“The Black Castle?” I asked, combing my memory as I combed her hair. That was the show I saw the preview for last night on Netflix — the new fantasy drama.
“Yep, I’ve already done a few shows on Netflix with this look, but none of them with as big of an audience as this one. The part they have open is for a platinum blonde twenty-something woman. Her character is… it’s exactly the type of character I love to play. Strong, capable, and doesn’t take crap from anyone.”
“Sounds like it would be a fun role! What else have you acted in, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Oh, nothing big. But if I get this part, I’ll get to costar with Leo Knight!” she gushed.
I wondered if that was a name I was supposed to recognize, because Scott stopped combing out his client’s hair, stood up straight and put his hand to his heart.
“Well, that sounds amazing! I really hope you get it!” I said with a smile. And because I was so happy from my call with Hazel earlier, I put my hand on the client’s shoulder and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
She beamed. “Thanks! I hope I get it too. And if you get all this—” she gathered up her brunette locks and let it fall like a thick silk “—into an icy blonde, I’m taking you on the set with me to keep it that way.”
Chapter Three
Over the next two weeks, I saw the client who wanted to go platinum four more times.
“You’ve got a lot of hair,” I explained to her on her third session.
Normally clients that weren’t used to the platinum lifestyle got a little irritated when they had to keep coming in to get their hair into a pure white color. But not Alina.
“I’ll pay whatever you want — you’ve already done a phenomenal job,” she said, fixing me with a bright smile.
Again, Scott rolled his eyes next to me.
I ignored him and continued working on her hair, making sure to treat her with kindness in every touch.
Making conversation with her, I asked, “So do you have anyone special in your life?”
Clients always loved it when I asked that one. Even if someone was single, they always had at least one person they were thinking about regularly.
“Oh, not really,” she said, examining her manicure. “I’ve been working a lot, getting really into this whole acting thing, I don’t have time to dedicate to a relationship.”
“But, you seem to like this guy Leo Knight,” I said, thinking of the way she gushed when she mentioned the possibility of costarring with him.
“Oh, everyone likes Leo,” she said, rolling her eyes. “If I costar with him, I’m excited about what it’ll do for my career, not the possibility of a romance with him.”
Her voice had taken on this note of disappointment that picked at the corners of our conversation.
“Have you ever met him?” I asked curiously. I wondered what it would be like to get to be around celebrities all day.
“Once, but it was at some event he had to show up to and sign things for. He was… hard to read,” she said vaguely.
I pictured the man I’d seen on the ad on my Netflix. A few days had passed since The Black Castle had launched, but I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. Every episode was an hour long, and I was still finishing up another series. Still, the man’s golden face came up on my feed every single day as Netflix desperately recommended the show to me.
He was handsome, sure, but he didn’t look overwhelming. All I could think of every time I saw him was how I could improve his haircut.
But then again, that’s what I thought about most people.
“Hard to read how?” I asked, probing for more information. There had to be something I was missing about this guy.
“As in… he doesn’t talk all that much, is all I’m saying,” she said, pursing her lips and straightening up.
“So he’s full of himself,” I concluded. It only made sense. If I was a movie star with people constantly telling me how pretty I was, I’d get a big head too.
She nodded, her yellowish-blonde hair shifting as she did.
“You want me to do your eyebrows too, honey?” I asked, eyeing her black, perfectly-shaped eyebrows arcing over her green eyes.
“No, leave them black. I want to hit them in the face with this look,” she said with a smile.
I privately thought black eyebrows and platinum hair looked trashy, but on Alina, it seemed to work.
By the end of our next session a few days later, I took off Alina’s foils and blow-dried her hair. It was angelically fanning in the artificial breeze, white wisps that reminded me of Hazel’s hair when she first came in.
It made me wonder how she was doing and how her date went — it had been about a week and a half since our phone conversation. Part of me wanted to call her and check in, but my shyness urged me to leave her alone.
If she was anything like the way she was when she met me, other people were probably calling her for life advice all the time. I didn’t want to be like them; I didn’t want her to think of me as some kind of freeloader in need of guidance.
As I finished blow-drying Alina’s hair, I pictured Hazel riding in the passenger seat of some young movie star’s luxury convertible, happy as a clam.
Scott yanked me out of my thoughts for a moment when he caught a glimpse of Alina’s hair.
“That… looks incredible,” he said, putting his hand to his heart again. Then he looked into my eyes and said, “You’re a magician, you know that?”
I blushed as I finished off drying the last layer.
“I want to see!” Alina cried.
I had her chair pointing away from the mirror so that the final product would be a surprise.
“Not yet, honey, I’m almost done styling this… but I think
