beautiful reception area, open and inviting, with cream-colored walls and large pictures showcasing services they offered. I saw a picture that showed only a woman’s back with stones placed along her spine, a beautiful blonde woman with bright blue eyes beaming at the camera while getting foils in her hair, and another picture just of someone’s fingernails, each with a different design. A small waterfall in the left corner made soothing sounds as the water cascaded into the rocks, and the reception desk was made of blonde wood, the name and logo of Blissful carved in the center of it, lit up by pink lights. I fell in love that instant.
“Hi there, welcome to Blissful! What can I help you with today?” The young girl behind the front desk, who looked about my age, greeted me with a smile on her face. My first thought was that she was a bit plain looking, dark hair with no layers or highlights, no bangs framing her face and dark eyes with no eye makeup to accent them. Usually, salon receptionists sport a trendy haircut or at least some fun makeup products, but not her. Her smile seemed nice enough though.
“Hi! I’m Alex Abrams. I’m meeting Dani and Kevin Dohlman here for a second interview,” I said, smiling as another gal popped up from around the partition leading to the salon.
“Oh, hi, you must be the one Dani was telling us about,” the new girl said, extending her hand to shake mine. “I’m Allie Langtimm, an esthetician. This is Kamille, one of our coordinators. Dani is so excited for you to come today! How was your drive? You look adorable by the way. I love pencil skirts!”
Allie was the definition of bubbly. She seemed to be someone who had a permanent smile on her face, someone who just enjoyed life. She was petite, probably no taller than Dani, super tan, and had the blackest hair I’d ever seen. I thought there was one color of black, and that was black, but Allie’s somehow seemed darker. Her eyes were an intense blue that had to be helped by colored contacts. She had her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, and I noticed she had piercings all the way up her ears, seven in each, and also a nose ring.
“Well, thank you,” I stumbled for words, trying to figure out what to say back to that barrage of a greeting. “I’m glad to be here and look around, and my drive wasn’t too bad, thank you. I live on campus at Kaufman, so it was a little bit of a drive but nothing terrible.”
“Do you just love Kaufman? I’ve heard it’s a great school. Kamille here goes to Irving and just loves it, don’t you, Kamille?”
Kamille seemed to have lost interest in our conversation, and was busying clicking around on the computer. She didn’t even raise her eyes to look at me. “Yeah, it’s peachy.”
I nodded my head, not sure what to say when someone describes their college as peachy. Mine was like a plum? Cherry? So I kept my mouth shut, looking at Allie for help.
She clapped her hands together like a cheerleader waiting for that touchdown to happen. “Dani and Kevin aren’t here quite yet, they might still be at brunch, but I’ll give you a tour of the salon! I work as an esthetician, but I’m also the lead over all the salon and spa workers. I’ll help the manager do scheduling for their shifts, and I do a lot of the ordering of supplies that we need. If anyone needs to call in sick or something, they call my cell phone and I try to help get someone to cover for them. It takes a load off the manager, who concentrates more on the coordinators, financials, and generally running the store. Have you ever been a manager before?”
“Uh, no. But I’m hoping my major will help me out here–– business and entrepreneurship. The classes have given me some good ideas–– well, what I hope are good ideas–– to bring to this place.” I followed Allie behind the partition and stepped into the salon. There were two rows of salon chairs hugging the walls, six in each row. A small table and oversized mirror furnished each hair station, and the tables were covered with an array of hair straighteners, curlers, blow-dyers and product. Black sinks lined the back wall, with bottles of shampoo and conditioner lined up like warriors ready to