“Which one?” I ask the girls, looking between their youthful, stupidly perfect faces.
“What?” Esme, the one who’s up next, asks, not bothering to hide the look of near-disgusted confusion on her face.
“Which main character is this giving? Bella? Katniss? Tris?” I prompt them again, proud that I know I can just say ‘giving’ and I no longer have to say ‘vibe’ after it. See? I’m not a total fucking boomer, gals. Why do I hear Dr. Evil’s voice in my head?I’m hip, I’m with it.
“Who?” Rosanna scrunches her nose at me.
“Twilight?Hunger Games?Divergent? You know, the female main characters that set the bar for a generation,” I explain patiently, twirling the brush I’m still holding in the air as I do.
“Yikes.” Man, Esme isn’t holding back.
“Okay, first off, sis, respect your elders. These girls are theOGmain characters who slay. And you’re clearly named after aTwilightcharacter, okay, so no disrespect to the Cullens on my watch.”
Esme rolls her eyes at me and points at Rosanna with a lazy thumb. “Sheis the main character.”
The girls laugh for a second, not necessarily at me, but also, very definitely at me.
“Boomers,” Esme says on a sigh, and how does that one word sting so deep? It’s not even remotely true, but being compared to a seventy-year-old fucking hurts! I think Gen Z has some special intuition, probably from whatever is in the water supply, of how to make millennials feel about a hundred. Well, I’m not standing for it. I’m going to bring their insult crashing down.
“Hey now! You realize I’m the same generation as Taylor Swift, right?”
Definitely caught them singing along to a couple of T. Swift tracks playing softly in my room this past hour, so takethat, ladies. If I’m a boomer, so is your idol.
The girls look at each other in the mirror, eyes wide, like they’re trying not to roll them at me, but they don’t agree I’m even the same species as Tay, much less from her era.
“Selena Gomez,” I continue, waving my brush for emphasis.
“Cringe,” one whispers to the other.
“Beyonce!” I half-scream in desperation to prove I’m not dead yet.
My generation has some of the most talented motherfuckers that ever motherfucked!
“Big yikes,” one of them says through a face of vicarious embarrassment for me that I never want to see again.
Okay, I’m going back to my job here, they can talk between themselves without me. Why do I even try to understand this generation.
I spritz her face with half a damn liter of setting spray to seal it all on there for her no matter what the night holds, and just as the girls are swapping seats, one of my favorite faces in the world pokes in my room.
“Hey, girl!” Ellie’s sweet voice fills the small room.
I dash over and give her a side hug. “What are you doing here?”
“Just getting my wax. Hannah had to reschedule me to the afternoon today, but I ran into Roxanne, and she told me you were here, so just wanted to poke my head in and say hi. Hi!” She gives me a big smile and the world seems brighter.
The two girls are still tittering and giggling by my station, and Esme’s voice reaches us.
“I’m weak!” she tells Rosanna, and Ellie hears her.
“Oh, do you need something? There’s water out front, or I could grab you a scone or a muffin?” That’s my bestie, always looking to solve a problem.
The girls burst out in renewed laughter at the offer.
“On God, you are sending me!” Esme tells her.
“Sending you…where?” Ellie asks, puzzled.
“Just…don’t bother. Save yourself.” My whisper follows her out the door with a quick air kiss, and I go back into my own world, tuning these mini Mean Girls out, hearing nothing but the thoughts in my head as I finish my last appointment of the day.
