MY DAY STARTED OUTlike any Friday would at my salon, Curl Up and Dye. I drank my coffee and looked around the business with pride that I had built from scratch. I purchased my childhood home from my parents when they retired and moved to Boca Raton, Florida. They offered to sell the house to me, their only child, for what they paid for it in 1975. The grand dame, as I referred to my home, was appraised at nearly $400,000, but my parents sold it to me for just over $60,000. With that much equity, I was able to borrow enough to renovate the first floor in to the most beautiful salon.
I stressed and fretted over every square inch of the design plan making sure it was perfect. I had been miserable in the space I had rented for five years from Harold Kingsley. The man had no vision and would not allow me to make the most minor of enhancements to the building I leased from him. Needless to say, I jumped all over my parents’ offer when it was made. Thanks to them, I could expand my business to make it one of the most popular salons in southern Ohio.
Gone was the tired, dated look of yester years that I had grown up with, and in its place, was a warm space with real mahogany floors and walls that were painted a neutral ivory that allowed the artwork and glamorous accessories throughout the salon to shine and take center stage. Each of my stylist’s stations looked like old Hollywood glam rather than an ordinary booth you’d except to see at one of those chain salons. I wasn’t running some $5 hair emporium. No! If my name was going to be listed as the proprietor, then people were going to get wowed. They were getting the Cadillac experience when stepping into my salon, not the Ford Pinto.
Some people drove for an hour to my tiny town in Blissville, Ohio to have their hair styled and get pampered by me and my staff. I crazy loved my job and looked forward to it every day, even though not all clients were created equally. We had our hands full with quite a few of them, but I had yet to meet a woman that I couldn’t win over.
So, my day might’ve started out like all others, but my harmony and bliss didn’t last much later than noon. My best friend and receptionist, Chaz Hamilton, had been out all week with strep throat. My stylists and I tried to take over his duties the first day he was out but quickly realized that we would be better off if I hired a temp to fill in while he was out. I called Terry, who ran the only temp agency in our county, and she sent us Krista Howard, who was as sweet as apple pie and fit right in with the rest of us. Unfortunately, she committed the one cardinal sin of our salon.
I put a message at the top of our scheduling calendar on the computer that said:Never Book Georgia Beaumont and Nadine Beaumont on the same day. Ever!!!!It was written in bold letters, was underlined, and had many exclamation marks to show its importance. It appeared at the top of the calendar every single month because Chaz could sometimes be a spaz and forget things. Nadine and Georgia in the same room was something I wanted to avoid at all costs, so I wrote it out plainly for everyone to see. I couldn’t take the chance that one of them would show up early for her appointment while the other was there with an appointment that ran over, so I made the rule that they couldn’t be booked on the same day. It was a good business decision – one that Krista either failed to see or completely ignored and my lovely salon and I paid the price.
I had just removed the foils from Georgia’s hair and shampooed her, making sure to massage her scalp a little longer than I did with most clients. She wasn’t an easy person to get along with, in fact, some would say I was one of the few who did. Where everyone else saw a bitter, older woman who lost her husband to a younger woman, I saw a woman who only wanted to be loved. Yeah, that acerbic tongue she used on the world didn’t back me up, but I saw through her act.
Georgia was one of my first clients when I first opened my doors at the squalor I rented from Harvey. She loved the name of the shop, and as the mayor’s wife, wanted to stop in and congratulate me on opening a small business. I thought that Georgia was an attractive older woman, but whoever did her color needed to be shot. She caught me staring and perhaps I was biting my lip to avoid saying anything blunt. I had been known to pop off at the mouth with the first thing that came to my mind. It was a bad trait I worked hard to overcome. The last thing I needed was to make Georgia angry so that she warned my potential clients away.
“You keep staring at my hair,” she said bluntly. “You’re making me nervous.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied, shuffling my feet nervously from left to right.
“Go ahead and tell me. I can take it,” she replied. I could tell she was bracing herself for bad news.
I didn’t know it then, but beneath her confident – sometimes arrogant – veneer was a very insecure woman. Had I known, I might’ve used less blunt words than, “Your hair color ages you. It’s too blonde and it makes it look like you’re trying to appear younger than you are. It detracts from your beauty rather than enhances it.”
Georgia narrowed her eyes at me for several long moments and I wondered if I’d just killed my career before it even began. Finally, she tipped her head slightly to the side and said, “I like you.” Then she sat down in my empty chair and said, “Fix it.” So I did and she became a loyal customer who told all of her friends - or frenemies in her case - about my business. I credited her with my early success and she gobbled up the praise like anyone would who was desperate to hear positivity in their lives.
For whatever reason, I was one of the rare people she showed her softer side to. The rest of the town was treated as if they were beneath her somehow. I would see people cower in her presence or cross the street to avoid her when they saw her walking toward them. It made me sad that the rest of the town didn’t know her as I did. Even though I knew of her reputation, it shocked me to see her in action when we came out of the shampoo room and she laid eyes on her nemesis.
Nadine Beaumont. The much younger version of Georgia that the mayor, Rocky Beaumont, cheated on Georgia with, and later married, after he knocked her up. Georgia didn’t take the humiliation very well, but who the fuck would in her shoes? Three years had passed and it was obvious that the hurt and embarrassment was as raw as it was when she caught them in the act in her own bed.
“You fucking cunt,” Georgia yelled loudly to be heard over the noise of hairdryers, softly piped music, and conversations between stylists and their clients. “Disgusting, husband-stealing whore!”
Nadine was standing with her back to us looking at nail polish in preparation of a mani/pedi. My nail tech, Dee Hayslip, and I stared at each other for a few seconds with bugged out eyes. Both of us were wondering how the hell it happened when I caught the shocked expression on Krista’s face. I had looked at the salon schedule that morning, like I always did, and Nadine’s name wasn’t on it.
Nadine whirled around, her expression going from shocked to downright evil as she took in her adversary wearing a salon cape and her hair wrapped in a towel. She held up a bottle of bright red nail polish in her left hand in a way that the afternoon autumn sun caught her ginormous diamond and sent prisms of light all over the walls.
“Well, if it isn’t Rocky’s dried out ex-hag. I stopped by to get a manicure and pedicure before I celebrate my anniversary with my husband tonight. I picked a shade to match the new lingerie I bought for the occasion.” She smiled evilly and then addressed me. “Josh, honey, I think you’re going to need more than a little hair dye to help make her presentable again.” Nadine was not a good person and I didn’t like her at all. I would never refuse a client services because I didn’t like them; it was bad for business. However, I was seriously starting to rethink my business philosophy.
Georgia stood rigid in front of me, but I could feel her rage seething through her body. There stood the woman who was thirty years younger and was able to give Rocky what she couldn’t – children. I knew how much it hurt Georgia when Nadine gave birth to their first child. The baby was lauded over her head by the town gossips, hell bent on having a good time at the expense of others. The town treated the mayor and new first lady like royalty and their son like a prince. It amazed me that Georgia chose to live in Blissville after the divorce, but then I realized she had too much pride to be run out of the place she called home. It made me proud to know her.
Well, that was until she let out some banshee-like battle cry and launched herself at Nadine. She grabbed two handfuls of Nadine’s Blonde Bombshell hair and began yanking it. Nadine drew back her hand and slapped Georgia so hard her towel fell off her head.
“You fat, sterile cow,” Nadine screeched, before she wrapped her hands around Georgia’s throat and began to squeeze.
It happened so fast that I was slow to react, but I flew into action once Georgia head-butted Nadine and broke her nose. I grabbed for Georgia while my best friend, and fellow stylist, Meredith, grabbed for Nadine.
“Georgia, settle down now.” I tried to calm her down while Nadine wailed and screamed, covering her bloody nose with both hands. At least her hands were no longer around Georgia’s neck.
“Yeah, settle down, Georgia,” Nadine said, wiping away at the blood on her face with the back of her hand. “Too much exertion atyour agecan kill you.”
I seriously thought about dropping my hands from Georgia’s shoulders and helping her whip Nadine’s ass. Business be damned, that hateful shrew wasn’t welcome back and I’d tell her as soon as I knew the fight was over.
“Don’t listen to her, Georgia,” Meredith chimed in. “Be the classier woman that we all know you to be.” Well, at least I knew Mere would have my back when it came time to give Nadine the boot.
It was as if our words didn’t register with her, because Georgia shook me off and tackled Nadine to the floor. Meredith leaped out of the way in the nick of time or would’ve been taken down with her. Georgia straddled the younger woman’s hips and began to choke her in earnest. Nadine’s eyes looked like they were going to pop right out of her head and I had to do something.
Meredith and I teamed up, trying to pry her hands off of Nadine’s neck. We were able to loosen the grip she had on the younger woman and just about had her pulled off when Nadine took advantage of the situation and rolled Georgia over. Instead of pinning Georgia down, she kept rolling until they crashed into my display case holding my hair products and styling tools for sale.
I watched in horror as the glass unit wobbled and threatened to tip over. The force of the hit broke a few of the shelves on the bottom. Glass and bottles of styling products crashed on top of the two women, but that didn’t stop them. Instead, they rolled in the other direction, screaming profanities and yanking each other’s hair the entire time. It looked like we were on the set of Dynasty instead of standing in my salon.
