“While you’re explaining I’ll bring sandwiches and coffee. There’s cake, too. I still can’t make tender pie crust,” Honey confessed, “but my cakes are good, and Mother Bolton’s sandwiches are delicious.”
Mother Bolton? Judy looked at her brother. Was it that serious? Honey blushed and said hastily, “She’s your mother, Judy, and you and I are sisters. She doesn’t mind if I call her that. Sit down, everybody, and I’ll pass the stuff around.”
Judy ate half a sandwich and drank a full cup of coffee cooled with cream while she considered where to begin. It was a long story. But it really started in the restaurant.
“Clarissa, that cashier who tried to cheat you was arrested on some other charge. Peter told me about it,” Judy said. “The police picked him up. It wasn’t a federal offense, but the subliminal advertising that the golden hair wash people put on is a different matter.” She explained to Clarissa about the messages that had been flashed on the screen too fast for their conscious minds to be aware of what was being suggested. “That’s why you kept saying your hair was ‘dull’ and ‘drab’ and why we all rushed out and bought that shampoo when we didn’t really want it.”
“But I did want it,” Clarissa protested. “I went back to the dressing room on purpose to get those two bottles I left there. I was going to come right back, but the first thing I knew I was being rushed into a costume and pushed out on the stage. Someone whispered, ‘Watch the cards,’ and I read the lines, but I was never so scared in my life. If my hair hadn’t been covered up with that golden wig I don’t think I could have played the part at all.”
“You played it beautifully,” Judy said.
Clarissa smiled and tilted her head.
“I could play Sleeping Beauty without a wig now. Did you notice the change?” she asked. “I used that golden hair wash.”
