Note: Though this one completely lacks violence, it has a fairly dark story line.
I stood, listening to the ringtone.
I’d spent the whole morning on the phone, this last phone call mostly an afterthought while I waited to hear back from the pediatrician, not that I had a ton of hope of the pediatrician being helpful. The working diagnosis was hypochondria for a while, I’ve had moments where I was worried they suspected me of munchousens-by-proxy. The pediatrician had reluctantly sent us to a few specialists, who hadn’t been particularly helpful either, but of course had been out of network so it cost a fortune.
Then I’d had to call the school yet again, getting them to excuse the kid. That routine with the school was getting old too. They seemed to think I just was incapable of telling when the kid was faking and that the kid was a good actor. We’d been threatened with the truant officer a couple of times. I’d taken to sending her when she didn’t really look up for it, but I could at least get her moving. Today we were past that. They’d warned me to get a doctor’s note when they’d finally accepted the kid wasn’t going to be there today.
Though the ringtone I was listening to right now, wasn’t for a doctor, I just figured since I was stuck waiting it was a good moment to deal with something personal.
**Show Time Salon, how can I help you?** the familiar voice of the receptionist said as she picked up.
“Hi, this is Shannon,” I said, trying not to sound too frustrated, since this person had nothing to do with why my day was going badly. “I have an appointment with Wendy at 12:30.”
**Ummhm, I see it.** she said blandly
“I need to cancel.” I told her.
**We have a 24 hour cancelation policy,** she informed me. **It’s too late to cancel.**
“Well, it’s a last minute emergency, my kid is sick.” This time I let the frustration out. “Would you have prefered if I had just not shown up?”
**Fine,** she huffed. **Would you like to reschedule?**
I sighed, because I would like to reschedule. I needed a haircut and root touch up, the damned bangs were already brushing my eyelashes. The approximately inch of roots from the dye I was now regretting were glaring. Finding the time though, that was a whole different story.
“I can’t right now, I don’t know when I’ll be available.” I simply said. “Thanks though.”
————————————
The kid was on the passenger side next to me in pink sweatpants, a hoodie, and a t-shirt just looking a bit miserable as she played with the radio. I sat driving, trying not to be too much of a lead-foot. Sure it was sort of an emergency, and we were heading to the ER, but it wasn’t like she was bleeding profusely. I felt like she needed to be seen today, not like she needed to be seen in the next 5 minutes. I was pretty sure that when we got there we’d be spending a whole lot of time just sitting in the waiting area.
I’d only sort of gotten permission from the pediatrician to take her there. It was with a tone of extreme sarcasm that the pediatrician had said “Well if you think she’s that sick, take her to the ER.” I hoped it was good enough to get insurance to cover it, because if they refused there was zero way I could pay for it. The copay was bad enough. The money I would have spent at the salon today but hadn’t would help, but not cover it completely.
I’d just pulled the long hair back in a ponytail, but of course that did nothing to get the bangs that were seriously bothering me off my face. The grown out bangs and dye had been an impulsive decision a bit over a year ago. I’d been at that stage of grief where I wanted to stop seeing the same tired widow in every mirror, that I had seen when I had stared at the mirror in the too empty feeling bedroom the morning of the funeral as I zipped up the plain black dress and wondered if I was expected to wear makeup to this oddly formal event.
So a few months after that funeral, I had been sitting in Wendy’s chair, the long chestnut brown hair I’d always had that hit just a bit below my somewhat high natural waist draped around me, as she played with it and I asked her if she thought I’d look good blonde. We’d settled on a coppery red instead, since she explained that the red undertones of the chestnut hair were hard to bleach, and with my freckles and skin tone auburns would look very natural.
Once the hair was a light auburn color, she’d carved it into a new shape. Taking several inches off so that it reached just below my rib cage when wet, then had cut the soft bangs that slightly obscured my eyebrows. It had been strange looking at the red hair in my lap, and feeling slightly disconnected from it, since I still thought of myself as a brunette. Of course the shiny silver blades of the scissors were definitely snipping around my head, which had been a bit nerve racking since I had always been a decidedly longhair person. I sat there though just watching it go to a medium length while my heart raced.
I’d liked the look, she’d been right about it being a good color for my complexion. And the new shape with the bangs had really taken me away from the memory of the reflection I’d seen the morning of the funeral. But I hadn’t really thought about how much maintenance it was going to be. The bangs were in my eyes way too soon after each trim, and the root touch ups cost a fortune.
I brushed the annoying bangs aside, and kept driving.
—————————————————————-
The wait in the ER hadn’t been nearly as bad as I had worried it might be. I was a bit relieved that someone seemed to finally be taking the kid’s symptoms seriously, but more worried that they thought the matter was urgent.
The kid leaned forward against her knees on the bed that looked very over complicated with its railings and adjustable levels, but I guess really was a piece of medical equipment . The doctor had his stethoscope pressed into her back through the opening of the flimsy hospital gown she had been reluctant to change into.
He’d asked dozens and dozens of questions as he’d pressed things and looked at her. The kid and I had taken turns answering, sometimes adding bits to each other’s answers, sometimes clarifying them.
Finally he looked at me and asked, “Has she ever been tested for….”
————————————————————————-
I splashed a bit of water on my face then grabbed a towel. I looked at the bathroom mirror as I dried off the water, making sure there were no traces of toothpaste left around my mouth. I looked at the bangs hanging down to my eyes. I looked just as much like I needed a haircut and root touch up as I had yesterday, when I had canceled the appointment for it to happen, today though, I suddenly cared a hell of a lot less.
It was weird how differently the call to say the kid wasn’t going to be at school had gone this morning. Gone were the implications that I was irresponsible, gone were the threats of truancy officers. Instead they asked me how I was holding up and if there was anything they could do to help. I’d just felt hollow as I had said “thanks, I can’t think of anything right now, but I’ll call if I think of something.”
I wished I could go back to yesterday. Sure, today I was being treated with a lot more patience and sympathy, but I would go back to putting up with being given threats and seen as a pushover mom if it meant my kid really was just a hypochondriac. Being right didn’t feel good, told-you-so provided zero conciliation.
I wiped the damp bangs briefly with the towel before hanging it up to dry, and putting in a bobby pin to hold them off my face as much as possible. A haircut wasn’t happening today, it probably wasn’t happening this week. Today I had to arrange a whole new set of specialists and tests and follow ups. I also just really needed to be with the kid today.
First though, I figured I needed to call my boss, at the diner where I was a waitress, and let him know I wouldn’t make my shift. He was probably not going to be as sympathetic as the school had been.
————————————————————————
I pushed the grown out bangs up and out of my face the exact same way I had been doing for the last month. The bobby pin I inserted hit right at the border between the dark chestnut and the fading dull auburn. That line was a good 2 inches from my scalp. At the front when I looked up slightly, I could see the darker chestnut just about at eye level. My boss had been complaining about it, pointing out that how I looked reflected on the diner.
I’d dropped the kid off at school, and she hadn’t looked too bad this morning. I had high hopes she’d make it all the way through the day, take the bus home and I could make it through my shift as a waitress uninterrupted. I was already in my clean white button down shirt and simple black slacks, and was just pulling my hair back into the same low ponytail I wore everyday, when the phone rang.
Ten minutes later, I dialed the diner. “Hey Karl, I’m going to be late. The school nurse just called and I need to go pick my kid up from school. I might need to take her to the doctor.”
“Shannon,” he began, sounding determined. “ We all care, but this is a business. I can’t keep putting you on the schedule if I can’t count on you showing up and staying. Stop by when you can to drop off your uniform and pick up your last check.”
I gritted my teeth, trying to figure out what to say, and not start crying. I didn’t have time for crying right now, I needed to go pick up the kid and I didn’t want her seeing me with red rimmed eyes.
I’d asked to take family medical leave, even though I couldn’t really afford to take the unpaid 12 weeks, but as it turned out, the diner didn’t actually have to follow the family medical leave act, since there were only a bit over a dozen people who worked there, well under the less than fifty employee minimum that the kick in at. Being unpaid for 12 weeks would have been bad, but at least I would be able to stay on the insurance, being fired though meant not only would I not be making money, I was going to lose our insurance.
“Listen Shannon,” Karl started to explain when the silence had gone on too long. “I’m sorry, but I can’t keep asking the other waitresses to stay late, or come in to cover your shifts last minute. It’s not fair to them.”
“I understand,” I gulped out swallowing back the tears. “I’ll be by in a few days.”
I hung up, felt the tears I was fighting escape, then wiped them away. I didn’t have time for crying, I needed to go get the kid.
As I pulled up into one of the visitor parking spots, I looked at the bumper sticker on the car in front of me. It proclaimed that they were a proud parent of a kid on the track team. A couple of years ago, I had thought of getting one to show the kid I supported her. That was before she dropped the track team, saying she was just too tired. At the time I’d been frustrated that my supposedly healthy kid was not sticking to something she was good at, would help her get into college, and gave her exercise. Now I just wanted her to survive high school, college seemed very far away.
I turned off the engine and went inside to get her from the nurses office.
———————————————————-
“I need to get home and start in on the laundry,” Carol announced as she gathered up her things. “Then I need to take Jimmy to physical therapy.”
One of the weirdest things about the whole situation was how little it had disrupted my social life. Unlike work, friends just accepted that I would suddenly have to leave halfway through a conversation or lunch. They knew I needed them, and had made an extra effort to be available and remind me to ask if I needed anything. They didn’t care that I was distracted and not as focused as I had previously been. Besides, much of the time, I was mostly just waiting for the next emergency or doctor appointment. It was time I could spend with friends, distracting myself from thinking about reality.
Not all of them, but several also had kids with medical issues, not the exact same issues, but that detail didn’t matter, they got the being scared and the way you dropped everything when the kid needed you. I guess part of that though was that my friends circle was a bit of a self-selected group, and as they say, birds of a feather flock together.
“I’ve got a pretty big mound of laundry myself,” I admitted, since even though I had the time to do things like laundry and dishes, I also couldn’t stand the places my mind wandered to as I did the mundane tasks. “I’m ignoring it though, and figured I could get a few errands done after this. Since it’s not a school day, the kid is just relaxing at home in front of the TV anyway, so I don’t have to worry about the school calling. I can just check on her by phone.”
Carol nodded, with a smile, since I had already texted the kid twice, then added, “Good luck with your errands.”
The first errand was stopping by the pharmacy to pick up a new prescription, that was hopefully going to make a difference. I was heading to the supermarket, to use the gift card from it my sister had given me.
I hadn’t actually specifically asked for the supermarket gift card, but they knew I was struggling. I had some income, since after getting fired I just put more time and effort into what had been my side hustle selling custom made table numbers for weddings, but it wasn’t really a living, and didn’t provide insurance. Which was what I had asked my siblings to help with. I’d felt bad asking my brother if he could cover the cobra for the kid since most of the specialists didn’t take medicaid, not that I was sure we would qualify for it if I applied. He had simply said of course though, and even had covered it for me too, saying “the kid needed a healthy mom to take care of her.” My sister wasn’t well off enough to cover that kind of expense, but she had just been sending us useful presents. New socks, grocery gift cards, and stuff, just would show up in the mail. Obviously, it hadn’t fixed everything, but it had kept things from falling apart completely.
In general I’d learned to ask. For most of my adult life, I had been reluctant to make requests, but this had changed me. Denying myself help denied my kid help. Even things that I asked for myself gave me more energy to put into caring for the kid. So I’d stopped being shy about asking. And people had been generally seemed to want to do things, I could see it made them feel less helpless and more useful.
As I drove from the pharmacy towards the grocery store, the sign for Show TIme Salon caught the corner of my eye. I couldn’t afford the full haircut and dye job I had needed for months, neither time wise nor financially, but maybe they could squeeze me in for a quick bang trim. Though at this point, trimming them was going to mean cutting off all the red ends. My bangs would be a different color than the rest of my hair. It would be out of my face though. Maybe I could just pick up a cheap brown box dye that would mostly cover the red in the supermarket.
I pulled over the car and parked. If I was lucky Wendy might just be available right away, but at least I could make an appointment if she wasn’t.
“Hi,” I said to the receptionist with my warmest smile. “Is there any chance Wendy can squeeze me in just for a bang trim?”
“You don’t have bangs.” the receptionist observed looking up at me.
I took out the bobby pin, that had been holding the bangs to the side, and let the curtain of two toned hair fall over my face to where it brushed my lips.
“It would be really great if she was available now,” I said, possibly sounding a bit too desperate as I stuck the bobby pin back in place, “but if she isn’t, could I make an appointment? Sometime today would be great.”
“I’ll see what I can do, it’s probably not going to be today though.” The receptionist looked down at her computer, then asked blandly, “What’s your name?”
“Shannon.”
“The Shannon who has booked 3 appointments for cut, color, and style, and then canceled each one with less than 24 hours notice?” The receptionist’s tone completely different from before.
“That’s why I was hoping for right now,” I admitted. “I didn’t want to get stuck having to cancel again. And I don’t really have time for dye and a full haircut, so I figured bang trim.”
I decided to leave out the part about a bang trim being cheaper, but something about the way the receptionist was scrutinizing me made me suspect that she’d guessed that part.
“There are several other places in town that take walk-ins,” the receptionist informed me, “they tend to be very reasonably priced.”
I stood there for a moment, as the realization that I wasn’t going to be getting an appointment with the stylist who had been doing my hair for the past 7 years ever again sunk in. I’d been dismissed.
I took a deep breath, pushed down the urge to start crying and explaining the shit my life had been for the past couple of years, said “thank you,” and walked out.
————————————————————————
I pulled into the supermarket parking lot, looked in the back seat, and realized I’d once again forgotten my shopping bags. I had a bad tendency to just leave them in the kitchen. I just knew if I went home and got them I wasn’t going to have the energy to get back out the door, my motivation levels were low, plus it’d be a waste of gas. I could buy new ones, even though I had zero need for more, I just needed to be better about taking the dozens I already owned back out to the car. I contemplated how bad it would be to just have the groceries bouncing around loose in the back seat of the car.
As I sat thinking about my lack of shopping bags, I just kind of stared out the windshield at the other stores in the strip mall. The expensive pet store with fancy dog sweaters and no actual animals for sale; the place that sold nothing but vitamins; the pizza place; the asian fusion place. Then, there was Tony’s Family Barber Salon.
I went from an unfocused gaze to actually looking at the place and through the big plate glass window. Inside Tony’s were four barber chairs, and a single wash station in the back. I could see there were two men getting haircuts from two male barbers. In between them, was one woman with a bland brown bob sitting in a barber chair, she looked bored, playing on her phone. Clear as day, there was a sign next to the door that read “Walk Ins Welcome.”
Tony’s wasn’t the kind of place I would have considered going to before today, but right now things were different. Sure I could spend time looking to find a new stylist I would trust the way I trusted Wendy, but the reality was that right now i needed something easy and cheap. Walking into Tony’s was going to be easy, and I suspected pretty cheap. Even if the bang trim wasn’t great, they grew out so fast anyway.
I decided to put off thinking about grocery bags, and walked into Tony’s. Inside, looking at the sign with prices, I could see that an entire haircut at Tony’s was going to be cheaper than a bang trim from Wendy would have been. I really did need a full haircut, not just a bang trim. My split ends were getting epic. Not only had it been a while since they’d been trimmed, but I hadn’t really been taking good care of it, I’d taken to using a cheap two-in-one for myself, leaving the good shampoo and conditioner for the kid. And of course dying it red had involved lightening it first, so that had been damaging. And if I was going to be dying the ends back to brown with box dye, that probably was going to be kind of damaging too. Should I trust one of Tony’s barber to really cut my hair?
“Hi there,” The bored woman said as she got up from the barber chair. “Here for a haircut?”
As she asked, she gestured slightly invitingly towards the chair she’d gotten out of and picked up the cape that had hung over the back of it. I nodded and started walking towards the chair. I sat and reached up to take out the bobby pin that held up the overgrown bangs.
“It’s been a few months since I got it done.” I stated the obvious, “I’ve got a ton of split ends, and it’s in my face.”
The barber nodded, then pointed out, “Your color is pretty grown out too. You’ll be redoing the roots yourself?”
“I’m just done with the auburn.” I sighed, “it’s just way too much work. I need something easier these days. Lifes been too much to keep it up. I barely have the energy to wash it most days.”
“So you want me to cut off all the red?” She asked casually as she twisted my long two toned hair up and put a clip in it.
“Uhhh” I let out. That hadn’t been my plan, that hadn’t even been a thought I’d had. I hadn’t thought about going short. I was planning to ask for a couple of inches off just to get rid of the damaged ends. I’d never had short hair before. Short sounded old and frumpy to me, but then again, these days that kind of fit how I felt. “That would be easy wouldn’t it?”
“Definitely easier,” she confirmed with confidence. “Not having to dye it will save you time, money, and energy. Plus, it’ll be shorter, which is definitely easier.”
I swallowed. She was making a good point. But this was a whole different level of trust than just getting a trim. If a trim went badly, I could try begging Wendy to take me back to fix it and I would actually have enough hair that it could be fixed. Or at least I could put it up to hide a bad haircut if it was long. There was no hiding a bad short haircut.
I bit my lip, how much did I really care? I looked like hell these days anyway, the two toned look was ridiculous. Plus there was a good chance I would mess up trying to make the ends match my roots with box dye. Besides, most days the bags under my eyes were way more noticeable than my damned hair.
“Yeah, cut off all the red.” I decided.
“If you want to keep most of the brown length it would be more of a kind of shortish shag, but you said out of your face? So you just want it nice and short all over, like a pixie?” she suggested. “I can take the front above your eyebrows and taper the back?”
“That does sound simple.” I speculated gathering my courage for something I didn’t really love the idea of, but I knew was what I really needed. “Yeah, just go for it. Make it short so I can just wash and go, no styling and stuff.”
“Ok,” the barber agreed, as she shook out the cape and swung it over me.
And that was it, a vague decision that I was getting a pixie, without discussing all the nitty gritty details the way that we would have if I had told Wendy I wanted to cut it short. I just sat there as the billowing fabric enveloped me and the barber fastened the collar tightly over the paper.
The barber simply took a pair of scissors from the counter in front of us and came behind me. She gathered up all the long red locks into a bundle behind me, and began to hack through it. Blunt cut ends began to swing forward, brushing against my neck and shoulders.
Shhhhrunch, shrunch, shruntch, sccccrrruntch
The scissors slowly gnawed through the thick bundle. I clenched my jaw slightly as I listened to the shears begin to take me from pretty to sensible.
Snap
The scissors closed. I stared at the rough bob I suddenly had as the barber carelessly dropped the long red hair that had cost me some much money to get and maintain to the floor where it would be trodden on. The haircut had started just a minute or two ago, and it already was the shortest haircut I’d ever had.
The barber simply left me there, the somewhat uneven hair hanging around my neck as she walked around and picked up a spray bottle full of water. She pointed the nozzle at my head and began to pull the trigger.
Squeee-pppshh, squee-pssshhhh, squeee-pppsshhhh
The cool mist, though it was directed at my hair, began to dampen my face and neck, chilling me and making me feel bare with my blanket of hair already so reduced. The barber combed through the bob that was going from damp to wet as she continued to pull the trigger, till a couple of drops began to drip from the ends. She then put the spray bottle back on the counter and picked the scissors up again.
When she came behind me, she didn’t bother to section my hair or anything I was used to, she simply lifted the hair up off the back of my head with the comb and sliced at the dangling end.
Shhlick, sshhhlick
The shorn wet hair fell in heavy chunks to my shoulders. I sat staring at the mirror listening to the hair I had spent my whole life caring for being cut off as just a basic chore. A chore for the barber, just like the laundry and dishes were for me.
As the barber worked forward, I watched the the hair that rested over my ear lifted, and the silver blades inserted. The blades closed, and the red ends plus a bit of the brown roots fell to my shoulder leaving my ear uncovered. Of course now that the red was being cut off, I supposed it was silly to keep thinking of the couple of inches of natural chestnut brown as roots. I cringed very slightly as the barber pulled the comb away and there was nothing left but short tufts of the chestnut hair laying flat against my head.
“First time going short?” The barber asked me, as she snip more of the hair above my ear away.
“Yeah,” I confirmed, trying to decide how much I felt ike sharing, and concluding not much because I so didn’t want to start crying at that particular moment. “I’ve had a lot on my plate lately.”
“And you were just ready for fussing with long hair to be taken off that plate.” The barber filled in as she snipped off some of the hair that hung in front of my ear.
“Exactly.” I said, as she sliced off the hair at my temple, about 5 inches of it landing in my lap with a plop. “Though, there are other things I would have taken off my plate first if I could.”
“There are things you can control and things you can’t.” The barber philosophized, “Hair you can control.”
“True,” I tentatively agreed, because I was only sort of in control of what was happening to my hair right now. Obviously I had agreed to the haircut, but she was the one doing it, it was her suggestion, and of course there were all the completely out of my control things that had led me to walk in the door of this barbershop. I guess it was more in my control than most of the other things happening in my life though.
As the barber combed the hair above my opposite ear up and sliced it off, the same way she had on the other side. The semi long locks fell quickly all around me, draping on my shoulders and piling on my lap. I suspected that there was a lot more behind the chair.
Once the hair on the sides of my head was mostly reduced, the barber combed the hair in the front down and over my eyes, and began snipping it into little points right about at eyebrow level. I felt the cold points poke me ever so slightly as she went. I watched the last of the expensive light auburn fall, a bit of it clinging to my nose and cheeks.
And there I was, my long hair gone for the first time I could remember. I looked at myself in the mirror, my head sticking up from the cape, making it seem almost disembodied, was suddenly void of the locks that should add femininity. The damp unstyled shorn cap of brown that lay against my head lacked personality, and I wasn’t sure my tired bare face could make up for it.
The barber didn’t seem to be finished though. She combed my hair back from my forehead, sweeping the first few inches of bangs up into her fingers, where she clamped the hair and pulled it straight up, and began snipping again. This time the damp hair that fell was just completely brown, all the red having been cut away already. The snippets that fell were only an extra inch or so of dark hair since most of it was already gone.
The barber worked her way back cutting all the hair on the top of my head. She would trap the already fairly short locks, pulling them taut upward, and then slice them off against her fingers just a couple of inches above my scalp. She just ignored the severed part as it fell down, and then she would flick the snippets off with her comb. I watched the bits fly off towards the floor, as the hair on top of my head just kept getting shorter and shorter.
When she made it all the way to the back, she started back again at the front, this time working at a slightly different angle, cutting the hair the same length, just this time bringing it down the sides very slightly. I just sat there numbly as the haircut simply progressed witn no input from me. The barber just kept working front to back, repeating the pattern a few times, each time going slightly further down the sides and holding the hair at less steep angle. The last time, holding the hair straight out from my head, not upward at all.
She went back to combing the hair up and cutting it against the comb, but not quite like at the beginning of the haircut. This time she snapped the baldes quickly against the comb that she kept moving up through the short hair on the back and sides of my head. The hair rained down at a steady pace, burying the longer red locks under a layer of the darker fuzz.
Shnap, click, shnook, ssshh-click, snap, shnap
I wondered how short the barber was going to cut my hair as she just kept snapping away at the pelt that had replaced my flowing locks. I knew that If I spoke up, I could have a say in that, but since I had never even imagined myself with short hair, I didn’t really have an opinion that I could express about what the finished length should actually be. So, I just sat waiting wondering when it would end.
I thought maybe we were there, when the barber returned to the counter and put the scissors down, but then she picked up clippers. I swallowed nervously. I’d never had my hair cut with clippers, but I had witnessed my brothers hair being stripped away with them a few times.
Clunk, bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
I felt my jaw tighten when the greedy blades approach my head. But before the blades touched, the barber inserted the comb into the little hair that I had left.
Bzzzzzzwooop
I felt hair rain down as she guided the blades over the comb, taking the hair on my nape even shorter. The barber kept stroking the buzzing contraption along the comb as she worked up around my hairline, till she got to my ear. She carved away all the hair that touched my ear, the sound roaring as she did. She then started working back down again, this time, the blades touching the skin right about where my scalp became the naturally bare skin of my neck.
I was relieved when she finally turned the clippers off, after having gone back and forth between my left and right ear several times. I was kind of hoping she was done as I contemplated my already very bare looking head, but she wasn’t.
Soon she was back, this time with toothy thinning shears. She once again combed the hair at the front of my scalp up and off my forehead.
Sh-chomp, chomp, schomp
She made confident chops with the blades that seemed to do nothing at first. Then she pulled the comb through, and a clump of hair was stuck in the tines as they left my hair.
Sh-chomp, chomp, schomp
She repeated the process just behind the previous section. I again just sat nervously, letting her decide how much hair she would take. She pretty much just repeated the same pattern she’d followed earlier, this time maybe being a bit less likely t o go over the same area twice. After she’d repeated the combing upward and cutting against the comb, she went back to the front, using the thinning shear especially heavily on my sideburns and bangs.
I thought she was surely done this time as she put down the thinning shears, but of course I was wrong. She came back with a trimmer that looked like the younger sibbling of the clippers she’d used earlier.
She bent my head down, forcing me to stare at the pile of red and brown locks in my lap. I felt the fine blades begin to shave away the very short hair the clippers had left behind from just above my hairline. The whiny hum traveled up around my ears in a slow deliberate curve. Then finally shaping my side burns slightly, sharpening the point they ended in.
When she picked up the hairdryer and pointed it at the hair that had pretty much air dried over the course of the haircut, I stared at what I knew was either completely finished or close enough to finished that it wouldn’t be changing significantly haircut.
It was strange looking at myself looking so different. It wasn’t fashionable, or exciting. The simple haircut’s personality could probably best be described as sensible. The barber began dusting me off and unfastening the cape, knocking the locks of my hair that she’d cut off to my sneakers and the floor.
She held up a small hand mirror, showing me the back of my head. The hair was neatly tapered down to where the clean new higher hairline had been drawn, a sharp line that formed a broad U shape between my very exposed ears. The haircut was neither offensive, nor particularly elegant, it really just kind of was gender neutral blandness.
It had all taken about 15 minutes, barely more time than I usually spent getting my hair washed by the shampoo girl at Show Time Salon. There’d been no wait, and there’d been no changing in and out of a smock. 15 or 20 minutes and I was completely different.
I began to stand from the chair, since the haircut was perfectly acceptable, and there were not going to be any requests to adjust anything. I stood looking at myself in the wide mirror. I had a feminine enough figure that even in the plain gray hoodie, I didn’t look like a man with the severe short look.
I thought about how I’d looked and felt after the last time I’d had a major haircut and the bright red color. It had been warm and very pretty, part of a whole look where I’d worn a nice floral blouse and done my makeup. It had been a transformation to hide who I was, to pretend I wasn’t the grieving woman with the flowing chestnut hair. It had let me look different in a fun, cheerful way. The red hair with flirty bangs had been a disguise.
In contrast, this laid plain what I was. A scared tired mom who lacked the energy and motivation to try to look anything beyond neat and presentable. This short no nonsense haircut meant I could look neat and presentable without even combing it. This time, as much as I didn’t particularly like the way I looked, it clearly matched how I felt inside, and there was something good about that honesty.
I raised my hand and pushed my finger through the soft pelt, watching in the mirror as it simply fell back into place. It felt good under my hand, the prickle of the freshly cut ends sliding between my fingers. I moved my hand to the back, petting up against grain where the clippers had shorn it to just a little more than stubble, feeling its velvetyness.
“Thanks,” I stated genuinely. “This is just what I need right now. Oh, talking about things I need, you don’t happen to have a couple of boxes that you were just going to recycle anyway?”
—————————————————————-
As I carried the two empty cartons from barbicide to my car where they should do a decent job of keeping the groceries contained, the hair stayed up out of my face.
The darker feel of this adds such a good dimension to the haircut. The resignation to the spontaneous decision to cut off all the red combined with the “chore” aspect for the barber is such a good variation of a reluctant haircut. Your writing is always about the *art* of a haircut story and I love that about it.
Very nicely written, Ginger. I really found the story engaging and quite entertaining toward the end. The realities of life’s turmoils mixed with the understated eroticism of an unwanted haircut, gave this a sort of ‘make-under’ feel. And, I do love make-unders, as you know. Always a joy to see one of your stories when I open the page.
Claire
Ginger,
You are the best!
Loved this true to life story.
Well written and down to earth.
Keep up the good work.
PT
Thank you, PT, Shorngirl, and Snipmistress.