Fiction
4 min
Scissor to Strand Salonspa
Alicia Bones
My acquaintance – someone I knew only through a blurry camera phone – recommended SCISSOR TO STRAND SALONSPA to me. He said his appointment with stylist Christine was more than he ever could have hoped.
"I was just stuttering along," he told me, "but my 30 minutes with her were the closest thing to a supernatural transformation I've ever experienced." I was intrigued, not wanting to admit I'd never heard of SCISSOR TO STRAND SALONSPA. "It's very, very hard to get in. They're booked out for ages."
When I mentioned my unfamiliarity with SCISSOR TO STRAND SALONSPA to another friend over coffee, she started having conniptions. "You've never heard of it?" she shouted. I'd already noticed that she looked better-rested than I'd ever seen her, almost shimmering in the sun that cut across the table. "How have you never heard of it? They've got a three-year waiting list. You needed to request an appointment, like, five years ago."
Oh no, I thought, scrolling through open appointments for this April, next April, and April two years from now, and not even finding even one open spot for a blowout. My job was mundane, I'd had the same partner for years, and my house was voted the ugliest on the block. I desperately needed an epiphany.
Just then, my other friend came into the coffeeshop, his hair radiant. People turned to watch him because it seemed like he was levitating, though his feet never left the ground. "Dude, you look great! Where have you been?" my first friend asked.
"SCISSOR TO STRANDSALONSPA!!!" he shouted, raising his hands above his head.
"SCISSOR TO STRAND?!" the barista inquired.
"Wow, SCISSOR TO STRAND," an old woman shook her head in awe.
"SCISSORTOSTRANDSALONSPA!" said the coffeeshop patrons, two dozen of them except me, in near-unison. Only then did I notice how amazing they looked: effortless yet purposeful, laidback yet full of joie de vivre.
"It can't be as great as all this!" I said, disbelieving. After all, no one other than the shadowy figure on my video chat had ever mentioned the salon to me. I felt like I'd been left out of a cosmic secret.
My first friend got into my face and said, "Don't you dare say that about SCISSOR TO STRAND. Don't you dare!"
"You know the secret, don't you?" my second friend whispered, smoothing his hair. It looked exactly the same, but it wasn't.
"No," I said again. "I don't know anything."
He bent his head towards me. "If you learn the password, you can skip the waiting list."
Well, you can bet that I didn't want to wait all that time to get my own version of what they had! "Can you just tell me the password?" I asked.
My friends broke into hysterics, slapping the table until they could compose themselves. "Just tell you?" my first friend managed, barely able to breathe. "I gave my spleen for the password!"
"She literally did," he added. "I traded in my cousin for it. He's gone, he's really gone."
They spun around a chair that held an open laptop with my shadowy acquaintance's face on it. "I gave up my body for this hair!" he grinned.
Here's the thing. I knew that SCISSOR TO STRAND SALONSPA would offer me the existence I'd always wanted, a dream that stayed a dream while you lived it. I knew it would be the best experience of my life, and I wouldn't even regret it later, like so many things I thought were a good idea but turned belly-up in the end.
"Do you have anything you could give up?" my second friend asked. "Anything at all?" I gasped so hard at the question that I sucked my chocolate croissant into my esophagus, and then there I was, gasping, flat on my back on the floor, unable to breathe. My friends and acquaintance watched me clutching my throat.
A man I didn't know hurried towards me and looked up, like he was talking to someone watching him there. "What do you think, SCISSOR TO STRAND?" he asked the ceiling, which seemed to give him the go-ahead. Only then did he pick me up and squeeze my stomach so hard that air forced the croissant from my throat.
Everyone clapped and screamed a joyous, "SCISSOR TO STRAND SALONSPA!" as they gave the man high-fives for his quick thinking. Soon, a large woman heaved my rescuer into the air, and the whole crowd followed him outside, where they made an impromptu parade down the street.
And then it was over. I was alone in the coffeeshop. Even the barista had joined the celebration. Another person was getting an expedited ticket to SCISSOR TO STRAND SALONSPA, and I was the only one left out. My friends were gone, and they hadn't told me if I had anything that would earn me the password. What if I cut something out of my body, and they wouldn't even take it? What if I saved someone's life for no reason?
Last week, I signed up for an open appointment at SCISSOR TO STRAND SALONSPA three years from now, but the salon's scheduler emails me every few hours to say they have to push my appointment back. New people are learning the password all the time. Already, my appointment is three-and-a-half years from now, for a 20-minute blowout. Not even a cut or color.
If I'm feeling brave someday, I might ask my first friend if I have anything that SCISSOR TO STRAND SALONSPA might want. Here's my great fear: I won't have anything worth trading. Or if I do, I won't be brave enough to give it up.
In the meantime, I don't ask my friends about their new lives that are so much better than anything I can imagine. I don't want to seem pathetic, like a has-been who still thinks she might get her big break. But I hope. Yes, I still hope.
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