Beulah blinked. “Dark?” she asked incredulously. This was the last thing in the world she would have expected. “You mean—”

“Dark brown.” Miss Jamison’s voice held a mournful quiver. “Black always looks so dead, I think. A rich, dark brown is what I have in mind. Like dark brown chocolate.”

Beulah paused, frowning doubtfully. She always said that her customers knew best, but when it came to beauty, she considered herself an expert.

“Are you real sure ’bout this, Miz Jamison?” She put her head on one side, studying the woman. “That platinum color is just right for you—with your skin tone and all, I mean. It looks so light and stylish. Dark is goin’ to muddy you up and make you look . . . well, older. And a bob—” She pressed her lips together. “Don’t you think it would be a shame to lose those pretty waves?”

She didn’t want to come right out and say so, but she hated to see all that beauty going out the window. Bob that beautiful hair, dye it dark, and Miss Jamison wouldn’t look anything like the extraordinarily stylish woman she was at this moment. She’d look like . . . well, she’d look ordinary. She’d look just like everybody else. That’s how she’d look.

“I know all that.” Miss Jamison sighed heavily and began to strip off her gloves. “I hate it, too, Mrs. Trivette. But I have my reasons. Believe me, this is not something I want to do. But when I think—” Her chin was quivering and she looked as if she were about to cry. She turned away, but not before Beulah (who was an empathetic person) glimpsed something like fright in her eyes.

Fright? Now, that was strange. Sadness, maybe, at losing all that beauty. Or even regret. But fright? Something else was going on here under the surface and Beulah knew it. But she had worked with women’s hair for a long time and understood that big changes were always scary, whether you were going dark to blond or blond to dark again, or getting bobbed after you’d had your hair long for your whole, entire life. When it came to that, getting bobbed could be a whole lot scarier than getting dyed.

Sympathetically, she patted Miss Jamison’s arm. “Well, hon, whatever your reasons are, I’m sure they gotta be good ones, to push you into takin’ such an important step.” She almost added “toward ugliness,” but thought better of it.

“Oh, they are good reasons.” Miss Jamison sighed. “But before we get started, there’s something else I need to ask. Do you happen to have a wig catalog I could order from?”

“Well, I do,” Beulah said, now more than a little confused. “But I thought you were wantin’ to color your—”