“You want me to come with you?”
“No, I can do it. If I can handle being yelled at in French at the pediatrician’s office, I can handle asking for a haircut.”
“Do you know the terms for the cut you want?”
Andie held up a picture printed in color of a model in a jagged bob.
“I have a picture. I figure they can just follow that.”
Her husband shrugged as he juggled the baby on his hip.
“Sounds good.”
Andie slipped her jacket on, testing to see if it could zip yet around her waist. Losing the pregnancy weight was proving more difficult the second time around. She gave up on the zipper and tossed her scraggly hair out from under the collar. With one last look to her husband and children in the living room, she opened the heavy wooden door and forced herself outside. On the street level she looked at the sleek hairdresser just below her apartment with its large windows and modern waiting area that had no chairs but did have an espresso machine. She hesitated, then moved on. One turn to the left, past the kiosk and the cheese store where the stench of wet feet permeated the sidewalk area, then a cut through to the right brought her to a tiny hairdressers with two chairs in the waiting room and middle aged workers. She took a deep breath and yanked opened the door.
“Bonjour.”
“Bonjour,” Andie replied, nodding her head at the woman.
“Would you like a cut?” the woman asked in the French.
Andie exhaled and relaxed. Practicing the conversation with her French teacher had helped.
She nodded. The woman told her to wait.
“D’accord.”
Her favorite word in French so far.
Okay.
And yet it sounded so much more sophisticated.
“Asseyez-vous, s’il vous plaît.”
Andie froze. She smiled though she could already feel her throat constrict.
“Assoyez-vous. Assoyez-vous.”
The woman was trying several intonations now, waving her fingers about. Andie nodded her head, then tried turning her attention to the window as though something interesting was happening on the street.
“Madame?”
“Oui?”
“Voulez-vous vous asseoir?”
“Oui, oui. Merci.”
Andie could only assume she was asking something about getting a haircut, possibly if she wanted a shampoo. Maybe a conditioner. With sweat now beading down her back, she would pay whatever extra the woman was getting her to commit to if she would just stop staring at her. She looked longingly to the street, but running out the shop wasn’t an option. She walked past this street all the time and didn’t want to have to hide her embarrassment from running each time she went to the grocery store.
“Madame,” the woman said, her tone the firm one French women used. Like the pediatrician the other day. Andie straightened her spine, ready to be yelled with words she only haveunderstood. The woman came around the small desk to face her, looking straight into Andie’s eyes, demanding her attention.
“Assoyez-vous, Madame,” the woman said, then dramatically lowered herself to the chair in the waiting area. “Oui? Assoyez-vous. Oui?”
Andie laughed, the heat in her body retreating.
“Oui. Je comprends.” She sat down next to the woman, who promptly stood up and gave her a firm nod.
“Assoyez-vous.” Andie repeated the word several times silently.
Sitdown.
“Okay. On est prêt. We are…ready? Yes.” The woman’s English was heavily accented, but Andie knew that the fact she even tried meant she wanted no offense between the two of them.
“Assoyez-vous, ici?”
Andie smiled and nodded as the woman indicated the salon chair. She settled into the chair and smiled. She was going to get her hair cut, in France, by herself.