Turn 40 · The makeover on Mulberry Lane

You tell her the line as you Brush out Ruth's pin curls into a shoulder length 1950s pageboy. You start with the sides and back of her hair. the pin curls are unrolled and brushed slowly into the 50s pageboy at shoulder length. The front of her hair is then unrolled and brushed slowly into a s shape like some of the 50s housewives have. You stop to let her see her hair. She gasps with excitement

The timer rings its little silver chime, and you rise, and Ruth sits up straight as a soldier with her hands folded in her lap.

"A gal's first brush-out," you say, lifting the silver-handled brush from the vanity, "is one she remembers her whole life."

"Oh, *honey*," Ruth breathes, and goes still for you like a good gal should.

You start at the sides, each pin coming out with a tiny click, the released curl warm and springy in your palm before the brush draws through it — slow, slow, the way Vivian did yours, the way you did Carol's. The blue-black hair falls heavy and gleaming past her jaw, past her chin, down to her shoulders, and you brush it smooth and turn the ends under in a soft roll, working the back section by section until it swings at shoulder length like a curtain drawn in one clean motion. Then the front. You unroll the last pins and shape the sweep of it with your thumbs and the brush both, drawing it up and over in that deep S-curve that rolls back from the brow like a wave deciding to be beautiful.

Then you stop. You step aside, brush held to your chest like a hymnal, and let her see.

Ruth leans into the tri-fold mirror and three Ruths lean back — pearls, polka dots, red nails, and that shining dark pageboy swinging at her shoulders with the S-swept front gleaming under the vanity light.

She *gasps*, one hand flying to her collar.

"Why — why, I look like a *movie star*! Margaret, look at it! Look at the *shine* on that thing! I look simply — land sakes, honey, I look jolly good!"

"You look just like one of us," you say, and her smile — that wide white settled-in smile — could light the whole street.