The Beehive Lady

I am no detective, but there are certain people I would love to follow around for a day. The beehive lady is one of those people. She works out almost everyday at my workout center, Cardinal Fitness. She has jet black hair that I imagine gets shampooed into her hair every 4 weeks. The water must run purple when she flips her hair over to rinse it all down the bathroom sink. She seems like the type that would worry about the hair dye staining the white porcelain. Perhaps even before she allows herself the pleasure of inspecting the new color, she gets out some soft scrub to clean away any possible traces of her monthly ritual.

She comes into Cardinal each day wearing a white tee-shirt and some kind of nylon shorts. Her socks are white ankle length, not the long calf length socks that men her age seem to fancy so much. I can almost see her thinking, “Are these men self conscious about their calves? Why do they insist on pulling their socks as close to the kneecap as possible? Socks are not meant to double as leg warmers.”

Zelda does not strike me as the slightest bit self conscious, (fictional name, I do not know her real name). Sturdy white tennis shoes grace her feet. Her shoes are so spotless, I must assume they leave the dark closet floor, padding down the sidewalk in front of her tidy white house, only to shortly meet the well vacuumed charcoal carpet at Cardinal.

She hops onto the same Elliptical machine each day, where she slides and glides away for about 30-40 minutes. Bright pink lipstick gleams on her lips, while the rest of her face has been treated to a session of full make-up. It reminds me of my best friend’s mother in junior high, Mrs. Kathleen Harris. Each morning she would sing out, “Time to put my face on!” And she did just that. Out came the creams, lotions, wands, brushes, powders and tiny bottles of magical liquids. Zelda looks like a firm believer in the uplifting powers of a little blush on the checks, a bright color to pop the lips and a good thick ring of eyeliner to top it all off.

She must spend a good amount of time combing and teasing her hair into her elaborate beehive-ish hair-do each morning. Certainly, she possesses a favorite hairspray that keeps it all in place and looking just so, even through 40 minutes of working out, Aqua Net? Pantene? Or maybe a fancy salon brand? I would like to know, that is some powerful, high quality stuff!

The other day, while I was walking into Cardinal, I spotted her driving into the parking lot, in a gray Cadillac soft-topped convertible. A convertible! With that hair! How does that work? Does she drive it and just let her hair go on a holiday, breaking free from the extra firm hairspray, flipping and twisting in the wind? I am going to believe that she does. Just imagining the scene brings forth a sweet sense of freedom. I start to long for an open twisting mountain road, to power a convertible and wear a scarf of some sort, leaving everything behind for a while, looking to see if maybe I am someone else deep down, flying in the wind. Perhaps discovering something mysteriously wonderful about myself I never realized within the confines of a traditional car on a normal day? Who doesn’t want that moment?

So, I continue to look for that convertible around town, hoping to catch Zelda in a moment of her own. I will be sure to let you know if I spot her boat-like Cadillac zipping through the streets this summer. I’ll watch to see if she allows the beehive strands to unravel themselves in reckless abandonment, fully embracing the speed and the wind, as they create an entire new hairstyle on their own, if just for only one day.