Porcelain - Jess Chua

she has good skin. BAD hair. but lovely porcelain skin.

/snip/goodbye split-ends/

“You still schooling?” I ask.

“Yeah.”
she replies with a smile, as she nods her head up and down.

/snip, snip/

“I’m in a media course.”

media! : the saturated culture of plastic realities the massacre of self-identities induced by moguls slugging leading the specimens caught by the web in the frenzy for glitz glamor cash

“I don’t really like it though.”

/snip/oh/

“Oh.”

her curls are driving a blitz of pinpricks into my skin I feel it down my neck and spine. how does it flow where’s the layer that’d just been sectioned off and above all the dryness the volume of thick frizzy wild mad HAIR what am I supposed to

“How about you?”

/bring the sides of the hair together, same length? check/

/asking about you/

/She’s Asking About You/

“Me?”

she actually looks genuinely interested. why would she be what reason would she have for wanting to know me better? she’s just there getting a haircut and I’m just a guy completing a trainee course which will be over in 2 weeks

“Before this?”

an extension to her question.

/bit more and then a trim to the fringe, and texturizing/

before this was school, school, work, school. the places, companies, the mention

/Life’saBitch!/and I can smell my CK One I wonder if she can as well?/

“I was an insurance agent.”

/guess it wasn’t/

“Oh!”

her eyes light up in surprise.

/snip/snip/yeah what d’you wanna do about it/time’s been wasted/money/

I look at myself in the mirror for a moment. bring a flat strand of my newly dyed pink and spiked hair back up into place. briefly check out how I look

/cool cool all’s cool/down to the One Star Pro Suedes black collage jeans wristband snapbands vintage red-heart tattoo on inner right arm/

“I couldn’t do something like that.”

she looks a little relieved almost, as if exclaiming “Oh!” was an answer buzzed Incorrect like on a television game show.

/snip/snip/snip/done/insurance policies.../

/she’s still young/am I supposed to reply or ask her something?/maybe ‘career advice’/she’s still young/

“Yeah, you’re still young.”

/oh god and now I’ve got to style the HAIR/

/bottle of straightening balm, water-spray, serum/

I glance at other clients at the academy. getting a cut, blow and dry for eight bucks by students of this 8-month hairstyling course. many clients are girls, students themselves. they come with their friends, chat about hairstyles for a while, then move on to gossip shopping celebrity trivia. my model she’s alone here alone hasn’t checked her cellphone once or asked for a drink or magazine to read

I blow-dry her hair while straightening with a paddle brush.

then apply on some straightening balm.

and return to blow-drying the hair again.

I repeat this process for the next hour or so. she jerks her head when the metal tips of the brush come into contact with the tips of her ears twice. I must be burning her hair at the rate I’m going, but styling this type of hair straight requires high heat.

*

the director comes around to inspect the cut and style.

/over...it’s over.../

“Not too bad.”

he ruffles up her hair. her hair could pass off as having been relaxed now, like the hair many other girls

her age have, or would like to have.

/feels her hair/inspects cuticles with that expertise way of his/

director smiles.

“I think you look better with straight hair.”

and I think she does too. she has nice features, great skin, not too bad a body she looks better this way

“Yeah.”

she hasn’t said anything since the hair-dryer was on.

she messes her hair a little bit more, and smiles in agreement.

she seems to be nice...and a little different from other girls. for one thing, most girls in her shoes would have already chemically straightened and treated their hair forking out the time money money time on a regular basis sitting there to get board-straight flat easy-to-manage *in actuality, fake* hair

“Thank you.”

she smiles again and reaches down to get her bag.

I am dead tired, I wonder how many future clients I meet will have such tough rough frizzy hair to

handle. this is a first for me, a challenge no doubt, but I did it in

/time:5pm?/ Five!DAMN/was told to end at 3:30/she’s just about to get up and leave her cut’s done

“Sorry, I took so long.” I look down a little bit, and half smile to myself. I’d overshot by quite some minutes.

/and she’ll go “it’s okay” flash her pearly-whites and walk out to continue her day in the life of a teenage girl-woman up to god-knows-what/

She smiles

/her complexion is near flawless/

“It’s Okay.”

/SheIsDifferent/the tone?/the way she says it?/it’s not socially polite/what is it, genuine? heartfelt? do I/

she’s gone to pay at the cashier, and I’m already being shown to the next client that I have to tend to.

one moment I’m looking at the new client’s hair, the next at the one paying. the one with the porcelain skin.

New Client

/normal, y’know, fully made-up and everything/straight bone-straight hair/easy/worlds different from/natural? shiny, sleek, variation upon variation of jennifer aniston’s hair/easy to cut/

and when I turn, the girl who was paying has left.

she’s standing outside, looking up at the sky as it rains, she’s

/wondering if she should go or not/does she have an umbrella/

“Hi, when was your last haircut?”

before I could say goodbye to the girl outside

/a thank you for her patience/would she be coming back again/what does she like to do/

or ask what her name was.

Originally published by Word Riot 2010

Jess Chua is an award-winning essayist. Her creative writing is forthcoming or has appeared in Musepaper, 34th Parallel Magazine, and Mystery Tribune. She plans to eventually complete a poetry and short story collection. Her website is www.jesschua.com