Short Stories
By Scott Niven
Stud
I ignored the tattered magazines scattered about my chair, choosing instead to watch the female students whisk in and out of the beauty school’s beaded door entrance. The smirks they exchanged as they strolled back and forth in front of the waiting room suggested a lack of regard for their customers. I sensed, however, that their haughty attitudes were a lie. Each woman secretly hoped her next customer would pluck her out of the salon and haul her away to a better life. The carefully cultivated movements, laughs, and hairstyles of the women, perfected over their nine-month tenures at the school, proved it. Mentally I reviewed each woman’s qualifications. Wide hips or narrow? Amazon, hourglass, or lithe nymph? Which mix of feminine allure and mystique would saunter through the beads, smile, and read my name off her yellow customer ticket? Which sultry beauty would move her smooth hands, painted fingernails, and soft palms through my hair, dancing scissors round and round my head till I deemed her finished and fished in my pocket for a tip? We’d talk of whatever interested her the entire time. That’s how I preferred it. Listening to their chatter made them more receptive. Every two months I played this game, laughing and joking with a random woman while searching for the line that would earn me a date. Thus far, none of the women had agreed. But today would be different. I’d taken pains to hone my appearance. My khaki pants – ironed, pleated, adjusted with the belt looped around my waist at the most flattering level – combined with my designer silk shirt to radiate power and prestige. My hair had been cut and styled the other day in a genuine hair salon, a place some of these women would probably work when they completed their schooling. And outside, my red ’97 Porsche claimed two spaces in the last row of the parking lot. At some point, I’d work the car into the conversation. The women always liked hearing about the car.
Donna cut my hair last time. She was short, with brown eyes and dark hair and a small chest. Cute, though. She’d wanted to attend the local university, but her parents hadn’t supported her decision. Money problems, I think she’d said, though I rarely remembered that type of detail. Now, three years after high school, Donna was pursuing a career as a hair stylist. She drove a ’79 Datsun, owned a dog named George, and lived with two roommates down by Waterson street. I asked if she’d like to walk her dog with my dog Jack, a purebred pointer I’d bought when I noticed women admiring him in a pet store. Donna smiled at my offer and told me what a nice guy I was. Then she explained that she had no time for walking dogs. She spent almost all of her time at the school, and when she wasn’t here she was working a night job at a shoe store in the mall. I returned her smile, waited an appropriate amount of time, then ended the haircut with a frown as my hand casually buried her tip money in my pocket. I hoped I wouldn’t get stuck with her again today.
Besides, I preferred adventurous women, not workaholics. Last summer I lucked into Becky Balingo, a crazed, tanned, storytelling nympho who claimed she needed only three hours of sleep a night. She nicked my scalp twice with her scissors as her eyes struggled to stay open and her mouth fought against yawns. Her breath reeked of Listerine-laced alcohol. Still, within minutes of meeting her, I decided that a woman named Becky Balingo entered a man’s life only once. Our chance meeting demanded exploitation. And her skin was tan. I’ve always liked tans. When she paused in the middle of one of her risqué stories to wipe blood from my left ear, I invited her to the beach, explaining that we could relax and talk further in my 1500 square foot oceanfront condo. She finished cleaning my head wound, said no thanks, then continued cutting my hair and telling stories. I didn’t leave a tip for her either.
Of course, the many rejections have been offset by sporadic, partial successes. Two years ago, a girl named Cynthia said yes. I gave her a five dollar tip, asked for her number, and told her I’d call her later in the week to schedule the date. My method never varies. I get my hair cut on Mondays, ignore the phone on Tuesdays, then call the girls on Wednesdays. The procedure builds anticipation, both for me and for them. But when I called Cynthia, she explained that her ailing, elderly father had arrived from Michigan in need of a place to stay while his burned-to-the-ground house was being rebuilt. Dates and romance, she said, were out of the question, and would remain so for an indefinite period of time. I told her I understood, and said I’d see her at the salon. She must have quit, though, because I never saw her again. I’ve often wondered if we would’ve become lovers or gotten married if her father had only stayed in Michigan.
“Taylor? Taylor Brislow?”
The scratchy yet perky female voice sifted through the waiting room. To my right, a man lurched to his feet. He advanced to the beaded doorway where a woman stood alone, her white hands parting the beads into an inverted letter V.
“I’m Taylor,” the man said.
“Great.” The woman smiled. “I’m Georgia. Come with me, please.”
She pivoted, and the man followed her through the beads and into the salon. As they disappeared behind a mirror, I mused on the randomness of the school’s haircutting system. First come, first served. The policy, one I usually appreciated, enabled me to enjoy a different mysterious hair stylist during every visit. And because the students rotated through the school in varying nine-month intervals, new women and girls presented themselves every time I needed a cut.
But the random policy created a unique danger. As I watched the beaded entrance, two students traipsed into the waiting room. One was a blond. Tall, with a large chest and tangerine lipstick and a yellow ticket crinkled in her right hand. The other student also carried a yellow ticket, but he was a man. I found myself shrinking into the plastic cushioning of my chair. My singular worry while waiting for a student to call my name was that the voice that finally called it would be a man’s. The odds promised this shouldn’t happen. Out of the forty-three students who attended the school during any given week, only two or three of them ever happened to be men. Still, it could happen, so I worried. The pair of students glanced at their yellow tickets, then hunted through the room with their eyes, as if they could intuitively match the names on their tickets to the faces the names belonged to. I waited.
“Stephanie?” the blond asked.
A woman sitting beside me abandoned her chair and claimed the name with a nod. Together, the two women paraded into the salon.
The male student studied the room for several more seconds, then focused on me. I broke eye contact and fixated on the black-white floor tile patterns until I heard him speak.
“Richard?”
My head shot up and I grinned. No, not me. That’s not my name. My luck had held.
But someone else’s had run out. A man sitting on the far side of the waiting room responded to the student’s call by approaching him and introducing himself. After they slipped through the beads, I straightened my posture and recommenced my daydreams about the female stylists.
An hour had now passed since I had arrived and paid for my cut. As my wait continued, I visually selected the girl I hoped would acquire my ticket. She wore her black hair short, exhibited nice cleavage, and possessed full lips that spread into bubbly smiles. The bubbly girls always entertained me, because they laughed and moved and jiggled and made me think they would say yes when I asked them out. I watched the girl finish with her current patron and noticed her eyes glowing when he handed her a one dollar tip. What magnitude of happiness would she display for me when I handed her a five?
As her patron exited the building, she slid behind the front desk and vanished through a rear door. Then, after a long three minutes, she reappeared with a new yellow ticket clasped between her delicate, soft fingers. I tried to catch her eyes with a smile, but she failed to notice.
“Mark?” she asked in a loud voice. A man stood and walked toward her. Together, they headed into the salon. I couldn’t help glaring at them as they stopped in front of her counter. The happy, airy looks she fed him were supposed to be for me. And the way she–
“Felix?”
I swiveled around in my chair to examine the woman who’d called my name. A brunette – flat chest, dull face, large legs – slouched in front of the beaded doorway, her wide hands fumbling with a yellow ticket. Reluctantly, I stood and shuffled toward her.
“I’m Felix.” My lack of enthusiasm sounded loud in my ears. I could come again in five weeks, probably, but four would be pushing it. Three was out of the question.
“Hi, Felix. I’m Molly, and I’ll be cutting your hair today. Follow me.”
She twisted around, parted the beads, and weaved across the hair-covered main floor of the salon. I trailed behind, eyeing the various female students in the mirrors. The school’s instructors, apparently deeming their establishment a place of beauty for beauties, tended to showcase the knockout women up front, while hiding the less-glamorous ones in the building’s rear.
Molly’s counter stood alone in the back.
As I dropped into her chair, I reviewed the different lines I typically used to entice women into conversation. At least I’d get practice with my delivery.
“So, Felix, how do you want your hair cut?”
The way she pronounced the word hair nettled me. My coiffure had thinned over the last couple of years, prompting me to twist the wispy strands across growing bald spots. But did she have to refer to the strands as a hair?
Suddenly, I didn’t want her. The girl showed no couth, looked over twenty-one, and would probably make a terrible hair stylist. And she wasn’t even attractive. Why waste my time and money dealing with her?
“Ah, I think I changed my mind,” I said, jerking forward to climb out of the chair.
“You can’t change your mind.” Molly’s hand rolled through my hair and her lips feigned a pout. “Look at this. You need a cut. And you already waited and everything. Let me cut it, Felix. Please?”
Intuition, I’ve always believed, is everything. At that moment, I realized that if I asked Molly out, she would accept. She seemed more attractive now, more developed, more fun. Maybe we would make an interesting couple after all. Yeah, I could date her. She wasn’t that bad.
So, I stayed.
The haircut lasted twenty-three minutes. Molly talked the entire time, providing me with the details I would need to interest her in a date. Whenever she paused to catch her breath, I interjected witty comments about her stories, often receiving a laugh or giggle for my efforts. The girl liked me. Her eyes, lips, and body motions told me so. I studied people, and knew the signs.
When she finished, I handed her a five dollar tip for one of the worst haircuts I’d ever received. Then I made my move.
“If you like jazz so much, Molly, you ought to go with me to the Runaway Blues cafe. A friend of mine plays there. He’s excellent." Molly waved the five dollar bill at another hair stylist. The two girls exchanged grins and winks. Then Molly pocketed the money, gazed into my eyes, and frowned.
“Sorry, Felix, but I’ve got a boyfriend. Thanks for asking, though.”
My smile didn’t waver. “I understand. Don’t worry about it.”
As Molly ushered me toward the salon’s exit, I debated whether or not I could ask for a return of my tip money without causing a scene. Maybe I could get away with the request by telling her I needed the money for gas. The plan sounded plausible, but I decided against it. The expression on her face when I’d asked her out proved she’d been close, oh so close, to saying hell with her boyfriend and going out with me anyway. Besides, now two of the girls knew I tipped with fives. They might tell others, and rumors of my generosity might help me next time I come here.
“Bye, Felix,” Molly said at the exit.
I waved without turning and pushed through the front door. The haircut was terrible. I’d have to return again soon. And there’d be new women working by then. There were always new women. Women just waiting to be released from the hair stylist cocoon that had trapped them. Waiting to be asked out and swept off their feet.
Waiting. For me.
End
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