Page 35 of Prognosis Do Over

There was more cheering as Will sat on a stool and a pretty hairdresser apprentice picked up a can of red hairspray and shook it. Lou spied Candy, sitting with Rilla and the Ward Two staff, looking at her father with such pride and love in her eight-year-old eyes.

Would Jan’s baby look at her like that too?

Will signalled he was ready, and shut his eyes as his hair went from mid-brown to bright red in thirty seconds. The crowd went wild and Lou joined in with them. It was amazing how changing hair colour could transform someone. He looked so fake — comical, almost. Like one of the clown doctors.

She glanced at Candy, who kept standing and clapping, and then sitting, and then standing again, she was so excited.

Will got off the stool after his cape had been removed, and did a theatrical bow to the absolute delight of the crowd.

‘Please join with me and give Will a round of applause,’ said Harold.

Will joined Lou where she was standing as the clapping continued. ‘How bad does it look?’ he asked in a low voice.

‘Bad.’ She grinned, smothering her laughter. Up close, he looked even stranger.

‘Laugh all you like, Lou. This is gonna wash out in a few days. You’re going to be shorn for much longer.’

‘I’m looking forward to it,’ she said, and looked away from his sexy grin as Harold beckoned her over and introduced her.

‘And then there was one,’ he said to Lou. ‘Turn around, Lou, let everyone see just what you’re losing here today.’

Lou obliged, turning so the crowd could see the plait that fell down her back, the tip brushing the rise of her buttocks. Someone yelled out, ‘Don’t do it!’ and everyone laughed.

‘How long have you been growing your hair, Lou?’ Harold asked her.

‘Since I was seventeen,’ she said, turning back and speaking into the microphone.

The crowd ooh-ed. ‘So that’s about eighteen years?’ he said. And the crowd ooh-ed again.

‘That’s right,’ she said, appreciating Harold’s theatre, aware that he was building up to the moment not just for the sake of the television cameras but for the audience as well.

‘For those of you who have known Lou for as long as some of us, you’ll know that this plait is a legend in this hospital. It’s followed Lou through her training, and all her years on Ward Two. But today the plait is coming off!’

There was clapping again, and Lou’s smile dented slightly as the Braxton Hicks started up again. Great timing, kid.

‘Twelve thousand dollars,’ Howard continued, ‘and that’s just the doctors. Lou’s generosity will help the hospital achieve its goal of twenty thousand dollars, so let’s hear it again for Lou.’

‘She hasn’t done it yet,’ came a voice from the crowd.

Lou laughed. ‘Well, let’s get this show on the road, then.’

Sitting on the high stool was difficult for someone who was as short and as pregnant as Lou. She was wearing a strappy black T-shirt that moulded her breasts and stretched right over her bump, and a purple tie-dyed skirt that came to just above her knees. Slip-on chunky-heeled sandals completed the outfit. She decided to just prop herself against it, and not treat all and sundry to a rather inelegant display.

The cape went around her and she relaxed a little. The Braxton Hicks had stopped as abruptly as they had started, so things were definitely looking up. Now that she was here, she was eager to get it over with. Cutting off her hair was strangely symbolic, and she couldn’t wait to have it done.

The plait represented the old Lou and everything that had come before, including Will. From today she would be purged, able to start anew.

Just her and the baby.

A male apprentice held up a pair of sharp-looking scissors to the crowd and everyone ahh-ed.

‘Any last words?’ Harold joked, putting the microphone in her face.

‘Hurry.’

The crowd clapped, and Lou scanned the faces for Candy. The little girl gave her the thumbs-up and she winked back. Then, with swift precision, the hairdresser grasped her plait and chopped it off.

There was an audible gasp as the crowd reacted to Lou’s plait, separated from her head and held triumphantly aloft. Lou looked at it dispassionately, more than ready to let it go.

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