UnSouled

28 • Risa

“Close your eyes,” Risa says. “I don’t want to get soap in them.”

The woman leans back, her Pomeranian in her lap. “Check the water first. I don’t like it too hot.”

This is Risa’s fourth day residing in Audrey’s salon. Each day she tells herself she’s going to leave, yet each day she doesn’t.

“And make sure you use the shampoo for dry hair,” the woman commands. “Not the kind for very dry hair, the kind for mild to moderately dry hair.”

It all stems from that first night. Audrey had spent the night there in the shop with Risa, because “a girl shouldn’t be alone after a thing like that.” Which she supposes is true for girls who have the luxury of not being alone. Risa rarely has that luxury, so she was glad for the company. Apparently, the attack in the alley affected Risa much more deeply than she thought, because she had a string of nightmares all night. The only one she can recall is her recurring dream of countless pale faces looming over her and a sense that she could not escape them. On that night, dawn could not come soon enough.

“You’re not the usual shampoo girl, are you? I can tell because the other one has the most hideous breath.”

“I’m new. Please keep your eyes closed while I lather you up.”

Until today, Risa had paid for Audrey’s kindness by organizing the stockroom, but when one of her stylists called in sick today, she begged Risa to man the shampoo sink in a back alcove.

“What if someone recognizes me?”

“Oh, please!” Audrey had said. “You have a totally new look. And besides, these women don’t see anything past their own reflections.”

So far Risa has found that to be true. But washing the hair of wealthy women is not exactly her job of choice and is even more thankless than dispensing first aid at the Graveyard.

“Let me smell that conditioner. I don’t like it. Get me another.”

Tonight I’ll leave, Risa tells herself. But nighttime comes and, again, she doesn’t. She’s not quite sure if her inertia is a problem or a blessing. Even though she didn’t have a specific destination before arriving here, she always had a vector—a direction to be moving. True it changed from day to day depending on what seemed the most likely direction of survival, but at least there was momentum. Now her momentum is gone. If she leaves here, where will she go? A place of greater safety? She doubts there is one.

That evening when Audrey closes shop, she treats Risa to something special.

“I’ve noticed your nails are in pretty bad shape. I’d like to give you a manicure.”

That makes Risa laugh. “Am I your Barbie doll now?”

“I run a beauty shop,” Audrey says. “It comes with the territory.” Then she does the oddest thing. She comes to Risa with scissors, snips off an inconspicuous lock of hair and shoves it into the compartment of a small machine that looks like an electric pencil sharpener. “Have you ever seen one of these?”

“What is it?”

“Electronic nail builder. Hair and nails are basically made of the same stuff. This device breaks down the hair, then applies it in fine layers on top of your nails. Put your finger in.” The hole, Risa now realizes, is not pencil-sized, but large enough for a woman’s fingertip. She’s hesitant, as putting one’s finger into a dark hole is a very counterintuitive thing, but in the end she acquiesces, and Audrey turns it on. It buzzes, vibrates, and tickles for a minute or two, and when she pulls her finger out, her nail, which had been uneven and ragged, is now smooth with a perfect curve.

“I programmed it for the shortest setting,” Audrey tells her. “Somehow I can’t imagine you with long nails.”

“Neither can I.”

Risa endures the process for all ten nails. It takes almost an hour.

“Not very efficient, is it?”

“No. You’d think they’d make one that can do a whole hand at once, but they don’t. Something to do with limitations on the patent. Anyway, I use it only when someone has patience and can actually appreciate the thing.”

“So it doesn’t get much use at all, does it?”

“Nope.”

Audrey, Risa realizes, is probably around the same age as her own birth mother, whoever she is. She wonders if a mother-daughter relationship would be something like this. She has no way to judge. All the kids she knew growing up didn’t have parents, and after she left the state home, she only knew kids whose parents had thrown them away.

Audrey leaves for the night, and Risa settles in the comfortable niche she’s made herself in the storeroom, complete with a bedroll and comforter that Audrey provided. Audrey has offered her the foldout in her apartment, and even the stylists, who are all as kind as Audrey, have offered to take her in, but there’s only so much hospitality Risa’s willing to accept.

That night she dreams of the cold, impassive multitude again. She’s playing a Bach étude much too fast on a piano that’s hopelessly out of tune, and right in front of her are the countless looming faces lined up and stacked like shelves of trophies. Deathly pale. Disembodied. Alive and yet not alive. They open their mouths but they don’t speak. They would reach for her but they don’t have hands. She can’t tell if they mean her ill, but they certainly don’t mean her well. They reek of need, and the deepest terror of the dream is not knowing what it is they so desperately desire from her.

When she pulls herself out of it, her fingers, new nails and all, are drumming against her blanket, still struggling to play the étude. She has to turn on the light and leave it on for the rest of the night. When she closes her eyes, she can still see those faces like afterimages on her retina. Is it possible to have the afterimage of a dream? She can’t help but feel she’s seen these faces before, and not just in a dream. It’s something real, something tangible that she can’t place. Whatever it is, she hopes she never sees it—never sees them again.

•   •   •

First thing in the morning—just five minutes after opening, two Juvey-cops come into the salon, and Risa’s heart nearly stops. Audrey’s already there, but none of her stylists are. Risa, knowing that turning and ru

“You open for business?” one of them asks.

“That depends,” says Audrey. “What can I do for you, Officer?”

“It’s my partner’s birthday. I’m giving her a makeover.”

Now Risa dares to look. One of the Juvies is a woman. Neither of them takes much notice of her.

“Perhaps you could come back when my stylists arrive.”

He shakes his head. “Shift starts in an hour. Gotta do it now.”

“Well, I guess we’ll have to work with that, then.” Audrey comes over to Risa, speaking sotto voce. “Here’s some money; go get us doughnuts. Go out the back way and don’t come back until they’re gone.”

“No,” Risa says, not realizing she would say it until she does. “I want to do her shampoo.”

The Juvie doesn’t have a dog on her lap, but she does have a chip on her shoulder. “I don’t go for nothing foo-foo,” she says. “Just keep it simple.”

“I intend to.” Risa drapes her with a smock and leans her back toward the sink. She turns on the water, making sure it’s nice and hot.

“I’d like to personally thank you,” Risa says. “For keeping the streets safe from all those bad boys and girls.”

“Safe and clean,” says the Juvey-cop. “Safe and clean.”

Risa glances out to the waiting area, where her partner obliviously reads a magazine. Audrey peers in at Risa nervously, wondering what she’s up to. With this woman leaning her head back, totally at Risa’s mercy, Risa feels like the Demon Barber of Omaha, ready to slit her throat and bake her into pies. But instead she just dribbles shampoo into the corners of her closed eyes.

“Ah! That stings.”