Page 30 of Lessons in Love at the Seaside Salon

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Right, this is it.

Anna blows air out of her open mouth as she stares at herself in the mirror at the Seaside Salon and thinks that she looks like a fish trapped in a bowl, with no other direction to take.

She closes her mouth as she inhales and opens as she exhales.

Not even consciously. As if she’s nervous or something.

Which is ridiculous, because this is a hairdressing salon and all she’s doing is having a haircut. Maybe even a hairstyle.

It was a spur-of-the moment thing. When she walked into the Seaside Salon this morning with Ingrid she found herself asking Trudy if she had any free time.

‘For …?’ Trudy arched an eyebrow.

‘Me.’

Anna wondered what on earth she was doing.

She’d had thoughts about changing her hair.

Now she’s not with Gary any more it makes sense to change other things, to take some positive steps to take care of herself in other ways.

Or maybe just to do something different.

Changing hair seems easy – the hairdresser does it for you.

‘You,’ Trudy had said. ‘Well, well.’

Trudy glanced at Ingrid in the mirror, then Anna saw her catch the eye of Evie, who was in the middle of painting on a colour.

‘I want a change.’ Anna kept staring at her reflection. She was sick of that reflection. Going through the motions of brushing her hair and putting on some lippy and mascara doesn’t amount to anything other than habit. She wants something different.

Trudy’s eyes twinkled. ‘How much of a change?’

Anna took a deep breath. ‘Whatever you think.’

Trudy turned to Evie and grinned. ‘Don’t hear that often, do we, Evie?’

Evie shook her head.

Anna’s eyes met Ingrid’s in the mirror and she saw something unfamiliar in them: curiosity.

‘What do you think, Mama?’ she asked.

‘You have lovely hair, Anna,’ Ingrid said. ‘I’ve always thought so.’

That was probably a lie, because Ingrid had never said anything like that to her, but she let it go.

‘But a change is, as they say, as good as a holiday,’ Ingrid went on.

‘Righto,’ Trudy said. ‘I can fit you in after your mum.’

The problem with that, though, is that Anna has had a chance to think about it since.

Does she really want to have to fuss with her hair?

Maybe she could just … put it in plaits or something?

That would be different. Not necessarily great.

But different. Easier than hairspray and teasing and who knows what else she’ll have to do.

No, she doesn’t need the bother of a hairstyle. She has enough on her plate.

She puts her hands on the arms of the chair, about to push herself up to standing, when she feels hands on her shoulders and looks up into the mirror to see Trudy giving her a knowing look.

‘Fleeing, are we?’ Trudy says.

‘Oh, um …’ Using the mirror, Anna glances to the other side of the salon, where Ingrid is laughing along with Sam, who’s brought her a cup of tea.

Sam is very good with the older ladies who come to the salon – charming without it seeming disingenuous, probably because it’s not.

The sorts of questions he asks the ladies indicate that he’s a genuinely curious person, interested in their lives.

Anna likes him, even if she’s never actually had a conversation with him.

Yet she’s observed how he treats her mother like a person, not an old lady like so many others do, and she appreciates it.

‘She’s trying to make a run for it, Ingrid,’ Trudy calls over the noise of clients and hairdressers chatting, and Anna is mortified.

‘She’ll be fine,’ Ingrid calls back then catches Anna’s eye and winks, and smiles in that comforting way mothers have.

‘What are you worried about?’ Trudy asks, her hands still on Anna’s shoulders.

‘That I’ll make you look bad? Because I won’t.

At the very least, that’s not good for business so it’s a terrible idea.

But I also don’t want to make you look bad, pet, because you deserve to look great .

’ She picks up the cape and towel that are draped over her arm and arranges first towel then cape over Anna’s shoulders before pinning the cape closed with a hair clip.

‘So, we’re going to give you something that is easy to maintain and which also makes you feel good, okay? ’

Anna nods slowly, then swallows. Tending to her hair is another job she’ll have to add to the morning routine. Does she really want to do that?

‘No blow-drying required,’ Trudy says, as if reading her thoughts. ‘Maybe a bit of spray. That’s all.’ Trudy tilts her head from side to side, her eyes narrowed. ‘I’ve been thinking about this for a while,’ she says.

‘You have?’

‘Mm. It’s good to be able to picture what you’ll look like, then I cut to that.

’ She picks up some of Anna’s hair. ‘A fringe and some layers, I think,’ she says.

‘The layers will give you a little volume and because you have a wave to your hair they’ll sit nicely.

If it were dead straight they wouldn’t work.

And the fringe is an easy embellishment, shall we say.

It’ll draw a person to look at your eyes, and you have such lovely eyes. ’

‘Do I?’ Anna stares into her own eyes and tries to understand what Trudy means.

‘They’re green, which is unusual, and you have those naturally long lashes.

Yes, they’re lovely. Some of us would kill for those lashes.

’ Trudy smiles. ‘Josie,’ she calls, and the young woman speeds over.

Anna has noticed her scurrying around when she’s here but they haven’t spoken to each other yet.

‘Hi,’ Anna says.

‘Hi.’ Josie smiles shyly.

‘Do you mind if Josie does your fringe? I’ll be here. I promise she won’t butcher it.’

Josie’s eyes widen and Trudy cackles.

‘Relax, pet,’ she says. ‘I’m joking. You’ve done fringes before. You’ll be fine.’

Anna isn’t sure, though – while an apprentice hairdresser needs to get practice, why should the practice be on her ? However, as she doesn’t want to go against Trudy, she tries to arrange her face so she looks agreeable.

‘You have such good hair,’ Josie says.

Anna is wondering if she says that to everyone when Josie picks up some of her strands and inspects them closely.

‘Nice body,’ the young woman goes on, then their eyes meet in the mirror. ‘Have you had a fringe before?’

Anna recalls an unfortunate time in her teens when she had a too-short cut that had made her look as if she hadn’t been able to decide if she wanted a fringe or not.

It’s possible the hairdresser did it because he hated her; at that age Anna hated herself, in the way that serious-minded teenage girls who long to be understood tend to do.

‘Once,’ is her reply to Josie. ‘It wasn’t very good.’

Josie grins. ‘I’ll make this one good. I promise.’

Again, Anna tries to look agreeable. It’s important, she has found, for getting along in the world.

A person’s intention can be misinterpreted by others at the slightest provocation and she so wants to have a peaceful life.

That can be somewhat ensured if she always looks agreeable while hiding her true feelings.

A friend of hers who has been seeing a psychologist said – upon Anna telling her about her agreeable tendencies – ‘But don’t you just want to be yourself ?’ Being oneself was the psychologist’s favourite thing to talk about, Anna knew, because the friend mentioned it regularly.

‘I am being myself,’ she protested. ‘Being myself means living in a way that doesn’t upset other people.’

The friend huffed at that as if she’d said something ridiculous, muttered about how Gloria Steinem didn’t wear skivvies just so Anna could spend her life appeasing others, and changed the subject to the Royal Family.

So Anna stays true to herself as Josie first washes her hair then starts cutting, and again when Trudy takes over to do the layers while Josie watches.

She smiles vaguely even as she feels like a caged specimen, and when Trudy blow-dries her hair despite saying blow-drying wouldn’t be needed.

Or maybe it’s not needed outside of the salon. Anna will have to check.

She loses herself, though, when Trudy turns her around and shows her the hairdo, in that she veers dramatically away from appeasement toward expressing happiness.

Because in front of her is a woman she doesn’t recognise but who looks ten times more interesting and glamorous than the one who walked into the Seaside Salon.

‘Trudy!’ she squeals. ‘Josie!’

Trudy nods and smiles like a proud parent. ‘Good, hey?’ she says.

‘I can’t – I don’t – I …’ Anna gulps down a breath. ‘How?’

‘It’s the magic of a good cut, pet. It’s all about the lines and the angles.

Josie has the talent’ – she taps the side of her nose – ‘and she is learning fast how to work with it. I knew she’d do the right thing.

All I had to do was make sure my cut worked with hers.

’ She pats Anna’s shoulders. ‘So,’ she says, ‘wash it, condition it, let it air dry, okay? It’ll fall into shape.

And if you want something extra, come in for a blowy, all right? ’

‘Something extra?’

Trudy fluffs her ends. ‘Like for a date.’

Anna’s brain goes to Gary standing at her door with flowers and hopefulness. No, he doesn’t deserve the blowy.

‘I, ah … probably not!’ She attempts a laugh.

‘Righto. Whatever you say.’

Anna pays Trudy for her cut and Ingrid’s blow-dry then grins as she walks toward her mother, who is gazing at her as if she’s the most beautiful girl alive.

‘Stunning,’ Ingrid says. ‘You look wonderful. You look … like yourself.’

Anna’s breath catches and she feels like crying, which is so weird – except what Ingrid said is what Anna also thought when she looked in the mirror.

All this time she believed she was just being herself when it turns out it was a facsimile of her.

Maybe. She’ll find out for sure once she gets used to this hairstyle.

As they leave the salon Ingrid turns to her and says, ‘Let’s have a coffee to celebrate my daughter coming back to me.’

Again Anna is surprised, but this time it’s because she didn’t realise a hairstyle could have that much power. Except if it couldn’t, why would Ingrid come here every week?

This is something she plans to ponder as she waits for her hair to dry tomorrow morning.