laughed, thinking she was probably right. “What else have you got here?”
“Let’s see. There’s a pore-purifying microbead face wash, and an alpha hydroxy exfoliating peel-off masque—that’s
masque
spelled with a
que
, which means it’s
really
expensive. Then there’s a botanical, gentle facial-buffing cream, another botanical cream with collagen and woodmallow. What’s that? Never mind,” she said in the same breath. “Then we have a soothing eye-contour mask—this one spelled with a
k
, so it’s probably not as good—a milky refiner, not to be confused with the aforementioned milky emulsion, an oil-free moisturizing lotion, and a tube of concentrated apricot oil. Did you happen to catch my casual use of the word
aforementioned?”
“I did.”
“Were you impressed?”
“I was.”
“Good.” She dug into the right-side pocket of her blue shorts, pulled out several small bottles of nail polish. “Very Cherry and Luscious Lilac. Your choice.” From her left-side pocket emerged cotton balls, emery boards, and assorted tiny implements of torture. Then she reached behind her and extricated a large pair of scissors from her back pocket, waving them before my eyes like a magic wand. “For Madame’s new do.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I wavered, pulling the towel off my head.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything drastic. Just even it up a bit, maybe take an inch off the bottom. You said you have cucumbers?”
“In the fridge,” I told her, trying to keep up with the conversation.
“Good. Then what say we get started?”
What could I do? Alison was so enthusiastic, so confident, so persuasive, I really didn’t have a choice.
You want to be gorgeous for Thanksgiving, don’t you
? I can still hear her ask.
And the truth was, I
did
want to be gorgeous for Thanksgiving. I wanted to be drop-dead, knock-’em-down-and-drag-’em-out gorgeous for Thanksgiving. For Josh.
Not that you aren’t gorgeous already
, Alison had quickly amended.
All week I’d been walking around in a stupid haze, singing along with the radio, humming merrily off-key as I doled out medications, even waving a pleasant “Hello” to Bettye McCoy as she hurried those overgrown furballspast my house. And why? All because some guy I liked had been nice to me.
No, more than nice.
Interested.
Interested in me.
He’s only using you
, I could almost hear my mother say.
He’ll break your heart
.
Yes, he probably will, I agreed.
But I didn’t care. It didn’t matter that Josh was still carrying a torch for his ex-wife, that he had two kids and a dying mother, that a serious involvement was probably the last thing he was looking for. It didn’t matter that we’d had only one real date, a
lunch
date at that, and that I’d almost drowned during it. What mattered was that he was interested.
Good enough to eat
, he’d said.
I felt an almost forgotten tingle between my legs.
What do you really know about this man
? my mother asked.
Not much, I was forced to admit.
That didn’t matter either. Josh Wylie could have been an ax murderer for all I cared. Sadistic killer or not, he made me feel things I hadn’t felt in years. He resurrected emotions so long and deeply repressed I’d forgotten I had them. At forty, I felt like one of those silly teenage girls you see giggling in the mall with her friends:
And then he said; and then he said
. I was fourteen again, in love with Roger Stillman.
And look what happened there
, my mother reminded me.
“We’ll do your hair first,” Alison was saying now, a comb appearing from out of nowhere to drag the wet tangles of my hair across my ears and forehead. Alison sat medown and knelt in front of me, her palm turning my chin from one side to the other as she studied my face. She smiled, as if privy to my innermost thoughts. Could she see Josh Wylie in the reflection of my eyes?
I heard the scissors, felt the blades snipping at the air around my head,
“Let’s see. There’s a pore-purifying microbead face wash, and an alpha hydroxy exfoliating peel-off masque—that’s
masque
spelled with a
que
, which means it’s
really
expensive. Then there’s a botanical, gentle facial-buffing cream, another botanical cream with collagen and woodmallow. What’s that? Never mind,” she said in the same breath. “Then we have a soothing eye-contour mask—this one spelled with a
k
, so it’s probably not as good—a milky refiner, not to be confused with the aforementioned milky emulsion, an oil-free moisturizing lotion, and a tube of concentrated apricot oil. Did you happen to catch my casual use of the word
aforementioned?”
“I did.”
“Were you impressed?”
“I was.”
“Good.” She dug into the right-side pocket of her blue shorts, pulled out several small bottles of nail polish. “Very Cherry and Luscious Lilac. Your choice.” From her left-side pocket emerged cotton balls, emery boards, and assorted tiny implements of torture. Then she reached behind her and extricated a large pair of scissors from her back pocket, waving them before my eyes like a magic wand. “For Madame’s new do.”
“I’m not so sure about that,” I wavered, pulling the towel off my head.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything drastic. Just even it up a bit, maybe take an inch off the bottom. You said you have cucumbers?”
“In the fridge,” I told her, trying to keep up with the conversation.
“Good. Then what say we get started?”
What could I do? Alison was so enthusiastic, so confident, so persuasive, I really didn’t have a choice.
You want to be gorgeous for Thanksgiving, don’t you
? I can still hear her ask.
And the truth was, I
did
want to be gorgeous for Thanksgiving. I wanted to be drop-dead, knock-’em-down-and-drag-’em-out gorgeous for Thanksgiving. For Josh.
Not that you aren’t gorgeous already
, Alison had quickly amended.
All week I’d been walking around in a stupid haze, singing along with the radio, humming merrily off-key as I doled out medications, even waving a pleasant “Hello” to Bettye McCoy as she hurried those overgrown furballspast my house. And why? All because some guy I liked had been nice to me.
No, more than nice.
Interested.
Interested in me.
He’s only using you
, I could almost hear my mother say.
He’ll break your heart
.
Yes, he probably will, I agreed.
But I didn’t care. It didn’t matter that Josh was still carrying a torch for his ex-wife, that he had two kids and a dying mother, that a serious involvement was probably the last thing he was looking for. It didn’t matter that we’d had only one real date, a
lunch
date at that, and that I’d almost drowned during it. What mattered was that he was interested.
Good enough to eat
, he’d said.
I felt an almost forgotten tingle between my legs.
What do you really know about this man
? my mother asked.
Not much, I was forced to admit.
That didn’t matter either. Josh Wylie could have been an ax murderer for all I cared. Sadistic killer or not, he made me feel things I hadn’t felt in years. He resurrected emotions so long and deeply repressed I’d forgotten I had them. At forty, I felt like one of those silly teenage girls you see giggling in the mall with her friends:
And then he said; and then he said
. I was fourteen again, in love with Roger Stillman.
And look what happened there
, my mother reminded me.
“We’ll do your hair first,” Alison was saying now, a comb appearing from out of nowhere to drag the wet tangles of my hair across my ears and forehead. Alison sat medown and knelt in front of me, her palm turning my chin from one side to the other as she studied my face. She smiled, as if privy to my innermost thoughts. Could she see Josh Wylie in the reflection of my eyes?
I heard the scissors, felt the blades snipping at the air around my head,
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