63.
Just don’t spread the word I’m doing this.” Mrs. Ponder’s daughter leaned down and spoke quietly in Jane’s ear beneath the cover of roaring hair dryers. “Otherwise I’ll have all the posh mothers coming in here wanting me to delouse their precious little kids.”
At first Mrs. Ponder had told Jane to go to the drugstore to pick up a lice treatment. “It’s easy,” she said. “You just comb through the hair and pick the little bloodsuckers . . .” She stopped as she considered the expression on Jane’s face. “Tell you what,” she said. “I’ll see if Lucy can fit you in today.”
Mrs. Ponder’s daughter Lucy ran Hairway to Heaven, the very popular hairdressing salon in Pirriwee, in between the newsagent and the butcher. Jane had never been in the salon before. Apparently Lucy and her team were responsible for all the blond bobs on the Pirriwee Peninsula.
As Lucy fastened a cape around Ziggy’s neck, Jane looked around surreptitiously for any parents she might know, but she didn’t recognize anyone.
“Shall I give him a trim while I’m here?” asked Lucy.
“Sure, thanks,” said Jane.
Lucy glanced at Jane. “Mum wants me to cut your hair too. She wants me to give you a pixie cut.”
Jane tightened her ponytail. “I don’t really bother with my hair that much.”
“At the very least you’d better let me have a check of your hair,” said Lucy. “You might need a treatment yourself. Lice don’t fly, but they do trapeze from head to head, like leetle lice acrobats.” She put on a Mexican accent and Ziggy chuckled appreciatively.
“Oh, God,” said Jane. Her scalp felt instantly itchy.
Lucy considered Jane. She narrowed her eyes. “Have you ever seen the movie Sliding Doors? Where Gwyneth Paltrow gets her hair all cut off and it looks fantastic?”
“Sure,” said Jane. “Every girl loves that part.”
“So does every hairdresser,” said Lucy. “It’s like a dream job.” She kept looking at Jane for a few seconds longer, then she turned back to face Ziggy and put her hands on his shoulders. She grinned at his reflection. “You’re not going to recognize your mum once I’ve finished with her.”
Samantha: I didn’t recognize Jane when I first saw her at the trivia night. She had this amazing new haircut and she was wearing black capri pants with a white shirt with the collar up and ballet flats. Oh dear. Poor little Jane. She looked so happy at the start of the night!
64.
Celeste really did look ill, thought Madeline as she shepherded the twins in the door. She was wearing a man’s white T-shirt and checked pajama pants and her face was dead white.
“Gosh, is it some sort of virus, do you think? It came on so fast!” said Madeline. “You looked perfectly fine at assembly this morning!”
Celeste gave a strange little laugh and put a hand to the back of her head. “Yes, it came out of nowhere.”
“Why don’t I just take the boys back to my place for a while? Perry can pick them up from there on his way home,” said Madeline. She looked back at her car in the driveway. The smashed headlight stared at her reproachfully and expensively. She’d left Abigail crying in the front seat and Fred and Chloe squabbling in the back (and she’d also noticed Fred giving his head a good, vicious scratch, and she knew from horrible experience exactly what that probably meant; it would be just absolutely marvelous if she also had to deal with a nit outbreak right now).
“No, no, that’s nice of you, but I’m fine,” said Celeste. “I let them have unlimited screen time on Friday afternoons. They’ll just be ignoring me anyway. Thank you so much for picking them up.”
“Do you think you’ll be OK for the trivia night tomorrow?” asked Madeline.
“Oh, I’m sure I’ll be fine,” said Celeste. “Perry is looking forward to it.”
“All right, well, I’d better go,” said Madeline. “Abigail and I were shouting at each other in the car line and I ran into the back of Renata’s car.”
“No!” Celeste put her hand to her face.
“Yes, I was shouting because Abigail is auctioning off her virginity online in a bid to stop child marriage,” continued Madeline. Celeste was the first person she’d been able to tell; she was desperate to talk about it.
“She’s what?”
“It’s all for a good cause,” said Madeline with mock nonchalance. “So I’m fine with it, of course.”
“Oh, Madeline.” Celeste put her hand on her arm, and Madeline felt like she might cry.
“Take a look,” said Madeline. “The address is www.buymyvirginitytostopchildmarriageandsexslavery.com. Abigail refuses to take it down, even while people are writing the most disgusting things about her.”
Celeste winced. “I guess it’s better than prostituting herself to finance a drug addiction?”
“There is that,” said Madeline.
“She’s making one of those grand symbolic gestures, isn’t she?” mused Celeste. She pressed one hand to the back of her head again. “Like when that American woman swam the Bering Strait between the US and the USSR during the Cold War.”
“What are you talking about?”
“It was in the eighties. I was at school at the time,” said Celeste. “I remember thinking that it seemed so silly and pointless to swim across icy waters, but apparently it did have an effect, you know?”
“So you think I should go ahead and let her sell her virginity? Is this virus making you delirious?”
Celeste blinked. She seemed to sway a little on her feet and put out a hand to the wall to steady herself. “No. Of course not.” She closed her eyes briefly. “I just think you should be proud of her.”
“Mmmm,” said Madeline. “Well I think you should go and lie back down.” She kissed Celeste’s cool cheek good-bye. “Hope you feel better soon, and when you do, you might want to check your kids for nits.”