can have my bathroom back.”
“I never had anybody famous in here before. Well, except for if you count da wife of a Jerry Lee Lewis impersonator.”
Mom gasps and clutches at her heart. “Breathless,” she whispers. “I loved Jerry Lee in the worst way.”
Monique hands me back my card. “Nancy’s havin’ a big shoe sale at da Boots ’N’ Roots next door. You don’ wanna miss dat.”
Noooo, my mind screams.
“Okay,” Mom says, and a half hour later, we are the proud owners of Saints cowboy boots. Mom’s are red and mine are turquoise. I don’t know if either of us will have occasion to wear “Who Dat” boots, but it could be worse. Mom could have thrown a fit over a pair of acrylic slides she’d been eyeing.
The checkout counter is near the back of the store, which is an odd place to put it until you notice the empty salon chair sitting next to a woman getting her feet sanded at a pedicure station. Thus, Boots ’N’ Roots. Two seemingly incongruous businesses in one building. Like a grocer selling ponies, but I have to give Nancy credit for her entrepreneurial drive. “You cut hair, too?”
“We’re a full-service salon,” she says, and I hand her a personal credit card this time. “You needin’ a shampoo and set?”
If Nancy’s hair is any indication, she’s a shampoo-and-set master craftswoman for the seventy-and-older crowd. Mom will never sit still long enough for what Nancy might have in mind.
“Cut ’n’ color?”
Nice try.
“Do you have one of those hair books with pictures?”
Shocked, I look at Mom standing next to me. “You want your hair cut?”
“No, I’m not in a hair rut.”
“Me?” Mom’s hair has been loose and unruly all day. “You’re the one who needs a trim.”
“You’d look good wit’ a bob,” Nancy helpfully suggests.
“Listen to Nancy.” Although a bob is pushing the extreme and I doubt Mom will go that far.
“I mean you.” Nancy hands me the credit card. “About an inch beneath your chin would frame your face pretty pretty.”
“Ha!” Mom smirks. “Told ya.”
13
Mom tests shock absorbers for her final journey.
I’m in pieces. She puts me back together.
NEVER LET your Alzheimer’s mother pressure you into getting a twenty-dollar “trim.” You’ll get what you paid for, and she’ll forget her role in your bad decision.
“It’s not ugly,” Mom assures me, sipping a Dr Pepper and eating from our huge Swamp Platter inside Lagniappe BBQ.
The worst part is, Nancy promised she’d take only an inch off the ends, and I knew better than to believe her. The most embarrassing part is, I knew better than to get a backroom haircut in a discount boot store.
Our waitress, Tana Mae, shakes her head as she refills my water glass. “Nobody round here lets Nancy near der hair.”
That might have been good to know an hour ago, before she cut my hair longer on one side than the other and just kept cutting to correct her mistakes. I stopped her after her third “Darn it, your hair’s curly.” Now it’s curlier and the right side is still shorter than the left. I’m trying not to freak out, and I just thank God I’m not on tour.
The bell above the door rings and Monique rushes in like there’s a fire. “Lord, I heard Nancy cut your hair.”
Good news travels fast. “How’d you hear about my hair?” I bite into a spicy hush puppy and wash it down with Diet Coke. I like hush puppies. I know what I’m putting in my mouth, unlike the rest of the Swamp Platter.
“Giselle called me after her pedicure, and I called Tana Mae and she said it’s true.”
“The gator’s really good,” Mom says as she chomps on a deep-fried hunk of meat.
I think of the skinned gators at Gator’s and say, “I’ll pass.”
“When I told Giselle you’re Lulu da Love Guru, she told Nancy, and Nancy yowled like a scalded cat and run out da back door. Last anyone saw, she was headed down da bayou.”
“It tastes like chicken.”
“I’ll stick with shrimp, Mom.” I recognize shrimp.
“Da frog legs are good and fresh,” Tana Mae tells us as she points them out.
I’m grateful. Now I won’t accidently eat one. I’m not a snob, but I draw the line at amphibians and reptiles. And rodents. I had a pet rat in the sixth grade. I don’t want to eat Miss Gertrude.
“Mais, la.” Monique raises her hands, palms up. “Nancy’s a good woman, bless her heart, but never let her near you with a pair of scissors