All fake, Frannie thought unkindly, blinking against the light.
Sour grapes, she rebuked herself, because. No. That nose. Those lips. Had to be real. Were real. And that hair had to be real, too, not just because of the eyebrows – an identical coppery hue – but because of that redhead-creamy skin. Not a freckle on it, either, Frannie noted. And all that along with a long, long neck, toned, slender arms and a wraparound cherry-red smock that more than suggested the body beneath: high breasts, wasp waist, wide hips, full thighs and slim (unstockinged) calves. Shiny and smooth, those calves; faintly muscled, like a runner’s. Narrow feet, too, Frannie saw, bound by strappy red sandals, metal-studded. With skyscraper heels.
No one looks like that, she thought hopelessly. No one’s that perfect. No. This Randi was someone out of nineteen-fifties Hollywood or a bad novel. But what was she doing here? Cutting hair? Why wasn’t she on magazine covers or doing the five o’clock weather?
Venus moved. And spoke. A level, alto purr.
“Mrs. Turner?” She searched Frannie’s face. “I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you.” She extended one child-soft hand.
“Oh Randi, thank you so much for seeing me so quickly. I know how in demand you are, and oh God, I couldn’t believe my good luck in getting this appointment. Thank you so much. I really mean it. I really appreciate this.”
She was babbling. She hated babbling.
“In fact,” Randi responded, smiling warmly, seeming not to notice, “when they told me it was you, I juggled my schedule. Because when I did your friend Arlene, you know – she told me about you – how you’d been girls together, how you’d both decided to ‘grow old gracefully’?” (Had that perfect lip curled?) “So I was really anxious to meet you in person. Why don’t you sit right here?” She indicated the pink throne.
“To meet me? Why?” Frannie asked, relaxing her too-substantial self into the chair. The seat gave softly. It was a little slippery.
“Oh, just because.” Randi answered. Soundlessly laying her scissors on the counter, she reached for a small black rattail comb and ran just the tip of one tapered index finger along its row of pointed teeth. Her nails were unpolished, virginal ovals. “Because it seemed you might be just the sort of challenge I like.”
“I did? It did?”
What on earth could Arlene have told Randi to make her seem like a “challenge”? Should she be flattered? Or offended?
“Let’s just have a look, then.”
Randi pushed herself away from the counter, stepped toward Frannie in one fluid move and then she was behind her, running the fine black comb through her hair. It pulled a little, once or twice, but it didn’t hurt. It felt almost soothing, actually … sliding smoothly down to the ends and back, down to the ends and back. Obscurely, Frannie felt cherished. Beloved. She sensed her eyelids beginning to droop.
“Nice hair. Not too thin, considering your age.” She heard the voice as if from a distance, and glancing up at the mirror, watched Randi watching herself as she combed her elderly client’s hair.
Smooth, and smooth again. Silk. She drifted away to that painting.
“This is a terrible cut for you, though, Mrs. Turner. Too severe. And aging, don’t you think?”
Aging. Behind half-closed eyes, the child in Frannie suffered a hurt, and for a moment, she couldn’t reply.
“So how would you like to look?” Randi asked.
Her eyes flew open.
How would she like to look?
In the mirror, she compared their reflections. Above her own face … lined and pasty, framed by her sparse and badly dyed hair, Randi’s great gorgeousness glowed. It didn’t glow. It burned.
This room, though. It was terribly bright, wasn’t it? Frannie looked down as, just off-center in her breast, she began to feel an alien something stir. Something she was terribly afraid of. It was only a kind of a … pang, at first. Then a bubble. Then a swelling of … oh God. Of yearning. It was yearning. She scrunched up her toes in her sneakers and reflexively smoothed her skirt to keep the intrusive thing down, and yet, panicky now, because she sensed it wouldn’t stay down, she distracted herself from the thing with a comma of hair on the floor’s clean white tiles: some little thing the broom had missed. And she’d opened her mouth to mention the hair, when she heard herself say, rather loud, in a voice that was nothing like her own, “I’d like to look young.”
“Young?” Randi grinned brilliantly as Frannie looked into their suddenly blurred mirror-image.
Oh God. Even her teeth were perfect.
“You mean younger than you are, Mrs. Turner?”
A balloon in her throat burst to flittered shreds and the terrible thing gushed out.
“I’d like to look young. I’d like to look young like the girls outside. Like you. I’d like to, you know … have a figure again. And these liver spots gone. I’d like my hands not to have all these … veins.” She fought down a childlike urge to sit on her hands. “And nice teeth like yours, but all my own. I mean, yes, it would be wonderful to be beautiful, too.” She tried to smile. “But more than that, maybe, I’d like to be young like girls are today. To have a job. Be paid. Be … sure of myself. Empowered, that’s the word! And attractive to men again. Oh, attractive to men! Even to sleep with anyone I liked.” She reddened, but Randi, seemingly transfixed by her own reflection, hadn’t noticed. Which was fine. The last thing Frannie needed at this moment was to be looked at.
“But almost more than that.” She fixed her eyes desperately on that curl, but nothing could stop her now. She was talking fast, too. To herself? To that spiral of hair? Certainly not to this fantastic creature behind her. And here it was, all in a rush … “I want more than anything in life, before I die, I want to find a man who’ll love me as much as I love him. Who’ll love me even more than I love him, perhaps. ” She lifted her head and found Randi’s sad eyes in the mirror now. Watching her.
“And one other thing.” Her heart seemed a fist of loss and pain, her lips felt dry and numb. “I wanted – want – to have a child.”
Omigod. Omigod. Despairingly, Frannie looked down at those ropy, capable, hands of hers, now clutching her skirt, now clutching her bulging thighs. Was this really her? Or was it some other her? And where was all this other stuff coming from? And in front of a stranger! Her face was all wet with saliva and tears. With both her hands she tried to rub it dry. She wanted to retch in shame.
Randi, watching her in the mirror now, leaned down and cupped Frannie’s shoulders in her hands. Her touch was welcome, yet intrusive. Frannie tried not to shrink away.
But Randi didn’t notice. Or noticed and didn’t care.
“Would you like something to drink, Mrs. Turner?” she asked, concerned. “I hate to see you so upset.”
Upset? That didn’t begin to describe all that Frannie was feeling, all that she’d vomited up. What she’d really like to drink wasn’t – well, it wasn’t likely to be in the icebox – no, the refrigerator – of The Hair House.
“Yes, I would,” she said in a second voice that wasn’t her own – this one, quavery and elderly— a voice that seemed sad in this all-too-intimate space. She swiped at the last of her tears and straightened, clearing her throat and attempting a laugh. “I’d love a vodka and tonic.”
Randi winked conspiratorially, then knelt in a singularly graceful motion and opened a cabinet door beneath the counter.
“Don’t tell them outside.” She giggled, brushing away her brazen hair. “I happen to have exactly that. Right here.”
Triumphantly, she rose and placed