Split Ends

by Kristin Billerbeck

  Next month I get a blue peel. Not sure what that is, but it sounds painful, and soon my skin should look like Barbie's. (Everyone’s skin here looks like they applied Vaseline. Apparently, being shiny and completely void of pores is a good thing—so much for our Noxema days!)

  Scott has a roommate. To-die-for hot—wears a Bogey hat! I want to bear his children. Do you know what it’s like to live down the hall from that kind of gorgeous? He’s a Christian too. Invited me to his church this week, but he doesn’t talk much. Can’t say I need him to; as long as I can gaze longingly, I’m good. It would be great if he was blind and I could just stare unencumbered. Oh, and you’ll never guess. He wears a suit. Don’t know what he does yet; his business card is weird. (Oh, he gave me his card so I could call him for a ride. Isn’t that sweet?)

  The salon is fancy and weird. No one talks to each other without sneaking around, and today wasn’t even a “working” day. It was a teaching day. It’s a “team salon,” meaning basically that it’s communism with Yoshi as our fearless leader. Too warped, but if I get to cut hair like him, it will all be worth it. The stylists make good money, though they spend a lot on upkeep for themselves (clothes, accessories, apartments), and any one of them is better than what we saw at the hair show that time (except the guy who cut my hair—think that was a test). Gotta run. Kiss Ryan for me, you loser.

  Love, Me.

  P.S. Saw the ocean from the plane, that’s it. More later.

  The good mood is not to last. The next morning as we exit the elevator, Alexa is standing there in long, lean jeans and a flowing shirt in aqua, which only makes her eyes seem that much more hypnotic. She locks onto Scott and her eyes turn pleading. I think about pushing the Close elevator button and just disappearing from the scene, but if I know my cousin, he’d just leave me here to find my way to Yoshi’s. To teach me another lesson.

  “Please, Scott, just hear me out.” She tries to take his hand, but he won’t touch her. “We can talk about this.”

  Scott won’t look at her and tries to walk around her as if she is a mere figment of his imagination. She stands in front of him, placing her hands on his elbows, and tries to force his gaze to her, but he doesn’t relent.

  “Go away, Alexa.”

  “You owe me at least a good-bye, don’t you think? Even if you can’t forgive me.”

  “I don’t owe you anything and you know it.” Again he tries to get past her, and she fumbles to retain control of him. He finally gets around her, thankfully, before he pushes her. I’m numb with culture shock. I feel like I’m in the middle of a Dynasty rerun, and with a dash of guilt, I see that such scenes are anything but entertaining.

  “Scott, if you want to call this off, be a man and say so! Take your ring back. Make a stand!” Alexa screeches, and I can see this hits Scott between the eyes. At the rise in her voice, I’m not sure where to run. Scott’s car is locked, or I’d gladly hide from the turmoil, but the truth is neither one seems to care that I’m here.

  “You want me to be a man, Alexa? You never gave me the chance, did you? Just decided you always knew what I wanted without ever asking me.”

  “I made a mistake, Scott. People make mistakes!”

  He stops and looks back at her, his eyes steely and cold as ice. “You’re right, Alexa, people do make mistakes. And if I could forgive you, I would.”

  He chirps his car open and I run for it.

  “This is it, Scott. I’m not waiting around for you forever. If this is the way you choose to end this, it's something you have to live with.” She’s got her fists on her hips with one long leg outstretched. She means it. Everything about her body language says so.

  “I’m good with that.” Scott gets into the car, and Alexa stands in front of it, somehow looking both sexy and pathetic. That’s an art. Scott opens the window to her. “ Before you go placing the blame on me, I think you might want to do some soul-searching about who really said good-bye.” Then he pushes the button to roll the window up shutting her words out one at a time.

  “Scott, can’t you just talk to her? Hear her out?”

  “Never mind, Sarah Claire.”

  My heart is pounding, and I can’t bear to leave Alexa here like this, broken. “Why did you make her think you’d marry her if you wouldn’t? No woman wants to be a man’s courtesan forever. You’ve turned into one of my mother’s men!” I cross my arms and close my eyes rather than look at Alexa’s broken spirit.

  “I did ask her to marry me! You said you saw the ring.”

  “What are you so afraid of, Scott? She loves you, and it's obvious you’re not over her. Do you want to end up like my mom and your dad? Who even came to your dad’s funeral, Scott? Is that how you want to end up? With no one to love you or look after you when you get old? Not ever having someone you can trust?”

  His current coldhearted, distant demeanor aside, I know Scott has a heart. He was always the one who took care of me when Cindy picked on me, or when the kids made fun of my shoddy clothes. Now he looks at me with the first true emotion I’ve seen from him since I’ve been in California, and it’s hard to watch.

  “I’ve always been loyal to you, Sarah Claire.” His voice breaks slightly. “Can’t you give me the same respect?”

  I feel my eyes sting. Scott turns the ignition, and slowly Alexa steps out of the way and begins to walk backward, never taking her eyes off of Scott (and never looking remotely disheveled). It makes me sick to my stomach, watching her stand there, her arms hanging at her side, long and lifeless, like a rag doll’s. There’s not a woman alive who hasn’t felt like she does right now, and her beauty didn’t protect her.

  We drive out of the garage. I look back to see Alexa get into her Mercedes and slam the door, and I hear myself let out a small sob for her. No one deserves that kind of treatment. No one.

  But Scott is biting his lower lip, and to his credit, it’s trembling. He is not heartless.

  I wish for Alexa’s sake I could give her back her future with Scott, and most of all the part of her heart that Scott will always have. I pray silently for both of them, wondering if there’s anything more I could have done. We ride in complete silence until we’re at Yoshi’s doorstep.

  “Don’t be upset all day,” Scott says as I open the door.

  “Why can’t you just break up with her, Scott? Take the ring back and put an end to it.”

  “It’s complicated, Sarah. I owe her something.”

  “You owe letting her go.”

  He nods. “I probably do, but I can’t do it. Not yet. There’s some things I have to work through, all right?”

  “Please come with me to find a church this weekend.”

  He laughs. “You and Dane, you think your God is going to solve everything, don’t you? I took Dane’s advice once before. I asked Alexa to marry me, and look where it got me.” He snorts and rubs his fingers and thumb together. “Money you can always count on. An invisible God, not so much. I’ll call you at six and let you know if I can pick you up.”

  “Dane told you to marry her?”

  “Go. You’re going to be late.”

  I shut the door, feeling as though I’ve lived an entire day already. But I refocus. I have to. Right now, a man named Yoshi holds my future in his sought-after fingers.

  chapter 9

  Getting ahead in a difficult profession requires

  avid faith in yourself. That is why some people with

  mediocre talent, but with great inner drive, go so much

  further than people with vastly superior talent.

  ~ Sophia Loren

  Two weeks. Eight hundred and forty-nine dollars in clothing. And I still have yet to touch a head of real hair. Unless you count “Strawberry,” my new best friend and head from the Yoshi School of Beauty. Luckily, we start shampooing today, so I’ll have real contact with something besides the espresso machine. Yoshi sort of fudged the truth with shampooing being the first order of business. It’s actually “accounting,” as in keeping
a careful accounting of all the Yoshi product you sell and learning how to make clients feel as though their hair will wither away without it.

  To sum it up, I am a grunt. As in “Grunt: one who does routine unglamorous work—often used attributively .”

  It’s official. I have flown across three states and left my mother to fend for herself for the highly glamorous job of being a well-dressed coffee runner at a Beverly Hills salon. I can hear Cindy cackling now in her expansive digs. She’s probably right now getting a pedicure, at the new salon that just opened up, and she’s wondering what happened to little Sarah Claire who used to cut hair. She’s laughing her rhyme right now. I can hear it echoing across the Grand Tetons.

  Today I’m currently walking into the local coffee shop because I’m going to find out what makes people drink this rotgut and why I must smell like java everyday. For this experiment, I refuse to make the coffee myself, because the service has to be a part of the experience.

  Inside the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf there seems to be some sort of system that I’m ignorant of. People are divided into distinct milling groups. A gal comes in behind me and heads straight for the proper line. I know I’m going to be one of those people who has to stare at the menu for an eternity. Like the people who tick me off at McDonald’s: Get the hamburger and fries and let’s move on! Back at the shop, I could suggest the appropriate drink for a person’s mood, but I’m clueless as to what I’ll actually order now that someone is going to serve me.

  There’s clearly a line for ordering and another more loosely connected line of people waiting until the coffee gal calls something out. Then they zap to life as though they’ve been hit with a stun gun.

  “You in line?”

  I turn around, and of all things, it’s my one friend in California: Hollywood trainer to the stars and girl wimp, Nick Harper. Granted, he thinks I’m a crazy woman who sobs over Cary Grant’s star and has a Fatal Attraction stalker, but then again, I think he’s a muscular wuss, so I guess we’re even.

  I nod and smile. “I’m in line. I’m going to get a coffee.” Brilliant.

  “Sarah, right?”

  “Yeah.” I turn back around. He remembers my name.

  “Did you get home all right? I was worried about you.”

  I could tell. I mean, running into the gym for safety— that just screams “I’m so concerned about you.”

  “I did. That was my cousin’s fiancée. She thought . . . well, never mind. It was a misunderstanding. We worked it out and had dinner together.”

  “Your cousin,” he says slowly, like he doesn’t believe me. But soon after his eyes brighten, which seems to signal a renewed interest in our friendship. Albeit a little late. Although he’s very good-looking, he’s pretty-boy Hollywood good-looking, which does nothing for me. I like them intellectual, and call me odd, but men who are willing to use gel in their hair for that proper bed-head look turn me off. It doesn’t help that I have to interact with my ideal every day. Or that said ideal has been called out of the country on business and I haven’t seen him in a few days. And you know what they say about absence and the heart. No, none of that helps.

  “I live with my cousin. Well, and his short-term roommate, but there’s nothing—” I slice my hand through the air. “—nothing going on.”

  He laughs. “Who are you trying to convince of that?”

  I’m so obvious. “It’s your turn.” He points to the cash register, where a perky young woman is ready to help me. Shoot, I didn’t study the menu. Nick distracted me!

  “Good morning. What can we make for you today?”

  All I can think about is Nick standing behind me, ready and willing to judge me by said order. Just like that poor girl who hired him to run behind her. “I’d like a good starter coffee. Espresso, I mean.” I lower my voice. “Something for people who don’t really drink it. Um, let me think . . .” I put a finger to my chin.

  “How about one of our Carmel Ice Blended Drinks or an Extreme Ultimate Ice Blended Mocha Drink?”

  I make the mistake of turning around and seeing Nick shake his head.

  “Way too much fat.”

  “But I like fat, and I don’t hire people to run behind me.”

  “Everyone likes fat until they have to work with me to get rid of it. It’s painful. Are those fat calories worth the pain of burning it off? Are they worth visible panty lines?”

  “Ew. But no.” I’m a 4. And I feel fat here, so I’m going to give Nick the benefit of the doubt on this one, but only because he’s here. I’m not getting into the eating-disorder-of-the-week club.

  The sighs from behind me are becoming apparent and it’s clear the patience for the espresso-impaired is extremely low before the first morning cup of java. Mental note: experiment with new things apart from rush hour.

  “I’ll just wait,” I say and pull away from the counter only to see the line is now ten people long. I know I didn’t take that long.

  “You don’t drink coffee?” Nick asks me.

  I shrug. “Never got started on it. Not the hard stuff anyway. Someone told me to try—oh, there it is! A vanilla latte, please.”

  “Sugar-free, non-fat,” Nick corrects. The gal rings it up as though it is not my cash paying for it, and I want sugar and fat.

  “Iced or hot?”

  Another momentary brain malfunction. “Iced.” I mean, it’s not like it’s twenty-below here in Southern California. Ever.

  She then calls out a string of words that I suppose is my order. The really sad thing is that I could name most any alcoholic beverage without thinking twice about the ingredients. Not that we don’t have Starbucks in Wyoming.It's just that they are where the tourists go—not Sable. The locals in Sable all go to Milly’s if they want coffee, disdaining corporate coffee and the tourists. If they want to pay three dollars or more for a drink, they go to the Hideaway and made sure they take away a buzz for their troubles.

  My drink is ready quickly, as I think I held up the line.

  “A tall, black coffee, no room,” Nick says.

  “It was good to see you,” I call to him with a wave at the door.

  “Wait a minute.” He pulls a few bills out of his wallet and tosses them at the cashier. “Keep the change.” He jogs over to me. “You can’t keep me in suspense. I want to be here for the big moment when you get your first taste.” He watches me intently.

  I place a straw in the cup. Well, I try. I have trouble finding the hole and lose a good portion of my drink onto the top of the cup. I finally start to take a swig, but Nick pulls the cup out of my hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  He puts both cups on a nearby table and points down. “You’re wearing it.” Taking a napkin, he starts to pat at my thigh, where a drizzle has fallen onto the slacks Scott lent me.

  Um, excuse me. I step away from him and his probing napkin. Then I look down. Shoot! I grab the napkin myself and start dabbing. Scott’s going to kill me. Luckily, the pants are black. But still . . . Good grief, I just want to cut hair.

  Finally, I give up and sigh. “I have to go back to work. Nice to see you, Nick.”

  “I’m still waiting for you to drink that.” He nods toward my icy cup as though I’m about to have an out-of-body experience.

  Grabbing the cup, I sip then nod my head, disgusted by the bitter taste. “It’s strong.”

  “It’s straight fake sugar. Stick with the coffee. Want to try the real stuff?” He holds his coffee out toward me. “No calories as long as you don’t add cream and sugar.”

  “Thanks, but I have to get back to the salon. I just wanted to see what I’ve been serving . . . I mean missing.”

  “No, really, I don’t mind.”

  I take a swig so he’ll go away. “Mmm, yes. Still disgusting.”

  “You have shoes on today. Your hygiene looks pretty good. I’d lay real odds you actually took a shower since I’ve seen you. Are there any more stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame you’ve become attr
acted to? You know, people volunteer to keep them clean. Maybe you should volunteer for Cary’s.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind, thanks.” I’m sure Nick is charming in some form. “Good to run into you. I don’t think I’ll be doing so in the future, since I’m going to stick with Diet Coke.”

  “It’s an acquired taste,” Nick says. “You’ll be hooked in no time.”

  “As in acquiring a complete lack of functioning taste buds? I think that stuff must kill them, like sniffing too much weed killer, you know?”

  “So I won’t see you here tomorrow is what you’re saying?”

  I shake my head. “I’m thinking not.”

  “Then I guess this is my one shot to ask you out. I would have done so when we first met, but the whole living-with-a-guy, psycho-ex-girlfriend thing just seemed like something I didn’t want to take on. I may be in shape, but I don’t have a death wish either. Today, it’s a different story.”

  Okay, but to me, the story today is that you ran like a little girl into your bat cave, and I’m looking for a man who will cross time for me. I’m used to guys who have ridden bulls or at least broken a horse or two, so a guy who leaves me on the street with a psycho woman so he won’t get his hands dirty . . . ? Not exactly on my list of sexiest men alive.

  “So, dinner?” he asks again. “How’s Friday night?”

  No. Just say no. No need to be nice. You’ll never see him again.

  “Sure, that would be great,” I hear myself say. I am so lame.

  “Great. You want to meet me at the gym around seven? I have a business card today.”

  No, I don’t want to meet you at the gym. I want you to come get me, like a proper date. Does he want me to come take a look at his abs before we go?

  “You know, I’d better call you that afternoon, just to make sure things are going well at work. I’m still not sure about my schedule at this point, and I really have no way to get to your gym.”

  “So you want me to pick you up?”

  “Isn’t that generally how it’s done?”

  “Oh, of course. I just thought it was convenient for you. It’s just two miles up the road.”