Mina’s cheeks heated uncomfortably.
Roz agreed. “Horrible. Get rid of them.”
Mina started to shake her head, but realized there was no point. Roz always won in the end.
Face aflame, she quickly removed her undergarments until she stood naked in the room. The woman with asymmetrical hair darted over and began taking measurements, calling out numbers to the young woman in black, who took notes.
When she’d finished, Mina quickly shrugged the robe over her nakedness, just before the woman gave her a little push toward the bald man and the salon chair. Then she took the notes from the younger woman and hurried out of the room.
Staring at the chair, and the man who stood behind it, Mina heard her practical German mother’s voice rising in her mind:“Never trust a bald hairstylist.”
But there was no getting out of it.
Sucking in a deep breath, Mina sat in the chair.
The man spun a cape around her and secured it at her neck. In one swift motion, he slid a pair of scissors out of the pocket of the apron at his waist and cut the elastic that held the end of her braid.
Mina reached up with lightning speed to place her hand on his wrist. Turning to meet his eyes, she said, “Please don’t cut too much off. I’ve been growing it for over twenty years...”
Since her father had died.
The man grimaced, as if her statement explained everything, and then waved her words away with little flicks of his hand. “Don’t worry, sweetheart. I’m going to make you look divine.”
And then he moved behind her and made his first cut into her bone-dry hair.
Her stomach knotted as he worked. No one had ever cut her hair dry before.
She winced at every thick slice, each one a visceral reminder that scissors were now shearing their way through years’ worth of growth in curls that were slow to grow and quick to frizz.
She took a deep breath.
It was only hair.
Hair that hung past her rear end when it was wet.
Hair that she hadn’t cut since her father had died because he had seen the stubborn curls as a reflection of her inner strength and determination.
Her heart squeezed, but she didn’t move in the chair. She was strong enough to endure a haircut.
By the time the stylist moved to the front of her head she wasn’t so sure.
Not only had he taken off inches and inches of length all over her head, he’d done the unthinkable for a curly woman—added multiple chunky layers. A pained moan bubbled out of Mina’s throat, and her eyes teared as he continued, oblivious. He completed his massacre with a flourish and two swipes of his scissors, saving the worst horror for last: a set of frizzy, puffy bangs.
He had turned her into a nineteen-eighties poodle.
Then he barked, “Washbowl!”
The girl all in black ran over, pushing a portable sink and that had appeared in the room sometime when Mina wasn’t looking. Raising Mina’s seat with the foot lever, the man tilted her back and began washing her hair.
The light, fresh aroma of the shampoo, combined with the relaxing pressure of his fingers massaging her scalp, lulled her mind away from the monstrosity he had made of her head.
A haircut is temporary, she mentally repeated to herself.
The mantra was easy enough to believe with her eyes closed and strong hands massaging her skull. When he sat her back up and she heard the distinctive sound of foil crinkling, though, all sense of ease evaporated.
She opened her eyes in time to see him painting a dollop of white cream onto a wet curly clump, and slapping a piece of foil on top of it. He made quick work of a second and a third, before the first squeak escaped the frozen O of Mina’s mouth.
Without pausing in his application, he said, “Relax—you’ll hardly notice it.”