Operation Bonnet

by Kimberly Stuart

  “This is the secret,” he said, gesturing for me to lean in. “This is a shirt that will glow in the darkness.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Yes, I say it. I found it on the for-sale rack in the back of the Walmart. The tag said it would glow in the darkness, and when I got home, I found this to be true advertising!” He grinned and toasted my imaginary can of Red Bull before taking another swig.

  I cleared my throat. “So my first afternoon at the Schrocks went well.”

  He nodded and watched my face. “You met her?”

  “Granny Schrock? Sure I did.”

  “She can destroy humans.”

  “Doubt it.” I sniffed. “She was a pussycat with me. I’ll have answers for you in no time.”

  Amos shook his head. “This is difficult for me to believe, but I am happy to be observing. I am only glad she will not be talking to me for hours each Tuesday. When I was a young boy, I heard the news that she bound up small children in her attic and made them memorize all of the New Testament before she let them go.”

  “I’ll brush up on the Good Book, just in case.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “You are laughing, but you do not know very much. I lived near that woman my whole life. You have just met her.” He poked a finger at me. “To say the words of this amazing Mr. T, I pity the fool.”

  “What happened to Gidget?” I opened up the cash drawer to get a count before the day began.

  “I finished her. Now I watch A-Team. It is magnificent.”

  The front screen door creaked open, and Matt entered.

  He fist-bumped Amos. “How’s it going?”

  “It goes very well, thank you,” Amos said. He held up his beverage. “I would like to buy you a can of the Red Bull Energy Drink.”

  Matt raised an eyebrow. “Thanks, dude, but it might be a bit early for me. I usually start my energy drink IV at nine. We’re an hour shy of that mark.”

  Amos was already stationed in front of the vending machine, quarters flying. “Do not worry about the time,” he called back. “You will not notice the hour once you have swallowed your first taste.”

  “Wow,” Matt said in lowered tones. “Neon suits him.”

  I sighed. “Believe me, it loses its charm by noon. What are you doing here?”

  He folded over the counter and pushed his nose on the glass top. “You know, Nellie, there are kinder ways to phrase a greeting. How about, ‘It’s lovely to see you, Matt. You are so handsome, I find myself breathless in your presence’?”

  “I was getting to that.”

  Amos returned, bearing two cans of Bull. He handed one to Matt and turned to me. “This is for you, Nellie. I know you will be grateful for it later in this day.”

  “Thanks, Amos,” Matt said. “How’s the mini-golf project? Tank pimping you out to other parts of the course yet?”

  Amos nodded gravely. “The mini-golf is going well. But I am not certain about the pimping. Is this a verb? Is it like our talk at the diner, Nellie?”

  Matt finished a swig of his can and met my glance. “You guys went to Frank’s?”

  “Have you been there?” Amos began to sway back and forth, far too quickly to, say, calm a baby but just the right speed if you’re drinking liquid SweeTarts. “Have you eaten their very cold ice-cream malt shakes? I had—what, Nellie? Three? They are wicked good.”

  Matt watched my face. I felt my cheeks getting red, which was nothing if not irritating. “What?” I said, flustered. “Can’t a girl go out with a boy without weighing in with you?” Definitely not the way I heard it in my head first, but I didn’t like feeling cornered. Private investigating was private, and Matt was going to have to learn to accept that.

  “Totally,” Matt said. He took a long sip before coming up for air. He drew back and pitched the empty can into the trash, two yards away.

  “This is a great shot!” Amos said. “You are an athlete and a technological resource. I admire this.”

  “How’s the new job?” Matt was staring at me, which, last I heard, was socially inappropriate.

  “You have a new job, Nellie?” Amos’s eyes bugged. “Where? What about the Tank job?”

  “No, no,” I said, shaking my head. I gave Amos what I hoped was a meaningful glance. “He means, just the … that job.”

  It took a moment, but the light dawned. “Ahh,” Amos said. He made a cutting motion by his throat. “You do not need to be saying another word.”

  Matt watched this exchange, his mouth opened slightly. “Sweet,” he finally said. He slapped the counter with both hands. “Well, I should be going. Have to work at ten.” He began walking backward toward the door. “Thanks for the drink, Amos. Nellie, maybe I’ll see you around? Maybe not, though. I’m pretty busy lately.”

  “I love it when our plan will be coming together,” Amos called, pantomiming a fist bump in the air.

  “Bye,” I said, watching Matt go. He didn’t look back, and I heard him rev his Chevette before taking off down the gravel driveway.

  I careened into the parking lot of A Cut Above at exactly four thirty-five. Tossing my keys into my purse and slamming the door, I booked it to the front entrance, hoping Mrs. H. wouldn’t hear about this. The bells above the door announced my arrival, making everyone in the salon turn toward me.

  “Hey, everybody,” I called, long aware of the social mores in such a Casper moment. Ignoring the stares was tantamount to disrespect, even though my arrival at a hair appointment was really none of their darn business. Maybe in Cleveland no one would care when Nellie did or did not get her hair cut and whether or not she was a tidge late.

  “Hey, honey,” Bette called from the last chair of three facing a half-wall of mirrors. “I’ll be right with you. Almost done with Kitty here.”

  I signaled no hurry, relieved that Maud, the salon owner, would not feel the need to call Mrs. H. about my tardiness since Bette was running late anyway. Maud and Mrs. H. were friends, I supposed, though I couldn’t for the life of me imagine any warmth emitting from either of them. She stood at the chair closest to the door, rolling a tight perm into the short blue hair of Mrs. Clancy O’Malley, a woman who owned twenty-three cats and counting. I waved to Maud, who nodded upward with her double chin and left me at that. Again with the warmth.

  I took a seat by the magazine rack and began a halfhearted page-through of InStyle. Most of the models seemed about my age, and they were female. Other than that, though, I could find very little that connected me to them. I saw heavy representation of eye makeup, heels, and some horrible phenomenon called “skinny jeans,” but no one who looked like me. Then I turned to a story titled “I Hate My Hair! What I Did to Tame My Mess.” Now, this girl looked like me, at least in the “before” photo. She was white and had a blonde Brillo pad around her head that looked a lot like mine. I stared at her, stared at her happy, “after” photo, and felt the first twinges of girliness I’d had in years. When Bette came up front to settle Kitty’s bill, I slammed shut the magazine, feeling hopeful and silly in equal parts.

  “You take care now, Miss Kitty,” Bette said, patting the woman’s arm. “You tell that Howie he needs to take a girl out when she looks this fresh and pretty.”

  When the door shut behind Kitty, Bette turned to me and clapped her hands. “All right, darlin’. I’m ready for the mane.”

  I tucked the magazine under my arm and allowed myself to be side-hugged by Bette.

  “How are things, girl?” She used a firm grip to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. After years of trimming my hair, the woman knew how to be a disciplinarian.

  “I’m all right, thanks.” I put my purse under the mirror.

  She stared at it. “Well, isn’t that something,” she said. “I don’t believe I’ve seen a denim purse for a good long while.” She smiled at my reflec
tion in the mirror. “You march to your own beat, don’t you, Nellie Monroe? I like that.”

  I looked at the purse, a gift from my mother in junior high. I suppose that qualified it for outmoded, but I couldn’t see why I’d buy a different one. Not really one for purses in general, this one suited my needs. It held a wallet, an elastic for my hair, and a tube of Mary Kay lip gloss, the same one that had been in the purse the day I received it as a thirteenth-birthday present. Compact and utilitarian. Exactly what a purse should be.

  “If denim’s out,” I said to Bette, “what’s in?”

  She bit her lower lip, stifling a giggle. “First off, women now prefer purses that can hold more than a chipmunk.” She shook her head. “Oh, how my dear and frugal husband would prefer that I still carried a denim purse from the early nineties.”

  “You can have mine,” I said, shrugging. “I’ll even include the chipmunk.”

  She laughed, showing two rows of white teeth with three silver fillings in the back. She pulled a black cape around my front and snapped it at the nape of my neck. “Now, miss,” she said, “what are we doing with this hair today? Standard trim and all-over thin?”

  I cleared my throat and cast a nervous glance toward Maud, who, predictably, was silent and listening to our conversation. Mrs. Clancy O’Malley had fallen asleep in the cloud of perm fumes.

  “I …” I began, then lowered my voice to a near-whisper. “I think I’d like to try something different.” I pulled the magazine out from under the cape and pointed to the makeover story. “Can you do that to me?” I whispered.

  Bette read in silence for a moment. Maud glanced up from the rollers to see what all the hush was about.

  Closing the magazine and placing it carefully on her station counter, Bette turned to face me. “I’ve been waiting for this moment for eight years. And the answer is yes, I can do that to you.” She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  I thought she was being dramatic, but it turned out that Bette had actually been pining for me to do something about my hair for eight years. Once I opened the floodgates, the woman was on a tear.

  She stabbed a stack of foils and peeled one off the top with the end of a comb. “I mean,” she said, her breathing shallow, “the options are really endless. I know you were burned by that around-the-state quest your mom took you on all those years ago. But hair has come so far since then. There are straightening techniques that we didn’t even know about in the late nineties, the whole flatiron revolution, entire lines of products specifically designed for women of color.”

  “Or white girls with kinky hair.”

  “Exactly!” She nodded, her face gravely serious. “And these auburn low lights we’re putting in are going to make your natural color shine but in a sophisticated way. Because you’re a woman now, Nellie. You have to remember that.”

  Ew. I hoped this wasn’t going to head into a discussion of fallopian tubes, because even though I still carried a chipmunk purse, I knew all about the Miracle of Life.

  “And let’s say you want to go curly,” Bette continued, happily distracted from my womanhood. “Curls are very in. I have lots of ideas on how to manage your curls without giving in to frizz.”

  I watched her pull strand after strand of my hair out from its nest and gently brush on blue goop. I was on the cusp of starting my career and having real-life clients and real-life business cards. I needed to inspire confidence in my capabilities and if low lights would help with that, I was open.

  “Time to cook.” Bette patted the foils, and we looked at my reflection.

  “Have mercy,” I said. By layering the foils on my already wild coiffure, Bette had created a full metallic-tinged circle around my head. I looked like one of those Renaissance saints on the walls of museums, orbed with my modern extraterrestrial halo and full of holy fear.

  “Don’t worry,” Bette said, steering me toward a fancy-looking dryer mounted to the wall. “This is only the first step. The first step is always the most difficult.”

  I’d heard that said about drug rehab but not as much about hair. After a good twenty minutes “cooking” and a vigorous shampoo, Bette led me back to her chair and started to cut. This part was familiar, and I relaxed as I filled her in on my family, work at Tank’s, my plans for the summer.

  Maud didn’t even pretend she wasn’t listening. “Hey,” she called, “I heard there’s an Amish out at the golf course. What’s he like?”

  “Um, nice, I suppose,” I said. Bette looked at me so hard, I broke eye contact. I would really need to work on my skills of deception. The nuance was killing me.

  “I see,” Bette said, drawing out the words. “Like what kind of nice? Personality nice, or nice-to-old-lady-golfers nice, or nice-to-look-at-shirtless nice? Or all three perhaps, you lucky girl?”

  Maud’s cackle woke Mrs. Clancy O’Malley from her slumber. She laughed too, as if she hadn’t missed a word.

  “Just nice,” I said, trying for a breezy, disinterested tone. “I guess he’s good-looking, but I’m not interested.”

  “Ah, hard-to-get.” Bette nodded and snipped off an alarming amount of hair. “The oldest but most effective game in the book. Be careful, Nellie, because if you’re good at hard-to-get, you just might land yourself a husband.”

  Maud snorted. “Better hope he won’t turn you Amish. Those people are bizarre.” She said the word as if trying to impress me. Two syllables with a French derivative must have been big to Maud. She raised an eyebrow and nodded at me, I guess waiting for applause.

  “I heard,” Bette offered in a stage whisper, “that they don’t let their children bathe but one time a month.”

  “That’s true,” Mrs. Clancy O’Malley said. “I read it once. And they also don’t allow women to speak in public. Not even at funerals, bless their hearts.”

  “Well, I should say.” Maud clucked her tongue. “It’s no wonder they don’t want electricity. Probably worried the word would get out about their repressive ways.” More staring at me, nodding, upping the ante with three syllables.

  “Actually,” I said, trying really, really hard not to roll my eyes or make scoffing noises, “the Amish typically bathe once a week, which is plenty but strange to the average American, who consumes more than twice the world’s average of water any given year, roughly the volume of an Olympic swimming pool. Also,” I continued, feeling my heart beat faster, “women are encouraged to speak, both privately and publicly. Typically, though, they do it with more dignity and kindness than we do. And as for electricity, they’ve chosen to separate themselves from what they perceive as a rushed and empty culture. Instead, they cut themselves off from any technology that might put a distance between themselves and their families, the land, or God. Admirable, really.” My face needed low lights by this time. “I don’t think I’d have the discipline to live that way.”

  Silence descended on the salon. A swollen bubble of air rose in the water cooler.

  Bette cleared her throat. “So he’s hot?”

  Maud slapped her thigh and made it jiggle while Mrs. Clancy O’Malley giggled into a handkerchief.

  “Whatever,” I said into Bette’s belly. She stood in front of me, snipping final touches in long bangs around my face but shaking from laughter. “Just don’t mess up my hair while you’re laughing at your own jokes.”

  “Come on, now,” she said, spinning my chair to face the mirror. “What will the Amish boy say about this?”

  I stared at myself. It wasn’t like the movies where the woman turns to the mirror weeping and telling everyone how in love she is with herself. But, holy cats, did I look great. Bette had taken up the length to just below my shoulders and had cut soft layers all the way around. My hair was still curly but the curls were loose and boingy. Forgive me, Merriam-Webster, but they were boingy. I turned my head back and
forth and was happy to see my hair move, despite a sprinkling of hair spray Bette rained down.

  “Wow,” I finally said. “Bette, you’re a genius.” I met her eyes in the mirror and grinned. “Why didn’t you do this years ago?”

  “Shut up.” She bit her lower lip and reached for a tissue to blot her mascara.

  I stood to go. “Bette, please. The drama is too much.”

  “I can’t help it,” she said, her voice sounding all snotty and stuffed up. “Beauty makes me cry. It’s my artistic temperament!”

  I shook my head, feeling my curls bounce on my shoulders, and straightened my spine as I walked. One solid client and a new haircut, and I already felt a successful career knocking at my door.

  13

  School of Hard Knocks

  I stopped at the threshold of the back door and listened. Robust soprano and alto voices mingled in an upbeat hymn. It was not yet noon, but the June sun beat bossy rays onto my bonnet, probably doing untold damage to my new hairdo. I squinted through the curtains, sweat prickling my scalp. During a break in the singing, I knocked twice on the glass. Sarah came to the door and peeked through the curtains.

  “Hello, Nellie,” she said when she opened the door. “We are pleased to have you visit again. Come in.” She stood aside to let me pass.

  I smiled and stepped into the kitchen, which was imperceptibly cooler than outside. The scent of yeast hung heavily in the air, but no heat came from the oven. The two young girls were there again, and the tall one approached me.

  “How do you do?” She put out her hand for a shake. “My name is Katie Lapp. I help the Schrock women with household duties.”

  “No way!” I said and did a fist pump. The women stared, and I became all nonchalance. “I mean, great to meet you, Katie. I’m Nellie.” Katie Lapp! The Katie Lapp! God bless Professor Moss, and may she never know it!

  She laughed. “This I know, of course. You’re the only English girl who comes to cook.”