Trimming the Blue Hairs

By Cristin Frank

Ella Boyce doesn't know it, but she is one, hot cosmetologist at the top of her game. Wait, she does know it. In fact, that's all she knows until she lowers herself to wash and style an undesirable client: her neighbor that is three times her age and equally as lonely. The one-hour ordeal manifests Ella's disposable life, forcing her to pull away from a trendy salon to pursue a not so glamorous business: in-home stylist for the elderly. What starts as a boob drooping, nail chipping undertaking, escalates to a growing need for one another. Ella gains stability and a grown-up romance through a generation she once ignored. Her clients find relief in her energy and entertainment as their health declines and choices dwindle.

Experience the laughter and heartache as life's ugly truths unravel Ella's snobbery while challenging her balance of family, friendship and career.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 29, 2008
• ISBN: 9780595606849

Cristin Frank

Cristin Frank?s debut novel exhibits her humorous and heart-felt experiences with the elderly. She continues to type away in Williamsville, NY, where she lives with her husband and two sons.

Book preview

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

To those who fought, taught and laughed until the end.

Chapter 1

The newspaper ad read, burgundy exterior and tan interior. The dealership was about to close for the night but I had made up my mind that I wanted that used Jetta even though my trusted Cavalier was two years newer. The salesman jumped in and I promised him if he taught me to drive it, I’d buy it. In the test drive, I scored some quick lessons in manual transmission. Moments later I was signing the papers and handing over my Cavalier keys. I knew I wasn’t getting a fair deal but if I had wanted a fair deal, I would have brought my father. And if my father knew what I was doing at that moment, I would not have been there.

I drove home in the dark, bubbling with excitement and concentrating on my hand-eye-foot coordination. The bubbling continued until I got to my street and thought about my apartment keys dangling from the key ring I handed the green-eyed salesman. My thoughts trailed to Frank, the legally blind maintenance man in my four-flat whom I had to wake to unlock my door, again.

The first time he had to unlock my door was after my keys had drowned in Lake Erie during a Fourth of July party a few months prior.

I thought, at least this time I wouldn’t be standing there in a bikini. But there I was again, staring into his coke bottles asking him to unlock my door. My eyes angled no lower than his white undershirt, though over his shoulder I noticed that his TV was off and the apartment was mostly dark.

Guilt ridden at my impulsiveness, I watched Frank reach in and unscrew the security chain that kept the door from opening more than three inches. Sweating with anxiety and guilt, I blurted out, Frank, if you ever need a haircut, I’d be happy to cut your hair for you. At the time, I only said it because I felt helplessly guilty for inconveniencing an old, sleeping blind man. After I said it I thought logically about a blind man going to get his haircut. I had never even seen Frank leave his apartment and knew he couldn’t drive. I imagined him at the barber, telling him to cut it short on the sides and leave a little length on top to cover the thin spots. When he was done, Frank would have to feel all over his head to know if the barber had done a good job. Then, when he opened his wallet, he’d have to hope that he was pulling out a ten and a couple ones and not twenties.

The chain swung free, detached from the wall. My tension instantly lifted. Frank mumbled, I’ll take a rain check on the haircut. His response was ambiguous and now that the door was open, I’d almost forgotten what I had suggested.

I half-heartedly said, okay, and slipped inside to reflect on my exciting purchase.

My apartment was a stark and quiet, cold welcome. Out of the blue, my ex-boyfriend called. He was no one I cared for but I couldn’t wait to tell him I had just bought a Jetta. His only response was, Did you get a raise? What a buzz-kill! Knowing I had to go back to the dealership to get my apartment keys, I thought it best that I get my Cavalier, too.

Being a hairdresser, I was use to my irrational craziness with effortful consequences.

* * * *

Before I could return the car the next morning, someone was knocking on my interior door. I opened it to hear, What’s his face just said you were going to cut his hair. It was Bee, the widow who lived in the flat next to me.

If ever I thought it was she at the door, I tried not to answer. But I was still thinking about negotiating for my Cavalier back and not the horrible smell that was let into my apartment every time I opened the door for her.

After the first time I let Bee’s stink in, I had to stock up on potpourri warmers and Glade Plug-ins. Not only would I get the stale odor, I’d have to run small errands for her. Usually it was just a box or two of Carnation Instant Breakfast. Then it grew to instant coffee in her favorite flavor, CAP-YOU-CHANNO MUCHA. Then there was a sale at K-mart where she wanted a table and set of chairs. First, I listened to a lengthy dissertation on how all the furniture those days was made of oak. Bee had long been searching for a cherry table to go with the cherry salt and pepper shakers she had gotten as a shower gift, who knows when. That request led to a solo trip to K-mart in the dark, after work, to get the table and chairs. The set came unassembled. Bee suggested that Frank should assemble them for me.

That morning, in went ripe body odor and a request for a wash and cut.

* * * *

I had my friend Bindi drive me back to the dealership later that day, after finding out quickly that it’s not as easy to drive a stick in traffic. She shamefully waited outside as I went to the desk and requested the gentleman who sold me the car the previous night. I briefly explained that I had changed my mind and would like my Cavalier back. He had to go back to his cube to call the manager. Once behind the felt-covered partition, I heard him say, She’s here.

From the other side of the showroom I heard, See if she’s interested in leasing the green one. Having been privy to their game plan, I had a moment to think and react. Instead of rehearsing an elaborate work of drama, all I could think of was Bee’s hair. I was apprehensive of not only touching her hair, but just entering her apartment. All the times I delivered her miscellaneous groceries, I had never crossed the threshold. I knew her husband had passed away some years earlier. I only had hoped it was in the hospital and not on the couch.

Frichette’s, the salon where I was a senior stylist, had blonde wood floors, skinny girls and flamboyantly gay men dressed in black, listening to Limp Bizkit pumped through the Bose system. My salon specialty was chunky highlights and the latest Rachel Green hairstyle on trendy teens with huge disposable incomes. A boobless woman with poor hygiene was way outer-limits.

The salesman reappeared. Grabbing my visual attention, he walked towards the green Jetta in the showroom. Is my Cavalier still here? I asked as if I were challenging him to lie to me.

… Yes, he replied after a brief pause.

Well, I’ll take that then, I said curtly. He walked away and returned with my keys. I kept may face stern as if justice had been served, but inside I was hi-fiving.

Afterwards, Bindi and I drove to the salon together. She was still laughing about the whole car ordeal. I was still bent out of shape about offering to cut Frank and Bee’s hair. I wanted to share my misery with her but thought it would only add to her entertainment.

In the few minutes before my first client would arrive, I usually filed my nails, flipped through a magazine or downed a hazelnut coffee. That day, I inconspicuously looked through the salon’s brochure of services to see the senior citizens discount rate for a wash, cut and set. The brochure was of no help. Had a senior citizen ever walked through the doors, they would have been so full of Botox and their saddlebags concealed in Juicy Couture that no one would dare guess their age. I contemplated charging Bee a hundred dollars just so she’d never ask me for a haircut again.

With price lists laid out in front of me, I sat back in my chair thinking of this uncalled-for punishment. Then it dawned on me that it may not be a punishment so much as penance for an act I pulled in high school, infamously remembered as Skipping Sperra.

I grew up in a conservative family and attended Catholic school K-12. My high school was all girls. I started out over-zealous to be a do-gooder and graduated touting, Carpe Diem.

My parents encouraged me to join school activities to avoid being branded a snob or a slacker. After browsing through the school’s extra-curricular activities, I came across Service Club. Just the sound of it assured me a few things: a. I’d get in without a hassle, b. I could alleviate Catholic guilt, and c. I’d be the coolest girl in the group. The only challenge was coaxing my best friend Sarah to join me. I, too, reminded her of the three important guarantees.

Sarah and I signed up for our first field trip to Sperra Orchards—what I thought was a beautiful retirement home for nuns. We went in our high school van that fit ten other service club members and a few moderators. It was a Sunday afternoon in the peak of fall in Western New York. At the start, I didn’t mind sacrificing half my weekend to retired nuns. Sarah and I joked around the whole ride up. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a prudent Junior pretend to kick Sarah in the back of the head, annoyed at our inconsideration of the close quarters. I didn’t care though; I was having fun.

When we arrived at Sperra, that all changed. The halls were uninviting; much like an abandoned school and the smell of urine was prevalent. We hustled along into the cafeteria where many of the nuns were congregating. The glazed, stone room was wall-to-wall wheelchairs and walkers. A moderator pointed out one nun in particular, who used to be a principal. She sat before me in a wheelchair, dressed in heavy white stockings with her head tilted towards her shoulder. What I never forgot was her hair. What was left of it had been pulled up to the top of her head and tied in a small pigtail. It looked as though she was bald over most of her head besides the sprig on top. It was so odd and all I could think was, why did her caretakers fashion her hair after that of a Sumo wrestler?

Possibly due to our behavior in the van ride up, Sarah and I were not invited to play BINGO in the cafeteria. Instead, we were asked to feed a nun in a nearby room. I entered the room alone while Sarah went to get the old nun’s meal. She was lying in a hospital bed, partially propped up with pillows. I greeted her with a hesitant hello.

The nun responded with, slippers, please. Thinking she must be cold, I looked around quickly for her slippers. Near a small bookshelf, sat a pair of worn, terrycloth slippers. I grabbed them and brought them over to the end of the bed. Gingerly, I lifted the blankets off of her feet so I could stick the slippers over her veiny, arthritic toes. She yelled, No! and my heart jumped. I bounced to the top of the bed and she reached out her hand. Giving her the slippers, they fell back into my quick hands. She whispered, You keep. Instead of just thanking her, I tried to rationalize that I was already wearing shoes, and she needed her slippers, and they weren’t my size, and blue looked great on her. Finally Sarah came in and asked why I was trying to feed the nun her own slippers. I dropped them and grabbed the mashed potatoes.

The ride home was quiet. I was exhausted and all I wanted to do was burn the clothes I was wearing.

The next month we were expected to go back to that hellhole. Over the phone on the morning of the trip, Sarah and I argued about not going. I told her we had to because my mom was planning on picking her up. I assured her we’d feel it out when we got to school.

My mom pulled up into the circular driveway in front of the school. I could see all the do-gooders loading up the van in the side lot. The piss and the pigtail came top of mind. Sarah took my lead and headed up to the front of the school, gleefully waving goodbye to my mother. We hid behind the front pillars of the school’s façade until the school van was out of sight.

I remember looking over at Sarah, hiding behind the pillar on the opposite side of the stone stairway. Impatient for them to leave, we nervously watched as they took off down Main Street past the front of the school.

We actually had to think about what we wanted to do next. The best I could come up with was walking down Main to our favorite hangout and then jumping on the subway to downtown. That turned out to be a bust since almost everything was closed on Sunday.

So we decided to go back to our unlocked school and have some innocent fun. We started by leaving anonymous notes for our favorite and not so favorite teachers. Then for the not so favorite teachers, we took all their chalk and erasers and stuffed them into the back of their podiums. Afterwards, we retired to the choir loft of the auditorium and tried out the different features of the organ. Fearing we may attract the attention of the nuns living in the cloister—a wing of the school on the same floor as the loft—we quit our shenanigans and called Sarah’s mom for a ride home.

Sarah’s mom never questioned why we were the only girls waiting to be picked up. We had passed our first level of cover.

When I got home, my father was in the driveway. My heart pounded and my stomach sank. I got out of the car and he called to me, I’m going to the store, do you want to come along? I welcomed the distraction.

It was after my father and I returned home that my mother answered the call from Sister Clement. I could hear her putting on this Sister Clement I am outraged, too speech. I braced myself for the guilt trip.

Sounding something like When I dropped you off, I took a moment to think what a wonderful daughter you are—how you are doing something so good for the community, it was pathetic and comical. I finally gave up some tears so she would stop; plus sentencing was always lighter when remorse was shown.

I was grounded for two weeks.

The next day at school, Sarah came in looking like crap. She was grounded for two months, and her make-up, nail polish and contact lenses were taken away. We sat in homeroom waiting for the announcements over the PA. There was a tap on the door and in walked the secretary from the main office. She handed a couple folded slips of paper to the homeroom teacher and mumbled, Ella Boyce and Sarah Gifford. I figured the rest of the class wasn’t on hyper-alert like I was and didn’t hear the secretary.

Sister Karen, our homeroom teacher, walked over to Sarah and handed her a notice. What felt like an eternity later, she wobbled to my desk with a notice. Whether or not the rest of the class had heard our names mentioned moments earlier, everyone was now staring at us. I unfolded the paper that read, You are no longer a member of the Service Club. Do NOT show up for the yearbook photo. I irreverently started laughing.

Later that evening I stapled the notice into my journal and put the whole thing behind me … until I was faced with Bee. I looked my penance in the eye and reminisced about the smell of stale urine and elderly hairdos.

* * * *

Bee stood as tall as me; in her prime she must have been a big woman. Her nose was as thick as a pig’s snout but the rest of her skin just hung off her bones.

Hi, what’s your face, she said upon answering the door that evening. I shuffled in with my supply tote in hand and rollers propped under my arm. Her kitchen was harvest gold with crocheted butterflies randomly stuck to the wall. Glancing over to my right, I saw the table and chairs I had picked up for her at K-mart. For a blind guy, Frank had done a good job putting them together. On top were the old, cherry salt and pepper shakers with Christmas napkins wedged between them. I was a little curious since September wasn’t even half over yet.

Bee, are you getting ready for Christmas already? I asked.

Oh no, what’s your face, Frank used to be Santa Clause. It’s my favorite time of year.

Bee completely confused me. Frank? I gestured towards the ceiling, pointing to Frank’s apartment above.

No, my husband Frank. He used to dress up as Santa every year at parties. Kids and adults would all get their picture taken on his lap. Oh, it was so much fun. Bee stumbled over to the broom closet to pull out a photo album.

For the next hour I looked at discolored photos of little girls with Dorothy Hamill haircuts and drunken adults sitting on her husband’s lap. The time passed quickly as Bee interjected with stories of her and Frank.

It was a cliché romance. She was a mid-west truck stop waitress and he was a trucker. They didn’t meet until she was in her late 30’s and he in his mid 40’s. Bee noted that by the time they were married, it was too late for them to have children.

Learning that she didn’t have children, hadn’t grown up in this area, and her husband was deceased, I concluded that she must be totally alone. All these faces in the album were just passersby.

As I did her hair that night, I looked down at her worn face and thought about the life she once had. It probably wasn’t that different from mine—serving people in a disposable manner.

Bee was the first customer with whom I had shared a personal exchange.

I pulled out a small mirror so that she could see her ‘do. I’ll never forget her smile reflecting back at me. Her hair was a far improvement from the usual look she fashioned—bed head with a pink foam curler dangling from each sideburn.

Quickly I packed up my supplies, making no mention of money. It was Bee who said, What’s your face, how much do I owe you?

Oh nothing Bee, you deserve it, I replied. She insisted. And I insisted back.

But I want you to come back again. She sounded like a lost puppy and I was the only one who could hear her whimper.

Bee, I’ll give you a wash and set next week. You can pay me then. I stopped my words when I opened the narrow closet door, getting the broom and dustpan to clean up the hair that was sprinkled on the cracked linoleum floor. Inside was an entire shelf of old photo albums. I imagined that they were all filled with Santa Clause pictures and the following week I’d be flipping through another one. Honestly, it wasn’t so bad.

I have off on Thursday, I’ll come by after dinner.

* * * *

A week of fun and philandering blew past and I was back at Bee’s door. On the kitchen table she had an old picture album and two tall glasses of iced tea. We were experiencing a dash of Indian summer and I appreciated the refreshment. The only drawback was the sleeveless housedress Bee was wearing, which exposed her wrinkle vortex armpit every time she lifted her glass. I was staring at her pit and blindly flipping through the album. When I glanced back to the album, there she was, getting into a 1970 Nova. It was funny to see a senior citizen getting into a car that gear-heads and hot-rodders would cruise around in. I let a laugh out under my breath.

In response to my acknowledgement of the picture, Bee said, That’s me coming home from my road test. Her snout nose made it obvious that it was she; it was the road test comment that threw me off. I briefly imagined her trying to qualify for drag racing or a similar sport.

What kind of a road test, Bee? I asked, dying to hear some wild tale.

A driver’s license road test. What else is there? Bee responded matter-of-factly.

You took your road test … I trailed off scrambling for words other than, when you were an old bag?

You took your road test in a ’70’s Nova? I somewhat saved myself but hadn’t asked the question I wanted to.

That was Frank’s car. He bought it a few years before he became ill.

Is that why you got your license then? I hated to pry, fearing she’d be crying on my shoulder, but I was compelled to ask. She had baited me.

Oh, Frank and I went everywhere together. We had the same friends, liked the same movies, ate at the same restaurants, bought groceries together. I had gotten the point. Bee continued, We would drive for the fun of it some nights, getting ice cream or coffee. I never needed to drive until he became sick.

Bee said soberly, I was sixty-eight when I got my license. I took him to every doctor’s appointment for nine years. Eight years had passed since Frank died.

Do you still drive that old Nova around? It was a stupid and pointless question since I knew she didn’t have a car. Though it was my only hope to slightly change the subject.

No, we bought a Buick in Frank’s final years. The plush seats were more comfortable for him and the smaller doors were easier for me to manage. In those pictures, Frank was a large man; I suspected there wasn’t any padding in his Santa suit. I pictured Bee in her seventies trying to stuff her aging husband into their boxy Buick.

The conversation was a real downer, so I moved on to washing her hair. Her arms had weakened to the point that she couldn’t massage the shampoo into her head anymore. As I thought about her spending years only rinsing her hair in the shower, she reminisced about the coconut smell from the shampoo I was using. I avoided any further talk of her younger years that night. Staying just long enough to see her smile again in my little, pink mirror, I was brisk with my departure. As I made my way to the door, Bee got up from her kitchen chair. I turned around quickly to tell her to sit and finish her iced tea. She stood with a folded twenty-dollar bill in her hand.

What’s your face, don’t forget your money this week. Bee tried to force the money into my left hand, which was gripping my supply tote. I was so morbidly depressed by her life that I couldn’t possibly take her money.

No Bee, it’s okay, really. My words reminded me of listening to my mom and aunt bicker about not letting one or the other pay for lunch when they went out together. I’m paying … No, I’ve got it … No, I insist … I always found the back and forth annoying and nauseating. Then I saw the old nun’s terrycloth slippers in my face again.

Holding back tears of guilt and heavyheartedness, I graciously accepted. Thank you Bee, I was happy to spend time with you.

I went to bed that night feeling lonely myself. Like Bee, I’d only accumulated expendable friends. Except, I didn’t have volumes of happy memories to pore over in my golden years.

Chapter 2

The morning after my first appointment with Bee I felt energized that I had taken my God-given talent and actually helped someone who deserved it. I was determined to set a new path, create a life worthy of reflection and fill it with loving souls.

Skipping into the salon that morning, I was anxious to get to know people beyond the hairstyle or hair color they wanted to try out. I wanted to recreate the experience I had with Bee the night before.

My first client was a high school senior getting ready for a big party that night. She came along with her friend. I asked them about the party and what