Thankfully, MayBelle has a lovely, old-school hairdresser who is familiar with hair that is less than luxurious. And the salon itself is cozy, not intimidating. Even MayBelle feels comfortable there. You are not offered kale smoothies or wine spritzers when you arrive, although you can usually score a Diet Coke. It is not decorated with expensive chandeliers or modern art. There is a sofa, and the magazines are current. You do not have to use an app to make an appointment. Before Covid, MayBelle would often see cars from area retirement communities dropping off women for their cuts and curls.

MayBelle knew Liz was the one for her when she was not greeted with a cry of alarm, or worse, pity, at their first meeting. Liz has kept MayBelle’s hair short enough to look fuller, and worked with MayBelle to find a “magic shampoo.” And she’s even okay with MayBelle’s going gray. 

Last week MayBelle went in for a sprucing up. Just as she was getting out of the chair and putting her sensible shoes on the floor, she heard Liz say, “Stop. I need to get that hair.”

Not a strange thing to hear from your hairdresser, so MayBelle sat back down and waited for Liz to get her shears or her little neck brush. Instead, Liz came for MayBelle’s chin.

“Got it,” said Liz, smiling. “I’d noticed that earlier and wanted to get it taken care of for you.”

During her mother’s later years on this earth, MayBelle would sometimes drive her around their hometown of Jackson, Mississippi, on Sunday afternoons. They would drink iced tea from McAlister’s and talk about the old days. 

“Isn’t that where what’s her name used to live?” her mother might ask.

“Yes,” MayBelle would say. More often than not, she knew exactly which what’s her name her mother meant.

On several such occasions, just before her mother would get out of the car to return to the senior living community, MayBelle would grab her tweezers (she prefers Tweezerman), which she always keeps handy, and pluck any stray white hairs on her mother’s chin.

“Thank you,” her mother would say. “I can’t seem to take care of things like that myself anymore.”

MayBelle will most surely have her mother’s white, sparse hair one day, for hers is not only thin, but also thinning further as she ages. Down the road, as MayBelle winds it into a small bun and secures it with bobby pins before dinner at the retirement home, or while she wraps a scarf around her head before her niece comes to take her shopping, she will be reminded of the women kinfolk who have come before her. It will most likely make her self-conscious on occasion, but she’ll be fine.

Liz and MayBelle laughed about how their husbands never seem to notice their chin hairs.

“Precious told me I was beautiful one day and sent me out in the world with an inch-long white whisker poking straight out,” said MayBelle. “I’m surprised it didn’t leave a mark when he kissed me goodbye that morning.”

“My husband, too! He never seems to notice.”

Surely this makes them lucky, Liz and MayBelle, to have partners who consider them attractive regardless of how their bodies surprise them as they get older. Of course, it could mean that their husbands are not really looking at them. Or maybe, just maybe, it means they’re being seen by people who know where real beauty lies.