Momma spins me around and lifts the top of her station, and I lay my head back in the bowl. She washes my hair like she did when I was a kid and I can’t help but shiver.
“You wantin’ more crimp than wave, or more wave than crimp?” she asks when she sits me back up.
“Wave.” I study Momma’s face through the mirror. Her eyes are the same, blue as the endless Texas sky. She brushes my wet hair and glances over at my old station.
“What brings a big-city girl like you to Marfa?”
This is the first time anyone has mistaken me for big-city. “I’m here workin’ on a book.” I came up with this new story on the flight to Midland. It’s the perfect cover. Artistic musing explains why I’ll be in and out of Marfa, and it’s something that people believe in around here.
“Did you hear that, Lorna?” Momma pumps up the chair. “We got a new writer in town.”
“What are you writin’ about?” Lorna wants to know.
I thought of that, too. “Heaven,” I answer, because talking religion is the fastest way to become Momma’s friend. I know I shouldn’t keep lying to her, but my other lies didn’t work out. Daddy ruined the Publishers Clearing House fabrication, and most of my relatives who live within fifty miles would love to call bool-sheet on Tara Sue.
“Well, you’re in the right place. God made Texas with his own hands, but he gave Marfa his heart.” She gets her pink comb and runs it through my tangles. “My daughter’s with the Lord, so I know a thing or two about heaven.”
She points her comb to the chair next to us. “She worked right there.”
I take a good look at my old workstation and notice a stuffed doll sitting next to a bottle of hair protector. It has a beard and goatee and looks like… “Is that Jesus?”
“Sure enough is. It’s a plush Jesus that someone left on my daughter’s grave.” She sprays a handful of whipped mousse in her hand and combs it through my hair with her fingers. “I just couldn’t leave my Lord and Savior to the elements.” Momma dries her hands and fires up her blow-dryer.
I can’t think of anyone who’d stick a stuffed Jesus on my grave. My grave. I don’t want to think about that. I can’t think about it without my brain twisting in my head.
Mom shuts off the blower and picks up where she left off. “Most everyone in town turned out for her funeral at Glorious Way Evangelical. We made sure she had the best of everything. Her daddy went into debt on the flowers alone.”
I can make sure he doesn’t have to go into debt for anything ever again.
“It was beautiful, and I know Brittany went straight to heaven.”
No, she didn’t. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“It’s a tragedy.” Momma’s eyes start to water, and I hand her a tissue. “Thank you.” She dabs at her tears. “She was too good for this world.”
I was?
“Just a good person,” Lorna adds.
That’s true enough.
“Her smile lit up a room and everyone just loved her.”
They did?
“There isn’t one person who’s ever said a bad word against her.”
I can think of a few.
“She was the perfect child.”
Someone’s been sniffing peroxide.
“I’ll see her again after the rapture.”
“I’m sorry I never got to meet her.” I’m smiling on the inside as Momma turns the salon chair and I notice something at my workstation better than plush Jesus: my old cell phone. It’s scratched and the screen is cracked and I want it in the worst way.
“You should write about her in your book.”