One Endless Hour by Dan J. Marlowe Page B

they cause."
        Finished with the clipping, her cool fingers trailed lightly across the back of my neck several times. I knew she was doing it on purpose, but I couldn't restrain the shiver that rippled through me. "Suppose it rains?" I addressed myself to her last remark.
        "Unless you're with a gal you're trying to impress, take the hairpiece off and put it in your pocket. Otherwise, carry an umbrella. She'll think you're British and very gallant." I said nothing. "You see the numbers on the tubes? The range of color in them will take care of most facial gradations. The lower numbers are from light pastel pink to beige. The higher numbers are tan, brown, and dark brown. From the skin on your arms, you look as though you should be number six or number seven."
        She picked up the number six tube, squirted a gob of the creamy material onto her palm, then worked it onto her fingertips. "Now watch this," she said, and began rubbing it into her cheeks with a rapid, circular motion of her fingers. Her white skin darkened. "This foundation not only supplies the basic color you need but it also covers the scars." She picked up a tissue and wiped off her face. "You try it."
        I directed the tube at my palm and squeezed it awkwardly. "Too much," she said at once, leaning over my shoulder and halving the dose. I could smell her heady perfume. "There, try that."
        I began spreading it lightly on my face, watching the mirror to make sure there were no gaps in the coverage. It was almost miraculous the way the seams and craters disappeared. In the midst of my efforts, she reached up casually and placed the hairpiece on my head. She attached two tabs in the lace-like foundation just above my ears but underneath the netting. I couldn't believe the difference it made. "How about that?" she crooned over my shoulder.
        "I think well of it," I said fervently.
        "I knew you would. It's not cheap, but it's the most natural-looking hairpiece I have in the shop." She reached around me for a jar on the tray, opened it, studied my face in the mirror for a moment, then closed the jar and opened another. "These different shades of powder permit natural blending with your own skin at the jawline and throat-line," she explained, showing me how to use it.
        I examined the completed job in the mirror. The hair looked natural, but the face didn't. It still looked stiff, but it was a huge improvement over the shiny gloss that had called attention to itself before. "Each application is good for twenty-four hours unless you run into a cloudburst or something," she advised me. "Even then it won't run, but it might spot."
        "How much for the works plus an extra makeup kit?" I asked.
        She reached into a partly opened drawer and took out a wig identical to the one on my head except that its color was a deep coppery red. "Wouldn't you like a change-off?" she asked. "Six eighty would cover everything."
        More than most men I could use a change-off. I stared at the burnished bronze of the second hairpiece.
        "You haven't asked me the question usually asked by my men customers," the proprietress said.
        "No? What's the question?"
        "Whether everything will stay put while they're enjoying a roll in the hay."
        "I can see how it would be embarrassing if it didn't. What do you tell them?"
        She smiled sweetly. "I tell them that if they're worried about it we'll lock the front door and go into the back room and try it out."
        "I'll bet you sell more wigs that way."
        "Hairpieces," she corrected me with another smile. "Well? I'll bet you haven't had a piece since the explosion."
        "You're right, but it's that fact that makes me gun-shy about the back room."
        "Nonsense," she said briskly. "You've come to the right place for retraining." She rose from her stool, went to the front of the shop, inserted an "Out to lunch" sign in the