whale-sized checks, if you get my drift.”
Maxie was speechless. “Tia Maria?”
“You got it. My orders are to make Allie’s precious darling look good enough to knock every hormone-crazed young man on campus off his Reeboks. So how’s about letting me in, sweetie, so I can get to work.”
Candie’s mother’s hairdresser. This was the woman Candie’s mother had told them so many stories about the day she came for the tea.
“Here’s my card, hon.” The woman held out a shocking-pink business card, embossed with her name and, directly underneath that the words, BEAUTIFIER PAR EXCELLENCE .
Maxie couldn’t help smiling.
Tia Maria said proudly, “I do faces, too. Not just hair. Faces.”
Not the same way you do your own, I hope, Maxie thought.
“No one’s home right now,” Maxie said, making up her mind and releasing the chain lock. “I don’t know how soon they’ll all be back, but you can come in and wait. You can wait in my room, and keep me company.”
“Well, thanks, hon,” Tia Maria said, hefting her black leather case and giving Maxie a broad, pink-lipsticked smile. “Don’t mind if I do. My tootsies are giving out.”
Maxie pulled the door open, and the hairdresser stepped inside.
In her room, Maxie motioned Tia Maria to a wicker chair at the desk and went to the dresser to pick up her hairbrush.
“Listen, hon, I have a great idea,” Tia Maria said, not sitting down. “Since Allie’s baby girl isn’t here at this precise moment, what say you and me have us a makeover session? On my honor, I can make you so gorgeous you’ll think the Body-Snatchers came and replaced the original you with some famous movie star. How about it?”
“A makeover? Me?” Maxie glanced around nervously.
The woman read her mind. “Oh, relax, sweetie,” she said, waving jewelled hands in Maxie’s face. “Now just sit right there and let me get to work.”
What the heck, Maxie figured as she sat down in front of the dresser. It might be fun, being made over. She could always undo whatever Tia Maria did if it was really awful.
While Tia Maria worked, she talked. Nonstop. She set Maxie’s hair on hot rollers, talking the whole time about politics, religion, child-rearing, and the state of the nation in general, all in that brassy, booming voice. By the time she started on Maxie’s face, Maxie’s ears were ringing.
She worked quickly, efficiently. Maxie admired the way her fingers, in thin plastic gloves, flew, and how the brushes she used seemed to fit so perfectly in her hand, as if they were a part of it.
“And you poor guys here,” Tia Maria said as she brushed Maxie’s brows upward in firm but gentle strokes and applied tiny dabs of vaseline to hold the hairs in place, “you’ve really been having a time of it, haven’t you?”
At first, Maxie thought she was talking about something political, like state budget cuts that had affected the university, or a recent hike in tuition.
“I mean,” the hairdresser continued, nimble fingers applying blush high on Maxie’s cheekbones, “first, those things being stolen and then the ants in the pantry, yuck! And that poor kid tumbling into the fountain, and then of course, that dreadful insecticide. You girls were really lucky there. Could have been all she wrote, don’t you think? Beats me what the world is coming to.”
Maxie froze in her chair. Her eyes went to the mirror in front of her. Every nerve in her body sprang to attention as she watched Tia Maria bend to fill a huge, fluffy brush with loose translucent powder and then stand to shake off the excess. Maxie couldn’t think, couldn’t sort things out … something bad had just happened and she had to concentrate, so that she could figure out exactly what it was.
Yes, now she had it. How … how …
“How did you know about all of that?” she demanded. She had let this woman into Omega house. Without seeing any identification except for a stupid bright-pink business card. Not
Maxie was speechless. “Tia Maria?”
“You got it. My orders are to make Allie’s precious darling look good enough to knock every hormone-crazed young man on campus off his Reeboks. So how’s about letting me in, sweetie, so I can get to work.”
Candie’s mother’s hairdresser. This was the woman Candie’s mother had told them so many stories about the day she came for the tea.
“Here’s my card, hon.” The woman held out a shocking-pink business card, embossed with her name and, directly underneath that the words, BEAUTIFIER PAR EXCELLENCE .
Maxie couldn’t help smiling.
Tia Maria said proudly, “I do faces, too. Not just hair. Faces.”
Not the same way you do your own, I hope, Maxie thought.
“No one’s home right now,” Maxie said, making up her mind and releasing the chain lock. “I don’t know how soon they’ll all be back, but you can come in and wait. You can wait in my room, and keep me company.”
“Well, thanks, hon,” Tia Maria said, hefting her black leather case and giving Maxie a broad, pink-lipsticked smile. “Don’t mind if I do. My tootsies are giving out.”
Maxie pulled the door open, and the hairdresser stepped inside.
In her room, Maxie motioned Tia Maria to a wicker chair at the desk and went to the dresser to pick up her hairbrush.
“Listen, hon, I have a great idea,” Tia Maria said, not sitting down. “Since Allie’s baby girl isn’t here at this precise moment, what say you and me have us a makeover session? On my honor, I can make you so gorgeous you’ll think the Body-Snatchers came and replaced the original you with some famous movie star. How about it?”
“A makeover? Me?” Maxie glanced around nervously.
The woman read her mind. “Oh, relax, sweetie,” she said, waving jewelled hands in Maxie’s face. “Now just sit right there and let me get to work.”
What the heck, Maxie figured as she sat down in front of the dresser. It might be fun, being made over. She could always undo whatever Tia Maria did if it was really awful.
While Tia Maria worked, she talked. Nonstop. She set Maxie’s hair on hot rollers, talking the whole time about politics, religion, child-rearing, and the state of the nation in general, all in that brassy, booming voice. By the time she started on Maxie’s face, Maxie’s ears were ringing.
She worked quickly, efficiently. Maxie admired the way her fingers, in thin plastic gloves, flew, and how the brushes she used seemed to fit so perfectly in her hand, as if they were a part of it.
“And you poor guys here,” Tia Maria said as she brushed Maxie’s brows upward in firm but gentle strokes and applied tiny dabs of vaseline to hold the hairs in place, “you’ve really been having a time of it, haven’t you?”
At first, Maxie thought she was talking about something political, like state budget cuts that had affected the university, or a recent hike in tuition.
“I mean,” the hairdresser continued, nimble fingers applying blush high on Maxie’s cheekbones, “first, those things being stolen and then the ants in the pantry, yuck! And that poor kid tumbling into the fountain, and then of course, that dreadful insecticide. You girls were really lucky there. Could have been all she wrote, don’t you think? Beats me what the world is coming to.”
Maxie froze in her chair. Her eyes went to the mirror in front of her. Every nerve in her body sprang to attention as she watched Tia Maria bend to fill a huge, fluffy brush with loose translucent powder and then stand to shake off the excess. Maxie couldn’t think, couldn’t sort things out … something bad had just happened and she had to concentrate, so that she could figure out exactly what it was.
Yes, now she had it. How … how …
“How did you know about all of that?” she demanded. She had let this woman into Omega house. Without seeing any identification except for a stupid bright-pink business card. Not
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