The Brow Job

Break-ups are always hard, but a break-up with a hair stylist takes on a dimension unto itself. Some happen suddenly and unexpectedly, like after a cut that left you looking like Sharon Stone’s mullet-clad uglatwin or a dye-job gone Emo. Others peter out slowly and painfully; she thinks he is “you-know” okay….he is nice and all…. but somehow he can’t give her what she needs, he can’t quite satisfy her, and there isn’t that “spark.” A classic case of “she loves her hair but is not in love with her hair.” Well, in my case, I was dumped. No getting around it. On Monday I got the news. OVER THE PHONE. Not even in person. One of “her people” even did it for her. A cheerful woman over the phone informed me that my hair stylist had left on Saturday and would not be returning to the salon. EVER. The words sank in slowly like the over-magnified Pantene Pro-V vitamins that drip into the freakishly large hair follicles in the commercials on TV. E-VER. The girl on the phone quickly quipped that “Martin!” could fill in for me tomorrow at the same time. In shock, I accepted the offer and even confirmed the brow appointment later that day. All was set for this new person to come into my life, but was I ready?

Martin! was nice enough. I saw him fly through the door early in the morning right before me in his cool leather jacket and stylish backpack. His hair had the hip Edward Scissorhands look. Not like the drippy black Johnny Depp mullet, (although that was cool), but it looked like it had actually been done by Edward Scissorhands….a tad on the feathery side with parts that had been shaved close to his head in between tufts of blond hair. He looked cooler than I will ever be.

When he took me back, the first thing I noticed was his glittering skull belt. This was done to celebrate the upcoming holiday, Halloween. I asked Martin! what he was going to be and he said he was going to probably 
“be nothing.” Wow, that is so cool. He then said there just wasn’t enough time to come up with a cool enough costume when Halloween was so close. After all, Halloween was two weeks away.

Arriving at the hair-washing station I found out Martin!’s darker side. He generously had me smell the three types of massage oil and informed me that I had chosen the “energizing” blend of ancient sage and rosemary. He nodded earnestly like I had made a wise decision of universal proportions. It made me feel spiritual.

Little did I know that my quasi-Buddhist moment would be squeezed out of me by the application of this divine oil. Working my head like a coconut that needed to be cracked and drained, Martin! relieved my skull of stress by replacing it with a migraine. Partly feeling that Martin! may be having an out-of-body experience, (perhaps remembering an ex-boyfriend) I continued to make my discomfort known by uttering sounds that ranged from a small squeak to an all-out “ow!” In the mystic-zone however, Martin! did not hear my cries and he continued this hair-washing ritual until it was complete. He then asked me to rise and accept the towel, which he would wrap gently around my bludgeoned head.

After my hair-cut and style was deemed a masterpiece of spiritual depth by Martin!, he gave the lady at the check-out a lip-gloss he thought would look “just fabulous” on me. I then transitioned to the “spa-side” of the salon to get my eye-brows waxed. Although any kind of waxing is generally not a pleasant experience, being on the spa-side of this salon generally is: dim-lighting, the sound of water flowing from who-knows-where, gentle music, and the sounds of audio-birds on CD.

What was NOT a generally relaxing experience was to look up from my “Real Simple” magazine to see a 6’1” 250 lb. Eastern European woman lumbering progressively towards me. As she walked towards me, the ground shaking, I saw she had on a scarf wrapped around her head, broomstick skirt, gypsy-like hoop earrings and orthopedic shoes. Her face looked angry. In fact, ALL of her looked angry as she said to me in her thick accent, “Are you Air-in?” I thought about running out of the room, denying my identity or even pointing to the girl next to me but I managed to confirm this with a squeak and a nod. 
“Okay” she said, “We do browvs now.” Rising to my feet, I knew I was in trouble.

I followed her down the hall to her a small dark room.. Half expecting to see something from the rat-room of 1984, I approached cautiously. “Git on de table and lie down,” she bellowed and although somewhere I am sure my higher brain screamed, “Don’t do it!!! Ruuuuuuuuun!,” my mind went blank and I could not think of anything else. I cautiously obeyed and inched my way onto the table. Suddenly aware of me watching her closely, LarEESa, as I read on her name-tag (yes, I was surprised too that it was not in Cyrrilic), yelled, “YOU side I come by YOU.” Thinking that this was a request for me to turn on my side, I turned, thinking this was quite unconventional for an eyebrow wax. Annoyed she said, “NO! I side YOU come by YOU.” Blinking twice I asked sweetly as I could, “Do you want me on my side?” Flying towards me with her wheeled table of instruments she said “NO! I come side. YOU SIDE. I come YOU side.”

I gravely nodded accepting that I probably would not come out of this alive.

LarEESa began then to ask me about my “skin hivstory.” I thought I would forgo the standup routine about how I had had this skin for as long as I remember, we met on conception and just went with the standard, “No skin problems.” Having what I thought to be a moment of survival-genius I then sat up and said excitedly, “But my skin is very, very sensitive. You…no, I have to be very VERY gentle.” She nodded gravely, like a fortuneteller assessing my fate. “Ive see,” she said slowly, nodding and narrowing her eyes. “I use ze wax with the sensitive in it.” Feeling satisfied with myself and a little relieved that maybe my own initial gut-feeling on this one was wrong I lay back and relaxed.

Relaxed was one thing that didn’t last for long. The application of wax was the first round of pain. Not quite hot enough at first and then too hot for a special feature in “Backdraft” it was smeared across the top half of my face like tar painted on with a brush. At some point, before I started to pray to Mary, Joseph, Jesus, Hare Krishna and yes, even Muhammad got a shout-out, my left eyebrow was somewhere placed on the right side of my forehead. Like silly putty, my skin became more pliable than has ever been known to mankind, and I now know what originally happened to Gumbi. He went to LarEEsa for a massage and waxing and then got his head squeezed by Martin! on a regular routine visit to the salon. The green I believe came naturally, after he saw what had happened to him in the mirror.

I blanked out at the pulling off of the wax. The last I remember, wax and brows were flying everywhere and with my back arched and hands clenched rigidly like a dead bugs legs I must have resembled a levitating Regan in the exorcist. After the clouds of trauma had passed, I blinked my eyes to see LarEEsa going to town with the pluckers, angrily, bitterly. Finally, I said that that was good, that I thought that little bit framed my eyes, my boyfriend liked thick brows, and that I had been advised by a leprechaun that ENOUGH WAS ENOUGH. Anything to get her to stop.

Finally, she ceased and I drew in a deep breath thinking it was all over. She handed me a mirror and got in very close to my face. So close, I could smell the stale coffee and latkes that she had for “breavkfast.” Seriously and deeply she said, “We must tawvk about your browvs.” She paused. Dramatically. “You MUST get your BROWVS to SIT DOWN.” Instantly I knew what she was talking about. Since birth I have had one eyebrow that has consistently stuck up. I have tried hairspray, gel, cutting it, getting it shaped, nothing has worked. It is rebellious and I have come to recognize that quality as the one thing that connects me with Marlon Brando. And so I love it. But LarEEsa does not. “YOU MUST!” she shouted, sensing that I have gone into some dreamy haze thinking about Marlon Brando. “YOU MUST GET IT TO SIT DOWN AND OBEY.”

At this point I get the sensation that we are relieving some dark moment from LarEEsa’s past, perhaps from somewhere deep in the dark steppes of Russia and the urge to run returns. I sat up and she said, “NO! Lie down!” Thinking it best to do what she says at this moment in time, I lie down as she pours a very liberal amount of oil onto her fingers and begins stroking and pulling my rebellious eyebrow. “You must doev this, eh, every night. YOU MUST NOT GET LAZY ON YOURSELF!!” This last phrase was said very close to my face and when I jumped to the side, her hand slipped off my eyebrow leaving a trail of oil throughout my hair. LarEEsa then took this time to give her sales pitch about the various attributes of this oil all of which was given in the loud to louder range, “YOU MUVST GET THIS OIL. THIS OIL IS VONDERFUL. THIS OIL IS MADE WIV MANY MANY WITAMINS AND MIN-ER-ALS. YOU KEN UVSE THIS OIL ALL OVER ZE BODY BEFORE YOU WAX YOURVESELF. THIS YOU CAN USE EVEN ON YOUR HAIR DAMAGE. YOU KNOW, FROM ZE BLOOD DRIVER.”

This time I sat up again. “The blood driver?” I asked.

“No,“ she said, “The Blood Dryyver.”

“The Blood Dryyver?”

“NO!” she shouted “The Blowv Dryver.”

Ah. I got it. Lost in translation. What I thought was a weapon was really an instrument of very helpful proportions. Somehow even that LarEEsa made scary. After she gave her pitch about the oil, she smiled, which perhaps was the scariest part of it all. She opened the door for me to leave and then gave me a big squishy bone-crushing hug.

“Sank you for letting me do your browvs. You’ve been very nice, huh? Next time I give you a facial and you get your browvs for free.” Ignoring the thought that my real brows were probably on the floor somewhere in LarEEsa’s gulag, I smiled weakly and told her “thanks.” She put her arm around me and walked me towards the door. “You beautiful girl. I like you. Now, go with your browvs! See you in 5 weeks.”

Post-Script: On Thursday I got a call from my hair stylist. We are back together. She told me she had moved to a different salon and was hoping that I could come see her again. She apologized for not calling me sooner, but things were just “so complicated and up in the air.” Although many painful things have happened since she first left, I have decided to give this a try and see if we can work things out. As far as LarEEsa goes, I think I may leave that experience to stronger souls, and if my eyebrows ever do grow back, I may be asking around for someone who could help me move past my trauma.