By Esther Baird
First published in the Tri-Town Transcript November 13, 2019
Recently my daughters and I got our hair done. My girlfriend is our hairdresser and the only person on the planet I trust with the skunk-like grey streak that runs down the middle of my head. Her salon is in Revere, which isn’t exactly convenient, but neither is looking like the Bride of Frankenstein. Sometimes we need to make sacrifices so we don’t scare small children.
I brought our two teenage daughters because mother/daughter haircuts either bond you or break your very soul. I was shooting for the first option. We all needed a trim, and perhaps a few highlights. I had a long standing “no highlights” rule until, one day, I couldn’t remember what the rule was for. It wasn’t like highlights were permanent tattoos or oddly placed body piercings; they were streaks of sunshine in our hair during the darkness of the Boston winter.
“Plus, highlights will give you all some texture so your hair doesn’t look flat,” my friend explained as she began tousling my eldest’s super long hair.
No one wants flat hair, so I threw out the rule. Though of course, I kept a semblance of control.
“Just do a few highlights — like maybe five,” I said to my friend. My daughters huffed, but my friend nodded knowingly at me. “Don’t worry, I got you. I got this.”
I smiled smugly. I was the mom, and clearly my friend “got it.” Nevermind that while I was sitting under a dryer in the back, I saw my youngest with so many foils sticking out of her head that she looked like Medusa. I was sure it was just the way my friend was pinning her hair … right?
Meanwhile, my eldest was determined not to have her precious locks touched by scissors. She was 6 feet tall and her hair was nearly 6 feet long. OK, not really, but it was ridiculously long and needed the teeniest of trims lest the birds of Boxford mistake her for a bush and attempt to take shelter during the coming cold.
“I’m not cutting my hair,” she explained. “Just highlights.”
My friend, spinning her comb, mixing a color dish and blowing out another client behind her all at once, nodded knowingly at my daughter.
“Don’t worry, I got you. I got this.”
My daughter smiled smugly at me while I tried to catch my girlfriend’s eye. This was no time to take the teenager’s opinion seriously! My daughter needed a trim! But my friend just kept combing out my daughter and whipping foils into her hair. Wait, was that more than five? It was probably just the same same process she had used on my youngest. Who, by that point, had finished up with her trim and blow-dry and looked amazing. She was glowing with highlights.
“I put in just a few more than five, but no big deal really,” my friend said casually, as she spun the eldest around to assess her foils.
I nodded. Wait, what? Uh… I stared at my gleaming, golden daughter and forgot my question. “Now,” my friend continued, talking to my eldest. “We’ll place your highlights so they frame your face and bring out your eyes and smile.”
My daughter nodded, imagining it.
“The only thing is,” my friend said. “They won’t take if I don’t trim out some of the dead ends … just to let the highlights absorb.”
My eldest looked over at her sister with her newly fabulous hair, “OK, but just like the teeniest bit.” My friend smiled, never looking at me.
“Of course! Just so the highlights can really shine.”
And out came the scissors.
My daughter sat smiling and laughing and I watched as an inch of hair fell to the floor. Obviously, I didn’t move or exist as a parental unit until the trim was complete. My eldest daughter’s highlights and newly blown out, trimmed hair was also incredible. They gave her a sparkle and, as promised, the front few framed her face making her eyes and smile shine.
She had spun gold for hair, and it lit up her whole face. Did she have a few extra highlights mixed in there? Five had been an arbitrary number anyway, hadn’t it?
In the end, we all looked great. Our blondes were blonder, our browns were glowing and our (my) grays were magically gone.
But more importantly, somehow everyone got exactly what they wanted even when what they wanted wasn’t what they’d said. My friend was obviously a mind reader and worth her weight in highlighted gold.
Now, as the holiday machine cranks into full gear and winter begins to suggest it is on the way, I know the girls and I can glimmer along toward the craziness, because, don’t worry, we’ve got this.