With only two hours between the end of my shift and the start of my transactional non-date with Troy, I braced myself for a head-to-toe application of the full contents of Bellarosa’s beauty supply closet. Instead, Drea set herself down in my office throne and encouraged me to take the far less regal chair on the opposite side of the desk.
“Let’s have a chat.”
“A chat?” I pointed to the clock. “We don’t have time for a chat!”
Drea sighed heavily. “All the best revenge makeovers start with a conversation.”
“What’s to discuss? Make me hot!”
Drea shushed me with the jangly flick of her bangled wrist.
“Play to our strengths,” she said. “Remember?”
I reluctantly sat.
“What did Troy dislike most about your appearance?”
I was sure I’d misheard her.
“What did he dislike? What kind of revenge makeover is this?” I asked. “The goal here is turning Troy on, not turning him off!”
“Is that the goal?”
I considered Drea’s question. I didn’t want Troy to want me. I wanted him to regret not wanting me. Two very different objectives.
“Did he ever tell you not to dress or look a certain way?” Drea pressed.
Troy disliked when I cut my hair above my chin because it was “too severe.”
Troy disliked when I bought thrift-store denim because it was “too funky.”
Troy disliked when I got my ears double pierced because it was “too punk.”
Troy disliked when I pinned a Planned Parenthood button to my backpack because it was “too radical.”
So, I grew my hair down to my shoulder blades. Shopped at the Gap. Let the holes in my ears close. Tossed the pins. I told myself these were superficial compromises essential for keeping the peace in our relationship and the plan alive. But as I sat across from Drea and answered her questions, I realized how wrong I’d been. Troy’s dislikes were about so much more than ridding controversial items from my wardrobe. They were about removing controversial ideas from my brain. I wondered how Troy would have rewritten my personal statement if I’d given him the chance.
I was finally starting to see where Drea was going with this.
“You want to make me as dislikable as possible?”
“Not exactly.” Drea shook her head before making a vital correction. “I want to make you into the girl you should have been all along.”
I’d assumed Drea would transform me into a big-haired, spandexed Bellarosa clone. But this strategy was so much smarter. And unexpected.
It was only appropriate for us to begin the revenge makeover journey at Spencer Gifts, the one-stop shop for invisible ink pens and penis ice-cube trays. To accommodate its diverse customer base, it also sold buttons in a full range of offensiveness, from not at all (DON’T WORRY BE HAPPY!) to sort of (FBI: FEDERAL BOOBIE INSPECTOR) to very, very offensive (BUSH/QUALE ’92). Drea got us a deal on ten pins for $2.50, all in the “too radical” category.
We followed that up with a quick stop at the Piercing Pagoda. I watched Drea barter like a pro with Vicki, aka The Girl Who Called Me Toothy and Would Not Get Her Dream Homecoming Dress at Bellarosa Boutique, Gawddammit. If she re-pierced the second holes in my ears for free, Drea would put her back on Bellarosa’s list and make her blue velvet dreams come true. Vicki agreed without hesitation. By the end of our surprisingly painless transaction, she not only believed the true story about what happened with Slade that night on Bellarosa’s couch, but was determined to tell as many people as possible when she went down to party in the Cabbage Patch that night.
“Now, where can we get our hands on some vintage jeans?” Drea asked out loud.
Unfortunately there wasn’t a thrift store to be found within 900,0000 square feet. Recycled goods and clothing undercut the newer-is-better capitalist propaganda that kept the mall in business. But I had a good idea where I could find pre-worn denim—I just had to summon enough courage to get it.
“I believe in you,” Drea said encouragingly as we approached Fun Tyme Arcade. “I’m here for backup if you need me.”
I found my mark with his head inside an open pinball machine, looking a lot like a mechanic tinkering with a car engine.
“Heyyyy.”
I greeted Sonny Sexton like we were old friends. He looked up from the wiry innards with confusion, quickly followed by interest.
“Heyyyy…” He pointed a screwdriver at me. “Mono Bitch.”
He was wearing the jean jacket. It was just as I remembered it: frayed at the collar and faded at the elbows, with a grimy patina resulting from continuous wear and few washings over many, many years. It was superbly gross, and I had to have it.
“I want that jacket.”
“You want…” Sonny Sexton pressed the screwdriver to the pocket covering his heart. “This jacket?”
“Yep,” I said.
Sonny Sexton smiled wolfishly. My, what big teeth you have … I thought.
“What will you give me in return?”
He wasn’t at all interested in hearing why I wanted his jacket. It was as if he were routinely interrupted at work by random girls requesting articles of clothing right off his back, you know, like this was just a mildly bothersome consequence of being Sonny Sexton. Unlike Vicki, I didn’t know what to barter this time around. I mean, I knew what he wanted from me. He’d made that abundantly clear in our first conversation. But my virtue was not on the table, the pinball machine, the Skee-Ball ramp, or anywhere else Sonny Sexton was rumored to have scored with gamer groupies defenseless to his scuzzy charms.
So I took a chance on the one thing Sonny Sexton and I had in common: We had a reason to be annoyed with Troy.
“What if I told you your jacket is part of a plan to get back at someone who did us both wrong?”
“Not Helen!” He clutched his chest in terror.
“No! Not Helen! I know better than to mess with Helen.”
He pressed two wires together inside the pinball machine. A bell rang.
Ding! Ding!
“Cookie Boy?”
“Cookie Boy.”
Ding! Ding!
Thirty seconds later I was walking out of the arcade wearing Sonny Sexton’s denim jacket, leaving a cloud of knock-off cologne and skunk weed in my wake. I promised I’d return the garment tomorrow in precisely the same scummy condition I had received it.
“The student has become the master!” marveled Drea.
We had to hustle now. I only had about forty-five minutes before my date-like transaction and one crucial destination left on my make-under journey: Casino Full Service Beauty Salon. I’d never been there before, but it met Drea’s standards which was a good enough endorsement for me. I was encouraged by the sign in the window that said walk-ins were welcome. I was less encouraged by the looks of the receptionist.
“Trust me,” Drea insisted.
With her frosted, feathered hair and baby-blue eye shadow, she looked like her style evolution had stopped sometime between the end of disco and the start of the Reagan administration. Maybe that’s why she was a receptionist and not a stylist, I reasoned to myself.
“Do you have an appointment?” She didn’t look up from the latest issue of Celebrity Hairstyles magazine.
“Sorry, no,” I said. “Do I need one for a haircut?”
The receptionist scanned the appointment book with a rhinestoned fingernail.
“Not for Carla,” she said. “Carla’s wide open.”
I was a little nervous to be assigned the stylist who was “wide open,” but I didn’t have much time to wait for a more in-demand beautician.
“Okay,” I said. “Sure. Carla it is.”
The receptionist stood and gestured for me to follow her to an empty station. I sat and she spun me around in the chair toward the brightly lit mirror.
“So what are we doing today?” the receptionist asked.
“Um, shouldn’t we wait for Carla?”
Drea laughed.
“I’m Carla.” The receptionist who was actually my stylist draped a plastic cape over my shoulders. “What are we doing today?” she repeated.
My first impression of Carla did not give me much confidence in her abilities. But the clock was ticking.
“She wants it short,” Drea answered on my behalf.
“How short?”
“Like…” I hadn’t quite settled on how much higher above my chin I should go.
Carla flipped through Celebrity Hairstyles magazine until she found “5 Fall Trends to Watch Out For.” She showed me a photo of the porcelain-skinned, doe-eyed indie movie princess captioned, “Edgy and Effortless.” It was exactly the look I wanted. But I hadn’t known it until Carla pointed it out to me.
“Did you recently go through a breakup?” Carla asked. “A cut like this usually means a breakup.”
“See?” Drea elbowed me in the ribs. “I told you.”
Carla’s intuition cleared away any doubts I’d had in her. She’d seen some things in her two decades of salon service. She knew things. So in Carla I trusted.
And Carla did not let me down.
When she finished cutting, I had a glossy, earlobe-skimming bob that put my double piercings on prominent display. It was a beautiful, piss-off-my-ex twofer.
“What do you think?” Carla asked, removing my cape with a flourish.
“I love it! It’s perfect!”
I tipped Carla twice as much as I normally would, spending down to the last dollar in my wallet. By the time my spree was over, I’d blown a good chunk of my paycheck.
“This is the best money you’ve ever spent,” Drea promised.
And she was totally right.