The Hot Flash Club by Nancy Thayer Page B

received a subliminal message about her profession and passion. “Um, yes, in a way.”
    Clad in tight black trousers and a black silk shirt open to the waist, Ricky vibrated slightly, like a flamenco dancer ready to spin her off in a tango. And he did take her by the shoulders to guide her, through a haze of perfumes and a glitter of mirrors, into a pink chair. Settling her there, he began to pull out the bobby pins and rubber band that anchored her bun to her head. As her hair fell down around her face, he ran his hands through it.
    “Look at thees hair!” he scolded. “Look at thees split ends!” He seemed about to weep. “And look! Eet’s all jagged!” Frowning, he demanded, “Have you been cutting your own hair with desk scissors?”
    Marilyn nodded, chagrined and yet pleased he was so perceptive. She appreciated professional acumen.
    “Aiieeyy,” the hairdresser moaned, waving his hands.
    “Ricky.” Faye intervened, stepping forward. “Marilyn is a professor. She teaches at MIT. She’s well respected and very intelligent, and she’s never needed to look anything but academic for years. But now she wants to change. That’s why we came to you.”
    Ricky patted his chest, calming down. “Thank God you did!” He ran his hands through Marilyn’s hair again. “You have nice thick hair,” he decided. “We can do something weeth eet.”
    “Color it,” Faye told him.
    “Yes, of course. And I’ll style eet. Something easy to care for, I assume?”
    “Absolutely,” Marilyn agreed.
    “Look,” Faye said. “I’m going off to do some shopping. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”
    “Fine,” Marilyn said. She allowed herself to be led off to a cubicle to change into a pink smock. Then she lay back with her head in a sink, closed her eyes, and surrendered herself to the ministrations of strangers.
    As Ricky and his elves flitted around her with their bottles, elixirs, brushes, foils, and clips, Marilyn drifted into a reverie, remembering years ago, when her hair was still a deep natural auburn. Theodore had told her to stop wrapping it around fat plastic rollers, trying to make it curl or bounce. “You’re just wasting your time,” he’d said. “Don’t try to look glamorous. You’re not the glamorous type.”
    He hadn’t meant to be cruel, simply factual, and back then, when Teddy was an energetic toddler and Theodore worked late at his lab and Marilyn was struggling to write her doctoral dissertation on
Light Isotopes
in Phosphatic Fossils,
she’d been so overwhelmed, exhausted, and occupied that she’d received Theodore’s verdict with, if not pleasure, certainly relief. It was easy to yank her hair back into a rubber band and skewer the bun to the back of her head where it stayed as she chased after her little boy, and cooked, and cleaned, and did laundry, and sat up late at night bent over her books.
    The years had flown by. Teddy grew into a brilliant, curious, optimistic boy who loved playing with microscopes, just like his parents. Theodore taught at MIT and worked on his private research. Marilyn was awarded her Ph.D. and offered a tenured position in the paleobiology department at MIT, and even though Theodore, over in the molecular genetics department, insisted she was given the job in order to keep
him
happy, she ascertained through the way the other professors treated her that she was respected in her field. Certainly her papers were published in scientific journals as often as Theodore’s. And her courses were always
packed
with students. In fact, this year she’d taken a sabbatical from teaching, simply to allow herself time to catch her breath and concentrate fully on her own laboratory work with her own fossils.
    Ricky’s voice brought her back to the present. “Ees okay now to open your eyes.”
    The tone of his voice telegraphed his delight. She opened her eyes.
    At that moment, Faye swept into the salon, a shopping bag in each hand. “Oh, my heavens!” she cried.