Story #4 While Snipping (Small Workshop)

Danielle Orner
Story # 4
02/27/07
While Snipping
Amy always felt a little ashamed of not making an appointment for the hairdressers. As she sat flipping through old magazines in the waiting area, she noticed each of the women who walked straight up to the receptionist’s desk and were immediately lead to the backrooms for their scheduled waxings, trims, or highlights touch-ups. Unlike these well-groomed women who penciled in their monthly overhauls, Amy was a walk-in. She swore she saw the receptionist give her a nasty look as she tapped on her keyboard searching for an available appointment slot.
“You’re in luck. It looks like Genie had a cancellation this afternoon. That is very rare for a Saturday.” The receptionist, whose foundation was so thick it created a smooth mask over the barely visible pock marks in her natural skin, stared at Amy as if expecting some extravagant display of gratitude.
“Well, thanks. I guess I will wait right her until she is ready.” The remark was stupid and obvious but Amy felt she needed to say something to the heavily-made-up guardian of hairdressers’ appointment slots. The truth was that, if the receptionist had come up empty handed, Amy would have simply left the salon and come back several weeks later when she accidentally caught sight of herself in a mirror or storefront window. She bent her face back to her magazine and attempted to appear absorbed in an article on how to make eatable reindeer even though it was the fifth of June. She could still feel the receptionist’s purple-eyed – the shade that only comes from cosmetic contact lenses – eyeliner-rimmed gaze burning into her split-ended-shapeless-hairdo adorned skull. Finally, the clicking of the receptionist’s acrylic nails on the keyboard began and Amy relaxed into the Italian-renaissance themed chair.
“Hey, I am Genie. I’ll be your hairdresser for the afternoon.” Amy, startled by the greeting, let the magazine slide off her lap. Trevi Spa and Salon was one of those places were you never see the same hairdresser twice unless you specifically request them. Genie didn’t look familiar.
“Great. Um, let me just grab my purse and put this magazine away and then we can go on back.” Amy fumbled with her stuff. Talking to hairdressers – and for that matter dentists, doctors, waitresses, flight attends, and anyone else you see for a few hours in a few years or in a lifetime – always made Amy nervous, as if these brief meetings were the true test of one’s character. The hairdresser, on the other hand, was relaxed and chatty. Genie had maroon hair spiked in a stylish pixie cut. Judging by the wrinkles around her eyes and lips, Genie must have been nearing fifty. Yet, with her dusky orange tank top and kaki clam diggers, she was one of those lucky women who had found their own style. Just the right amount of funky beaded jewelry hung around her neck and Amy thought she saw a tattoo peaking out of her shirt on the left shoulder. Genie ran sections of Amy’s hair through her fingers as the walked back to the room with chairs and mirrors.
“Looks like you have dyed this a couple of times without correcting it or letting it grow out. I definitely see some blonde, a bit of black, and a redish tone. Your natural color is a dark auburn, right?” Amy nodded embarrassed that this stranger could tell so much about her. Suddenly, all the insecurities she thought she hid so well seemed glaringly obvious. “Right, well no problem, we can dye it back to a natural hue in no time. I can see by your split ends that you haven’t been in to see us for a few months. When was your last haircut?”
“Um, I think it was six months ago.” Amy tried to remember if she cut her hair before her mom’s funeral or not.
“You really should come in every six weeks at the very least. It will make your hair look healthier.” Genie wrapped Amy in a black smock, guided her to a chair leaning back to a sink, adjusted her head, rinsed, shampooed, conditioned, rinsed, massaged, toweled dry, and then guided Amy to a barber chair circling her around to face the mirror. She collected her brush, scissors, clips, and blow dryer from their cupboards and drawers; then laid them neatly on the folded white towel on the countertop. She pumped Amy’s chair up and began running her hands through sections of the wet hair. She chatted the entire time. She paused momentarialy to get down to business.
“What style would you like? Did you bring any pictures or magazine clippings you want me to look at?” Amy thought of how her mother-in-law commented on the fact that Amy never got the same cut twice at the salon. Amy didn’t think there was a point to coming home with a slightly cleaned up version of what you already had. This was a time to go for something new with the never-dampened hope that someday you’d get the cut that changed your life.
“Let’s try a bob.” Amy looked at Genie in the mirror standing over her shoulder and stroking her straggly locks. Genie made a face that signaled that she didn’t agree with Amy’s choice but got the scissors ready.
Another hairdresser walked into the room leading an elderly man dressed in a black smock identical to Amy’s. She was young with olive skin, a Spanish accent, and vivid streaks of jet black and platinum blonde in her waist-length hair. Amy smiled sympathetically at the balding gentleman who didn’t seem to know what to do with his skunk-headed stylist. Genie greeted the other hairdresser as Mimi and they began chatting. Amy and the old man let the murmur of the women’s voices and the fingers in their hair lull them into a hazy state of relaxation. This was the part Amy liked. Not the beginning with its focus on her nor the end with the judging of the cut with a hand-held mirror to see the back, but the middle when the hairdresser was busy working.
“How is your little boy doing?” Genie’s scissors snipped thick chunks of wet hair while she spoke to Mimi.
“He is doing just fine. Yesterday he brought home a finger painting for me to hang up on my mirror but I forgot it at home. You heard from Rick yet?”
“No and I don’t think I am going to. Did I tell you I bought that little trailer out on the two acres of property?”
“You’re kidding! Good for you. If I were you I wouldn’t leave a forwarding address at the apartment.”
“That wouldn’t do any good. He knows I work here now. Right now the trailer is all rusty and the lands just a bunch of dirt. But I swear to you that I am gone have a garden and trees and all that before this time next year. I might even have a porch swing.”
“You will have to invite Benny and me over for a BBQ or something”
“Sure, I will. You’re done Amy. What do you think?” Genie fluffed the hair while professional shaking a blow dryer along the ends. Amy’s face was too fat for a bob to look good.
“It looks great.” Amy slid a ten dollar bill into Genie’s hand while she swept the little clumps of Amy’s hair into a pile at the base of the chair. Amy walked out of the salon and felt the itchy bristles of hair that had gotten past the black smock into her shirt all day.