Free Deadly Blessings by Julie Hyzy

salons wouldn’t hear about for six months. Things that
Bethany might have learned if she hadn’t left to have a baby. He
convinced me to trust him. He said I wouldn’t recognize myself when
he was finished.” She made a noise then, that in a woman less
cultured-looking, I’d have to call a grunt. “He was right about
that.”
    Jordan came in with two bottles of Crystal
Spring water and two glasses. Wilda and I both thanked her as she
left and opened our drinks simultaneously. I drank mine from the
bottle. Wilda used the glass.
    “ Gabriela said that you
took to wearing hats. Is that right?”
    “ Wouldn’t you? He learned
some new procedure all right. But he learned it wrong. He used the
wrong chemical on my hair. When the girl rinsed me off, I knew
something was wrong. She tried to keep me seated, but I ran to the
mirror. My hair was blue. Bright blue. Like a Popsicle.”
    My eyes widened and I tried to picture Wilda
sporting wet blue hair, staring furiously into a mirror.
    “ But that wasn’t the worst
of it. Antonio tried to get me to believe that this was simply step
one, and that everything was going according to plan. I knew
better, I could tell by the look on his face that he’d screwed up
and was just too afraid to say so. But what was I going to do? I
couldn’t very well go home looking like that.”
    “ What did you
do?”
    “ I
demanded to talk to the manager. She came out, and was less than
sympathetic I might add, as though things like this happen all the
time. And she tells Antonio that he better fix it or he’s out on
his ass. I swear, that’s exactly what she said. She whispered it
but I heard every word. And this Antonio winks at her and makes
like he’s sorry, but he talked to her real close and says something
about her ass and I caught him rubbing her butt. Like I wouldn’t see
that!”
    “ Did he fix it? Your hair,
I mean.”
    “ I didn’t want Antonio to
touch me again, but he insisted. Told me I was overreacting and
that everything would be fine after another twenty-five minute
processing. I was blue, you know? What else could I do? And none of
the other stylists there wanted anything to do with me at that
point.”
    Wilda took another long drink of her water
before continuing.
    “ So, I’m a little worked
up, to say the least, but Antonio assures me that I’ll be back to a
real color in no time. So I wait. And I have this cream all over my
head, and it’s wrapped in a plastic bag. I’m under the dryer now
because he says that will make the natural blonde take better. This
time, when they go to rinse me out, I’m watching the eyes of the
girl real close, and I’m telling you there’s nothing so ...
frightening as seeing a person’s reaction when something horrible
is happening. Especially when that horrible thing’s happening to
you.
    “ My heart about stopped
beating, I think. And she calls over Antonio, except her voice is
almost screaming. I grabbed my hair and I … I felt my scalp. My
scalp! I shouldn’t have been able to feel that! And little bunches
of hair, like lumps. I ran over to the mirror— “ Wilda interrupted
herself then. She was reliving it as she spoke. Her face suffused
with pain and the tears poured freely down her face. “My hair was
gone. Almost all of it. There were only some patches left. Like …
like … one of those Japanese trees. Chunks of blue hair stuck out,
but otherwise my head was completely bald.”

    * * * * *

    I was beginning to think there might be more
to Gabriela’s story than I originally assumed, as I logged my
impressions in my trusty handheld voice recorder. Wilda’s attempts
to sue the salon had netted her hours of anguish from continuances,
and though the case was still pending, she had clearly lost her
steam. Her hair had grown out and her attorney warned her
repeatedly that costs were mounting and there was no guarantee
she’d win. She stormed out of the salon that day without paying.
While that move was completely