“Girl, I’ve been there and back,” Sam responded and broke into song. “Start spreading the news.” Gail joined in, “We’re leaving today…”

“Montana,” Gail said, holding my hand, “we are headed to New York!”

Grabbing our bags, again, we were off. Catching a cab, running down trams, dodging vendors, flashing passes, begging agents until finally we boarded an air shuttle headed to Manhattan. We hit the ground in New York’s LaGuardia Airport, smack dab in the middle of afternoon rush hour traffic.

After two hours, we made it to Elizabeth Arden’s Red Door salon and spa for a massage, facial, and derma scrub.

“If you want to look good, you’ve got to first feel good,” Gail explained. “I’ll handle the feel good. Sam, you handle the look good!”

Sam took my purse, flung open my wallet, pulled out my credit cards, kissed me on the cheek, and went skipping and hopping away.

An hour later I’d been seared, tugged, rubbed, pulled, and smacked by what seemed like a thousand hands on a million body parts, then pittered and pattered, splittered and splattered by what seemed like a thousand pounds of warm wet mud.

When my session was over, Gail was waiting. She had a message on her phone that Sam was waiting for us at Thirty-Seventh Street and Fifth Avenue with Oscar—Oscar James, one of New York’s top hair stylists who does all the fly cuts for all the big stars and soon-to-be stars. I couldn’t believe it.

“Girl, you know you would never ever get in here on just a day’s notice,” Sam said. “But a couple of months ago, Oscar’s travel agent messed up his ticket and sat him in coach. I recognized him and moved him up to first class. He said whenever I was in town, he would hook me up. You know I got to love you for this.”

We entered the salon, a rustic two-story loft, with vibrant-colored paintings by Charles Bibbs and William Tolliver covering the walls.

“Welcome. We’ve been expecting you,” rumbled the voice of a man, dark skinned and dreadlocked. He offered his hand and we walked to the bowl for my wash and rinse. “Do you believe in Heaven?” he asked as he lowered my head into the basin. Steam swirled from the bowl.

“Of course,” I replied, unsure of his question.

“Have you ever been to Heaven?”

“Not yet, but hopefully someday.”

“Today is your someday,” he affirmed, tilting my head, soaking my scalp, then applying shampoo, the good shampoo. Not that cheap stuff the ghetto stylists pour into the expensive containers to make you think it’s the real thing.

Then, he glided and moved, slided and grooved his hands through my scalp like the amazing human scrubbing bubble. This brotha must belong to some space-age pampering coalition.