The Darling Dahlias and the Naked Ladies (18 page)

“They purely do,” Beulah said happily. She turned to Bettina, who was staring, openmouthed, at this platinum-haired vision of feminine loveliness. “Bettina, honey, would you fill this bowl with water, please?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” Bettina said, and jumped up, scattering Kurley Kews all over the floor.

Beulah left Bettina scrambling to pick up the curlers and turned back to her customer. “Now, dear, how can we help you on this beautiful mornin’?”

The woman’s face became serious, and she looked around, as if she were making sure she had come to the right place. “I hope you do coloring,” she said hesitantly. “Not just shampoos and sets.”

“’Course we do colorin’,” Beulah said, in her most comforting voice. “We do tints, dyes, and color rinses, in all shades. And it sure looks like you could use some fresh color, honey, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so. Those roots are gettin’ just a teensy bit dark. And you’re way too pretty to let that happen, Miz—” She paused, letting the word hang delicately in the air.

“Jamison,” the woman said, holding out her gloved hand. “I’m Nona Jean Jamison. I’ve come from Chicago to stay with my aunt, Miss Hamer, over on Camellia Street. She needs a little taking care of, and I’m between . . . projects.”

“So nice to meet you, Miz Jamison,” Beulah said cordially, taking her hand. Chicago. She wasn’t surprised. She knew that bright blue bolero dress hadn’t come from Darling, or even from Mobile or Montgomery. Carson Pirie Scot and Company, on the Loop, maybe. Beulah had never been to Chicago but she had read that Carson’s on the Loop was
the
place to shop for women’s fashions. “I am Mrs. Beulah Trivette, owner of the Beauty Bower. And that’s Bettina down there on the floor, pickin’ up the Kurley Kews.” Bettina lifted a hand, waved, and smiled nervously. “Welcome to Darlin’, Miz Jamison. We’re a real friendly little town, and we’ll do our best to help you feel at home for just as long as you’re here. Now, if you’ll just let me have your hat, we’ll get started on those roots.”

Miss Jamison took off her hat and handed it to Beulah, who put it carefully on a shelf. “Actually,” she said, putting a hand to her hair and fluffing it up, “I don’t want the roots retouched. I want you to dye my hair dark. And bob it.”

Beulah blinked. “Dark?” she asked incredulously. This was the last thing in the world she would have expected. “You mean—”

“Dark brown.” Miss Jamison’s voice held a mournful quiver. “Black always looks so dead, I think. A rich, dark brown is what I have in mind. Like dark brown chocolate.”

Beulah paused, frowning doubtfully. She always said that her customers knew best, but when it came to beauty, she considered herself an expert.

“Are you real sure ’bout this, Miz Jamison?” She put her head on one side, studying the woman. “That platinum color is just right for you—with your skin tone and all, I mean. It looks so light and stylish. Dark is goin’ to muddy you up and make you look . . . well, older. And a bob—” She pressed her lips together. “Don’t you think it would be a shame to lose those pretty waves?”

She didn’t want to come right out and say so, but she hated to see all that beauty going out the window. Bob that beautiful hair, dye it dark, and Miss Jamison wouldn’t look anything like the extraordinarily stylish woman she was at this moment. She’d look like . . . well, she’d look ordinary. She’d look just like everybody else. That’s how she’d look.

“I know all that.” Miss Jamison sighed heavily and began to strip off her gloves. “I hate it, too, Mrs. Trivette. But I have my reasons. Believe me, this is not something I
want
to do. But when I think—” Her chin was quivering and she looked as if she were about to cry. She turned away, but not before Beulah (who was an empathetic person) glimpsed something like fright in her eyes.

Fright? Now, that was strange. Sadness, maybe, at losing all that beauty. Or even regret. But fright? Something else was going on here under the surface and Beulah knew it. But she had worked with women’s hair for a long time and understood that big changes were always scary, whether you were going dark to blond or blond to dark again, or getting bobbed after you’d had your hair long for your whole, entire life. When it came to that, getting bobbed could be a whole lot scarier than getting dyed.

Sympathetically, she patted Miss Jamison’s arm. “Well, hon, whatever your reasons are, I’m sure they gotta be good ones, to push you into takin’ such an important step.” She almost added “toward ugliness,” but thought better of it.

“Oh, they are good reasons.” Miss Jamison sighed. “But before we get started, there’s something else I need to ask. Do you happen to have a wig catalog I could order from?”

“Well, I do,” Beulah said, now more than a little confused. “But I thought you were wantin’ to color your—”

“Oh, yes,” Miss Jamison said hastily. “Yes, I have to go brown. But I was thinking about an auburn wig, maybe even really red? Not short, but not long, either. Doesn’t have to be real special.”

Beulah frowned a little. “As it happens, I might have what you’re lookin’ for right here in the shop. It’s a copper-red wig I used to practice on when I was at the beauty college up in Montgomery. I’ve loaned it out a time or two so it might not be in the very best condition. But it’s clean, and if you don’t care about a bare spot here and there—”

“Copper-red would be wonderful and a few bare spots wouldn’t matter one bit,” Miss Jamison said eagerly. “Could I see it?” And when Beulah found it in the closet and brought it out, she was delighted. “It’s perfect,” she exclaimed. “And better yet, I can take it with me. How much do you want for it?”

Beulah looked at the wig, thinking that it wasn’t as frayed as she remembered. It had cost three dollars, she recollected, and she’d already gotten as much good out of it as she was going to get. “How does a dollar fifty sound?” To her, that sounded a little high, so she brought it down. “Let’s make it a dollar.”

“A dollar fifty sounds good to me, considering that I won’t have to order and wait and wait,” Miss Jamison said generously, and watched while Beulah put it in a box. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to get that.”

Beulah couldn’t imagine why a platinum blonde who wanted her hair dyed brown would also want to pay a dollar fifty for a red wig, but that was none of her business. “Well, now,” she said, taking a pink cape off the rack, “you just come over here and sit down in the shampoo chair and we’ll get you started.” She raised her voice. “Bettina, darlin’, before Miz Bloodworth gets here, would you go into the kitchen, please, and fetch Miz Jamison a cup of coffee. One for me, too. Black.”

She had the feeling she was going to need it.

The story Bessie had told Liz and Verna on Sunday afternoon had awakened memories in her heart and a painful longing that she thought she had put away long ago, and for good. A longing for Harold? No, that wasn’t quite it, she told herself. Not a longing for
him,
for the man himself. Too much time had passed for that, and Bessie had already lived too much of her life on her own terms to wish it otherwise. No, what she felt was more of a longing to know why Harold had left and what had happened to him, and why he had never gotten in touch. She sighed. Maybe it was time to finally sit down and talk to Miss Hamer. Harold’s sister surely had to know more than she had let on.

At the thought of Miss Hamer, Bessie frowned. What exactly was going on at the house across the street?

This question had become even more interesting after Bessie and the Magnolia Ladies had heard Miss Hamer shrieking on Sunday evening, so loudly that she could be heard over the vocal acrobatics of the operatic soprano they were listening to. Miss Rogers enjoyed classical music, and it had been her turn to choose. So they were sitting out on the front porch after supper, with the Victrola volume turned up and the parlor window open so they could hear it. Rosa Ponselle, the Metropolitan’s soprano sensation, was singing one of her famous arias from the opera
Norma
when the shouting began.

By itself, this was not unusual, for Miss Hamer shrieked whenever she felt like it—and apparently for the fun of it—as often as once or twice a week. Miss Rogers said she thought it was entertaining, because the yelling seemed to go with Miss Ponselle’s music. Mrs. Sedalius supposed that Miss Hamer might be singing along (although it didn’t sound all that melodic) and maybe they should turn down the volume, which they did. But still, as the shrieking went on and on and got so loud that it could be heard over Rosa Ponselle, Bessie wondered. What was going on behind that closed front door, those curtained windows?

She wondered about Miss Jamison, too. If Miss Hamer’s niece was also Lorelei LaMotte, the dancer, why had she come to Darling? There was no place around here to perform—and certainly not in the kind of costume she was wearing in the photo on Verna’s playbill. The Dance Barn occasionally featured burlesque, but even there, she couldn’t dance half-naked. She’d have to wear a lot more clothes.

And—the essential question, now that Bessie had had a chance to think about it—was this woman
really
Miss Hamer’s niece? If she was, could she prove it? If she wasn’t, how would they know?

These intriguing questions were at the top of Bessie’s mind the next morning when she put on her third-best mauve cambric dress (the one with the purple buttons and the Peter Pan lace collar), set her black felt hat on her salt-and-pepper curls, and started out for Beulah’s Beauty Bower to keep her nine-thirty appointment for her weekly shampoo and set. She was still puzzling over the question of Miss Jamison’s real identity as she walked up the steps to the Bower. And when she opened the screen door and saw who was sitting in Beulah’s haircutting chair in front of the mirror, big as life and twice as natural, she had to blink to make sure she hadn’t conjured up the vision.

But beyond a doubt, the woman sitting in that chair truly was Miss Nona Jean Jamison. Or Miss Lorelei LaMotte. Or both. Caped in pink, she was holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a cigarette in the other and watching in the mirror as Beulah smoothed her damp platinum locks with a comb and snipped them with a pair of barber scissors. She was getting her hair cut.

Bessie covered her surprise with a pleasant smile. “Good morning, Beulah,” she said cheerfully, taking off her hat. “Good morning, Bettina. I’m afraid I’m a teensy bit early. If you-all aren’t ready for me, I can wait.” She looked into the mirror and met Miss Jamison’s startled eyes. “And good morning to you, too, Miss Jamison. You probably don’t remember me. I’m your neighbor across the street—Bessie Bloodworth. I met you and Miss Lake the day you arrived at Miss Hamer’s.”

Miss Jamison flushed and dropped her glance, and Bessie thought she saw a glimpse of something like apprehension. But she took a drag on her cigarette and managed a slight smile.

“Why, hello, Miss Bloodworth.” Her voice was thin. “Such a surprise.”

“No surprise,” Beulah chirped. “Miz Bloodworth is one of our regulars. Never misses a Monday mornin’—her and Leona Ruth Adcock. Good to see you, Bessie.” She glanced up at the clock. “Leona Ruth will be along here d’rectly. Bettina, you can go ahead and get started on Miz Bloodworth right now.”

Bessie put a hand to her hair. “I was thinking I’d ask Bettina to trim me this morning.” She put a hand to her hair. “Feel like I’m getting a mite shaggy.”

Strictly speaking, she knew she didn’t need a trim for another week or two. But a haircut would put her side-by-side with Nona Jean Jamison in front of their twin mirrors, where she could maybe get an answer to some of her questions. And there was nobody else in the Bower. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.

But it was a little while before Bessie could sit beside Nona Jean. By the time Bettina got her shampooed and in the chair for her trim, Miss Jamison was stretched out on her back with her head in the shampoo sink and Beulah, gloved, was working brown dye into her platinum hair. Bessie knew it was brown because she could hear Beulah telling Miss Jamison that, when she asked what shade it was.

“ ‘Mocha brown’ is what it says on the package,” Beulah said. “Exactly what you want.”

Mocha brown! Bessie had to blink again. Why in the world was Miss Jamison having that beautiful platinum hair dyed mocha brown—especially when she must have invested a ton of money into getting it platinum in the first place? It made no sense at all. Bessie was itching to know why she was doing it.

But by the time Bettina got Bessie pin-curled and finger-waved and ready to go under the dryer, Miss Jamison was sitting on the other side of the room, her head in a wrap, a magazine on her lap, and a cigarette in her hand, waiting for the mocha brown color to set. And when Bessie was dry and ready to be combed out, Miss Jamison was back with her head in the shampoo sink, and Beulah was rinsing and conditioning her mocha brown hair.

But at last they were sitting side by side in the chairs. Bessie met Miss Jamison’s eyes in the mirror and gave her head a wondering shake.