Page 46 of XX Love Affair
“Yeah, and I lost the purple game to some ingenue from Vegas.” Blair rolled her eyes. “Could’ve used that money, too. My dad’s having surgery and his copay is stupid.”
“I don’t know where to really get started.” Helena made herself vulnerable, but only because she was in the presence of two experienced women who were friendly toward her. This is it. Networking. They knew things Helena didn’t. Even if they came from the same humble backgrounds, they had ensconced themselves into the scene and had made names for themselves. Helena would be crazy to not take advantage of that. “I’ve had an interview with Electric Star Entertainment to be a model but haven’t heard back from them since meeting the CEO. Doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”
Tara nearly knocked over her empty mug. “Electric Star? You mean Elena’s company?”
“I think so.”
“Astrid is best friends with Elena. What a small world.”
What a serendipitous world, you mean. “Funny how that works out.”
“That kind of work probably isn’t going to pay much,” Blair said. “The real money is in escorting and performing on the circuit. Escorting is probably easier to get into unless your biggest kink is exhibitionism. Like, you’re not getting hired at Le Chateau unless you’ve made some name for yourself and already have some clients lined up. But that’s all hypotheticals. What does Delia think of it? She doesn’t strike me as the type to ‘let’ her girlfriend do that work.”
Right. Delia. “We’re not serious. Just having some fun while I’m in town.”
“Does she know you’re trying to get into sex work, though?” Blair was relentless, wasn’t she? Honestly, who does she think she is…? This was a common problem Helena had wherever she went, though. Every time she attempted to make genuine acquaintances, let alone friends, she was turned off the moment the other person implied she didn’t know herself. What she was doing. What she wanted.
“Yes,” Helena lied. “She doesn’t care. I’m careful, anyway.”
Tara and Blair shared a look that implied they didn’t quite believe her. Not that it mattered to Helena, who probably wouldn’t see these women again by the end of the summer.
“That’s good,” Tara said. “It’s good to have people who are there for you.”
Would it be awkward if Helena excused herself right now? Sometimes she could last an hour with strangers, talking about whatever bonded them together, but she was already at the tipping point with Blair and Tara. Blair was so ingrained in her club now that she had some pull with the local scene. And Tara? She reminded Helena of her old classmates, the girls who couldn’t leave anyone alone and always wanted to be “besties” after barely learning Helena’s name. She never trusted those girls. Even if they didn’t think they wanted something from her, they did. Even if it was her friendship.
No, she shouldn’t get wrapped up in this business. Get what you need, move on.
Yet she couldn’t up and leave. Even Helena knew that was rude.
“So…” She stirred her iced chai and tried to not make awkward eye contact with the women sitting in front of her. “What’s the best place to get your hair done around here?”
Both Blair and Tara were relieved to change the subject. Tara especially, because she had the perfect place for Helena to check out. All she needed was an in because Greta Ingrid did not allow walk-ins. Not even if she claimed to be dating one of the most eligible bachelorettes left standing in New England.
“What color are we thinking of this quarter?” Greta combed through Delia’s hair with her long, dexterous fingers that were sweeter than any of the brushes on her counter. “It’s spring right now. Are we thinking something pastel? Eastery? That lavender we did a couple of years ago remains one of my favorites.”
Delia looked up from her phone. She met her reflection in the salon mirror, the bronze long faded from her hair and requiring an intervention. Me. I was the intervention. This was one of the busiest times of year for Greta, who couldn’t get Delia in for an appointment for a whole fortnight. In the meantime, Delia was stuck pulling her hair into endless ponytails and touching up her roots with black dye to try to even it out, all to maintain her kempt image at work and keep her picky girlfriend happy. Oh, Helena would be gone if she saw my real hair. Delia hadn’t seen her mousy brown hair in years, and she’d like to keep it that way.
“They give me a lot of leeway at The Boyle Group,” Delia mused while running her fingers over the color swatches Greta handed her. “I deal with a lot of the younger clients who don’t mind piercings, tattoos, and blue hair. But, oh God, anything but blue. Everyone has blue hair now, and it has such a weird connotation among my more conservative family members. They already give me shit about the lavender, pink, and platinum.”
“Why don’t we start with the bleaching and you can think about what color we dye it afterward. Although, if the sky were the limit…” Greta tightened the cape hanging loosely on Delia’s body. “I say we go Easter green. Make an impression when you enter a room.”
“Green might be… a bit much.”
“Well, think about it!”
While Greta went to work trimming and bleaching Delia’s hair, she was greeted by close friend Tiffani, who had timed her appointment for only fifteen minutes after Delia’s.
Tiffani wasn’t having her hair done by first-chair Greta, but she was in the second chair, her hair likewise about to undergo a color transformation that would doubtlessly make her and Delia the biggest head turners the next time they had a friend’s night at the club. That’s how we’ve done it for years. If Delia recalled correctly, preferring unnatural hair colors was something that had brought them together when they first met.
“It’s been so long since you had a crazy hair color,” Tiffani said as she handed her stylist a swatch for pale baby blue. Like I said, everyone’s doing blue hair. “Haven’t you had dark colors for the past couple of years?”
“How is bronze normal?” Delia scoffed. “I also did crimson two Christmases ago. I was a big hit with my stepmother.”
“The twenty-year-old?”
“The very same.”
By the time Greta finished cutting Delia’s hair into a soft and billowy bob, she had decided on lemon yellow. One of her oldest rules was that if she didn’t want a certain color by the time she stepped into the salon, she should either go with jet black with silver highlights or go all out with blond. Platinum from the bleach was too expected, though. Delia also wanted a specific bright yellow that would make her stand out that spring, whether she was at a garden party or a company dinner.