Marble Magnolias

Myth Meets Steel Magnolias

Photo by Allyssa Olaivar on Unsplash

Hebe's House of Hair was busy on the day before the Spring Equinox. Scissors and tongues were flying, each sharper than the other, making a serpent's tooth seem dull indeed.

"I hate it when Athena comes in," Circe said, as she oiled Artemis's shorn locks. "She always expects me to put snake oil all over her Aegis on a two-for-one special. And she never tips!"

"You mean she has hair under that helmet?" Artemis laughed.

"Yes, and that's not the only place. She gets her chin waxed, too!"

"Really?" Hera looked up from the dryer. "I wondered about that."

Calypso began rolling Rhea's hair. "Have you all heard about Persephone? She went missing, and then they found her married to Hades!"

"Do tell!" said Aphrodite. "I bet Demeter was upset about that! Nobody was good enough for her daughter! Even though Zeus…."

"Even though Zeus what?" Hera aimed her piercing eyes at Aphrodite.

"Nothing, just a slip of the tongue." Aphrodite bit her lip to keep from smiling.

Calypso rolled her eyes at Hebe, who was braiding pearls into Aphrodite's hair. "I heard that Zeus put Hades up to snatching her. Zeus said, “Just take her."

Hera turned off the dryer and raised it from her head. "So she's married off to Hades, now, poor thing. That's the last we'll see of her."

"And no wonder," Calypso said, unfastening Artemis's sandals. "There were plenty of suitors for Persephone—even Hermes himself! Demeter wouldn't accept any of them. Guess she wanted to keep her little girl all to herself."

"Can't blame her for that." Artemis licked her lips. "She's a hottie. I'd do her in a second."

"Well, she's coming back tomorrow," Circe said. "I wonder how Demeter convinced Hades to let her go."

"Didn't you notice," Hebe said, "that the sacrifices have been very scarce now for a while? Seems like nobody had a single chicken or bowl of grain to offer us."

"I don't need a lot of sacrifices, so I didn't really notice," Artemis said, "But then, my deer and other animals weren't breeding. I was very worried about them losing their litters and fawns."

"Demeter stopped everything from growing" Hebe said, pulling on Aphrodite's hair a bit harder to get her to sit still. "No eggs, no grain, no grass, nothing!"

"Why'd she do that? We all need our sacrifices!" Hera scowled.

Hebe hung some cowries in Aphrodite's ears "Iris said that Demeter told Zeus that nothing would grow again until Persephone was brought back to her."

"How did she get Hades to agree to that?" Artemis asked. "Ouch!" She pulled her foot away from Calypso, who was giving her a pedicure.

"Sorry," Calypso said. "It's just that you have all this…stuff in your cla….toenails."

"Let me put it this way," Aphrodite said, smirking under her seashells. "Nobody but Persephone was getting any."

"You would know." Hera stood up, feeling her rollers. "Hebe, come comb me out.”

“Persephone can't stay up here,” Hebe said, “Hades gave her some pomegranate seeds."

"That's not all he gave her," Aphrodite snickered. "It's all right, Hebe. I'm late for a date with Adonis, anyway. He's just dying to see me." She adjusted her chiton around her breasts. "You can borrow the girdle sometime if you like, Hera, not that you need it." She smiled as she handed Hebe a coin, and then walked to the door. She turned back for a moment and said, "Demeter's here—heads up!"

Hera hurried to get into Hebe's chair before Demeter could get in it.

Calypso stretched to look, pulling Artemis's leg.

"You watch what you are doing," Artemis growled. "If you cut my foot with those clippers, I'll turn you into a bitch for a month!"

"Too late for that!" Circe laughed. "Let's put you under the dryer, Miss Rhea. You've got a lot of curls to set."

Rhea was very old, and while they were polite, nobody took a lot of stock in grandmothers anymore. Circe put her under the dryer.

Demeter came in the door, looking almost mortal with no goddess glow.

"Greetings, Demeter," Hebe said, perhaps a bit louder than was necessary. "What can we do for you today?"

"I need a complete makeover," Demeter said. "I feel like Gaia herself today." She flopped down in Circe's chair. She looked like the eldest too, wrinkled, gray-haired, and flabby, not to say plump.

Rhea chuckled, the sound almost drowned by the roar of the dryer.

"I hear you have a new temple in Eleusis," Hera said. "Congratulations. What prompted the mortals to honor you so when the rest of us are barely scraping by?"

"Stupid woman wouldn't let me make her son immortal," Demeter said. "So I showed her who I was and told them they bloody well better build me a temple."

"I'd just have torn them limb from limb," Artemis said. She mimed a swipe at Calypso, who ducked as Artemis's hand became a bear's paw.

"You watch it, Artemis, or I will cut your claws off," Calypso said. She jerked Artemis's foot down on the footrest.

"Told you she was already a bitch!" Hebe said.

Everyone laughed.

"Let's start with a shampoo," Circe said. "Come on back. It will relax you. I've got some kykeon back here too, if you want some."

"Now you're talking." Demeter pushed herself up from the chair and followed Circe to the sink.

"Do you want the insect repellent headband this time," Calypso asked, "or just a rubdown with Skin-So-Soft™?"

"Neither one." Artemis checked herself in the mirror as Calypso fastened her sandals.

"But no tip either!" She jogged out, her short robe whipping around her brown thighs.

Calypso started sweeping up the clippings. She held her hand to her temple for a second, as if her head hurt. "Hecate is here."

"By the Delphic oracle," Circe said, "I hope she didn't bring the menagerie today."

"You won’t have to do her," Calypso said. "She always comes to me. I love her, but I'm not a vet…."

Hebe waved her hand behind her for silence as she turned towards the door.

"Hello, Hecate."

Hecate stowed her torches in a handy nook in the waiting area. She came as a single goddess without her horse, snake, and dog companions. She nodded around, bowing slightly to Rhea. "Greetings, Grandmother. Is all well with you?"

Rhea smiled and nodded back. Calypso sighed with relief—no snake oil, flea powder, or Mane and Tail™ today.

"What will it be today, Hecate?" Hebe asked. She and Hera both leaned towards Hecate to hear her answer.

"A polish for my crown, a cut and style for me, and gossip all around, as usual." She allowed Calypso to adjust her cape. "The trivia has been busy these past weeks, and the new Queen of the Underworld will be returning tomorrow. I'm to meet her and lead her out."

"That's interesting. Queen of the Underworld." Hera watched Hecate for her reaction, but Hecate ignored her.

"Demeter's getting the works for the big day," Calypso said. "Tell us more."

"Yes, Hecate," Rhea said, her voice clear over the roar of the dryer. "Tell us the story about Persephone."

Everyone shut up and listened, except for Demeter, who chattered on about Baubo and her bawdy jokes while Circe kept her ears full of water in the shampooing sink.

"I didn't see anything, you understand," Hecate said, smiling, "but I could hear her cries from my lair. She called out her father's name, as we often do in times of great emotion."

"Not you, apparently," Hera said. At least, no one ever intimated that Zeus had done Hecate.

"Ah, but Zeus is neither my father, my brother, nor my lover." Hecate smiled, not sweetly. "Persephone plucked the narcissus, and it in return plucked her."

Rhea chuckled under her dryer.

Hebe patted Hera's curls into place below her headband. "So Hades just raped her and dragged her into the underworld?"

"If you mean did he have sex with her and then take her to his palace, yes, that's what happened." Hecate removed her star crown and let Calypso drape her. "Her cries were not screams of pain or fear, though."

"He raped her!" Demeter bellowed, her hair dripping where she stood, as Circe tried to wrap her in a towel. "Her own lousy father wouldn’t help her. He gave his permission!"

"I thought Poseidon was her father," Hera said. "And who is she to be spared from the same fate as the rest of us?"

"Speak for yourself, Hera." Hecate lifted her head for Calypso to cut her side pieces evenly.

"You were in on it too, then!" Demeter shook her finger in Hecate's face, splashing water on everyone. "I should have known, with your cock and bull tale of looking for me!"

Hecate took a towel from Circe and dabbed gently at her face. "I thought you would pull yourself together. It's not like she died. She IS a goddess married to a god."

Even Hera sat silently, waiting to hear what Demeter would say. Demeter grew more and more angry until the steam rose from her hair.

Rhea cackled and hugged herself.

Demeter spun to face Rhea, shaking and steaming. "You were in on it, too? IS everyone here against me?" Demeter tore at her hair and her clothes.

Rhea turned off the dryer and stood up, a head shorter than Demeter, bony and frail beside Demeter's fully ripe body. "Nobody here is against you. Sit down and shut up!"

Though she spoke only to Demeter, everyone sat where she was, the hairdressers by their stalls, and Demeter, cross-legged on the floor.

"Take a hard look at me, Mother of Persephone. I am what you will become."

Rhea looked at each one of the goddesses with her blue eyes flashing and her white hair escaping from the rollers. "My stories are lost, and so will yours be, and Persephone's stories in turn. It is the way of the mortals to forget."

Rhea turned again to Demeter. "Even Our Mother Gaia played her part, opening wide her thighs to show Persephone what to do. Narcissus brought Persephone into herself, so that Hades could bring her out into her womanhood. She was not raped, but rescued from being her own mother's shadow, a doll, a playmate."

"But I only wanted to protect her!" Demeter began to cry. "It's not fair that you all took her from me." Calypso patted her shoulder. Demeter knocked her hand away.

"It was her idea, not Zeus's," Hecate said. "She knew you would never allow her to leave you, and she wanted to be her own person—better Queen of the Dead than just the shade of the Queen of Grain."

"No, No!" Demeter sobbed. "She would never do that! You have no daughters! You don't know how it is." She collapsed into a heap of wet clothing and shivering flesh.

"I know!" Rhea's voice struck out, strong and sharp. "I know how it is to see my children, sons and daughters, snatched from my womb and eaten by their father for fear of their power. You were rescued by your own brother, who fathered your daughter." She shot a look at Hera, who for once had nothing to say.

"Persephone is a goddess, as you are, and she claims her own place, as you have. Now, are you going to put on your best face for her, to welcome her back to the light, or are you going to lie there bleating like a goat?"

The silence was filled by the hairdressers scrambling to their feet. Calypso brought more towels to dry Demeter's eyes and hair. Demeter climbed into the chair upright and pale, as Calypso worked on her hair, brushing it to its darkest luster and curling it to the latest style.

Hebe went to the storeroom to get a cup of kykeon for each of them, to restore their spirits.

Circe hauled in her extra tools, for Hecate's familiars had appeared. She curried the horse's head and mane, groomed and flea-dipped the dog, and massaged the snake.

Hera pulled out her cell phone and called Iris. She gave orders for a feast to be set for Persephone and her mother, as well as all the other Olympians. She paid Hebe, and left.

Rhea sat waiting for her comb out, sipping her kykeon.

"Now," Hecate said, as Hebe's aestheticians did their magic, "let me tell you about Aphrodite's son and his new flame, Psyche.