Seattle Girl

by Lucy Kevin

  God help me.

  Bambi left the room—I assumed it was to get the rest of the torture devices warmed and ready—and Xena finally spoke directly to me instead of about me.

  “We’re going to take care of the waxing and then we’ll send you off to the hair salon.”

  I muttered as heartfelt a “great” as I could manage. But evidently I couldn’t manage much. Which was why, perhaps, Xena added the following unsettling words. “And since this is obviously your first time being waxed, it’s going to hurt.”

  That, I found out, was the understatement of the century. As they slathered hot dripping wax onto every uncovered patch of skin on my body and ripped with all their might, I knew, without a doubt, what hell was like.

  “You have really strong roots,” Xena said as she ripped off another swath of hair along with, I was sure, a great deal of skin.

  During my lucid moments, I wondered yet again why millions of women willingly submitted to this torture and, in fact, paid hundreds of dollars to have hot wax dripped between their legs.

  But then all coherent thought was torn from my mind as Bambi ripped a long strip of hair right off the center of my vagina.

  I struggled to sit up, knocking my head into one of the lamps. “Why the hell are you waxing there? I thought this was a bikini wax.”

  Xena pushed my shoulders back onto the table with grim determination and I was surprised by how strong her spindly little arms were.

  “We were told to give you a Brazilian.”

  I sputtered, “A what?”

  “You’ll see. We’re just going to leave a thin strip.”

  I could no longer keep the panic from her voice. “Why the hell would I want that?”

  Bambi rolled her eyes. “To wear a skimpy bikini, of course.”

  “None of my bathing suits show off my lips!”

  “Men like it smooth,” Xena said in a crisp voice, the subject closed for discussion.

  “But it’s Seattle! When’s the last time it was sunny enough during the summer to wear a bathing suit.”

  They both looked at me like I was an idiot. “This is for when you’re not wearing a bathing suit.”

  Oh.

  I finally surrendered to the absurdity of my life and let my head fall back onto the table.

  I knew it all along: Everything came back to men liking it, men wanting it, men expecting it.

  Right now I couldn’t have cared less if I ever saw another man again. Apart from Seth, of course, but gay men were obviously exempt from my sudden, utter hatred.

  Never had I been so humiliated. Never had I been so…

  “Ow!”

  It felt like they were slathering me in searing oil.

  Which, upon careful consideration of the facts, was exactly what they were doing.

  “I’m going to kill Diane,” I muttered as Xena and Bambi continued to hurt me in every way they possibly could.

  And then finally, they covered me in aloe and I was left in blessed piece. I stood up and surveyed the damage.

  “My god, I’m as smooth and shiny as a new beach ball,” I said as I reached up to touch my head to make sure they had left her some hair, somewhere on me.

  Amazingly enough, they had.

  I looked around the room for my clothes to escape the no-hair-allowed zone, but the only cover-up I could find was a hot pink robe.

  “They stole my clothes?”

  That was it. Not only was Diane going to die a very slow and painful death, but I was actually going to have to make a break for it in the robe. Too bad if people thought I looked weird walking down the street in a hot pink robe and fuzzy slippers. L.A. was full of weirdos. I would fit right in.

  But before I could do anything of the sort, the receptionist from the front room poked her head in the door. “Franz is ready for you in the hair salon.”

  “Franz?”

  I couldn’t believe there was actually a hairdresser named Franz anywhere in the world. Hairdressers were just named Franz in the movies, right? Or in the Castro in San Francisco, at least.

  Then again, since I had just met a waxer named Bambi, I supposed anything was possible.

  The receptionist’s mouth dropped open. “Don’t tell me you haven’t heard of Franz?”

  “Of course I haven’t,” I said, with no small measure of impatience in my voice.

  Ignoring my petulance, the woman herded me out of the torture chamber and down a well lit, lime-green hallway. “He’s like a total legend, you know?”

  Franz was being waited on by a bevy of adoring females when I was pushed into the room. Espresso cup in hand, he turned slowly to face me and the expression in his eyes struck new fear into my heart.

  Suddenly, I had a feeling that wax-and-rip torture was nothing compared to the treatment I was about to receive at Franz’s celebrated hands.

  As he scanned me from head to toe, he took delicate sips of espresso and made occasional peeps of dissatisfaction. Finally finishing his perusal, he snapped his fingers.

  “This calls for an extra dose of inspiration.”

  Instantly, another steaming cup of espresso was placed into his hands.

  I was doing my damndest to calm down. Especially since I’d always thought my hair was my best feature. Long and very dark brown, almost black, I usually pulled it back into a ponytail and forgot about it for the rest of the day.

  Granted, I hadn’t had a chance to wash it yet, since Diane and Seth had got me up at such an ungodly hour.

  And yes, I was willing to acknowledge that it might have been prudent for me to have run a brush through it before we left the apartment, rather than just gathering it up into a messy ponytail.

  It wasn’t fair. So I had made a couple of bad hair decisions before 8 a.m.. Now it seemed that I was going to be paying for it for a long time to come.

  A stool was wheeled in and shoved under my knees.

  “Sit,” Franz commanded.

  I obeyed and felt that I should have perhaps saluted as well. Some wise inner voice advised against it, however, which may have been my only good decision since leaving the apartment.

  Franz eyed me accusingly in the wall of mirrors. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

  He held up limp strands of hair between two fingers as if he was afraid of catching something.

  I was about to respond, but I could tell pretty quickly that he wasn’t looking for an answer. He was just looking for an outlet for his pissy hairdresser rage.

  I was so glad to be sitting in his chair, I can’t tell you.

  “I am Franz, and my reward is this?”

  I was thinking, “I am Georgia, and my reward is you?” but since he was holding the pointy scissors and all I could have defended myself with was a blow dryer, I wasn’t quite stupid enough to say it out loud.

  After several muttered curses in a range of foreign languages, he snapped his fingers again and the minions leapt to work. I was shampooed and back in front of Franz before he finished his new espresso.

  Franz studied my hair with a practiced eye. “I must know, will you be styling and blow-drying every morning?”

  I figured the answer was pretty damn obvious, but I spelled it out for him anyway. “Not in this lifetime.”

  Franz sighed, newly despondent. But clearly, one did not become legendary for nothing. Moments later he had a fresh, excited glow about him.

  “I’ve got it! The perfect new look for you. All you have to do is shower and voila!” A frown stole back across Franz’s face. “You do shower, don’t you?”

  I arched one of my newly plucked brows at him in the mirror, deciding it was best, yet again, if I did not go there with him. Although, given that I hadn’t showered yet today, I supposed it wasn’t exactly the most unfair assumption on Franz’s part.

  Franz smiled back at me, indulgently. “Good, good. And we begin!”

  He picked up a large hunk of hair and chopped most of it off. At least it felt like he had chopped most of it off, even th
ough it was probably just an inch or two at most.

  “What are you doing to my hair?” I shrieked.

  Unmoved by my anguish, Franz chopped away at lightning speed. I would have glanced down to the floor to mourn my lost locks, but Franz held my head in a vice grip.

  I closed my eyes and tried to pretend I was having a good time.

  You won’t be terribly surprised if I tell you that I was failing miserably, would you? All I could think of was that instead of getting to spend my last free day of summer out on the beach, I was stuck in lime-green hair hell.

  After what seemed like an eternity of clipping, blow drying, moussing, and coloring, Franz clapped his hands together in delight and declared his work an unmitigated success.

  “Franz is a genius,” he said in an awed tone.

  I was afraid to look, barely squinting one eye open to peer in the mirror. What could Franz possibly think genius looked like? Half shaved, half long? All shaved with a henna tattoo on the top of my skull?

  But what I eventually saw was so unbelievable, I closed my eyes tight again. I wasn’t sure that I was ready to meet the girl who was staring back at me.

  “Mon Cherie, you must look at your marvelous transformation.”

  I braced myself, opened my eyes all the way, and stared open-mouthed at my reflection. Franz winked joyously at me.

  “Marvelous, is it not?”

  Struck dumb, I stared at the woman in the mirror. Golden red highlights wove through my brown hair, which fell in silky strands past my cheekbones — I had never, ever, not in my whole life, noticed my cheekbones, mind you — some strands curving in to frame my chin, the rest brushing against the very tips of my nipples.

  I looked utterly ravishing. My mother was going to love it.

  Which I hated almost more than I liked my new good looks. What was the use of being gorgeous if my mother was going to crow, “I told you so!” a thousand times until I went deaf with insanity.

  I did not do this for my mom! I chanted again and again in my head. This was Diane’s idea. It’s entirely, 100% her fault that I’ve turned into a serious babe.

  It was the only way I could rationalize how happy being beautiful was making me. Because after fighting my mother tooth and nail on this for twenty-one years, I would have hated for her to have actually been right about something.

  By the way, just because I was newly gorgeous, didn’t mean I wasn’t still going to kill Diane. She deserved to die a heinous death for all that I had been through in the past two hours.

  I was shepherded into a small room where my clothes were waiting for me, folded on a chair in the corner. Slipping them on, I couldn’t get over how silky and smooth my hair felt as it brushed against my cheekbones.

  Damn it. I was fixated already.

  Diane and Seth were waiting for me in the lobby when I pushed through a bright purple door.

  “Oh my god, look at you!”

  Diane ran up to me with her hand over her mouth. She walked a slow circle around me, clapping her hands with glee and the entire time I steeled myself not to give in to her delight. I couldn’t let her get away with thinking that this torture had been in any way justified.

  Even if the outcome was pretty awesome.

  And then she promptly poured cold water over my budding plans for revenge when she exclaimed, “Could you be any more amazing looking?”

  “Damn you,” I said, unable to hide my grin. “How do you always manage to say exactly the right thing to keep me from disemboweling you?”

  She shrugged in reply and then Seth said simply. “You’re a total babe. I always knew it. My eye never lies. Now for my favorite part of the day: The mall!”

  Herding me between them down the street to the Saks Fifth Avenue on the corner, Seth said, “We’ve decided that you should cultivate the small, dark and mysterious look.”

  Frankly, the clothes they had me try on were far too sexy for my comfort level. They practically screamed, “Hey you! Come over here quickly to feel my tits,” and “I just can’t wait to have your tongue in my mouth!”

  No, I’m exaggerating a little bit. The truth is that I think I was very uncomfortable with the thought of anyone ever noticing that I was a girl. I had spent so many years hiding under baggy clothes, big glasses, and a bad haircut that I was afraid I was going to be someone else entirely different if people actually thought I was pretty.

  Suddenly I didn’t want to be pretty.

  I wanted to be the me that I had been my whole life. I was comfortable with her. How was I supposed to deal with being someone new?

  In any case, you know how best friends are — they know you well enough to say just the right thing to get you to do what you would never consider doing otherwise.

  When I came out of the dressing room, Seth looked at me in amazement and said, “Wow. I never knew you had such an amazing body, girlfriend! It’s almost enough to make me drooly.” I raised an eyebrow at him in disbelief and he added, “If I liked girls, that is.”

  “Yeah,” said Diane. “I am getting all drooly. Come here little girl,” she said as she chased me all around the sales floor, smacking her lips and growling like the big bad wolf.

  I figured it was a clear vote of approval from everyone involved and by that night, home girl had a closet full of leather pants, short denim skirts, tight black tank tops, sexy high-heeled sandals, and big, black rock star boots.

  Georgia Fulton was finally ready to take the world by storm.

  *

  The rub was that since it was an unpaid internship I needed to find the money to pay my rent because my parents, as you might have guessed, didn’t exactly approve of my job choice. In fact, the scene had been downright ugly.

  Me (happy and excited to finally have some good news to share with the rental units): I got the internship I applied for!

  Mom (with a satisfied smile): I knew the Public Policy center would hire you once your father gave you that glowing recommendation.

  Dad (looking at me questioningly): Recommendation? Public Policy center?

  Me (feeling far less happy and excited all of a sudden): I’m going to be working at a radio station, Mom. I never applied for that other job. I don’t even know what they do at a Public Policy center.

  Mom (with not even a trace of a smile left): What does that matter? It’s a respectable job that will look good on your resume. That’s what’s important. I thought you had gotten that whole radio thing out of your system. Arnold, I thought you had a talk with her about giving up that little hobby.

  Me (my left eyelid starting to twitch): That whole radio thing? That little hobby? Out of my system?

  Dad (awkwardly clearing his throat): Georgia, your mother and I don’t think…well, we aren’t sure if…what I’m trying to say is…

  Mom (now very irritated with both me and my father): We want you to put a stop to your immature behavior this instant!

  Me (standing up abruptly at the kitchen table): No! And I’m not immature!

  Mom (pushing back her chair to deal with her recalcitrant daughter face to face): Now you listen to me young lady—

  Dad (grabbing my mother’s arm, his face red and shiny): I think everyone should just calm down so that we can discuss this like reasonable adults.

  Mom (her face a matching shade of red to my fathers): Calm down? Adults? Her? (pointing at me in a state of utter hysteria) Ha!

  Me (watching my mother storm out of the room and then turning back to give my dad the pertinent information): The station is in Harborside. Its call letters are XTRA.

  Dad (giving me an apologetic look): I guess you’ll have to cover your own rent for the summer.

  Me (wondering why I was surprised at the outcome of this visit): No kidding.

  Dad (smiling for the first time since we sat down): Work hard, honey. But don’t forget to have fun.

  Fortunately for my bank account, Diane had been to Harborside with her folks a couple of times during University of Washington parent-studio
weekends and she told me about some casinos out on the waterfront. So early on my first day at the station, I applied for a cocktail waitressing job at a floating casino.

  It was only five minutes from the station, and the shifts worked out perfectly. I could work at the station from 9 a.m. until 4 p.m. and then close-out my night at the casino by 10 p.m..

  It wasn’t too hard to get the job — I don’t think they looked too far beyond the fact that I didn’t have any arrests on my record — and I walked out with my new, regulation thigh high skirt and bustier in hand.

  Plus, I figured it would irk my mother even more that not only was I working at a radio station, but I was also working at a bar. In a gambling casino of all places! Bam—two birds with one stone. Rationally, I knew I needed to spend less time and energy working to aggravate her, but lately I just couldn’t help myself.

  *

  My internship at XTRA was to consist of the usual duties—filing, making copies, going through the mail. Your basic do shit work for no money to get the experience job. Interning is just about as close as you can get to slave labor in Seattle. That and grape picking. But don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. Frankly, I was thrilled to be in a real radio station, working with real DJs all day.

  Quasi-real DJs anyway.

  As far as I could tell, among the various talk radio hosts, only a couple stood any chance of making the big time jump to syndication: Lola Singer and Steve Jacobs.

  Lola, a Harborside version of Dr. Laura, had a counseling show in the afternoons. You know, the kind of show where a bunch of losers call in and they all have a really hard time explaining why they’ve split with their boyfriend, or how their mother-in-law is stealing their husband away, or that they’re dreaming of doing their boss. All of which, if you ask me, goes a long way in saying just why they are losers in the first place.

  Lola — just Lola, not Dr. Lola, but didn’t she wish! — would listen patiently through her callers meandering, pathetic story, gently clear up their problem for the rest of us, and then resolve the issue in under five minutes. On the air, she came across as sugar-sweet. She was the mom you always wish you had, who never got angry at you, no matter what you said.