But not tonight.
“What did you make me do?” I demand, only half joking.
“I am rescuing you. Sit down. Here.” She drags a kitchen chair away from the table, and I drop obediently into it.
“I thought we were leaving immediately.”
“No way. We’re early. I never could have pried you loose if we’d waited any longer.”
“Has anybody ever told you you’re brilliantly manipulative?”
“Ha. Hang on. I have barely begun with my evil master plan.” She disappears into the bathroom, and I figure she’s off to do some more primping, but she reappears almost immediately with a mirror, a comb, and a cosmetic bag. Misgiving pricks up its ears in warning, followed by full-on emergency alert sirens when she drops the bag on the table, shoves the mirror into my hand, and moves behind me.
“Val. What are you doing?”
“You are so tense. Relax a little.” Her fingers massage the knots in my shoulders. It hurts, but it’s the good kind of hurt, and I feel my body easing under her touch. Her hands work their way up my neck to the base of my skull. “Even your hair is tight. I bet it makes your head ache.”
I tug my head forward, away from her meddling hands, but she’s already removed two heavy combs and is loosening the tight French braiding. I can’t contain a sigh of relief as my hair loosens and cascades down over my shoulders.
“You have such beautiful hair,” Val says. “Mine’s already full-on gray if I don’t dye it; yours hasn’t even got a thread of silver. I don’t know why you keep it tied up so tight.”
“Vanity,” I whisper.
“Earlene dyes hers, in case you didn’t notice.”
“I noticed.”
“And that young one—Felicity—she’s got a different style every week.”
“You don’t understand.” My hands are shaking, my breath catching in my throat. Tears are about to follow.
“Thomas again?” Val asks.
Thomas again. Thomas always.
Getting my hair done was one of my last outward rebellions. Abigail was a baby, and the disconnect between the Liz I’d always been and Elizabeth, the wife Thomas was shaping me into, was beginning to frighten me. I’d dropped into a hair salon on impulse, carrying Abigail asleep in her car seat.
“What do you want done?” the hairdresser asked, running her fingers through my hair.
“I don’t know. Something different.”
“Let’s go short,” she said. “That’s the new look. It will bring out your beautiful eyes and be so easy to maintain. Lots of moms go short.”
I was feeling reckless and wild, a little desperate. “Do it,” I told her.
But I didn’t love it. I looked even less like me in the mirror, my head too small. My ears too big.
“What have you done?” Thomas demanded when I walked in the door.
Tears welled up in my eyes and spilled over, beyond my ability to hold them back.
“Vanity,” he said. “I thought you were above that, Elizabeth, but I suppose all women are prone to it.”
I cried harder, humiliated and broken, and his face softened. He drew me into his arms and stroked my shorn head. “Hush now. It’s just a lesson. Forget your hair and the things of this world. Focus on what we are called to do. God gave you to me as a helper. So be that, Elizabeth. That’s what you’re here for.”
His words sank into my vulnerable soul. As soon as my hair was long enough, I started braiding it without a word from him, a reminder to myself of the dangers of vanity.
Now, as I look in the mirror, I see a shadow of my younger self. I run my fingers through my hair. It feels decadent and luxurious. My face is softened by the waves. I look younger.
“How about a little makeup?” Val asks.
“I’m in mourning. The hair is more than enough.”
She holds out a tube of lipstick. “Of course you’re in mourning, darling, it’s only been three months. But this isn’t the eighteenth century. It’s not like there are rules.”
I laugh at that. “Are you kidding? There are rules, all right. It’s just that they’re invisible and nobody ever wrote them down.” I’m shocked by the amount of bitterness in my voice. If I continue as I am, I’ll end up like Earlene. A bitter, wretched, resentful old woman.
Lipstick is such a small thing. I uncap the tube and smooth a touch of color onto my lips.
“Remember Eve and the apple,” Thomas says inside my head. “She had the whole garden of paradise, and yet she wanted more. Look where that got her.”
“If this is paradise, you can have it,” I retort.
“What’s that?” Val blinks at me, and I laugh, shaking off a nearly physical sensation of bondage.
“Never mind. Are we going, or what?”
“I’ll get my keys.” She dances her way toward the door. I look at myself one more time in the mirror, guilt raising its ugly little head.
“It’s only the one time,” I whisper, just in case God and Thomas are listening.
Chapter Five
I hesitate at the back of the theater, lagging behind Val, enveloped in a haze of sensory memories. The hushed murmur of a waiting crowd filling the seats. The heat and glare of the spotlights. The controlled chaos behind the scenes. And a clear vision of my old self standing in the spotlight. She spreads her arms wide and smiles at me. You’re here. You came back.
The vision shatters as a large man strides out to center stage. “New blood!” he booms, no need for a microphone, his voice projecting to the far corners of the room. “Excellent, excellent. Come on in, ladies. Have a seat. We were just getting started.”
“Hey, Val! Come sit over here.” A small woman waves at us from the second row. It’s hard to guess her age. Her hair is snow white but thick and wavy, pulled back in a casual ponytail. Her eyes, black and inquisitive, belie the crow’s-feet around them. The woman beside her is her polar opposite, well above average height, with drooping jowls and more than enough weight for the two of them. Her hair is short, thin, and mousy, but her eyes are a startling green and her smile reveals straight, very white teeth and a deep dimple in one cheek.
“Meet Tara and Bernie,” Val says, settling into a seat beside the small woman. “Ladies, this is Liz.”
I’m about to ask which name goes with which face when the large woman’s gaze slips away from me and to the back of the theater.
“Ohhhh, there we go,” she murmurs. “I could look at that until the cows come home.”
A man stands at the back of the theater, not hesitant or undecided, just surveying the scene. I guess his age at fifty, mostly from the lines in his face. He’s fit enough to be much younger, dressed in well-worn jeans and a flannel shirt.
“Bernie. Stop objectifying the poor man.” The small woman, who must be Tara, elbows her in the ribs.
“Poor man, nothing. And you’re just as bad.”
“He’s off duty,” she says virtuously. “You can only ogle him when he’s in uniform. There are rules.”
“Volunteers as an EMT,” Val supplies in response to my raised eyebrows. “Bernie has a thing for a man in uniform.”