After fixing her makeup, Drew started up her more than ten-year-old blue Opel Tigra Twin Top, this time with the top down. She usually drove with the top up, but since she wasn't worried about her wig this time, she decided to have it down.

A lot had been done to her car since she got it three months ago, but pains were taken to make none of it obvious, except for its new wheels and glossy, new electric-blue paint job. And even though the modifications cost a lot of money, her dad didn't complain, gave her a free hand in having them done, and paid for everything (Drew insisted it be in cash, though, to minimize the traceability trail).

She arrived at the hair salon called "Benzaiten" a little past nine AM (thank God for GPS, Google Maps and the relatively light Saturday morning traffic), and easily found a parking spot. She seemed to have an easier time finding parking spots nowadays now that she was a girl. And the times she was all set to argue a disputed parking space, the other person, typically a guy, would usually give in. She supposed it was one of the perks of being a girl. She reasoned that, if she had to be stereotyped, she was going to use all the advantages that stereotype gave her.

She walked into the salon and went to the receptionist's counter. The waiting area had a faintly Japanese motif, but the hair salon itself looked mostly like any other salon, or as Drew imagined them to be - she had never been in one before, after all. There was a long line of girls near her age and a few older women waiting, sitting around at the salon's fairly large lounge-slash-waiting area. She wondered if that was normal for salons.

As she waited for someone to help her, she heard a gasp. She turned.

"Oh, my God!" cried an obviously gay man in a bright silk shirt and linen pants so thin and tight she could actually see the outline of his... bing-bong and chickadees.

"What have you done to your hair!" he exclaimed. He took hold of her elbow. "Come with me, quick!"

"Ellen!" he called out. "We have an emergency here. Give her a thorough wash and condition, stat!"

"Right away, Julian!" a girl responded. As the girl took over, she smiled and whispered to Drew. "Don't mind him, dear. He's very eccentric but he's a total genius with hair and makeup. He must see something in you for him to put you at the head of the line, and without an appointment, too. See those girls?" She pointed at the women sitting in the waiting area. "They've been there since eight this morning, waiting." They were looking back at her with faint resentment, probably for jumping the line.

"You're kidding," Drew said.

"Nope," the girl, Ellen, responded. She took Drew's things and put them behind the counter, put Drew in a long, lavender poncho-like smock thing, brought her to a reclining chair that looked almost like a gynecologist's examination table but without the stirrups and with one side reclined at a sixty-degree angle and attached to a basin. Ellen made Drew lie back and put the back of her neck in a recess on the side of the basin. And then Ellen started washing her hair.

"Betcha I know what happened," Ellen said as she worked. "You cut your own hair and it went wrong, and now that it's grown back a bit, you want to have it fixed."

"Ummm, yeah, something like that. How did you guess?"

Ellen giggled. "Honey, hair's what we do here."

"I just washed my hair this morning, you know."

Ellen shushed her. "Just lie back dearie, and relax and enjoy."

In less than ten minutes, Ellen was done shampooing and conditioning her hair. Then, using a towel, she started to dry it of excess water yet kept it fairly damp.

When she was done, Julian popped out of nowhere again, took Drew by the hand and escorted her to what she thought was something similar to the barber's chairs she was familiar with.

After she got settled in, Julian slowly walked around and around her, looking at her hair, studying it and feeling it from time to time. After the tenth walk-around, Drew started feeling nervous.

"So, what's the verdict?" she asked.

Julian, hands on hips, huffed theatrically. "Absolutely atrocious!" he exclaimed. He snapped his fingers and Ellen was there with a wide-toothed comb and a pair of scissors.

Julian took his instruments and started trimming, making tsk-tsk sounds from time to time.

Drew tried to make small talk the way she'd seen girls in movies do when they were having their hair cut, but Julian shushed her. "Quiet," he said imperiously. "I must concentrate on my art!"

So she kept quiet. Ellen caught Drew's eye and she started making faces. Drew couldn't help but giggle. Julian playfully bopped her on the top of her head.

"Sorry," she said contritely, and kept as still and quiet as possible.

There were no mirrors so she couldn't see what he was doing, which she found odd. But then again, she'd only been in barbershops before, not women's beauty salons. What did she know?

She couldn't follow what Julian was doing but was sufficiently intimidated that she didn't ask him or say anything at all, but by the feel of it, Julian wasn't doing much - cutting hair occasionally, though mostly combing it out. But Drew looked down at her smock and was surprised at the amount of hair that Julian had cut. Knowing how short her hair was already, she started to worry. "I'm going to be bald," she despaired.

After a while, Julian stopped the cutting, put on gloves, wetted her hair down with a thick liquid that smelled like paint, and started wrapping strands of it in little rectangles of either foil or saran wrap, but squeezing in or painting more yucky-smelling stuff on them first.

After he finished with that, Julian put a shower cap over it, stripped off the disposable plastic gloves, pulled a little timer-stopwatch from his breast pocket and clicked it. He then pulled up a chair and started chatting.

"So, dearie, what's your name," he said.

"My name's Drew, Drew Nance."

Julian waved that away, "I'll call you Pixie. Doesn't she look like a pixie, Ellen?"

"Sure," Ellen responded. She went to the counter in front and started to work on the computer there. Drew assumed she was working on someone's bill or something.

"Hello, Pixie," Julian said with a smile, and shook Drew's hand. "I'm Julian."

"I know."

"You do?" he said delightedly. "So you have heard of my little establishment before!"

"Ummm, no," she admitted sheepishly. "Ahhh, actually I heard Ellen call you Julian. I, ahhh, found your place on the Internet."

At Julian's rising frown, Drew hastened to add, "But I'm new in town! My pop and I moved here just a few months ago, and we don't know the area well yet, and I haven't been to a salon since we moved here, and I'm..."

Julian laughed and smiled. "Hush, dear," he said and laid a finger across her lips. "No need to be defensive about it. However you discovered my place, I'm glad. It's no wonder your hair's in the state it's in! Split end city! How long since your last cut?"

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"About three months, I think."

"Well, I will expect you back here regularly. Your next appointment will be in four weeks. Ellen? Pencil in an appointment for Pixie in four weeks, all right?"

"No problem," Ellen responded.

"See that my schedule's clear. No, wait - do I have a morning appointment with Honeybear then?"

"Honeybear?" Drew wondered to herself. "Poor girl, whoever she was. and I thought Pixie was bad."

Ellen checked her computer. "Oh, yeah. I think you're booked solid for that Saturday."

"Oh dear... all right. Call Honeybear, and ask if she's okay with Daryl instead. If she's okay with that, I'll take Pixie."

"Got it." Ellen typed something in her computer. Drew assumed it was some sort of schedule though she wasn't sure. Ellen's work area was pretty cluttered, with the monitor, keyboard, cash register, and what looked like a laminator or bookbinding machine from those copy stores.

"So," Julian said, turning to Drew again. "I like your outfit. Kind of a change from the girls around here. There is a grain of truth in the reputation that us Islanders have, at least in our... sartorial sensibilities. It's good that you're doing your part in reversing the trend."

Drew understood what Julian was referring to. Many of the people she had met and seen had... issues with their fashion sense, and their public behavior. It wasn't even remotely close to the reputation Staten Islanders had that TV shows have unfairly... amplified, but, as Julian said, there was a grain of truth in it. But Drew let that go, and breathed a sigh of relief. It was good Julian brought up clothes - at least a topic that she was familiar with. After talking clothes and boys with Iola and Callie for months, Drew was well practiced, and she, Julian and Ellen had a ball talking fashion and other related girlie things.

After a while, Julian's timer buzzed.

"All right, dearie, it's time," he said. He escorted her back to the couch with the sink, put on new gloves and started taking out the shower cap, foil and plastic from her hair. He then proceeded to thoroughly rinse out the chemicals, shampoo and condition her hair yet again, with Ellen watching the whole procedure like a hawk.

Incredibly, he also washed her face. Smiling, he patted her cheek.

"Don't worry, m'dear," he said.

Julian asked Ellen to dry her face and hair, which didn't take too much time, and then they went back to the barber's chair where Julian started blow-drying and styling her new do. While he was doing so, he was giving Drew instructions on how to maintain it. Drew, being the fast learner that she was, absorbed all the instructions and hair care information like a sponge.

She saw that he used some hair care products, some in conjunction with the blow dryer - not a lot, but there were a few. From her limited knowledge, she suspected that the brands were expensive ones, but Drew kept note of the items and paid attention to Julian's instructions.

He also started putting makeup on her.

"I'm sorry for washing off your makeup," he said. "It was well done - subtle and tasteful. Very different from how the girls around these parts do theirs. But the water ruined it. Anyway, not to worry!" Drew jumped a little when he raised his voice. "By the time I am done, you will be more gorgeous than ever!"

He then described what he was doing as he did them, and again, Drew took mental notes.

Eventually, Julian was done. With a final flourish, he spritzed her with some perfume or female cologne that she thought had a delicate yet sexy feminine fragrance, and then whipped away the smock. Ellen then came over with a gigantic hand-held mirror. Drew looked and was amazed.

She had ended up with a flippy little bob that didn't even touch the top of her shoulders. Julian had given her a head-turning short hairstyle with an adorable and alluring appeal, which went well with her heart-shaped face. The wavy, flippy bob was sassy and very youthful looking, making the shortness of the hair a plus. She liked it. Julian had also put in a lot of highlights. Her natural dark blonde hair was now golden blonde, with a lot of subtle platinum highlights added at the temples, at the crown, and several strands around her face.

Her face looked like it didn't have any makeup on, but when she pushed Ellen's mirror away a bit and looked at her reflection at arm's length it wasn't that she didn't have any makeup, but it was put on specifically to idealize her face. The countershading and powdered-on highlights, plus just the right amount of lip gloss over the right shade of lipstick made her look natural yet incredible. Julian explained how he did it, and Drew again took mental notes of all of the tricks he used.

She took the mirror from Ellen, and Ellen went to the counter to retrieve her things. As Drew continued to marvel at Julian's work, moving the mirror to see her hair and makeup from different sides and angles, Ellen handed Drew her purse, and took her picture - actually several in quick succession - with a digital camera she undoubtedly got from the counter as well.

Drew blinked in surprise. "You took my picture?" She was surprised and a little angry. After months of hiding their identities...

"You're getting a membership card, honey. Hope that's okay?" Ellen was taken aback. She'd never thought the new girl was camera shy.

Drew thought a bit. Oh... a picture for a membership card. That put it in a different perspective. She felt like a heel for being suspicious, and made an effort to change her demeanor. "Membership card? Oh, wow!" Ellen giggled and took another picture as she said that.

Drew kept on looking at the mirror, staring at her own reflection. Her hair seemed to fall into its cut naturally, and again marveled that her face didn't seem to have any makeup on it - that she was naturally beautiful. She remembered Julian's instructions and was confident she could replicate everything he did.

When Ellen cleared her throat, Drew realized she was taking up a spot that someone else could be using, and got up.

At the counter, she filled up a membership form. She paused a little bit before filing in her address and other personal details. Worries about being tracked down or being found out flashed through her head fleetingly. In the end, she filled in all the details needed to avoid looking suspicious. Ellen then printed up her bill and she was taken aback when she saw it - it was a little over four hundred dollars, and that was with the member's discount. She didn't make a comment, but that seemed like an awful lot of money. But what did she know - this wasn't a haircut at the corner barbershop, after all. And the women waiting their turn presumably knew how much the services there cost, and they still came.

She kept her doubts to herself, handed her credit card over, signed, got a receipt in return, as well as a plastic ID card in a little transparent pink sleeve with a flap. So that was what Ellen was doing with the computer - she was making up her card.

The ID was the size of a credit card but was oriented vertically. The whole front was taken up by her "oh, wow" picture, with the name, "Pixie" near the bottom and the stylized name of the salon in the upper-left corner. She looked like Macaulay Culkin in that poster from "Home Alone." If Macaulay was a smokin' hot blonde chick, that is.

She pulled the card out of the sleeve to look at the hidden backside and found a magnetic stripe there. Below that was her full name that Ellen got from her membership form, and underneath that, in smaller letters, was the phrase, "a friend of Julian's." There was also a signature, probably Julian's, which, she supposed was there for validation purposes, and an expiration date, exactly one year later.

She asked and also found out that she was the latest member - member number B-80. Seemed to be a very small club. She wondered what the membership requirements were, but she didn't want to appear clueless so she just took the card.

"Thanks so much for this," Drew said. She noticed a framed picture of a cute, tiny poodle right beside the cash register.

"Who's that," she said, pointing to the picture.

"That? That is Julian's pride and joy - his pet poodle, Fiona."

"Ahhh."

"'Course, we call her Fifi..." She couldn't hold it in and burst into a fit of giggles. Drew couldn't stop herself as well and giggled, too.

After getting herself under control, Ellen handed her a white plastic bag with the salon's name printed on it.

"What's this?" Drew asked, still giggling a little.

"That has all the products that Julian used today, plus some reading material."

Drew wondered. Reading material?

Curious, she reached in the bag and brought out a small squeeze bottle of J.F. Lazartigue shampoo. She also found a small bottle of Fekkai's Brilliant Glossing Conditioner, a small bottle of TreSemme Thermal Creations Volumizing Mousse, another small bottle, this time a Bumble and Bumble Classic Hairspray bottle, little unopened ampoules of what were supposed to be hair serum, a small sample-size perfume bottle of 212 White by Carolina Herrera, a small still-unopened tube of Mac Mattene lipstick in the same subtle shade of red Julian had used, a little black makeup kit the size of a pack of cigarettes from Zomiah Cosmetics, and several other makeup knickknacks, all in small sizes. She would later learn that the stuff were all in what were known as sampler sizes. Salons use these so that they'd be able to do their thing using freshly opened products and, in the end, not skyrocket their client's bill through the roof. The salon would also be able to turn everything they used over to the client, perhaps to use again, or just so they'd know what to buy later.

There were also a couple of other things in the bag that Drew didn't know as well - a tiny little pink booklet that had the legend, "I'm a Friend of Julian's" on the cover, and a couple of thin pocketbooks. One was entitled "The Aesthetic Art of Beauty," (was the seeming-redundancy deliberate?) and the other entitled "A Scientific Approach to Hair Care."

"They're part of the bill, so don't worry," Ellen assured her.

Drew nodded. All this stuff... so that's why... "Where's Julian? I'd like to thank him."

"Julian usually takes a break after a styling. Don't worry about it. Don't forget your appointment Saturday four weeks from now. I was able to text Honeybear, and you're taking her slot. Same time as today. Otherwise, Julian will get mad. Don't worry I'll text you a message the day before."

Drew nodded, said thanks again and walked out of the salon. "'Bye."

"Bye-bye, Pixie," Ellen said and giggled.