Monday, March 10, 2014. Approximately 5:15 pm. Live Oak, Florida.
I open the door to the salon. I see Cynthia, the lady who has cut my hair ever since I moved to Live Oak, working on coloring the hair of a woman. Several other women are waiting in chairs lined along the walls.
“Do you have time for me today?” I ask.
She shakes her head.
“Not until about six, if you want to come back, then.”
“I’ll probably try tomorrow,” I say.
“If you want to come during your lunch hour, that can work, too,” she says.
“Okay.”
“Excuse me,” another woman says standing just inside by the door.
I step out of the way to let her out, smile at Cynthia and close the door.
Tuesday, March 11, 2014, 4:40pm.
The sign on the front of the salon where I get my hair cut says walk ins are welcome and that they stay open to 7pm, but I know the ladies will sometimes close at 5 if they do not have any remaining appointments. I always just walk in.
The salon is only a block away from the office, and I intend to come back and work late after I get a haircut, so it should not be a problem for me to duck out 20 minutes before my own office closes to the public.
As I stand on the sidewalk, dressed in a suit, waiting to cross the street, a car slows to a stop in front of me and a woman gets out of the passenger seat. It is one of my clients, coming by for an unscheduled appointment. This is fine. I represent people who have a hard time finding transportation to my office, and sometimes cannot get time off from work. If I am not tied up, I will generally see a client who just pops in from the street. We head back in together, upstairs to my office.
5:00pm
Now I am done talking with the client, and I come back out and cross the street.
I have not taken ten steps up the sidewalk toward the salon when another car swings in and slows to stop in front of me. The window rolls down and I hear a woman’s voice.
“Hey!”
She is looking at me like she expects me to recognize her. I do not, but pretend like I do.
“Hey!” I respond. “How are you doing?”
I step to the car and lean on the passenger door. Now I know the female driver. It is Sonja, the Spanish interpreter from when I worked in Kissimmee. She translated in a trial that I did a couple of years ago when the client did not speak English.
Sonja is a beautiful, voluptuous Columbian woman, and I once went to a Latin dance club with her. I have never felt more like a white boy in my life than when I tried to fit in on the dance floor.
“Move your hips more,” she said to me then. “Feel the beat. One-two, one-two.”
But it was hopeless.
Sonja’s hair is longer now, and darker, too.
“Hey, wow. What are you doing up here?” I ask.
She tells me the reason, but I am so caught off guard by her sudden appearance that I blank out as I study her face and figure. I do not listen to her fully other than to hear that she is up in North Florida doing something for her job.
“You know, when I drove through this town, I thought I remembered seeing on Facebook that you lived in Live Oak, now,” she says. “And here you are. I saw a tiny Public Defender’s Office,” she laughs.
“That’s where I work,” I say with a smile and pointing to the building. “I’m one of only two felony attorneys for this entire county. I get half the alphabet, and handle whatever crimes come in.”
We talk for a while. I explain that I live only two blocks away from the office and walk to work each day, and that there are only about two bars in downtown and that I can walk to them, too.
“So this is a very different life for you than in Kissimmee and Miami,” she says. From her tone, I can tell this is not a place she would want to live.
“Yeah, I guess. But I like it just fine. Are you in town tonight? I’ll take you to dinner.”
She answers with the familiar refrain, “Perhaps some other time.” She also tells me that she will be back up to Live Oak, but she is not sure when.
“I’ll tell everyone that I saw you,” she says.
We leave it at that. I continue walking to the salon as she drives away.
Upon opening the door to the salon, I see a woman in the chair and a young girl whom I presume to be her daughter sitting off to the side. Cynthia is styling the woman’s hair.
“Can you take me today?” I ask Cynthia.
“It’ll be about 10 minutes while I finish with her,” she answers.
“That’s fine. I’ll just wait here if that is okay.”
“Sure, come on in.”
I go to a seat close to the young girl, who shifts her weight uncomfortably as I walk by. She is probably only 10 or 11 years old.
In the meantime, another customer comes in, a lady who looks to be in her 60s.
“Come on in, Ms. Dorothy,” Cynthia says. “This gentleman is ahead of you, but it won’t take me long.”
When Cynthia is finished with the woman in the chair, the woman asks her daughter to get the money out of her purse on the chair next to her. The girl does so, but then just sits there with it.
“Come here and give it to her,” the woman says.
The girl reluctantly stands up and walks to them, an uncertain look on her face.
The woman takes the money from her and hands it to Cynthia. “Don’t be so shy,” she says, but in an affectionate way.
They leave, and now it is my turn to take the chair. I take off my suit coat and hang it on a rack.
“You need me to take off my tie, too, right?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Cynthia answers. “So that I can wrap your collar and keep hair from going down your neck.”
I undo my tie, a Tommy Hilfiger one that was given to me in 2006 by my sales manager in Las Vegas. Then I have a seat in the chair, and Cynthia drapes the plastic apron over me.
“I’m trying to remember. Is it two?” she asks.
“No, four guard,” I say.
“Four,” she repeats.
“Is two shorter than the four?” I ask, already knowing the answer to the question.
“Yeah, a two guard would hardly leave anything left.”
“Glad you mentioned it, then.”
As she starts trimming my hair, it begins to fall on the apron.
I will have to stop getting my hair cut here, I think to myself with a smile. Whatever she is putting on the four guard is causing my hair to turn more and more grey or white.
“I noticed yesterday that your partner is not here,” I say.
Cynthia tells me that the other lady who works with her has had a medical procedure done and will be out a few weeks. They both own the salon.
“So you’re going to be very busy for a while by yourself,” I say.
Cynthia’s eyes get wide and she nods.
The salon has not been open that long- only right about the time that I moved to Live Oak myself last year.
“When I first started coming here,” I say, “maybe I’m wrong, but I got the impression that business was good, but that you guys were actually busier than you wanted to be.”
Cynthia nods again. “It was a bit overwhelming, compared to what Bonnie and I had been doing before. I’m getting ready to turn 50, and it’s a lot of work.”
“Wow,” I say. “I would not have guessed that. I would say you were in your early 40s.”
“Thank you for that. Would you believe I’ve been cutting hair for 32 years, though?”
I nod and smile.
“Yep, I started right out of school,” she says.
“The toughest part of that would be staying on my feet that whole day,” I say.
“I’ve got good shoes, so that really doesn’t bother me too much. It’s my shoulders. After standing all day, my shoulders really hurt.”
I nod my understanding.
“Also, I’ve got carpal tunnel,” she says. “Any activity you do repetitively, you’re gonna get carpal tunnel.”
Cynthia begins blending my hair with scissors.
“I’ll be glad when Bonnie gets back. I’m tired of 98.1 Country,” Cynthia says.
For the first time, I notice the country music playing on the speakers in the salon.
“Bonnie has I-Heart radio. This station just plays the same songs every hour.”
“What, does Bonnie have a special radio or something?” I ask.
“Uh-hm. She gets it through her I-phone and she can play it here.”
I think about this for a moment. “What is the difference between I-Heart and Sirius?” I ask.
Cynthia does not answer for a moment. “Nothing, I guess.”
“Are they both satellite radio?”
“Yes, they’re both satellite.”
She continues cutting my hair.
“How’s your other job coming?” I ask her.
“Fine, if we could get rid of this cold weather.”
Cynthia has a part time job with the State that lets her receive some benefits such as retirement. She stands outside as a school crossing guard.
“How is your job?” she asks. “Are you done with work for the day?”
“No,” I say with a smile. “I’m done seeing clients, but I need to go back to the office for another hour and…”
“And do paperwork,” she finishes for me.
“Yes. I have court on Thursday, and it’s all about making that day run as smoothly as possible. You don’t want to be unsure about how you’re handling a case when you’re standing in front of the judge.”
The other, older woman waiting her turn looks up and takes note of me at this last comment.
Cynthia finishes my hair and asks me how I like it.
“It looks good,” I answer, “but don’t my sideburns look crooked to you?” I ask.
I can see plainly in the mirror that they are lopsided and not cut evenly across.
“Hold on a minute,” she says, and puts her index finger on one side of my head. After close study, she see it, too and fixes it with the clippers.
“I have a floating eye,” she says, “and I have to look at it really close sometimes. It’s been a long day and my eyes are tired.”
“I understand,” I say.
She dusts me off and I stand up.
“How much is it again?” I ask.
“Ten.”
I hand her a twenty dollar bill. “You can give me seven back.”
She gives me a five and three ones. I hand one of the bills back to her.
“You gave me eight back.”
“I gave you eight. Thanks for checking,” she says.
“See you next time,” I say.
She does not respond to that. Her attention is on what I presume is her last customer of the day.
“Come on up, Ms. Dorothy.”
I walk out of the salon. The air feels good on my neck and scalp.
Wednesday, March 12, 2014.
I learn that yesterday evening, not long after I left the salon, Cynthia died in a single car accident on her way home. She hit a road sign and a stand of trees on the driver’s side of the vehicle, and she was not wearing her seat belt.
Stunned, it occurs to me that if I had not met my the client at 4:40pm but continued on to the salon, this would have mixed up the timing of Cynthia’s day as to when she left the salon and got into the accident. She might still be alive.
Or if I had a longer conversation with Sonja and been able to convince her to have dinner with me, then I would have skipped the haircut and again, the timing of Cynthia’s drive home would be different and she might still be alive.
I think about her tired eyes and wonder if that played a part.
When I bring these things up with my coworkers and friends, they seem a little uneasy and do not want to talk about it.
I suppose they are right. What is there to say about death? The whole thing can be mentally unhealthy if I dwell on it. To be truthful, though, due in part to a devoutly religious upbringing, I have been dwelling on death since I was a child. And I still have no answers.
But I will stop writing about it, now.
The end of the month means more jury trials for very serious crimes, and I probably will not write a blog entry next weekend.
Cynthia, Bonnie, Dorothy, Sonja are not the real names, out of respect for privacy from internet searches… I am sorry for the loss to her family.
I walk past the salon after work on Wednesday. It is closed. A white wreath with a black bow hangs on the door, along with a sign saying that she will be missed.
No comments:
Post a Comment