Page 58 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon
‘Nice body,’ the young woman goes on, then their eyes meet in the mirror. ‘Have you had a fringe before?’
Anna recalls an unfortunate time in her teens when she had a too-short cut that had made her look as if she hadn’t been able to decide if she wanted a fringe or not. It’s possible the hairdresser did it because he hated her; at that age Anna hated herself, in the way that serious-minded teenage girls who long to be understood tend to do.
‘Once,’ is her reply to Josie. ‘It wasn’t very good.’
Josie grins. ‘I’ll make this one good. I promise.’
Again, Anna tries to look agreeable. It’s important, she has found, for getting along in the world. A person’s intention can be misinterpreted by others at the slightest provocation and she so wants to have a peaceful life. That can be somewhat ensured if she always looks agreeable while hiding her true feelings.
A friend of hers who has been seeing a psychologist said – upon Anna telling her about her agreeable tendencies – ‘But don’t you just want tobe yourself?’ Being oneself was the psychologist’s favourite thing to talk about, Anna knew, because the friend mentioned it regularly.
‘Iambeing myself,’ she protested. ‘Being myself means living in a way that doesn’t upset other people.’
The friend huffed at that as if she’d said something ridiculous, muttered about how Gloria Steinem didn’t wear skivvies just so Anna could spend her life appeasing others, and changed the subject to the Royal Family.
So Anna stays true to herself as Josie first washes her hair then starts cutting, and again when Trudy takes over to do the layers while Josie watches. She smiles vaguely even as she feels like a caged specimen, and when Trudy blow-dries her hair despite saying blow-drying wouldn’t be needed. Or maybe it’s not needed outside of the salon. Anna will have to check.
She loses herself, though, when Trudy turns her around and shows her the hairdo, in that she veers dramatically away from appeasement toward expressing happiness. Because in front of her is a woman she doesn’t recognise but who looks ten times more interesting and glamorous than the one who walked into the Seaside Salon.
‘Trudy!’ she squeals. ‘Josie!’
Trudy nods and smiles like a proud parent. ‘Good, hey?’ she says.
‘I can’t – I don’t – I …’ Anna gulps down a breath. ‘How?’
‘It’s the magic of a good cut, pet. It’s all about the lines and the angles. Josie has the talent’ – she taps the side of her nose – ‘and she is learning fast how to work with it. I knew she’d do the right thing. All I had to do was make sure my cut worked with hers.’ She pats Anna’s shoulders. ‘So,’ she says, ‘wash it, condition it, let it air dry, okay? It’ll fall into shape. And if you want something extra, come in for a blowy, all right?’
‘Something extra?’
Trudy fluffs her ends. ‘Like for a date.’
Anna’s brain goes to Gary standing at her door with flowers and hopefulness. No, he doesn’t deserve the blowy.
‘I, ah … probably not!’ She attempts a laugh.
‘Righto. Whatever you say.’
Anna pays Trudy for her cut and Ingrid’s blow-dry then grins as she walks toward her mother, who is gazing at her as if she’s the most beautiful girl alive.
‘Stunning,’ Ingrid says. ‘You look wonderful. You look … like yourself.’
Anna’s breath catches and she feels like crying, which is so weird – except what Ingrid said is what Anna also thought when she looked in the mirror. All this time she believed she was just being herself when it turns out it was a facsimile of her. Maybe. She’ll find out for sure once she gets used to this hairstyle.
As they leave the salon Ingrid turns to her and says, ‘Let’s have a coffee to celebrate my daughter coming back to me.’
Again Anna is surprised, but this time it’s because she didn’t realise a hairstyle could have that much power. Except if it couldn’t, why would Ingrid come here every week?
This is something she plans to ponder as she waits for her hair to dry tomorrow morning.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Trudy doesn’t often leave the salon for lunch. It’s her morning, noon and sometimes her night, that place, because that’s what happens when you run a small business – so why would she leave the premises to go … where? To the hamburger place on the corner? The ice-cream shop in the other direction? The sandwich shop near the beach? She brings her lunch from home and that means the back room at the salon is usually just fine.
Today, however, she feels the need for the sun on her face. It’s winter sun, so it’s not going to hit her like a blast furnace, and she’ll be able to sit by the water while she eats her curried egg sandwich and tries not to think.
It occurred to her recently that thinking a lot is a problem. If she starts thinking, her thoughts are bound to turn to Laurie, then she’s off down not so much memory lane as maudlin motorway, remembering all the reasons why she misses him so much. And that motorway can be about ten lanes wide and seem to lead inexorably to a destination she can’t name and suspects she doesn’t want to reach, because every time she’s on it she experiences dread. It’s the dread she wants to avoid, because she’s feeling it settle in her bones, in her blood, in her tissues. Whether it’s the dread of being without Laurie forever or of someday forgetting what it was like to be married to him, she doesn’t know. But regardless, she doesn’t like it.
Sunshine is life’s great disinfectant, as her mother used to say, so it seems like her solution today. Along with sea air. Who doesn’t like a good sniff of the salt?
