Maribelle’s House of Beauty – A New Beginning in Curlers

The bell over the glass-paned door gave a bright ding-a-ling as she stepped into Maribelle’s House of Beauty, a small salon tucked between the corner bakery and the shoe repair shop on Main Street, Fairhaven. The smell met her first—thick and familiar, an intoxicating mix of permanent wave solution, sweet talcum powder, hot metal curling irons, and the faintest undercurrent of Virginia Slims smoke wafting from under the dryers.

Outside, the sun had turned the concrete pale and warm, but inside the salon, the air was cool and crisp from a humming box fan perched in the window, its streamers flapping lazily. The walls were painted rosy shell pink, trimmed with scalloped white moldings, and every corner gleamed with chrome, linoleum, and glass. It was part homey, part theatrical—like stepping into a place where women came to be seen, even when no one was watching.

She clutched her handbag in both hands, standing uncertainly for a moment just inside the threshold. A dozen heads turned. Most smiled.

“Oh, sweet pea, come on in,” called Maribelle from behind her throne-like station. “You must be new.”

Maribelle was impossible to miss—tall, curvy, and commanding, with a platinum blonde beehive teased to high heaven, cat-eye glasses glittering with rhinestones, and a cigarette perched in an ashtray shaped like a flamingo. She wore a lavender smock over a pencil skirt and heels, and a string of pearls that bounced as she moved with purpose and style.

“You’re the one on Maple Drive, right? Tommy Jones’ girl?” she added knowingly, patting the shoulder of her current client, who was mid-set under a silver dryer dome.

The wife nodded, a little shy. “Yes ma’am.”

“Well, sit yourself down, sweetheart. You’re next after Dottie. We’ll make a real peach outta you.”

The waiting chairs were vinyl, soft and slightly sticky from the summer humidity, lined up beneath a row of fashion posters—Grace Kelly, Elizabeth Taylor, and Doris Day all frozen mid-laugh, hair immaculately set, eyes sparkling. A shelf of hair magazines sat next to a bowl of peppermint candies and a tiny glass dish filled with bobby pins.

She sat, crossing her ankles neatly, and folded her gloved hands in her lap. Across from her, Dottie Havers raised an eyebrow from under her hood dryer and offered a sideways smile, her mouth already curled around a cigarette holder.