Ashley's Wedding

by Giulia Napoli

  She’d removed the frosted-white nail polish on her long fingernails, since she was getting a manicure at the salon. It was a warm, sunny, late spring morning, so Susan decided to walk the ten blocks to the beauty shop. She paused before the door, involuntarily swallowed hard, and walked in.

  The receptionist spoke in a voice Susan remembered from the phone the day before.

  "You're Susan?"

  "Yes."

  "My, you do have lovely hair. Are you sure you want to go through with this?" Susan could only nod, almost imperceptively.

  "Alright. I've scheduled you with Erin. She's quick and good and most girls find that the way she works puts them at ease. Phuong will do your nails while Erin rolls you up. She did the other girls, so she knows the color and length Ashley wants. I guess Ashley likes short hair and short nails for her bridesmaids.” She smiled at Susan sympathetically.

  “I’ve given Erin the picture that Ashley left with us and told her exactly what we discussed yesterday – I thought that might make you feel a little more at-ease, not having to go through all that long description again.

  “Thanks. I’m pretty nervous.”

  “Of course! Anyone would be. But you’re gonna look great! You’ve got the perfect face shape to pull this off.

  “I hope you’re right.” I just hope Jack doesn’t hate how I’m going to look, Susan thought to herself.

  Susan sat down to wait. With great difficulty, she resisted the urge to grab her hair and run out the door. She folded her hands in her lap and sat on the edge of the sofa.

  A taller, older woman with medium length, reddish-blond hair came out, the picture in her hand.

  "Susan?"

  Susan rose and followed her back, seemingly back for hours, into a simple cubicle with a chair, sink, and cabinets for the things of hairdressing, and a single mirror on one wall. The woman reached into a drawer and pulled out a gown.

  "Hi Susan, I'm Erin. You can change into this across the hall. Take off your dress first - that'll keep it from getting soiled or mussed.

  There was no mirror in the changing room, just a rack and hangers. Susan changed quickly. Her hands were cold as ice and still shaking, at times severely. Consciously slowing her rapid breathing to try to regain some control over her nerves, she returned to Erin’s cube.

  "It has to be just like the picture, right?" Erin asked, seating Susan in the chair and rotating her away from the mirror.

  "Yes." Susan swallowed hard, her mouth suddenly dry.

  "OK, not a problem. I did two of the other girls, so I know just how to make this match. As much as you can, try to take it easy. You might as well try to have some fun with this. Who knows, you might just love it.”

  Susan thought that was about a likely as getting struck by an asteroid, but she managed a weak smile.

  “You have a lovely, oval face so any style will look good on you. I'm going to cut away the bulk of your hair first, then shape it for the perm, then give you the perm."

  "I might cry."

  "That's all right, dear, you wouldn't be the first. I understand."

  Susan felt the chair rise as Erin moved her closer. The hairdresser pulled her hair behind her shoulders and combed it out. "I'm going to start now."

  Susan bit her lip, closed her eyes tight. Tears began to form in them anyway and rolled down her cheeks. She felt the tug on her hair and the coolness of scissors on the right side of her chin as Erin brushed against her. She heard the quick "snip" as the metal closed about her hair. She felt the lock, now lost forever, slide across her shoulder. It fell to the floor. Another snip followed, and another. She felt her hair bunching together in the back. Erin combed it smooth and snipped again. Susan’s tears came slowly but steadily. Eventually, she felt Erin make a final cut of the long tresses on the left side. Most of it, that luxuriant hair of hers, that hair she loved, that Jack loved, lay strewn on the floor.

  She heard sweeping below her and opened her eyes long enough to see another girl, the receptionist she realized, sweeping up the now useless hair. As she tilted her head to look, a shortened lock of hair flipped into her face, the ends now tickling he corners of her lip. She reached up with her hand. The tears came in a flood.

  Erin stopped working for a few minutes, long enough for Susan to drink a little tea and sob it out. She kept Susan turned away from the mirror as she swung her around to the sink. She tilted her back, washed her hair, blotted it dry and announced, "I'm going to shape it now."

  Susan, eyes still closed, felt the hairdresser begin at the top in front cutting, cutting, cutting all over her head. Time seemed to be moving faster now. Susan, far from calm, had ceased crying. Finally, she realized that Erin had stopped cutting for more than a few moments.

  "How long is my hair now?" She asked, somewhat surprised at herself for speaking at all.

  "About two and a half inches all over, Susan. I'm going to roll it up now. To get the effect in the picture, that very tight curl, I'm going to use these micro curlers, so this will take a while. I'll also use our strongest waving lotion, since your hair is really very straight now. Oh, here’s Phuong – perfect timing!"

  A young Asian girl with straight black hair as long as Susan’s had been introduced herself. Susan reached around her smock to shake her hand. Phuong spoke in a high-pitched voice with no accent.

  “I’ll do your fingernails while Erin rolls you up, Susan. I’ve got Ashley’s instructions. I’ll give you a pedicure when you’re done here.”

  ”How’re you supposed to do them?”

  “Fingernails short as possible and red, just like the other girls in the wedding. Toes short and rounded, same color.”

  That didn’t surprise Susan, even though she hadn’t noticed the manicure and pedicure the other bridesmaids had. Say what you wanted, Ashley was consistent. Susan was going to walk out of this salon without either her hair or her nails.

  She felt Phuong clipping off her lovely, medium-long nails, leaving nothing at the ends, as Erin began to roll her up.

  It did take a while, forty-five minutes or so, to roll her short hair onto the slender rollers. Phuong finished her manicure a few minutes before Erin was done rolling. Susan’s nails were short and red and Phuong had done a very good job. They felt funny, as short as they were, but she had to admit that they were simple and pretty. Of course, she didn’t like them at all.

  After Erin rolled up the last lock of hair, she immediately began to apply the waving lotion, saturating the hair on each curler, then soaking Susan's whole head again.

  Oh God, Susan thought, I can’t believe what’s happening to my hair. It’s almost all gone, and now it’s going to curl up tightly on its own and there’s not going to be anything I can do about it. Once again, she forced herself to breath evenly. She didn’t want any more tears to come.

  In twenty minutes Erin checked a curl. "Not nearly tight enough." She rolled it back up again and continued the small talk she had begun when Susan first sat down in her cubicle. Susan answered very little. That didn't seem to bother Erin as she talkatively continued on.

  Fifteen minutes later the curl was still not tight enough. Ten minutes more and Erin announced, "done," and began applying neutralizer all over Susan's head. Susan sat there for about five minutes, with the occasional distracting, uncomfortable feeling of drops of the thin neutralizer trickling along her scalp. Then carefully, one at a time, Erin removed the curlers. When they were all out, she applied more neutralizer, waited a few minutes more, and rinsed it out in the sink. She towel-dried Susan's now incredibly curly hair, applied some styling gel, and began to dry it with a blower that had a diffuser on the end. She carefully tousled the curls with her fingers as she dried them. Susan’s whole head of hair dried in just a few minutes. Erin continued, trimming a spot here and there, puffing and patting the hairdo. She finally spoke again.

  "Your hair's all finished, Susan. With your face, it looks delightful! I'm going to turn you toward the mirror now. Be prepared for a shock of c
ourse since it's so very different from how it was. But I'm sure in a few days you'll like it very much. Slowly, she turned Susan toward the mirror. When she felt the chair stop, Susan opened her eyes.

  "Oh ... oh!" She exclaimed, not in a loud voice. Her hand reached up to touch the tightly curled mass which was now all that remained of her once long, flowing mane. She felt unreal; a pressure in her head and a ringing in her ears came over her. She thought she was going to faint. Erin was ready with a glass of Coke. She sipped it, her eyes closing again. After a minute, she opened them and tried to examine herself. Her head looked so naked, felt so light, her neck so bare. I look like a little girl, or a cupie doll, she thought. I'm cute, not beautiful anymore.

  Taking her hand, Erin led her across the hall and helped her into her dress. "It really does look nice on you, Susan. You'll look darling at the wedding."

  "Th ... th ... thanks, Erin." Susan would be polite – after all, it wasn’t Erin’s fault. She tipped her in cash. Erin pointed her to a pedicure chair where Phuong waited for her.

  The pedicure took another forty-five minutes. Susan managed to relax while Phuong cut her toenails short, removed calluses from her feet (Susan feet were in beautiful condition already), soaked them, massaged them, and finally applied polish to match her fingers. Phuong was very good. By the time she finished, Susan had managed to regain some composure.

  Susan paid the receptionist and left the shop, walking slowly down the street, still in somewhat of daze. She occasionally reached up to run her fingers through the tight curls. Her head felt foreign, and the feeling from her short fingernails accentuated the difference. It was like touching someone else’s head with someone else’s fingertips. She was astonished at how tight the curls were, at how little hair there was, at how difficult it was even to get them to uncurl enough to pass her stubby fingers through.

  Her neck and shoulders felt completely exposed.

  "This isn't me anymore," she thought, before her thoughts trailed off and she continued numbly down the street.

  Chapter 2

  "Susan, you look great! That's perfect! Just what I had in mind!" Susan had bent down to put her purse in the closet. Straightening up, she instinctively reached up to brush hair from her face - hair that was no longer there. She reddened and fumbled with the curls above her ear. Ashley rushed up to hug her.

  Ashley looked at her cousin's mass of short, tight curls. She thought Susan looked really cute. Not the ravishing beauty that her longer hair had afforded her, true, but her pleasant face pulled off the look well. Ashley resisted the urge to flip her long hair, not wanting to overtly upset her cousin further. That would certainly come later anyway.

  "Susan, let's hurry and have lunch. A good friend of mine, Elsa Clarke, is coming over this afternoon to do our makeup - it's all my treat - it'll make your new look even better," she quickly added, noting Susan's sinking expression.

  "You never said anything about makeup," Susan managed. Then her thoughts shut down again from the shock of what had been done to her hair. Her mind started to recede from behind her eyes and Ashley seemed to be talking from far away. The detached feeling continued through lunch, up to the arrival of Elsa and Susan’s fellow bridesmaid, Teri.

  Ashley handed Susan a small, wrapped package. "Here, Suzi, a little present from me for being such a good sport and all." Susan had never been called “Suzi” before, but barely noticed it. She opened the tiny box. It held two, one-inch diameter, gold, pierced earrings.

  "Ashley, my ears aren't pierced!" She exclaimed.

  "Don't worry, Cuz, Elsa will take care of that in no time, right Elsa? Come on, Susan, just sit down over here and we can start."

  Susan felt as though she were being railroaded but was too shocked from the morning's haircut and perm and Ashley's sharply barked commands to offer resistance. Trying unsuccessfully to muster some inner strength, she found herself unable to respond in her own defense. She’d been psychologically shocked into something resembling a suggestion-receptive state. For the moment, she was almost without a will of her own.

  Ashley seated Susan at the dressing table in her room. "Ears first," Ashley announced to Elsa.

  Susan had never had her ears pierced. She wasn’t squeamish; it just seemed kind of barbaric to her to have metal thrust through a part of her body and left there until her body healed around it. Although far from being an ardent feminist, Susan still regarded ear piercing as one of society’s subtle, historical attempts at female submission, which she couldn't bring herself to accept. It didn’t matter that men also pierced their ears in the twenty-first century. Now, however, she just sat there perfectly still, saying nothing, as Elsa rubbed her earlobes with an antiseptic. Then, suddenly, she felt a sharp sting as the needle pierced her right ear. "Stop!" She shouted, leaping to her feet.

  Elsa jerked back, leaving the needle pushed through Susan's ear like an arrow.

  "Stop it, Suzi! Be quiet and sit down!" Ashley snapped. She was in control of her cousin now and she knew it. Oh yes she was! Ashley had carefully planned how to gain that control. She knew Susan well. After all, they’d grown up together as sisters for years. She knew her cousin's sensitive points and understood how to manipulate them from years of study in school, studies with special emphasis on resocialization and dominance. Knowing her cousin's spirit was weakened and disoriented by the severe hair restyling a few hours before, Ashley was ready to apply her training to get her way and finally win dominance over her big sister. Tightly controlling the tone of her voice, she had Susan seated again like a submissive puppy, in spite of - perhaps because of - the turbulence in Susan's mind.

  In a moment, Susan felt another prick and her left ear was pierced. Elsa threaded the small rings through the holes in Susan's ears by flexing them to the side and inserting one end into an indentation in the end of the needle. She then pushed the needle through and the ring followed. She closed the ring with a "snap."

  "These rings lock in place so they won't come out, Suzi." Ashley told her. "That way you can never lose them." And you can't take them out yourself when you get your senses back, she thought.

  "They're bigger than what is usually used for a first piercing," Elsa offered, "And the hole they make is bigger than the typical stud. But if you take care of them with antiseptic several times a day, they'll heal fine by the time of the wedding."

  "No," Susan quietly mumbled. She was sitting perfectly still with her hands in her lap. A tear formed at the corner of her eye. She thought about getting up, but, seeing Ashley's reflection in the mirror, was unable to move.

  "Only five holes to go, Suzi," Ashley announced, staring directly at Susan's reflection. A victorious smile began to form in the corners of Ashley's mouth. She remembered those first months when Susan had come to live with them, disrupting her ideal routine, stealing her parents' affection. Sure, Susan's parents had died tragically, but that was no reason for her parents to favor a niece over their own daughter!

  Ashley picked up the box that had contained the rings. She lifted a layer of cotton from the box.

  "You didn't see these, did you Susan? These will give you a nice set in each of your pretty little ears! That’s another advantage of your new haircut. Now everyone will be able to see those cute ears and these darling earrings!"

  There in the box were two other pairs of gold rings, one about three-quarters of an inch and the other about half an inch in diameter. They were the same thickness as the first pair.

  Quickly but precisely, Elsa swabbed and pierced Susan's ears again, about three-eighths of an inch from the first rings. She inserted the next-largest rings into Susan's earlobes and snapped them permanently in place. Susan's ears burned in pain and the tears that formed this time were as much from the smarting as her emotional distress. Ashley gently dabbed her eyes, continuing a dominance-followed-by-kindness routine.

  Ashley had just finished wiping her eyes, her hand softly resting on Susan's shoulder, when Elsa repeated the process again with the small
est rings placed another three-eighths of an inch up her earlobes. This time it was more difficult to thread the rings through as their smaller diameter didn't allow for much flexing. Susan moaned in pain as Elsa flexed both the rings and Susan's earlobe to get the rings through. Two more snaps and they were permanently in place. Susan’s pretty, small earlobes were dominated by the rings. There was little room for any others below the cartilage.

  Reaching into a drawer in the dressing table, Ashley removed another tiny jewelry box and opened it in front of Susan. "Here's another present from me, Susan. Each bridesmaid is getting one of these charming diamond studs too!" There in the box was a small, flat diamond on a post with a strange flattened fastener at the other end. Susan recognized it because of the fastener, although she’d never before seen one close-up that wasn’t worn by someone. The nose stud gleamed in the light from the window to her left.

  Teri, who had kept her right side turned toward Susan, stepped up to hold her in her seat. Susan saw the gleam of an identical small diamond in the left side of her nose, and, for the first time, noticed the three rings in Teri's ears. Ashley motioned Teri back. "That won't be necessary."

  "It's OK, Suzi," Teri offered. "I just had it done last night and already I love it!"

  Elsa turned Susan toward her. Susan felt like a little girl with the enormous presence of an authoritative adult looking down on her as Elsa bent to swab her nose with a disinfectant laced with a topical anesthetic. Then, silently, Susan began to cry as Elsa positioned the needle at a point on her nose where the flare of her nostril just began. With sudden force, Elsa pushed the needle through.

  "Why, Ashley?" She asked, sobbing more loudly. The needle stuck out rudely from the hole in her lovely, straight, smooth nose. The other end protruded oddly from her nostril.

  "I intend to have the final say on how you look, Suzi. All the time we were growing up together you had the long hair. You were the beautiful one. You could eat anything and look great while I had to watch every bite. You were the one who took the affection of Mommy and Daddy from me because you were so pretty. I had to force myself into the boyish hairdos and play the part of the tomboy because I couldn't compete with my gorgeous little cousin. Now, I'm in control. But bear with me, Cuz," she added good-naturedly. "You're basically a very cute kid now. Not the classic beauty you grew up to be anymore, but you retain a certain charm. Now you'll be both more feminine and more boyishly delightful at the same time!"