My Mrs. Brown by William Norwich Page A

morning, noon, and night for money, and the herbal cigarettes weren’t helping—trembled.
    â€œWhat are you doing here? I mean, oh, that’s rude. Hello. Hello! Come in. Come in. I’m Bonnie. This is my salon. What brings you to Ashville, Miss Noble? May I offer you some coffee? Tea? Water?”
    Florida shook Bonnie’s hand. “Call me Florida, please. And, yes, do you have coffee? Oh, I would just absolutely love some. I was looking for a Starbucks but couldn’t find one this morning. I guess there isn’t Starbucks in Ashville? How extraordinary, the only part of the world I have ever been to without a Starbucks!” she said, her cadence a cultured singsong.
    She rested her extra-large, navy blue Hermès Birkin bag on the counter near Bonnie’s cash register.
    Florida was embarrassed when Bonnie shooed Mrs. Brown into the kitchen to get the coffee. Mrs. Brown returned with the hot beverage in a white mug, a small pitcher of cream, and a sugar bowl on a faux-silver tray.
    Florida took the mug. Something about the decency of this scrawny but gracious woman had instantly touched her heart.
    â€œI’m Florida,” she said, extending her hand.
    Mrs. Brown bowed her head slightly.
    â€œAnd you are?”
    â€œEmilia Brown,” Mrs. Brown said, taking Florida’s hand.
    â€œNow, now, Mrs. Brown, you mustn’t monopolize our esteemed guest,” Bonnie said. And to Florida: “You must be lost?”
    Mrs. Brown retreated with her tray to the kitchen and returned with her broom.
    Florida explained what had brought her to Ashville. “I am in what is the equivalent of my senior year at Guilford,” she said, referring to the college just on the outskirts of town. “I’ve been able to do the entire four years in three by studying during the summers and corresponding with my professors, but I’m required to spend the better part of my last semester on campus for my final exams and orals. So . . .”
    She opened her pocketbook and rummaged through it. “I just arrived yesterday in New York from Paris, where I was shooting, and just got up here to Ashville today and have to get back to New York tonight and shoot in the morning and then come back to Ashville Sunday night in time for a meeting with my adviser Monday morning and by the following Monday I have to be in residence here”—she spoke as fast as some photographers shoot film—“but I am going to commute to and from New York—I mean, a woman has to work her way through school the best she can—so what I need is quickly to have one of you please put this color rinse in my hair for my job tomorrow.” Finally, she found the plastic bottle of hair elixir she was looking for in her bag. “Thank God I found it. That would have been a disaster if I left it in New York . . .
    â€œOh, and I also am looking for, starting this weekend, a furnished apartment somewhere convenient, or a bed-and-breakfast, or something, a guest room . . . the local hotel is closed for remodeling!”
    This was indeed true. The Ashville Inn, established in 1774, had just closed until the Fourth of July. It was being refurbished in time for the annual Rose Festival.
    Before anyone else could, Bonnie took the bottle of color rinse and led Florida to her chair in the salon. (She wouldn’t admit until weeks later how terrified she was to touch Florida’s hair for fear of overprocessing it or doing anything that might upset the famous, million-dollar mane.)
    Conversation centered on where Florida might live while she was in Ashville.
    The inn really was the best place, but it was closed. There was a motel on the other side of town, but it was not very attractive. A place for transients and “one-night, more like one-hour stands, you know what I mean? I mean of course you don’t know, what am I saying?” Bonnie said.
    No one had ever seen her