The Seven Steps to Closure

by Donna Joy Usher

  ‘So you’re really going to do this?’

  ‘What have I got to lose?’

  ‘True,’ said Dinah, nodding her head, ‘very, very true.’

  2

  The First Step to Closure - Get a New Hairdo

  I was sitting in the hairdressers, resembling a large wet rat and feeling no closer to obtaining closure. To make things worse, a huge billboard of Jake had been erected straight across the street from Funk Hair – which was Elaine’s brother Tristan’s hairdressing salon.

  ‘Yummy,’ Tristan had commented, rubbing his hands together when I pointed out the billboard to him and Elaine.

  Elaine had kindly responded by sliding one of the pot plants into the window, and positioning me with my back to the board. But if I bent down a little and peered into the mirror I could still see the side of his face, one of his legs and the words Jake Well….. yor. It was a little disturbing.

  Tristan is – of course – gay. He is much shorter than Elaine, and doesn’t look anything like her – probably due to the fact that they have different biological fathers. Elaine’s Dad died when she was quite young. She doesn’t remember him and considers Tristan’s Dad – a tidy looking Italian man – to be her father. Tristan has taken his father’s dark looks and combined them with their mother’s good looks and the results are quite stunning. A lot of the women who come to get their hair done at Funk Hair come to enjoy the scenery. Tristan hires a bevy of gay men and women, all of them desirable. He also won the ‘Australian Hairdresser of the Year’ award two years running, so the patrons are never disappointed when they leave the salon. It normally takes weeks to get an appointment at Funk Hair and months if you want to see Tristan. I was very lucky to be one of Elaine’s best friends.

  ‘Hmmmmmm,’ said Tristan thoughtfully, as he lifted my hair from my shoulders and held it around my face at different lengths.

  ‘Ahhhhhhhhh,’ said Tristan contemplatively, as he pulled my hair back behind my head and played with my fringe.

  ‘Uh huh,’ said Tristan decisively, as he looked at a colour chart and held different swatches of pigmented hair around my face.

  ‘I didn’t say anything about a colour change,’ I whispered urgently to Elaine, who was flipping through a magazine with Benny asleep on her lap.

  She held it up for me to see. ‘See this Tara?’ She pointed to the date. ‘A current magazine – you and Dinah should try it some time.’

  I stuck my tongue out at her.

  Meanwhile Tristan had stopped work and was staring at me in the mirror with one eyebrow raised.

  Uh oh.

  ‘Did you not ask Elaine to fix this appointment for you?’ he asked imperiously. (Have I mentioned that not only is Tristan gorgeous, but he is also a huge drama queen?) ‘Did you not beg her to get you in with me as fast as possible?’

  ‘Well actually,’ I said.

  ‘Shhhh,’ he responded, holding one finger up in the air. ‘You beg and you plead and now you insult the master.’

  ‘Oh no, no,’ I gushed, ‘no, it’s just that I’ve never coloured my hair before.’

  ‘Never?’ He held the back of one hand to his beautiful forehead as if about to swoon. When he had recovered he snapped, ‘Sebastian, Veronica, major hair emergency. I need you here now.’ And then he started pointing at the colour chart and very rapidly giving orders. I couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, and I was trying really, really hard because I was starting to feel a little panicked. What if I looked awful when he’d finished? What if he gave me a hairdo that, while nice on someone else – someone hip and chic and eighteen years old – did nothing for me at all? And then I would have to smile into the mirror, and I mean really smile. Smile so that it made it right to my eyes while I gushed about my hair – when all I really wanted to do was go home and spend hours staring at myself in the mirror willing myself to like it. Oh and worse, I would have to pretend to Elaine that I loved it. I would never be able to get rid of it. Christ what had I done?

  I was just contemplating ripping off the hairdressing sheet and legging it onto the street, when Elaine – obviously noting the look of sheer terror in my eyes – intervened.

  ‘Tara, look at me,’ she commanded. I met her green eyes in the mirror. ‘Good. Now breathe in and breathe out.’

  ‘Okey dokey, breathe.’ I breathed in and out while maintaining eye contact with her. Then I felt my eyes start to slide sideways, measuring the distance between my chair and the door.

  ‘LOOK AT ME!’ she commanded in a truly scary voice. ‘Right,’ she continued when she had my attention, ‘Repeat after me. It’s just a new hairdo, not a life sentence in jail.’

  ‘It’s just a new hairdo, not a life sentence in jail,’ I repeated robotically.

  She made me repeat it a few more times until the words penetrated my thick skull and I started to relax.

  ‘Veronica,’ she called out, ‘we’re going to need some of the bubbly stuff over here.’

  ‘Ohhh goody, bubbly stuff. I really like bubbly stuff,’ I heard myself garble. ‘Ughh Elaine, by bubbly stuff you mean champers, and not shampoo right?’ (I had once had my mouth washed out with shampoo for swearing at Lily – an experience I would prefer never to repeat.)

  Veronica answered my question by arriving with two flutes of champagne. At that precise moment Dinah and Nat both entered the studio.

  ‘Two more?’ asked Veronica, looking at them.

  They both nodded and sat down with Elaine who said, ‘Oh good, backup. I thought I was going to have to restrain her a few seconds ago.’

  Nat, her blonde hair pulled back in a French roll, looked stunning in a little navy dress. She waved at me in the mirror. I gave her a sickly smile in return. And then Tristan was back.

  ‘Do I need to blindfold you?’ he asked. I shook my head. ‘Good.’ He lifted his hands – which now held scissors – and began to cut my hair.

  I had a vision of Edward Scissorhands and, shutting my eyes, started to pray.

  About twenty minutes later the cutting stopped. I opened my right eye a teeny, weeny bit and saw Sebastian arrive with a few little bowls containing coloured paste. I peeped into the mirror for a couple of seconds before slamming my eye shut in horror. My hair was really short. Shit, I was going to look like a little boy, not the sexy minx of a woman I had been imagining in my closure scene with Jake.

  (I hadn’t quite worked out the fine details of the closure scene, but I had gone through a few different scenarios and come up with one I liked a lot. I varied the little things – like where we were and what I was wearing – but they pretty much all ended with him getting down on his hands and knees and grovelling, while I contemplated the condition of my nails. In one I had changed the ending by having a gorgeous guy ride up on a motorcycle and screech to a halt in front of me. He managed – of course – to slide right through a strategically placed puddle of water which splashed all over Jake. I donned a helmet and jumped on the back of the bike, and as we rode off into the sunset I yelled, ‘So long sucker,’ over my shoulder. That version was currently my favourite.)

  I tried to concentrate on my closure scene but my haircut kept interrupting me just when I got to the really vindictive part.

  ‘No, not that one, the other one,’ Tristan barked. I could feel alfoil being applied in layers and realised I was getting foils. He finally finished and said almost kindly, ‘You can open your eyes now Tara.’ I opened them to see him twist a little egg timer before departing for another patron; Sebastian and Veronica riding in his wake.

  ‘How long?’ I asked.

  ‘Thirty minutes,’ said Dinah, peering at the timer. ‘Ooooh I can’t wait to see.’

  ‘Maybe we should get her eyebrows and eyelashes tinted while we’re at it?’ suggested Nat.

  Elaine nodded – handed Benny to Nat – and swept off to have it organised.

  Thirty minutes later when the timer went off, I was admiring my eyebrows and eyelashes in the mirror.

  Ahh shit, I t
hought, the moment of truth.

  I enjoyed the shampoo and head massage, but jammed my eyes shut again when I got back to the mirror. I just couldn’t make myself look. Tristan reappeared and began the blow drying and styling process. I couldn’t hear much over the dryer. He was telling Elaine about some new guy he was seeing, and I could hear a few remarks about how nice the colour was, but it wasn’t enough to make me open my eyes. Then Tristan was trimming again – this time around my fringe – and I had an urge to ask him to leave me with some hair, but thought better of it. He was pretty close to my eyes with those sharp scissors – I really didn’t want to piss him off.

  And then the feel of the soft brush on my face and neck, and the sheet being removed; I could feel them all staring at me, but nothing was being said. Oh no, did I look that ugly? Slowly, I peeled open my eyes and examined their faces in the mirror. Nat and Dinah had excited looks on their faces. Hmmm, that was promising.

  Elaine hopped up and kissed Tristan on the cheek. ‘Thank you,’ I heard her murmur.

  But it wasn’t until I heard someone else in the salon ask if they could have their hair done like that, that I had the courage to look at myself.

  ‘Oh my,’ I said.

  The person staring back at me in the mirror was someone I’d never met before. She was cute and classy. I raised my hand to the short layers around my face, and felt the soft silkiness of my hair. The caramel colours that Tristan had chosen set of the golden glow of my skin, and enriched the darkness of my eyes.

  I had a pixie cut. Short at the nape of my neck, longer on top. My fringe was cut to curve over my right eyebrow, but the edges were chipped. I loved it.

  ‘I’ve got to hand it to you Tristan. You are the Master.’

  ‘Yehhh,’ he squealed, jumping up and down and clapping his hands together, ‘she likes it.’

  ‘I love it Tristan. I really, really love it.’

  * * *

  Back home I gave Princess a cuddle and fed her dinner before rushing to get ready for my night out with the girls. I kept getting distracted by my reflection in the mirror and took a long time with my make-up. I wore a dress I hadn’t donned for a while. A beautiful, chocolate clinging number I loved because it emphasised my arms and collar bones and not my ass. I hadn’t felt this good in ages and was looking forward to the night out.

  I wasn’t the last one to the restaurant, which was good as I already felt guilty that they had given up their Saturday afternoon watching me get my hair done. Elaine – looking amazing in a bright red dress – and Dinah – wearing her customary tailored pants and blouse – were deep in discussion when I arrived. They stopped to eye me approvingly. I did a little twirl on the spot and Dinah wolf whistled.

  ‘What’s up?’ I directed my question at Dinah as I sat down.

  ‘I got home today and there was a message on my answering machine from Doug.’

  ‘Dr Doug?’ I asked.

  ‘The very one.’

  ‘He’s got a nerve.’

  Doug Stanson, (Dr Doug, as we called him in front of Dinah, because that’s how he always introduced himself. Behind her back, we called him Creepy Doug), was an endodontist that Dinah had been dating for a while. (An endodontist is a dentist who has specialised in root canal therapy. Dinah once told me she’d rather blow her brains out than do root canals all day. I would rather blow my brains out than have sex with Creepy Doug.) Dr Doug was arrogant and boorish. She hadn’t seen him for a while, which was great because when she was with him she was an emotional wreck – swaying between euphoria that he wanted to be with her, and misery from the way he treated her. When asked if she loved him she would just shrug her shoulders miserably, and comment that she wasn’t even sure if she liked him.

  One of the psychobabble self-help books I had read during the last year had talked about how our relationships with our fathers sets us up for our relationships with all men. I didn’t get it for myself. I mean my Dad was wonderful. He had never raised his voice or hand against me. (Okay not entirely true, I had – as previously mentioned – once had my mouth washed out with shampoo, but it was Mum whom performed the foul deed so that didn’t count. But I was once smacked by Dad when I was a little girl for locking our pet cat in a cupboard. In fairness to me I wasn’t trying to be cruel. I had taken all this time to dress the meowing, complaining, wiggling cat up in my Baby Alives’ outfit – having gotten bored with a supposedly alive doll that did nothing, and then had to go to kindergarten for the day. I hadn’t wanted Milly – the poor cat – to get the clothes dirty before I had time to play with her, so had stuffed her into the laundry cupboard to keep her safe. I had put a lot of thought into where to keep her. The laundry cupboard was full of soft towels and sheets – I thought she’d be very comfortable there for the day. You can imagine poor Mum’s surprise when she’d opened the cupboard to put away the towels, only to have a shrieking cat – dressed in an all-in-one lemon jumpsuit, hat and booties – propel itself from amongst the sheets to land on her head.) Anyway you get my drift – my relationship with my Dad was something I cherished.

  Dinah however – well her Dad had been a different story entirely. He had finally drunk himself to death a few years ago. She had spent a lot of time at mine and Nat’s houses growing up, avoiding him and his foul temper. She once said that she thought of our fathers as her Dads. Dad had pretended he’d gotten a bug in his eye when I told him that, but I knew he was actually a little teary.

  ‘So what did he want?’ I asked, annoyance evident in my voice.

  ‘Oh just wanted to know if I was going to the dental meeting on Monday night.’

  ‘Are you?’

  ‘Yeah. I rang him back and said I was. He said he was looking forward to seeing me and asked if I wanted a lift.’ She held a hand up to stop the angry outburst that was obviously threatening to exit my mouth. ‘I told him I would make my own way there.’

  I rearranged my ruffled feathers. ‘And that’s that?’

  ‘Well I may talk to him at the meeting, but that’s that.’

  ‘Promise?’

  ‘Cross my heart.’

  ‘Hope to die?’

  ‘Stick a needle in your eye?’ Elaine finished for me.

  ‘Stick a needle in my eye.’

  At that moment Natalie turned up. ‘Sorry, sorry got caught up at work with a client.’

  ‘What between the hairdressers and now you had to see a client?’ asked Elaine suspiciously.

  ‘Yes Elaine, I do have to work you know.’

  Wow. We all stopped and looked at Nat who never, ever uttered a snarky word. She squirmed in her seat, still managing to look beautiful as her red face contrasted against her blonde hair.

  ‘Sorry,’ she apologised to Elaine, who was looking thoughtful and surprisingly not at all offended. ‘This case is stressing me out.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Elaine, ‘what’s it about?’

  ‘Oh nothing important or interesting,’ Nat said evasively, waving one hand in the air. ‘Now what did I miss? Have you ordered yet?’

  ‘Just entrees. We got you the Oysters Kilpatrick.’

  ‘Yummy. By the way Tara, you look great. I really love your hair. When are you doing step number two?’

  ‘Next Saturday, but I was thinking of going to the movies on Thursday night. Anyone interested?’

  ‘Oooh, yeah. I’d love to. I haven’t been to the movies in ages,’ said Nat eagerly.

  ‘Do you want to meet at mine at about 6.30pm? We can get a cab and do dinner after.’

  Elaine pulled out her diary, her green eyes thoughtful. ‘I have a marketing meeting that afternoon but we should be done by then,’ she finally said. She made a note before flicking to the next page. ‘Yep can do Saturday as well,’ she said smiling.

  ‘I can do Thursday night, but I’ll be working Saturday,’ said Dinah apologetically, ruffling her short hair with one hand. ‘Maybe we could do dinner again to showcase your new wardrobe.’

  ‘That’s a great idea,’ Elain
e said, making another note in her diary. ‘I’ll book a restaurant.’

  When I got home that night the first thing I noticed was a foul smell coming from somewhere in my flat. Princess was fast asleep looking innocent in her bed. I looked at her suspiciously.

  ‘All right, what have you done, and where did you do it?’ I asked her.

  She opened one eye and stretched luxuriously, before jumping lightly to her feet and strolling over to me to wind herself through my legs. The smell was coming from my bedroom.

  ‘Oh crap,’ I said when I looked into my room, and I meant it quite literally.

  There was cat poo right in the middle of my bed. And I mean right in the middle. It was almost like she had measured the bed up. I had a mental image of her pacing off my bed, before stopping right in the middle to do her steaming dump. I stepped a bit closer. Oh no, she had peed as well.

  ‘Yes that’s right Mum,’ I said 5 minutes later, ‘right in the middle. I got my tape measure and checked it.’

  (That’s true. I really had got my tape measure out and checked it. It was a little bit freaky how accurate she was.)

  ‘And I think I’m going to have to buy a new mattress,’ I whined.

  ‘No Tara – take it onto the deck, rinse it and put heaps of white vinegar through it. Then layer it with bi-carb soda.’

  ‘What will that do?’

  ‘It will pull the scent out.’

  ‘Wow Mum, where did you learn that?’

  ‘Actually dear, it’s a technique I used quite a lot when you were a little girl.’

  Twenty minutes later I had managed to wrestle the mattress onto the balcony and, using my watering can, had liberally applied water and then white vinegar. I was sprinkling on the bi-carb soda when I heard it.

  ‘Nice tits, shame about the ass.’

  I knew that voice. I searched the sky but couldn’t see anything in the dark. Maybe I had imagined it.

  ‘Polly was a slut, Polly was a slut.’

  Shit. I hadn’t imagined it. That was Cocky’s voice.