She has a birthday party to go to tonight or else she wouldn’t even be here on a Saturday instead of her usual Monday for her weekly wash and set.
I reach down and clasp Grace’s hand in mine. It feels so frail and cold. “Are you feeling all right?” I bend low and ask the question near her ear.
She squeezes my hand and clears her throat. “My throat’s just feeling parched today. You know me. I hate to be a bother, but…”
“You are never a bother. I’ll heat some tea right up for you. Herbal? Something with no caffeine?”
“Perfect,” she wheezes, the scratch in her throat almost making me cough.
Ugh.
I do a quick scan of the salon and see every single shampoo bowl occupied. The stylists are a blur of capes and brushes, curling irons and color carts. Every hand in the place is working frantically to manage their own clients. As much as I want to keep moving people through, there’s no hand free to make tea now except mine.
Without wasting another second, I rush into the employee lounge and click on the electric kettle. It’s ice-cold since I haven’t offered tea to anyone since we opened, so it’s going to take a couple seconds to heat up.
I wash my hands thoroughly since I just heldGrace’s hand. It’s going to take a miracle for me to avoid catching this bug, but I stopped believing in miracles years ago. I don’t even let myself dream about them anymore. If I’ve learned anything in life, it’s to keep my head down and rely on the power of my own hard work. I scrub viciously, willing those germs down the drain.
Just as the electric kettle chimes to let me know the water is ready, the lounge door opens.
“Poppy, the client at your station is asking if it’s time to wash her out,” my newest employee says with a frustrated frown. “I told her you set a timer, but she’s insisting I ask.”
“I’ll handle it.” I briefly close my eyes to gather my composure. “Will you take this tea to Grace, the nice older woman at the shampoo bowl? Make sure you give her a guest tray so she doesn’t have to hold it while she’s getting washed out. Put one of those honey sticks on the side in case she wants sweetener. I forgot to ask. Thank you.” I hand the girl the mug of tea, but then I realize if I’m going to get through this day, I’m going to need more help.
“Sarah,” I say, “I know you have no free hands, but can I borrow you, please?”
With the guests I have in the chairs and the colors and cuts I could not cancel, I’ll be here tonight until way too late.
My son sleeps over at his best friend’s house almost every Friday night so the boys can play together on Saturday while I work. I do the friend’s mom’s hair for free as a thank-you, because at times like this, when mysister is sick, Mom is off saving the city from itself, and I’m stuck at the salon, I don’t know what I’d do with Jax if he didn’t have someplace fun to be.
I give Sarah a list of things I need her to do, repeating them slowly and making sure she remembers to take Grace her tea. Then I rush through that long-overdue bathroom break. When I finally walk over to the new client, she’s got her eyes closed and is frowning.
“Hi, Shayla.” I try to sound upbeat as I peek under her foils. “Ready to wash?”
She draws in the world’s longest sigh and lifts an eyebrow at me. “I’ve been ready,” she says. Then she gets out of the chair and storms to the bowls like she owns the place, not me.
“Okay, great.” My bubble of enthusiasm is bursting.
Just a few more hours, and I can go home and cry in private.
“Oh, I love this,”I say, giving Shayla a hand mirror so she can see the back of her cut and color. “What do you think?”
She grimaces as she looks at her reflection. I’m holding the back of her hair between my fingers, lifting and fluffing it so she can see the layers and how the colors blend. “It’s darker than I expected,” she barks.
I feel defeated inside. The color is literally exactly what she asked for, and there’s no denying that it looks beautiful. There’s depth and subtlety to the dimensionsof blond. She’s going to be able to go maybe six full months without touching this, based on how slowly she said her hair grows.
She should love this result. I love it, and if I could see any flaws, I’d be the first to point them out and talk about redoing the work. That’s how I’ve always done things.
“Darker, how?” I ask gently, twisting two of the big, shiny curls that I dried into her hair and arranging them so they are framing her face.
“You know what? Forget it. It’s just hair. It’s fine,” she says, huffing and thrusting the hand mirror back at me. “Are my girls done?”
It’s just hair.Hair that I’ve worked on for hours. Hair that she’s going to wear on her head and look at for months.
Talk about insulting me, my time, and my chosen profession in one single breath.
But like she said, it’s fine.
I’m fine.
