I looked up despairingly into the round face of the shop's wall-mounted clock, for what must have been the umpteenth time that afternoon. It stared back at me blankly, hanging with inanimate disregard over the expanse of time it held between its quivering hands. I sighed and methodically checked my cell phone to see if, by some slim chance, the clock itself had stopped working. The screen illuminated with the same maddening time, an achingly dull two twenty-four in the afternoon. The time was simultaneously too early and too late. For someone that had been sitting in the same stationary position since 9 o'clock in the morning, the time seemed much too late to have gone all day without a single client darkening the door. Yet by the same hand, it was much too early to go home for the day.
When Gail had hired me to work at the Green Roof Day Spa, nearly five months ago, she told me then and there that it took time to build up a clientele. In my vanity, I had thought that to be a gross exaggeration. I had been so sure that with persistence and ingenuity, I would have a clientele built up in a snap. Unfortunately, that naive enthusiasm was quickly replaced by disillusionment. Gail had been right on the mark. My regular clientele consisted of a couple of senile old ladies and a few middle-aged men, more interested in my ass than the way I cut hair. Having already catered to my weekly quota of scheduled clients, I found myself restless and bored, with another four hours and thirty-six minutes to kill before the Green Roof Day Spa's official closing time.
As I contemplated whether or not it was possible to die from sheer boredom alone, the doorbell let out a sudden, shrill chime. I hurriedly rose to my feet and plastered a big, fake smile across my face, ready to receive my first client of the day. An involuntary shudder of surprise overtook me at the sight of the tall man standing before the front office. I was struck by an immediate feeling of wrongness that left my stomach doing cartwheels. The right side of the stranger’s face was horribly scarred, the skin was pulled taut and bunched up in all of the wrong places. The corner of his lip was pulled up into an unnatural smirk, and another large gash cut through his brow. His cheek had been reduced to gnarled tissue, tinted in the dusky red of healing. The disfigurement was made all the more apparent by the perfect symmetry displayed to the left side of his face. It told a completely different story, mapped out in a high cheekbone, a dark arched brow, a startling hazel eye, and a chiseled jawline.
A moment later the cogs in my brain began to spin once more, and I realized that I had been observing him for much longer than I should have been. Sheepishly, I dropped my gaze, trying to recover myself.
“Sorry to disturb you,” he said in a shockingly deep and lovely baritone, after clearing his throat.
“I’m in need of a haircut and this seems to be the only establishment of its kind within sixty miles.”
His tone came across as slightly arrogant and contemptuous, but I could tell from the way he kept shifting his weight and flexing his hands that he was nervous. I suddenly felt sorry for him, realizing that his defensiveness was a learned concept from past unpleasant introductions. I stood up from my desk and crossed the room towards him, extending my hand in greeting. He returned the gesture and shook my hand firmly. I noted, silently, that his palms were warm and dry, qualities I valued in a handshake.
“Rose Fleetwood,” I said kindly before relinquishing his hand,
“It’s nice to meet you Mr.-” I let the question rest in midair, awaiting his response.
“Redmond,” he replied, finishing my greeting.
“Joel Redmond, the pleasure is all mine, Ms. Fleetwood.”The way he spoke seemed somewhat odd and overly formal, but coupled with the dark harmony of his voice, it made for an almost musical listening experience.
“I hope you have time to fit me into your busy schedule.” He said, raising his good brow.
I couldn’t decide if he was being sarcastic or generous, as the parking lot was starkly empty aside from my car and his. I looked out at it and gaped. My crappy old farm truck was now parked next to a sleek, black sports car. I couldn’t tell what make and model it was, but it looked like pure wealth. Slamming my gaping mouth shut, I turned back to address my visitor.
“It’s been a slow day. " I’m still trying to build up my clientele and the owner, Gail, is working on a movie set in Petersburg for the next few weeks. I’m just holding down the fort.” I wasn’t sure why I felt the need to justify myself to a complete stranger, but I wanted Mr. Joel Redmond to know that I was a capable and independent person. He gave a dismissive nod and I ushered him back to my readied station.
I flicked the light on as I entered the room and picked up the client cape resting in my chair, gesturing for Mr. Redmond to take a seat. He stalked forward at my command, his shoulders swaying in a nearly predatory motion. Whoever he was, the man held an obvious air of authority. He sank down against the leather embrace and sighed at his image in the mirror.
Joel Redmond’s hair was so long that it completely covered his brows and hung in lank brown strands over his eyes. A five o’clock shadow had begun to cover what was left of his cleft chin and jawline, and I could tell he hadn’t shaved in a day or two. His look was not entirely unbecoming, even if it was a tad bit shaggy. It made him look wild, almost feral, combined with the extensive scarring.
He raised his hands up in a gesture of defeat and said, “Do what you can with this mess.” It was fairly commonplace, in my profession, for people to be hypercritical of themselves when looking in a mirror. I’d always thought it strange when a client apologized to me for their appearance like I would be personally insulted by their unkempt countenance as a beauty professional.
Somehow, they failed to note that my own dark mahogany hair was rarely styled in anything more elaborate than a basic ponytail, and was long overdue for a good trim. Most times, I would just smile and nod understandingly at their distress, but something in Joel’s tone or demeanor had sounded more like a challenge. I wanted to show him that I was quite good at my job and that getting a haircut could be a relaxing experience. Picking up the shampoo cape, I waved it over him in a determined flourish of black polyester. It came to rest neatly over his shoulders before I fastened the collar around his neck. His hair darkened in the back and came to rest at his nape in a series of soft curls. I pushed them gingerly out from under the shampoo cape and ran my fingers through his hair, assessing the length. He was due to lose several inches at least.
As my fingers glided up through his baby-fine curls, I heard him take a sharp intake of breath. I recognized the sound from past clients, usually those that were elderly. It was the sound of someone not used to being touched in an intimate manner. As a cosmetologist, I firmly believed the sense of touch, to be as essential to the human psyche as any other form of personal interaction. Most of my regular clients were over the age of sixty-five. They came to get a shampoo and set, or in the case of men, a haircut, every week or so. While such regularity was often unnecessary to maintain their style, most just wanted to feel another human’s touch. It was something deprived of them since their age or state of health afforded them little contact with other people. I enjoyed this part of my job. Most days, I found it difficult to claim that I had left any real impact on humanity. My job came down to aesthetics, not a necessity. It was only when I worked with people that relied on my services for their mental and physical well-being, that I felt like I was doing something important. I had become adept at trimming, setting, and styling drowsing heads, bobbing up and down with an invisible tide of sleep. My touch was gentle and firm as I massaged numerous gray and white heads at the shampoo bowl.
Yet Joel Redmond was not what I considered to be old or disabled. While I recognized his reaction to my touch, it left me feeling slightly unsettled. His intense hazel eyes gazed out at me from his reflection, and I quickly picked up a brush to unknot any tangles that might be lurking in his unruly waves. It was hard to put an exact age on Joel, despite all the other keen observations I had made concerning him. His skin was smooth and without any wrinkles, giving him the appearance of youth. Yet his face seemed to harden around his eyes and mouth like someone, as my grandmother would have said, who had seen too many hard days and wet nights. I roughly estimated his age to be around thirty-two, only seven years older than myself. This fact is what I found somewhat disconcerting. Joel’s reaction had possessed a hidden level of sensuality, brought about, in part, by our comparable age range. It made me leery, not of him, but of myself. If Joel had issued a barely traceable seismic rumble, then I was the sensitive machine that had recorded and deciphered it according to my own code of reason.
In short, I had a terrible habit of reading into things.