Trisha Collopy

An excerpt from Mouth Music

The Wild Rose Beauty Shop was a little shack at the end of Main Street, where thewooden sidewalk ended and the row of storefronts tumbled into houses and weedy lots.

Gus passed it on her way from the hotel to her boarding house every morning and night.A hand-made sign below the name said, “Hair Bobbing Our Specialty” and a picture in thewindow showed the styles: Orchid Bob, Coconut Bob, Brushed Back Bob, Tousled Frizzy Bob,Eton Crop, Shingle.

On a Tuesday, her only half-day, Gus lingered over a photo in the window, a movie starwith cropped hair that came to a vampire’s point on her forehead, her full lips painted into alacquered smirk.

A girl in a white smock came out and lit a cigarette.“Leatrice Joy,” she said, exhaling.Gus startled back from the window and almost tripped over a dusty planter next to the

door.

“That lady you been eyeballing. You got a thing for her?”A stab of fear bloomed in Gus’s chest and she felt her ears flame. She should move on,

she knew, but her feet were rooted to the spot in front of that window.“Is she famous?”“Yah, she’s in the movies. ‘Eve’s Leaves,’ ‘Clinging Vine.’ Bunch a them.”

“I never saw them.”

Her heart raced as if she had just been caught looking at a risqué photo. She had walked by the Rialto on Main Street many times with its bright, running lights, but never paid the dime to venture inside. “You want a cut or you just gonna stand there, staring at pictures all day?” The girl stubbed out her cigarette in the planter and Gus followed her inside. The shop was cluttered and dusky with a thick, yellowish light that came in through half-closed blinds. A ceiling fan batted away a few lazy flies, but not the thick, distinctly feminine smell of singed hair and peroxide. There were no other customers. Another hairdresser was sitting in one of the barber chairs, reading a fashion magazine. “What we got, Suzy,” she said, licking her finger to turn the page. “Ole Horse-and-Buggy’s getting the big chop,” Suzy said. She shook out the faded ribbon tying Gus’s braid and began combing the snarls out with short jerks. She stopped to light another cigarette, then worked her way around Gus’s head gamely, sheering the hair in short ripping bursts.

With her eyes closed, memories surfaced. The farmer’s hand, closing on the back of her neck. The jerk of her head every time her braid fell into sink of dirty dishwater. Busboys tugging it as she passed. And now these warm, practiced fingers on her neck. Tears leaked out of the corners of Gus’s eyes. When she finally looked in the mirror, she didn’t see the polished gamine in the photo, a girl masquerading as a petulant, pretty boy. The haircut had left a soft wing of chestnut hair over one eye, a dip of wavy hair that ended at her ear. Gus noticed her eyebrows, the only

punctuation in her long, pale face. Full lips, steady hazel eyes, and a round, dimpled chin. And something open, waiting in her broad, pale face.

“There ya go,” Suzy said, brushing the tiny, needling bristles off her neck. “Ready for night school.”

Outside, Gus felt light-headed and acutely self-conscious. She had forgotten a hat and was sure that every woman she passed was staring at her, frowning at her too-short cut. Every step she took down Main Street took an effort of will. She could barely lift her eyes from the wooden sidewalk. The block to her boardinghouse was the longest block she had ever walked.