“Are you okay?” I asked.
She turned her eyes toward me as if finally realizing I was there. She sat up straight and took a big, deep breath. “I’m fine,” she said, even though she clearly didn’t look it.
My heart raced, and I knew I had to ask her about her old salon. The problem was, she was so down and depressed, I worried that anything we talked about could make things worse. Knowing it was all because of me made me feel awful, but it also gave me the determination to do something about it. “So, like . . .” I began as delicately as I could given what I was about to ask her. “About your last salon in Boston. What was that like?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “Nice. On Newbury Street, so we had high-end clients. Impossible to get an appointment. Always busy, like here. Well.” She gave a hiccup of a laugh. “For some stylists.”
I pulled the tinfoil off the wrap, then closed it back up. The idea of eating didn’t seem so great just then. “What happened there?”
Without looking at me she said, “What do you mean?”
“Well, you said something once about, um, a balding incident?”
Devon looked at me blankly, her mouth hanging open slightly. “What are you talking about?”
“Some client of yours went bald? Because of a cut you gave her?”
Devon pulled her head back in exasperation. “You think I made someone go bald? Are you crazy?”
My stomach cramped up and just having food near me made me want to gag. I pushed the wrap away from me. “I thought I heard you say something. Like, there was some accident or something?”
She shook her head furiously. “No, I once buzzed a girl’s hair marine-short, but that’s because she asked me to do it. She wanted to freak out her mom and it worked. She loved me. But it wasn’t an accident at all.” Devon bore her eyes into me and asked, “Mickey, why are you asking this? Has someone been saying things about me?”
I shook my head no, scooting away from the table and pulling myself up. I kept my hand on the arm of the chair to help steady myself. Devon stood up with me, as if she was going to block my way out of the break room.
“No,” I said. “Not that I know of.”
“Are you sure about that?”
I nodded my head, but she wasn’t buying it.
“Something’s going on and I want to know what it is.”
Those pesky beads of sweat started to form on my upper lip. I swallowed hard. “Nothing’s going on.”
Devon fixed her green eyes on me and folded her arms across her chest. “I have no clients, no one seems to know why, and now you’re asking me about making a woman go bald? Kid, you better spill it and spill it quick.”
“It’s nothing,” I said, feeling desperate.
“Nothing, huh? You think I don’t know about those nail polishes?” My heart raced and I felt like the breath was being sucked out of me. I was so going to faint before this was over. “Violet’s inventory is never off, and she does it every week so I knew it wasn’t a simple mix-up. Then I caught what was going on with you and your little friend last weekend and that green polish. One of the exact ones Karen’s been looking for?”
“I’m going to tell my mom about it,” I said quickly. “Tonight. I’m telling her.”
“Or I could tell her right now, unless you start talking. I’m serious, Mickey. This is my job we’re talking about.”
I wanted to cry. Bawl is more like it. Shoulders shaking, hyperventilating, dehydration setting in—that sort of thing. Somehow I managed to keep the tears away for the moment. The rest of it, though, came spilling out of my mouth.
“Well I overheard you saying that one time you made that client of yours in Boston go bald, and I guess I misunderstood and thought you didn’t do it on purpose and then I told someone who might have told a couple more people and then suddenly no one would let you do their hair and I guess it’s because they all thought you made women go bald and I’m so, so sorry, Devon. Really, I promise, I am.”
I took a breath and watched the realization slowly seep into her expression. Her eyes widened and her mouth puckered.
“You?” she began. “I’ve been practically clientless because of you? That client of mine wanted me to shave her head.”
“I know!”
“I’m a great stylist!” she said.
“I’m so sorry. Honestly.”
Devon stared me down. Hours passed before she said, “What are you going to do about it?”
Gulp.
“I’ll fix it.”
“How?”
I could hear Giancarlo laughing out on the floor, and thought how lucky he was to be so carefree at the very moment I was sinking into great failure.
“I’ll think of something. I promise,” I said, even though I had zero idea what I could do.
She picked up another apple slice and snapped off a bite. “You have until tomorrow, or I’m going to your mother and telling her exactly why I haven’t had any clients,” she said. “I can’t afford to have my chair empty any longer.”
“Don’t worry,” I said.
Don’t worry? What had I gotten myself into? What was I going to do?
As stressed as I was, and horrified at what I had done, I knew I had to go talk to Mom before I did anything else. Not just because Devon had threatened to rat me out, but because it was time for me to start fixing my mistakes. This conversation was long overdue.
I knocked on her office door before opening it. She stood behind her desk putting papers in a folder, looking the opposite of how I felt—she was totally put together in skinny dark denim jeans and a black top with a gold belt.
“Hi, honey,” Mom said. “Is my two o’clock here?”
“I’m not sure. I just finished my break.”
She checked her makeup in the compact on her desk. “Everything okay out there?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice giving the tiniest quiver.
“Honey?” Mom said, setting down the compact. She took a step toward me and said, “Are you okay? You look a little flushed.”
I couldn’t take it anymore. I spilled it all out as fast as I could, just to be rid of it. “I took the other bottles of those new polishes. Peppermint Shake and Cornflower Blues. I’m sorry. I gave them to some girls at school because they liked them so much and I know I shouldn’t have taken them without asking or paying or anything and I swear I won’t do it again or anything like it.” I could have kept the momentum going and told her about Devon, too, but something held me back. Maybe because I thought I could fix it on my own. And maybe a little because I was afraid my mother would kill me. “Am I fired?”
Mom looked stunned for a second but quickly recovered, taking a deep breath. “I knew that Violet’s inventory reports are never wrong, so something had to be off—something inside the salon. Did you know that for a moment I thought Devon might have taken them? Because she’s the only new person here—besides you.”
“It wasn’t Devon.”
“How could you do such a thing? I’m so disappointed in you.”
Tears welled up in my eyes as I said, “I’m so sorry. I thought the bottles Karen had would be enough, but I guess deep down I knew that still wouldn’t make taking them okay. I just wanted those girls to like me.”
The angry lines in my mother’s face softened. “Honey, you don’t need to give people things in order to make them like you—you know that. They’ll just like you for who you are.”
I started to sob. If only that was true.
Mom put her arms around me and the sobs turned to heaves. We just stood there in an embrace for a while. Eventually, I calmed down.
“I’m sorry things have been so difficult for you lately,” she said. Then she let go of me and looked me straight in the eye.
I sensed that Sensitive and Understanding Mom was about to shift into Strict and Tough Mom.
“Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
I kept my eyes on the floor. There was no way she knew about the Devon
situation. Even I’d only just found out. And as bad as it was, it was something I really wanted to fix myself, if I could just figure out a way how. If I couldn’t fix it, then I really didn’t deserve to work at the salon—not even if I worked for free.
I shook my head. “No. There’s nothing else.”
Mom took a deep breath and looked me square in the eyes. “Mickey, I need you to leave the salon for the rest of the day. You need to think about what you’ve done. I’m working late tonight, so we’ll talk more at breakfast tomorrow and see if there’s still a place for you here. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” I managed as the tears came spilling out again.
On my walk home, the sun was shining and the birds were chirping, but I couldn’t have cared less. All I could think about was how many things I had to set right. I’d done a lot of damage; now it was time to start cleaning it up.
CHAPTER 19
I’d like to say that as soon as I got home I started thinking up a plan that would save my spot at the salon as well as save Devon from the rumor I’d apparently started. But I didn’t. I went home, collapsed on my bed, and started bawling.
I didn’t know what I was going to do. Everything I had wanted to change in my life, everything I’d wanted to become, I’d totally ruined. I felt like I’d gotten a taste of what it was like to work at the salon and have girlfriends, and as soon as I got used to it, it was taken away. By me. Because I had no one to blame but myself.
I looked out across our backyard from my bedroom window. I spotted Jonah’s legs again.
This was totally ridiculous. He couldn’t avoid me forever, and I couldn’t stand not knowing what, exactly, I’d done to make him so upset.
I knocked twice on the back door and this time when I tried the handle, it wasn’t locked. And with no one to stop me, I walked into the living room, as if nothing was wrong. “Hey.”
Jonah looked over at me, and something exploded on the TV.
“Great, thanks a lot,” he said as a GAME OVER screen came up.
“What is that?” I asked, not recognizing the outer space and alien graphics.
“You should know,” Jonah said. He tossed the controller to the floor in front of him. He got up off the floor and plopped himself on the couch. I sat myself down on the opposite end.
“How should I know?” I asked carefully. He didn’t even look at me. I heard the whine in my voice when I asked, “Why are you so mad at me?”
“Shouldn’t you be at a friend’s house or something?”
My eyes welled up once again. He had no idea how much that stung. “Look, Jonah. Whatever’s wrong, whatever I did, I’m sorry. Okay? Please, please don’t be mad at me because everyone else is.”
He shrugged. “Maybe you deserve to have everyone mad at you.”
Okay. Cold.
“That’s it—tell me what I did. I can’t take it anymore. Are you mad because I’ve been hanging out with the girls lately?”
With every second that passed, it was harder and harder to hold back my tears. Finally, one slipped past the goalie and down my cheek. I quickly brushed it away. I don’t think I’d ever felt so alone and rejected in my whole life.
“Do you seriously think I’d be mad at you because of them?” Jonah asked.
“I don’t know!” I shrieked as the tears rushed down my cheek. “I have no idea why you’re mad at me!”
He shifted on the couch to face me more fully. “I’m mad because, first of all, you totally bailed on me. You said you would come to the store with my dad and me after school last Thursday and then back here to help me break in the new Warpath of Doom.” He shoved his finger toward the TV, still displaying GAME OVER. “And then you just didn’t show. No word, no explanation, nothing. And then for the last week you’ve been acting like you’re suddenly ashamed of me, wanting nothing to do with me whenever your wonderful new friends come along, like you’re embarrassed to be in the same zip code as me. That’s why I’m mad. Now you can leave.”
I cringed. I’d totally forgotten that I’d promised to come over on Thursday. I’d been so wrapped up with going to the baseball game with Lizbeth and Kristen that Jonah and Warpath flew right out of my head.
“Jonah, I’m so sorry. You’re right—you should be mad at me. I’ve been terrible. Thursday completely slipped my mind.” I took a deep breath, trying to keep more tears away. “I don’t have an excuse for how I’ve been treating you. I guess I thought you’d somehow embarrass me in front of the girls and then they wouldn’t like me anymore. I know it’s stupid, but . . . that was pretty much how I was thinking.”
“How would I embarrass you?” he asked. As soon as I heard the words come out of my mouth, I knew I was just digging myself into a deeper hole. His face reddened at the prospect of having an added reason to be angry at me.
“That came out wrong,” I said, hoping to take the sting out of it. “I guess I was just worried that you’d burp the whole alphabet or make underarm farts or something like that, and they’d think I like that kind of thing.”
Thank goodness, that made him laugh. “First of all, anyone who doesn’t appreciate the ancient art of underarm farts isn’t worth being friends with in the first place, and, second of all, if they didn’t like you because they didn’t like me, that’d be pretty stupid.”
I managed a small smile. “I know. You’re right. Jonah, I’m so sorry. I really am. I hope you don’t hate me forever.”
He aimed the remote at the TV and turned it off game mode and started flipping through the channels. “I don’t hate you. Just don’t act like that around me again. Like, ever. It was so not cool.”
“I won’t, I promise. I’m really sorry, about everything.”
He started to smile and said, “I guess I can forgive you, then.”
I started to breathe normally again. “Thanks, Jonah.”
“Whatever,” he said with a crooked smile on his face.
I wanted to talk to him about what was happening with Lizbeth, Kristen, Devon, and the stolen polishes, but it felt like a bit much after just making up. I didn’t want him to think I only came over so I could dump my problems on him. Besides, taking a break from the drama to watch Deadliest Catch seemed like the perfect thing to do just then. We settled into the couch and watched as one of the boats made an emergency stop at Dutch Harbor. At the commercial Jonah said, without looking at me, “What happened to . . .” and he motioned to the top of his head. He meant my hair.
I cringed. “I know.”
“I know I’m a guy and everything, and I say this as a friend,” Jonah said. “But your hair really is jacked.”
For some reason, while the crew on TV was dumping crab pots into the Bering Sea, I decided to take out my ponytail holder and see what happened if I let my hair go wild. This was obviously a mistake. On the up side, Jonah had called me his friend.
“It’s a lost cause,” I said. “I’ve had it all my life and I still don’t know how to fix it.”
“Didn’t you like it the day you got that makeover when you first started?”
“Yeah.”
“So do it like that.”
I rolled my eyes. “I would if I could, obviously. I can never make it look as good as the stylists do. No one can.”
“Maybe you should ask someone there to help you, then. They’re all pros and you see them every week. I’m sure someone there could you give you a lesson or something.”
He had a good point. If there was just some way for all the stylists to help hopeless cases like me do their own hair, then the town would be so happy—not to mention a little bit more gorgeous.
We watched two more episodes of Deadliest Catch before I walked back home. As I brushed my hair getting ready for bed, I thought about how right Jonah was when he said I should get the stylists to show me how to fix my hair. The only problem was, they were always too busy working on paying customers to stop and help me with styling. Plus, they’d already styled me for free on my birthday—I couldn’t a
sk them to do it again.
As I climbed into bed, I realized that actually, there was one person at the salon who wasn’t that busy, not at all.
Someone, in fact, who was desperate for a little work.
CHAPTER 20
The next morning I woke up to my alarm screaming at me. It was 8:30. On a normal Sunday I would have been getting up to dress for the salon. This morning, though, I wasn’t sure if I was ever going to be allowed back.
I showered and dressed as if I would be. Figured I might as well be positive about the whole thing. I dressed in a tie-dyed tank with a pinstripe vest and black jeans, then headed downstairs, ready to face what happened next.
Sort of.
Mom sat sipping coffee while Dad served up hot blueberry muffins in his navy apron.
“Good morning, Mikaela,” Mom said. That’s when I knew the news would not be good.
“Morning,” I said, slipping into the chair.
“Fresh muffin?” Dad asked, holding a muffin pan in his oven-mitted hand.
“Sure,” I said. “Thanks.”
Mom took a sip of her coffee, then asked, “How did it feel, being sent home yesterday?”
“Awful,” I said.
“Mickey, I really can’t emphasize enough how inappropriate—how wrong it was of you, taking those polishes without asking.”
“I know,” I said. “I promise I’ll never do it again.”
“Since you can’t ask for them back, you’ll have to pay for them with your own money.”
Seemed fair enough.
“You’re not going to work with me today, either. I want you to stay home and help Dad with the chores.”
I wasn’t sure what to do. I had to get to the salon to talk to Devon about the idea I had last night. My time was running out. I’d just have to tell Dad I was going for a walk, then go to the salon and somehow talk to her without Mom seeing me. I had no idea how I’d manage that, but I had to make it work.
“And you’re not to leave the house today,” Mom continued. “Or for the rest of the week, aside from school and the salon—if I decide you can go back on Wednesday.”
Blowout Page 10