Nirmala, she had kicked a table and used several colorful expletives to refer to Mrs. Balan and her ancestors. Yet now, with the utmost politeness, Lola pointed Mrs. Balan to the best salon chair. I realized that the secret of Lola’s success was a perfect separation between business and personal emotion.
“No, not here,” Mrs. Balan said. “I don’t want everyone seeing what you do and then asking for the same look. You must keep this a secret. I don’t mind paying extra. And I want only Malathi to assist you.”
Lola called my name.
“Where is that girl hiding, anyway?” Mrs. Balan said.
For a moment, I considered disobedience, but when Lola called again, I followed them to one of the private rooms in the back. My heart lurched as we entered. It was the room to which I had brought Nirmala. I felt as though the goddess was sending me a message. An idea pushed through the muck of confusion in my brain.
Mrs. Balan was in high spirits. “If you do a good job,” she told me, “I’ll give you the biggest tip you’ll ever earn.” Lola entrusted Mrs. Balan’s tresses to my care while she went hunting for youth-inducing unguents. I combed out Mrs. Balan’s hair with trembling fingers. But by the time I started mixing the chemicals for the perm, they were rock-steady.
“Smells funny,” Mrs. Balan said. “Are you using something different?”
“Yes, madam,” I said, applying carefully. “This is a special occasion, no?”
“It stings.”
“As you know, madam, beauty has its price.”
“Be careful,” she warned. “I don’t want to end up looking kinky-headed, like some Andaman aborigine.”
“Such an outcome is most unlikely, madam,” I said.
AS SOON AS LOLA WALKED INTO THE ROOM, SHE SENSED THAT something was wrong. I could see it in the way she scrunched up her nose. Would she order me to unwind Mrs. Balan’s hair and wash it out at once?
“Give madam a pedicure while you wait for the perm to set,” she said. She busied herself with scrubbing Mrs. Balan’s face with an imported and extremely expensive exfoliant.
Mrs. Balan’s hair started falling out as soon as I ran water over it. By the time I finished rinsing, clumps of it lined the sink like dead seagrass. The shriek she emitted when she opened her eyes brought the girls-and any clients who were not attached to machines-rushing to the back room. Several shrieked in sympathy. About half of her scalp was as bald as a baby’s bottom and covered with a rash. The other half sported wilting sprouts. I swayed between terror and exhilaration. Mrs. Balan spewed invectives as she attempted to simultaneously strangle me and gouge out my eyes. Lola, who had been vainly trying to calm her, instructed two girls to remove me from the premises. As I left, I could hear her declaring that I would never set foot in Lovely Ladies or any other beauty shop in Coimbatore again.
I lay awake all night. I would sorely miss the salon and the company of the girls. What would I do now? I was barred from the only profession I was good at or cared about. Probably, I would have to find a husband-and that, too, without the benefit of a Diamond facial. Worse, I feared I had landed Lola, who had understood my dreams better than anyone in the world, in deepest trouble.
All morning, I stayed in my room, pretending to be sick, not confessing to my parents that I had been fired. But after a while I felt like I was suffocating. I had to go to the salon, no matter how angry Lola was with me. She would probably throw me out without hearing my apology. But I had to try. I wanted to tell her how I had felt responsible for Nirmala’s fate, and how, therefore, I had to even the score no matter how much bad karma I accrued in the process.
I went around to the dingy back entrance of Lola’s, which was used only by the sweepers. I had never been there before. It took me a while to find the unmarked door. The stinking garbage piled along the open drains was symbolic of the turn my life had taken. The girl who answered my knocks looked anxious when she saw me. I said I would wait outside. Would she ask Lola to see me for just a minute?
Standing in that alley for what seemed like a lifetime, I wondered if Lola would even come. Finally, she opened the door, hands on her hips, her face stern. I whispered my explanation and apologies, my eyes on the ground. Halfway through, I was distracted by strange gasping noises. Was she apoplectic with anger? Or could she-the Amazonian Lola I had hero-worshipped-have been reduced to tears? Perhaps Mrs. Balan had threatened to sue her. Perhaps Lola would lose her beautiful salon. When I dared to look up, I saw her hand over her mouth. She was trying to keep her laughter in check.
“Did you see her head?” Lola managed to choke out finally. “And her face? It was priceless!” Both of us burst into hysterical peals.
When I confided my fears for the salon, Lola waved a dismissive hand. “Mrs. Balan won’t dare do anything to me. I have too many influential clients, and I know too many indiscreet things that she’s said in here. If I decided to open my mouth, she wouldn’t be invited to another party as long as she lived. Besides, she needs me. Without me, within a month, she’d look fifteen years older.
“I had to fire you, of course. I had no choice. Though I hate to lose you-you have the instincts of a true beautician. But you must leave Coimbatore right away. It isn’t safe here for you anymore. Mrs. Balan can’t harm me, but you’re a different matter. She could easily hire a goonda and have him throw acid in your face-”
I panicked. “Where will I go?”
Lola dug into the pocket of her smock and took out an envelope and a pouch. It struck me that she had known, before I knew it myself, that I would come to see her. “Here’s a letter of introduction to my nephew who works in Hyderabad. I spoke to him about you, and he said that he would help. He told me some of the Indian consulates abroad are looking for employees. One of the hiring officers is an old classmate of his. But the employees have to know English.” She handed me the pouch. “Take this money. My nephew and his wife have agreed to rent out a room in their house to you. He’ll find you an English teacher. And when your English is good enough, he’ll take you for an interview.”
I didn’t have the words to thank her, so I hugged her instead. She patted me awkwardly on the back. She was uncomfortable with displays. “Just keep your temper, the next place you go,” she said. “And when you’ve saved enough dollars, come back and open a salon in a better city.” She looked as though she might say something more, but then she didn’t.
At the end of the alleyway, I turned to wave, but she had gone inside. She was a practical woman, with a roomful of clients waiting.
10
After Malathi finished her story, Uma didn’t want to return to the present. It was so pleasant in Lola’s pink salon, moist and cool, with its herbal shampoos, sandalwood paste, and the calm, ministering hands of Lola’s girls. Even the heat that ambushed you when you emerged from air-conditioning onto the noisy street was a gift. She wanted to know what it was that Lola had almost said to Malathi at the end.
The others were discussing Malathi’s characters with vigor. Mrs. Pritchett puzzled over Mrs. Balan’s Machiavellian tactics. How could one woman be so cruel to another? Jiang said Mrs. Balan really couldn’t feel for Nirmala because she had been brought up to dismiss a servant as a lesser being. Lily thought Lola was cool, and she, too, would have liked to work at Lovely Ladies and listen in on high-society scandals. The beauty shop that Lily’s mother frequented on Van Ness was run by a mousy Taiwanese woman with braces. The one time her mother had forced Lily to get her eyebrows done there before a school musical performance, Lily had almost died from boredom. All the aunties talked about was how well their children were doing in school, and who had won which award. Did Malathi remember any of the tricks she had learned at the salon? Malathi’s teeth glimmered in the beam from Cameron’s flashlight. (Had he changed the batteries? Uma wondered. She tried to recall how many batteries had been in the bag, but she couldn’t remember that far back, and trying made her head hurt.) Malathi promised Lily that if they ever got out of here, she would give her a hibiscus oil head massage that would make her feel like a princess.
No one spoke of the two people who were most on their minds until Tariq, in his blunt way, said, “Why would Nirmala do something so stupid, give up Ravi for a creep like Gopalan?”
“Maybe he offered luxury that a girl like her, brought up in a shack, just couldn’t turn down,” Mrs. Pritchett
