Things I Know About Love by Kate Le Vann Page B

let me tell you where we’re going first,” Krystina said, when we pulled into a parking space in her white VW Rabbit (as they call it in the States) this morning. “The thing is, there’s no point trying on beautiful clothes when you look and feel terrible, you just contaminate the clothes with your own… blah. And I look and feel blah. So you’re coming with me to get a blow-out.”
    That’s American for a blow-dry. But honestly, who pays to have someone dry their hair? Americans are constantly inventing new things to spend money on.
    Krystina was looking incredibly sophisticated and cool—chilly cool—in a matching black cotton skirt and halter-neck top, both so unsweaty and unruffled that I was nervous following her into the hair salon wearing my raggedy denim mini and a simple pink T-shirt. But it is just so hot here that anything fancier—like my pretty silk top or my lovely, flowery sundress—would stick to me and crease. Denim doesn’t show the sweat. Krystina and I were seated in adjacent chairs, and we had two quite noisy male hairdressers, called Guy and Paul. ( Me: “Paul?” Paul: “Paah-oool.” Me: “Er…Powell.” Paul: “PAAAH-OOOL.”) They discussed our looks together. Krystina said she just wanted a blow-out and I said, “Oh, me, too. Just a, um, blow…dry, please.”
    Paul shook his head. “Nah. I think we’re gonna have to do a little more for you than a blow-out.”
    I said I didn’t know about that because we had a lot of shops to get through.
    “Oh, come on, a Paah-oool cut will take five minutes!” Paul said. “Straightening your friend’s hair is going to take hours.”
    “He knows what he’s talking about,” Krystina said. “Don’t you feel like a change, Livi?”
    How did they know? Yes! More than anything! There’s a kind of mad impulse that takes hold of me the second I sit in a hairdresser’s chair. I just want to wave my hand at my head and say, “Make me look completely different!” And when it’s all over, the moment they turn me around to face the mirror, I’ll see this gorgeous, unrecognizable sexpot looking back at me. Instead, what usually happens is that the hairdresser insists on talking me through it and I gradually start to get more afraid. I nervously agree with them when they start talking about soft fringes and long layers, and then I walk out looking more or less the same as I did when I walked in, with the same straight fringe and long red hair. It suits me, I don’t do anything to it, it’s me.
    “Your natural color is amazing,” Paul said. “It’s like your hair is telling you it wants to dazzle but you’re not letting it.” I blushed purple, because that’s what I tend to do when people talk to me about me. Krystina was being led away to the shampoo area and I was left alone with Paul. He was making eye contact in the mirror and I was too afraid to pull away. “But I think sometimes you want to be noticed? The cut you have now is sensible . We’re going to give you something closer to the way you feel. Keep some of the length, it’s pretty. Probably keep these bangs, they suit you. But we’ll chop into it a little? You think?”
    I knew it was just going to look exactly the same. He’s keeping the length, he’s keeping the “bangs,” spot the difference. My heart did sink a little bit, but I’d heard it before.
    “Yeah, that sounds really nice,” I said. You see, when I talk like that, with all the “that sounds really nice” and “just a blow-dry, please” stuff, it’s not much of a surprise that I always end up with the safe option.
    Paul talked about himself as he snipped away, and I relaxed, fascinated by the view in the mirror of Guy dragging the biggest straighteners I’ve ever seen along Krystina’s hair—honestly, they were like oars. I felt quite ladylike, having my hair done with a friend, like characters in a 1950s film, and I started to get a sense of how different my life is right now, being here in