But other than all of that, the only thing I knew I’d truly miss would be Hazel. I longed to call her on the phone for days and tell her the news. Maybe it was to tell her that she was right — that my life was starting to change. Maybe it was to fish for more reassurance in this time of uncertainty.
Regardless, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I didn’t want to be a burden to her.
After I signed the contract, everything started to become real. I broke out of my lease, put my things in storage, told the salon that I’d be leaving, and had a goodbye party with my acquaintances.
And here I was, at the end of one phase of my life and starting another chapter.
A far more fabulous chapter.
I’d been talking to Alina on the phone every day, slowly teasing out more and more details about the role as she learned them herself. She’d be a lady in waiting from another kingdom, a rival to the current female lead in the play. Her job was going to be to steal the interest of Leo Knight’s character — the man with the kingly looks on the advertisement I’d seen floating around on my Netflix homepage.
“So your job is to be the other woman. Shouldn’t be too hard for you,” I joked.
“Oh, shut your mouth,” she said with a smile in her voice.
Me and Alina’s relationship had grown past that of client and hairdresser in the past few weeks. We’d become actual friends.
One night, we were splitting a bottle of wine at my place to celebrate her getting the part. Her eyes shimmered with the effects of the wine and she laughed, telling me about how her past three boyfriends had actually been married.
“They didn’t think I’d find out!” she laughed with mirth as she took a sip, her platinum hair shimmering in the dim light above my kitchen table.
I watched her carefully, not sure if she was truly over it.
“The men are so dumb… they don’t think that women talk to each other!” she said, brimming with pride. “I swear, the women and the gays are the future of this world.”
“Cheers to that,” I said, clinking my glass to hers and taking a greedy gulp.
The wine was creating that familiar warmness in my body, spreading out through all of my limbs.
“What about you?” she asked, setting her delicate glass down on the table next to her and fixing me with her green stare. “What about the guys you’ve dated?”
Not even the wine could dull the feeling of shame I felt thinking about my exes.
“Or, what’s your type of guy?” she asked, noticing my discomfort.
I was grateful that she got away from the subject of my exes. I didn’t want to have to talk about Boring Guy, or Narcissist Guy, or any numbers of the random flings I’ve had throughout the past fifteen years.
“My type…” I said, bringing my finger to my mouth in thought. My eyes traveled from her face over to the bookshelf to my left. They fell on the spine of that notebook I’d written all the qualities I was looking for in my perfect man.
“I don’t have a type,” I said evasively.
She looked at me slyly. “Okay, we’ll save this conversation for another time, then. Everyone has a type.”
And that’s the conversation she chose to return to as I stood in line for security at the airport.
“You like Italian guys, right?” she teased back. “I’m sure you can get yourself a nice cannoli over here…”
“Ugh, you’re disgusting, get your mind out of the gutter,” I snapped, a smile prickling at the corners of my mouth.
Alina was already in Italy preparing for the shoot that began the next day. She’d been tantalizing me with beautiful pictures of an ancient city next to a cliff, and in the free time before the shoot, she’d explore the town nearby. It was a game between us at this point that she’d take photos of hot, unsuspecting Italian guys and send them to me along with the eggplant emoji.
I acted like I was offended, but we both knew I was just pretending.
Secretly, I couldn’t wait to be in Italy — around a whole new batch of guys that would hopefully start a conversation with something other than “Hey.”
…and hopefully, I’d find this heartmate that Hazel told me about.
My notebook with my wishlist was tucked into my suitcase, safely hidden between some shirts.
Before I boarded the plane, I had one final urge to give Hazel a call and tell her how my life was changing. Because I was brimming with happiness and confidence and the excitement of a new adventure, I finally worked up the guts to do it.
“Hello?” She answered.
“Hey, Hazel! Charlie here, your hairdresser from a few weeks ago.” God, I sounded like a complete creeper idiot. Regardless, I pressed on. “I… I just wanted to tell you that I’m going to be in Italy. I was drafted to work on a Netflix series — The Black Castle.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, a smile in her voice as if she’d known this all along.
A silence hung on the line, and my words came tumbling out of me to fill it. “I just wanted to say thank you for being my client, and telling me not to settle.”
The words sounded so stupid as they tumbled out of my mouth.
After a pause, Hazel said, “Charlie, this is just the beginning. You’re opening up — I can feel it from here. The more you open your heart to love, the more of it flows into your life.”
That made me think of her promise that I’d find my heartmate. It was inevitable, she said. That word bounced around in my brain a few times like an echo: Inevitable, inevitable, inevitable…
“You’ll find him soon,” she encouraged.
