The curling iron is next. If we don’t move this along a bit quicker, I could miss the ideal moment for my grand entrance. I’ve pictured it for weeks, me standing in the doorway like a sunrise, a hundred eyes gawking at me in awe.
Booya! This hair is starting to shape up. It looks all shiny and shimmery. I do believe it’s going to look great. I knew finding this place was fate. My luck’s changing tonight. I can feel it creep over me like angels’ wings.
The lady next to me is onto her blow dry. Boris’s still hanging all over her and asking about her kid, the Golden Boy. He just graduated from college, yadda, yadda, yadda.
I’m a college graduate too – Manhattan Community College. When I got my Associates in Business, my Aunt Bunny knew someone whose boyfriend’s cousin knew somebody at an insurance office on Beaver Street in lower Manhattan and got me an interview. They gave me a try and I gave them a try and I’m still there three years later. I get two weeks vacation, paid holidays and all the insurance I’ll ever need. I show up every day and do my job better than the wacko owner’s son who’s always hanging by my cube.
I know what he’s looking for. But he’s sadly disillusioned. I have a rock-solid master plan and nothing’s going to stop me. I wore hand-me-downs my whole life, but I’m starting a savings. I’ll be running that office in a few years, buy myself a one-bedroom co-op near Williamsburg and furnish it with all new stuff. No secondhand crap for Dolly. I’m getting a Jennifer Convertible sofa and a Raymour & Flanagan dining set. I’m good at waiting and always keep my eyes peeled for any fresh opportunities that may come my way.
Boris is done primping on the old lady. She has great hair, smooth and shiny with perfect blondish highlights. She heads for the reception desk all beautified.
“Color, highlights and oil treatment, that will be $250.00,” Boris tells her. She signs the credit card slip like she does it every day.
I swallow wrong and start coughing up a lung. Two-hundred-fifty? I am screwed. Jeez-Louise! How much’s this going to cost me? I have seventy-five cash. I’m sure that’s not going to cover my ‘do in this joint. And my plastic’s maxed out. Think, girlfriend, think.
I try to calm myself down to let Anna finish. Otherwise, I’ll look like a freaking troll doll, the extra-large economy size. I shove another stick of Orbit in and starting chewing like a crazy bitch.
A batch of new customers starts streaming in – a whiny little brat, a couple of jocks, another old lady and a teen angel! I watch Boris’ bobbing bald spot as he greets the new rubes.
It looks like Anna’s on the home stretch, at last. I look wicked good. She’s done a really great job, even if it’s taken almost four hours. A masterpiece!
“Miss, I think I am done. How you like? Is OK?” Anna gives me a hand-mirror and spins my chair. I’m a shimmery vision, a fucking duchess. It’s better than the picture.
“Not bad,” I say. “Let’s do a selfie, you and me.”
I smile at her and slip her two fives, so she knows I like it. She takes the cash and slinks off to collapse.
So I stroll up to the reception desk to find out what the damage is. I snap my gum and look around. Everybody’s busy with customers and nobody notices me. How can they ignore a five-foot-eight sassy redheaded momma like me?
But they do.
I count to twenty real slow, take a deep breath, do a 180 and disappear out the door.
Suzanne C Martinez 