Title: Mistake

Author: LTAH Anon

Location: salon

Catagory: fiction

Rating: PG

 

Of course it’s always better to read these things when you have an idea about the characters in play.

So let’s get to know Paige, yeah?

She is 5 foot 8, has some cool hooters and a nice ass always put inside the skinny jeans she always wears. She has short, dirty blond, hair cut in a bob chin length that she likes to curl in such a way you’d never guess her hair is straight, and just one of the cutest faces I’ve about ever seen.

She works in the salon owned by her mother, she is an apprentice hair stylist fresh out of beauty school. She is the kind of girl who doesn’t care much for talking nor being on the spot (she wasn’t too popular back in high school) but her giggles would even melt the soul of satan due to the adorable way they come out from beneath her hand.

I don’t want to dabble too much in the pleasantries but I will say that she is a kind soul, gentle, caring, but ready to stand up for herself when needed.

Which, today, would have helped her out.

The “Salon Rouge” was slow on this particular December day. Two customers were seated in two of the haircut stations on opposite sides of the shop. Paige was tending to a young brunette with silky locks down to her mid back who was just starting out in high school, she had come in the shop as nervous as her trembling made apparent as she sat down in the chair and asked for something a bit different. After some discussion Paige had settled her on a shorter choppy style cut right at the jawline. Just as Paige had taken some product and began running it through the girls have to finish, her mother came up to her station, crossed her arms and leaned on the counter.

“You know, if I hadn’t taught you these tricks myself, I’d say you were taught by a master” She said to Paige with a smirk of approval.

“Well…” Paige was trying to style the girls hair with bangs and all slicked back. “I was taught by the best” She said distracted.

“Hey” her mom said.

“Yeah?”

“Seems like you’ve had quite the week, honey. And the shop is more empty than my grandmother’s on thanksgiving” Paige cracked a smile at her mother in the mirror. “You know, honey…” a customer came in through the door and pages mom motioned for him to sit down at one of the stations next to Paige’s. “I think you could use a good haircut.” Paige finished and whipped the Cape off the girl who immediately began admiring her new shorn locks in the mirror.

“I don’t know, mom. I just got it cut…”

“Oh, c’mon. Where’s your sense of adventure?” She put her hands on pages shoulders and guided her to sit down at the station. Some length off, some stacking, maybe some bangs, tell you what, I’ll ring out your customer, I’ll take care of this one, and I’ll work some magic on this mop of yours” Paige looked at her mother skeptically but after a few moments sat down in the chair and sighed. “Okay, mom. Do your worst” she half smiled at her in the mirror again.

Her mom went to talk with the man in the next station as Paige took a water bottle and started spraying her hair down with water.

“Yeah? Buzz it all off? OK mister, you’re the boss.” Her mom left the man to go get some clippers. As she was searching for them in one of the stations drawers her phone rang with a text. She grabbed the clippers and with one hand started texting as she walked back over to the station. She put her phone away as she looked at the clock on the far wall. As she did that she went over to where Paige was sitting, pushed down her head to her chest and ran the clippers up the back of her head without realizing what she was doing. She realized only when Paige started screaming.

“MOM!” Paige shrieked. Her mother dropped the clippers in shock and stared at her daughters head. Up the back was a strip of shorn hair only as long as a number 2. Paige reached her hand and felt the back of her head.

“What. Have you. Done.” Paige said through clenched teeth. Her mother was still in shock, but after a few moments of studying, she left and got a cape.
“Mom?” Paige glared at her mother with a fire fueled rage. “What are you doing?” Her mother came back to the station and put the cape around Paige. “Well, you gotta let me fix it now” She said as she picked up the clippers again. “What are you going to do mom!” Paige’s eyes met her mother’s in the mirror. “Pixie”

“What?”

“You heard me, I’m giving you a pixie cut, it’s the only thing I can do short of giving you a buzz cut.” She went over to the man and explained that unfortunately they had to close for a bit. She handed the man a coupon for a free haircut and apologized as Paige found tears welling in her eyes as she said, still through clenched teeth when her mother came back over,

“Fine.”

With that, her mother plunged the clippers back onto Paige’s head, who flinched every time she felt them.

“Now the strip does go up quite a bit. I’m gonna have to do some major stacking if you want to have bangs–”

“Just do it” Paige could barely bring herself to speak she was so upset. How was she going to explain this catastrophe of a haircut?

“Okay” her mother ran the clippers through the sides and then took the scissors and started combing out hair for bangs. “Your hair is curly, which is going to be an issue. Could you hand me that spritzer honey? Thanks” She dosed Paige’s bangs with water and then snipped them in a v shape right above her eyebrows.

Paige continued to look on in horror as her hair was now being reduced to curly chunks falling on her shoulders, on the cape in her lap, and on the hardwood floor. She could barely look at herself in the mirror, it was like she was looking at another customer getting a radical new haircut, but the customer staring back through the mirror was her. She heard the clippers switch on again and felt the cold metal on her neck.

“I’m just cleaning up the back, honey. But you know, to get an even cut I think I’m gonna have to put a number 5 up top, which means I’ll have to straighten your hair.” Paige groaned as her mother flattened the curls she had worked so hard to maintain. As soon as that was taken care of, she then fitted the number 5 attachment to the clippers and once more made the plunge into the condemned locks she had once been so proud of.

Paige sat in the chair for the longest time avoiding looking in the mirror, and then as suddenly as it began, she heard her mom say “There, now who says I can’t make art out of tragedy?” Paige looked up slowly toward her reflection in the station mirror. What she saw was a young girl with a spunky pixie cut, clipped on the sides and back down to a number 2, and the top left long but just short enough that it spiked up in the back. It all went well together with the bangs which at their longest part only just brushed her eyebrows.

“Well?” Her mother unbuttoned the cape and Paige reached a hand up and ran her fingers through her new haircut. “It’s….short” She finally said, her voice quiet with a faint tremble underlying her stone expression. Paige stood up and continued to examined it from all angles, as she was doing that she heard the door to the shop open and the girl who was there earlier walked in.

“I’m sorry, I thought I left my purse–” She stopped and stared at Paige who flushed red with embarrassment and looked away. Her mom walked over quickly with a small red purse in hand and gave it to the girl.

“Sorry, I saw it at one of the stations and I thought it was one of my employee’s. Their always leaving their stuff around–”

“Uh, no…it’s okay.” The girl took back her purse and said “Uh, actually I was wondering if you could do that to me?” She pointed at Paige who stared at the girl with a shocked expression.

“Um, actually…” her mother started but Paige walked over and cut in. “Yes, of course. I’ll take you right over there…”