Save One Bullet

During my trip to the mall, I intended to buy myself the works, cut, color, nails, pedicure and finish off the day with a week’s worth of brand-new clothes. It was early enough in the day at the salon they had plenty of openings. After telling the stylist what I wanted she began mixing up a magic potion in a little ceramic cup and snapped on gloves like she was preparing to do a prostate exam. Wait. I don’t have one of those.

She painted my roots first and then let it soak for a while before spreading the rest of the contents over the remaining dry hair. She put me under the hair dryer and took off for a cigarette break while I baked. When I was done, she took me to the sinks in the back of the salon and shampooed the dye out of my hair, scrubbing my scalp until I thought it would bleed. As she twisted and pulled on my hair, I ruminated on the situation Tom had put me into.

How could he do this to me when my life was hard enough with my mother in the nursing home always having emergencies that no one else could tend to. Even though it was easier than when I cared for her at her own home, I still missed many days of work and hours of sleep when she had an incident. I had quit my aerobic classes and my painting classes to make more time for Mom’s care. I felt as though I had no life at all anymore. The book club and subbing at the elementary school were the only outside life I had left.

What kept nagging at me about Tom’s infidelity was not the ‘how’ or ‘why’, it was the ‘when’. When did I lose track of our married life? When did he stop caring and when did I stop noticing? Our sex life had been non-existent for years, as one or the other of us was always too tired, too busy, or simply not interested. Searching through my memory carefully, trying to pin down when, exactly, we had put our love life on the shelf, I realized that it had fizzled out without a whimper.

All I knew was that it had been a relief for me not to have him prodding and nagging me to give in to him. He was probably just as tired of my excuses and passive refusals. With my mom always needing more than I had to share, there wasn’t much left for Tom. He always seemed to handle my constant preoccupation with mom’s condition, reminding me that, “It is what it is.”

I never gave it a thought. Perhaps I should have.

The stylist took me back to her station and began chopping at the layers of my new, vivid auburn hair, creating a chic bob that curved in toward my chin. I loved it even before she applied the highlighter and the foil. When she finally finished applying the highlight, I moved on over to the nail station and let them have at it with both my toes and fingers.

The manicurist finished me up with bright red, unchipped nails. Then I moved back to the sinks for the final rinse. When the hairdresser finished, I had an adorable blunt-cut bob with light auburn highlights that brightened up my skin tone and woke my gray eyes right up. Perfect! Even in my post-pandemic pudginess, the cut and color were to die for!

Before the pandemic had trapped me home with the refrigerator and took away my exercise classes I had been in terrific shape. Now, not so much, I reflected, as I felt the flab around the waistband of my jeans.

At the register, I handed over my credit card, $180. Cha-ching! Nordstrom’s was next on my list for spoiling Mama. Instead of pawing through the sale tables I headed straight for the designer racks and picked out four or five new outfits. Some for school and the rest for me. If Tom could have a new car, Italian shoes, and a girlfriend I was going to stop shopping in the sale sections.

My chest and legs were my best features before the pandemic and fortunately, they didn’t suffer from my weight gain, so I deliberately chose clothes and shoes to show those assets off. Out of sheer guilt, I sent Tom a quick text, ‘Hi, letting you know mom is worse than before. The doctor will be in to administer a sedative. I may be here a few days.’ That should hold him for a while.

On my way back to the hotel I stopped at Panera Bread for a quick take-out bite and sat in front of the TV in my room, vegging out before calling it a day. I slept surprisingly well for someone who almost ended up in the Poky for a double murder the previous night.

After doing acrobatics to keep my hair dry in the shower, I stepped out and looked in the mirror to check out my new look. I wiped the fog off the mirror and inspected myself, checking for wrinkles and lines on my face. Finding a new crease between my eyebrows, I made up my mind that it was time for Botox. It probably wouldn’t cost any more than my recent spending spree had.

Before turning away to get dressed the fog returned to the mirror. The invisible finger had returned and was writing, ‘Think carefully.’

"What?" I said out loud, "About Botox? Naw, that's an easy decision." The message disappeared and a new one appeared, 'SMART ASS'.