Billy. Me and Roy got a great big car.”
* * *
Hannah went to Merle Norman two months ago and had them do her face. Now all the products that she bought after seeing her new self, her retired self, are spread out across the bathroom counter while she tries to remember what each one is for. “Good God, Hannah!” Ben said that first night when he walked into the bedroom and there she was relaxing on the bed while her Miracol Facial did whatever it was supposed to besides making her face look like hot pink rubber. “You scared the hell out of me. Retirement’s not looking real good on you.”
“We want to accent those big green eyes,” the Merle Norman woman said. Hannah picks up her eyeliner and tries to remember which way the woman pulled her lid to apply it. “You’ve got some slight red tones in your hair, pretty, a little rinse would do wonders to tone down the gray. We’ll want to stay away from light pinks though,” the woman said and dabbed a damp cloth over Hannah’smouth, removing the color that Hannah has worn for so many years that her lips looked naked.
“I can’t believe you got a makeover, Mama,” Ginny Sue said on the phone. “I can’t wait to see.” Makeover, it sounded the same as when Ben talks about overhauling a motor down at the garage.
Lena would know what to do with all of these concoctions, or rather there was a time when she would have. And sure, the Merle Woman knows; it’s her job and she gets paid for doing it. What if Hannah was to give that woman a bolt of cloth and a needle and thread and send her home to make christening gowns with tatted edges and smocked tops, or a pair of lined drapes? Everybody cannot know everything. She gives up and puts on her usual dab of mascara and a touch of her own lipstick. Something you have done your whole life can’t be all bad and she doesn’t have time to sit and match up every color in the rainbow like Ginny Sue would do if she could.
She brushes her short hair back from her face and fluffs it a little. She is not about to start with hair rinses, either. It would be just one more thing to keep up with and who has time? She has always been amazed that you can go to the grocery store at seven-thirty in the morning and there are women fixed and made up like they might be going to church. There was a time when she wanted to be flashy like Lena, but she just could not get herself to go about it. It didn’t feel right. You can’t sew or wash or do anything with fingernails that are long and pointed. She thinks that growing out and keeping long fingernails is a good excuse not to work. Lena once got her hand in an ad for a dishwashing detergent and Roy Carter said she didn’t wash dishes for two months.
Hannah wishes she could just plop down and relax but even retired, she can’t. The only times that she has ever relaxed in her adult life have been short little weekend vacations, long enough to relax, but not so long that she had to start worrying over dust that collected or having to get back to her routine. Two or three days is vacation enough and it can’t be done at home where the phone’s gonna ring or the doorbell or the dirty laundry starts stacking up.
She would like to be on a little vacation right now; she would liketo be some place where she could dial room service and get a breakfast tray, sit there and read a magazine. She’d like to be sitting on a balcony somewhere, watching the people go by and not having to say a word to one of them. She would like to kick up her feet and say, “I’m not cooking, cleaning, or talking today.” She knows from past experience that that would not last more than a day if that long. And what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with staying busy if that’s what makes you happy?
She goes into the kitchen and looks out the window and across the backyard where Ben is out in that garden, working away, every bit of his body covered because he sunburns, probably drenched in sweat. He’ll
* * *
Hannah went to Merle Norman two months ago and had them do her face. Now all the products that she bought after seeing her new self, her retired self, are spread out across the bathroom counter while she tries to remember what each one is for. “Good God, Hannah!” Ben said that first night when he walked into the bedroom and there she was relaxing on the bed while her Miracol Facial did whatever it was supposed to besides making her face look like hot pink rubber. “You scared the hell out of me. Retirement’s not looking real good on you.”
“We want to accent those big green eyes,” the Merle Norman woman said. Hannah picks up her eyeliner and tries to remember which way the woman pulled her lid to apply it. “You’ve got some slight red tones in your hair, pretty, a little rinse would do wonders to tone down the gray. We’ll want to stay away from light pinks though,” the woman said and dabbed a damp cloth over Hannah’smouth, removing the color that Hannah has worn for so many years that her lips looked naked.
“I can’t believe you got a makeover, Mama,” Ginny Sue said on the phone. “I can’t wait to see.” Makeover, it sounded the same as when Ben talks about overhauling a motor down at the garage.
Lena would know what to do with all of these concoctions, or rather there was a time when she would have. And sure, the Merle Woman knows; it’s her job and she gets paid for doing it. What if Hannah was to give that woman a bolt of cloth and a needle and thread and send her home to make christening gowns with tatted edges and smocked tops, or a pair of lined drapes? Everybody cannot know everything. She gives up and puts on her usual dab of mascara and a touch of her own lipstick. Something you have done your whole life can’t be all bad and she doesn’t have time to sit and match up every color in the rainbow like Ginny Sue would do if she could.
She brushes her short hair back from her face and fluffs it a little. She is not about to start with hair rinses, either. It would be just one more thing to keep up with and who has time? She has always been amazed that you can go to the grocery store at seven-thirty in the morning and there are women fixed and made up like they might be going to church. There was a time when she wanted to be flashy like Lena, but she just could not get herself to go about it. It didn’t feel right. You can’t sew or wash or do anything with fingernails that are long and pointed. She thinks that growing out and keeping long fingernails is a good excuse not to work. Lena once got her hand in an ad for a dishwashing detergent and Roy Carter said she didn’t wash dishes for two months.
Hannah wishes she could just plop down and relax but even retired, she can’t. The only times that she has ever relaxed in her adult life have been short little weekend vacations, long enough to relax, but not so long that she had to start worrying over dust that collected or having to get back to her routine. Two or three days is vacation enough and it can’t be done at home where the phone’s gonna ring or the doorbell or the dirty laundry starts stacking up.
She would like to be on a little vacation right now; she would liketo be some place where she could dial room service and get a breakfast tray, sit there and read a magazine. She’d like to be sitting on a balcony somewhere, watching the people go by and not having to say a word to one of them. She would like to kick up her feet and say, “I’m not cooking, cleaning, or talking today.” She knows from past experience that that would not last more than a day if that long. And what’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with staying busy if that’s what makes you happy?
She goes into the kitchen and looks out the window and across the backyard where Ben is out in that garden, working away, every bit of his body covered because he sunburns, probably drenched in sweat. He’ll
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