Cheryl, my long lost psychic/witch hairstylist...

                              

 

My hair is thick, and is very resistant to curl.  I’ve always wanted curly hair.  I have a natural wave, but it just isn’t good enough for me.  This is why I frown each time I see my daughter with her ceramic hair straightener attacking her beautiful, natural curly hair.  I guess we always want what we don’t have.  When I was younger, I would make tight braids in my hair at night so my hair would be somewhat curly the next day.  It would last may be a day, and then it just go flat and heavy again.  There was only one woman who could curl my hair; her name was Cheryl. 

 

Cheryl worked out of a beauty salon that was owned by a very small, and old Moroccan man who used to style my grandmother’s hair.  He was a very sweet older gentlemen who still regular clients come in-most of whom were elderly women.  His eccentric, long haired  son worked by his side along with Cheryl.  I’m guessing that she was a little younger than myself..in her early 20’s.  (This was years ago.)

 

Cheryl was not your ordinary hair stylist.  She was quite entertaining, and I missed her when she suddenly stopped working at the salon.  Cheryl was a self proclaimed psychic/witch hair stylist.  She would entertain me with numerous stories about various dealings with clients and her personal life. Sometimes, however her stories gave me chills.  She would insist on telling me, each time I sat my butt in her chair that I was going to have another baby soon.  At the time, I only had Elizabeth, and it wasn’t until 6 years later did I have my second child.  I guess she was off most of the time with me.  Anyways, here is a few of the stories I remember sitting at Cheryl’s “beauty station of torture.”  (If you ever had your head in a sink with over 120 spiral curlers in your hair you will understand—pure torture I tell you!!) 

 

The Discontent Client

 

Cheryl had given a woman a haircut.  The woman was not talkative or attentive at all, and Cheryl felt a great uneasiness about her.  She wasn’t quite sure if this woman was sick or going through a personal drama; it was just something that Cheryl could sense about her that was just not right.  After the haircut, the woman did say that the haircut was not what she originally requested.  She left discontented, and upset.  The woman paid for her cut, left a small tip, but not before adding that she would never visit the salon again.   

 

The uneasiness from this client did not leave however.  Cheryl would be cutting someone’s hair, look into the mirror and see the face of the discontented woman staring back at her.  This went on for days, then stop, and start again.  The face of this woman continued to haunt her for weeks.  It was affecting her work, and her nerves.  Sometimes the woman would be staring back at her laughing, at other times, it would be glaring stares that would make Cheryl stop in a middle of a haircut.  Naturally, this was making Cheryl very uneasy, but she understood what was happening. 

 

After a brief search in the phone book, Cheryl set off to this woman’s house.  She knocked on the door with her book of black magic underneath her arm.  The woman opened the door with a surprised grin on her face. 

 

“Stop what you are doing, or you will live to regret it!” Cheryl shouted at her.  The woman noticed the book under arm, and quickly closed the door.  Cheryl would never see the woman’s menacing face stare back at her again. 

 

When it was time for another perm, I was sad to know Cheryl no longer worked at the salon.  I had asked where she was working now, but no one had an answer.  She left mysteriously without leaving notice or a goodbye.  True, after hearing her stories, I sometimes felt frightened that she would “pick up” something from me as well.  Her stories of her saying that I was going to have another baby were frightening in itself, but she would often tell me how she would pick up vibrations from very sick clients who she knew would not be “around” much longer.  Very creepy.  The last episode she recounted to me was that she was tired that day because she had stayed up past midnight to perform a “ceremony” under the moon.  She was working on a special “remedy” for a friend of hers who was hurting over a “relationship”.  I did not ask the specifics because I knew she would eventually tell me the outcome later.  Unfortunately I was left not knowing the ending.  It’s almost like getting into a real good book, and then right when it gets to the good part, the book goes lost and gone forever.  I don’t think I ever got a good perm every again either.