Photo and story by Daryn Slover,Staff Photographer

AUBURN – Maggie Dumais has a date with her “sweetheart,” Marcel. But that’s not why she’s having her hair done. Dumais comes for the conversation.

At Clover Beauty Shop, there’s always conversation.

Between a busy appointment list and passersby stopping to chat, hairdresser Laurette Gosselin keeps a full house. Roughly half of Gosselin’s clients – residents of Clover Manor – come by once a week.

Men come for cuts about once a month.

“We have a lot of people who come here to jibber-jabber,” Gosselin says. Each morning after breakfast, a Clover resident drops off a doughnut. “It’s never the same kind,” Gosselin says. “I like them all.”

Conversation is always two-sided.

“What woman can’t clip and gab?” asks Barbara Sturgis, 66, a regular at the shop.

“Even though she talks – she’s fast,” customer Pauline Ouellette says, referring to Gosselin’s styling pace. “She talks and she sings and she tells jokes.”

Ouellette rolls through the door in her wheelchair every Tuesday at 10:15 a.m. for a shampoo and set.

“She is so sweet,” Ouellette says of Gosselin. “I just love coming here.” At 80, Ouellette always has stories to tell: She was stricken with polio when she was 25 and spent eight months in the hospital. She had three children at the time.

Sometimes, Ouellette grabs a nap underneath the dryer. “It’s the sleeping potion I put in their lotion,” jokes Gosselin. “Under the dryer is a perfect place to take a snooze.”

Tuesdays and Wednesdays are set aside for perms. Thursdays and Fridays are for shampoos and sets. That way, people can look their best for the weekend. Gosselin closes up shop on Monday so she can have three-day weekends with her retired husband, Roger.

“Three p.m. next Wednesday,” she says as Sturgis leaves the beauty shop.

“I will be here with bells on,” Sturgis says. “She gives a good cut and she gives a good curl. I’m very satisfied every time I come.”

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