Turn 10 of 44

Sit back at the vanity and let Vivian do your hair. She washes the hair as the green and red color comes out and the color becomes champagne blonde. She then grabs your hair and rolls it up in pin curls until all your hair is rolled up in pin curls. You two talk about housewife things. She tells that your hair needs time to curl and says that she can do your makeup and nails in the mean time.

"All yours," you say, and settle onto the stool like a lady at a salon, red heels hooked on the rung, petticoats pooling around you. "Do whatever a gal's hair needs." "Oh, it needs plenty," Vivian says cheerfully, unpinning your dark curls with quick little tugs. "But don't you fret. I've done a hundred heads and not a one walked away a mess." She disappears a moment and returns with a basin and a pitcher of warm water, and washes your hair right there at the vanity, her fingers firm and sure on your scalp, and it's heaven, it's the barber shop you never knew you missed.

And the color comes out in the rinse. You watch the mirror do it: streaks of green and red lifting away like dye from a brush under water, rinsing down the drain in ribbons, and the hair left behind is champagne blonde, soft and pale as morning tea.

"There's the real you," Vivian says, toweling it gently. "Wasn't hiding under there all these years for nothing." Then she works in small sections, combing and rolling, winding each curl around her finger and pinning it flat against your scalp.

Pin by pin, ring by ring, your whole head disappears into a tidy architecture of pin curls, close as armor.

"Rinse your plates while I do this, honey — what do you figure the Hendersons are going to do about that lawn, anyway?" "Somebody ought to say something," you agree, and the two of you burble on like that through the whole head — the Priors, the book club, what to serve when the minister comes — housewife talk in housewife voices, until the last pin clicks home and your scalp hums pleasantly, held.

"Now," she says, patting your pinned crown fondly, "a set this deep needs time to bake. Forty-five minutes, not a minute under. But a gal doesn't sit around on her duff — let's do your face and your nails while she cooks." She flips open the little case, and inside, ranked like soldiers, are compacts and lipsticks and a bottle of polish.

"What'll it be, honey?" She holds up two lacquer bottles, cherry red and a blush pink, waggling her own orange nails.

"Red's classic. Pink's sweet. And I'm feeling generous — I'll do yours and mine both."