Mad River Road (29 page)

Sure you can, her image argued. How long’s it been since you treated yourself to anything?

“Too long,” Emma said out loud, tugging on her hair and deciding to walk over to the strip mall as soon as her headache disappeared. First she’d have her hair styled and trimmed, and then maybe she’d go shopping. Hell, she had eight hours. Might as well get started.

The salon was surprisingly busy for a Sunday morning, and Natalie was booked until noon, so Emma settled for a stylist named Christy, even though Christy looked to be suffering from an even worse hangover than Emma. Maybe it was the loud reggae music playing in the background, Emma thought as Christy led her to the sinks at the back of the salon. Christy was a skinny young woman in a yellow-and-black-striped jersey, a black miniskirt, yellow tights, and heavy, black combat boots. She looks like a giant bumblebee, Emma thought, settling into the chair at Christy’s station as Christy threw a black cape across her shoulder and ran a comb through her freshly washed hair. The yellow-and-black motif continued into Christy’s geometrically cut, chin-length bob, which was dark yellow with an inch of black roots, as well as in the mustard yellow ring that ominously circled her left eye.

“I tripped,” Christy said before Emma had a chance to ask. “Not that anybody believes me,” she continued, unprompted. “Everybody assumes my boyfriend clocked me one, but Randy’s the sweetest guy you ever met, I swear. He wouldn’t hurt a fly. But people give him such
looks when we’re out together. You wouldn’t believe. It’s funny, but it’s embarrassing too. I feel like wearing a sign that says ‘He didn’t do it,’ with an arrow pointing in his direction. You know, like those T-shirts that say ‘I’m with Stupid.’ It doesn’t help, of course, that he looks like such a bruiser.”

“Same thing happened to me once,” Emma volunteered. “I tripped over my son’s toy and went flying into the corner of the kitchen door. Everyone assumed my ex was responsible.”

“So, you’re divorced,” Christy stated, combing out Emma’s shoulder-length dark hair and studying her in the mirror. She reached around to guide Emma’s chin to her right and then her left.

“A year ago.”

“Yeah? I’ve never been married. I mean, why bother, you know? It’s just a piece of paper. All this fuss they’re making about gays getting married? I say, if they want to, let them. I mean, pretty soon they’re going to be the
only
people who want to get married. What are you thinking of?”

It took Emma a few seconds to realize that Christy was referring to her hair. “I don’t know. Maybe a few inches off the bottom?”

“I think we should thin out the sides a bit too. Give ‘em some shape. Right now they look a bit too much like cocker spaniel ears for my taste.”

Emma felt her spine stiffen. Her hair resembled the ears of a cocker spaniel? This from a woman who looked like a bumblebee? “Whatever you say.”

“Oh, I just love it when people say that.” She began combing Emma’s hair with greater purpose and determination. “So, what do you do?”

Emma ran through a silent list of possibilities. She could be anything her little heart desired. Doctor, lawyer, police detective. Anything but the failure she was. “I’m a writer.” Surely Lily wouldn’t mind if she borrowed her identity for half an hour. She might even be flattered.

“Yeah? Cool. What sort of things do you write?”

“Short stories, articles for magazines. I’m working on a novel.”

“That’s so great. I really admire people who have a talent like that.” She began snipping away at Emma’s dark hair. “Where do you get your ideas?”

Emma sighed. Why was it that people were never satisfied, that they always felt the need to know more? More to the point, why was she always putting herself in this position? She knew how stupid, how ultimately destructive her behavior was. Still she couldn’t help herself. Because the truth—the whole truth and nothing but the truth—was that it hurt too much when the lying stopped. “It’s hard to say.”

“They just come to you out of the blue?”

Emma almost laughed. “Apparently.”

“Wow. That’s so interesting.” Christy began cutting into the sides of Emma’s hair. “So, you got a boyfriend now?”

Emma nodded. Hell, she was already in pretty deep. Might as well go all the way. “He took me to Joso’s last night for dinner.”

Christy looked unimpressed, as if she’d never heard of Joso’s. And maybe she hadn’t. “Yeah, so, where’d you meet him?”

“Over at Scully’s.”

“Yeah? That Jan’s quite a character, isn’t she? I’d love to
get my hands on her hair, drag her into the twenty-first century. And all those trophies!”

“They’re pretty impressive.”

“I heard her husband left her for her plastic surgeon.”

“I think it was his nurse,” Emma corrected.

“That’d be interesting, don’t you think? Working for a plastic surgeon?”

“Not really. I worked for one a few years ago,” Emma said, thinking, here we go again. “It wasn’t that interesting. Except for the movie stars coming in.”

“Yeah? Like who?”

Emma shook her head. Would she never learn? “I really shouldn’t say.”

Christy made a face of disappointment that was a duplicate of Dylan’s face when he didn’t get his way. “So, what were all these movie stars doing coming to Ohio?”

“I was living in California at the time.”

Christy made a face that said, Of course. I should have realized that. “I guess you’ve moved around a lot.”

“I guess.”

“Probably gives you lots to write about.”

“I guess,” Emma said again, growing bored with the conversation. That was the other thing about lying. It was exhausting. She closed her eyes, grunting at appropriate intervals to indicate she was still listening, although in truth, she’d pretty much tuned the now one-sided conversation out. Luckily, Christy didn’t seem to notice, and if she did, she didn’t seem to mind. She continued babbling the entire time Emma was in her chair, her voice a sedative, lulling Emma into a state of blissful semiconsciousness.

Emma pictured herself floating on a pink rubber raft in the middle of a bright, blue sea. The reggae music
emanating from an overhead speaker became a live band playing from the upper deck of an imagined nearby yacht. A party was in full swing. Someone threw a glass of champagne overboard, and Emma caught it and lifted it into the air, toasting the ship’s handsome captain as a hot wind blew into her ear, and mermaids played with her hair.

“So, what do you think?” a voice was asking, slicing into her reverie with surgeonlike precision.

Emma opened her eyes as Christy returned the blow dryer to its table. She leaned forward in her chair, mesmerized by her shapely new cut, shorter by several inches and softly layered at the sides. “It’s beautiful. I love it.”

Christy smiled proudly as she whipped the black cape from Emma’s shoulders. “Would you like to book now for your next appointment? Six weeks should be about right.”

Six weeks? Emma tried to remember how long it had been since she’d planned anything that far in advance. Who knew, after all, where she’d be in six weeks? And yet, suddenly, for the first time in more than a year, she was feeling, if not secure, then at least a little settled. She was feeling, if not exactly happy, then at least a little hopeful. Her world no longer felt so insular and circumspect. It showed signs of expanding. She had a new friend, and the possibility of more. Even more important, her son had a new friend. Perhaps his nightmares would soon cease, and along with that, the nightmare that had been the last year of their lives. She smiled at her reflection. Nothing like a new haircut to make you feel that all was right with the world. “Six weeks. Sure. Why not?”

Emma floated out of the salon, stopping to linger in front of Marshalls discount department store—how
she’d love a new spring wardrobe to go with her new haircut, she thought—before reluctantly continuing on her way. She passed Scully’s, waving at Jan, who stood behind the reception desk, wearing a fluorescent orange headband that matched the bright orange of her lips, the neon color clearly visible even through the thick glass of the front window.

Jan smiled and waved her inside. “Hi there. Thinking about taking out a membership? We’re having an introductory special. Only two hundred and fifty dollars to join and thirty dollars a month, plus a free mug and T-shirt.” She reached under the counter, pulled out a large black mug with
Scully’s
scribbled in gold lettering across each side, and sat it on the counter.

Emma laughed. Did the woman never give up? “Actually I was just over at Natalie’s. Having my hair done,” she added when Jan failed to comment. “You like it?”

“Very nice. Now all we have to do is get that tummy in shape.” Jan patted her own flat abdomen for emphasis. “I could personalize a program for you, if you’d like, have you in the best shape of your life in no time.”

It suddenly occurred to Emma that Jan had no idea who she was. Even though they’d spent an entire evening together only two nights before, Jan didn’t recognize her. It’s the new haircut, Emma assured herself, wondering what it was about her that failed to register. “Jan, it’s Emma,” she said, unable to disguise the impatience in her voice. “We met the other night. At Lily’s.”

“Of course we did,” Jan said without missing a beat, although her eyes betrayed her. “I was just teasing. Are you looking for Lily?” she continued, looking longingly toward the exercise room, as if she were wishing she
could slip through the glass. “She doesn’t come in on Sundays.”

“Neither do a lot of people, from the looks of it,” Emma said, observing the lone, middle-aged woman on the treadmill, and trying to keep the smirk out of her voice. Payback, she was thinking, for Jan’s failure to recognize her. “Is it always this quiet on Sundays?”

“It’s early. It’ll start to get busy soon.”

Emma walked over to the cabinet containing Jan’s many trophies. “You actually won all these?”

Instantly Jan’s face brightened. “I certainly did.” She sashayed around the counter, walking toward the trophy cabinet. Open-toed, hot pink stilettos peeked out from beneath her hip-hugging, gray sweatpants.

“How many are there?”

“Oh, I’ve lost count. At least thirty.” Jan unlocked the cabinet with the key that dangled from a coiled, lime green, rubber bracelet on her wrist. “I have at least as many at home.”

“What are they for?”

“Oh, all sorts of things.” Jan reached inside the cabinet, extricated a small bronze statuette of a preening female bodybuilder. “This one is for Mrs. Ohio Bodybuilder. And this one”—she exchanged one trophy for another, this one a large silver bowl—“was from a competition I won in Boulder, Colorado, four years ago.” The phone rang. “Can you excuse me a minute?” She returned the bowl to the cabinet, ran around the counter to pick up the phone. “Hello? Noah?” She covered the receiver with her hand, turned back to Emma. “My nephew,” she said proudly. “Just graduated from M.I.T.”

Emma nodded, as if she were impressed.

“You got two job offers?” Jan repeated, smiling and raising two fingers in Emma’s direction. “That’s wonderful. And you want my advice?” She straightened her shoulders, winked at Emma. “Okay, so offer number one is for a job that’s not all that exciting but it’s with a large company and it pays megabucks. And offer number two pays next to nothing, but it sounds really interesting, and you think you’d really enjoy it. And you know which one I’d tell you to choose, but you’re still not sure what to do.” Jan looked a little taken aback. “Which one do you think I’d tell you to pick?” There was a pause, followed by an impatient shake of fiery red curls. “You think I’d tell you to pick the job that pays nothing but that you’d enjoy? Are you crazy?” Jan demanded, throwing her hands up in the air. “Who says you’ve earned the right to enjoy yourself? I want you to make a living, for God’s sake. I want you to be self-sufficient. I want you to be able to support yourself.”

Emma began tiptoeing toward the front door. “I’ll leave you alone,” she whispered, opening the door and stepping outside.

“Wait,” she thought she heard Jan say as the door closed behind her, but Emma had no interest in hearing any more about Jan’s nephew or seeing any more of her trophies.

“Who says you’ve earned the right to enjoy yourself?”
she repeated in amazement, about to head back to Mad River Road, when she stopped, turned around, marched purposefully back toward Marshalls. “Damn it, why
shouldn’t
we enjoy ourselves?” She pulled open the door to the discount department store and stepped inside, headed for a rack of summer dresses to her right. It’s not like she did this sort of thing every day. It’s not even like she did it once a month. When was the last time she’d
gone shopping for herself? When was the last time she treated herself to a smart summer dress? She checked the price tag of a mauve-and-white flowered halter dress, noting that even at $120, it was at least a hundred dollars more than she could afford. Oh well, it wouldn’t hurt to try it on, just for fun. She located her size and threw the dress over her arm, moving on to the next rack, and doing the same with a pale peach sweater set. She took her time going through the aisles, eventually piling all the items she’d selected into a shopping cart, except for a delicate, green chiffon scarf that she wrapped around her neck. She could always claim she’d tried it on and forgotten to take it off, she decided, although the fuchsia-colored silk blouse that she’d stuffed surreptitiously into her purse might be harder to explain.

She pushed her cart toward the dressing rooms, then waited in a small line of women for an empty stall.

“Only five items at a time,” the attendant told her.

Emma rifled through the various items in her cart. “I don’t know what to pick first.”

“I know. They got such nice things in this time.”

Emma selected five items, including the mauve-and-white flowered dress, and offered them to the attendant for perusal.

“I just love this dress,” the woman said, handing the items back.

“It’s gorgeous, isn’t it? Could you check the size? A six? I’m blind as a bat without my glasses,” Emma lied.

The attendant fumbled for the tag as Emma slid the peach-colored sweater set underneath the other items she’d be taking into the dressing room. “Yeah, here it is. Size six. Wish I could fit into a size six,” she said wistfully.