Hadley & Grace(69)

“What’s taking so long?” Hadley says from the doorway, causing Grace’s eyes to snap open. Hadley looks at Miles and frowns. “He’s playing you. He’s done.”

Grace looks down at her son, then back at Hadley, then back at her son and feels herself bristle as he gums a smile at her, milk drool spilling from his mouth. The manipulative little imp: a damn charmer, just like his dad. He knows exactly when she’s getting irritated and exactly how to disarm her. She pulls the bottle away, and he gives half a protest that’s quickly forgotten when Grace drapes him over her shoulder and gives him a mock spanking on his padded behind.

“Up and at ’em,” Hadley says. “Daylight’s a-burnin’. Burp him, then meet me in the bathroom.”

“Why?”

“It’s a surprise.”

Grace shakes her head as she looks distrustingly at Hadley. Not only does Grace hate surprises, but she’s had enough surprises the past four days to last a lifetime.

“Chicken,” Hadley chides.

Grace nods, not ashamed in the least to admit she is scared to death of whatever Hadley has planned. As if in agreement, Miles lets out a large belch, and Hadley marches up, swoops him from Grace’s arms, and carries him away, as if taking him hostage.

Grace considers not following but knows she’s only putting off the inevitable. So, with a heavy sigh, she pushes from the bed and staggers after them. She passes Skipper, who’s sitting on one of the two beds staring at the wall in front of him. She follows his gaze to see what he is looking at, sees nothing, and continues on.

Mattie is already in the bathroom. She sits on the edge of the tub wrapped in a bathrobe, her shoulders folded forward and her eyes on the ground. Her white-blonde hair has been dyed russet brown, the deep, warm color of chestnuts, and cut to a bob that stops above her chin. She is not wearing makeup, and the half dozen earrings she normally wears, along with her trademark serpent, are gone. She looks small and young and broken, and Grace’s heart twists at the sight of her.

“Mattie, you hold Miles,” Hadley says, holding him out to her.

Mattie takes him, and Miles immediately starts to grab for her nose, a favorite game of his. She turns him around so he can no longer do it, and he wriggles against her to get down, so she places him on the bath rug at her feet.

“Leather Black or Midnight Delight,” Hadley says, holding up two boxes of hair dye.

Grace shakes her head violently, her skull moving back and forth around her eyes, which are fixed on the boxes. Grace has no illusions about her looks. She is no great beauty. Her only defining feature is her fiery curls, combined with her pale skin and hazel eyes, the startling combination taking her away from ordinary. A stranger once called her coloring “quixotic.” She looked the word up when she got home: romantic, visionary. He was wrong, but she liked the idea of it so much that she often says the word out loud when she looks at herself in the mirror.

“Fine. I’ll go first,” Hadley says, and with no more prelude than that, she sets the boxes of hair dye on the counter, picks up the scissors beside them, and lops off a chunk of her hair.

Grace and Mattie wince together. It’s like watching the slaughter of a minx. Hadley’s hair is remarkable, a sleek plate of black that belongs in Vidal Sassoon commercials. She chops at it again, the tresses falling to the floor. Snip, snip, snip: she continues to butcher large chunks until all that remains is an uneven helmet of black. She holds the scissors out to Mattie. “You need to do the rest.”

Mattie looks at the scissors, sighs, and reluctantly pushes to her feet. Expertly, she moves around Hadley as if she is a professional hairstylist, and again Grace is surprised by the multitude of talents Mattie possesses that she seems to keep hidden. When she’s done, Hadley’s hair is as short as Ellen DeGeneres’s and just as chic.

Grace stares in amazement. It almost seems impossible, but the haircut actually makes Hadley more beautiful, her neck elongated, her cheekbones lifted. She looks like a Greek goddess—empowered, bold, and fearless—like she should be chiseled of marble and holding up a temple.

“Okay?” Hadley says, her eyebrow lifting in challenge.

Grace shakes her head again and backs up.

“Seriously, Grace, are you going to make me hold you down? You look like Melissa, except your hair.”

Grace is saved by the unmistakable sound of pooping coming from the floor, Miles’s face scrunched up as he does the deed, the smell filling the tight confines of the bathroom.

Grace bends down to pick him up, but Hadley gets there first. “I’ve got this, and when I come back, I want you in a robe and ready to have your hair dyed.”

Grace sits heavily on the toilet and lifts the box of Midnight Delight, cringing as she studies the before and after pictures. She shakes her head, sets it down, reaches over, and locks the bathroom door.

Mattie glances over from where she sits again on the edge of the tub, and her mouth almost twitches with a smile but doesn’t quite make it.

Grace shifts to sit beside her, their shoulders touching. Letting out a slow sigh, she says, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Mattie looks at the ground.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Grace says.

Mattie says nothing.

“But I suppose that’s the part that sucks the most,” Grace goes on. “At least if it was your fault, then you’d have had some say in it.”