I get to spare you the picture because there is none. At the time, it would have been, don’t you dare photograph this! Now, I kind of wish we had, because I assure you there will never be another chance.
For several years, I had my hair dyed professionally: I figured I knew nothing of what was inside those boxes at Target and I wasn’t going to be one of those people whose hair glowed a vivid purple halo in the sunlight–I was going to do it right. Someone had asked me if I was the mother of the bride when my oldest was 13 and I was 36. Yikes.
The stylist liked to play with my hair after she was done, just for fun. One time, it happened to be New Year’s Eve, and I mentioned we were going to a party that evening. Well, hey!
When she grabbed a can of hairspray, I wondered; earth mother is so much more my style, but whatever. I can be adventurous. She started combing my hair straight upwards, lacquering every little strand. She emptied the can, while I tried to breathe. She grabbed another, and I think she emptied that one, too.
I went from there to pick up my drycleaning to get the dress I was going to be wearing to the party. I’d been going to that drycleaner for years. The woman there stared at me as I walked in, and it took her a moment to realize that having her jaw hanging open probably wasn’t leaving the best impression. She thought to shut it. But her eyes couldn’t leave that space floating just above my head, and I felt them following me back out the door. I tried to think, don’t I look smashing?
I got home and went straight to the mirror. This was around the time when Trump was called The Donald by his first wife Ivana, and she had this huge bouffant hairdo. Which somehow was now sitting transplanted onto my head.
I declared to my husband, “Only the truly rich need to pay to look this bad.” With an eye on the time and the start of that party, I ran into the shower and scrubbed that hairspray out and turned back into plain Alison, the glass slippers kicked off and the pumpkin carriage collapsing in the compost bin. Before the clock struck midnight’s celebrations.