The Saturdays (8 page)

“All my gloves behave like that,” said Mona, slapping them together as if to punish them. “They never want to stay in pairs.”

“They're what the newspapers call incompatible,” said Rush. “What are you going to do with your afternoon? Come on, Mona, be a sport.”

But Mona wouldn't tell. She patted her pocketbook and smiled mysteriously. The truth was she wasn't sure herself.

“Good-bye, kids,” she said. “‘Parting is such sweet sorrow—'.”

“Scram,” advised Rush, holding the door open for her, and when she had gone down the front steps he and Randy tormented her all the way up the block by yelling admonitions after her at the top of their wicked lungs. “Don't get run over! Don't get lost! Don't talk to STRANGERS!”

“I suppose I might as well practice,” said Rush, slowly climbing the stairs. “Later we can go to the park.” Isaac trotted at his heels. For, though Rush had honorably inspected all the Lost notices in the newspapers for the past week, he had found no description of a lost dog resembling Isaac. Poodles, yes. Dachshunds, and Sealyhams, and Scotties, yes. But not, thank Heaven, a single mention of a small intelligent mongrel who showed traces of spaniel ancestry.

Randy followed them. She was going to play Drugstore with Oliver in the top-floor bathroom. It was really an advanced form of mud pies. You took all the leftover tooth paste, cold cream, talcum powder, and medicines that had been hanging about the medicine cabinets long enough not to be missed, and you made mixtures. Last time they had evolved two splendid creations: Measlenot, a cure for measles made out of talcum powder, cold cream, and a dash of turtle food; and Complexion Jellyfish, a skin remedy compounded of melted soap and pink mouthwash.

Soon Randy and Oliver were happily and messily absorbed, and except for the music that poured out of the Office the house was very still.

Mona walked along the street feeling like the heroine of a play. The whole afternoon lay ahead of her filled with boundless opportunities. It was a cold day but not too cold. Mona couldn't remember when the air had ever seemed so delicious before. She felt like running, or soaring in great bounding leaps, or shouting noisily. But naturally she did nothing of the kind. She walked sedately along the street, swinging her pocketbook and smiling to herself. She wondered if the people who passed her noticed the smile and thought to themselves, Who can she be? What a strange, mysterious smile! But then (it always happened that way) she caught sight of her reflection in a glass shop window and was astonished at how much fatter and shorter she was than she thought of herself as being. Between the swinging braids her round face with its mysterious smile looked perfectly sappy. There was no other word for it. Just sappy.

Minus the smile but still happy she turned the corner to Fifth Avenue. It was full of Saturday afternoon crowds of people who had finished their work and eaten their lunch and now were busily shopping or amusing themselves. The air was filled with a big slapping shining wind and Mona saw two people chasing after their hats. She waited on the corner till a bus bumbled to a stop in front of her, and, jumping aboard, she ran up the narrow steps to the upper deck and found a seat. The wind was terrific, it made her eyes water and her nose run; the man in the seat ahead was smoking a cigar, and great billows of strong smoke blew straight into her face. But it didn't matter. She enjoyed it all. The sidewalk was a river of people, the street was a torrent of traffic; on each side the towering buildings were studded with as many windows as there are stars in heaven, and high, high overhead against the cold blue sky a tiny airplane, flashing like a dagger, wrote a single magic word, “Pepsi-Cola,” in mile-long loops of smoke.

At Forty-fourth Street Mona pushed the little bell in the railing, climbed over the lap of the stout lady who had sat down beside her, and made a perilous descent to the street.

Across the avenue, then two blocks west, and she was on Broadway! Mona had never been there by herself before, and it was wonderful! For a while she simply drifted with the crowds up one side of the famous thoroughfare and down the other. There was a lot to see and she saw most of it. She studied the pictures in front of the dazzling movie theater where a doorman in gold braid was bellowing haughtily: “Standing room onlay! Standing room onlay!” She spent an absorbed ten minutes before the doughnut palace watching a businesslike machine creating tens of dozens of doughnuts to be devoured by tens of dozens of hungry people. In another machine, displayed in a drugstore, popcorn was bouncing frivolously. The whole block smelled of it. Every place there were things to eat. In one restaurant window a cook in a tall white cap was lifting great hanks of spaghetti out of a vat, and in another one, farther along, a big black woman in a green apron was frying hamburgers on a copper plate. Open-air stands on the corners were selling drinks made out of every kind of fruit you can think of: orange and pineapple and banana and coconut and papaya. But Mona was too excited to be hungry. She just drifted along, looking and listening and smelling. There was a lot of noise: a huge sound of voices and footsteps, a commotion of honks and hoots from the traffic, policemen's whistles, a noise of things going on.

Past Fiftieth Street another window caught her attention. In it there was nothing but a lot of draped pink silk and three wax ladies' heads mounted on stands. Each of the ladies was smiling the same sweet stupid smile, and each was wearing an elaborate wig: one was blond, one was red, and one, for some reason, was lavender. On the glass in gold letters was written:

E
TIENNE AND
E
DWARD

H
AIRDRESSERS AND
B
EAUTY
S
PECIALISTS

3
ITEMS
1
DOLLAR

Mona's heart beat fast and suddenly she knew what she was going to do. “After all, nobody ever asked me not to,” she told herself. “I never promised I wouldn't.” But all the time she knew that she was quibbling; the corner of her mind that never let itself be fooled was well aware that neither Father nor Cuffy would approve of what she was about to do. But nothing could stop her now, and pushing open the heavy glass door she went into the shop.

It was a busy place. People in white uniforms hurried to and fro carrying combs, scissors, bowls of hairpins: everyone was talking. The place smelled of hot hair and perfume. At one side of the room sat a long row of ladies, each with her head bowed meekly under a buzzing bell-shaped metal thing. They made Mona think of the old nursery rhyme:

Mary, Mary, quite contrary,

How does your garden grow?

With cockleshells and silver bells,

And pretty maids all in a row.…

Only very few of these ladies were pretty.

“Yes, dear?” inquired a voice sweetly.

There was a blond lady enthroned at a raised desk. She had a round chalk-white face with nothing in it except eyes, nose, and mouth: no wrinkles, no expression, no smile. It reminded Mona of the Tang goddess from China that Father had in his study at home. Even the lady's hair was like the goddess's headdress: it was all built up on her head in silvery-golden curls and spirals. It must be done with glue, thought Mona; I don't see how it could stay up that way otherwise, or maybe she uses gelatine like Rush. She had to smile at the thought.

“Yes, dear?” repeated the voice, this time a little more sharply. “Is there something I can do for you?”

Mona flapped her braids nervously. “My hair,” she said, “I want it cut off.”

The goddess never batted an eyelash. She simply turned her head and called out in a voice like an iron file.

“Oh, Mr. Edward,” she called. “Oh, Miss Pearl.”

Mr. Edward was tall and refined looking, with wavy dark hair and melancholy eyes like a poet. Miss Pearl was small and pretty with a smile that never left her face for an instant. She talked through it and ate through it and it was probably still there when she was asleep.

“This little girl would like her hair bobbed,” explained the goddess.

“Those lovely
braids?
” exclaimed Miss Pearl.

“Yes,” said Mona firmly. “I loathe them.”

“She's quite right too,” agreed Mr. Edward. He stood away and regarded her through narrow eyes, more like a painter than a poet. “The little lady is definitely the subdeb type. I see a long bob; about shoulder length. Fluffy. Soft. Youthful.” He looked like a man in a trance.

“Well, take her to booth eleven, then,” said the goddess practically. “Etienne's permanent wave just went home a couple of minutes ago, so it's empty.”

Booth eleven was hung on three sides with silky green curtains like a little tent. On the fourth side there was a large mirror and a basin all grinning and glittering with faucets and gadgets.

Miss Pearl hung up Mona's hat and coat, draped her with a pink rubber cape, told her to sit down on the important-looking chair in front of the basin and began undoing her braids.

“Such beautiful hair, honey,” said Miss Pearl. “Seems like it's almost a shame to cut it off. What'll your mamma say?”

“My mother is dead,” said Mona.

“Oh. Oh, well. It sure is lovely hair, though. So long too. Way down to your hips, almost. Are you
sure
you want to bob it?”

“Absolutely positive,” replied Mona.

“Well, okay then. Oh, Mr.
Ed
-ward,” bleated Miss Pearl over her shoulder, and Mr. Edward appeared suddenly, dramatically from behind the curtain with a flashing smile, like the villain in a play. Iago, thought Mona to herself. He clicked the scissors together, hungrily; then he began. Mona discovered that her heart was beating fast again. Shining strands fell to the floor, into Mona's lap; everywhere. In the mirror she could see her anxious face framed between a long lock on one side and a sort of ragged clump like a cocker spaniel's ear on the other.

As he worked, Mr. Edward asked all the usual dull, boring questions that Mona felt she should have outgrown long ago. Questions like what is your name, little lady, how old are you, what school do you go to, do you enjoy it, what class do you enjoy most, I bet you enjoy recess most, don't you, have you any brothers and sisters, my, my, isn't that nice, how old are
they,
and what are
their
names, etc.

Goodness, the questions children always had to answer, and politely too. Still he seemed to be a nice man, and Mona had the feeling that he was really just as bored as she was by the questions and only asking to be kind.

“Oh, dear!” cried Mona in consternation, looking at the horrible reflection of herself in the mirror. She saw a frightened face framed by a lot of straight bushy hair lopped off at the shoulders. “Oh, Mr. Edward! I look like an old English thatched cottage. I don't
like
it!”

“Now, now, never mind,” he consoled her. “You just wait till we get finished. It won't look anything like this, I promise. Now, let's see—” Mona could tell that he was racking his brains for another question to ask her. Ah, he had it. “And what are you going to do when you grow up, little lady?”

Mona wished he wouldn't call her little lady, but aloud she answered politely. “An actress,” she said.

“Well!” said Mr. Edward, mildly surprised.

“Isn't that cute!” exclaimed Miss Pearl, to Mona's boundless disgust. “A movie actress?”

“No,” said Mona proudly. “A real actress on the stage, like Helen Hayes or Ethel Barrymore.”

“Well, if that's the case we must make you as handsome as we can, mustn't we?” said Mr. Edward. “All right, Pearl, you can take over now. Good-bye, Myrna.” (Mona saw that he hadn't understood her name.) “Just you relax and I'll be back in a flash.”

Miss Pearl twirled the chair around and fastened a sort of metal plate to the back of it. At one end of the plate there was a curved dent that looked as though someone had taken a bite out of it.

“Just rest your neck in there, honey,” said Miss Pearl. “Now lay your head back, that's right.”

Cascades of warm water and foaming suds of perfumed soap flowed over Mona's scalp. Miss Pearl's fingers were light and dexterous. This was something entirely different from Cuffy's brand of shampoo. Cuffy scrubbed as if her hope of salvation depended upon it. When she was through, your eyes were red and smarting from all the soap that had got into them, and your whole skull was throbbing as though it had been beaten with a mallet. The Melendy children dreaded shampoo days as they dreaded few things, and Oliver had once been heard begging Cuffy to use the vacuum cleaner on his scalp instead.

“I used to have a couple of pigtails too, when I was about your age,” remarked Miss Pearl. “I'll never forget the first time it was cut.” She laughed reminiscently. “My brother cut it for me.”

“Your brother?”

“Yes, my brother. The time we ran away.”

“The time you ran
away?
From
home?
”

“Oh, if you could call it home. It's kind of like in the fairy stories: my mother died when I was a baby and a long time afterward my father married again, but he only lived a year after that. And then there we were with a stepmother, a wicked stepmother,
just
like in the fairy stories.”

“Was she really wicked?”

“She surely was. She was a mean one. Not so much to Perry—that's my brother—because he was two years older than me, and you know how boys are, kind of strong and tough. My father'd bought a new house when he married her and, my, how we hated it. It was a farm way outside of town (a little place called Verona was where we came from) and the house was kind of high and thin, made out of brick, and it had trees all around; those big, sad black evergreens; I don't know what you call them. My, I can make myself blue just remembering how the wind used to sound in the branches of those darn trees. You can sit up now, dear, we're all finished.” Miss Pearl twirled the chair back again, and Mona looked at her drippy reflection without seeing it.