“I’ve got to go get her.” But in my heart I don’t want to. Not one bit. I don’t want to rescue her anymore if she’s just going to keep living this life. I can’t help her if she chooses this life.
“Ryan will follow me here,” Kate says. “You know he will.”
“You said he wasn’t interested if you wanted a career.”
“That doesn’t mean he won’t try to convince me of the error of my ways. I need you to do me a favor.”
“Noooo,” I whine. “Kate, I don’t want to hurt Ryan, even if he does think I’m a loser.”
“Please, Sarah Claire. You know he won’t listen to me.”
“I’ll do it on one condition.”
“You don’t even know what the favor is yet.”
“Like heck I don’t. Kate, I’ have known you since kindergarten. I know exactly what it is. Since I was five I’ve been doing your dirty business so that the whole town sees you as the sweet girl. Your reputation is intact.”
“All right, what is it then, smartie?”
“You want me to break it off with Ryan.”
She’s silent.
“And give back the ring, because I know you’re still wearing it,” I continue. More silence. “Is there more?”
“No, that’s it. I just hate you for getting it right.”
“He’s going to blame me anyway, but I still think it’s weird you’re not doing it yourself. You’ll never be able to show yourself in Sable again. I’ll never be able to show my face in Sable again. You do realize they’ll say I corrupted you and that they warned your mother not to let me hang out with you.”
“What’s the condition? You said there was a condition.”
“You have to check out of the seedy motel and get over here to Scott’s. There’s someone I want you to meet. I need the opinion of a trusted friend, because my logic isn’t working so well at the moment.”
“I hate men in hats.”
“You won’t hate this one.”
“I’ll come in the morning. I want to watch Letterman and sleep.”
“I should go look for my mother anyhow.” But for the first time in my life, I am truly not tempted to seek her out and fix her problem. For the first time in my life, I have something I want, and I see that my continual quest to fix Mom’s issues hasn’t fixed a thing. I don’t want to rescue her anymore if she’s just going to keep living like this.I can’t help her if she chooses this life. “On second thought, maybe I’ll catch Letterman too.”
“It’s not selfish to avoid enabling, Sarah Claire.”
“It’s so much easier to know what the right thing to do is when it isn’t a real person. I mean, anyone else and I'd be telling them to let her go, she’s never going to get out of trouble. But she’s my mother, and I want to have hope. God forgive me, somehow I still have hope for her. I keep seeing her having this dramatic conversion and becoming the mom I always wanted.”
“What do they put in the water out here?”
“I’ll see you in the morning. Come by Yoshi’s when you wake up. But you have to meet Dane. I’m not doing your dirty work until you meet Dane.”
See, this is how life is: you change your life so there won’t be any problems, and then all new ones crop up that you can’t possibly anticipate happening. My issue is the same old issue that keeps popping up. And her name is Janey Winowski.
chapter 20
If I had my career over again?
Maybe I’d say to myself, speed it up a little.
~ James Stewart
Hoping to find solace and escape in someone’s world that sucks more than mine, I reach for my ragged copy of Camille. The book, which I bought for a quarter at a library sale, always brings me peace. It’s not exactly a happy story—it’s about a courtesan (a nice French word for a kept woman or your basic high-end prostitute, but I digress) who falls in love with a young man of means, and his father asks her to leave him for the son’s sake. Basically, your typical have/have-not love affair, and once again, the have-not ends up in the gutter while the have goes merrily along. Maybe merrily is a little harsh, but she’s dead at the end, and that’s definitely worse off than the young man. He is still alive and rich.
When Sable would call my mother names, I’d think of Camille, the woman who loved Armand so deeply she sacrificed everything for him only to die alone. I guess I hoped my mother would come to this place and give it all up for me. I hoped that deep in her soul it wasn’t about her, and she’d dramatically tell the men it was over. She needed to be a mother!
Considering she’s in jail and I’m out my latest thousand bucks, I’d say that dream has gone up in smoke once again. Unrequited love is mine once again. The gift that keeps on giving.
Camille loved Armand with a purity of soul and his best interest in mind. (Though he never appreciated the gift until she was gone. Typical.) She proved her love in the end. That’s my goal. It’s so biblical, really. Didn’t Rahab prove her worth? My mom is clearly not going to do it, so I’m going to try to die to self and make it up for her. I will change the direction of the Winowski family single-handedly.
I’m trying, God. I pray that counts for something.
There’s a knock at my door and I throw my tattered copy of the book at the wall. I should have watched Letterman.
“Sarah Claire, come out here. I need your help.” I open the door and see my cousin looking pale. “I have a hair emergency.”
“Your hair looks fine.”
“Not mine! Come out here.”
I walk out to the living room to find a woman crying. Her hair is a pale, sickly, pond-scum shade of green. I’ve seen this before. It’s the kind of color mishap that isn’t going away with a bottle of anything, but I know better than to say that to a grieving woman. These are the moments that great hairstylists are made from.
“Did you use henna?”
She sniffles and nods. “Can you fix it? I had to wear a hat to get over here. I snuck out the back.”
I walk over and finger a few strands. It’s like straw. Fresh spring straw. It’s bad, I think to myself, worse than when Carrie-Lynn went ballistic with the Sun-In and lemon juice. But one never wants to let someone hear their greatest fear out loud. Hair emergencies in Hollywood make a hair emergency in Wyoming look downright comical. This girl is stressed.
“Please say something,” she sobs.
I give the prognosis as gently as possible. “There’s no way you’re ever going to get it back the way it was, and it's not strong enough to hold extensions, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have options. Your cheekbones give us a ton of options.”
Full-blown blubbering ensues. “I have a screening for the studio tomorrow night! I’ve got my dress borrowed from Badgley Mischka!”
“I’ve got her dress borrowed from Badgley Mischka,” Scott corrects.
“Scott, we have a hair emergency. Little easy on ego, all right?” I mean, really.
“Do you have a great wig?” She sniffles. “Maybe I can just sweep it on top of my head or wear a bathing c—aa—More sobbing.
“Just calm down for a minute.” My voice is soothing, like a country creek. “We’re going to talk options.” I’m all business; it’s going to do her no good if she doesn’t trust me or think I’m not in complete control. “It’s not going to retain any form of blonde like this.” I finger a few strands to let her hear that crisp, crunchy sound. “The green is going to peek through.”
“So a wig?”
“A wig is too dangerous at a premiere because there will be so many photos, and you don’t know which angles you’ll be taken from. It’s impossible to ensure.”
“She’s right, Flora, we can’t do a wig,” Scott adds, as if he has any idea what I’m talking about. I purse my lips at him.
“If we could do extensions or a hairpiece, that might work, but I don’t think your hair is strong enough for that.”
More whimpering ensues.
“I think you should go shorn and dark,” I say r
esolutely “Cover up the problem until new hair grows out and it’s strong enough to take a lighter pigment again.” I shake my head slowly. It’s the hairstylist’s equivalent to, I'm sorry, ma’am, there’s nothing more we can do. “I know that’s not what you want to hear, but with these cheekbones and the right makeup, it’s going to look like you planned this for your premiere.”
She’s weeping, cradling her face in her hands. “What am I going to do, Scott? I’m the new blonde!”
“They’re calling her the next Marilyn Monroe,” Scott explains.
Please. They call everyone that. And in my lifetime, there has never been another Marilyn. Nor another Elvis. Nor . . . the list goes on and on: Cary Grant, Clark Gable, William Holden . . . Hollywood needs a new promoting their wannabes.
I try to console her by patting her shoulder and fingering her hair to see if there’s some way. Any way. But it’s not going to happen. It’s toast.
“All the more reason to go dark,” I reason. “You can show them you won’t be boxed in to any corner.Like Madonna, you can be anyone you want to be. Blonde, brunette, redhead—you are Fawn Flora.” I have to spit out the last part. That name!
“It’s Flora Fawn, actually,” she says quietly.
Scott rolls his eyes.
I just shrug. Is there a difference? What can I say, really? It’s a stupid name. I mean, Winowski at least sounds real, am I right? “If you let me go ahead, we’ll have to lift this product out of your hair. It will look worse for a while tonight. Are you willing to see it through?”
She fingers her hair. “I’m going to lose my hair!” Her face crumples into a wail.
“You already did lose your hair, Fawn—I mean Flora. We’re just going to remove the dead body.”
She’s reduced to a loud squeal.
“Flora,” Scott says with authority. “My cousin is the best. She’ll make you look like a superstar. You just have to trust me. Have I ever let you down? When you said you wanted Mischka, did I not get you Mischka?”
She sniffles, nodding her head with each pout of the lip as she looks up at my cousin, the biggest liar I know and love. “Do you promise?”
This is how women end up pregnant.
“I promise you,” Scott purrs.
“I’m a color-correction expert, and I’ve done this before. I’m going to cut your hair because I think you have such beautiful facial structure you can handle it short. Not many women can, so be grateful for that. Tomorrow night, you’ll make a statement no one is expecting.”
Flora has massive green-blue eyes, and even though her face is puffy and swollen from hours of crying and fretting, when she blinks, it’s still heart-stoppingly beautiful. Her cheekbones look as though Michelangelo formed them from marble to commemorate God’s handiwork. She has a pert, straight nose and full, round lips. This girl’s hair won’t make a bit of difference, but I’m only too happy to fix it for her.
“Generally, this would take a few visits. I’d pull the product out, have you come back and put something in. I don’t know if your hair is going to hold any color, so I want to treat that as well. We’re going to have a long night. Are you ready for it?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Actually, no.”
I take the mirror away from her, but this being my cousin’s house, there is no shortage of them. Dane comes walking out of his room, and Flora puts her elbows around her head. “Who’s that?”
“It’s just Lurch, my roommate. Don’t worry; he has no idea who you are. He’s only interested in people and things that have been dead for a few centuries.”
Not quite, I think to myself with a smile.
Dane gives him a dirty look and takes his sideways haircut into the kitchen, grasping a glass. “You didn’t cut his hair, did you?” Flora cries.
“No, she didn’t,” Scott interjects.
“I’ll get what product I have.” Luckily, I bought some, and it’s not organic. Organic is what caused this disaster. In situations like these, a girl needs chemicals! Better living though toxicity.
“I have a ton in the master bathroom.”
“Of course you do.” I shake my head at Scott. “I have what I need. I brought it for the color codes to compare to Yoshi’s products.”
“Oh, you cut for Yoshi.” Flora exhales loudly. “I thought you were just some chop-shop girl.”
I’ll ignore that. “You’re going to have to devote your week to this, I’m afraid. I’ll get you set up for tomorrow, but it’s going to take a few visits to get it right. I’m going to spray you tomorrow night with something to make sure you don’t lose color, but you’ll want to be careful the rest of that evening. Stay away from water, and don’t put any product in your hair after I finish.”
“I promise. Whatever you say. Just fix it.”
“First, like I said, I’m going to lift the color and see what we have, just to make sure we need to cut it. If we can keep it, we will.”
I head into my bedroom and pull out all the product.
“You’ll need to be at the showing?” my cousin asks me when I reenter.
My first thought is of clothes. As in I have none, and going to a Hollywood anything is not in my wardrobe vocabulary. But taking a look at Flora’s hair and then my cousin’s concern over his own career, I have my answer. “I just need to be outside of it. She’ll be fine for a few hours.” It’s not brain surgery, but this girl’s hair obviously means way too much to both my cousin and, consequently, me. And Yoshi, if word gets out.
“I’m going to get you a ticket, just in case. This gal is my cash cow, Sarah Claire. You can’t screw this up. She’s got a percentage in this movie, unheard of at her level. If the buzz is good, I am set for a long time.”
“Thanks for keeping the pressure off.” I gather up the bottles and cradle them in my arms. “I’ll keep your client gorgeous, but . . . I need to find my mother before I get started.”
Scott whips his head back and forth. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?”
“I’m putting my foot down here. She’s sat in jail many a night, Sarah Claire; she’s not going to mess this up for us. Not this time. It’s not going to kill her to be there, and at least you know she’s safe.”
What he says sounds completely reasonable. But I told myself I was going to do this. “It’s just a phone call.”
“It’s not, Sarah Claire, because after she’s manipulated you on the phone, you’ll want to go downtown and take my checkbook, and I’m saying ‘enough.’ She’s sat in jail before.”
“With the Sable sheriff and Al, her personal bail bondsman. It’s not like she’s in her element at the LA county jail. They’ll eat her alive.”
He taps his foot. “They’ll eat your mother alive?”
“All right, maybe they won’t, but she’ll still want out.”
“Then she should have thought of that before she snuck past LAX security.”
“How do you know what she did?”
“She already called here, looking for bail.”
“And you hung up on her? She gets one phone call, Scott!”
Dane comes up, holding a glass of water in his hand. I clamp my mouth shut about my mother. It’s one thing that he’s a have, it’s another altogether to reiterate my have-not status complete with police action.
“I’m sorry I was rude earlier, Sarah,” he says without preamble.
“No, that’s okay. It’s me that owes you the apology. I was agitated. I’ll finish your hair when I’m done with Fawn.”
“Flora!”
“Whatever.”
Dane looks over at the once-blonde bombshell, and his eyes linger a bit too long for my liking. “I’m not in a hurry.” He takes a long, slow drink from his water and wanders off.
“Do you have any mineral oil, Scott?”
“Mineral oil?”
“Like baby oil. Do you have any?”
“I think so.” He runs toward his Sephora bedroom.
“And ste
rile cotton balls!” I yell after him.
Dane is standing in the kitchen, and I’m ready to usher him right back into his bedroom. “So you’ll let me finish that?” I look at his head.
“I like it this way,” he says dryly and goes into his room, slamming the door.
Men.
My cousin returns, and I fan my hair cape around the crying beauty. I coat Flora’s hair with rubbing alcohol. “This is just the first step. I’m sorry it smells, but beauty is hard work. Why did you do this, anyway?”
“Scott told me I could benefit from brighter highlights. When I couldn’t get into my salon, I thought I’d try henna at home.”
I purse my lips at Scott, and he just shrugs and mouths the words, “I wanted her to come to you.” Then he turns toward Flora. “Homemade highlights the night before an opening? You had to know I wasn’t suggesting that!”
Three hair disasters in two days and I’m to blame for all of them. Hairstylist to the stars, my foot.
I coat her hair with mineral oil and follow with a lifting product, hoping her hair will feel soft and shine again, but no luck. She still looks like a bleach-bottle blonde with stringy, lifeless locks. “I’m going to have to cut it.”
I let Flora go into the bathroom and have a good cry. When she comes out, she nods as if being led down the gangplank in the middle of the Pacific. “Let’s just do it.”
“I have some hair vitamins from Yoshi. They won’t help instantly, but they will provide you with the right nutrients to help your hair grow back healthier than ever.”
“Thanks . . . I just realized—” She bats her big eyes at me. “—I don’t even know your name.”
“Sarah Winston. I’m Scott’s cousin.” I finger her fried hair and change my opinion. “I think I could color it blonde again, but I still recommend you go darker because it has the oddest green tint to it that I don’t think the blonde will cover. I’ve never seen this color green with henna. It’s not a good sign for how your hair might react.”
“Just do what you need to.” She clasps her eyes shut as if I’m going to inflict bodily harm. Being in Hollywood and “cutting her crown,” I imagine I am.
It pains me to do it. Pains me even more to know I can’t use these long, formerly gorgeous locks for Locks of Love. But the hair is gone, and there’s no sense crying over spilled milk. I take my first cut and Flora wails at seeing it land on Scott’s kitchen floor.
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