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Laughter and muffled conversation drift over me, but I can’t see more than their reflections in the edges of the mirror without disturbing the stylist’s work. I really want to know what they’re talking about, which is precisely the point. It doesn’t matter if they’re actually having fun, or even getting along, as long as I think they are.
The stylist has no problem maintaining conversation all on her own. She seems determined to tell me her entire life story as I idly play a candy matching game on my phone.
It’s almost a relief when she takes me into the back area for a shampoo. With my head under the stream, water rushing in my ears, I can pretend for a few minutes that I’m somewhere else. I hear a bottle uncap and feel the cold slide of shampoo across my crown.
Her fingers move over my scalp, massaging as she rinses.
“Oh, shit.”
I almost miss the exclamation over the sound of the running water. Still leaned back over the sink, my eyes open to see her staring down at me with her hands held up in the air like I’m holding her at gunpoint.
She looks at me like clumps of my hair just came out in her hands.
Water flings in an arc as I leap up from the chair. My gaze flies to the mirror across from me, already fearing what I’m about to see.
The good news is that I’m not bald.
But despite whatever she said about a lift, my hair is significantly darker than when the stylist started. From root to tip, every strand is a flat brown.
“What the hell happened?”
“I don’t know…” The stylist looks down at her stained hands with a look of growing horror. She grabs a bottle off the shelf above the sink, then uncaps it and sniffs at the contents. “I think someone put dye in this shampoo bottle.”
Three guesses who that might have been, and the first two don’t count. “You have got to be fucking kidding me.”
“I swear nothing like this has ever happened before.”
“I should hope the hell not.”
Her face screws up, the woman near tears. “I am so sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.” I glare at my reflection in the mirror. “Can you just fix it?”
After three wash and rinse cycles with clarifying shampoo, my hair is a slightly lighter brown and totally fried.
“I am so sorry. This has never happened before.” She backs up in horror from the bottle on the counter, as if it’s been possessed by an evil spirit. “You won’t have to pay for this, of course.”
When my attention flicks back to the stylist, I try to tamp down on the annoyance. “You really can’t do anything?”
She gives me a helpless look. “This is permanent dye. I’d have to do a lift with bleach to get back to your original color.”
“Then do it.”
“The shop is closing. There isn’t time today.” Her tone is so apologetic that it’s hard to hold on to my anger.
“Seriously?”
“I can fit you in tomorrow. No charge for anything, of course.”
My teeth clench so hard that they might actually crack. “I have plans tomorrow.”
“Let me at least get you styled,” she says unhappily.
The woman looks so mortified and apologetic that it’s hard to be mad at her, even though I really want to blame someone aside from myself. But I should have known better than to let my guard down.
My gaze flicks to the smug look on Olivia’s face in the mirror. She must have switched the bottles at some point when the stylist was distracted. I have to fight the urge to launch myself out of the chair and wipe that stupid smile off her face.
When I hear the snickers behind me and glance at the other girls to see their eyes rolling, I realize that the color change to my hair is more than just an annoyance.
