I hadn't noticed the advertisement first time through the newspaper. Adverts in local papers tend to be much of a muchness, but for some reason this one caught my eye this time. I wasn't even actually reading the paper. It was lying on the coffee table, folded in two as I reached across to set my cup down. I picked the paper up, unfolding it so that I could see all of the advert rather than just the bottom two thirds of it.
"Dare to stand out" it said boldly above a picture of a model with a strikingly short, fire-red hair-do. "Dare for hair - we dare you" it said underneath, followed by the phone number. I examined the picture carefully, taking in all aspects of the model. She was certainly stunning, but then I decided that she would probably be stunning even if you put a bag over her head. I tossed the paper back down on the table and got up to go to work.
Work was hectic that morning and it was well past one by the time I managed to get away to pick up a sandwich down the road. As I stood in the queue to pay, I saw the local paper on the counter, relieved that I would have something to read while I ate. I don't know what it is, but I have to have something to read if I am eating alone. It doesn't matter what it is, I just have to have something to concentrate on other than what I am eating.
I paid and made my way over to the counter, pleased with myself for bagging the prized reading material, in addition to a clean part of the counter. As I ate, I busied myself with the stories that hadn't interested me at home. Mundane issues of barely any interest to anyone other than the protagonist. I turned the page and there she was again. She stood out. The word stood out. "Dare".
I looked up from the paper and out of the window. Well, not out of the window as such, more AT the window where I could see my reflection. I reached up with my left hand to touch the ends of my chestnut hair as they fell onto my shoulders and smiled. I wouldn't call myself vain, but I was pleased with what I saw. The image in the window was clear - pretty face, nice smile, great teeth. Nice hair. 29 and gorgeous. Well, not drop-dead gorgeous, but good enough. The reflection took the last bite from the sandwich as I fixed it with a stare and then I looked away. Back down at the paper. I had memorized every last detail of the advert, but still hadn't turned the page.
My phone went. I picked up my purse and hurried from the shop, always embarrassed to be talking on the phone whilst everyone else listened in for clues about my occupation or my private life. Work. Typical. I'd be back in a minute. I hung up. I looked around me. I dialed.
"We dare you" came the unexpected greeting. I was stunned at the directness of it. "Hello?" the cheery voice said again, a little disappointed that it hadn't provoked a response first time.
"Hi" I said "I saw your ad in the paper". I felt unbelievably stupid. Here was I, telephone sales executive extraordinaire, 'The Persuader', lost for words when talking to a hairdressers' receptionist.
"And.............. you'd like to make an appointment" she said.
"Well, I was just wondering what made you so special?" I said, trying to regain a little composure.
"We dare you to come and find out".
"Yes, I gathered that from the advert, I just wanted to know a bit more", I persisted.
"Jill can take you at 5:30" she said. I was obviously not getting through to her.
"Or Ruth at 10 tomorrow".
OK, Beth, get a grip, I thought. What are you trying to do? What do you want to do?
Instinct said 'hang up'. I said "5:30".
"Ok, dare to be there" she said.
This time I did hang up. I looked at my watch. I needed to get back.
The threatened crisis failed to materialise and the afternoon certainly went better than the morning had. A voice interrupted me. "Goodnight Beth" said the voice as somebody rushed past my open office door.
"Goodnight" I called back. I looked up at the clock. 5:15. Where had the afternoon gone, I wondered. Another figure jumped into my head. 5:30. I was too late. I had a call to make before I left the office. 5:20. 5:21. Time ticked by. The call ended, at last. Now I really was too late. I hadn't liked the girl on the phone very much, but I didn't want some poor stylist waiting at the salon for an appointment that never came. No doubt she wanted to get home just like me.
I rang the number from memory again.
"We dare you" came the greeting, although a different voice from before. I stabbed a pencil into the eraser sitting on my desk.
"Hi, I had an appointment for 5:30, but I've got held up and won't be able to make it. I just wanted to let you know." I said awkwardly. "It was with Jill" I added.
"This is Jill" came the unexpected reply.
"Oh, Hi, Jill" I said. "I'm ever so sorry".
"No, don't worry. Look, what time can you get here for?" she asked.
There was a question that I hadn't expected. "About a quaretr to" I said, somewhat off guard.
"No problem. I'll see you then" she said and then was gone.
I put the phone back on the cradle and sat back in my chair. "Dare" I said under my breath.
Before I knew it I was out of the underground car park and turning onto the busy street outside.
All manner of thoughts went through my head as I drove. Many of them were questioning my own sanity for actually going to a place like this in the first place. But then I started to pick holes in my own arguments. A place like what? What harm would it do? What did I expect anyway? What was the worst that could happen?
I decided that I should try arguing with myself more often as a way to pass the time as I was there without actually realising it. Car parked, thoughts still in disarray, I walked towards the salon. It was in a unit previously occupied by a salon, one that I had actually been to once upon a time, so I knew precisely where to go.
It didn't look that much different from before. Fresher certainly, but not dramatically different. There, above the door was the single word, "Dare". In the window were more pictures, More slogans etched onto the glass. Well, did I?
I steeled myself and walked towards the door, arm outstretched towards the handle. It was locked and I cursed as the pain jarred in my elbow. A figure inside was rushing towards me. "I'm so sorry" said the breathless figure as the door opened. "I thought that I could have beaten you to it."
I smiled at her.
"I'm Jill" she said.
No you're not, I thought, you're the girl in the advert. Only she had red hair. Short, red hair. Yours is long and black.
"You must be Beth" she continued, fed up with waiting for a response.
"I'm sorry" I said "You caught me by surprise. You're the girl in the....I mean, your hair....."
She smiled at my confusion. "I like wigs" she said simply.
She ushered me into the salon, although quite why I hadn't turned on my heels in embarrassment I don't know.
"Would you like a coffee?" she asked as she helped me off with my coat.
"Yes, please" I replied, anxious for anything that gave me a moment to get a hold of myself. She walked over to the side of the salon to where there was a coffee machine, leaving me to look around me for a second. There was nothing too unusual about the place, but my attention was drawn to some of the blown up photographs lining one of the walls.
"All recent clients" came the voice at my side "cream and sugar?".
"I'd better have it black for now" I smiled. "An interesting concept you've got" I said as I looked at more pictures further along the wall.
"Do you think so?" she said. "I'm starting to wonder whether we come on a bit too strong. You know, whether we frighten people away, people who want to try something new, but who need to be eased into the idea".
"I know exactly what you mean" I replied "I was nearly one of them myself" I said.
"But you came anyway?"
"Only just" I replied.
"Perhaps we will have to think again" she conceded.
"It might give you more candidates for the wall" I said, noticing that there were lots of pictures, but that the same faces kept cropping up.
"That's deliberate" she said. "We want people to look at the wall thinking that it is a load of different faces, but then to realise what can be achieved by daring to be different.
"That's told me" I said, suddenly feeling rather stupid.
"Not at all, I think that we are trying to be a little too clever" she conceded.
"Anyway" I said, changing the subject "I just came out of curiosity".
"About us or you?" she asked. She wasn't just a pretty face, she was clever too. I turned back towards her. She was also very bald. I stopped dead in my tracks.
"Now I've done it haven't I?" she smiled.
"Let me guess...........you dared?" I said, trying to hide my shock and obviously not succeeding.
"Not at all. I was just sick of seeing my self in all of those adverts, so I just didn't want to be looking at the same image in the mirror all the time."
"Well, you could have just changed the colour" I said.
"Not at all, if you're going to do something, you might as well really do it" she replied.
I didn't know what to say.
"And what are we going to do with you?" she asked.
"I was thinking of just having the ends trimmed" I said.
She smiled. "I don't think so" she said.
"What, you won't do what your client wants?" I asked
"What I meant was that I don't think that that is what you want."
"It's what I usually have, but I think I might be in a rut" I said.
"So are you ready to do something different?"
"I wouldn't know what to ask you to do." I said, disappointed with my own lack of imagination.
"Well, let's have a seat, you can tell me a little about yourself and your lifestyle and then we'll see".
We must have sat for twenty minutes or more while she asked questions about all manner of things, work, social life, boyfriends (not that there was one currently).
"So what we're saying is that you have a job where you don't see clients, you like to think of yourself as still quite young at heart and you haven't got a boyfriend to pander to or argue with about what you want and what he wants. Brilliant".
There it was, my whole existence summed up in one sentence.
"That's about it" I acknowledged.
She reached to one side and picked up a camera. "Smile" she said just before I was hit by the force of the flash. Would I too be on the wall, I wondered.
She patted me on the knee. "Come on" she urged, as she stood up. She picked a gown from one of the hooks on the wall and held it out for me.
I followed her deeper into the salon and sat down at the shampoo station. She put a towel around my shoulders and eased me back. The water massaged my scalp and then I felt her start to wash my hair. Slowly, expertly.
"So what's the verdict?" I asked, suddenly realising that I didn't actually know what was in store for me.
I haven't quite decided yet. Let's just see what happens" she replied.
"That's supposed to make me feel better?" I said.
"Don't worry. You'll be fine" she said as she turned the water off.
The towel was round my head, turban style as she walked over to a styling station. I followed close behind, looking for reassurance, but finding none.
I sat down. She started to comb my hair out. Whatever else she was, she wasn't chatty, which for me was an immediate plus sign. I hated being asked where I was going on vacation, whether I was going out that night. She probably knew the answer to that one already though.
It soon became obvious that she wasn't as scissor happy as I first thought. She was expertly cutting my hair into a sharp collar length bob. I relaxed, watching her in the mirror as she worked in silence. I was impressed with the speed that she cut, absorbed in her work. She finished cutting all the way around the bottom and then stood back to admire her work. She saw me look at her in the mirror and then smiled.
"Do you want me to stop?" she asked.
She could obviously see the puzzled expression on my face as I tried to work out what she meant. That was it surely.
"Whatever you think" I said.
"More coffee?" she asked. I nodded. "So, we haven't finished" she remarked as she walked across to the coffee machine.
More thoughts went through my head. The advertisement in the paper. The first phone call. All the 'Dare' business. Jill, fiery-red in the picture and now bald. I had the chance to get up and here I was, neatly bobbed, waiting for a coffee. I wanted a change and I had got one. Not dramatic, but certainly noticeable. I looked smart and presentable. I was still the same 'Me' though.
Jill put a cup on the shelf beside me and in a fluid motion spun me around again. "Another flash, another picture. She put the camera to one side and picked up her scissors again as she sat back down on her styling stool. The scissors were at my cheek. The blades opened and closed. I had to force myself to breathe. She turned the chair a little to continue progress and then turned me again. I could see in the mirror that my collar length bob was now a lip length bob on one side. I looked strange. Lop-sided. Then I realised that she wasn't cutting across, she was cutting down. I was intentionally lop-sided.
"Asymmetrical" she said as if reading my thoughts.
She stopped cutting and turned me around to face the mirror again.
"You can get up anytime you like" she said. I turned myself around for the inevitable photo and then looked back at the mirror again. "I look untidy" I said.
My wish was obviously her command as she set to work on me again. The next photo showed me in a fresh bob, lip length on both sides. Dramatic. Quite cute. I looked at it this way and that, only to be brought back to the present by an insistent humming noise.
"I want to sharpen up the back" she said. "Head forward".
She was nibbling away at the hairline of my neck with the clippers when I felt them move higher. And higher. They moved back to the base of my neck and then went higher again. Now she had really got my attention. Then quiet returned. This time she didn't turn me around, but I saw the flash in the mirror as she took yet another picture. I moved my hand up to my neck.
"Oh, my God" I said. There was nothing there. Nothing worth mentioning anyway. I moved my hand up higher, still nothing. Half of the back of my head was bare, but when I turned to face the mirror, you couldn't tell what was in store just around the back of my head. I stroked it and stroked it, turning my head from side to side again.
"You like that" she stated. She didn't have to ask, she could tell from my pre-occupation with it. Tell by the way I stroked it. She smiled as she watched me. I looked at me. I looked at her.
"All you have to do is sit there" she said. I looked at her. Bald. I looked at me. A cap of hair, short, sexy. Our eyes met.
"I don't know........." I said.
She stood up and moved towards me. The clippers were humming again.
"I don't know........." I said again.
"Are you trying to convince me or you?" she asked.
I stood up, clumps of hair falling around my feet. The clippers fell silent. I brushed a few more stubborn clumps off the gown and then brushed it again for good measure.
I looked at her. She smiled that smile again. Beautiful, disarming. I sat down.
The clippers sprang to life again and she placed them at my forehead, easing them back. She caressed me with them, following the blade with her free hand. Metal followed by warm flesh. I closed my eyes. I so wanted to watch what she was doing, but I couldn't help myself. I didn't care at that moment what it would look like, I just knew what it felt like. Who needs the hassle of a boyfriend when you can get feelings like this from a haircut. The salon was quiet again. She was stroking my head. The air was full of a delicate, soapy fragrance. The stroking sensation changed. I heard the occasional rasp, felt the slightest pull from time to time, but kept my eyes closed. I wanted to savour this for as long as possible.
She was rubbing my head. A coarser sensation. A towel.
"You can open your eyes now" she said.
Even though I knew what she had just done, I couldn't believe it. These two big, blue eyes were looking back at me in the mirror. Above them an expanse of skin. Bare scalp. I shuddered.
"I think we should probably stop there" she said.
I turned around. Flash. Another flash. I stood up and turned away from her. Another flash.
"Aren't you talking to me?" Jill asked.
I walked towards her and kissed her gently on the cheek. "Thank you" I said.
"See what happens if you dare" she said, a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
"It was talk like that that almost stopped me coming." I told her.
"I thought that it was talk like that that just made you come" she said, a bigger smile on her face.
"Was it that obvious?" I asked.
"Don't worry about it, I like to be appreciated" she said.
I blushed. "How much do I owe you?" I asked.
"Well, you can start by buying me a drink. And then you can do something about levelling the score. I hate to be behind" she said, reaching up to cup my left breast. I looked at her. Into her eyes.
"Dare" she said.
I slapped her face playfully and went across to pick up my coat.
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