Leaving Eden Read Free

started out planning to give myself a little trim, like Elizabeth Talmadge’s new do, but getting it so the sides matched wasn’t as easy as you might think, and Raylene had to fix up the mess. I’d vowed when it grew out never to cut it again. Just trim the dead ends. I planned on wearing it down over my shoulders, like Kim Basinger, an actress I continue to admire even though that town she bought went bankrupt.
    “Morning, Tallie,” Raylene said. She was working up a head of suds on Sue Beth Wilkins. An unfortunate mop of hair topped the list of Sue Beth’s sorry features. Some of the meaner boys in our class called her LB—short for Lard Bucket—but a kindhearted person like Mama would call her sturdy.
    Mrs. Wilkins was sitting over by the dryers flipping through the style magazines. Raylene caught my attention in the mirror and gave a quick eye roll. You had to feel sorry for Sue Beth. Every year in late June—when they held all the practices that led up to tryouts for next year’s Flag Corps—her mama dragged her in and, armed with pictures she’d clipped out of some teen magazine, set Raylene to work. Sue Beth wasn’t in the least consulted about this and had told me herself she didn’t want to be a Corps member—as if that were even a remote possibility. The whole time she sat in Raylene’s chair she looked about as happy as a rain-soaked rooster. It was clear as crystal Sue Beth wasn’t going to make the Corps or the cheerleaders or the Sparkette twirlers or much of anything else except maybe,
maybe
the chorus. It wasn’t just her weight, which certainly wasn’t any asset. It was her whole yard dog look, which—having Mrs. Wilkins for a mother—you could understand.
    Still, year after year, Mrs. Wilkins persisted. Last fall she’d had a wooden floor installed in their basement and a lumber-yard banister attached to the wall and told anyone who would hold still for a minute that she’d built a dance studio for her Sue Beth. She even hired a private teacher to come in once a week to give lessons. The whole thing about drove Raylene mad.
    “Hi, Sue Beth,” I said.
    “Hi,” she said from beneath a cap of foam. She wasn’t really so bad. Mama might have found possibilities in her.
    “I hear girls’ soccer has openings this year,” I said. “You thinking about trying out?”
    “Sue Beth doesn’t go for that sort of thing,” Mrs. Wilkins said.
    Raylene gave me a warning look like
Don’t even get started
. Mrs. Wilkins was a steady customer. Shampoo and set every week, and once a month the whole works—color, cut, and nails. Raylene didn’t want me antagonizing her.
    “Anything special you want me to do?” I asked.
    “Got a load to be folded,” Raylene said.
    “Right,” I said, and headed for the back room. Raylene had installed a new washer and dryer, and my job was to keep up with the laundry. You would be amazed at the number of towels we went through in a day. We never reused them. Like some shops I won’t name. Raylene was insistent about that.
    “Then you can give the plants a drink.”
    “Okay,” I said. I opened the dryer and lifted out a full load of towels. They smelled sweet from the little sachet sheets Raylene used, something Daddy had forbidden me to buy. I took my time, finding pleasure in folding a neat stack.
    On and off since I started working for her, Raylene talked about my going to the cosmetology school over in Lynchburg after I graduated Eden High and then coming back full-time for her, something I can tell you that I had absolutely no intention of doing. Whenever she brought it up, I just nodded, but my resolve remained firm. A person has to take care not to let other people push their dreams on you. I had ideas of my own. They weren’t jelled, but they were cooking.
    Other than her plans for my future, I liked working for Raylene. For one thing, she was dependable as a ceiling fan. My own life was not so solid, and I liked this about her. The other thing