After twenty years, Prichett is as familiar to me as my
own ref lection in the mirror. Most of the time I am
indifferent to it, used to it even, but never completely
comfortable with it. Prichett is the town my mother, a
schoolteacher, dragged me to when I was a sophomore in
high school — a small farming community with a mind-set as
narrow as its main street. I hadn't wanted to move there
and throughout the rest of high school, Prichett and I had
been locked in silent combat — Prichett trying to hold on
to me while I struggled to break free. I had the days
counted until graduation. Then I planned to wave a merry
goodbye, so long, see you later to Prichett and only come
back during the holidays to gloat over my victory. Just
visiting, you know. See you next year.
But wouldn't you know that small town and I became bound
together. Forever. By a simple gold band given to me by a
twenty-year-old farmer with sky-blue eyes and a crooked
smile. My husband, Sam. Prichett and I were forced, like
two sisters with nothing in common, to live together in
tight-lipped civility because my husband's first love was
one hundred acres of fertile topsoil, although I like to f
latter myself that I came in at a close second.
Even though the farm is three miles outside it, there is
no pretending that I'd escaped the town's grasp. The
grocery store, the post office, the school and our church
are all tucked like hankies inside Prichett's small-town
bosom. And the beauty salon. Which happened to be the
place I was heading when I noticed that the playground
equipment in the park was in terrible condition. It was
like suddenly noticing a mole on my face that I was sure
hadn't been there before.
Now, in the world that exists beyond the city limits of
Prichett, I'm absolutely sure those tall metal slides, the
ones with an incline so steep they rip out your stomach on
the way down, have been the cause of countless lawsuits,
which have led to them being dismantled lug nut by lug nut
and thrown into a scrap pile somewhere. But not in
Prichett. Prichett is still searching for the elusive
thing that will catapult it into celebrity status. Or at
least will be the excuse for a really nice community
barbecue in the summer. I could just imagine it — Welcome
to Prichett, Home of the Nation's Most Dangerous
Playground Equipment — printed on a billboard stationed
proudly next to the city limits sign. A billboard which,
by the way, proclaims an absolute lie. There is no denying
that Prichett's population is shrinking, but still the
town stubbornly refuses to change the sign that announces
Prichett's population is 1,532. It's kind of like
continuing to put your pre-baby weight down on your
driver's license, even though you know you are never going
to weigh that again.
I slowed down and studied the merry-go-round. My daughter,
Bree, had always loved to lie on the bench, kick her shoes
off and trail her toes in the sand while I pushed it in
lazy circles. Any kid that tried to stretch out on the
bench now would most likely end up with a stomach full of
splinters. I shook my head.
As parks go, the one on Main Street sure wasn't keeping up
with the twenty-first century. But that didn't surprise
me. Neither was Prichett. At some point, the town had
choked, sputtered and gotten stuck in some sort of Nick at
Nite time warp. And I knew that my friend, Bernice, had to
be partially responsible.
Bernice owns the beauty shop and she is her best, and
only, employee. When she'd moved to town and opened the
Cut and Curl, she'd somehow managed to find those ancient
hair dryers that look like something you'd find in a mad
scientist's lab. The chairs lined up against the window,
in an array of ice cream pastels, are the squishy plastic
kind that stick to bare skin like chewing gum on warm
asphalt. There are stacks of celebrity hairstyle magazines
everywhere and a pot of coffee so strong you can get a
caffeine buzz that lasts all day just by smelling it. By
the looks of the place, you almost expect Bernice to tease
your hair into an enormous beehive and turn you out into
the streets of Prichett a half hour later looking like a
bewildered June Cleaver.
I get away without making an appointment because I give
her free eggs and satisfy her addiction to salsa, which I
can in the fall.
"I don't have time for you this morning." Bernice's voice
rose above the bell that trilled whenever a customer
walked in. She was coloring Mabel Marvin's hair. Mabel
looked like she'd been attacked by a roll of tin foil. So
far, I'd been spared the Star Wars extra look. There was
not a strand of gray hair on my head, even though I could
see forty on the horizon. I confess that I'm vain about my
hair. Part of the reason is because that's what Sam told
me he first fell in love with — my hair. He said it
reminded him of corn silk. Now that may sound hokey and
sentimental, but in nineteen years of marriage, I can
count the times on one hand that he's gone poetic on me.
The others aren't open for discussion.
I sat down and Bernice rolled her eyes at me. Mabel's
fingers searched under the voluminous plastic cape for her
glasses.
"Elise? Is that you?" Mabel squinted in my direction.
"Yes, it's me." I picked up a magazine and ignored
Bernice's meaningful cough. She might say she didn't have
time for me, but somehow she always manages to squeeze me
in between a perm and a set. I know exactly how fast my
hair grows and that I need to get it trimmed every six
weeks, but Bernice has the you-need-an-appointment lecture
down word for word and I hate to disappoint her. That's
what friends are for.
"Here you go, Mabel," Bernice crooned in the elderly
woman's ear. "Under the dryer for a few minutes. Do you
want a cup of coffee? A magazine?"
Mabel reached up and touched her hair, smiling when the
foil crinkled in her fingers. "Is it finished?"
Bernice shook her head and put her hand on Mabel's arm, as
if she was afraid the woman was going to jump down and
head outside, scrambling radio stations across the
county. "You have to go under the dryer for a few
minutes." Her voice rose slightly.
Mabel nodded agreeably. I watched as Bernice fussed over
her, settling her under the dryer as lovingly as she'd
tuck a newborn into a bassinet.
"My next customer will be here in ten minutes." Bernice
turned from Mabel, the favored child, and glared at me,
the prodigal. I grinned.
"Just this much off." I pinched my thumb and finger
together. "It'll only take you ten minutes. You know
you're good." Bernice didn't scare me. She has a soft spot
for the very young and the very old, but everyone else is
lumped into the pain-in-the-neck category. Myself included.
Not many people moved to Prichett by choice, so she'd been
the source of a lot of gossip when she'd first moved to
town. There was a rumor that she was Tammy Holowitz's
cousin, but as far as I knew, she and Tammy never spoke
and Tammy drove half an hour to Munroe to get her hair cut
at the strip mall. That kind of blew a hole in the cousin
theory as far as I was concerned. The only explanation
Bernice ever gave me for moving to Prichett was that she
liked small towns. End of discussion. I sensed there was
more, but something in Bernice's eyes had told me not to
push. There was an old injury there and I try not to stare
at people's scars.
We'd met for the first time when I walked into the Cut and
Curl (without an appointment), took one look at the place
and almost bolted right back outside. Bernice, feeling the
pinch of being new in Prichett and on display like the
prototype for next year's tractor, was obviously prepared
for that possibility. She'd stationed herself between me
and the door. With a curling iron in her hand. Plugged in.
I admit, I'd come mostly out of curiosity. But now I was
stuck. I should have just stared at her through the window
like everyone else.
"I'm Elise Penny," I'd finally said. "Like the coin."
"I'm Bernice Strum." She'd paused. "Like the guitar." We
stared at each other, both of our faces ref lecting the
same did-I-really-just-say-that-and-why-am-I-such-an-idiot
expression and then we burst out laughing. I didn't think
we'd become friends. I call her a townie. She calls me
farm girl. She lives alone above the Cut and Curl in an
apartment decorated with black-and-white posters of movie
stars. She says she isn't sure she can warm up to a God
who makes some girls popular and some girls wallf lowers.
As someone who had fallen into the first category, I was
of the opinion that both kinds had their problems — and I
wasn't sure how much God had to do with that kind of thing
to begin with.
As cynical as Bernice was about men, she loved Sam and he
didn't mind when she showed up at the farm and swished
back and forth for hours on our big porch swing. And even
though she's lived in Prichett for ten years now, I still
have the uneasy feeling that one day I'll come into town
and there will be a For Sale sign in the window of the Cut
and Curl and Bernice Strum will be gone.
"Get in the chair." Bernice jerked her head toward the
metal perch by the mirror. "I won't have time to wash it."
"That's okay, I already did."
Under the dryer, Mabel was humming "Amazing Grace."
"Running errands today?" Bernice clipped a bright yellow
plastic cape around my neck.
I closed my eyes and let myself get swept away in the
music of Bernice's scissors as they snipped at my split
ends. "I've got to pick up a few groceries and go to the
bank. Have you noticed that the park equipment is in bad
shape?"
Bernice chuckled. "Did you park way over there again?"
That's the trouble with friends. They know every chink in
your armor. Prichett was tiny but I still hate to parallel
park on Main Street. Put it down to a traumatic experience
with the DMV the day I tried to get my first driver's
license.
"You can't find a place to park," I said in my
defense. "Not when every retired farmer in the county
shows up for the ninety-nine-cent breakfast special on
Wednesdays. They keep their own chickens, why do they need
to go to the café?"
"Like I haven't heard that one before." Bernice's scissors
clicked lightly. Then paused. "My, my. What have we here,"
she murmured.
"What? Ouch!" I jumped six inches off the chair. Bernice
grinned at me and dangled something in front of my eyes. A
hair. A gray hair. It couldn't be. Maybe it was just one
of the lighter blond strands. My hair always bleaches out
in the summer.
"Don't look so tortured." Bernice dropped the hair on the
f loor and it disappeared against the ceramic tile. "It
happens to the best of us, El. Time goes forward, not
backward, you know."