Chapter 65 Cara
SIXTY-FIVE
CARA
That chick and her crazy-ass hair didn’t fool me. I knew who she was the second I saw her.
—Joey Lund, Freelance Entrepreneur, speaking to
The hair salon was on the lowest level of a three-story, 1980s strip mall two blocks off Rodeo Drive.
Neither Alejandro, who tended to Stephanie’s tresses, nor his first assistant, Nestor, could possibly take a walk-in, so Cara had been assigned to the assistant’s assistant, Dorit, a young woman with a black cat tattoo nestled in her cleavage.
Cara hoped her ink wasn’t a bad omen.
“My friend got a hold of hair color, scissors, and a bottle of Grey Goose during a bad break-up,” Stephanie explained as Dorit disbelievingly ran her fingers through Cara’s sheep-sheared, purple-black disaster.
“Sure there weren’t hard drugs involved?” asked the hairstylist. “You really did a number on yourself.”
“Maybe some weed,” Cara said.
Stephanie waved her hand at Cara’s new clothes, then at her hair. “I took her shopping, but she obviously can’t truly start to heal until we fix . . . this.”
Dorit motioned for them to follow, then led the way to her station at the very back of the long, mirrored room.
As Cara sat in the black-leather swivel chair, half-moons of sweat dampened her new blouse.
Despite the heavy eyeshadow and liner Stephanie had applied in the dark parking garage, she still looked too much like her wanted poster.
One call from a client and the Beverly Hills police would storm the salon.
Hopefully, Stephanie wouldn’t slip and use her real name.
“We had someone in here the other day who decided to shave her head—like Britney back in the day—and then changed her mind after two swipes of the razor,” Dorit said amiably as she put a cape around Cara’s neck.
“Alejandro worked his magic and she left looking incredible. A week later, people were coming in to ask for the same style.”
“I keep thinking Car . . . oline kind of gave herself a wolf cut, right?” Stephanie asked hopefully.
As the two of them circled the chair, examining her from above and below, a neighboring stylist suggested, “Maybe add some choppy extensions and bangs. You know who you’ll kind of look like then?”
“Billie Eilish?” Cara said, wondering how many seconds it would take to reach the fire exit.
Dorit squeezed Cara’s neck. “Holy shit! Don’t look.”
“What is it?” Stephanie stage-whispered.
“Numero Uno just walked in.”
The air in the salon somehow grew colder, as if a spirit had made its presence known. Cara watched in the mirror—Stephanie blatantly turned her body to watch—as Alejandro appeared from a secret office door, made his way to the front, and kissed Christina Aguilera on both cheeks.
It turned out that Christina had gray roots and needed new extensions. She had in tow her personal manicurist and eyebrow artist, who would also be working on her.
Cara knew it was gauche to even acknowledge big celebrities, never mind touch them. But she could have kissed her all the same. She knew everyone in the salon, including Dorit, would be completely fixated on its most famous patron, not Cara.
She hoped Christina was extra high-maintenance.
“Honey-hued, like your friend’s?” Dorit asked Cara.
“No!” Cara and Stephanie said in unison.
“Mahogany,” Stephanie decided. “And a wolf cut. Definitely.”
Dorit stepped away to mix the color and gather the extensions Cara needed to rock the wolf cut. Cara tried to quiet her mind and think like a forest creature. If she was going to slink around LA unnoticed, being a wolf wasn’t a bad way to go.