Mom’s Friday Chair at the Beauty College

The comb out

Two did the comb out. They were the two blonde girls, one with a ponytail and one with her hair in a low knot. They took the rollers out one by one and dropped them into a basket. Then they brushed it all out, and teased it, and smoothed it over, and shaped it with their combs.

Rochelle stood behind them with her arms folded. “Lift at the crown,” she said. “She’s not going to see the back, but her church is.”

I laughed. Mom laughed too, out loud, with the last of the rollers still in and the late-morning light pouring through the big front window. I had not heard her laugh like that all winter, not since before Christmas.

The two blonde girls stood at her shoulders with their combs, working on the last little curls around her ears. Her hair was coming out white and soft and high and full, the way she has worn it all my life. She looked like my mother again.

“Velda,” said Rochelle, “would you mind if I took a picture for the college page? We like to show the work.”

Mom looked at me. I shrugged.

“Well,” Mom said. “Get my good side.”

Rochelle took the picture with her phone through the mirror, Mom in her chair laughing with the last rollers still in, the two girls at her shoulders, me standing off to the side in my denim shirt with my hair clipped up in a hurry, looking like I had just been to a ball game.

It was a good picture. It was the happiest I had seen my mother look in a long while.

Two dollars

At the front desk, Mom opened her coin purse and paid her eight dollars. Then she took out two one-dollar bills, folded once, and looked at the six girls standing there.

I saw her face fall. She had brought two dollars because she always brought two dollars. And there were six of them.

“Oh, girls,” she said. “I’m sorry. I only brought the two.”

The tall girl with the braid stepped up. “Ma’am, you don’t have to tip us at all. We’re students.”

“Everybody who does work gets tipped,” my mother said. “That’s how I was raised.” She held the two dollars out to Rochelle. “You split it how you see fit. And I’ll do better next week.”

“Next week?” said Rochelle.

“If you’ll have me,” said Mom. “Same time.”

Rochelle put the two dollars in a coffee can behind the desk. “We’ll have you,” she said. “Ten o’clock. I’ll put your name in the book myself.”