The Hairdresser Diaries (2 page)

“Like what?”

“I don’t know.” She scrunched her face and flicked some ashes off the end of her cigarette.

“You say that all the time and we end up always doing the same thing,” I groaned.

“Whatever.”

Peyton was a blond also, but she was a natural blond. She never did anything too different with her hair color. She was more daring with cutting it than coloring it, because her hair grew so fast it didn’t matter. It was also thick and curly, but she straightens it every day. She was tall, thin, and beautiful. She had big brown eyes, olive skin, and on a good day, when she cared enough to put makeup on, she looked like a supermodel. She also had a killer personality which is why everyone loved her. Then there was the vicious attitude, which is why some people feared her. I loved her for both.

The back door opened and Teresa, our salon manager, popped her head out. “Tatum, Ms. Kline is here.”

“Thanks Teresa.” I got up and went back into the salon.

“Hi Carole,” I said to my client who was already sitting in my chair.

“Hi Tatum, how are you?” she asked.

“Good and you?”

“Just fine and dandy,” Carole said.

“We just doing a touch-up today?” I asked her.

“Yes and a little trim.”

“Sounds good, I’m gonna go mix the color and I’ll be right back.”

Carole was one of my regulars. She always got the same thing, highlights and a trim, and every time she would say to me, “Make sure they’re not red,” referring to her roots. They never were, not even close. It took me a couple of times to realize what she really meant. She thought gold was red and she wasn’t the only one. I never understood it and I tried several times to explain to my clients that it was gold they were seeing not red, but some of them insisted it was red. After a while I gave up and just told them I’d throw something on to take out the so-called red they saw or made sure I left them under the dryer long enough so there wouldn’t be an issue.

When I came back to my client she was chatting up one of the other stylists, Jenna. She was one of the ones I liked. She was about two years older than me. She had short brown hair, a bob, with some chunky different color highlights in the front. She was about average height and build. She was a partier in her early years, but now she has a family so she’s settled down some.

“Carole you’re crazy. I don’t know how you do it,” Jenna said laughing.

“Are you talking about Carole’s many men?” I teased.

“It’s only two now,” Carole said.

Jenna and I chuckled.

Carole was in her 50’s, but looking at her you think maybe she was only in her late 30’s. She was a bigger woman, with long blond wavy hair—thanks to me. There was something about Carole. She wasn’t what you call a head turner, but it didn’t matter.

Half her face could have been scarred and to me she still would have been beautiful. Her personality is what attracts everyone to her.

She is so warm and welcoming, and doesn’t judge anyone. You can talk to her about anything and she’ll laugh or cry right along with you and offer her advice but won’t push her own beliefs on you.

I always thought of Carole as kind of like a fireworks display. You didn’t know what to expect until it opened up and then it was big, bright, exciting, and beautiful, just like Carole. She was one of my favorite clients and I was happy to have Carole at the start of my day, hoping the rest of the day would go as well.

After Carole I had two haircuts and then a break before my last one. Today would be an easy day. That’s normally how Mondays were, slow, because most people went back to work on Mondays.

My second haircut was a new client, one I’ve never done before. When she arrived I introduced myself and had her follow me to my chair to talk about how we were going to cut her hair.

“Aren’t you going to shampoo it?” she asked when I gestured toward my chair.

“Yes, but I like to talk about what we’re going to do first,” I told her.

Some stylists automatically wash the clients hair then asked them what they want to do. I didn’t work like that. Any good stylist knows you should find out what you’re doing first before you wash, for several different reasons: first, you can get a look at how they style it so you know what would be easiest for them; second, you can get a feel for the texture to see if it’s thick, fine, curly, straight, and so on. This helps when they bring you a picture and say, “I want that.” You look at the picture and want to laugh in their face, but that wouldn’t be very professional. Even though I have seen some stylists actually do that.

The picture they bring will usually be the total opposite of their hair and they expect you to work miracles. For example I may explain to them that the girl in the picture has thick curly hair as opposed to their fine straight hair or vice versa letting them know it most likely won’t look the same. Most people understand and some don’t. For the people who don’t, no matter how hard you try to explain it, they just can’t seem to understand. Not to say pictures don’t help, because they do, especially when the client is someone who wants us to wave a magic wand so they look exactly like the picture.

This client knew what she wanted without a picture or so I thought.

“What would you like to do today?” I asked her.

“Well, just trim up the ends a bit and add two layers.”

Two layers? Really? What the hell are two layers? There’s no such thing as “two layers”, well not that I know of.

This is not the first time someone has said that either. I wish people would learn layers are layers. There’s no one layer, or two or three. There’re short, long, choppy, wispy, a lot, or a few.

That’s it.

Normally when they say to add one or two I just do long and wispy and they seem satisfied. That’s what I did with this client and she was very happy. She told me she’d come back so I handed her my card.

Before my last client I decided to go eat dinner. Working in a strip mall has its advantages; there were a bunch of different places to choose from.

After I ate I finished up with my last client then Peyton and I started on each other’s hair. Halfway through my touch-up, my friend Landon walked in.

“Hi honey,” I said to Landon as he walked over, gave me a kiss, and patted Peyton on the back.

“I need a haircut,” Landon said.

“Of course you do. Why do you never make an appointment?” I groaned.

“Cause I never know when I’m gonna need one. I only know I need a haircut when my hair doesn’t work for me anymore,” he said.

I just rolled my eyes at him. “Well you’re just gonna have to wait till Peyton and I are done.”

“When are you gonna be done?” he whined.

“When we’re done.” I said flatly. He gave the look he always gives me when I was being a smartass, the look of annoyance.

“Hey it’s not my fault you can’t make an appointment,” I added.

“Alright, alright,” he bellowed as he sat down and picked up an issue of Star magazine.

“Need to catch up on your gossip?” I asked. He just gave me that look again and I laughed.

When Peyton was done putting my color on she told me to cut Landon’s. She said she would wait until I was done. Landon thanked her and gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“You’re lucky, I would have made you wait,” I said and he knew it too.

Landon was a really good friend of mine, one of my closest guy friends. We met when I was 15, shortly after my mom died. We were both at a party that my friend at the time begged me to go to. She was into this one guy who went to a different school. I was not in the party mood, but I went anyway because that’s what friends do.

Everyone at the party was drinking except me. I was only 15 and didn’t like the taste of beer—yet. My friend decided to drink and I just pretended while holding a cup but not really drinking from it. She found the guy she was crushing after, who was 18, and they started talking and walked away. That left me in a room full of strangers at a party I didn’t want to be at in the first place.

I went and sat on one of the couches that was empty. Some dumb drunk kid came over and started harassing me. That’s when I met Landon. He told the drunken kid to scram and leave me alone. I thanked him.

“You don’t go to A.S. do you?” he asked.

“No, I go to South Meyers,” I said.

“So how come you’re not drinking?”

“I am,” I said holding up my cup.

“I might believe that if your cup wasn’t full and I actually witnessed you take a sip,” he said with a hint of a smile.

“How do you know I didn’t just get a new one?”

He paused, glanced down and then back up at me “Cause I was watching you.”

“You were watching me?” I said blushing. He was pretty cute. He even seemed a little embarrassed to have mentioned it. I guess he didn’t mean to say that out loud.

“Um, yeah, kinda.” He blushed too.

I giggled to myself. After that he didn’t say anything. I sat, waiting, playing with my full cup of beer that I hadn’t touched since I got there.

After about a minute, he finally sat down on the couch next to me and properly introduced himself. “Hi, I’m Landon,” he said holding out his hand.

“Hi, I’m Tatum,” I said shaking his hand.

“Do you know Brian?” he asked.

“Who?”

“Brian Saks. This is his house and party.”

“Oh I um…” Crap.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want him to think we were party crashers.

He just smiled and said, “It’s okay, I don’t know him either.”

It made me feel better. I told him why I was really here, that my friend made me come because she had a crush on this guy. Turns out that the guy was one of Landon’s friends. He assured me his friend was a good guy and I wouldn’t have to worry.

Landon and I talked all night. We had such a good time hanging out we decided to get together again. We spent almost every weekend together, but we didn’t date until I was 18. He was 3 years older than me and at 15 that was too old, according to my dad.

We only lasted about a month. We weren’t a good couple. People around us thought we were perfect for each other, but we didn’t feel that way. We tried to make it work, but couldn’t. We knew we loved each other, but only as friends and it would never be anything more. We’ve been best friends ever since.

Landon was a good looking kid and Landon today is devastatingly handsome. He’s over 6 feet with dark brown hair, brown eyes, and a killer smile. He has a nice build, with a few extra pounds he liked to call his “winter weight.” He kind of reminds me of Channing Tatum. In fact sometimes people think we’re brother and sister the way we bicker at times. He’s always there when I need him though.

After I finished his haircut I asked him if he’d be out this weekend. He said he would be Saturday. I kissed him goodbye and started Peyton’s hair.

“Did you decide what you want to do yet?” I asked her.

“I’m gonna leave that up to you,” she said.

“Really, I can do whatever I want?”

“Yep.”

At first I thought it was a trick or a joke so I asked, “What’s with the sudden change?”

“I’m ready for something different.”

“Ok, but I’m telling you now to remember you gave me permission to do what I want and you can’t say anything until I’m done.”

I wanted to clarify that for insurance purposes.

“Now I’m a little scared.”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“Completely,” she said.

“Then just sit there and be quiet until I’m done.”

I decided since she wanted something different and was allowing me to do what I wanted, I was going to give her a whole new look. I cut it first since I planned to take a lot of the length off. I cut it into a short, angled bob and stacked it the back. I colored her hair a medium, chocolate-brown and gave her some black and light-brown highlights with lowlights in the front. It looked awesome and she loved it.

When we were finished we cleaned up, left work and I headed home to relax.

The next morning when I woke up I checked my phone. I had a text message from Logan.

Call me when u wake up ;)

Logan...how do I describe Logan? Well Logan is one of those guys that I sometimes hang out with when it’s convenient for him.

I met him one night when I was out and thought he was the cutest guy I had ever seen. He’s tall, handsome, has a nice build, blonde hair, green eyes, and has the ability to make me act like a fool.

I like Logan a lot, but there’s something missing, and I don’t know what that something is. Peyton would tell me he’s an ass and he just keeps using me. Part of me knows she’s right, but for now I don’t care. I just keep telling myself I’m using him as much as he’s using me—again knowing that’s not true, but it helps. None of my friends like Logan. They think he’s a scumbag, and if it was anyone else but me, I’d probably think the same thing. See, Logan and I don’t date. We just…hangout.

I called him to see what he wanted. I didn’t really have to call him, I knew what he wanted.

“Hi,” I said when he answered.

“Hey what’s up?”

“You wanted me to call you?”

“Uh yeah, what are you doing?” he asked.

“I just got up.” Wait for it...

“Can I come over?” There it is.

I knew I should say no. It would have been easier if I just sent him a text in the first place and he knew that, that’s why he told me to call.

I told him yes and that was it. He hung up the phone without saying “goodbye” or “see you soon”. That didn’t matter to him.

Once he got that yes it was enough.

I lay back down on my bed wanting to kick myself for saying yes, but who was I kidding. I was weak when it came to Logan. I gave in every time. I just figure it’s better than nothing at all.

When he got to my house we went straight to my bedroom. Direct and to the point, that was Logan. Afterward he stayed for about fifteen minutes and then left. It was almost like he was never here, and sometimes that was better.

Once he was gone I got in the shower and got ready for work. I really can’t complain. My life isn’t so bad. I pretty much do what I want and I have more friends than I can count. I guess you can say I’m lucky, but I wouldn’t look at it that way. Everything in my life so far has been…average. I feel there’s something missing even though I’m not quite sure what that is.