At least that’s what I told myself as I pulled into the parking lot of my sister’s salon. I certainly didn’t have an ulterior motive for being there—like, let’s say, talking to a certain coworker of hers.
After thinking on it for a full twenty-four hours, I officially couldn’t get Hazel out of my mind. Maybe it was the part of me who always wanted to be helpful, but I couldn’t leave it alone.
The salon had seen better days. The paint had peeled off the cement façade, leaving it weathered and tired. The lines in the parking lot had completely vanished, with no traces left to even suggest where a space might’ve been. The owners of the building didn’t do much to keep up the appearance, but I knew Ruby loved this place. I slammed the car door and bent down to adjust my glasses in the side mirror before straightening up. Shoulders squared, I walked straight into the salon. A bell rang above me to signal my entry.
The white-haired owner—a woman who always scared me a little—sat at the front desk.
“Appointment?” she asked.
“Um, I’m here to see?—”
“Hey bro,” Ruby interrupted with a bright smile, spinning in her salon chair at the front.
The owner immediately looked away from me and back to the computer.
“Hey,” I said, nodding in her direction, my eyes scanning the entirety of the small space.
I must have been in at some point when Hazel was working, but haircuts for me were almost clinical. Get in, get out. It wasn’t like I took the time to take in the space, let alone notice who was there and what they looked like.
Now I found her impossiblenotto notice, and not because she was the only stylist in the small space aside from Ruby. Her round face had this perpetually friendly look about it. Her long brown hair was pulled back into the messiest of buns. She talked animatedly with her hands, multitasking between grand gestures and brushing bleach over a woman’s blonde hair. I willed her to look up at me, but she was too engrossed in her conversation.
“Were you here to get a haircut, or are you here to ogle Hazel?” Ruby teased.
I jerked my gaze away and walked over to her chair. “I wanted to ask her how it’s going. With her cat and all.”
She shrugged. “Oh, y’know. About exactly zero progress. She’s stopped crying at work, which is a plus.”
Guilt ensnared my chest and pulled tightly.
Ruby tapped her chin, squinting at me. Before I could take a seat in her chair, she spun it away from me. “Actually, if you want to talk to her, maybe you could let her take this appointment? I’ve got a client coming in fifteen, and her client is about to sit under a dryer for thirty minutes.”
“What?” I must have looked horrified. “No way. Fifteen minutes is plenty for my hair and I’ll just talk to her when you’re done?—”
“Hazel!” she called while I shot figurative daggers at her with my eyes.
Hazel and her client both looked toward the front of theroom. “Yeah?” she called back, giving me a small wave when she noticed me, her eyes wide like saucers.
“Mind cutting Reid’s hair for me? I’m kind of swamped today.”
“That’s really alright,” I tried to say, but Hazel was already nodding.
Shit. How had I not predicted Ruby would pull something like this?
“That’s fine. Let me just put her under the dryer,” Hazel said.
Five minutes later, I was in the back of the salon, sitting in Hazel’s chair.
My foot bounced restlessly against the floor. It had been years since anyone besides Ruby had touched my hair. My haircut had been the same for twenty years, and I liked it just the way it was. I wasn’t big on change. I tensed as Hazel gently lifted the hair at the crown of my head, inspecting it.
“Just a little off the top and clean up the neck, please.”
“You sure?” she asked. I couldn’t help but notice the two Band-Aids on her left hand. Was she in the practice of nicking herself during haircuts?
“I’m sure.”
“If you kept the length on top and faded it into the back it would look really nice.”
“I like it short,” I said.
