Falling Locks by Ann Tinkham
My stylist’s hair is falling to the floor of the salon and it’s not because she’s getting her hair cut. At 26, she already owns a thriving hair salon and has dreams of opening a spa one day. While some girls her age can’t land a good job, move out of their childhood home, or balance their checkbooks, my stylist knows what she wants and is pursuing it with passion.
The irony of her situation is that while she helps others color, style, and sculpt their hair, her silky dark brown locks are falling out. Soon she’ll be completely bald. Will she opt for the gypsy scarf, the brimmed hat, or the obviously fake hair piece, now called a “hair solution” to reinvent the wig’s bad rep? Or will she go bold and bald? I’m voting for the latter, given who she is. Maybe she’ll even get a tattoo on her head that says: Fuck cancer!
At 26, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer—the kind that everyone whispers into their hands about; the kind that people call “the bad kind” of cancer. We live in an age in which there are good cancers and bad. Ovarian—bad. Prostate—good. Brain—bad. Endometrial—good. Pancreatic—bad. Ovarian is the kind that there is no screening for, so when the symptoms appear, it is likely to have advanced to stage III or IV.
“Maybe she’ll even get a tattoo on her head that says: Fuck cancer!”
This is what happened to my stylist. I noticed around the end of last year that she—once sleek and slender—ballooned out like a blowfish. It wasn’t at all gradual. One month, she was svelte, the next, a blown-up version of herself. Now had I known this was a symptom of ovarian cancer, I might have said something. But being sensitive to women’s body-image issues, I didn’t want to indicate that I had noticed a change or that I suspected late-night donut and ice cream binges. Besides, she had become more my size, which, of course, brought me comfort.
The other notable change in her was that she couldn’t make it to work until the afternoon because she was dead tired. These types of symptoms creep up on us and we simply attribute them to stress or overwork. Who would think at the age of 26—I must be tired because I have cancer.
She’s not even through her twenties and she has a life-threatening illness. She will now have to spend every day fighting the forces inside her, wondering who’s winning and who’s losing. Think: Pac-Man gobbling the cancer cells. She’ll have to wonder until year 5 whether she’s going to beat the 50-50 odds. Then after 5 years, she’ll worry about recurrence.
My stylist will be pressured to drink carrot juice rather than refreshing Coke; celery sticks rather than lip-smacking French fries, and grilled chicken rather than finger-lickin’ fried. This snoozer diet should be relegated to us old fogies who are trying to prolong our lives by a few years; not a girl barely out of high school.
The cancer diagnosis will follow her around and haunt her whenever she’s applying for health insurance. She now has the dreaded PRE-EXISTING CONDITION, which is like being labeled a Commie during the Red Scare. Once you’re slapped with this label, you have a better chance of being struck by lightning than securing health insurance.
When I first learned of her diagnosis, I was panic-stricken. Not only because she had the Big C but also because she is the most talented stylist I have ever known. I’ve been to hackers (specializing in the caught-in-the-vacuum look), incompetent colorists (gave me platinum hair), posers (admiring themselves in the mirror while doing nothing), and imposters (displaying fake diplomas from beauty school). My stylist is an artist in hair. She works magic on lifeless mops; she makes middle-aged matrons look like darling divas; she takes frat hair and makes it psychedelic-funk band ready; she turns Barbie dolls into Bratz; and she makes going-baldies with hair strands holding on for dear life look sleek and debonair.
So as much as I hate to admit this, my second panic-ridden thought when I learned of her diagnosis was: who’s going to do my hair while she’s sick or laid low by chemo? This thought was followed by: get over yourself. Stop being a self-centered diva! I’ve since come to my senses and have accepted the fact that I may at times have to settle for inferior hair artistry while she’s being pumped with chemicals.
I wonder whether “working in hair” will bring my stylist comfort or be a constant reminder of what she is losing—her silky locks and her innocence. Maybe she can color and style my hair to be exactly how she would have it.
Then I’ll shave my head and give her my hair.
Ann Tinkham is a writer/instructional designer based in Boulder, Colorado. She has written over 40 online courses in subjects ranging from emergency preparedness to energetic healing. Ann has completed a nonfiction book, Climbing Mountains in Stilettos (SourceBooks, 2007). Her fiction has appeared in Apt, Double Dare Press, Edifice Wrecked, Hiss Quarterly, Lily, MotherVerse, Stone Table Review, Syntax, Thirst for Fire, Toasted Cheese, Wild Violet, and Writethis.com. In addition to writing, Ann has talked her way out of an abduction and talked her way into the halls of the United Nations. She hitchhiked up a mountain in Switzerland and worked her way down the corporate ladder. Ann has flown on a trapeze and traded on the black market in Russia. She cycles up steep canyons, hikes to glacial lakes and mountain peaks, and blazes her own ski trails.
