Colleen took them to Montgomery Ward for their school clothes. Ben moped the entire time and told Colleen to pick out what she wanted. Colleen seemed pretty happy about that. She selected a few button down shirts, some sweaters, and trousers. She was even happier when she went into the young women’s section of the store. Gennie let her choose what she wanted also, only voicing her dissent if she thought something was too frilly. By the end of the shopping trip, they all carried two large shopping bags. Gennie owned more clothes now than she ever did in her life.
Malcolm picked them up after he finished with his work and took Ben to the barbershop to get his hair trimmed. There was a beauty salon right next to Montgomery Ward’s. Gennie was hesitant about going in but didn’t want to spoil Colleen’s day. Besides, she had to admit she was a little rough around the edges. She never had her hair cut by a hairdresser before. She had always done it herself and hadn’t trimmed her hair in at least a year. If she knew she wasn’t going out, she didn’t even bother to comb it.
The first thing that hit her when she entered was the overwhelming chemical smell. She didn’t know what it was, but it was stomach curdling. There were several ladies in the salon, mostly in their twenties and thirties, with their hair in curlers.
“Uh, I don’t know if I want my hair curly like that,” Gennie said to Colleen.
“Well, you don’t have to,” Colleen said. “There’s some books with different hairstyles over there. Take a look through them and see what you like.”
Gennie browsed through a few of the books while Colleen chatted with the receptionist. There wasn’t much that she liked, but there were a few styles where the top was teased slightly and just the ends were curled. She thought she would be okay with that.
When a hairdresser became available, Gennie sat down in one of the leather seats.
“What can I do for you, honey?” the hairdresser, a woman in her forties with blonde hair in short tight curls, asked. Just by looking at her, Gennie was instantly afraid.
“Well…I…think I just want the ends curled,” she said.
“You don’t want it cut?”
“Uh, maybe about an inch or so.”
The hairdresser inspected her hair. “So, you want it keep it long, curly at the ends, right?”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
First, she had her hair washed, then she sat back down in the seat and the hairdresser grabbed random lengths of her hair and cut it at odd angles. Gennie was worried but it seemed to look okay after she finished trimming it. She rolled the last four inches in heated pink curlers. Then she sat on one of those chairs with the strange looking domes for a while. The dome blew hot air at her head. After that, the hairdresser took out the rollers and styled it with a large brush. Gennie was impressed.
“Do you like it?” the hairdresser asked.
“Yes,” she said. She felt one of the curls. It was silky. “It’s really nice. Thank you.”
Colleen gasped when she saw her. “That hairstyle is absolutely gorgeous on you. I thought you were pretty before, but now you’re just beautiful.”
Gennie felt herself turn about nine shades of red. “Oh thanks.”
Then she had her nails done. She had to soak her hands for about twenty minutes to get rid of the grunge underneath them. Then they were decuticled, buffed, shined and painted a peachy pink color. She felt like she was someone’s prized pet with all the primping she was getting. She wasn’t sure she liked it, because it was really boring, but she thought for the first time in her life she actually looked nice.
Colleen was over the moon when they left the salon. “Wait until the boys get a look at you. They’re going to be so happy!”
Malcolm drove up in front of the salon about a minute later. Ben was still frowning but he didn’t seem quite as unhappy as before. His eyes widened when he saw Gennie.
“What did you do with my sister?” he asked Colleen as they got into the car. “She doesn’t look like a cave woman anymore.”
“And your hair isn’t past your ears and pointing up in seventeen different places,” Gennie said. It was actually combed neatly to one side and trimmed. It was still long for a boys’ cut but at least it was in the acceptable range.
“When we get home, let’s take a picture of them in front of the house and send it to Aunt Gracie and Uncle Rusty,” Colleen said.
“They’ll probably say to themselves, ‘Who are these people? They don’t look like the maniacs we took in’” Ben said.
Gennie whispered into his ear. “Hey, you’re supposed to be miserable.”
“I will be when they force me to go to school,” he whispered back.
“I think you’ll survive,” Gennie said.
The next day they visited The Lane Academy, a nearby high school. Malcolm had done the headmaster’s taxes for about five years and had found a lot of previously missed deductions and errors, all in his client’s favor. Malcolm was overdue for a big favor from him. Ben and Gennie had to take a test. Gennie couldn’t imagine how Ben did on the test because she found it incredibly hard. She looked over at him when the time was up and he had only finished half of it.
“We’re never getting in at this prissy school,” Ben said, handing the test to the school secretary.
“You never know,” Gennie replied. “Weird things always seem to happen to us.”
The next day the headmaster called and told Malcolm that Ben and Gennie would be accepted into the tenth grade. Gennie was thrilled but Ben just put his hands in his pockets and retreated to his room.
Gennie went to see him a few minutes later. He was lying on his bed, looking up at the ceiling.
“Aren’t you happy you don’t have go back to middle school?” she asked him.
“Yeah, I guess,” he said, even though he looked less than thrilled.
“It looks like a really great place.”
“Yeah,” he turned away from her and sighed.
“It’ll be okay,” she said.
“No it won’t,” he said. She thought she heard his voice crack. “They’ll figure out soon enough that I’m really stupid. There’s no way I’m going to make it there.”
She felt bad for him. She sat down on his bed and patted him gently on the back. “Please don’t say that. I know you’re not stupid. You can make it there. You just have to try.”
His breathing was really jagged. She was sure he was crying.
“You can do it,” she said. “Colleen, Malcolm and I are all going to help you, okay?”
She saw him nod but he refused to show his face.
“Hey, look at it this way. Maybe you’ll find a cute girl there.”
“No girls like me. They think I’m ugly.”
“Well, the headmaster said there was a blind girl at the school. Maybe she’s cute and she’ll probably go out with you because she doesn’t know what you really look like.”
Gennie didn’t know if Ben was crying harder or chuckling.
“That is the dumbest thing that has ever been said in the entire history of the universe.”
“I know, but at least it made you laugh.”
He finally looked at her. His eyes were red and swollen. “When I found out they were going to force me to go to school, I wanted to run away from here so bad. I didn’t because I knew you came here even though you didn’t want to. I figured I would just suck it up and go to school with you, because I saw how happy you were about going.”
Gennie smiled. “Thanks.”
“Now you owe me one big time.”
Gennie hit him with one of his pillows. “I don’t owe you anything. You’re the one that owes me.”
Chapter 13: November 6