Day 68: Fringe

Writing prompt about showing a character who is angry.

The fringe was sticking to Darcy's face. It was obviously sticking to her face. She had not asked for the fringe to be sticking to her face. She strode down the street, blood pumping, cursing the hairdresser.

Forty pounds. For this. Forty pounds. It was the last of her wage this week. Chris would be paying for her tea for the next two days. And wine. She needed a glass of wine tonight. Probably a bottle.

She'd almost not paid. First she'd told the new guy who'd done this to her that it wasn't what she'd wanted. He'd taken more off the sides to balance it out. That just made it shorter than she was comfortable with, and the fringe was just as bad. She'd looked at it and felt like maybe it would be all right, at first, and so she'd handed over the money and left. But now, after checking on the selfie camera on her phone, after taking a bunch of photos, she could see it was a complete disaster.

How could they let someone so inexperienced loose on paying customers' hair? It was atrocious. It was unbelievable. Didn't they practice on dummies? Wasn't this place supposed to be well-regarded? How did they think this was acceptable? How did they think they could get away with it?

Darcy stomped on.

And she had the presentation on Tuesday. The presentation. How was she supposed to deliver that confidently to the whole senior team, to Brian Rivera, to Stacy, while knowing she looked like this? While knowing she looked like a goddamned rat in makeup!

The presentation could mean everything. It was what she'd been working towards the whole time she'd been with the company. It was the culmination of so many months of effort and grind and prostration.

And now it was being ruined by some spotty runt who surely wasn't old enough to be working in a hair salon. How could he have done this to her? Darcy thought about his stupid face, that awkward smirk when she'd said she wasn't happy. Like she was supposed to feel sorry for him! How pathetic. Own your mistakes. Don't try to smirk your way out of them.

Darcy carried on walking. Maybe it wasn't all that bad. She stopped at a bus stop and clicked onto the camera app on the phone that was still clutched in her hand.

She was a mess. A bedraggled, freakish, disastrous mess.

She'd have to shave it off. There was no other option. She'd have to say she was a cancer patient.

Maybe she could get some sympathy from the team if she told them she was having chemo. Maybe they'd give her a pass.

God. That twerp. How dare he do this to her!

She was walking again. She turned a corner off the main road, kicked at a bunch of scraggy weeds sprouting under the wall to someone's garden. Who'd leave the space in front of their home in such disrepair, anyway. It was terrible.

There was a huddle of kids on the corner of the street. Darcy glowered at them, daring them in her head to stare at her. Just watch what I'll say if they shout anything about my hair, she thought. Just watch.

They said nothing. They watched her pass in silence.

Darcy continued down the road. She was clenching and unclenching her fists. She just... It was just... She couldn't even... Eeeurgh!

Evening was drawing in. It was getting dark. There were fewer people on the streets now, and her heels echoed on the paving stones as she walked.

She would go home, unload on Chris, drink all the wine, perhaps some gin and tonics, run a bath, and sort everything out in the morning. Surely someone could fix the harm that that idiot trainee had caused.

"'Scuse me. You got the time?"

It was another child. Her life was filled with children tonight.

"Sorry. No. I'm in rather a rush."

Darcy resumed her stride.

"How about you just give me your phone then?"

The boy flashing the knife was not another, but one of the same kids who had watched her pass before, and, though it was probably of little consolation to Darcy, he really hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary about her haircut at all.