“Will it help?”
“I hope. She’s been so sick and weak. At the worst of it, in the hospital, Michael said that Theresa started mumbling about all of the little babies crawling around the room.”
“Babies?”
“Yeah, she saw them on the bed and crawling on the floor. She told Michael that one was sitting on his lap.”
“What?”
“The doctors told Michael she was hallucinating, but between you and me, I think she had little angel babies protecting her.”
“Wow.”
“The rosary group’s still meeting, so we’re just turning up the prayers. Your jelly bean contest and the story behind it actually cheered me up.”
“Any time my wacka-doodle staff can be of help.”
As Lucy walked out the back alley to her car, the bell rang above the front door. Elsie walked Octavia in the front door. Octavia stopped at the big jar of jelly beans on the desk and stared.
“Would you look at that, Octavia?” Elsie spoke in a beautiful, thick Irish accent, “Look at all of those jelly beans. Aren’t they beautiful!”
Several staff members looked at the jar and frowned. I helped Elsie take Octavia’s coat off as Octavia continued to stare at the jar.
“How you doing, Elsie?” I asked.
“We’re not having a very good day today. Perhaps we could make this a quick one.”
“Sure.”
The past few appointments had been the same. Octavia no longer needed her warming-up time. No more verbal banter. No more stories. She sat in her appointments holding her cell phone with both hands. She might comment on the music being too loud, but mostly she sat quiet. Elsie and I guided Octavia to my chair.
“How about those jelly beans, Octavia. Kind of crazy, huh?”
“Crazy,” Octavia muttered as she looked at her phone, her hands shaking. She sat down and looked at me in the mirror with a question on her face. “Amazing?”
“That’s me,” I said. “Pretty amazing.” I combed out her hair.
“Such a resemblance.”
“Who are you talking about, lady?”
“Your father. You look just like your father.”
Did Octavia even know my father? “My father?”
“Now, does he still farm outside of town?”
“Of what town?”
Octavia paused. “Oh, I thought you were… you look like Donald.”
“Donald?”
“A boy who lived by me in Fremont. We used to show sheep at the fair…” Octavia looked at the phone in her hand. “Such a resemblance.” Relief came over me like the buzz off a stiff drink. Just what was going on in the beautiful head in front of me? Octavia was quiet for most of the rest of the appointment. The group No Doubt filled the room with their song “Don’t Speak.”
As I finished Octavia’s hair, she mumbled, “I caught one of those TV shows late last night.”
“TV shows?” I’d never heard Octavia talk about television before.
“Where they interview someone and talk about their life.”
“Like a documentary?”
“Yes, yes, a documentary. With that Diane Sawyer lady. She’s doing something funny with her hair now.” Was I talking to the real Octavia here?
“Twenty/Twenty or Forty-Eight Hours?”
“Something like that. A documentary. Late. Very late. And I’ll be damned if they weren’t doing a whole segment on Elbert True… E.B. True.”
“E.B. True?”
“My old man,” Octavia spoke in a gruff voice. No, I wasn’t talking with my old friend Octavia.
“Your dad?”
“He talked about the farm and the bankruptcy.”
“They actually interviewed him?” What was I saying? Octavia’s father would have been dead for years now. “Maybe the man just looked like your dad.”
“You think I wouldn’t remember what my old man looked like?” Octavia shouted. Jenae and her client looked over at the old woman in my chair.
“Sorry.”
“Sounded like he’d been drinking, that ole son of a bitch. That’s when I knew it was him for sure.” Octavia stopped. Elsie saw that I was finishing up.
“Then Diane Sawyer asked about his twelve children.”
I put my combs and brushes away. I was intrigued.
“He answered. Right there on national television. He said that he didn’t care much for kids. Kind of a pain in the ass. That was what he used to always say about us. I tried to change the channel, and then the old man looked right at the camera and said, ‘Octavia, she was the homely one, downright ugly.’” Octavia’s lip began to tremble. “That’s what he said.” She held her phone and began to rock back and forth. Tears filled her eyes.
Elsie walked up as I placed my hands on each of Octavia’s shoulders. I consoled her, “Those shows are all a big setup, Octavia. All for ratings. Not real. Anyone who knows you knows that you’re beautiful.”
Octavia looked at me in the mirror and beamed liked a child being praised by a teacher. Elsie took her hand. “Octavia, dear, we need to be getting along now. We need to get lunch ready.”
“We need to go,” Octavia mumbled as Elsie and I helped with her coat. “It’ll be dark soon.”
I walked the girls to the car on the sunny Friday morning in November, relieved that I did not look like my old man.
33
Lucy: Protein Pack, Trim, Cafeteria Duty
Wednesday, February 19
1997
“What’s wrong with you anyway?”
“Nothing. Not a thing, Lu,” I lied.
I had a lot on my mind since I had received a call from the friend of Toby’s client Cruella. Dale Sinnot had called to propose a business offer in which everyone stood to benefit, including Cruella, who had lots of upset friends sitting on the Vanity Insanity waiting list to get their hair done. Sinnot wanted to embark on a business journey as a partner in a huge renovation to Vanity Insanity with a major addition to the salon that could accommodate more room, more clients, and more services. I had been careful to conduct most of my interactions with Sinnot outside of the salon, all the while teetering between excitement at the potential growth of my business and consideration of leaving the industry all together. I hadn’t voiced that feeling to anyone yet.
“Well, you’re really starting to bug me with this serious and quiet thing you have going on. You haven’t even asked me about my girls.” Lucy and Tom had added one more girl to the sorority, as Tom called it. Delaney Rose was the fourth and final Ducey, according to Lucy. Tom and Lucy with their four beautiful girls around them had appeared in a picture on the front page of the Omaha World-Herald the day after Tom won his election for city council. When Lucy told me that Charlotte the Harlot had showed up at the kickoff party last year, I acted surprised and asked, “How did her hair look?”
“Did I ever tell you that Tom’s opponent in the election was Joe Weller?”
“I think I know that, Lucy. His name was on the ballot. The one I didn’t vote for.”
“Joe Weller, Ben. Do you not remember Joe Weller?”
I shook my head.
“Horror Hall Joe Weller. The jerk who broke up with me when I wouldn’t kiss him in the Horror Hall.”
“The guy who dumped you in sixth grade?”
“The guy who lied to Sister Annunciata when asked if he had ever been in the Horror Hall following junior-high games.”
“What a loser. Serves him right. We could have a devil running our fine city. What a relief.”
“Joe Weller’s not a devil.”
“You said so yourself.”
“No, I said he was the jerk who broke up with me. Joe Weller isn’t evil. But I do think evil exists in some people.”
“You’re telling me. I think one of Virginia’s clients looks like he’s related to the devil.” I laughed as I trimmed Lucy’s ends.
“Ben, I’m serious. I think that the devil is powerful to weak people, taking advantage of weaknesses,
like greed, vanity. He keeps us busy. Don’t you ever wonder if at one moment in your life, you might have been standing right next to evil? Maybe in the line to order food at Burger King?”
I was still having a hard time keeping a straight face.
“Let’s say Johnny Madlin’s murderer was standing right behind me when I ordered a McRib sandwich as a kid,” Lucy continued.
I made a face. “You couldn’t get a McRib at Burger King. I remember McRibs. Nasty.”
“What if the devil himself sat under your nose in your chair?” she asked me.
“Then I’d probably use a stiff gel to give him a real wicked look.” This time I made Lucy laugh. Kelly stopped by my chair with a note from Sinnot.
“Speak of the devil,” I mumbled as I took off Lucy’s apron.
“Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that I bought a Sting CD, Mercury Falling.” Lucy grabbed my arm. “I’m hooked now. I swear, Sting’s voice is like a warm, long kiss on the back of my neck…It sends shivers—the good kind—up my spine. Can I be in your Sting club now?”
“I’ll run it by the board.”
“You mean A.C.?”
“Yep. And me. I’m the president.”
“How is A.C.?”
“Well, I haven’t heard any wedding announcements yet.”
“OK, so does Robin know that he’s a you-know-what?”
“No, but I think she’s got A.C. figured out. Just a hunch. Also, my mom got married to her little friend.”
“Wow. Good for her. Good news everywhere. Marty and her husband are starting the adoption process. And Theresa got her good news.”
“Yep.” Theresa had told her rosary group that she was cancer free a week earlier. I still couldn’t believe the news.
“And the Huskers?” Lucy asked.
“Let’s not go there.”
“But you love your Huskers!”
“Lucy, have you not been paying attention?”
It might sound shallow, but the shift in my personal storm that year started when the Big Eight Conference merged with four Southwest Conference Teams to form the Big Twelve Conference at the beginning of the season. After back-to-back national titles, “my Huskers” had suffered two disappointments last season. The first was the 19–0 catastrophe at Arizona. Fans who had been loving the ride we’d been on as an unbeatable force felt the jolt back in August when the Huskers flew to the desert in Arizona, only to get their “butts handed to them,” as Jenae had so eloquently commented. The vibes worsened when we lost to Texas in the inaugural Big Twelve Championship game in December, both games confirming an end to the winning streak and the possibility of three back-to-back national titles.
Nebraska does not like being compared to Iowa or confused with Oklahoma, but we really hate being beat by Texas. We were the Charlie Brown kicking the ball, and Texas was our Lucy, pulling the ball out from under us.
“So what wicked soul gets to be the first to see your hair done so well?” I asked.
“That would be the fine young children of Saint Pius X and the ladies who volunteer in the cafeteria. I have cafeteria duty today.”
“Cafeteria duty. Sounds like something you step in out in the backyard.”
“It’s not bad. Actually, this older lady I work with told me that cafeteria duty is a lot like sex for tired moms.”
“I’m pretty sure that this is something I don’t want to know.”
Lucy grinned in the mirror. “They’re both events that you should probably do but have so much else to do and you’re exhausted. But once you get there, you end up having a good time.”
34
Octavia: Wash and Set
Friday, May 9
1997
“Damn, not what I needed to hear today,” Tom Ducey mumbled as he,
A.C., and I walked across the street to M’s Pub. My two legal buddies, as a favor to me, had looked over the merger agreement that Sinnot was proposing for the renovation of Vanity Insanity. We were going to talk about some of the curve balls that Sinnot had tucked into the contract proposal.
Tom ended his phone call with a buddy, who had given him bad news about the former Nebraska Football coach. “Bob Devaney died,” he said to A.C. and me as he held the door open to the restaurant. “Damn.”
“The Devaney days,” A.C. said, “were some awesome times. Kind of like the early seventies were Husker Nation Part One and we’re living Part Two right now.” A.C. was referring to our two national championships and the “Three Pete” T-shirts that all the Husker Hopefuls were wearing as we crossed our finger for a third national championship.
“Three,” Tom said to the owner, who took us to a table near the window.
The owner paused after she set down the menus at our table, “Hey, Ben, how’s our dear friend doing?”
“Not the best. Her son brings her to get her hair done, but that’s pretty much it, ” I said.
“We miss her around here. We really miss Octavia.”
“I’ll tell her that.” We both knew that Octavia wouldn’t know who I was talking about.
“Sounds good,” the owner said quietly. “I’ll send your waitress over to your table.”
“OK, so not to be a buzz killer, Ben,” Tom started and looked at A.C.
“But we think this Sinnot guy is trying to screw you,” A.C. finished.
“OK, now what?”
“The plans look good,” Tom said, “but Sinnot stands to gain more of a profit than we both think he deserves. I mean, he’s done nothing but show up with money to add to yours.”
“Yeah, and from the looks of this contract, he’s hoping to gain the most from all of the work you’ve put into Vanity Insanity for over a decade. He’s kind of like a gold digger.” A.C. looked over the menu. “We don’t think you should walk away, but Tom and I want to tweak a few things before anything is signed.”
We talked a little more about the contract before lunch came, but Tom and A.C. agreed to make the changes on the contract that I would show to Sinnot the next week.
“Almost forgot to tell you both,” Tom said as we were finishing lunch. “Lucy wanted me to tell you that Theresa’s cancer is back, and…it was probably never really gone.”
A.C. looked at me and then shut his eyes and sighed. Because he hadn’t seen Theresa much since her cancer diagnosis, he was still having a hard time getting his head around the reality.
“Before the next rounds of aggressive chemo, she took a two-week break, and she and Michael went on a trip.” Tom pushed his plate aside. Why had I not heard about this? “They flew over to Lourdes, France, to make what Lucy called some kind of a healing pilgrimage.”
“Lourdes?” A.C. asked. “I read about that place. Isn’t that where some woman saw visions of Mary? Miracles happen there or something like that.”
“Sounds right. Anyway, Theresa was too weak to walk to the Masses and nightly candlelight processions and the grotto, so Michael moved her through the town in a wheelbarrow.”
“Wow.” I hadn’t known that she had gotten to the point of being so weak.
“The best part of the trip, according to my wife, is that she met Richard Madlin, Johnny Madlin’s father.”
“Seriously?” A.C. rubbed his eyes and shook his head.
“Yeah, so this Mr. Madlin told Theresa that he went on the trip to pray that Mary would take away his anger, which had been causing damage in his life since his son was killed. The man has no cancer or illness, but he makes the pilgrimage so that he can forgive the dude who murdered his son, so that he could move on with his life.”
“What about Johnny Madlin’s mom?” A.C. asked.
“She didn’t go on the trip since she could never forgive the man who killed her son, whose last earthly task was to deliver the evening paper. So the father asks Theresa to pray for his wife. You ever hear of anything like that?”
I paid for lunch as a thank-you to my legal team, and we all walked out to the brick street between the restaurant and Vanity Insanity. Tom li
t a cigarette as he walked to his car. A.C. told me he’d call me later, and I walked back to work.
When I walked into the salon, Octavia and Truman were sitting on the front pew near the window waiting for me. Truman, whom I hadn’t seen in a long time, looked old and tired. He smiled as he helped Octavia up.
“She’s been waiting all morning for her appointment. She thinks every day is Friday.” Octavia’s hands shook as she held fiercely to her phone, shuffling to my chair. The staff respected the situation as they had for the past year and did not bother Octavia as she walked through the room. The years of chatting with the sassy yet kind old lady, which even Toby used to do, were gone, as Octavia had become increasingly agitated with all of the activity.
I tied the apron around her, and she looked at me in the mirror with furrowed brows. “What am I doing here?”
Truman stood by the chair and patted her arm. “Mother, Ben’s doing your hair today, remember?”
Octavia looked up at Truman and then looked at me in the mirror.
“Octavia, you’re here so that I can help you to look beautiful,” I explained. “Remember, I’m the one who helps you to be even more beautiful.”
Truman walked over to the pew and picked up a newspaper. Octavia said nothing and sat with a look of distrust on her face. About halfway through the appointment, a moment of lucidity came over her. “That Truman is too busy for his own britches. He can’t even take the time to visit his mother anymore.” I looked over at Truman, who looked up from his paper, shook his head, and smiled. He’d probably been accused of this before.
“Be nice if he could take time…and he’s gotten kind of chubby lately. Maybe you haven’t seen him…”
This time I laughed as I made eye contact with Truman who threw up his hand in the air, shrugging. Octavia was quiet as I dried and styled her hair. I began to take off her apron, and Octavia grabbed my arm with a tight grip.
“Did my husband pay you yet? He has the money to pay you.”
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