Grooming Envy

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I can’t recollect much but I know that my dream contained an electric degree of thundering, ripping my eyelids apart in a shocked awakening. After trying, and pathetically failing to assimilate the lethal components of the nightmare, I feebly dangled my partially numb feet off the creaking steel cot. My body seemed to gradually calm down as the cool tiles of the floor sent soothing signals to my traumatized brain. Half-expecting to encounter armed ninja assassins in  the bathroom, to my relief, the only foe I witnessed was a lonely scuttling cockroach. Even so, through the crunch of breakfast cereal and the trembling jitters of my auto commute to work, I couldn’t shake the feeling of impending danger. It’s so strange that often you can desperately rack your brain for clues of familiarity to no avail while on other occasions, your mind is flooded with unwelcome thoughts that you are aching to forget, but those remain stubbornly seared in your memory. I was thankful for the harsh cloudy haze of acetone that I walked into; the stinging scent slowly began to wipe away my anxiety like residual patches of nail polish. If only I could erase the past few months with a clean cotton swab dabbed with this obliterating lavender blot. The problem is that he's gotten under my fingernails and got a hold on me from the inside, like a deadly tumour. The dirt is sealed deep within. I am always a mess in the mornings and to add to it, this vague dream hung over me like a dense cloud, compounding my chaos. I notice that all my belongings are really beginning to mirror my inner falling-apart, as I sit myself down at the salon and pretend to be using my own products from my peeling leather purse. In actuality, I'm sneaking puffs of powder, slicks of kajal and smears of lipstick from the supplies we keep for customers. I wasn’t always this girl - the kind who took things that weren’t hers without a trace of shame or guilt. Until I was the girl from whom precious treasure was stolen. As I sit in the high chair, I try to focus on my face, which isn't a pretty sight. My bags are tinted a dull vein-like blue and the white of my eyes lack their egg white glow. I can feel the rubbery flap of my belly flopping over the belt of my jeans like a droopy eyelid. In the crevice underneath my knees, I feel my skin pressed in thin stripes where the denim folds in sharp creases. Angry stressed flesh will scream scarlet at me later. The last few months, I’ve grown accustomed to stuffing; trying to contain both burgeoning flesh and flatulent feelings.

Things have been awkward since I returned to work. All my relationships are recuperating from the upheaval. The boss and I share an air of strain. When I began, I was extra doses of subservient, fervent and keen to please, and she milked it all for her benefit. But a few months into this job, I collided with the force that would wreck me. I met Him. The novelty of the whole thing was divine and I spent much of the first few weeks pinching myself in disbelief. My feelings developed quickly. It was a small, green, impractical shoot pushing through the icy monotony of my life. Then the blooming of this relationship conjured up full, red-blooded fantasies and I steadily grew weary of pandering to the boss’s high handedness. My new love interest told me I was capable of more; I was a strong independent woman, a brave feminist and a force to be reckoned with. To be quite honest, I don’t fully understand where he drew these conclusions from. Perhaps it came from my fight to secure an education and escape the small town life I was otherwise destined to. I recall telling him that I thought it unnecessary for a man to open doors for me and pull out a chair for me to sit on in restaurants. But if you were to strip my heart down, it was because I didn’t want him to think that those were things that I wanted. I didn’t want to seem demanding. He was always conscious of his manners and acutely aware of his surroundings. When there were sufficient people around, he would be sure to indulge me in this behaviour. But when we were alone, he was a different animal. A typical man, rarely wandering even accidentally, into the kitchen and regularly demanding things I’m pretty sure a true feminist would turn her nose up at. But I’m digressing. He was charming and ambitious and I was drawn to him. The ideas he had were always fantastical. My constant griping about the boss’ many incompetencies led him to convince me that I wasn’t the type to ‘work for someone else’. He encouraged me to create my own make-up studio and generously offered to loan me the money for it. He had a high-profile job at a technology firm, so he could easily afford it. I became his little project. He identified all my loose ends and tied them in multiple knots that were supposed to make me sturdier but ended up being a lump of my tangled guts that weighed me down. He propped me higher and higher until I reached so far up the pedestal that I could barely recognize myself. Or Him. At his insistence, I quit the job at the salon to begin my own and for a while, I fed off his admiration, believing foolishly that I was on my way to success. Four short months into the venture and we were broke, exhausted and bickering. “Why don’t you form some serious relationships with your clients?”, “You don’t know how to market yourself!”, “You have no financial or business head”, “You refuse to improve in any way”. We were teetering and it made him more boisterously large as I cowered, whimpering. On the final fateful day, when a prospective client cancelled on me in order to go with a more “professional” make-up studio, he declared that had no patience for a woman like me. He took that to be an insult and conclude that I was inept - a waste of his time and money, a dud. We came apart and I was suddenly without identity and direction. I spent months draped miserably on my sagging couch, my hollow bed, the abrasive carpet and all the while, my body was curled in a helplessly declarative question mark.

Faced with my depleting finances and a demolished ego, I found myself back on the phone with the boss, imploring her to allow me a second chance. She, with an exaggerated show of graciousness, welcomed me back. Her every sentence thereafter, even those she meant as a pat on the back felt more like a pinch to the bottom. And every task I was offered was presented as a shot at redemption. Nevertheless, I needed this job. Painful as it was, I took it.

I spent the first three-quarters of an hour trying to melt the pulpy shampoo grease and tangled hair from the open commode-like sinks. I checked the appointment register, that was really the grass green pages of an old accounting book. I only had two sets of eyebrow threading and upper lip waxing at 10 am and 10:30 am. I decided that I would walk down the road to the coffee shop after that in order to properly wake my languid body and to take my mind off the unsettling dream. 

Later that morning, when I was holding the tense thread between my teeth, and rolling it against a hairy middle-aged upper-lip, the boss swung open the glass doors infecting the already pungent room with the dull but distinct scent of Japanese cherry blossom. “Radhika will take you next,” she bleated, flashing her special courteous customer smile. I begrudgingly offered a nod as the customer thanked the boss and walked in through the door. I turned to greet her and my stomach dropped.

“May I sit here?”, she asked innocently, inching toward an empty hairdressing chair in front of the mirror. I nodded, impatiently. “Now you ask for my permission?!”, I thought, as an ache thumped against my clogged brain. The recognition struck me like lightning. Any pain that I had felt prior to this moment was scorched. I was burnt and skinless and despite even the best reconstruction at the hands of a world-class plastic surgeon, I would never be the same. She sat, emitting a youthful glow even under the harsh, unforgiving beauty parlour lighting, flipping the magazine with fingers like delicate stems, her nails all in uniform curves. I felt terribly self-conscious of my stubby knob-like fingers and my irregular, bitten and chipped nails. I recognized her well from hours of stalking on social media. She was the woman he left me for. And I could see why. I tried as best as I could to focus on the broad upper lip of the woman in the seat in front of me, rather than the features of the wiry woman a few seats down.

A half hour later, I ushered her into a little rectangular room and waited with my back to the door as she changed into something that was a combination of an Indian nightie and an inverted shower cap. She smiled at me sweetly as I entered a minute later. I couldn’t even meet her delicate eyes. She lay down on the table under the light and suddenly the room took on the air of a medical examination room. I was looking for anything unsightly, the appearance of grim moles, peeking warts, betraying scabs. Of course, in the customary manner of injustice that seemed to plague my life, she had perfect skin, the colour of sand on a hidden beach, that you wanted to lie down on, that you are sure will absorb you and cause you to forget your every worry. “What’s your name?” she asked, shyly. Why do they always feel the need to talk? I wished this really were a hospital and that I could swiftly administer a dose of anaesthesia. “Shruti”, I lied and then immediately felt stupid. Of course, the boss had mentioned my name earlier but thankfully, there wasn’t even a flicker of recognition. My name could have been Teletubby and she wouldn’t have cared. She didn’t know who I was, she didn’t know that she had walked into the life that I had imagined. This wasn’t some dramatic run-in to her. It was just another routine - as simple as brushing her teeth. I tried to keep it professional and dignified. She looked like she worked a high profile job. I could see sheaves of paper peeking out of the partially open zip on her expensive bag that sat resolutely on the floor. I dabbed her legs with powder. Her skin felt as soft as it looked. I had been miserable in the relationship and so had he. But he hadn’t had the will or stamina to actually leave until he met her. I dipped the butter knife in the thick wax and blew on it before I touched it tentatively to her skin. She didn’t flinch, so I assumed the temperature was alright. Was I wishing it had scalded her a little? What if the knife were a little sharper? The kind that cut his silhouette like paper from my heart’s core and plucked him right out in an instant. I was ashamed of these horrid thoughts but prouder still of my ability to skillfully conceal them. She asked where I came from, how I came to work here, where I currently live and I confidently adopted the identity of my colleague Kim, doling out her life in tidbits to this woman. I tried to maintain a curt, professional demeanour, but she wouldn’t back down. We were interrupted by the tedious ringtone of her mobile. She hadn’t even set it to something interesting; it was the default music of every other Samsung phone. “How bland!” I thought, discriminatorily. Her eyes flickered rapidly when she caught a glimpse of the illuminated screen. She motioned for me to pause as she sat up and swiped right, accepting the call. She offered a feeble ‘hello’, her jaw quivering dangerously.

“I understand.”

But I don’t want…”

I turned off the electricity to the wax heater, sensing that this could take a while. With each fragment of a sentence, her pitch grew higher and hollower. I sensed that I should maybe leave the room, but my curiosity had my feet nailed to the ground.

“There is nothing else…”

I pretended to tidy up the plastic rack of supplies, shifting things around and resting them back in their original place.

“No, but it is final. I have signed it.” She let out a dense sob. I wondered if it was him and the curiosity was urging me to rip the phone out of her trembling hands.

“We cannot. You broke me. I don’t want this, please, Ashok, leave me and my family alone.” So it was him.

She poked the phone furiously, simultaneously ending the conversation and his hope of any reconciliation. She pulled her legs up toward her face and dipped her head onto her knees, somehow with grace. I had seen women engage in fights, gossip, even tears in these rooms but I always felt a disconnect; like I was watching them on television or at a train station. This time, I felt an unnatural stirring deep in my belly, a roiling discomfort and hoped I wouldn’t be sick. It couldn’t be empathy. For this woman of all people. I placed my slightly sticky hand on hers. I felt as if I had floated up and were gazing upon this unfolding scene in disbelief. She touched my hand with her palm, acknowledging comfort and lay down again. She tried to cry quietly without rattling her body too violently. In silence, I resumed the slicking and sharp yanking until she was all smooth. I bathed her in acetone and in an uncharacteristic act of kindness, brought her some concealer and applied it generously under her eyes. She was so moved, she nearly wept again.

As I led her to the waiting area where the boss sat with her register and tinkling cash drawer, I noticed a strappy young man waiting for her. He slapped his magazine shut and stood up, offering her a wistful, longing smile. She tipped me generously as she left, muttering “I will ask especially for you next time, Shruti.”  I nodded uncomfortably, feeling the gaze of the boss drop puzzled and heavy on me. The cloud had dissipated. I walked back inside, smiling to myself, feeling a wave of happiness and freedom. For her. For myself. Even in the winter, both hardened root and soft shell of a seed contain a secret. The one we all want. New life.

The writer wishes to remain anonymous