The City Hall thermometer reads 81°
“Oh! Oh, I’m sorry,” Mildred said. Each time a clap of thunder sounded, she would jump, and Charlene would mess up with the polish.
“It’s all right, Mildred. We’ll get it by and by.” Charlene took a tighter grip on Mildred’s fingers, which were a little greasy because she kept eating Fritos out of a little blue Tupperware container.
Oralee, trimming Odessa Collier’s beautiful white hair, was also watching the report on television of the damage done by the early morning storms down in Texas. “Thank heaven it was them and not us,” she said.
“Oralee, what a thing to say,” Dixie Love said. “It’s a shame it is anyone.”
“Well, it does have to be somebody,” Oralee said practically. “That is the way the storms go in this country. And we’re lucky we are just gettin’ the leftover. I don’t know why I don’t leave this hick town and move back up to Chicago, where they don’t get tornadoes.”
“They get snow. Piles of it,” said Odessa Collier. “And, Oralee, please look more at my hair than at the television.”
“I believe I’ve heard of a tornado up there,” Dixie Love put in. “Tornadoes are possible in every part of the world.
“Well, all those prayin’ for rain can please stop,” Oralee said.
The thundering had passed by the time Mildred’s nails had finished in the UV dryer. As Mildred admired the results and went over to show the other ladies her bright fingernails, Charlene put the lid on the container of Fritos for her. Mildred dropped it carefully into her purse and then went over to sit in Dixie’s chair for her hair appointment, without thinking to pay Charlene.
Charlene would not ask her. It would have been like asking an aunt. A rather destitute aunt.
The thing was, Charlene was beginning to feel a little destitute. She had been working for almost a week now, and despite the rosy financial picture Oralee had proposed, she was not earning much of a living.
It was only ten-thirty, and with no customers scheduled for the rest of the day, Charlene felt a little blue. She comforted herself by arranging all the bottles of polish at her station. She loved to see so many bottles of color, even if she did owe Dixie for them. She loved to be sitting at her manicurist station, waiting and ready to improve someone’s nails in an almost instantaneous way, as she had not been able to improve her marriage.
By the second day, when she had experienced an appalling dread upon going home, Charlene realized that her job at the beauty shop was not so much about earning money as it was a way for her to escape the sense of disappointment that haunted her at home.
Each evening, when she went home from the shop, she would wait on the front step for her children to come down the drive from where the bus let them off. She would not go into the kitchen until they arrived, at which point they would go in together, and she would bring out every good snack she could think of to please them. She wanted to do nothing else but hang around in her children’s bedrooms, asking them to tell her about their day or if they needed her help with homework. She wanted to be with her children because, she felt, at least with them she had not failed. When they would finally give her that look to shoo her away, she would go to arranging their closets and drawers.
At night, after the house was quiet, she would find herself once again listening for Joey to come home, knowing she would be disappointed. She would listen, too, for her very self, and be disappointed in not finding that, either.
Then each morning she dressed with a sense of eagerness and was ready for Larry Joe to drive her into town the instant Danny J. and Jojo left on the school bus. And the instant she stepped into the shop, she would experience both a sense of peace and a sense of possibility. Here she was not a mother or a discarded wife, not somebody’s daughter or sister, but purely a woman, with other women, discussing things of importance to their lives as women and making a difference in the lives of other women.
Oralee, observing Charlene wearing herself out arranging all the bottles of polish, said, “Things are slow right now because of all this rain, but they will pick up—and so will the tips,” she added loud enough that Odessa Collier lifted her eyes and told her to stop hinting.
And Oralee said, “I am not hinting. I’m sayin’ it straight out.”
Charlene said to Odessa, “She needs the money to feed the kitten she saved from drowning in the alley this morning,” and caught Dixie Love’s smile in the mirror. Charlene had learned that Oralee went to great effort to appear hard as a hazelnut, while, like the nut meat, she was sweet and tender inside.
Oralee flashed black eyes at her and pointed the comb at the tiny calico now sleeping on a towel in an emptied curler tray. “I just wanted to hush the critter up. It was makin’ enough noise to wake the dead. I’m takin’ it over to the animal shelter when I leave here.” Then she added sweetly, “Unless any of you ladies want to do the good deed and give it a home.”
They all remained quiet and averted their eyes.
“Uh-huh. That’s what I thought,” Oralee said.
When the bell over the door jingled, Charlene looked up expectantly, smiling in preparation for a customer, hopeful to greet someone who, if she didn’t plan to have her nails done, would see Charlene sitting there sweetly and suddenly decide she could not do without a manicure.
Charlene’s smile froze, as she saw the woman who came through the door and over to the counter like she meant business, her tight tan jeans flashing with each stride, her hair like glossy black silk and the curve of her cheek like fine porcelain.
It was Sheila Arnett, right there in front of Charlene’s eyes, and she said to Dixie, “I need to have a nail repaired.”
“Why certainly,” Dixie said with all her customary pleasantness. “Charlene would be glad to fix it.”
Then Sheila Arnett was gazing right at her with deep blue eyes that widened with shock.
Charlene had already gotten to her feet. For the space of five taut seconds she and Sheila Arnett stared at each other. Then Charlene did what seemed the only thing to do. She stepped forward and asked, “Do you want silk overlay or acrylic?” She held her hand out to accept the other woman’s.
Sheila glanced around at the others watching them, then back at Charlene. “Acrylic,” she said in a low voice, although she did not display the damaged nail but kept one hand at her side while with the other she smoothed hair back behind her ear.
Charlene pulled the chair out. “Please have a seat.”
Slowly Sheila slipped down into it, sitting on the edge. Charlene sat in her own chair and reached for her reading glasses and then looked at the woman.
Sheila Arnett laid her hand on the towel atop the table in a careful manner, as if expecting the towel might burst into flame any minute.
Charlene took the woman’s hand just as carefully into her own. It was like picking up an ice cube. And the skin was like smooth porcelain, too. But her nails were not her own, and for that Charlene felt a small slice of gratification.
She worked on the nail with perfect calm. She actually felt in control, and feeling such, she could be magnanimous and have no ugly thoughts about the woman at all. It was a delightful feeling.
In a few minutes she had the nail cleaned, had a tip in place, formed and filed and looking exactly like a genuine nail.
“Do you know the color of your polish?” she asked. “I may have it. It looks very much like Passion Rose.”
“Don’t bother,” Sheila Arnett said, jerking away her hand and coming up out of the chair. “Thank you.”
Charlene saw the green twenty-dollar bill flutter to the table. The woman pivoted and was out the door.
In an instant Charlene snatched up the bill and ran out the door. Sheila Arnett was three cars down, getting into her Lexus. With firm, swift steps, Charlene ran down the still-damp sidewalk and reached the driver’s door just as it slammed closed. She stood there, waiting, so determined it was as if her thoughts came out and pounded on the car
roof, until the darkly tinted window finally slid down.
“Yes?” Sheila said from behind dark glasses.
“It’s on the house,” Charlene said and tossed the money in the woman’s lap. Jamming her hands into the pockets of her smock, she strode back to the shop, where she went straight past everyone staring at her and into the bathroom.
As she regarded her reflection in the mirror, seeing very good bone structure and a lovely complexion, for which she could thank her mother, but with forty-six years of creases growing around her eyes and lips, she began to cry. But then she thought of the shocked look on Sheila Arnett’s face, and she started to laugh.
She breathed deeply and heard the murmur of voices through the door. Murmurs of support and concern.
Oralee’s voice was never a murmur. “She showed that slut what a real lady is.”
Friends, Charlene thought.
A knock sounded on the door. “Charlene, honey, I really have to use the bathroom.” It was Mildred.
Charlene opened the door, and Mildred gazed up at her, her expression anxious. Very quickly Mildred hugged her, then darted into the room and shut the door.
Odessa, just then leaving, cast her a smile and a wink. Dixie came over and hugged her.
After a few minutes Oralee said, “How much did she give you?”
“A twenty.”
“Uh,” Oralee said, frowning. “That woman is definitely cheap. If she had wanted to make a point, she should have used a hundred, at least.”
“And if it’d been a hundred, I’d have kept it,” Charlene said, which earned her an honest-to-goodness wide smile from Oralee.
A few minutes later the bell jingled again, and Charlene jumped, automatically thinking of Sheila.
It was Iris MacCoy, looking like a model out of a Victoria’s Secret summer catalog, who came straight over to Charlene and said, “I just saw Odessa’s nails. She said you did them. Could you do mine in that shade, too?”
Her first referral, Charlene thought, happily sitting Iris down.
The City Hall thermometer reads 86°
Joey was in the barn, examining a horse’s swollen leg, when Sheila came blowing in like a wild wind, saying, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Tell you what?” he said, straightening and feeling the need to defend himself. Sheila was leaning forward and looked very much like she might smack him.
“That your wife is workin’ at the beauty shop. The least you could have done was tell me, Joey. I felt so stupid.”
“Charlene’s working at the beauty shop?” he said, feeling thrown into confusion by the surprising information, as well as Sheila’s accusations.
“Yes, she is. The one time I decide I can get something done in this town, and there she is, acting all righteous. I don’t need that, Joey. She has no right to treat me like that.”
She pivoted and stomped away, seeming to take the wind with her, and Joey stood there watching her go, wondering if he should go after her and apologize, although he wasn’t certain what he would apologize for.
It wasn’t like Charlene to be rude to anyone. Sheila, though, was likely to be rude. Sheila didn’t have much patience.
Then he thought, Charlene is working. She isn’t at home.
Within an hour, the entire town knew about the meeting between Sheila Arnett and Charlene at the Cut and Curl. Charlene was fairly certain the story was carried by Mildred, who had gone straight to Blaine’s to pick up a bottle of milk of magnesia, which she made certain to say was for Ruthanne, and had told Belinda Blaine and everyone else within hearing distance of the checkout counter about Sheila Arnett coming into the beauty shop, “bold as brass,” and Charlene, “like the lady she is,” fixing Sheila’s fingernail. From the drugstore, Mildred had gone on to the Senior Center, where she again told the story, a Paul Revere of gossip.
Such good gossip went like wildfire through the town, and as with all repeated stories, it got embellished until one version had Charlene slapping Sheila and throwing her out of the beauty shop, and another had Charlene broken down in tears so bad a doctor had to be called.
Early in the afternoon, when Charlene made the trip around to the cafe to get the fountain drinks, it seemed that everyone in there turned an eye to her. She told herself this was her imagination, but she couldn’t fully shake the sensation of being stared at.
Then Fayrene, while ringing up the drink order, asked in a hushed voice, “I hear Sheila was over there at the shop this morning.”
“Yes,” Charlene said, handing over a bill.
Fayrene handed back her change. “We heard that you slapped her.”
“No, I didn’t. I fixed her nail.”
“Well, I would have slapped her,” Fayrene said and closed the register drawer with a hard bang.
Charlene was certain when she left that half the people in the cafe were indeed watching her. She paused with her hand on the cool chrome door handle, then turned and said, “The true story is that Sheila Arnett came into the shop and I fixed her nail. That is all, sorry.”
And then she left, appalled at making a spectacle of herself and laughing at the same time. She felt suddenly lifted and carried along. As if she had made it over some difficult and rocky hill. As if during those few minutes when she had faced Sheila, she had turned some corner.
Charlene had this thought just as she turned the corner of the street, and it caused her to pause a moment. Her gaze drifted over, and through the large tinted window she saw the same woman at her desk in the Valentine Voice offices. Giving the woman a smile, Charlene waved.
The woman looked taken aback, and then she tentatively waved in return.
The City Hall thermometer reads 88°
When Charlene came out of the shop, she found Joey parked right in front.
Seeing her, he hopped out. “I told Larry Joe I’d give you a ride home.”
“Oh, okay,” she said, squinting a little in the sun that had burnt off the clouds.
He surprised her by hurrying to open the passenger door. As she slipped into the seat, she saw a bouquet of flowers wrapped in red tissue paper lying in the middle. The sight jolted her so much that she slipped, and Joey had to grab her.
He slammed the door closed. She watched him round the hood, and then she looked down again at the flowers, wondering at them and at his peculiar behavior. She supposed she should not consider it peculiar behavior. Doing a good turn for one’s wife and son and making a special effort to be polite should not be considered peculiar.
“These are for you.” He picked up the bouquet and held it toward her, his expression so shy and hopeful it went clear to her heart.
“Thank you,” she said, accepting the flowers.
She smoothed the tissue paper. The thing was that she had gotten used to him having left her. For him to pop back into her life now, offering rides and flowers, caused almost as much stress as when he had abandoned her. She wasn’t certain how to act, what to say. All the way to the house, she held the flowers in a death grip, vacillating between hitting him over the head with them and breaking out in tears. The most conversation she could offer was to respond to his questions that yes, she was now working at the beauty shop, and Dixie had agreed to hours that allowed her to get home to be there when the children got home from school.
When they stopped in front of the house, they both sat there for a silent moment.
Charlene said, “Thank you for the flowers, and the ride.”
Joey shrugged. Then he said, “I think I’ll go get the horses ready for when Danny J. gets home,” and raised an eyebrow at her.
“He’ll like that,” she said. He started to get out, and she said, “Joey.”
He looked over at her.
“I think we need see Jaydee Mayhall about a divorce.” She had meant to be more diplomatic. It was her fear that made her say it like that. She made herself look him in the eye. The pain she saw there took her breath.
Staring straight at the steering wheel, his jaw tigh
t enough to break, he nodded. “I guess, if that’s what you want.”
Charlene was struck to the core. She wanted to scream at him that here he was again putting it on her. She saw very clearly in that second that this was how it was between them, how it had been for a long time, and no amount of yelling and screaming was going to change it. She looked at him and felt great sorrow for him.
“Joey, I still care for you. I will always care for you, but it’s just too late. I’m not the same person, and neither are you.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” he said heavily.
Again silent seconds ticked away, and then she asked, “Do you want me to speak to Jaydee, or do you want to?” knowing full well what his answer would be.
“You do it.”
He got out and slammed the truck door. She saw him in the dusty side-view mirror, striding away toward the barn.
Carefully she laid the flowers in the seat, got out of the truck and went inside. She thought she might cry, but the tears did not come. She supposed she had cried herself out over Joey and her failed marriage weeks before. She had, she thought with a great deal of surprise, moved on down the road. She didn’t know where she was going, but she knew she was headed in the right direction.
The sun was far to the west when Joey unsaddled his horse, throwing his saddle and sweat-soaked pad in the back of his truck. Joey was sweat-soaked, too, and wished fall would finally arrive. He was tired of sweating.
He turned and saw Danny J. standing at the entry of the barn, watching. “When are you comin’ back, Dad?” his son asked, his gaze moving to the saddle in the truck and back to Joey.
“Not till next week, I guess. I got a horse show down in Fort Worth this weekend, and I gotta get ready for it,” Joey said, looking over at his roan gelding tied to the fence. “You look after Blue for me until I get back, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You know,” Joey said, putting his hand on his son’s shoulder, “you’re doin’ just great with your bronc ridin’. You got the fundamentals down now. What you need is to find your own seat, and it will take practice to do that. Your mother can watch you ride when I’m not here.”
Driving Lessons Page 24
