Carla’s last client burst through the door fifteen seconds before closing time. Carla rolled her eyes, turned toward the woman before her, and wailed.

“Oh, Rosa.” She couldn’t believe her eyes. “Rosa, what did you do??”

“I did what I had to do!” The woman barked back, and then lowered her eyes to the floor. “I…I know it’s late. I had nowhere else to go.”

“Ay, díos mio.” Carla couldn’t stop herself from staring in horror. Rosa’s entire head was puffy like a marshmallow and curly like that movie about the little orphan girl. Instead of brown, her hair was not only platinum blonde, but quite damaged by bleach. It looked…painful.

“How…how could you…is that a perm?!” Carla stammered.

“Long story. Just fix it. Please. I can’t sleep like this.” And with that, Rosa plunked herself into the salon chair.

Carla didn’t know what else to do. She was supposed to go home, this would take hours, and yet…she couldn’t just leave the poor woman with hair like that. It was a tragedy, an utter tragedy. She couldn’t allow Rosa to go any longer like this.

Rosa groaned from the chair. “I’ll pay you extra, I’ll pay you double, just—“

“Shush. I’m doing it.” Carla whipped the chair around and fastened the cape around Rosa’s neck. “For your hair. Your real, beautiful hair. Not for you.”

“Fair enough.” Rosa leaned her head back. Carla took the atrocious perm in her hands, wondering where to start. “I have half a mind to shave it all off.”

Rosa whipped the chair around to stare Carla down. “Don’t you fucking dare.”

“Who is bothering my Carla at closing time??” Called a voice from the back rooms, and then Daniela emerged. Her exasperated expression quickly turned to a horrified stare. “What on earth—?”

“It’s a long story!” Carla and Rosa yelled at the same time.

Daniela raised an eyebrow, and Carla shrugged apologetically. “I’m sorry, mi amor. We will be staying late tonight.”

Daniela sighed and eased herself up onto one of the tables. “This story of hers better be long enough to get us through this night.” She crossed her legs and settled her gaze on Rosa.

Rosa executed a masterful eyeroll, almost as good as Carla’s. “Fine. Do my damn hair and I’ll talk.”

“Poor Rosa.” Carla filled the bowl at the hair washing station with warm water. “She wrecks her beautiful hair, and then she has to talk out loud. Her least favorite thing.”

“My least favorite thing is when I have to talk out loud to a snippy hairdresser twice in one day,” Rosa snapped as she lowered her head into the bowl. “I didn’t choose this. I had to go to a salon undercover for my job.”

Carla raised her eyebrows and Daniela leaned forward. “No me diga,” they breathed.

The two salon ladies listened intently as Rosa told the story. She had to find some criminal who dated a girl in Brooklyn who ran a hair salon. The girl didn’t talk much until Rosa invented some story that pushed her to talk about her ex. She had to keep asking for more hair catastrophes to get all the information she needed. First a disastrous cut, then a dye job, and then…

“A perm.” Rosa groaned. “At least we got the guy. It wasn’t for nothing.”

“And at least you know the best hairdresser in all of New York City,” Carla said as she towel-dried Rosa’s hair. “The water deactivated the perm, and the shampoo should help with the bleach damage. Now I just have to dye it back to brown.”

“Great. That should be fast,” Rosa grumbled.

The dye job took hours. Carla and Daniela took several of them trying to get Rosa to talk more.

“Tell us about your work friends,” Carla prodded her. “Tell us who’s getting married and who’s having affairs.”

“My life is too boring for any of that,” Rosa retorted.

“Oh, she is difficult,” Daniela said with a smirk.

Rosa proved Daniela right. All of Carla’s other clients sang like songbirds, telling everyone in the room all the gossip on the block. Rosa liked to act tough, but sometimes Carla could crack her if she had the time.

Carla and Daniela spent the next two hours talking Rosa’s ears off. Business, friends, family, love, until finally Rosa talked just to shut them up.

“If I tell you about my friends’ wedding plans will the two of you please stop blabbering about all of your date nights?” She snapped at them.

Carla grinned. Rosa was difficult, but she liked a challenge.

Finally, her client’s hair was a deep, chocolate brown, flowing in its natural waves down her back.

“Wow.” Rosa stared at herself in the mirror. “Thanks.”

“I added some highlights, just here and there,” Carla explained with a grand gesture. “Something to add to its natural glow, but also a reminder: that is all the blonde you need. No more, ever.”

Rosa rolled her eyes again, but then she smiled. “I owe you one. Seriously.”

She paid double, then left. Daniela shook her head as she and Carla finally locked up.

“You deserve triple,” she told Carla as they walked out, but Carla just smiled and took her hand as they went home.

She didn’t understand Rosa at all. She had her own way of doing things. But she came to Carla, because she knew she would deliver.

Sometimes, Carla liked the difficult clients. She liked a challenge.

*Thanks for reading to the end! While most of the story is original, these characters are not mine.*