With Lilly out of the picture, Jezz asked Lilly what kind of music she liked, and turned it on for her to listen to in the background while she got to work. She hummed to the music as she took Penelope to the sink to wash her hair. Then, she left the room to go mix some colors and grab some hair extensions. She came out with a couple of choices for Penelope.
"Ok, so this one has more blonde highlights in it." She said, holding it up on Penelope's left shoulder. "And this one has more coppery tones in it. This one would blend in with your hair better, but the blonde is more bold and will pop out more. Either will look fantastic on you. Its just a matter of your comfort."
Did Penelope want to be bold? Or did she want to be more subtle? She didn't know if she was ready for any attention that being bold might get. So she chose the more coppery tones.
"Perfect! You're gonna love it!" Jezz got to work, humming as she started to grab foil, paint Penelope's tiny pieces of hair, and wrap them up in it. She worked in tune with the music for quite some time until Penelope finally decided to ask her a question.
"So, how long have you been doing hair for?"
"Over fifteen years, now. My mom is also a hairdresser. She worked really hard as I was growing up, and I loved watching the transformations she gave people. I started doing hair when I was ten. I wanted to be just like her! So I started dressing up my dolls. At first, I was really bad at it. But I watched what my mom did in the salon and I mimicked her. By the time I was fifteen, I was doing my friends' hair. My senior year in high school, I went to beauty school. But I already knew everything from what my mom taught me, and I managed to get my license by the time I graduated. So I spent a lot of time after that learning more advanced techniques.
My mom was so proud of me! She had always wanted to open her own salon, and when I graduated, we did it together! That's how Cheveux Magnifiques was born! When we opened, business was really slow. My mom had clients who followed her, and my friends told all of their friends. We were new, so we were unestablished, ya know?
"We worked really hard to set the place up as we went. We started with painting. Just a wall at a time. Soon, we made it to the exterior. My mom argued with me over making the whole place pink, but I told her that I wanted the outside to stand out as much as the inside. I wanted it to reflect our work. Bold and beautiful. She didn't agree with me, but she gave in, thinking it was going to teach her a lesson. And then one day, a lady named Katherine Watson came in. A model who was getting ready for a show that afternoon. Her normal stylist had fallen ill that day and she was panicking when he didn't show up to the set.
"She had seen my building, understood the meaning of the name, and begged me to do her hair out of desperation. She didn't even look at my work. Just sat down in my chair and told me she had two hours before her shoot. She showed me the pieces she was wearing, and told me what her stylist had planned for her.
"I said 'No, honey. Your stylist is doing you dirty. We're going to get this right. You're going to fly down that catwalk and nobody watching is going to see anybody but you.' Her jaw dropped and I said 'You just came in and entrusted me with your entire career. I'm not going to let you down.'
"So she gave herself to me. And I let my inspiration take off. In those two hours we had together, she turned into a queen. She was astonished by what I did. The next day, she came back to me. All heads did indeed turn to her. She was the talk of the show, and it was all because of what I did for her. She was already getting popular, but as it turned out, another model was friends with her stylist, and was using him to try and ruin her career before it could get off the ground by giving her underwhelming styles. She found out when she came across the other model screaming at her stylist over the phone after the show.
"She fired him on the spot, and gave me my first purse. She'd carried it down the runway that day." Jezz pointed to the purse that was in the center of all the rest on the wall. "And ever since, I have been her stylist at all of her shows. Word got out, and here we are. Suck it, Mom!" She laughed.
"Of course, I didn't really say that to her, but the wall speaks for itself. "
Penelope giggled. "So does your mom still work with you, then?" she asked.
"Oh yeah. She comes in when she feels like it, but she's dialed back on her hours. She works a lot of the shows with me, now and aside from some of her originals and a select few favorite celebrities, she spends a lot of her time relaxing and enjoying the fruits of what we built together."
"That's amazing." Penelope said. "I don't know what I want to do when I graduate. But I hope its something that gives as much meaning to me as you have gotten with your mom. Whats the story with all the heals?" She asked next.
"Oh! Well, models are always in heels when they walk. They are not the most comfortable shoes to wear, but beauty is pain, and they are the foundation that holds them up. They're up there as a reminder that we can walk through anything if we allow ourselves to have the confidence. I love wearing my heels when I work because they remind me of that. Though sometimes I have to take a break." She winked.
"Wow. I wish I could be as awesome as you are some day."
"Oh, Pennie. But you already are! You just don't know it, yet. Look."
She spun the chair that Penelope was sitting in to face the mirror. She had just finished with drying and styling it. Luscious red, copper, and blonde curls were billowing down just past her shoulders. There were a few pieces of her hacked hair that were sticking up a little, but they were hardly noticeable. Penelope didn't even recognize herself.
"I- Um." The waterworks began and Jezz wrapped her up. "Thank you!" She said, as she ugly cried on Jezz's shoulders. "Thank you so much!"
"You're welcome, Sweet girl." She said, pulling away and handing Penelope a tissue. "Now, lets dry ourselves up so we can show your mom, hmm?"
Penelope sniffled back her tears and smiled with a nod. She stood up and walked over to the mirror, checking herself out. "This is beyond anything I could have ever imagined!" She expressed.
"I'm glad you like it." Jezz poked her head out the door and called for Lilly. "Alright, Mom. Shes ready for you."
Lilly got up and walked towards the room. When she stepped through the door to see Penelope, she gasped. "This cannot be the same young woman I walked in here with."
While Penelope stood with her hands clasped politely in front of her, Jazz beamed at her work. "She looks so refreshed, doesn't she? I couldn't give her locks to rump, because that would have been way too heavy for what she has. But she sure did go from beautiful to drop dead gorgeous, didn't she?"
Penelope blushed. For once, she felt like a human being. She felt the strands of hair as she looked at herself in the mirror. Then, she twirled and absorbed the feeling of it flowing around her head and across her shoulders. Then she flipped it behind one, feeling the volume as it fluffed out and landed. The copper and blonde highlights framed her face so perfectly, too. Nobody was ever going to be able to call her "Butch" again.
"Thank you. Thank you both so much!"
"Oh, I didn't do anything but get you here." Lilly said, gesturing to Jezz. "She did all the work!"
Jezz smiled. "Oh, come on, Mom. You put in more effort than that." She leaned in and whispered to Penelope rather loudly "Katherine told me when she called that she couldn't even remember who had asked, because this lady over here started a chain of conversations before they finally got the right person to tug on my heartstrings.
"Wait, THE Katherine?" Penelope's jaw dropped.
"Mmmhmm. The one and only. She gave up her appointment just for you." She winked. "Nobody gets in here the same day. Except for Katherine. Now, lets go over all the products you're about to use to keep up with this beautiful look."
She walked over to her product shelf and handed a bottle to Penelope. "This serum right here, is going to put lots of nutrients in your hair to help it grow out faster. Use it every morning when you get up, and every evening before you go to bed." She searched the shelf a bit more and pulled out two more bottles. "This one is going to be your color care shampoo. Use it twice a week. This one right here is conditioner. Also use it twice a week, but just use it on the extensions for now, and do not go near the top with it. Otherwise, your extensions will slide out."
Jezz searched the shelf for one more product, and when she found it and handed it to Penelope, her arms were almost full. "This one is going to help tame your natural hair so that it isn't sticking out in a million directions when you go to brush it. Be gentle when you brush around your extensions. Otherwise, its going to get stuck behind the tape, and its not going to feel too good. Now, the extensions are going to have to be adjusted as your hair grows out. So lets have you back here in six weeks for an adjustment. We'll take a look to see how your natural hair grows, and we'll go from there. How does that sound?"
"That sounds wonderful!" She already couldn't wait to come back and have Jezz do her hair again.
"Awesome!" Jezz stepped over to her counter and grabbed a card off it. She scribbled something on it and handed it to Lilly. "This is my personal cell phone number. I don't give it to just anyone. If you have any problems at all, you just text or call me ok? If I don't pick up, its because I'm with a high profile client, but I will get back to you. Ooh! And Pennie, is it ok if I take your photo? For Katherine?"
Penelope smiled. "Oh, yes! Please! I'd love that."
"Aww awesome! Here, go stand next to the purse, k?"
Penelope did as she was told, and stood with her hands folded politely in front of her once more.
"Mmmm. That's not gonna do. Here, take this!" She said, pulling Katherine's purse off the middle of the wall. "Stand to the side, and hold it over your shoulder, like this!" She said, flipping the purse over her shoulder and holding it with just a couple of her fingers before handing it to Penelope and stepping back.
Penelope did as she was asked, and looked at the camera. "Give me some sassy lips!" Jazz said. Penelope had no idea what she meant, but she pursed her lips into half of a kissy face and put her other hand on her hip. "Oh my gawd that's so perfect! I love it! Katherine is going to love it, too!"
Penelope's smile got even wider than it already had been. She carefully put the purse back on the shelf. "Can you tell her that I said thank you? Please?"
"Of course! Just so you know, we're now besties."
"Really!?" Penelope's face lit up. Her first friend. She couldn't believe it.
"Yup! Call me anytime! We'll go get lunch and I'll tell you more about my adventures in Paris!" If Penelope wasn't so thin and frail, she probably would have knocked Jezz down when she threw herself into her and wrapped her up in a hug.
"I'd love that!" She squealed. "Thank you. Thank you, thank you, Thank you!"
"You're welcome sweetheart. Now you go show off that look and make all the boys out there drool."
Penelope's smile turned into a straight up grin as she let go of Jezz and started walking towards the front of the salon. She wanted to grab just one more macaron on the way out the door. As she did so, Lilly discreetly pulled out her black card. "Thank you. You have no idea how much she needed that."
Jezz held her hand out, "No charge. I saw her step-mother's face on the news when she was arrested a few weeks ago. I knew who was coming in when I got that phone call this morning. Her hair is free. Always. I only hope that the smile I gave her today comes out more as she heals."
It was now time for tears to well in Lilly's eyes. "Thank you. That is so kind and generous of you. She really needs a friend, too. Not that I think you would need it with how well established you are, but if you ever find yourself in need of anything. Anything at all, the Fillmore family has your back."
"Wait a minute. You're-" Jezz gasped.
"I'm Lilly Fillmore." She winked. "Not Mom. But I hope that someday she will see me as one. With everything that sweet girl has been through, she needs one."
"Your family's bank financed my salon. When nobody else would, too!"
"Good things happen to good people. Don't ever forget that." Lilly said, offering her own hug to Jezz. "You are welcome in our home any time. And I would love to meet your mother sometime."
"Same." Was all Jezz could say. She stood there in shock as she watched Lilly and Penelope walk back out the door.