Don’t Be Impulsive

Don’t Be Impulsive

For what seemed like the fourth time during her shift, the weight of Nancy’s hair fought free from the casual bun she’d tried to keep it in. The pen she’d used as a fulcrum — a poor substitute for her forgotten hair tie for sure — clattered to the bookstore’s floor. Almost immediately, it and the rest of the aisle around her disappeared behind a curtain of lush, dark, graceful brunette waves. She sighed softly and raked her hand back through the silky mass, pushing it away from her eyes and behind her shoulders, only to have the shoulder-length layers that framed her face slide forward once more. Some day they’d be as long as the rest of her near-waist-length mane again, but not today, it seemed.

A gentle hand on her shoulder – more gentle than she’d ever known a hand could be – gained her attention. When she looked up at the man it belonged to, she found him holding her pen. “Drop this?” he asked.

“Thanks,” she said, taking it as she stood up and tucked her former bangs back behind her right ear. He wasn’t quite a silver fox, but being one didn’t seem to be far in his future. He stood about a foot taller than her, though that was never much of an accomplishment given her petite, five-foot-two frame. 

“Your hair is gorgeous,” the man said. “A shame to keep it all tied back. ”

She smiled again. “Apparently it agrees with you.”

He started looking at the books on the shelf again. “I can’t imagine how much work that all takes.”

Nancy shrugged. Time to let him know he should consider her off-limits. “It’s not too bad. I usually manage to get it looking nice before class.”

He looked at her again, raising an eyebrow skeptically.

She laughed despite herself. “Okay, fine. Yes, it’s a lot of work. But I love it.”

“Are you one of those ‘long-hair for life girls’?”

Nancy considered that. It’d never been something she thought about, but… “Probably. I can’t imagine having it short. I can’t imagine how my boyfriend would react. Or anyone I know, actually.”

The man made a thoughtful sound. “You have very pretty features, if you ever decide to give it a shot.”

“Short hair? No, I couldn’t. I love it like this. It’s so easy to wear up, and I love trying different updos and braids. I don’t think my hairstylist would do anything different even if I asked her. She loves my hair almost as much as I do.”

“And here I thought the customer was always right.” He shrugged, glancing at the back of a book he plucked from a shelf before holding it up. “Can you check me out?”

Nancy did as the man asked, bidding him a good afternoon. She watched him as he walked out the door, and then her gaze drifted across the plaza outside to where Salon Renewal sat. She’d never been there, but she’d heard good things. 

When she turned around, Tracy, her coworker, eyed her from the back of the store. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Nancy replied. Chewing at her bottom lip, she gathered her hair over her right shoulder and ran her fingers through it. “Do you think I should cut my hair?”

Tracy dropped the books she was holding. “What? No!”

Nancy’s brow furrowed and she gestured toward Tracy’s shoulder-length pink curls. “You change yours all the time.”

“Yeah, but if mine was like yours, I wouldn’t.”

“Fair,” Nancy whispered.

She headed back to the employee restroom and stood in front of the mirror with every intention of wrapping her wealth of chocolate-colored locks up in one last attempt at a stable hairstyle. Instead, she gathered it in front of her shoulders and ran her fingers through its silkiness. She really, really did love it. Everyone did, in fact, with its gorgeous, rich color and soft, gentle waves that were accented by the long, subtle layers her regular stylist had given her the last time she’d gotten it cut.

Pulling out her phone, she scrolled through posts left by her friends for her twenty-second birthday. Lovely well-wishes that had brightened her day when she first woke up, she now saw the collection of old photos and memories meant to be testaments to years of friendship as evidence that she had never done a single drastic thing to her hair since she was about seven years old. And even then, it was only bangs her mother insisted on giving her because she thought they’d be adorable. (And she happened to be right, but still.) Other than that moment in time, every single photo — every single year — showed her sharp features and dark eyes surrounded by an immense amount of her hair.

Nancy put her phone away and fluffed her long waves again, restoring a slight side parting that caused the shortest layers of her shiny locks to threaten the corner of her right eye. In the end, she decided to let her enviable mane remain free, relishing the feel of its coolness against her neck and cheeks and its weight against her back as she worked. 

In the meantime, the next three hours of her shift were interspersed with several text exchanges with her boyfriend, her friends, and her cousins. The insistences that she definitely shouldn’t do anything to her beautiful hair were nearly unanimous. Even her regular stylist weighed in, suggesting they discuss adding more layers or some highlights at her appointment next month. 

By that point, though, Nancy was beginning to wonder why everyone was so obsessed with her keeping her hair the way it was. Would they all think she was hideous without it? Was Rich only dating her because she had so much hair to toss around when in bed? 

Leaning back against the front counter, Nancy focused her gaze on the salon across the way. She decided she’d pop in. And whether they had an opening that would still let her get to her birthday dinner with her friends would determine the fate of her locks.

“Hey, dream-head,” Tracy said, interrupting her thoughts. “You were done twenty minutes ago. Why are you still here?”

“Right, sorry.” She grabbed her purse and keys, and made for the door. “See you later!”

“Happy birthday! And don’t do anything impulsive!” 

Impulsive? Not at all. Making a decision like this after a few hours of thought wasn’t impulsive, was it?

Despite the urgency she felt, she still hesitated at the glass door of the salon. She took in her reflection – the sight of her sharp features and petite figure framed by the immaculate falls of her beautiful hair. Caring for it had almost been a hobby – no, it was her hobby – and she’d never even considered cutting it until this afternoon. There was no doubt in her mind that spite played a roll in this, creating a desire to prove to herself and everyone else that she could change her hair and still be the beautiful, sexy young woman she considered herself to be.

But was that a good enough reason to go through with it?

What was the rush?

Before she could come up with a viable answer, she found herself opening the door and stepping inside. 

“Hi!” the perky, pixied receptionist chirped. “How are you today?”

“Determined,” Nancy answered, receiving an expression with raised eyebrows in return.

“Okay,” the receptionist replied. “Determined to do what?”

“Something new.” She shrugged in apology for not being able to go into more detail.

The receptionist looked up and down the length of Nancy’s hair and smiled. “Sounds like you’re certainly going to make someone’s day. Why don’t you take a seat and I’ll see if someone is available?”

Nancy did as she was told, gathering her hair in front of her shoulders again as her heartbeat began to quicken. Why was she so determined to go through with this? Especially when everyone was telling her it was a bad idea? Why didn’t she just wait to talk it over with Sara?

Because she’d just wind up looking the same as she had for the past decade and a half if so. 

“Nancy?”

She blinked and looked to the thin, middle-aged, almost-silver fox who called her, the same that had been in the bookshop a few hours ago. He’d taken his jacket off, and a tight purple t-shirt showed off his tattooed sleeves. He had a very different vibe than Sara, that was for sure, and his questions about her hair earlier certainly made more sense now.

“I’m Trent. Why don’t you come back with me?” he asked.

She did as he requested, following him back through the small, trendy salon. Although much more alternative in style than her usual salon, it wasn’t to such a degree that it caused her to panic. It was just something she wasn’t used to, and maybe that was a good thing. 

When they reached Trent’s station, he handed her a thin gown and turned the half-backed seat toward her. 

“I didn’t realize you were a stylist when you were asking about my hair,” she commented as she slid into the gown and sat down.

“Sorry if that seems weird — sometimes I forget to be upfront about that. But it’s such a part of who I am that it feels silly to have to say it, you know?”

Nancy laughed. “I hope I get to do something for a living that makes me feel the same way someday.”

She sat down, taking a deep breath as he turned it so she faced the mirror and could look him in the eye as he stood behind her. 

Leaning against the back, he said, “It’s a nice bit of kismet, though, since I just happened to have a client cancel on me this afternoon. What are you looking to have done today? Just a trim for the forever-Rapunzel?”

There was a bit of hesitation as a panic definitely began to build in the back of her mind, but still, as if it were too late to back out, she said, “Whatever you want.”

He blinked. “Really?”

The panic kept trying to fight through Nancy’s calmness, begging her to either ask for a trim or, better yet, to grab her purse and run, but neither of those things happened. Instead, she nodded and gave him a reassuring smile. “I’ve looked the same for, like, ever. You kind of helped me realize that. So, since it’s my birthday, why not? And with the way you were talking, I’m guessing you had some ideas you’d try to get me to try?”

He nodded. “You guess correctly, birthday girl.”

“Then go for it. I need something new.”

His gaze now focused on her hair as his fingers played through it. He lifted the generous mass and let it fall against the back of the chair. Gathering it back into a ponytail, Trent gently turned her head from side to side. “Do you want to know what I’m thinking?”

The building panic within her and she were in agreement on the answer — “No.” Nancy didn’t mention that would simply be the best way to keep her from running away.

“Okay then. Just give me a moment.” 

Trent turned his back to her, sorting through some drawers in a small cabinet behind him to get out the tools he felt were necessary. It gave Nancy a long moment to look at her reflection and doubt whether she was making a smart decision. She loved her hair, loved taking care of and pampering it and styling it in so many different ways. Would she still be able to do that when Trent was done? Depending on how much he was planning to cut, it could take years to be anywhere close to where it was in this moment. 

Before she’d sorted through all of those thoughts, Trent had turned back to her. He gathered her hair back and up, piling it atop her head and gently guiding her hands to hold it in place. A small mat was placed across her shoulders, covered her back and falling in front of her shoulders much like her hair often did when it was let loose. 

“Okay, you can let go.”

She did, feeling the familiar tug against her scalp as her wealth of silky waves tumbled down. Trent ran a comb through them all from root to tip, sitting down on a wheeled stool behind her as he did. Then he lifted all of her hair in two masses, setting the long locks down in front of each of her shoulders in gorgeous, gleaming falls that fell just short of her lap.

Her hair was about to be cut, and she had no idea how it was going to end up looking. She had absolutely no idea how short it would be or what Trent had in mind, and yet her reflection was somehow perfectly calm and okay with this while, somewhere inside, a long-haired princess was screaming for her to get up and run.

Trent rolled his stool to her right side and gently lifted her chin so she was looking perfectly straight ahead. In the mirror, light glinted off a pair of silver shears, and then they suddenly appeared just above her shoulder in her peripheral vision. 

“And off we go,” the stylist murmured, not even double checking to see whether the panic in the back of Nancy’s mind had won out. His shears opened their sharpened maw and moved to trap the fall of thick, healthy locks between the eager blades. With a sickening, soul-wrenching crunch that was so much louder than Nancy had expected or ever heard before, the blades sent a rainfall of her beautiful brunette locks tumbling down into her lap. Again and again they opened and closed, barely moving back at all as they crunched and chewed through her treasured mane, releasing more and more of the silken mass to slide down the front of the gown and gather atop Nancy’s thighs. 

In her reflection, she watched as brutally sharp ends of her shorn hair dangled helplessly, no longer able to tease her shoulder or breast as they rested helplessly against her cheek. Just a few hours ago, she had assumed this wouldn’t be the day the face framing layers were as long as the rest of her generous mane.  How could she have known how wrong she’d be?

The shorn ends brushed lightly against Trent’s blades and his fingers as he continued shearing away all of her hair on that side. It’d always been an effort to move her hair, as long and heavy as it was… but now the stylist didn’t even seem to notice the touch of what remained. It certainly wasn’t hindering his movements.

The shears were relentless with their chomping, but eventually they did fall quiet and the last of the long locks hiding Nancy’s right shoulder slid down to join the others. She swallowed a lump in her throat as Trent scooted to her left side, and then just as quickly and with just as little mercy, his shears attacked that side as well. A curtain of her soft locks formed on her left side as a twin to the one on her right, just teasing the corner of her eye as it slide forward without any length to hold it back. 

In the end, when Trent’s shears fell silent for the moment, Nancy tried to reconcile the image of the young woman with the long bob she saw in the mirror with her still long-haired self-image. Her efforts were disturbed as Trent carefully tugged her gown outward, spilling  the massive pile of silken tresses that had gathered in her lap to the floor. 

Nancy swallowed a lump in her throat as she looked at the tresses that had been her crowning glory piled on the floor like that  – they’d been with her for a lifetime, metaphorically, and now… she’d just had them all lopped off on a whim. But then she forced herself to realize it wasn’t her crowning glory, not anymore. It was just a pile of shorn hair. 

Trent’s fingers played through what was left on her head once again, drawing her attention to the rough bob that barely reached her shoulders. The shock of it aside, she had to admit that with just a bit more of a trim, it wouldn’t look bad at all. And there’d still be a few updos she could do.

“It’s definitely something new, right?” He asked

Nancy forced a smile. “To say the least.” 

The panic and second guessing that had been building calmed somewhat when Trent led Nancy back to have  what was left of her hair shampooed. She was able to close her eyes, relaxing into the gentle caresses of his fingers tips against her scalp, feeling her anxiety slide away as the warm water rinsed away the thick suds. 

When she returned to Trent’s seat, any evidence that her long hair had existed had been swept clean from the floor. But she assumed the odds that the tiles would remain clean were pretty low, and she was proven correct once Trent finished combing her dark, damp locks into something resembling order, if not a style.  He gathered and twisted thick lock after lock of her hair, pinning them out of the way as he smiled appreciatively. “You have so much hair…. Just so, so much. I’m going to have to do a lot more layering than I thought.”

Nancy was going to comment that she didn’t have nearly as much as she used to, but then the idea of a lot more layering silenced her. Layers were the mortal enemy of updos…

When Trent decided his comb had teased her nape enough, he tilted her chin downward. Nancy felt the back of his fingers settle against her head. The terrible sound of the blades of his shears coming together sounded again, and little tickles prickled her neck. The panic returned in that moment when she realized just how much more length she was losing. Again and again Trent herded her lovely locks between his fingers and snipped them away, without Nancy being able to get any sort of glimpse of the result in the mirrors of the other stations around them.

He didn’t stop until every loose lock had been tended to, with the highest having been about halfway up her ear. Then he tilted her chin up and let more of her hair down, once again presenting her with a visage of her almost-shoulder-length-haired self. That, however, did not last.

Trent’s stool zipped to her right, and his comb gathered her hair into a perfectly straight fall. He positioned his comb just below the height of her chin, and then his shears returned. With brutal precision they stole away several more inches of her lush locks, sending them into a tumbling fall like so many of their predecessors. Again and again he snipped, baring her long, elegant neck completely before letting the next few collections of relatively long hair down and shearing away a decent portion of their length as well. 

Nancy could only watch in silence as a new, shorter bob began to emerge. Her hair still held its beautiful color and shine as it dried, but what little length remained began to shrink until Trent took the time to dampen it again. But, of course, the only reason to dampen her barely-there tresses were so they could be cut again, and Nancy struggled to suppress the mix of horror and what did you expect? self-flagellation as the shoulder-length bob that had become a chin-length bob morphed yet again into a lip length bob, so short as to show off the dangly earrings that couldn’t hope to have been seen when she wore her hair loose a few hours ago.

The preponderance of layers that Trent expertly snipped into her hair, thankfully, were only evidenced by the growing amount of brown trimmings gathering on Nancy’s slender shoulders and the changing, more lively shape of the short bob he’d given her. 

But there’d be no updos, she realized. No updos, no braids… not even any pigtails, as she was so swiftly and completely removed from the ranks of longhaired girls. 

Suddenly, the panic began to win. Nancy started to fidget as her heart raced. She was getting far more than she had expected. Though she couldn’t be sure what she had expected. Usually stylists fawned over her locks and tried to keep as much intact as possible. But Trent was showing no such inhibitions. She gripped the arms of the chair as she closed her eyes as she tried to regain her courage. 

“Perfect timing. Keep your eyes closed a moment longer.”

Trent’s comb raked locks just long enough to tickle the tip of her nose forward. More and more came, and were then lifted away. More crunching followed, and then the soft plop of severed locks landing in her lap. Trent’s comb went to work again, and the muffled panic in the back of Nancy’s head let out a whimper that she barely muffled as she felt the shorn ends of her new bangs teasing her brow. Then cold steel pressed to her forehead again, and Trent’s shears slowly, deliberately passed across her forehead a half inch above her eyebrows. 

She kept her eyes closed the rest of the way, wanting to avoid the conflicting feelings of desperately wanting to change her hair but also desperately wishing she had kept it the same. Trent worked carefully but quickly, pulling and tugging specific locks before slicing away more of their length with a razor. Over time, the speed of his work slowed, and then the mat on her shoulders was lifted away.

“What do you think?”

Nancy opened her eyes, her heart almost stopping when she saw the 1920s flapper girl looking back at her. Rather than the long, tumbling waves she was so well known for, her lush mane had been shaped into a sleek, voluminous bob that struggled to keep her earlobes hidden. Heavy, thick, blunt-cut bangs bared her eyes and eyebrows alike, drawing attention to the beauty of her features in a way that almost overshadowed just how long it would take to grow the bangs out whenever she decided to do so.  Her eyes just looked so large and warm now, no longer the siren’s gaze she had previously, but now looking like doe eyes out in the open. Her nose now looked like such a perfect little button, and she wasn’t sure whether that heart-melting pout had always been there and overshadowed, or just a result of how she felt about the new cut.

And as much as she tried, she could not hide her gasp when Trent lifted a mirror to show off her shorn nape. The only way to describe it was that it was boy short, practically nothing more than a soft pelt that until it was blended in with the longer layers barely hiding her ears.

“It’s all gone,” she whispered. Tentative fingertips reached up to feel her nape, a chill zipping through her when she felt the naked, vulnerable expanse of her neck where her lovely tresses once fell. 

It was a mistake, she suddenly realized. All of those long, silky waves that could be coaxed into a calm sensuality or let loose for wild sexiness had worked with the rest of her petite form to present a beautiful, confident woman… but now, with the thick bangs and neat bob and diminutive height, all Nancy could see was someone who was absolutely adorable. Just so utterly cute and pretty and bound to be carded at every bar she ever tried to get into until she grew it out again.

Which she would do. Immediately. As gorgeous as the style was and as cute as she felt and as amazingly as Trent had accomplished what she asked, she couldn’t describe how much she hated the fact that she had chopped off all of her thick, gorgeous, long hair. She loved the style, yet hated that she was the one wearing it.

But she was a short-haired girl now, whether she liked it or not. There was no way to stick it all back on. And given she’d have to get a real job and present herself professionally in the near future, it was an open question as to whether she’d ever be able to grow her hair that long again, no matter how much she wanted to. 

When she realized Trent was waiting for an answer to his question, she stood and smiled at him. “I love it,” she lied. “It looks amazing. Thank you.”

He smiled as well, taking the gown from her and leading her toward the front. “Just remember that it’ll require more upkeep than your long hair, so be sure to schedule another appointment before long.”

“Yes, sir.”

The receptionist’s eyes widened when she saw Nancy for the first time, her mouth falling open as she gasped softly. “Oh my god, that is such an adorable look!”

Nancy smiled as genuinely as she could. 

“You just look so darn cute! I mean, your long hair was absolutely gorgeous and to die for, but this is a whole other category. Very girl-next-door, you know?”

Nancy nodded as she paid, insisting to herself that the receptionist didn’t realize she was driving a dagger into her heart with every following word. Nancy knew they weren’t saying she looked plain, and she knew she still was very attractive, but… everyone had their types. And it was a legitimate question to wonder how disappointed Rich would be when he saw his gorgeous, sexy girlfriend was now an adorable girl next door.

After waving goodbye, Nancy left the salon and sighed before receiving the shock of feeling the cool autumn evening’s air against her neck. Sure, she had a collection of scarves at home, but they were all for style — she’d never really needed them to keep warm before, But she supposed that was about to change.

Looking at her watch, she realized she had about two hours before she was supposed to meet her friends. Maybe she’d get to the place early and see whether they recognized her from a distance. If nothing else, the next year of her life was certainly starting off like none other had.

Whether in a good or a bad way remained to be seen.

Nancy tucked her unbearably short hair back behind her ears and sighed again. Being impulsive sucked.

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Thank you for reading, and I hope you liked it. Any comments/critiques or tips are appreciated, as always.