Play It as It Lays

45

"YOU'VE BEEN BRUSHING IT wet," the hairdresser said, lifting a strand of Maria's hair and letting it drop with distaste.

"I guess so." Maria could never keep up her end of the dialogue with hairdressers.

"I told you before, you split the ends," he said with no real interest, and then transferred his attention to a thin girl who had just come up and kissed the back of his neck. "How are you, babe."

"I had an operation."

"No kidding."

"Pelvic abscess." The girl loosened her wrapper and absently stroked her collarbone. "All through my tubes."

"Listen, I hear his new act is just lying there," the hairdresser said.

"Bibi Markel was just over there and she heard they were trying to transfer his contract to the lounge."

"Macht nicht to me," the girl said. "Except maybe I'll have to go to court for the separate maintenance." She slipped one big roller away from her scalp and touched the hair to see if it was dry.

"Listen," she said suddenly. "Finish her and then comb me out and come up for a drink on your way home."

"Where you living now."

"Off Coldwater, same place. O.K.? Promise?"

"I'll think about it."

"Please. Promise."

He ignored her, and handed Maria a mirror. "You want to use a drier, Maria honey?"

But Maria only shook her head and took the fifteen dollars from her bag and walked very fast toward the dressing room.

"Maybe I can get Sandy to come up." Even from the dressing room Maria could hear the girl wheedling, the thin beautiful girl with the pelvic abscess and the separate maintenance and her hair all done and nobody to drink with. She fixed her attention on the mounds of used wrappers and damp towels and tried not to hear whatever it was the girl would say next. The girl was a presentiment of something. " Listen," the girl said then. "Maybe I can get Bibi Markel."