Despite myself, I smile. “Ummm . . . yes. That’s right.”
“Well, relax.” She turns my chair so I am facing the mirror, and then lightly runs her fingers through my crazy cowlicked hair. “It’s easy to get in what I call a ‘hair rut.’ And when you’re in one, it’s hard to make a change. It can be upsetting.” She tilts her head, looking thoughtfully at my reflection. “My guess, however, is that you’d like a way to tame this unruly look and give it a bit more elegance.”
I nod. “Please,” I say. “That is exactly what I want.”
And so I take a deep breath, trying to calm down and enjoy the experience for what it is. Even Linnea’s hands remind me of Lars’s: strong, capable, like you could put your whole life in them and nothing bad would ever come of it. I am halfway in love with her before she finishes my shampoo.
Back at her station, she pensively runs a comb through my hair, then rummages in a side cart for rollers. Eyeing my head critically, she tries first one size, and then another, finding just the right small curlers for some areas, the larger pink rollers for big waves on top. She dunks her fingers into a large vat of green Dippity-Do, smooths it into my hair, then expertly rolls each curler and pins it into place.
Once she appears at ease with her work, I open my mouth and venture a comment. “Linnea,” I say hesitantly. “That’s a pretty name. And unusual.”
She looks up and smiles at me in the mirror. “It’s Swedish,” she explains. “I emigrated here from a small town not far from Bor?s, which itself is not so big; most Americans have not heard of it. I came here as a girl.”
I clasp my hands together tightly to keep them from trembling. “That’s a long way to move,” I say finally. “Your family . . . they moved here with you?”
She nods, arranging a small blue curler around a wisp of my hair and attaching it with a roller clip. “My parents and my brother.” She bites her lip. “They’ve all passed, however.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.” I can feel myself shaking. “How sad for you. Were they . . . ill?”
Linnea nods again. “My parents did not do well here,” she says. “We started out in Iowa, where we had distant relatives. But it was the Depression, the work that was available was hard, and my mother’s heart . . . well, her heart could not withstand it.” She looks away, and then back at my hair. “More or less the same could be said of my father, I suppose.”
It is hard for me to fathom. I cannot in my wildest imagination envision losing my parents. Perhaps it is because they are so young—my mother is not even sixty yet—but it’s hard to picture my life without them. Even this two-month period in which they are so far away is proving much more difficult than I anticipated. The whole idea of them being thousands of miles from home is starting to wear on me. I think about the postcard I received from Mother this morning.
Kitty, my dear,
We are so far from home. Yesterday, I asked May how far it is from Honolulu to Denver, and she said over 3,000 miles. Think about that. The earth is about 25,000 miles around; so we are almost 1/8 of the earth’s circumference from home.
Some mornings, I get up with the sun, face east, and think about you. By the time I do this, you are halfway through your morning, probably having coffee with Frieda in your lovely little bookshop.
Do you know how proud I am of you, darling Kitty?
Love,
Mother
Reading those words at home this morning, I had an almost uncontrollable urge to pick up the telephone and call, different time zones and overseas charges be damned. I just wanted to hear my mother’s voice. I actually lifted the receiver and started to dial—but, knowing that it was several hours earlier there and they would still be asleep, I forced myself to hang up before I could complete the call.
Turning back to the conversation with Linnea, I am afraid of my next question. But it must be asked. Taking a deep breath, I ask, “And your brother? What happened to him?”
Linnea shakes her head. “Heart troubles again,” she replies. “Very sad . . . he was young, only thirty-four.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “Linnea, I am so sorry.”
She steps back and shakes her head as if to clear it. “Listen to me,” she says, smiling. “Breaking the first two rules they teach you in beauty school. Rule number one: don’t tell the customer about yourself until you’ve learned all there is to know about the customer. And rule number two: if you do talk about yourself, make sure you speak only of happy things.”
I smile in return. “I’m sorry we got off on the wrong foot,” I say. “So tell me some happy things about you.”
She wags her finger at my reflection. “Oh, no, you don’t, Kitty Miller,” she says firmly. “Not until I learn all about you first.”
And so I tell her. We talk about my parents, and I tell her about their big trip. She says it must be heaven for them, to be able to travel to an exotic place like Hawaii, and be able to visit family and have a free place to stay. Thinking of my mother’s words, I just smile and nod.
Linnea says she has always dreamed of traveling, but with raising two children, buying a house, and paying their bills, the best she and her husband managed through the years was an occasional auto trip. The children, Joe and Gloria, are now twenty and sixteen. “Joe is at the university up in Boulder.” Linnea shrugs. “Nice up there, I guess. Pretty campus. I hope he’s learning something, is all I am thinking.” She shakes her head. “And that Gloria. Goodness, between school, friends, clubs, boys—that girl is busy. Runs around like a chicken with its feathers cut off.”
I look at her quizzically in the mirror.
“Did I say that wrong?” She shrugs again. “You know, I’ve been in this country and speaking English for close to thirty years, and I still do not get the expressions right.”
I smile and laugh, and she laughs with me. I love Linnea’s laugh. It sounds just like a female version of Lars’s.
I tell her about the bookstore, about Frieda and how we got started in it after being disenchanted with our original career plans. “What a marvelous thing,” Linnea says. “Following your hearts that way. Tell me, what sorts of books do you carry?”
“All sorts.” I reach into the pocket of my slacks for a Sisters’ Bookshop business card. “Fiction, travel, history, poetry, art.”
“Classics?” Linnea asks, taking the business card from my hand. “I love the classics.”