For the Relief of Unbearable Urges: Stories by Nathan Englander Page B

she made her first appearance she had, in the same businesslike fashion, pulled a different envelope from her purse. “You must be Ruchama,” she had said. “These are pictures of me when my hair was as it should be. I want my wig like that, but better.” Ruchama had fallen in love with her right then. A woman who can present an envelope with such confidence can get anything done in this world. “My daughter says you are the best and the most expensive. That’s what I want. No bargains. I want it to feel so horribly overpriced that I’ll be convinced it’s good.” Then Louise struck a pose in those smart slacks—one knee locked, the other bent, one foot straight, the other pointing out—exactly as Ruchama would have liked to if she were permitted such a thing. “If my daughter hasn’t told you, I’m being attacked by menopause and it’s taking my hair, and both my doctors admit I am, in reality, going bald. Give me whatever you’ve got, I told them. If it kills me, that’s fine. I’ll take six gorgeous months over one hundred years of what’s in store.” She had then presented a locket. Pried it open. There was a curl pressed inside. “My baby hair. Russet. Virginal and fine. Match it. That is the color of my wig.”
    And now, months later, Ruchama locks the money in thestrongbox and locks the strongbox in her desk. She takes out the pictures and the locket and goes over to the cubbies. She takes down Louise’s wig on its Styrofoam base. It is majestic. She brings it out and Louise presses her hands to her head.
    “Oh, yes,” she says. “That is me.” She messes up her own hair, so carefully sprayed in place. “This is not me, that is. You’ve got it there. Now give it up.”
    They seat Louise on a stool and fit the wig on her head. She leans in to the standing mirror. Ruchama and Tzippy hover behind, hand mirrors poised. Louise does, truly, they all agree, look spectacular. She spreads the old photos out on the counter. She goes back and forth between the mirror and the pictures. She opens the locket. “Russet,” she says. She puts it around her neck and turns to face the women.
    “Goddesses,” she says. “Miracle workers. I feel like I have my life back, my youth. I’m nineteen years old again,” she says. “And I am beautiful.”
    The new issues are at least two weeks away, but there are things Ruchama wants to double-check, an idea or two that she has. She takes the magazines off the rack with a nod.
    “Sold your copies,” Jamal says. He is on the same side of the stand, stocking mints and chocolate bars where they are low. “Same issue, different copies.”
    “I’ll pay again, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
    She reaches for her purse.
    “Teasing,” he says. “Help yourself. No camp for the kids this summer, is all.”
    They used to dream of being fashion models, Tzippy and Nava and Ruchama. They had plans. They would take only modest jobs, stroll down the runways with floor-length skirts and high-collared shirts, sleeves that buttoned at the wrists. They would be sensations. They walked the length of Tzippy’sroom, spinning in front of her full-length mirror, spotting their heads to catch themselves in the turn.
    She finds the advertisement, the one she was thinking of, a woman turning in a New York street, her hair in an arc, banana curls, full and light.
    She presses the magazine down on the counter. She presses a finger to the page. Jamal looks.
    “That’s what my hair was like,” she says, “when I was a girl.”
    “Hmmm,” he says, “nice.” He folds an empty carton. Stops to rub his hands together, blows into them against the cold. “Looks nice now,” he says, “plenty nice.”
    Ruchama goes red. This is what familiarity breeds.
    “A wig,” she says to Jamal. “I’m wearing a wig.”
    “I’ll tell you,” he says, “looks for real. I wondered, too. You dress Jewish and I wondered. All the other Hasid ladies wear wigs and scarves and such. And