Yeah! Right!

By Madeleine

After closing, Glenda stood inside her quiet Pigs Legs Waxing and Beauty Salon staring at the poster of Farrah Fawcett Majors on the wall.  Her girls had left, and the closing night shone through the uncurtained windows giving an eerie glow to the hygenic tiles around the hair washing basins.

She sighed deeply and without knowing, picked up the razor, remembering the way she used to thin out the layers, Farrah-style.  There was a lot of servicing in Farrah hairsyle –  the cut, the layering, the colouring, the perm, and the big blow wave with the gel.

It was a good time, a big time, coming out of the au-naturale days of the early 70′s.  There was the Afro, the Olivia Newton-John Grease-style perm, the Bo-Derek plaits, but nothing was bigger than the Farrah.

Glenda had known about the anal cancer of course.  She’d talked about it several times a day since 2006.  Wherever the ladies were sitting Glenda was always on hand with a cuppa and a magazine – and six times out of ten, there was brave Farrah smiling from the pages.

Glenda hadn’t known she’d been holding her breath, but as she reached the moment of resignation it flowed, driving the lips of her lost-in-the-moment face into an unexpected pout.

A lift of her shoulders signalled intention, and with her new breath and life she walked over to the poster.  Carefully, reverently, she took it down.  She pulled off the bluetack that had been replaced several times, rolled it into a ball, and then lifted the razor to scrape off the final remains.

She stared at the poster one last time, remembering the time she wore her own hair Farrah-style – the night she kissed young Mervin.

“Goodbye Farrah” she said.  “I loved you.  And if I’d had your teeth, things would’ve been different.”

Glenda was sentimental, but practical.  She screwed up the poster, chucked it in the bin, drew the blinds, pulled on her coat, picked up her keys, downed the lights, took a last look around, blew out another goodbye, and shut the door.

She turned right and walked towards her car.  Then stopped, spun 180 degrees on her heels, walked back past her salon, and right into the Pigs Arm’s.  “Come in for a pink?” said Merv.  “Expected you tonight” he said in his one on one way.

She gave him a flick of her hair and a lips-sealed smile.  “Have Belinda bring it into the Ladies Lounge, Merv.”