Beyond the Blonde by Kathleen Flynn-Hui

Author:Kathleen Flynn-Hui [FLYNN-HUI, KATHLEEN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9780446543767
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2008-06-02T04:00:00+00:00

DOREEN HUNG OUT in the salon for the rest of the afternoon, partly because she was afraid to wander the city by herself and partly because she was enjoying the whole scene—particularly watching me. I didn’t mind, not at all. I had grown up as a colorist under Doreen, feeling her eyes on me all the time, watching, weighing, making sure I got it right. Being under that constant scrutiny probably had something to do with my success at Jean-Luc. You had to be comfortable being watched if you were to survive there. Everyone watched everyone all the time, and not necessarily in a nice way. It was all about comparison and envy, and it was an art, really, to do it subtly, without being noticed in the dozens and dozens of mirrors that reflected, relentlessly, everything going on.

But Doreen’s gaze was soft, generous. Even with her harsh new hairdo, she looked like a misplaced angel, sitting there on the banquette, clutching her woefully unfashionable nylon handbag in her lap. Doreen, I saw, had not been offered a plastic bag—which was a good thing, because she would have laughed out loud.

I was able to keep an eye on her now that she was finished having done to her all that could possibly be done to a woman in the name of beauty. She watched, amused, as clients passed through the salon. It was an okay day for people watching: Susan Sarandon had been in to see Faith, along with a few other recognizable but not hugely famous actresses, like the one who was married to Richard Gere. A supermodel who was a member of the British royal family sat on the banquette in her vintage Levi’s and skinny tank top, a shock of boyish brown hair falling over her forehead. And then, of course, there was the usual bunch of New York media power elite. Lynn Mendelson, the formidable Hollywood publicist, teetered by on her four-inch heels. She had once told me that publicists simply had to be taller than their clients. The curly brown head of her teacup poodle poked from the top of her briefcase.

To top it all off, there were three unruly little boys loose in the salon—their mother had brought them in for haircuts. They shrieked and yelled, their shirttails hanging below the blue blazers of their school uniforms. Their hair was so white blond that the pink of their scalps showed through. The mother, meanwhile, was getting her nails done, oblivious to the dirty looks she was getting from all the women who were in the salon precisely to escape the sound of screaming children. But what could we do? At ninety dollars a haircut, Jean-Luc was not about to turn their business away.

“Can’t you do something about those brats?” one client hissed. I knew for a fact that she had three children of her own in boarding school.

“Which one is the mother?” another client asked, and she looked so irritated that I was afraid to tell her.

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