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  “It seems like you are doing more than talking. You’re having counseling sessions,” Candy added.

  Pill had to agree that Mercedes was talkative but talented. She almost felt sorry for her having to work for an owner like Carmen straight out of beauty school who didn’t allow her to advertise or promote for her own clients. Carmen wanted them all to build the clientele for the salon that just reopened a year ago, so that if they should decide to leave her shop, the clients would be inclined to stay at Epic Beauty. Carmen often tried to get returning customers to see different stylists according to what they were getting done, pegging her stylist as a specialist of one particular style. Deena was great with color and highlights. Candy was known for perms and wraps. Pill could do it all. The three of them had been in the business for a while and had built a reputation as well as a clientele.

  “I got behind when one of the walk-ins wanted cornrows. I did a section before she decided it wasn’t thick enough and she wanted hair added. Then I waited for her to go to the store and get some hair. Even though my bureau was stocked with superjumbo packs of Kanekalon, I didn’t have the color she wanted.”

  “But, I bet you got burgundy,” Candy said.

  Deana cosigned, “And platinum.”

  Mercedes flipped the members of the peanut gallery an obscene gesture. Pill just shook her head.

  “Let me help you out. Get only the packs of hair that are actual shades of real hair, the ones with color codes. They are blended to look like real hair,” Pill said, joining in on the joke, but being serious all the same. “If the pack has a color found in a jumbo pack of crayons, leave it on the shelf.”

  “Forget you, Pill. It’s all fake hair. I hate y’all.”

  “Hate is such a harsh word,” Pill said, feeling immediately like a hypocrite as she thought of her mother, the only person she had used those words toward.

  Pill reached out for a handful of freshly laundered towels and began to fold as was their custom during staff meetings. She reminded herself she was supposed to remain low-key today since she didn’t have her booth fee.

  “Anyway, I’ll be trying out a new stylist. Pill’s good friend Shae Bennett will be joining our staff at station four. She will be doing all natural styles: cornrows, twists, locs, and braids. She’s in class right now, by the way. She’s our natural hair care expert,” Carmen added.

  “So if my client wants to wear a flat twist or some simple cornrows, I have to send her to Shae? How am I supposed to make any clients or money?”

  “If you can handle it, then just do it, Mouthy. If not, then pass the client on,” Deena said.

  “Basically, you need to prove yourself.” Pill folded a hand towel into thirds on her lap. She figured no one should have to tell Mercedes that. Shae was her girl, but she was not passing on her clients to her no matter what Carmen wanted.

  Carmen sighed loudly and tapped the heel of her Coach Signature loafers onto the floor out of frustration. Pill fixated on her shoes. In keeping with the boss lady role, Carmen tried to dress in classic designers. Pill liked to mix classic pieces with some high-end trendy accessories. In Pill’s opinion, her other coworkers were hopeless, perpetually pulling selections straight from the House of Hoochie. They always dressed like they were going straight to the club to snag a man. Mercedes was in perfect proportion for nineteen and could get away with it. Candy and Deena, on the other hand, with the combined age of Ms. Theresa, were just considered the old chicks at the club and didn’t know it.

  “Is she the one that did your braided Mohawk that time? That was fierce,” Mercedes said.

  Pill nodded her head with pursed lips as if she couldn’t agree more with the compliment. She always wore her jet-black hair short on the sides, tapered in the back and longer on the top. Presently, the top was spiked forward, arching toward her face with quick freeze mousse.

  “Well, I’m glad we are getting a new stylist. I’m hanging with Shae,” Mercedes announced.

  Shae was what Pill considered cool peoples, but in a bizarre way. They were alike in that she didn’t stick to the status quo. She defied categorization; in fact, she found amusement in questioning and testing the order of things. She wasn’t a tomboy, but she wasn’t girly either. She could care less about fashion. That was why it was bizarre that she was Pill’s best friend.

  Shae was exactly who she would turn to for help with her booth fee if it wasn’t for their pact. They decided that they would have a better chance of remaining friends if money or the pursuit of it weren’t involved. In Shae’s words, Pill already owed her big time. Pill supposedly was responsible for turning her sweet little Pentecostal neighbor on to a life of crime, although, that was not completely accurate.

  It was Pill’s mother, Sheree Jones, who initially introduced her then-six-year-old daughter and best friend to stealing food and other merchandise from the local supercenter. Unbeknownst to Pill at the time, her mom’s habit left her paying for what she wanted and literally stealing for what her family needed.

  One time, her mom had been adamant about her bringing her favorite doll and toy stroller along with them shopping. Pill soon found out that the blankets used to keep the doll warm were used to conceal the stolen goods. It was like a game to Pill and Shae to hide canned goods, toiletry items, and small clothing items like socks and underwear beneath the layers.

  It wasn’t until Pill and Shae got caught trying to replicate the scam without her mother at the corner convenient store that they realized how serious stealing could be. They were old enough to know better at nine years old, but they had been so successful the half a dozen times they had been out with Pill’s mother. This particular time they forgot one critical part of the scam. One of them had to be the decoy. At the supercenter, and later at the department store or any other place they could get away with it, Pill or Shae would carry a censored item out of the store the same time the loot-loaded stroller would cross the threshold. Her mom would act surprised, embarrassed, and then angry when she would appeal to store security to let the “innocent” kids get off with a warning.

  To her mother, it was all an act, but to the girls, the embarrassment, fear, and shame of being caught and carted to the back like common criminals were enough for them.

  “Anyone else?” Carmen asked, bringing Pill back to the present.

  “I would just ask that you not schedule more than one weave in a day, or at least not back to back since Carmen got me out there as the weave specialist,” Pill said, thinking of a way to see more clients, thus bringing in more money. “Ms. Theresa blocks off four hours for each weave when I could probably juggle another two heads.”

  “Shoot, not me,” Mercedes said, swiveling back and forth in her seat like a two-year-old.

  “Is Pill still trying to get more clients? Shoot, she has more clients than anybody. Her Morning Glories roll off the Geritol train before nine A.M.,” Deena said, cracking on several of the church mothers Pill adopted from the first shop she ever worked at when the owner and head stylist got up in age and finally retired. The ancient two-chair shop where she worked as a shampoo girl in exchange for styles was simply called Beauty. Pill wrote in her own appointments for these ladies who came in early on the weekends for a press and curl, complained about the drive into downtown, and wanted to pay the same price for a hairdo as they did with her mentor, Ms. McQueen, back in 1962. Accommodating these ladies before the shop officially opened was her only form of charity.

  “Pill has more energy than anyone I know. Then she goes home and has to take care of a husband,” Candy said, letting everyone know just what kind of “care” she was speaking about by grinding her hips. “At least I can send my men home.”

  This time, Pill swiveled her chair lazily toward her station’s styling mirror to place the folded towels on her station. She didn’t justify that comment with a reply.

  “Y’all done made her mad,” Deena teased.

  “You know Pill don’t like talking about her personal business,” Mer
cedes chimed in.

  Besides class, a burgeoning faith in the Lord and a steady relationship was another thing that Pill thought separated her from the rest. Carmen was divorced, Candy was between baby daddies, and Deena wasn’t even thinking about settling down. Mercedes did have a boyfriend name Jeffery who was twice her age.

  “Okay, okay, if you all are finished, I want to talk to you about a new policy. Any client who enters this door should have their hair washed in the first ten to fifteen minutes. Get them out the front,” Carmen said, directing her attention to her niece, LaToya, who was the only consistent shampoo girl at the salon. “If Toy is busy or you insist upon washing your client’s hair yourself, then this applies to you as well. Do the math. There is twice as much dryer seating than chairs up front. A wet head is less likely to walk out the door. Got me?”

  Carmen passed out their current promotional flyer. She walked around the circle as she talked similar to a mob boss in the gangsta films after bringing the family together to expose a weakness or betrayal.

  Pill and Carmen met back at high school where they shared the same cosmetology class junior and senior year at their vocational high school. After graduation, they completed their additional 1,000 hours at Empire Beauty School to receive their cosmetology license. Pill always considered Carmen to be lucky because she married young and married rich. She was pretty. Not beautiful, in Pill’s opinion. This was Carmen’s second shot for salon ownership. In the six years since graduating from high school, she had gotten married and opened a salon, had two kids, and closed the shop to be a stay-at-home mom at her husband’s request. She reopened this smaller version of Epic Beauty after a bitter and nasty divorce.

  Pill seemed to make out better at the old shop managed by Carmen and her ex-husband, Nick, where clients paid the house, and the house paid their stylist a flat forty-hour-a-week rate plus supplies. At least she had an actual check and a lump sum of money to regulate better. At that time, they had ten chairs. The majority of the stylists questioned the fairness of the pay scale being not based on the number of clients they brought in. Carmen changed that system. Pill was certain it wasn’t because of the complaints, however. In general, Carmen wanted to live a life completely opposite of the life that she lived when she was married to Nick.

  Carmen gained her own salon, but lost something in the process. She lost the joy of styling. She still occupied chair number one, but entertained clients infrequently. She had a vision to brand Epic Beauty and open several on the East Coast. This made Carmen all business all the time in order to reach her all her goals.

  “What does free consultation mean?” Mercedes asked, referring to the new promo flyer.

  Pill spun around. She couldn’t resist. “It means doing what you do best, talking.”

  “We are trying to reach a certain clientele. People in high-power positions or people with a considerable amount of money and fame have consultations for everything before they spend their money. Before we start cutting, coloring, or perming someone’s hair, we need to talk to the client first to discuss their style options. This is where I need you to be a team player.”

  “Don’t we already do that?” Deena asked.

  “Yeah, and when are we supposed to fit in these consultations? ” Candy questioned.

  “And why they got to be free?” Mercedes asked, just starting on her batch of towels.

  Putting on the voice of authority, Carmen said, “A consultation is more than just having a client pick a style out of the book while they wait. You don’t charge for that. Some of you come off kind of cold. Talk to the clients. I have come up with a consultation card I want us to try. The client fills out a hair history card with contact information for our records. We’ve got to keep track of people that come in and out of here. All right? We straight?”

  The meeting was adjourned with murmurs of displeasure. Deena began unpacking a black plastic bag from the beauty supply place to add to the cleansing, conditioning, and moisturizing staples provided by the salon. Candy and Mercedes made haste toward the door.

  “Before you go, there is one more thing I forgot to mention,” Carmen said as they prepared to leave. “There is going to be a photo shoot this Sunday, so I want everything extra clean on Saturday before you guys leave. I don’t want anything left on the stations, no hair in the sink, and no towels left about.”

  “I want to be a model. Can I model this time?” Mercedes said, tossing her auburn spiral curls around.

  “Does that mean we have an opportunity to get some extra work and maybe a stylist credit this time?” Candy asked.

  “This is for Sophisticates Black Hair,” Carmen gloated.

  This garnered a round of applause. Just like the name suggested, Sophisticates Black Hair magazine was well respected in the beauty world, getting mass distribution to newsstands around the country with its sister publication, Sophisticates Hair, catering to a Caucasian audience.

  “Oh là là,” Deena added.

  “It’s not like the other times. This is a feature interview about me in the Salon Talk mini-magazine. I’ve been waiting a long time for this. Don’t worry, I won’t forget to mention my stylists. I’ll get back to you when I talk to the photographer about the possibility of featuring some of our styles in this issue also.”

  The excitement waned as they each remembered the last photo shoot for Hype Hair, where they put a lot of time and energy into styling the heads of amateur models to be left with not so much as an honorable mention in the credits. If anything, they all shared a love of the limelight. After Carmen finished promoting the salon and herself, there was rarely a ray left. Pill could just see her infamous quote: I wanted to bring beauty of epic proportions to the metropolitan area when I started this salon.

  “That’s all. I told you the meeting would be short and sweet. Pill, let me speak to you before you leave,” Carmen said, squinting, giving her a visual shakedown.

  “Okay,” Pill squeaked.

  Pill busied herself at her station. She checked her reflection to make sure she didn’t look shaken. She could see Carmen over the shoulder of Deena and LaToya at the sink that they always complained about, watching it drain. She waited for her coworkers to leave.

  Pill rifled through her oversized plum-colored bag. She came across her checkbook and stopped for a moment. She contemplated writing a bogus check. Thoughts of her mother halted that notion. This was the second time in a sixty-minute period she had thought about her mother. She would rather work her debt off in servitude than bear any semblance to that woman.

  Her life had become one big negotiation. She carefully pushed her arms through the holes of her black leather bolero and threaded her arm through her purse straps as if she was preparing to leave. Then she walked slowly toward the back and lingered by the dryers until she made eye contact with Carmen.

  Pill followed Carmen through her open office door. She watched as Carmen tapped her keyboard, making the hundreds of multicolored fish on the desktop’s screensaver dissolve to reveal her e-mail inbox. Carmen became fascinated at a few messages that must have come in while she was running the meeting. Then her inner Capone reappeared. She had called this meeting, but now she was making Pill wait. It was unnerving, compromising her cool.

  “Look, Carmen, there was a mix-up at the bank,” Pill started.

  Carmen looked up at Pill as if she expected as much. Her blinking seemed excessive. She had been late before, but it was far from a habit, Pill thought.

  “I’ll have it to you by the end of the week.”

  Carmen went into her pants pocket to pull out Mercedes’s check to add to the others who were prompt with their board and keep. She leaned back in her high back office chair to allow space for the drawer to open. Carefully, she pulled out a large bank envelope and started preparing the checks for deposit.

  “You know the shoot is on Sunday. I was thinking you can style my hair,” Carmen said after a minute. She didn’t look up. “You know, until the bank straightens up thei
r mix-up.”

  “You know I have church on Sunday. It’s the first Sunday, so Corey and I have Marriage Maintenance right after service.”

  “That’s why I was thinking you could do it on Saturday.”

  “I’m leaving at five on Saturday. For real. It’s my mother-in-law’s sixty-fifth birthday,” Pill said.

  Silence.

  “When can you fit me in?” The indignation could almost go undetected to the untrained ear.

  “What do you want done?”

  “Tracks. Shoulder length.”

  “You know I don’t mess with glue.”

  “And you know I’m not going to have this in but a minute.”

  Great, that guarantees that my work will be a total waste of time.

  “I got to see my Morning Glories.” If she wanted next month’s booth fee on time she would find someone else and let her make that money, Pill thought. “Okay, but I got to be out of here no later than 6:30.”

  “I’m going to Beauty Haven when I leave,” Carmen said.

  “Get Wet Wave. It’s blended, so it will look more natural with your texture.”

  “I want it straight.”

  Pill barely caught a scream before it escaped her lips. She could do little to control her visible chest heaves. Carmen’s roots were doing their own screaming: “Perm me!”

  “Whatever,” Pill said with arms folded across her chest. It didn’t matter. Either she was going to wrestle with the synthetic to make it look natural, or struggle with the natural so that it would look synthetic. Of course, the latter was more time-consuming. Shae was always saying the natural state of a black person’s hair is relentless.

  Pill stared at her boots, ready to run for the exit. She was asking for four hours’ worth of work, minimum. She could make an easy $250 from a paying customer for what Carmen wanted done free.

  “Okay, then,” Carmen said by way of dismissal.

  For obvious reasons, and for fear of sounding like Mercedes, Pill did not ask, Why it got to be free?