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"Sometimes, I swear, I feel just like Esther Williams."
" Hairdresser Channels Spirit of High-Diving Movie Star! " Emma Corbett, my closest friend, former sister-in-law and sometimes-weekday-coworker rattled the pages of the tabloid clutched in her manicured hands. Never one to do sarcasm lightly, she crossed her tanned legs, swiveled in her orange faux-leather chair and leaned in toward the open pages, pretending to read on. "Jolene Hadley Corbett, thirty-five, of Verbena, North Carolina - "
"Thirty-four and you know it." I snatched the paper from her and tossed it on the pile of reading material she always carted along wherever she went. Emma was always reading. The tabloids. Cosmopolitan. TV Guide . And Money magazine. Those, she figured, covered just about every angle of every issue that held any interest at all to her. Friend or not, if Emma were a swimming pool, she'd be 90 percent shallow end.
So, I suppose it shouldn't have surprised me that she didn't understand the heartfelt analogy I was trying to make here. "When I say I feel like Esther Williams I don't mean literally. I don't mean some old-time movie star."
"Really? Gosh, it just seemed to figure that you'd identify with a woman who did water ballet wearing a gold lamé girdle for a swimsuit, then rose up dry as a bone with a headpiece of flaming sparklers!" Her grin revealed more than her eerily over-white bleached teeth. Deep down, Emma held a grudging admiration for my driving work ethic and pursuit of perfection.
I think.
"Not that Esther Williams." I finished sweeping up the floor of my salon, set the broom against the wall and went to the front door to flip over the "Yes, We're Open. Walk-Ins Welcome!" sign. "Though I have to admit, it's hard not to envy someone who did most of her work under water, yet still managed to maintain that flawless movie-star-quality hair."
"Oh, will you shut up about hair for one minute?" She swiveled the chair around again and tried to fluff out her bangs by holding up a stick-straight black strand and rubbing it between her thumb and forefinger. "Holy shit, Jolie, you're a hairdresser by practical design, not by divine providence."
"I can't help it." I took the two steps from the door to my work station, yanked up a clean mascara comb and took the spot behind Emma's chair. For fine hair, bangs and wisps around the neck and face, you gotta use a mascara comb or a toothbrush. I've told her that roughly a gazillion times but she never listens. I went to work on her hair, silently plucking out the few gray strays I found as I went along. "I feel like I spend half my days in over my head - "
"You spend half your days under water?"
"Not under water. In over my head . In something just as hard on a woman's looks - real life!" I paused in the work and did a quick check for dark circles under my eyes. "And some days it takes all I can do to keep from looking like I got ready by licking my finger and sticking it into a wall socket."
"You always look great and you know it." Emma pushed at her temples for her daily do-I-need-a-facelift test.
I smacked away her hands with the comb. Then met her eyes in the mirror and smiled, sympathetically.
"Want me to do your hair now?" she asked.
I held a shudder in check and did her the courtesy of squinting into the mirror at my head of red curls.
"Kidding," she muttered. "Shit, sugar, there is not a hair out of place or a loose thread or a wrinkle to be found on you. There never is."
It was not vanity that made me agree with her, it was practicality. I held no illusions that I was any great beauty, but as the sole proprietor of The Combin' Holiday, Verbena, North Carolina's only real salon, I had a duty to keep up a certain level of good grooming. And Lord never let it be said that Jolie Hadley-Corbett ever shirked any of her duties!
So every day I crawl out of bed way too early and listen to motivational tapes while doing some Yoga mixed in with a few Jazz dance moves I learned growing up. I call the routine Motivate-Yo-Azz.
Practically nobody thinks that's funny but me, but I don't care, it helps me get down to it when the alarm goes off before 6 A.M. Then it's a shower, and a wash, blow dry and set - yes, every day - and then it's time to get my nine-year-old son, Dylan, up and around. One quick phone call to make sure my elderly grandmother, who lives two houses down, is still kicking - and that I'm out of her line of fire when she starts at it. Then it's packing lunches, checking to see who is working in the salon that day and how many appointments are on the books. Finally, a minute to make sure I haven't forgotten some detail of my son's life.
Soccer practice?
Check.
Science project?
Check.
Still my sweet, little baby boy?
Like hell!
He's nine, after all. He may have my freckles and innate sense of responsibility and his father's quick grin and longing to find out how far and how fast he can go in life, but Dylan is his own little man. Divorce and a dad who never settles down at one address long enough to get your letters or keeps a job long enough to afford child support, much less a stinking birthday present, will do that to a kid ...
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Love and a Bad Hair Day by Annie Flannigan Copyright © 2003 by Annie Flannigan
Excerpted by permission. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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