by JE Hunter
“No!” My panicked, tearful tone had everyone in the salon—the hairdressers, the customers, the women under the big fancy round hairdryers—looking at me. “No-no-no-no-no!” My right fist tightly clenched one of my long locks. I stared at it, willing it to change colour. The hairdresser had already applied the dye and rinsed it out—twice—but my hair was still as red as a stoplight.
“I...I'm really sorry,” my hairdresser, a young twenty-something woman with a black and purple spiky do and a name tag that read Annie, stammered at me, helpless. “I don't know why it isn't working. There must be something wrong with…your… the… dye, or something.”
Marnie's mouth dropped open. She'd been standing beside me through both dye jobs. “There has to be something you can do.”
Yes, there has to be something. I can’t look like this. He would hate it. He would be so disappointed in me. Dad loved my dark hair. He’d told me to never change it.
“Well...” Annie raised a tired hand to her forehead. “I've never seen this happen before. After two tries I have to think that you must have some kind of strange immunity to the chemicals. Why don't I just give you a cut instead? We could do something short, funky maybe–”
“No.” I stood up. I shook my head and sat back down in a huff. I couldn't go out into the mall with wet hair—red was bad enough. “Okay. Fine. I'll take a little trim and a blow-dry—one inch off the bottom at most. I might be stuck with red hair but at least it's long and shiny. I’ll just…I’ll just have to hope it washes out in time.”
Annie smiled, pulling out the long clips she kept pinned to her apron. “There you go. Now you're looking on the bright side. Some people would kill for hair as long and healthy as yours.”
Marnie rolled her eyes when Annie was too busy to notice. “Yeah right,” she mouthed.
I forced myself to smile. Inside, I was bawling, because not only was my hair firmly, permanently, and un-dyeably red—my eyes were bright blue. I barely recognized myself. And if Dad were alive he wouldn’t recognize me either.