“We’ll see you at the Breakers,” Nat says.
They air-kiss Phoebe goodbye.
“Lila, the next time we see you, you’ll be getting married!” Suz shouts, but Lila doesn’t turn around.
Lila is unknowable, in a floral silk robe facing the big bay window overlooking the sea, which makes her look more like a widow waiting for something. She keeps her back to the room as the stylist curls the bottom parts of her hair.
“Your turn,” another stylist says to Phoebe.
Phoebe stares at the woman with her tools belted to her waist. Eyeliners and brushes and lipsticks and curling irons. She pulls out a comb with the disposition of a surgeon. She is dressed much cooler than Phoebe remembers ever dressing in her twenties. High-waisted black jeans and a crop top and eyelashes as thick as quarters. Phoebe supposes it’s part of her job to look cool in the way it was part of Phoebe’s job never to look cool. To wear tweed. To push up her reading glasses and say, “I should really double-check my sources.”
“I’m Tiff,” the stylist says. “What would you like?”
“Dealer’s choice,” Phoebe says.
Phoebe wishes she had access to Lila’s face. She wants to say something, but she feels the weight of the whole thing.
“You sure?”
“Yes,” Phoebe says.
But Juice is much more particular. Juice has been studying Instagram photos all morning. She holds up a picture on her phone. Juice has no trace of a hangover or the shame that comes with one. This morning, she is just a kid again.
“I want this exactly,” Juice says to her stylist.
Tiff makes general observations as she works on Phoebe’s hair, like, “Your hair starts really far up on your head,” and Phoebe says, “Is that bad?” and Tiff says, “Absolutely not,” and then, “But do you ever notice how large your forehead is? Or how you’re always putting your hair behind your ears?”
“Isn’t that what people with hair do?”
“No,” Tiff says, horrified. “You do that because you don’t have a side bang.”
“Do I need a side bang?”
“In my professional opinion, yes.”
“Then give me a side bang,” Phoebe says.
Maybe this is all she needed the whole time. Maybe this is the finishing touch of the grand makeover. Why didn’t she think of it earlier? A side bang!
“You’re so open! I love it.” Tiff pulls out the scissors. “It’ll keep the hair from falling in front of your face. Trust me.”
She takes out a pair of red scissors and scoops the front of her hair into her hand. “This is fun. No one ever lets me cut their hair on the morning of a wedding.”
Phoebe likes the warmth of Tiff’s fingers and thinks how lucky her future daughter will be. To have a mother like Tiff who will give her every haircut. Who will know exactly what she needs with just one glance. Phoebe wants to turn around and hug her, but that’s too weird.
“See?” Tiff asks.
Phoebe does see. Because the makeover scene always works. It takes one slight change. A side bang. And bam—a whole new face. A whole new feeling. She forgot how good she felt after a haircut. Like when she and Matt got new curtains for the house—the windows no longer depressing and barren, but cozy.
Someone knocks on the door, and this time it is Jim. He stands there with a tray of what looks like a hundred spoons.
“Jim, why have you brought us spoons?” Marla asks.
“One hundred and sixty palate cleansers,” Jim says. “Or well, one hundred and fifty-nine to be exact. I had one in the elevator.”
They all wait for Lila to react, but she doesn’t turn around or say a word. She is steady as the stylist pins hair all around her head.
“I found them in the fridge this morning,” Jim says. “And you were right, Lila. They were going to waste! They were just sitting there in the fridge, and the chef wouldn’t even let me take them.”
“So how did you get them?” Marla asks.
“I took them,” he says.
“You stole them?”
“I salvaged them.”
They wait again for Lila to say something, but she says nothing.
“Anyway, I just wanted to say I’m sorry for being out of line last night. I’m sorry for a lot of things. Hopefully you’ll accept my apology in the form of … one hundred and fifty-nine spoons. They’re actually pretty tasty. Very … cleansing.”
After Jim leaves, Juice eats twelve in a row.
“How many palate cleansers do you have to eat until you’re fully cleansed?” Juice asks.
“Sounds like a question for your other grandma,” Patricia says.
Patricia is already fully poofed, starts to offer everyone champagne, and everyone accepts but Lila.
