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Mr. Alexander always wore black. His long hair was slicked back in a ducktail. His feet were clad in black patent leather loafers. Gold cross earrings dangled from his earlobes. When he rolled his eyes he pinched his lips together.
“Where did you go?” he demanded.
“After a bail jumper,” I said. “Unfortunately, I lost him.”
Mr. Alexander tugged a foil packet off my head. “Unfortunately, you should have had your head in the rinse bowl ten minutes ago! That's unfortunate.” He waved his hand at one of his underlings. “Miss Plum is done,” he said. “We need to rinse her immediately.” He removed another foil and rolled his eyes. “Unh,” he said.
“What?”
“I'm not responsible for this,” Mr. Alexander said.
“What? What?”
Mr. Alexander waved his hand again. “It will be fine,” he said. “A little more spectacular than we'd originally imagined.”
Spectacular was good, right? I held that thought through the rinse and the comb-out.
“This will be wonderful once you get used to it,” Mr. Alexander said from behind a cloud of hair spray.
I squinted into the mirror. My hair was orange. Okay, don't panic. It was probably the lights. “It looks orange,” I told Mr. Alexander.
“California sun-kissed,” Mr. Alexander said.
I got out of the chair and took a closer look. “My hair is orange!” I shouted. “It's freaking ORANGE!”
It was five when I left the mall. Today was Saturday, and my mother expected me for pot roast at six. “Pity roast” was a more accurate term. Unwed daughter, too pathetic to have a date on a Saturday night, is sucked in by four pounds of rolled rump.
I parked the Buick in front of the house and took a quick look at my hair in the rearview mirror. Not much showed in the dark. Mr. Alexander had assured me I looked fine. Everyone in the salon agreed. I looked fine, they all said. Someone suggested I might want to boost my makeup now that my hair had been “lifted.” I took that to mean I was pale in comparison to my neon hair.
My mother opened the door with a look of silent resignation.
My grandmother stood on tippytoes behind my mother, trying to get a better look. “Dang!” Grandma said. “You've got orange hair! And it looks like there's more of it. Looks like one of them clown wigs. How'd you grow all that hair?”
I patted my head. “I meant to have some highlights put in, but the solution got left on too long, so my hair got a little frizzy.” And orange.
“I've got to try that,” Grandma said. “I wouldn't mind having a big bush of orange hair. Brighten things up around here.” Grandma stuck her head out the front door and scanned the neighborhood. “Anybody with you? Any new boyfriends? I liked that last one. He was a real looker.”
“Sorry” I said. “I'm alone today.”
“We could call him,” Grandma said. “We got an extra potato in the pot. It's always nice to have a stud-muffin at the table.”
My father hunched in the hall, TV Guide dangling from his hand. “That's disgusting,” he said. “Bad enough I have to hear crap like this on television, now I have to listen to some old bag talking about stud-muffins in my own home.”
Grandma narrowed her eyes and glared at my father. “Who you calling an old bag?”
“You!” my father said. “I'm calling you an old bag. You wouldn't know what to do with a stud-muffin if you tripped over one.”
“I'm old, but I'm not dead,” Grandma said. “And I guess I'd know what to do with a stud-muffin. Maybe I need to go out and get one of my own.”
My father's upper lip curled back. “Jesus,” he said.
“Maybe I'll join one of those dating services,” Grandma said. “I might even get married again.”
My father perked up at this. He didn't say anything, but his thoughts were transparent. Grandma Mazur remarried and out of his house. Was it possible? Was it too much to hope for?
I hung my coat in the hall closet and followed my mother into the kitchen. A bowl of rice pudding sat cooling on the kitchen table. The potatoes had already been mashed and were warming in a covered pot on the stove.
“I got a tip that Uncle Mo was seen coming out of the apartment building on Montgomery.”
