Chapter 13
When I stepped inside, Jonathan met me in the foyer and whispered that Andrea had begun crying before she finished dialing the number. When her mother answered, she tried to tell her the situation, but her crying made it hard for her to explain. This is when I came in. Before she was able to get out the entire story of how she arrived here, she was sobbing uncontrollably. I gently took the phone from her and Jonathan hugged her as he tried to calm her down. Her mother was also crying, partly because she hadn’t even known her daughter had left Florida, and partly, she said, because Andrea sounded like her old self for the first time in nearly two years. I provided comfort as I told her mother I really thought Andrea was going to be all right – that she could stay for a little while until we figured out how to get her back home, or back to her mother.
“Mara, thank you so much,” Ginny said. “It’s really interesting that she ended up there, since I’d just begun thinking that maybe I should have moved back there after the divorce. She really had a rough time after it. I’ll have to drive out there to pick her up, but I need to make arrangements at work. It might take a week to get it worked out… Can I call you back as soon as I’ve got it figured out?”
That would be fine, I told her. And I hoped it would be. Then I gave the phone back to Andrea, who was calm enough to talk now. Jonathan and I left the room so they could have some privacy.
“Are you all right with her staying? It sounds like it might be at least a week, maybe longer?” I looked hard at Jonathan, leaving unsaid the other questions I had. I wondered what it would be like for him to have his old best friend here, and I hoped he’d be honest with his answer.
“I think it will be fine, Mom. In some ways it feels like she never left, but she’s been through a really bad time. I don’t really know what she’ll do all day while I’m at school, but she definitely wants to see some of the kids she remembers, and I think that would be a great idea.” He lowered his voice before he added, “I sure hope we can get rid of those dreadlocks before that!”
“Actually, I thought I’d offer to work on them with her after dinner, and if we ruin it, I can take her to get a decent cut tomorrow.”
“Mom, I haven’t told her…yet.” Jon’s voice was faltering, as he struggled with what he was trying to say. “I will tell her…but I don’t know how she’ll take it.”
“I wondered that too. If I can help –“
He interrupted me and emphatically told me he’d deal with it and that conversation ended as Andrea walked in the room. She gave me a hug, and thanked me over and over. Then she grabbed Jonathan and said, “This will be just like when we were little and had sleepovers!” Then she turned back to me and asked if she could please wash her clothes…they hadn’t been laundered since she left Florida.
“Maybe after dinner we could work on the hair?” I asked as kindly as I could, trying not to sound overly enthusiastic.
“Sounds great to me! I bet some of the kids I want to see would NOT be into dreadlocks!”
Jonathan agreed with her quickly, but he left the room suddenly and came back with his camera. “We just have to get a picture of them, though!” He was serious, but he had a twinkle in his eye that I hadn’t seen for some time.
I ended up taking a couple of pictures of the two of them together, and Jonathan said he had to do some homework while she did her laundry. I thought maybe Andrea’s unexpected visit was going to work out after all.
Later, as we worked on her hair in the bathroom, Andrea brought up Marshall.
“Marshall was something else, Mrs. Johnson. How can he speak with the Rastafarian accent, and also with that other, sexy one?”
“I’m guessing from having grown up in Jamaica, although he hasn’t lived there for nearly twenty years.” She was seated on the toilet, and I was cutting off the dreadlocks, one by one, trying to leave as much hair on her head as I could.
“He sure is hot!” she exclaimed, and hesitated before continuing. “How long have you been dating him?”
“Dating him? I’m not dating him, Andrea! What made you think that?”
“You’re not? Then how do you know him? I thought that because of the way he greeted you. I could tell he said something private…”
“He’s actually a client of mine. I’m helping him buy a house! We have made a friendship, though, different from any other clients I’ve ever had.” I laughed as I thought about dating Marshall. “Andrea, I know you noticed he’s a LOT younger than me!”
“I don’t think people worry about that much any more. You know Joan is twelve years younger than my dad.”
“No, I didn’t know that! How awkward for you. She’s only a dozen years older than you, isn’t she?”
Andrea nodded. “It really sucks,” she said sadly. I continued choosing one dreadlock at a time and cutting it about an inch longer than the outgrowth. It was taking time, but we continued our conversation.
“Would it be better for you back with your mother?”
“Probably, but I really don’t have any friends in Ohio. And I really don’t know what I’m going to do now that high school is over.”
“Give it some time. Maybe you could think about a community college? You were always such a good student, Andrea. I can’t believe you’re not thinking of college.”
“Oh, I do think about it, especially after hearing how excited Jonathan is. But my GPA was really bad…”
“So you told me. Did you even bother to take your SAT?”
She shook her head no, so I suggested that she might prepare for it some on the computer during the day while Jonathan was at school. She said that sounded like a good idea, and finally, I had no more dreadlocks to cut off.
“Are you ready to look? First, look at the floor, all the hair on it!”
She looked down and was amazed. “What a huge pile of dreads! Dead dreads!” She giggled again, and looked at me very seriously. “I’m ready to look…”
“Just remember, we still have to get the color fixed, and we need to see if we can comb out the last inch. But I am starting to see the old Andrea now!”
She stood up and looked in the mirror over the sink. She shrieked, “Thank you so much!” And she started hugging me, even though in my opinion, her hair was really still quite a mess. It had no shape and was two distinct colors: light brown for an inch or so, then jet black. There was also about an inch of matted mess at the ends.
After her excited outburst, she looked closer into the mirror. “I think I should change the color…this black and brown look isn’t good, is it? And do you have a comb? Let’s see if I can comb out the rest or if that has to be cut, too.”
I handed her a comb, and suggested I could make an appointment with a hairdresser the next day.
“I don’t really have any money, Mrs. G.” Andrea said seriously.
“Let’s consider it a gift…” but she started to protest, so I added, “to Jonathan. He really didn’t care for the dreadlocks, you know.”
She smiled when I said that, and she agreed to let me pay for it.
After dinner that night, the three of us sat at the kitchen table and played Scrabble, just like we had years ago, before Andrea had moved. And just like things were before she had moved away, she and Jonathan beat me soundly, and they were as competitive as ever towards each other about winning. I left to go to bed after losing, and I’m not sure how long they stayed up.
After Jonathan left for school the next morning, I showed Andrea where my computer was, and I told her I’d come back during my lunch hour to take her to the hairdresser if I was able to get an appointment. That turned out to be no problem; I called Gabby’s old stylist and told her the situation. I gave her the okay to cut it, dye it, and whatever else she could do to make Andrea feel happy with her looks. The salon was three blocks from my office, so I told Andrea to walk over when she was done, and I would be able to leave early.
I couldn’t believe the
young woman who walked into the office three hours later was the same person who had been on my front steps the day before. Her hair was brown with some blond high lights, styled in the new tousled way that was very becoming. Her black toenails and fingernails were bronze colored now, and she was beaming.
“Mrs. J! Do you like it?” She twirled around, and now she was definitely Andrea. Her hair was beautiful – the stylist had done a remarkable job at shaping it up so that she looked like the lovely young girl I had imagined she would grow up to be.
“Oh, Andrea, you look beautiful!”
“I really like it, too! And she hugged me for the fourth time in two days while saying, “Thank you so much!” over and over.
“I imagine Jonathan will like it better than the “dreads” I said, before she let go of me. I wished I hadn’t said it, because I didn’t want to make her think of him as anything more than her good friend. Yet I found myself continually bringing him up…
“I have to tell you something, Mrs. J.” Andrea pulled away from the hug and as we left the salon, she looked rather serious. My thoughts immediately went to Jonathan, but she continued, “I noticed there was a sign in the window that they were looking for a receptionist, and while the stylist was working on my hair, I asked about the job. Turns out it has pretty regular hours, and she said the job is mine if I want it. I didn’t mention I might only be here for a week or two. The job seems like it would be a good idea at least until my mom gets here…”
This announcement rendered me speechless. It was becoming quite clear that her plan to come here had involved a lot of thought, and it was clear she was hoping to stay for longer than a week. This young woman, who had been so close to my son for so many years, was full of surprises. Inwardly, I considered the fact that she also had a big surprise coming from Jonathan, unless she already had figured it out. I was pretty sure she hadn’t.
She could see she had totally surprised me, and as we walked to my car, she spoke again, after what must have been sixty seconds of silence, “I can begin tomorrow. What do you think…should I try it and see how it works out? It’s just that I don’t really know what to do now that I’ve finished high school, and -”
I cut her off, saying, “Andrea! It’s not a bad idea at all, and at least until you’re mother gets here I think you should try it. I’m rather surprised, that’s all.” I looked at her again, and with her new hair, I could no longer see the image that had been on my front porch just yesterday morning. It seemed hard to believe that she had transformed so quickly, but with no evil stepmother to get back at, she had no reason to hold on to the mess. I heard myself make a suggestion as we drove home, “Why don’t we go home, get Jonathan, and go out for dinner tonight?”