Meanicures

by Catherine Clark

  “Uh, sell T-shirts?” she suggested.

  “What T-shirts?” I asked.

  “The ones we’re going to design—well, you are. I figured with your design background …”

  “What? I don’t have a design background,” I said.

  “Your mom does. Anyway, we’ll figure that out at our second meeting,” said Olivia. “When more people are here.”

  I heard laughter echoing in the hallway. “Hey, someone’s coming!” I said to Olivia. “Look natural.”

  “Natural?”

  “Casual, like, we didn’t expect anyone until now,” I said.

  The laughter came nearer.

  Suddenly, the entire middle school cheerleading squad was standing in the doorway.

  “Oh, good. We found you!” said Cassidy.

  For a second, I thought maybe they’d come to join our club, as a way of making it up to me for painting my face like a clown’s, for humiliating me in front of Hunter. Cheerleaders cared about endangered animals, right? They could be warm-and-fuzzy people. I would know—I used to be one of them.

  “You’re late—” Olivia started to say.

  “You’re just in time,” I said.

  “Actually, Madison, could you come here for a second?” Cassidy asked in a slightly sweet, slightly syrupy, definitely superior tone.

  “Why?” I asked. If she crossed the doorway, would she automatically lose points with the eighth graders standing behind her?

  “It’s just that I have to tell you something and you’re going to take it really, really hard.” She paused.

  What would she have to tell me? How many more things could go wrong today? “Go ahead,” I said, walking over to her.

  “Okay, but …” She shrugged. “You know that Halloween party I always have? At my house?” she asked.

  I nodded. I’d been going to the Halloween parties at Cassidy’s house since we were eight.

  “Yeah, well, we decided to keep it really small this year. My mom doesn’t want a lot of people so … sorry.”

  “She doesn’t want a lot of people? Since when? Isn’t that the point of your Halloween parties?” I asked.

  “Not anymore. She wants me to be a little more, um, selective.” She wrinkled her nose.

  I didn’t mind her changing the tradition, but not like this—not by being uninvited to something that I knew everyone else in our middle school would probably be at. “What are you saying? I’m uninvited?” I asked, just to make things clear.

  She nodded.

  “I’m uninvited,” I said, repeating it so she’d hear how bad it sounded.

  “I’m really sorry,” she said with a pitying look at me.

  I wanted to punch her a little bit when she did that. Me, the most nonviolent person on the planet. I’d never hurt an animal, endangered or not, but Cassidy? Was she on the protected list? After what she’d done to me today? “Yeah, I bet you are,” I mumbled.

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, nothing.” I smiled, putting on a brave face in front of the other cheerleaders.

  “You understand. Right? I can’t have everybody.”

  “No. Of course you can’t.” I looked at the floor, hoping to hide the tears that were stinging my eyes.

  “Would you mind … you know. Breaking the news to Olivia and Taylor for me?” asked Cassidy.

  “I can hear you,” said Olivia. “I’m sitting right here.”

  Alexis glanced over at her. “Oh. We didn’t notice.”

  Olivia stuck out her tongue.

  “Don’t sweat it,” I said. “We weren’t planning on coming. We made other plans that night, anyway.” I forced myself to smile. We didn’t have plans yet, but we could. For instance, trick or treating.

  But inside all I could think was, what’s the matter? I’m not cool enough for you now? How would I possibly ruin a party where there’d be a hundred guests? How did I matter that much?

  Before they could say, or do, anything else, I took off down the hall.

  “Madison? Madison!” Olivia called after me.

  But I just kept running. I wanted to get far, far away from school.

  Chapter 4

  I bombed down the bumpy coastal road on my bike, wishing I could forget. I know it probably sounds dramatic, but I kept seeing this movie inside my head, sometimes running quickly, and sometimes in slow motion. But basically, the plot stayed the same. It showed a girl with green-streaked hair bumbling in front of a guy, then in front of a TV camera with a red face, then in the hallway.

  All day, everyone at school had walked past me trilling their r’s, or mentioning how it was, actually, the worst newscast they’d ever seen.

  The rain in Maine falls mainly on Payneston, I thought as I headed into town. I rode along our small Main Street through a steady drizzle, my hooded rain jacket covering my helmet. The wind was blowing pretty strongly, too. I was halfway home, but I didn’t want to go there.

  Maybe it wasn’t even raining in the rest of Payneston, I thought. Maybe it was only raining on my head, specifically.

  The rain in Maine falls mainly on … me.

  What would it be like if things were different? How about if the rain in Maine fell mainly on the mean girls?

  I wished I had more options. I could go to Principal Monroe, and tell her that bullying was a serious problem at our school. But did what happened today qualify as bullying? Didn’t bullying mean getting someone in a headlock and smashing them into a locker? Taking their money? Taunting them?

  Besides, if I did something like talking to the principal, the mean girls would come after me in a way that would make today’s troubles seem like nothing. Really, all I needed to do from now on was avoid Cassidy and the rest of my former friends. The school wasn’t huge, but it was big enough that if I tried really, really hard …

  Actually, it wasn’t big enough. We shared classes. Our lockers were all down the same hall. I’d have to have plastic surgery so they would no longer recognize me. And that would make them tease me even more.

  They’d had their little (okay, maybe not so little) laughs at my expense. Enough was enough. I couldn’t take it anymore. But what could I possibly do?

  That was when I saw the sign.

  GRAND OPENING!

  Just then the breeze picked up, and the rain started to fall even harder. As it did, I saw a little wooden sign swinging in the wind: COMBING ATTRACTIONS. It was designed like an old movie-house marquee, with colored bulbs all around it. I made a beeline toward it. It was a new hair salon, one I’d never seen before. A friendly sign in the window read NO APPOINTMENT NECESSARY.

  First things first: I needed to get my hair fixed. I parked my bike under an awning, locked it, and headed for the salon. A red carpet led up the front steps.

  I opened the door, and a small bell jingled. Inside, two stylists were taking care of a couple of clients: a woman was having her hair highlighted, and a man was getting a haircut. It looked like your standard beauty salon, but there was something offbeat about it, too.

  Two gigantic combs were crossed above the shampoo sinks, and a mobile made from combs was hanging from the ceiling, directly above the counter. Old tin signs for beauty products covered the walls, along with framed print ads for a fancy brand of combs I’d never heard of. COMB ON OVER TO OUR SIDE and COMB AS YOU ARE signs welcomed clients to the waiting area, with comfy-looking chairs and a sofa, and a few coat hooks had been made from oversized combs. A beaded curtain made of colored empty nail polish bottles hung over a door with a sign that read PAINT-ON PLACE. Soft dance music played from the speakers.

  “Hi there,” one of the stylists said, as the man with the haircut left the salon. She looked like she was in her twenties. She had long, auburn-colored hair piled into a silver barrette, green eyes, and dark red, almost brown lipstick. She wore a black tank top, faded low-rise jeans, and a belt made from miniature license plates. She almost looked like she should have been in a rock band, not a hair salon. “How’s the storm?�
�

  “Not too bad,” I said, looking around at all the products for sale, on glimmering silver shelves with pretty tinsel dangling off the tops, like trimmed silver hair. “At least it’s not terrible yet, anyway.”

  “Give it time,” she said. “How can I help you?”

  I slid my umbrella into the holder by the front door, then set down my backpack and took off my bike helmet. “I was wondering. Do you sell Nik’s Organix hair products?”

  “I’m sorry, no,” she replied.

  “Really. Not at all? Not even the Original Sea Clean line?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I’m not familiar with those products.”

  “Really,” I said. So this was one salon my mom hadn’t gotten to yet. “Did you just move here or something?”

  “No, I’ve been here for a while. I used to rent a chair at another place, though.”

  I opened my wallet to make sure I had enough money for a haircut and color. I’d saved the last couple of twenties I’d gotten for babysitting, and I had a Visa card as well. I hoped that would cover it.

  “We kind of chose to go in a different direction with our products,” the woman explained. “Will that be okay with you?”

  I smiled. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I want to do.”

  “Speaking of which—” She peered at my helmet hair. “Your color looks a bit different. I can’t quite put my finger on it. Is that one of those at-home tint kits?”

  “Not exactly. I need a new color, or a recolor,” I said. “Please tell me you can fix this.”

  “Definitely I can fix it. Coloring can be wicked expensive,” she replied. “But since you’re a student, I’ll cut you a deal.”

  “It’s okay. I have a Visa gift card left from my birthday. Can I use that here?”

  “Sure. I’ll still give you a student rate, though.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I’m Poinsettia, by the way.” She held out her hand for me to shake.

  “What kind of a name is that?”

  “Difficult for anyone to spell correctly.” She reached into a drawer behind the desk, and handed me her business card, which I glanced at quickly. Poinsettia R. Seasonal, it said in loopy script, Beauty Consultant. “And what’s your name?”

  “Madison,” I said. “Madison McCarrigan.” Poinsettia didn’t seem to recognize my last name. There wasn’t that “McCarrigan? As in Nik McCarrigan? As in Nik’s Organix?”

  “My mom—” I started to say, but then I stopped. I didn’t want Poinsettia to form an opinion of me based on my mom.

  “What’s that?”

  “Oh, nothing,” I said, waiting patiently while she swept up from her previous customer—who, judging from the amount of hair left on the floor, must have been a werewolf.

  Poinsettia was wearing black boots and when she bent down to sweep up the clippings, I noticed they had high heels, little silver buckles on the sides, and pointed toes. They were the kind of boots I’d tried to convince my mom to buy for me once, when I went along on one of her business trips to Boston. I’d ended up with flat, furry kids’ boots instead.

  Poinsettia showed me a card with various hair color samples and we chose something close to my original color (whatever that was), but with a little extra shininess.

  “What grade are you in?” Poinsettia asked as she draped a black cape over my shoulders.

  I glanced up at her. “Seventh,” I said.

  “Really?”

  I rolled my eyes. “I know, I know,” I sighed. “You would have said younger.”

  “No, actually. Older. I don’t get a lot of clients in here on their own at your age,” she commented.

  “Well, let’s just say I’m really, really experienced at getting my hair trimmed, and cut, and washed.”

  “Huh.” Poinsettia didn’t seem to think that was strange … which was strange. “Well, you sit tight, I’ll go grab the color and be right back,” she said.

  I looked around the salon while she was gone. There was the stylist working at a chair a little farther along who’d just finished giving a haircut. She was older, with short black hair streaked with purple. At least her streaks were cute—and intentional, I thought as the glare from the light broadcast my spinach-colored hair to the other customers.

  When Poinsettia came back, the first thing she did was chop off the very ends of my hair. “No sense coloring split ends,” she commented. Then she started painting the rest of my hair with a small brush.

  “So I just don’t know what I’m going to do,” said the other stylist, who had the purple-streaked hair, edging closer to us. “He keeps calling and sending e-mails to apologize. It’s like—he won’t accept the fact that we’re not dating anymore. But it’s too late!”

  “There’s always a lot of drama around here,” Poinsettia said to me. “You’d better get used to it because you’re going to be here for a while.”

  “It’s not drama! It’s my life!” the other stylist said.

  “See?” Poinsettia arched an eyebrow.

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I’m used to drama.” You should have seen my day.

  “Okay, so what would you do?” the other stylist asked Poinsettia. “I want him to leave me alone. He broke my heart, now it’s time for him to move on. I’m in a better place, or I’m trying to be, and I don’t want him around me!”

  “Well, here’s what I would do,” said Poinsettia as she applied the last touches of color to my hair with the brush. “I would write him a letter. And then I would burn it, and his name, in a glass jar. After that, you’ll be free of him. You can move on with your life.”

  “And, um, why’s that, exactly?” I asked, peeking out from underneath my multiple hair clips. “I mean, why would that work?”

  “Simple,” she said. “You have to externally formalize everything you’re informally internalizing. Know what I’m saying?”

  I blinked a few times. Was it the fumes from the probably-not-organic hair color going to my head, or could something like this actually help us solve our problem? What if we could get rid of the mean girls that way? “That’s kind of … out there. You really think that would work?” I asked.

  “I’ll try it,” the other stylist said. “Can’t hurt, right?”

  I sat back, thinking furiously. I mean, my mom could go New Agey and hippie on me sometimes, but she’d never suggest anything like this. She’d just tell me to be nicer. I couldn’t be any nicer, and the mean girls were still horrible to me. So maybe Poinsettia was onto something after all.

  “Sometimes you have to take chances. You know?” Poinsettia asked.

  I nodded as she set the timer for my hair color. “Oh, I know.”

  Chapter 5

  My mother nearly fainted when I walked through the door at dinnertime. “Madison?” She grabbed the kitchen island to steady herself. “What did you do?”

  I was the one who should have been shocked. She was cooking dinner on a Monday night. My mom, the queen of ordering in, who never met a takeout menu she didn’t like.

  That’s not totally fair, I guess. She used to cook a lot, but ever since her company got successful and took off, she hardly ever has the time on weekdays. Mom started out as a crunchy granola hippie, then went corporate. She’s still vegetarian—technically a pescetarian, which means she eats fish, too—but most of the time we either go out for dinner or order takeout.

  Some people think Mom and I look alike, because we both have strawberry-blond hair and green eyes. We’re about the same height, and apparently have the same eyebrows, which is a weird attribute to share, if you ask me. You’d think DNA would have more important things to do than go around determining eyebrow shapes.

  At the moment, we didn’t look that much alike anymore. She still had her long, straight hair, and I now had a short bob that stopped just below my chin line. I was still wearing my T-shirt, jeans, and corduroy jacket, and Mom had on one of her flowing hemp outfits. (Even when she wore a business suit, she had on an unbleache
d cotton camisole underneath.)

  “Kind of obvious what I did, huh? So, what do you think?” I asked.

  “Uh, I guess the important thing is what do you think?” she asked.

  “I like it.” I gazed at my reflection in our stainless steel toaster. “It’s different.”

  “Different. Yes.” She reached out to touch the back of my head, where my hair now stopped. “Are we feeling all right?”

  “I am. I don’t know about you,” I said, backing away. She had this glazed, confused expression that made me think dinner wasn’t going to turn out well. The brown rice would be burned, veggies scorched, and tofu done to the point of crumbling into sawdust.

  “Oh, wow. Did you color it, too? You colored it!” she suddenly cried.

  “Mom, I had to,” I said. “It was green this morning, thanks to your baby shampoo experiments last night.”

  “What kind of color did you get? Where?” A look of horror crossed her face. “It wasn’t chemical, was it?”

  She was acting like I’d suddenly started doing drugs.

  Then suddenly her eyes brightened. “No, you know what, this is great, this is fantastic. I’ve been trying to develop this line of stuff just for shorter hair, called Original Short Clean, and it’s all about special extralight shampoos for—”

  “No, Mom. I’ve had enough.” The words were out before I even had time to think about them. I realized this was something I’d wanted to say to my mother for a long time now.

  “Enough?” she asked.

  “Of me having to be your girl guinea pig for all your hair products. That’s half the reason I wanted to cut my hair,” I said.

  “It is?” She looked genuinely stunned, and I guess I couldn’t blame her. I’d never really been honest with her about this before.

  “Yes, Mom. I mean, what’s wrong with using Parker for a change? Or David, or—”

  “Their hair is not receptive to formulas designed mainly for longer hair—and, well, David hardly has any hair, for one thing.”

  “Aha! You tried out your stuff on him too many times, didn’t you? That’s why he’s bald,” I teased her. My mom’s boyfriend shaved his head, which often looked like a shiny bowling ball. To me, it was kind of ironic that the organic hair care product queen of Maine was dating someone with absolutely no hair.