Death by Pantyhose (15 page)

"Sabrosa!"

He snapped his fingers and a trio of assistants
materialized, one of them wheeling in preparations for Gustavo to highlight my hair.

"Usually I let the colorist do it," he said, "but
for my special customers, I like to do it myself."
Accent on the special.

If he only knew the truth, that he was slaving
over the woman who wrote-not Pride & Preju dice-but We Clean for You. We Press for You. We
Even Dye for You.

He proceeded to dab on my highlights with
painstaking care, barking orders to his assistants, who hovered nearby, handing him foil
wraps on demand.

While waiting for the color to set, I was transferred to an overstuffed chaise, where I was
plied with more croissants and treated to a pedicure by a darling slip of a thing named Ron.

Ron went right to work, trimming and pumicing and polishing up a storm.

"Voila!" he said when he was through. "Behold."

I blinked in amazement. Never had my toes
looked so good. He'd painted my nails a beautiful creamy peach, and shaped them to perfection. Really, if the bottom ever fell out of the
writing biz, I could be a toe model.

Next I was whisked to Kyra, the shampoo girl,
who gave me what had to be the most relaxing
shampoo of my life. Whatever shampoo she was
using smelled divine. Like night-blooming jasmine.

I sat back as Kyra massaged my scalp with
magic fingers. The last time I felt that relaxed,
I'd been hanging out with my good buddy Jose
Cuervo. All too soon, she slathered me with
creme rinse and the shampoo came to an end.

"Wow, you look awesome," she said, as she
surveyed my new color. "Amazing!"

"Let me see."

"No, not yet. Gustavo likes his customers to
wait until he's all done to see the final results.
It's much more dramatic that way." She grinned.
"Don't worry, you're gonna love it."

A fluffy towel wrapped around my head, I was
led back to Gustavo's sanctuary, where he sat me
down facing away from the mirror and, with
fierce concentration, began cutting my hair.

I wished I could watch what he was doing, but
with all his minions hovering about it would've
been impossible to see the mirror, anyway.

Finally, after much squinting and humming
of "Sesame Mucho," my cut was finished.

"Dryer!" Gustavo shrieked.

One of the assistants held a dryer as Gustavo
alternately fluffed and scrunched my hair. As he
worked, his minions exploded with oohs and
aahs of approval. By now, I was really excited. If
my hair was anything like my toes, I'd be stun-

Finally he was finished.

"It's perfect," he said, nodding solemnly.
`Just what I was going for."

All the minions chimed in with a congratulatory round of "perfects" and "awesomes" and
"amazings."

"Ready to look?" he asked.

I nodded, feeling like a contestant on Extreme Makeover.

With a dramatic flourish he swiveled my chair
around to face the mirror. But one of his assistants was standing in the way, a woman I hadn't
noticed before, a gal with a ghastly mess of frizzy
red hair.

I was just about to ask her if she'd mind stepping aside when it dawned on me that nobody
was standing in my way. That was my reflection
in the mirror. The woman with the ghastly red
frizz was me!

Suddenly I felt sick to my stomach. The auburn highlights Gustavo promised me were a
Sunkist orange. And the "soft" curls were
straight out of a Brillo box.

"So what do you think?" Gustavo beamed
with pride.

"It's not exactly what I expected," I gulped.

His smile froze.

"Oh?" Icicles dripped from the syllable. "And
what, may I ask, is wrong?"

Nothing, if you don't mind looking like Ronald McDonald on estrogen.

"Um, the color's a little bright."

"The color's awesome." He turned to his minions. "What do you think, people? Do you like
the color?"

A fawning chorus of "awesomes" filled the air.

"Well, if you'll excuse me," Gustavo said, making a big show of checking his watch, "I've got
other clients waiting."

He gestured for me to get out of the chair.

I couldn't let this happen. I had to say something. But what? I couldn't ask for my money
back. I hadn't paid anything.

"Well?" he said, waiting for me to get up from
the chair.

I had to stand up for my rights and tell him I
wasn't going anywhere until he fixed my hair
and made me look like a member of the human
race again.

It wasn't easy, but I gathered my courage and
spoke up.

"I'm sorry," I said, "but I simply can't leave
without-"

'Without what?" He shot me a withering glare.

"Without asking where you get your croissants. They're awesome."

Okay, so I'm a sniveling weakling, a disgrace
to assertive women everywhere. What can I say?
You'd snivel, too, if you were surrounded by a
bunch of beautiful people looking down their
nose jobs at you.

I slunk out of the salon and trudged back to
my car, wondering if Andrew would notice if I
wore a paper bag over my head on our date that
night.

Oh, well. At least my toes looked good.

And besides, it was only a little after five. Andrew said he'd pick me up at 7:30. If I stopped
at the drugstore for some hair color, maybe I
could color my hair and blow it dry before he
showed up. I raced to Wheezy, only to find a $60
parking ticket plastered on the windshield. I'd
exceeded the two-hour parking limit by ten
measly minutes. Arggh!

I got in the car and caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. I would've burst into
tears, but I didn't have time to cry. Instead, I
chugged over to the nearest drugstore and
grabbed a bottle of hair color called Tawny
Breeze, a pretty chestnut brown, light years nicer
than the Orange Hurricane I was currently sporting.

Just my luck, when I got to the front of the
store to pay for it, there was only one lone clerk
and about a gazillion customers. I got on line
and waited for what seemed like decades, while
my fellow shoppers amused themselves by whispering about my hair.

Finally I made it up to the clerk, a brittle, gumchewing woman who, as I was about to learn, had clearly been napping the day they taught Tact
101.

I handed her the Tawny Breeze.

"Not a moment too soon, honey," she said,
eyeing my neon mop. "Not a moment too soon."

Ignoring the giggles of my fellow shoppers, I
raced back out to the car and checked the time.
Twenty to six. If I could make it home in twenty
minutes, I still might have a shot at fixing my
hair.

I strapped myself in Wheezy and floored it all
the way home. Which-in Wheezy-speak-means
I was doing thirty miles an hour.

I pulled up in front of my duplex a few minutes past six. I grabbed my Tawny Breeze and
was dashing up the path to my apartment when
suddenly I froze in my tracks.

There, sitting on my front step, was Andrew.
What the heck was he doing here so early?

I couldn't possibly let him see me this way. I'd
just have to duck behind my neighbor's azalea
bush and hide there for the rest of my life, if
need be.

But it was too late. He'd already seen me.

"Hi, Jaine!" he said, waving.

Oh, Lord. What was I going to do now?
Maybe I could pretend I wasn't me, that I was
my much less attractive twin sister.

"I got through work early," he said, "so I decided to stop by. Is that okay?"

"Sure." I smiled weakly.

I only hoped he was a toe man.

That the heck happened to your hair?"
Andrew said when I let him into the
apartment.

Okay, his exact words were, "Nice place
you've got here," but I knew that's what he was
thinking as he eyed my Day-Glo tresses.

"And what a great cat!"

I looked down and saw Prozac at Andrew's
feet, staring up at him. Here he was, at last. Her
archenemy. The invader. The rival for my affections.

"She's not good with strangers," I warned.

I was about to snatch her away before she
could claw his eyes out when, to my amazement,
she began rubbing her body against his ankles,
purring as loud as a buzz saw.

She looked over at me, her eyes slitted in ecstasy.

You never told me he was so cute.

Can you believe that cat? For days she'd been
in a full-tilt suit over my date with Andrew, and now here she was throwing herself at him. What
a shameless hussy!

"Now, Prozac," I said. "Don't bother Andrew."

"Oh, she's no bother. I love cats."

He picked her up and began stroking her fur
with slow, rhythmic motions.

Some cats have all the luck.

"If you'll excuse me," I said, "I'd better go
change. Can I get you anything while you're
waiting? Some wine, maybe? A Coke?"

"No, I'm good."

Prozac purred like a starlet in an X-rated
video.

Me, too.

I left the two of them going at it hot and heavy
on the sofa and went to the bedroom to change.
I tossed on a pair of black crepe slacks (with a
Lance-approved set-in waistband) and a black
cashmere turtleneck, then surveyed myself in the
mirror. With my orange hair and black outfit, I
could rent myself out as a Halloween costume.

Luckily, Gustavo had left my hair long enough
for a ponytail. I somehow managed to corral my
mountain of curls into a scrunchy. Which, I was
heartened to see, was a bit of an improvement.
And, as I noticed when I checked myself out in
the mirror again, the black outfit was actually
kind of slimming. So maybe I didn't look so horrendous after all.

For the first time since I came home, I was beginning to feel a glimmer of hope. A glimmer
that was quickly dashed to smithereens when I
returned to the living room. Prozac had left the
heavenly confines of Andrew's lap and was
prancing around with something gray and
dingy dangling from her mouth.

"Now, Prozac," I chided. "Andrew doesn't
want to play with your rubber mouse."

But as I was about to learn when she dropped
her little gift at Andrew's feet, it wasn't her rubber mouse. Or her catnip kitty.

"What's this?" Andrew said, picking it up.

Yikes! It was a pair of my ratty old underpants, the ones I use as a dust rag. She must've
dug them out from the broom closet.

Prozac was practically doing a jig at Andrew's
feet, she was so damn proud of herself.

They're hilarious, huh? I thought you'd get a kick
out of them.

"Oh, Prozac," I said, grabbing my panties
from Andrew's hands. "You naughty girl, rummaging in the neighbor's trash again."

Yeah, right. Like he's really going to believe that.

Some day, I swear, I'm going to put that cat
up for adoption.

My mind was a blur on the drive over to the
restaurant. All I could think of was Prozac prancing around the living room with my panties in her
mouth. As Andrew chatted about life in Germany,
I barely managed to respond with a few carefully
placed Um, how interesting's.

1 But it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. By now I was convinced that my date with
Andrew was destined for the fiasco file. I dreaded
to think what further humiliations awaited me
before the night was over. Would I spend the entire evening with a hunk of spinach permanently
welded to my front tooth?

But the fates, those pesky devils, surprised
me.

The restaurant turned out to be a charming
candlelit spot out by the beach. (Not that we
needed a candle; we could read our menus by
the glow of my hair.)

I don't know if it was our cozy table for two.
Or the waves crashing beneath our feet. Or the
mellow Frank Sinatra love songs playing in the
background. Probably it was the glass of white
wine I practically inhaled the minute the waiter
gave it to me. All I know is that a half hour later,
things were looking a whole lot rosier.