What’s up, Greensleeves? Somebody’s either been pulling your hair or pulling your leg—you look all in the air about something.”
He evidently knew a good bit about me. I hesitated, then came out with it. “They’ve been pulling my hair—anyway, Mrs. Jackson has—because I cut Wynola’s.�
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“You cut Wynola’s hair? Well, I think that calls for a medal.”
“Mrs. Jackson doesn’t.” I told him the story—an edited version, with my sleuthing activities omitted—adding my uncomfortable suspicion that Wynola was beginning to confuse me with Queen of the May.
“I don’t doubt it, inviting her to tea and all. That was a real nice thing to do, Greensleeves.”
That made me more uncomfortable, since I knew full well it hadn’t been nice of me at all—my original purpose had been espionage, not kindness. “Well, I shouldn’t have touched her hair. But, Sherry, it did do a lot for her morale.” And there was a nice opening, which I seized. “That Mrs. Dunningham, the one who used to live in my room—she did a lot for Wynola’s morale, too. Wynola was telling me.”
At this point Helen belatedly sloped up to take Sherry’s order. She’d been in the kitchen—very likely in front of a looking glass—and hadn’t seen me come in. She stopped dramatically at sight of me and clapped a hand to her brow. “Heavens, if I’d known,” she said in tragic tones. “That you were free this evening. That you could have traded days off with me. I could have been watching those fireworks right now!”
“Not right now, could you have, honey? It’s not dark yet.”
“I thought of course everybody would have plans for the Fourth,” she went on, drowning me out. “Well, too late. Poor Vince. He was so disappointed. I’ll have to make it up to him somehow.”
“Give him a lock of your hair,” I suggested.
Sherry said hastily, “Greensleeves isn’t free. She’s having dinner with me.”
This struck Helen as a charming witticism; she laughed musically, fixed Sherry with a loving gaze, and even glanced my way so we could share our enjoyment of the joke. When I didn’t respond noticeably, she managed to get her face straight and was at last persuaded to go fetch us some chicken.
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