What Was I Thinking? (29 page)

“Okay, then. You do have some grey roots
showing, but it’s far from uniform. I would say that this method is helping
somewhat by recovering some locks, but not all of them.”

“So, be brutally honest, please. Is it
transparently obvious that I am dyeing over grey hair?”

“Do you look like mutton dressed as lamb, do
you mean?”

“I suppose I might.” I had heard of the saying,
but had never heard it used.

“No, I don’t think so. Your face and hands look
so young that grey hair is not expected. Also, the light grey looks only like
extra pale streaks in your golden tresses. One does not realize they are
actually grey until performing an examination such as this.”

“So, you think I should continue with this
treatment?”

“I do, unless you prefer to try one of your
other concoctions.”

“Maybe.
I don’t know.” I pinned my hair
back up. I’d become surprisingly deft at the simpler styles.

“Are you thinking of offering this mixture for
sale?”

“I don’t know. I could, of course, but wouldn’t
that be considered shocking? Coloring one’s hair is improper, isn’t it?”

“It is, yes, but many of us would do it if it
could be done secretly.”

“Would you?”

“I would have, if it had been available when I
was your age. Now I’ve been grey so long that a sudden darkening would cause
comment.”

We were quiet a moment, and then she said, “I
would give a lot, though, for something that would stick my hair in place. No
matter how many pins Sarah puts in for me, it still manages to slip free. It’s
so fine and straight, you see, not wonderfully curly like yours.”

Some things never changed. “Trust me, Augusta,
if you had curly hair like mine, you’d be desperate for straight hair. But we
can solve your problem. Don’t you have hair spray? I could swear I heard it was
invented by your time.”

“Not that I’ve heard of.
Possibly
in New York or London.”

“Well, I’ve never made it, but the recipe is
easy. Let’s go give it a try.” I took her hand and towed her into the kitchen
next door. If I hadn’t been so excited, I would have been surprised at myself.

Mrs. Horner was at the counter mixing up
another batch of rolls for the evening meal. When she saw I’d not only invaded
again, but dragged the lady of the house in, she shook her head, but she didn’t
say anything. I think she was getting used to my odd ways.

“Now,” I said, “I know of two recipes—one made
with sugar and one with citrus fruits. Which would you like to try?”

That was too much for Mrs. Horner. “Do you be
planning to muck about in my clean kitchen again, Miss Addie? And what’s become
of that lemon I let you take?”

I stopped still and felt a flush rising. “Have
I left messes for you, Mrs. Horner? I really do try to clean up after myself,
but if you’ll show me what I’ve left undone, I’ll make sure to do better—”

“Nay, miss. You’re
a good
lass. It’s just I’m not over fond of others in my kitchen, do you see?”

“Oh. I do see.” Not only was this an
embarrassment right at the moment, but it would mean real trouble if I tried to
make a business from my mixtures. That would involve either offending Mrs.
Horner permanently, or finding somewhere else where I could mix and cook. I bit
my lip.

Augusta had been very quiet, and I wondered if
she were horrified at my trespassing, but she merely said, “Mrs. Horner, you
know Addie comes from Europe, where their ways are far different. Do but spare
us a bit of space just now, and I will make other arrangements in the future.”

“Well enough, Mrs. Roland. Miss Addie’s right
helpful, but I do not want to be setting a habit, do you see?”

“I do see. Do you think we could use the
chopping table, since you’re working at the counter?”

“Yes, that will do.” And turning to me, “Miss
Addie, do you be
wanting
my sauce pan again?”

“I do, thank you, Mrs. Horner. And, I think, a
paring knife, and an orange, if you can spare one. I’ll go get the lemon you
gave me.”

Mrs. Horner gave one of her trademarked sniffs
and began laying out materials for me.

I turned to Augusta. “Do you have an empty
perfume bottle—the kind with a squeezable ball at the top, so you can spray
it?”

“An atomizer?
Of course! Several.”

“Oh, good.
If you would be so good as to
get an empty one of those and wash it out well while I fetch the lemon, we’re
in business. I’m assuming the citrus mixture is all right with you?”

“I am in your hands, my dear.”

And so I made my first attempt at hairspray. I
had read many times
that ladies
made it out of sugar
water before chemical sprays were commercialized, and I had read this
particular recipe, which obviously used the sugar in fruit juice as its
stickum, on longlocks.com just shortly before leaving the Internet behind for
good.

I cut each fruit in half carefully, and then
cut half the orange and half the lemon into small chunks, with the rind still
on, and dropped the pieces in the saucepan with about a pint of water. I turned
the burner on high, and left the mixture to mind itself while reaching a boil.

I looked at the remaining fruit, biting my
lower lip in thought. My first instinct, naturally, was to seal each into a
Glad bag with a nice Ziploc seal and put them in the fruit bin of the
Frigidaire, but that really wasn’t an option. They would have to be used quickly
or they’d be wasted. Well, I could make up a batch of lemon shampoo, which is
what I’d wanted the lemon for in the first place. But I didn’t have a use for
the orange.

Even half a lemon would make a lot of shampoo.
We could share it with all the other women in the household, do a little test
marketing. I looked from Augusta to Mrs. Horner, considering. Would they both
be on board? What about Mrs. Horner’s territory and Augusta’s dignity?

Well, first things first. I checked the
saucepan. The citrus mixture was beginning to simmer gently. Good.

Next was the orange I didn’t have a use for.
“Mrs. Horner?”

That good lady looked up from her kneading.
“Yes, Miss Addie? Do you
be needing
something else?”

“I do, I think. I need more of your patience
than you can probably spare, but first I wondered if you would have a use for
this half an orange. My recipe only uses the half and I wouldn’t want it to go
to waste.”

“Oh, surely, miss. I can make up an orange cake
for dessert. That’ll be a treat for Mr. Bert on a hot night, I’m sure.”

“Oh! Good! That sounds marvelous.” I was
delighted not to waste such an expensive treat. “Would it be helpful if I cut
it up for you? Since I’ve got the knife out anyway?”

She looked from me to Augusta before answering.
I couldn’t imagine how many rules, traditions, and habits I was disrupting, but
Augusta only shrugged at the cook’s glance. “That’d be right kind of you, miss.
If you could grate up the peel into a little cup with the grater in that drawer
aside the cooker and cut the fruit into little
pieces, that
would be just fine.”

“I will. That will work. I’d like to use the
grater on the lemon when I’m finished, if I may?” Lord, sometimes I missed
living alone. The
notion of asking permission before using a
kitchen implement
!

“What are you going to do with the rest of the
lemon?” Augusta asked. “I notice you’re not offering it up for a dessert.”

“I hadn’t thought of that,” I said with
surprise. “I thought we might make a fancy shampoo as long as we’re cooking up
hair products, but if a lemon cake…”

“Nonsense, dear!
I was only teasing you. What
can I do to help? I feel quite at loose ends. Is there more to do on this fruit
soup?”

“Not yet. It has to boil until the liquid is
reduced by half, so if you could stir it once in a while, just to make sure
nothing sticks or burns, that would be good. Otherwise, we can get to work on
the shampoo.

“Now, for the shampoo, we’ll need quite a bit
of castile soap. The recipe I know calls for a quarter cup of it, but that’s
with only two tablespoons of lemon juice, so—”

“Begging your pardon, miss—”

“Yes, Mrs. Horner?”

“I do not mean to insert myself where I’m not
wanted, miss, but if you mean to juice the lemon…”

“I am planning to juice it, yes, and I would
welcome guidance. I’m afraid that where I come from, we purchase our lemon
juice in bottles, already squeezed.”

Both of the ladies blinked a bit at this, but
Mrs. Horner recovered her aplomb quickly. “Well, then miss, that explains your
not knowin’—a half o’ lemon like that there will give you only about a couple
tablespoons of juice, if that.”

“Oh. Oh, I see. That simplifies the recipe
quite a bit, then.”

“Do you
be wanting
me
to juice that lemon for you then, miss? That is, if I wouldn’t be interferin’
none?” She looked at me hopefully. Apparently this was starting to look
interesting.

“That would be wonderful, thank you. I’ll just
deal with this orange, and then grate the lemon peel, and then you can take
over the juicing, if that’s okay.”

And Augusta was looking a little left out.
Well, that could be solved! “Now, Augusta, if you don’t mind very much, you
could sort out a quarter cup of castile soap and put it in a sauce pan with a
quarter cup of water—that will be the base of our shampoo.”

Augusta looked gratified to be given a task, as
I had hoped, and made for the stairs to bring some of the soft soap down from
the bathroom.

The three of us spent the rest of the morning
busily making natural hairspray, blonde-enhancing shampoo, and batter for
orange cake, all quite companionably. I explained about the hairspray as we
worked and we were all quite eager to try it, but it seemed to take forever to
cool it enough to strain, much less try out.

I had worried about disrupting the order of the
house by barging into Mrs. Horner’s territory, but we all had such a good time
that we wound up eating sandwiches together in the kitchen while we planned our
products.

The batch of shampoo was more than enough for
one person and, without
preservatives,
it wouldn’t
keep, so when it was cooked down and strained, we doled it out into egg cups
for each of us, as well as the maids, to try out. If we all agreed it was a
success, we would talk ways to make it keep.
Perhaps if we
could engineer a sealed container…

Mrs. Horner carefully lined up the egg cups
along a shelf above the cookie jar to pass out to the maids after their evening
meal. Augusta and I carried ours up to our bedrooms, giggling a little.

The hairspray would all go in Augusta’s
atomizer, but without alcohol to stabilize it, it would spoil quickly. The
recipe I remembered recommended refrigeration, but the small icebox here in the
kitchen couldn’t accommodate the bottle. When I explained the problem, though,
Mrs. Horner said she could make room for it in the icehouse out back.

“I can get the girls to help me tidy up in
there and we can set you up a whole shelf for your concoctions, if that would
suit.”

“That would suit, admirably. You are a
treasure, Mrs. Horner.”

She turned a little pink and waved away my
appreciation. “Now, what does this stuff do, that you’ve used Mrs. Roland’s
fine perfume bottle for?”

“Well, if we’ve got the mixture right, it will
help Mrs. Roland hold her hair in place, even on a windy day. If it’s cool
enough, we’ll try it out.”

We all touched the bottle and decided that it
was sufficiently cool. I explained about spraying lightly, and closing the eyes
and mouth against the spray, and we went up to Augusta’s dressing table to try
spritzing a lock of her hair.

It didn’t work very well, so we lost a good bit
of the afternoon to trying to adjust the stickiness by thinning it with water,
trying out the adjusted mixture on each other, wet-combing out the too-sticky
locks, and laughing. We had a good time, but the thin-lipped maids clearly did
not approve. They looked with particular disfavor on Mrs. Horner, who they
clearly thought was getting above her station.

By the time Bert came home for his supper, all
three of us had tidied up to respectability, Mrs. Horner had baked an elegant
orange cake, Augusta and I had hidden away our concoctions, and I had stolen an
hour to make notes on the adjustments we’d made to the hairspray recipe.

While we were dressing for dinner, Augusta and
I explained the goings on to Sarah, her lady’s maid, and gave her the sample of
lemon shampoo that had been reserved for her. She was somewhat mollified, but
clearly thought she was the one who should have been included in any hair
preparations, instead of a mere cook.

I hoped Mrs. Horner would have better luck
soothing the ruffled feelings of the other three maids.