BEAUTY SHOP TALK

by

Vicki Charmaine Bunch

Maybe I'm just sensitive, but when I give someone a framed 8 X 10 color portrait of myself, I expect to see it displayed prominently in a shrine of honor the next time I go over to the recipient's swinging bachelor pad. Not shoved behind the underwear in his bottom drawer.

"How on earth did it get there?" he asks, spewing Vanilla Wafer crumbs all over his black velvet smoking jacket.

"Like you don't know," I reply.

As he stands there, fumbling with the champagne, a look of terror suddenly contorts his face which, due to rigorous body building, is about 40% bigger than the average human's. "It was Rachel," he says. "The ghost of my dead girlfriend." He explains that his fiance died five years ago in a tragic mishap at the Miss Texas pageant. "It was in all the papers. She's the one whose hairpiece got caught in the margarita machine."

"I vaguely remember," I say. "Didn't she win Miss Congeniality?"

"Yes, but she's a total bitch now," says Z.

There's nothing between Z and me and you would think Rachel, if she's any kind of ghost, would know it. I go over to his place several times a week to check the gerbils and he helps me manage the stress in my day to day life. It's a professional relationship--I hardly notice that his eyelashes are about five feet long and he has a six pack you could break your fist on. In fact, he loves it when I punch him in the stomach.

"Hit me as hard as you can," he says, flexing various muscles.

I close my eyes and pretend he's Mrs. Snodgrass, the Dean of Women at Axel High School. Then I slug away at the witch who--for over 30 years--has made my life a living hell. She cut the hems out of all my mini-skirts when I was a freshman and just last week she made me do push-ups when Destinee got caught with a stink bomb in the teacher's lounge.

Sure, I could pretend I'm socking Saddam Hussein or Tom DeLay but I like to imagine it's "Snotgrass." I go into a trance as I pummel and have to be revived with Mad Dog 20/20 and a soak in Z's hot tub.

Afterwards, I feel like a new woman.

I haven't hit my husband Sonny in over three years--ever since he got the spastic colon. We tried everything from a bullet-proof vest to a piece of plywood stuffed in his overalls but it just wasn't the same. Before I knew it, I was a walking time bomb, full of pent-up aggression. Kicking the Corvette engine that has been lying on the living room rug for the past eleven months. Tearing up Sonny's Pamela Anderson posters.

Z saved our marriage.

"I don't see what business it is of Rachel's if I come over here," I say. "It's not like I'm trying take her place." Although, to be honest, I'm wearing her Jungle Gardenia and the other day I tried on her collection of exotic bras from all over the world. In addition, I work out with her Thigh Master and now feel strong enough to wrestle an alligator. What good is a Thigh Master to Rachel now that she's out of the pageant circuit for good?

"Hit me as hard as you can," Z says, to diffuse the tension.

I'm wearing the bra from Tahiti and contemplate punching him really hard but--ironically--I'm not in the mood. What if Z is lying and stuck my picture in the drawer himself? What if some other woman is socking him behind my back?

The thought that some hussy has been sneaking over to Z's apartment while I'm slaving over a hot stove back home with Sonny and the kids is more than I can take. What if she's stronger than I am? I feel myself boiling inside but who can I sock? Without our trysts, I'm afraid I'll explode into a thousand little pieces, none of them as cute as the picture under Z's leopard-print underwear.

Men. What do you expect?