Aisle 5
Untitled | Deckard Enright | Drawing
Aisle 5 by Sarah Halle Sinks
Mother always leaves her gloves in her snow boots near the entrance door of our drugstore. She says that way she doesn’t ever lose them. I tell her they’ll smell like her feet, but she doesn’t listen. She just chuckles under her instant coffee breath and says,
“At least I’m not the one with three left gloves.” She walks past me briskly, pushing one of my side bangs behind my shoulder.
“And while you're in aisle 5,” she says to me, turning back, “maybe get yourself some brown hair dye to cover that horrid bleach. Your roots have come back anyway.” She winks and flashes me a quick smile, then trots over to the shoe bench and puts on her indoor shoes.
Mother loves to point out the state of my hair; it’s a daily conversation with her.
When I was younger, she used to brush it in the early mornings before she would head to work, lifting me onto the bathroom stool so I was tall enough to see my whole face in the mirror. She would stand over me in her tall, bedazzled heels that echoed against the marble tiles. The candy and pomegranate perfume that danced around her woke up my brain faster than the orange juice I had gulped down prior that morning. She would play with my hair in the mirror, saying, “A woman's hair is the most nonsensical thing. It couldn’t matter less, yet is one of the most talkative parts of our body.” She would conclude, “It gives so much away about a woman,” twirling my side bangs and placing them behind my shoulders.
I stand in aisle 5, barefoot, tracing my fingers over the blond hair dyes as my mother stands behind the register, brushing out the brown sheet of silk on her head. I slit open a package of brown hair dye as well as a package of blond and switch the dyes. I then grab the brown dye box containing the blond dye, and head over to the register, showing my mother I took her advice. She smiles at me with her pink lipgloss.
Today’s Hits play through the rustic speakers, overpowered soon by the first ring of the bell as the entrance door swings open, letting in the cold November air as piercing as a whistle.