Story Two. Part 3.
Editor’s Note: Beth Kalet's story Salon Confessional follows. “Salon” is one of 7 short stories included in Beth’s book Seven Stories, published in 2012. The story will be published on Hummingbird in three parts, one per week over the next weeks.
Beth, a Hummingbird Guest Contributor, is an accomplished writer and editor. Her work, and her own story encouraged us to reach out to her.
In Salon Confessional, Beth changes gears from Trouble’s Always Just Around the Corner. “Salon” utilizes less “active” intrigue; and more of two women looking inward. Somehow, these disparate women, thrust together by chance, understand each other, and offer the other what they sorely need.
And ONWARD!
Book Cover Photo Credit: Diane Pell
Salon Confessional. Part 3.
“Hey, want to go upstairs?” Paul asked lightly. “What time is it?” He looked down at his watch; Carolyn followed his head as it bent down and all she could see was his hair, parted to form the two halves of a symmetrical heart shape as it fell forward.
“Oh, too bad,” Paul said. “Sorry. Not enough time. I have an early meeting.”
I have nowhere to turn, Carolyn thought. She gave a bitter self-pitying laugh that caught Paul off-guard. He looked at her quizzically but she wouldn’t speak. She tilted her head, nodding as if to return the query and searched his eyes for a smidgeon of empathy.
There are no comforts for grown women, Carolyn thought.
Now, at home, grandmother reprised her role with Jin and Yoon’s little girl, Clara, almost two years old. Jin was happy to have grandmother care for Clara, happy to have her living in her home, grateful for the tie to her old life and for the responsibility of making a home for grandmother. Her own parents recently victims of a car accident and her grandfather now several years gone, Jin felt a loss as wide as the continents that separated her from what was left of her family. She asked aunts and uncles and her own sisters and brother if she could take grandmother into her home. To care for her as she had been so cared for in her childhood. When the family and most importantly, grandmother, agreed, she knew something she had never acknowledged: that she had been grandmother’s favorite. Now she would live up to that status.
That’s why it was especially painful when the house was robbed last fall while grandmother and Clara were napping. It was more than the violation of their home and the fear of what might have happened to Clara and grandmother. Jin and Yoon felt once more the sting of inadequacy. They’d failed to protect grandmother and their child.
And something else. Jin’s secret purse, folded in among her lingerie, had been found and taken.
Carolyn was frowning and Jin felt a flush of shame. Had she done something to disappoint the customer? She looked up at the woman. “Is something wrong? The shape?” Sometimes customers had not understood her words: round or straight? That’s how she asked.
“Oh no! No. Nothing you’ve done,” Carolyn said. “Everything’s fine. Great. With the nails. I just know no matter how hard I try I won’t be…I won’t look as good as I want to look.” She gave Guinevere a sad-clown face that Jin understood was this woman’s little call for support. It made her think of her daughter Clara frowning when she’d been refused another sweet treat. Often it did the trick; so hard to resist that funny-sad look. She’d pop a cookie in the child’s mouth and her smile would grow wide as a jack-o’lantern.
“Oh, you will look great,” Guinevere encouraged. “Tell me what you are wearing again.” As Carolyn explained the nuances of her dress, the shoes, jewelry and the shawl she planned to wear, Guinevere clucked approvingly, nodding and adding an “Ahh,” at times. “I like that,” she told Carolyn. “You look good in red. Remember to grasp your purse so your nails show,” she told her, and they both laughed.
As she recited her wardrobe to Guinevere, Carolyn felt a wash of relief. It soothed her to talk. And to have a listener. “I know I’m being petty,” she confided sotto voce. “It’s just very important to me right now to look appealing to…to well, everyone … and to my husband tonight.”
“You will,” Guinevere said with conviction.
She would walk into that wedding tonight resting her arm on Paul’s arm. She would grasp his hand in hers and squeeze it, waiting to feel the warmth she’d depended on for so many years. Hoping he’d feel in her familiar fingers the family they created and the love that was theirs. Just theirs.
When she was a child, Jin would take her parents’ wedding photograph from the dresser in their bedroom to keep with her all day until they came home. After a time, she’d outgrown the need, but she kept up her ritual for many years. Sometimes, even as a teenager, when she was lonely, she would borrow that photo.
She was thinking of that photo now, in its brass frame. Missing it and imagining it beside her on the table, where she worked. Thinking too, of the comfort that picture conjured.
A stolen purse, satin lined and holding folded currency – tips set aside for something better, possibly travel home for good. Now gone. She would have to start all over again. New locks on the doors, fresh admonitions to grandmother about precautions. She would have to start all over again.
Before leaving the little nail station, secure in the knowledge that her fingernails were dry and impervious to smudges, Carolyn reached into her wallet. Usually she tipped the girl a five dollar bill, which she kept ready in advance, floating inside the top of her handbag for easy access. While talking with Guinevere, Carolyn had decided five would not be enough today. She thumbed through the bills in her wallet and pulled out a fifty, which she folded over twice so it wouldn’t be obvious and handed to Guinevere.
© Beth Kalet
Part 3 of Salon Confessional. Finale.
Prior Parts of Salon Confessional
Story 2. Part 1.
Story 2. Part 2.
To learn more and to purchase Beth Kalet’s book, Seven Stories, please click here. You may also contact Beth through Hummingbird by clicking here.
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