Walynn had rode into town with one of the local boys who’d picked her up when he’d been stationed at Fort Knox the previous fall. Their little fling lasted long enough for a deputy to catch her attention, but the thing with Walynn’s attention was that it didn’t keep for very long, so the deputy made it until the day after Christmas. That’s when the owner of Magnolia Garage became the focus of her love after he didn’t charge her for changing the oil in her car. That whirlwind romance didn’t make it to New Year’s Eve. She moved through men faster than gossip at the beauty shop where she worked. And I’d just as soon stay away from her place, but Pa insisted we give her our business since most folks treated her salon chair like it had the plague. Only men took the chance of sitting in it, and boy, did that just add fuel to talk about her behind being on fire.

I led the long line of Fosters into the beauty shop, noticing Walynn immediately. Her permed hair with the bangs teased toward the heavens was hard to miss. The sides were drawn up with a banana clip, showing off her dark roots. When she turned around, the neon-blue eye shadow and hot-pink lipstick had the younger twins wrapping their arms around my legs, confirming what I already knew. It was going to be a long afternoon. It wasn’t that she was ugly, just loud. Something we plain ones were not exposed to much.

Walynn scanned the line of us before looking toward the door. “Austin, sweetie, where’s your daddy?” Her optimism was louder than that blue eye shadow.

“He’s at the farm,” I told her and was satisfied to see some of that optimism dim.

She planted her shiny red-tipped nails on her hips and tsked. “That man is in dire need of a good haircut. I told him that Sunday and he seemed to agree.”

I shrugged because it was true, but I wasn’t about to use words to agree with her. Something had my hackles raised with this woman. “Well, we have a lot to get done. Can you get started?”

“Sure.” Walynn motioned us to her chair and placed some type of riser on the seat. “Knox, sugar, you want to go first?”

Knox eyed the scissors while combing his fingers through his unruly brown locks, pausing to scratch near his ear. Out the corner of his mouth, he spoke to me. “Ox, why can’t you just do it at home like you always do?”

I’d always cut the twins’ hair, not often enough, since they’d started needing it done. Back porch trimmings is what we called it, but it was more like hack jobs. With them starting school, though, it was time for me to put my dull scissors and clippers away.