andead99
The instruments were all in place, freshly washed and disinfected as she used to leave them at closing time in the evening. The noisy shutter pulled up a few moments earlier prevented the view of the interior of the room, now revealed to anyone who passed by. A very small shop, the capacity did not allow it to accommodate more than two customers, one of whom was necessarily relegated to the chair waiting for their turn.
The station parallel to the window allowed any curious eye to clearly see what to do with the customer if the position of the hairdresser allowed it. For many perhaps it wouldn’t have been a problem, for others a little privacy would be all that would be needed in such an intimate moment, especially in a place where you are never fully certain of what you will look like once you leave.
But that eye would have had to be modestly meticulous to fully notice what was happening inside, since the name of the hall stood out in elephantine characters on the window; along with it were, just beneath, the opening hours of the shop, essential for customers. With the view partially blocked by the basic information of the salon, it was therefore a little difficult to peer into the lively part of the shop, and God only knows how soon the poor girl would have been grateful for this.
Jenny had felt compelled to do something about her business’s poor finances. The large chains of salons inside shopping centers risked burying their poor competitors with their low prices and cuts executed quickly and effectively, and Jenny knew this.
Take action was needed, work hard to find something that would make the business stand out from the others. Poor Jenny stood at the counter, thinking about what she could do about it. The pen in her mouth and the curled locks on her fingers would have given the idea that shortly thereafter she would be given birth to an idea.
It happened.
Having let go of the locks, free to return to their position in the bob that distinguished the dear Jenny, her fingers could go back to gripping the markers with which to write the sign that would soon be placed in the shop window.
To be honest it wasn’t very visible and it was immediately obvious to Jenny. Placed there, at the bottom right, near the entrance door, compared to all the miscellany of timetables and words that completed the general information of the place, perhaps it would not have caught the eye very much and Jenny knew that.
Despite the recently launched offer of “FRESH CUT FOR ONLY $5”, potential customers did not fight to cross the threshold and take advantage of the brilliant idea that Jenny had scrupulously devised shortly before to increase the flow of customers.
Several customers came in during that time but no one asked about the new service. A few hours passed but presumably no one knew anything about that sign. Jenny knew that this sign was the best she could use.
By mid-morning she always felt the need for a break and that day too there was no exception. She took out the pack of cigarettes that she always accompanied with the lighter attached from the pockets of her dress. She opened the door and stood in the doorway to enjoy the break.
The position in which she had decided to open the shop a couple of years before wasn’t bad at all, since looking out from the outside she could boast a large influx of possible customers who inexorably passed through one of the busiest streets in the city centre. The multitude of shops that emerged gave the idea that this was the vital point of the town, where young, old and tourists met, some to meet for a coffee, some perhaps to go shopping and some just for a walk.
It was therefore not uncommon every day to see the crowd flowing now here and now there along the entire length of the street, whatever day of the week it was.
Three quarters of the cigarette had already spread at Jenny’s feet when her eyes went from the ash embers to something more interesting.
As luck would have it, at that moment, a girl, or perhaps more a young woman, passed by there, right in front of her. Her sweet features certainly helped her a lot not to reveal the hardships of her hectic life which often manifest themselves slowly over time on the faces of those who share the same less than relaxing lifestyle. Her shapely legs, you could noticed, were also very slender; the heeled sandals which showed off the well-groomed foot were therefore of little use. Her large yellow dress, despite the discreet length up to the knee, did not however prevent the young lady’s wide hips from being highlighted, topped and therefore surrounded by a thick and wide leather bandage, a belt in short. Her breasts, how you could see, were well proportioned compared to her overall figure, therefore elegant and certainly not vulgar as some would think.
It happened that the aforementioned young lady, whose name was clearly Milia, was walking down the street with several bags in her hands, perhaps more than she could carry. It was for this reason that at one point she had to bend down and pick up the contents of one of these bags, having lost her grip on it.
The wide-brimmed hat did not resist falling during Milia’s downward movement, right at the young lady’s feet.
Her flowing, soft locks fell to her shoulders. Brown curls twisted invisible columns of air, a few braids on her back reached below her waist, perhaps even further below her if only she had ever decided to straighten her hair.
But no matter how tidy they were, they certainly didn’t refuse to attach themselves to Milia’s damp forehead, intent on scraping together all that was lost, face down on the street, with the red cheeks of someone who already felt their skin sticky due to the heat in the early morning.
Jenny saw all this, she saw her a few steps away from her, and she also saw her opportunity. She saw a customer.
If no one wanted to take advantage of her offer, then she would have offered it to them directly.
“You need a hand, clearly.”
“What-?” she said, pulling one of those locks off her forehead.
“I could be of use to you. You know… It must be difficult with all that goodness on your head.”
Milia, dazzled by the sun, still didn’t know what that figure next to her was talking about.
“I don’t understand what you’re referring to…”
With a wave of her hand, Jenny highlighted the large writings that stood out to the right of her, on the glass of her shop.
Lifting her head more, more strands fell from her shoulder to her chest, trying to sneak into the décolleté of her pale yellow dress.
“Are you sure?” asked poor Milia, dazed.
“Absolutely. If you come in we will solve everything immediately.”
Jenny bent over her, picking up the little that was left on the ground among the cobblestones of the street, she put everything in the appropriate bag and taking the customer by the arm, she picked up the hat from the ground. With the same hand she opened the door that led inside. She placed everything near the counter at the entrance and indicated the swivel chair to Milia.
The break was over.
The hairdresser pushed Milia’s shoulders vehemently, inviting her to take a seat in the workstation. The young lady sat down almost letting herself go, perhaps a little too heavily, risking raising her dress.
Looking straight in front of her she could see her own figure perfectly, scruffy with beads of sweat but certainly not enough to allow anyone to think she looked any less beautiful.
From behind her, Jenny rushed to cover her entire body with a striped white cape, dodging with her backs, once she had her hands behind the girl’s neck, her flattened locks creeping into the middle of the cape’s button.
Pulling her hair out from under the candid fabric, a strong summer scent was released in the room, a citrus essence that all in all suited the bearer of that perfume. The heated scalp meant that the fragrance was fully released, so much that many of the readers at this moment, I understand, might wish to bury their noses in the middle of the soft locks to savor every single nuance, focusing on the central parting, where the scalp turns white in amidst that golden and luminescent field of majestic silk yarn.
Jenny certainly wasn’t intent on wasting the opportunity that had literally fallen before her.
“You will certainly suffer from the heat a lot, right?”
“Yes of course, as you can see I can’t hide it.”
“So you might just as certainly be interested in the store’s new offer, available starting today, to put it mildly.”
“Is there an offer?”
“Don’t worry, I know you may not be aware of it, but as you can see it’s right there in the window.” Jenny pointed to the modest sign on the window that was supposed to fill her pockets with the money of many curious customers.
Turning her head, Milia saw only a piece of cardboard placed near the door, in the corner. With both hands, the hairdresser brought the girl’s gaze back in front of both of them, immersed in her mirror, taking her face with hands.
“So the idea is this: I’ll do my bidding on your beautiful hair for just $5, and you’ll walk out of here with a nice, fresh cut and no worries about the heat of these days.”
In theory it certainly wasn’t a bad idea.
“If you can reduce the heat with just $5 then it must not be such a bad solution.” Milia said.
“Magnificent! I knew that a brave girl like you couldn’t refuse my special promotion, you showed it right away. I have a good eye for certain things.”
Without wasting time Jenny picked up a pair of scissors from the pockets of her apron, still slightly dirty from the red locks previously cut by the previous client. It came out the best bob with a shaved nape in recent weeks from her, for sure.
It still didn’t seem true to Milia that for just $5 this woman would make her stay cooler under the sun of the sultry season.
While the latter wondered about the type of cut that the hairdresser had chosen for her, Jenny gathered in one hand the entire mass of hair that fell over the back of the station, to insert it between the blades of the scissors.
With sharp snaps of the small shears, Jenny proceeded to decisively cut off the entire length of her client’s hair. Her blades started directly attached to the skin of the back of her neck to cut and proceeding upwards they made more and more space until they reached the top, on the top of her head.
The much celebrated large curls were now gathered into a single thick ponytail, separated from the rest of the hair still belonging to Milia. What remained of them was just a falling shapeless mass, decidedly shorter than before but not long enough to be picked up, ultimately annoying. As luck would have it, that wasn’t the end result.
Even flying downwards, dropped mercilessly by Jenny’s hand, the locks did not fail to inebriate the nostrils with their good scent, now useless. They would only fill the wastebasket with their essence from then on.
Having gathered the hair at the top with clips and separated it well from the hair on the sides and back, Jenny could then proceed with cutting young Milia.
Near the mirror and above the drawers for the tools, she dangled from its power cord the electric razor that Jenny quickly went to get. Checking that the blades were clean, the hairdresser turned on the vibrating toothed blades, bringing them closer to the girl’s ear.
How could Milia not be petrified at the sight of all this massacre towards her hair. Only the hum of the clippers brought her out of her stasis. The monotonous noise of the blades ceased only when those met the soft albeit voluminous and thick hair on the nape of the neck and temples. Too many vibrations were reverberating in Milia’s head for her to even think of not paying attention, of not noticing the pale skin of her skin that, pass after pass, revealed itself to the eyes of the world, and consequently to hers too.
In the blink of an eye, the softness due to the whiteness of the freshly shaved hair had replaced that of the long and silky hair that had attracted so many glances and would attract again, but for other reasons.
No longer needing to separate the hair above her from the hair under, Jenny removed the clips from the girl’s hair. Falling onto the bare skin of the sides of her scalp, Milia gasped, almost as if what she felt touching her head wasn’t her hair. She wasn’t used to that sensitivity, it seemed as if with every strand of hair she touched she had to free herself from something that was annoyingly close to her, a mosquito for example. The uncomfortable sensation wouldn’t last long anyway.
From the left pocket of her work apron, Jenny took out a comb and positioned it parallel to the ground just above Milia’s head, partially gathering her hair on top of her. The locks collected by the teeth of her comb were shaved away by the clipper a few centimeters from her scalp, falling into the girl’s lap. The sound of sliding blades attached to the teeth of her comb was a sign that more and more hair was being cut from Milia’s head. The curly locks had now become straight like spaghetti, looking bristly and prickly but only to the eye. The cut allowed the structure to keep the hair straight without it falling flat on the scalp.
After having faded the length between the sides and above, Milia was now reflected in the mirror, deprived of all her hair, dropped carelessly at her feet one by one.
She now found herself seeing on her head something that she would not have been able to give an exact name to, which we instead knew exactly was actually a nice ‘high and tight’ flattop, a crew cut that certainly radiates freshness at the mere sight of it.
She saw her head shrunken enormously, almost disproportionate now to her generous body.
Having released the strands that had accumulated on her cape into the air with one decisive movement, Jenny freed Milia from her care.
Helping the girl still frozen in her chair to get up, the hairdresser took her to the counter to pay.
“It’s $5 if you take advantage of the offer, then.”
Milia blinked to collect herself, opening one of the shopping bags she knew she’d left the rest of the supermarket in.
As soon as Jenny saw the banknote reveal itself, she decided to help herself by reaching into the girl’s bag.
“Just $5 right. Thanks again, girl!”
Turning her feet to leave the store, she felt something bulky on her head. It was the hat that she had come in with and that Jenny was now putting back on her head.
“It would be better if you wear it for the first few days, you don’t want to get a sunburn or sunstroke with the uncovered head you have now.”
Milia nodded sadly, and with the difference in tan flashing between the tan of her neck and the paleness of her bare head, she promised herself that she wouldn’t go down that same route again for quite some time.
