“Did your mom shave her head when she got sick?”
“First she dyed her hair bright purple. Then she shaved her head.”
“Cool. I can tell she’s the kind of person who would do something like that. She’s not scared of being open about things. That must have made it easier on you to have her sick.”
Easier? Jesse thinks. “Maybe. She wasn’t exactly easy. But she did love being bald. She really got off on being the crazy bald-headed lady with no eyelashes at, like, the Barnes and Noble. My dad was always trying to get her to wear a hat so she wouldn’t get cold, but she liked being bald in public. She liked making a statement. The hat she wore at home.”
“Brave,” Esther murmurs.
“Yeah. Or just, like, a giant pain in the ass.”
Esther giggles. “My mom went wig shopping the day after she was diagnosed. She was such a modest person but she was vain about her hair. She used to say, ‘It’s my best asset.’ Losing her hair was the worst thing for her about cancer. In the beginning, anyway.”
“Yeah.”
Esther snips away at the base of Jesse’s neck, tidying her hairline there. The scissors nip at Jesse’s skin, and make quiet little slicing noises every time they close.
“I miss her a lot.”
“I bet.”
“Look up.”
Jesse lifts her chin, and Esther moves around to stand in front of Jesse. She bends down and stares into Jesse’s face abstractly, scanning it for shape and symmetry, not looking into her eyes.
“It’s weird the times I miss her most. You’d think it would be at night right before I fall asleep or something, but it’s all different, strange other times, like when I’m waiting for a bus. I remember her a lot when I’m waiting for a bus, I think because it reminds me of when I used to wait for her to pick me up. Or like, right now, even. She would love the counterdance idea. She was really into planning parties. She was head of the events committee at church and she always knew where to buy the best cheap decorations and how to work all the different coffee urns. Hey, coffee urn, we have to put that on the list.” Esther drops the scissors, wipes her wet hands on Jesse’s neck towel, and goes for her pen and notebook on the bed. She shoves them into Jesse’s hand and resumes cutting her hair without missing a beat.
“Do people usually have a coffee urn at a dance, though?” Jesse wonders.
“Maybe people don’t, usually, but we should,” Esther says confidently. “It’ll be cold out, and people will want coffee. We want them to stay, right? And have a great time? And learn about how StarMart wants to destroy our town?”
“Yeah.”
“So we have to give them coffee and snacks. My mom always got Vienna Fingers.”
Esther folds down Jesse’s right ear and snips around it delicately.
“We could get those.” Jesse drops her head farther to the side to give Esther more ear access.
“And we need excellent music. Who do you know who likes music and could play music for us? What about your friend Wallace?”
“Who?”
“With the cowboy pants?”
“Wyatt. We’re sort of not talking right now.”
“Oh no, why not?”
“I don’t actually know.”
“Well, listen,” Esther says briskly, “if we want to put together a whole dance in just a couple of weeks? We’re going to need all the help we can get. You should call him and make up with him. Get him to help.”
“He hates music,” Jesse says, “but I’ll try.”
Esther takes a sharp snip at Jesse’s bangs and steps back.
Together, Jesse and Esther turn to look at Esther’s handiwork in the mirror.
“Awesome,” says Jesse. “Perfect.”
All at once, there she is again: Jesse as she should be, Jesse as she knows herself best, sleek and shorn, right and ready.
19
Jesse
When Jesse opens the door to Beverly Coffee on the morning of Saturday the thirtieth, she spots Wyatt sitting at a little table against the wall, reading Atlas Shrugged determinedly. It’s dim and quiet in the café, and pretty empty for a Saturday. At one table an old man in a fedora reads a newspaper and takes dainty sips from a demitasse. At another table, two college kids are studying, big fat books spread out between them.
Jesse stands for a second in the doorway and takes Wyatt in from across the room, his extremely familiar mop of dark curls, the unmistakable curve of his neck and shoulders as he bends his head to read. His Western outfit has given way already to a badly beaten leather bomber jacket, cracked all over and with the lining coming loose at the collar, and some kind of nylon cargo pants with pockets up and down the side of the leg. He occupies the chair gracefully, his posture assembled and still, but Jesse knows him well enough to spot the light tremors of anxiety moving through his extremities—the thumb of his right hand riffling the corner of his book over and over again, the heel of his long, black Converse high-top bouncing up and down on the tile floor.