Five Flavors of Dumb (21 page)

“Maybe he does notice, but he’s afraid to tell you how he feels,” I suggested.

Tash brightened a little. “You really think so?”

Actually I didn’t, but I liked seeing the effect my words had. “Maybe.”

“No,” said Kallie, shaking her head. “I don’t know why, but he’s just not into you.”

Tash’s face reddened, but Kallie never flinched. And then, as quickly as she’d lost her temper, Tash calmed down.

“I’m sorry. There’s a part of me that still hates anyone telling me things I don’t want to hear. But it’s not your fault.”

Kallie took Tash’s hands in hers. “Tash, this is no one’s fault, certainly not yours. You’re strong and devoted and beautiful, but when Will looks at you I think he sees a really good guitarist, a friend, someone he likes being in a band with . . . but that’s all.”

I didn’t know if it was the reality of the situation hitting home, or simply the fact that Kallie was being nice to her, but Tash was struggling to hold it together. She took deep breaths, swallowed hard, and stared out the window like she’d only just noticed the scenery, but Kallie never let go of her hands.

I sipped my coffee, savored the heat from the mug and the warmth of the café. Outside, wind slapped at the windows as gulls fought to hold steady. The fresh smell of salt seemed to seep through pores in the glass. All around us the world kept spinning, but we were caught in a moment of perfect stillness: Tash and Kallie crossing an impossible divide through the simple step of forgiving.

“Thank you for saying that,” said Tash finally. “I mean it. If you’d told me you thought there was a chance, I’d have ...” She stared at her hands, entwined with Kallie’s. “I think it’s time to move on, you know?”

No one spoke as I added my hands to theirs, but I like to think we all felt the same thing at that moment. Out of the ashes of Dumb, something far stronger and more wonderful had arisen than any of us would have dared to imagine.

I wouldn’t have minded if we’d stayed that way, but Tash didn’t seem to be in the mood to lose an entire afternoon to silent introspection. She said she needed a pick-me-up, and that we could get free lattes at her mom’s salon. And because I was feeling reckless I said count me in, never for a moment considering that coffee was the last thing on Tash’s mind.

Tash’s mom obviously missed the class where they teach would-be moms about careful language selection and modest clothing. She hadn’t gotten the message about blond highlights being a uniform for middle-aged moms either. In fact, she seemed to be competing with her daughter for the most-outrageous-looking award. And make no mistake about it: She was holding her own.

Her name was Cassie, she said, and if we called her Mrs. Hartley or Tash’s mom, she’d have to beat the crap out of us. She said it just like that, as if it were perfectly reasonable, while Kallie and I exchanged anxious glances.

Cassie’s salon was pristine, with banks of mirrors on every wall, and swirls of burgundy and gold paint embellishing all remaining surfaces. At the cashier’s desk, an elderly lady blew kisses to Cassie and her fellow stylist, before exiting with shimmering red hair.

I watched the old lady leave, wondering how on earth she’d chosen Cassie’s salon. But then I noticed Cassie watching me, and I could tell she’d read right through my thoughts, so I smiled and busied myself looking at a book of hair dye swatches on a nearby counter instead.

Once she’d cleaned her station, Cassie wandered over to me and signaled for me to join the others. Tash had obviously told her I was deaf. Equally obviously, she’d been thinking about what she was going to say to us.

“I saw the interview this afternoon, and I’m very disappointed,” she began, addressing all of us, not just Tash. “You’re all mature enough to know that if a situation makes you uncomfortable, you should just get up and leave. You don’t have to stand for anything, and you sure shouldn’t attempt to correct things with a few punches.”

Tash bristled, but Cassie shut her down with a single cocked eyebrow.

“All the same, I’m pleased you three are still together. Don’t let the pricks divide you, you know?”

I wondered if I’d misheard her, or read her lips incorrectly, but no—Cassie was just that forthright.

She clapped her hands. “All right, sermon over. On to business. As Tash has obviously told you, I don’t take appointments on Tuesday afternoons because I’m supposed to sort out the accounts. But on a day like this, accounts can wait. Ty needs to be available for walk-ins, though, so it’ll just be me. Now which of you two wants to go first?” she asked, waving her finger back and forth between Kallie and me.

I couldn’t tell which of us was more confused. “First for what?” I asked quietly.

“A haircut,” said Cassie, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Surely Tash explained about ...” She trailed off, her eyes narrowing as Tash tried to keep a straight face.

“Cassie’s amazing,” said Tash. “And I just thought you both needed a pick-me-up, that’s all.”

Cassie rolled her eyes, but when she looked back at Kallie and me, I could tell the offer was still on the table.

“Go on,” implored Tash. “It’s not like the day can get any worse.”

Suddenly Kallie seemed to have made up her mind. “Piper will go first,” she said.

I didn’t even get a chance to decline before Cassie glanced at her watch. “Okay, but I can’t promise to get around to you for a couple of hours,” she warned Kallie. (
A couple of hours
? I figured I must have misheard her.) “I’ll do my best.”

“Take your time,” said Kallie amiably. “Tash is going to do my hair.”

This time I was certain I’d misheard her, but Tash’s and Cassie’s responses convinced me I’d heard her just fine. Tash was practically shaking—it was the first time I’d ever seen her looking scared. “No way!” she cried. “I’m not qualified.”

“I think you’ll do great,” replied Kallie.

Cassie shook her head. “Absolutely not. I can’t have you leaving here with bad hair. It would kill my business.”

“Tash won’t let that happen,” said Kallie calmly.

“No, Kallie,” insisted Tash. “Cassie’s right. Watching the stylists isn’t the same as doing it myself.”

“Then I’ll just skip the haircut today, thanks.”

Tash and Cassie exchanged glances, and Cassie threw her arms up in defeat. “Fine. It’s your hair. But don’t you
dare
tell anyone it happened in my salon.”

I didn’t like the way she referred to Kallie’s future hairstyle as “it,” but I was even more astounded at Kallie herself—calmly offering up her hair as practice fodder to the girl who, just two weeks earlier, would have delighted in dragging her away to a dark corner and shaving it all off.

Cassie caught my eye and beckoned me over to her station, where she pinned a cape around my neck. She ran her fingers through my hair, her eyes betraying her concern. “You need to look after your scalp better,” she scolded.

“It’s not worth it.”

“Yes it is. You have lovely hair.”

“It’s kind of mousy.”

“It’s blond.”

“Dirty blond.”

“Strawberry blond. And I have customers who pay a lot of money for this exact shade.”

There wasn’t much I could say to that, so I sank into the warm leather seat and wondered if the reason everything felt so good was because it was happening on a school afternoon. Which was also when I realized that I didn’t feel guilty at all. After eighteen years of doing everything right, Bad Girl Piper was embracing the chance to do something really wrong.

In the mirror I saw Cassie waving her comb. “So, what do you have in mind?”

The question shouldn’t have caught me off guard, but it did. I studied myself in the mirror and tried to think of an appropriate response. “Maybe, um . . . trim the ends?”

Cassie gawked at me like I’d farted. “Trim the ends?”

“Uh-huh.”

Her brows knitted and she continued to stare at me. There was something uncomfortably intense about that look of hers, like she was trying to distill the essence of Piper Vaughan.

“Piper, today I saw a girl stride onto a live TV set to break up a fight, even though she might’ve gotten hurt. But it turns out that same girl neglects her hair and wears it long enough to hide her face, and her head and neck too. So tell me this: Which one is the real you?”

It seemed like a ridiculous question, but at the same time I knew what she was getting at. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I think . . . maybe the first one.”

Cassie nodded approvingly. “And what should that version of Piper Vaughan look like?”

Her words made it sound like an innocent role-playing game, but my heart was pumping in a way that assured me it was so much more. “She should have . . . shorter hair,” I said, staring into the mirror, daring myself to disagree.

“How short?”

I swallowed hard, tried to shut down the frightened part of me. “Above the shoulder. Maybe chin length.”

Cassie nodded solemnly, pulled something from the shelf beside her, and handed it to me: the book of color swatches I’d been looking at when I first came in. “What about the color? Dark streaks would go well. Some red would be easy to work in.”

I flicked through, let her point out what she meant, but I knew those colors had nothing to do with the Piper Vaughan I was becoming. For good reasons and bad I’d attracted the attention of a whole lot of people recently, and the truth is, it didn’t even bother me anymore. I was someone different now, someone new. I was stronger than black, bolder than red. I was . . .

My finger stopped as if it had its own agenda. But when my brain eventually caught up, I knew it spoke for all of me.

Cassie locked eyes with me. “Are you sure?”

I nodded confidently, and the confidence was genuine.

“What are you thinking—stripes? highlights? bangs?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything,” I repeated, swallowing as I said it.

“Okay,” she said slowly. “But first I have to ask: Are your parents going to track me down and kill me for doing this?”

I nodded. “It’s entirely likely.”

Cassie laughed. “Good. I eat conservative middle-class suburban couples for breakfast. No offense.”

“No offense taken. Actually, it sounds like you’ve already met them.”

Cassie laughed again, and so did I, and then I realized that my heart was still beating fast, but in a different way—not apprehensively, but excitedly. I was taking charge, and it felt amazing.

“You’re excited, huh?” she asked, watching me.

“Yes. Is that silly?”

“Not at all. It’s why people come. They say it’s about looking smart, or beautiful, or professional, but it’s not. Gray-haired ladies try to recapture their former brunette. Brunettes want to go blond. Other women go for colors that don’t arise in nature. Each group thinks it’s completely different than the others, but I don’t see it that way. I’ve watched them looking at themselves in the mirror, and they’re not interested in conforming or rebelling, they just want to walk out of here feeling like themselves again.”

I didn’t need to say anything more for Cassie to know she had me pegged; my expression spoke volumes. She patted my shoulder gently and gave me the book of swatches to hold, then turned my chair around so I couldn’t see the mirror. While she mixed the dye and began applying it to my hair with a brush, I bade farewell to the old Piper Vaughan, mouthing the words printed on the swatch over and over, like a mantra:
Atomic Pink
.

Twenty minutes later Cassie left me with a head-full of plastic cap, and said she’d be back soon. She didn’t exactly give me a ballpark figure for
soon
, but I figured I shouldn’t be expecting to make it back to school for last period.

I could have read trashy magazines while I sat there, but I didn’t. Instead I turned the chair so I could watch Tash and Kallie. (Cassie had relegated them to the very back of the salon, where they were less likely to unsettle any paying customers.) Tash frowned with concentration as she applied dye in bold streaks to Kallie’s auburn hair, but the pair of them kept giggling so hard that Kallie had trouble staying still.

The dye was a brownish color, but the odor drifting along the salon was peroxide, so I knew Kallie was about to be the recipient of blond streaks. I tried to imagine how she’d look—probably like a black animé character. Color-wise, she wasn’t being as adventurous as me, but by having Tash do the job, she was taking a leap of faith beyond anything I could imagine. I worried what would happen if her hair turned out terribly. Would everyone at school laugh, or would they simply wonder what had gotten into Kallie Sims?

Or was that precisely the point? Because no matter how it turned out, this was a way for Kallie to turn her back on all that she was perceived to be: an enigmatic beauty—untouchable, beautiful, flawless. Maybe she could untether herself from that world completely. No more rifling through the designer clothes in last season’s bargain bucket. No more struggling to concoct a beauty regimen out of the free samples from cosmetic company reps. Kallie could blend. She could disappear. She was ready for ordinary.

It was close to an hour before Cassie returned. I was a little flustered by then, partly because I didn’t know if/when she’d be returning, but mostly because I needed to know how I looked. Cassie just smiled and told me to be grateful my hair had started out blond; otherwise she’d have needed to bleach it before applying the pink. And then she tormented me further by turning my chair around again so I couldn’t see the mirror as she removed the plastic cap.

“What’s the cap for, anyway?” I asked.

Cassie laughed and knelt down so I could see her. “Nothing. It was just to stop you from sneaking a peek.”

Before I could pretend to be annoyed, Cassie led me over to a basin, where she placed a soft brown towel on my shoulders. Once I’d removed my hearing aids, I leaned back and closed my eyes. She shampooed the gunk out of my hair and massaged my scalp. The combination of warm water and silence was so blissful that I almost dozed off, but then she turned off the shower and wrapped the towel around my head. She dried my hair and led me back to her station, where she removed the towel like a magician. Which, it turned out, was completely appropriate.