Nobody's Sorry You're Dead

5

Lou Edna's Beauty Boutique was a staple on Main Street. Hairstyles came into fashion, and just as quickly went out, but Lou Edna had managed to keep the ladies of Hope Rock County coiffed in variations of the same number five washtub hairdo for years.

It was the hair lacquer, as Hadley called Lou's hairspray. That stuff had the holding force of concrete and was the foundation for those high-rise works of hair art that Lou Edna was famous for. Lou Edna had to be a major stockholder in the Beautiful Doo Hairspray Company. She used enough of the stuff.

Lou Edna's shop was a small, shotgun room that sported twin pink sinks. Standing elegantly before each basin was a pink leatherette chair, perfectly adjusted to raise and lower Lou Edna's customers as smoothly as silk.

Three massive pink ten-gallon hooded hair dryers, each with its own pink leatherette chair and matching leatherette footstool, lined the opposite wall of the shop. From the middle of her empire, amid all the bottles of shampoos, conditioner, rinses, dyes, and cans of Beautiful Doo, Lou Edna held court.

Hadley had avoided Lou Edna's for almost twelve months but that was long ago. Ancient history. It was the reason that today, among the women her age – brunettes, redheads, and blondes – Hadley Pell was about the only one left whose locks of thick, unruly tresses were battleship gray.

The color still rose in Hadley's cheeks when anyone at the shop mentioned her fiasco.

Lou Edna was a bubbly, bee-hived beautician who always wore pink uniform dresses and thick-soled, pink shoes that perfectly matched. The beautician thought fast on her feet, and she could talk the socks off any preacher.

Her lips moved almost as quickly as the scissors that remained glued to her right hand during business hours. She was vivacious, loud, and very persuasive. She zeroed in on Hadley that day like a bull to a red flag.

"Hadley, honey, you're going gray on me," Lou Edna said as Hadley entered the shop.

"Oh, Lou Edna, I am not. That's just the way the light is hitting my head. You know what I mean. Like when my cowlick curls a certain way at my crown, some folks swear I'm bald as a cue ball back there."

Lou Edna twirled the shop chair.

"Have a seat, beautiful," Lou Edna said, peeling the wrapper from a stick of gum and spearing it between her Passionately Pink lips.

"You know you would look plumb gorgeous as a blonde. You've got the cheekbones and the chin to pull it off. Not to mention those emerald eyes! You'd knock 'em dead, and I'm not spittin' cherry pits."

Hadley's black tresses had been evolving for some time. The single gray hairs had seemed to multiply magically overnight whenever she looked in the mirror. Oh well, she reasoned, gray hair complements the laugh lines around my eyes.

"A blonde!" Hadley said. "Which lunatic asylum let you out this morning?"

She noted that Lou Edna had been busy. Her pink tiled floor was covered with clumps of red, brown, blonde, orange, magenta, and black hair.

As the beautician grabbed the broom and dustpan resting in the corner next to the first pink station, she nodded to Hadley and said, "Aw, close your cattle gate, Hadley. I'm not kidding. Look at Marilyn. She was a platinum goddess!"

Lou Edna swept up a rainbow pile of hair from the salon floor.

"But, that's not blonde," Hadley protested. "That's white. I'd look like a bed sheet!"

"You would not," Lou Edna said. "I've got a special. I ended it yesterday, but for you, I'll extend it and knock off eight dollars to boot! It's a real deal. Come on. What do you say? How 'bout this shade, Hadley? It's softer. It goes peachy with your skin tone."

"Still too light," Hadley said.

"Well, how 'bout this one?" Lou Edna asked. "Ain't it swank? It's called Maple Starlight."

"Lou Edna," Hadley said. "That's beige! Whoever heard of beige hair? I'd look like my mop!"

"You would not," Lou Edna said. "I swear Hadley. Don't be so resistant to change! I feel like I'm talking to a stone wall. You are impossible. Relax. Live a little. How 'bout this?"

Hadley felt like she was in the hardware store looking at paint swatches.

"That last one isn't so bad," Hadley murmured, more to herself than to Lou Edna.

But that was enough for the eager beautician. She whipped out her beautician's cape and snapped it around Hadley's neck.

"That one's the charm!" Lou Edna said, twirling Hadley around in the pink chair.

Her pink shoe pumped wildly on the pedal as the chair rose in the air. She pulled a handle, letting the back of the chair down with a "whomp." She eased Hadley's head down into the sink.

Lou Edna set to work, donning her plastic gloves and smacking her gum in a syncopated rhythm all her own. She washed and rinsed and poured chemicals on Hadley's tresses like a mad scientist.

"Lou Edna," Hadley said, "are you sure about this? That smells like bleach. And it's burning a little, Lou, kind of like a perm. Is that normal?"

"Oh, Hadley. Don't be such a wuss. Your black hair will never take the blonde dye unless we bleach it first."

When it was all over, Hadley Pell was a blonde bombshell.

At least, that's what she hoped her husband would say.

But Harry didn't cotton to his wife's newfangled color at all. So, like the good little wife, Hadley visited Lou Edna's a couple of weeks later.

"Put it back the way it was, Lou Edna. Harry's not fond of this color one bit."

"You're kidding," Lou Edna said.

"No," Hadley said. "I told him it was a softer version of Marilyn, but he said he would have married the real deal if he'd wanted a dumb blonde."

Lou Edna frowned.

"Okay, Hadley. But I gotta warn you. I'd be afraid of over-processing. It's really too soon to be messin' with perfection, honey. I love the new you. I want you to know, I can't guarantee the results."

"I understand. I want to keep my husband, Lou Edna," Hadley said, firmly. "Just do it."

"Hmm," Lou Edna murmured uncertainly.

When Hadley walked out of Lou Edna's shop, a cackle of laughter followed her. She had the prettiest green hair you have ever seen. Hadley wore a wig or a baseball cap or a scarf to conceal her fern green locks for months until it grew out.

Just as green hair fades to gray, old wounds scar and heal.