BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Should Hillary forgive Bill? This is the question being asked on news programs across the country. Marriage counselors offer the couple tips on how to heal the wounds created by the president's dalliance with a woman young enough to be his great-granddaughter.

A more important question is whether the president's daughter can forgive him. Hillary picked him but, unfortunately, you can't choose your parents. Poor Chelsea. I know how she feels. I'm having awful flashbacks of my father's fling with our high school mascot. The girl in the Grass Burr suit was Nancy Sterling, senior class treasurer, the editor of the annual, and Rodeo Club Sweetheart. I quaked in my boots at the sight of her. She could destroy a lowly sophomore with a toss of her bleached blond hair. What's more, she wielded the power to schedule photo shoots on days when I was absent. What good is it to be in (ugh) Chess Club if you're not in the yearbook picture? Same with Office Help, Dodge Ball and Future Hairdressers of America.

It was so embarrassing when Daddy came to pep rallies and tried to make-out with Nancy under the bleachers in the gym. One time they were right beneath me and I saw them through the crack--him with his hand up her Grass Burr suit. He was wearing a rented clown costume to keep from being recognized but I knew it was him.

My friends found me crying in the girls' restroom. They knew the story--it was all over town. Everybody knew but Mom who was so involved in her business--painting Happy Faces on rocks--she hardly knew if it was day or night. I guess that's where I got my artistic temperament.

I decided to run away. But where to go? I had an uncle in Nashville and a second cousin in L.A. I thought about Mexico but all I could say in Spanish was no tengo mi tarea. Finally I resolved to seek refuge in the place I knew best--my grandmother's flower bed. No one would find me there. I could live on wild plums in summer and pecans in the fall, and steal dog food from Scooter the rest of the time. He was too fat anyway.

What did she see in him? Sure, he was a professional wrestler. Not Scooter! I mean Daddy. And he performed on weekends as Liverace, a Liberace look-alike, at music stores in a four county area. But he wore thick black glasses and was a horrible dancer. His pork-chop sideburns were turning gray and he wore the leisure suits of a middle-aged man. Not even the medallion nestled in the fur of his sagging chest could disguise the fact that Daddy was as old as Elvis.

The heartbreaking thing is, my family never realized I was gone. For three days I sat among the doodlebugs, leaving only for school and the Friday night football game. And the chess club car wash. And the Howdy Dance on Saturday. There he was--at every event--in his stupid clown suit. There was no escaping my father's shameful antics.

In the meantime, my friends noticed that I wore the same doodlebug-infested dress every day--a shocking thing considering I was the fashion plate of Axel High. I confided the tragic secret of my rustic habitat. They took turns smuggling Frito Pie to me from Connie's Uptown. And leftover fries. And a corny dog. They loaned me their own inferior clothes. And I wore them gratefully--the only time I was ever out of style. It makes me cry now just to think about it.

Finally I got sick of faded polyester and went home. To this day my parents don't know I ran away, just as Mom never found out about Nancy Sterling. Not even when the costume shop phoned about a stain on the clown suit. Mom never even asked about the gifts Nancy was always dropping off. Dad still wears the toupee she gave him, a pitiful reminder of his glory days.

I guess that's how I got so smart about men. I don't know about Hillary but if I was Chelsea, I'd knock his block off.