Lady Parts (6 page)

2013

The day started out uneventfully. That’s what I like when I travel. Unevents. I went to bed early, at 10:30 the night before, so that I could get my delicious seven hours of sleep before the alarm went off at 5:30. I had two cups of coffee, obsessed about what I was going to wear, and then settled on my breathable Lycra pink jeans, hip and yet comfortably roomy, for the two-hour flight to Atlanta, Georgia, where I was travelling that day to get my hair cut. Twelve hours later, I would be taking the two-hour return flight back to New York.

I had the drill down pat. After all, I had been making this trip every six to eight weeks for the last twelve years.

I wore my Skechers backless, slip-on sneakers so as not to take unnecessary time at security, packed my computer in hopes that I’d write a chapter for my book, and carried a little purse just big enough for a passport and a Luna bar.
I took the elevator down to the first floor of my apartment building, where at 7 a.m. Raphael, the doorman, hailed me a cab. Within two seconds, one miraculously appeared. There was no traffic on the way to LaGuardia. The taxi driver took a shortcut and I arrived twenty minutes later at Terminal B. There was no line at the AirTran counter or the machine at which I printed my boarding pass; no line through security; no line in the women’s washroom; no line at Au Bon Pain; no line at the gate, where I boarded early; and no line on the runway. Ours was the first plane to take off. There was even an empty seat next to mine. The flight attendants were cordial, gave me three packages of Biscoff cookies instead of the usual meagre one, and no one lowered his or her window shade or slept with earphones on, the loud music leaking out to annoy me. Even the coffee tasted remarkably like coffee. It was a particularly good day to fly. There was not a cloud in the sky, no rain or snow in the forecast. Everything went smoothly. It was a sign, an omen, I thought. The universe was cheering me on.
You go, girl. There’s nothing remotely insane about you travelling 881 miles south down the eastern seaboard to get your hair done.

“Get changed,” said the beautiful, petite, smiling Urie, hair assistant extraordinaire.

I lay down on the chaise longue adjacent to the shampoo sink, my little white robe wrapped loosely around me,
closed my eyes, and melted into the soft brown leather. After a ten-minute scalp massage by his doting assistant, the master coiffeur, Pascal, appeared and took over. His adroit hands and astute eyes would soon transform my grey roots to a gorgeous Salma Hayek brown, refresh my highlights to a sun-kissed Jennifer Aniston gold, and thin out my layers from a Tina Turner shag to a tousled yet kempt Penélope Cruz. My hair would then be luxuriously blown out. Four hours later I would be back on the plane to New York, and asleep in my apartment by ten. I would be exhausted but feeling beautiful. It was a fair trade-off.

I live in New York and Toronto, but it doesn’t matter where I live, really, because wherever I am when my hair needs to be done, I fly to Atlanta. I have travelled there from Los Angeles in the middle of shooting a TV series, from Seattle in the middle of a tryout of a Broadway musical, from Newfoundland while shooting a film, from Williamstown while performing a play, from Florida while visiting my dad, from Maine while hiking the trails of Arcadia. Regardless of where I am, if it is time to get my hair cut, I board a plane for Atlanta. That’s where my hairstylist lives and works. Pascal Bensimon is his name. Pascal, of Pascal Bensimon Haute Coiffure.

His salon is in a little detached house in a residential area of the conservative, old-money neighbourhood of Atlanta called Buckhead. The salon has four rooms, the walls decorated with colourful, original art from France. It has a working fireplace; a kitchen in which salads and sandwiches are
prepared; an expensive espresso machine; freshly grated ginger for hot ginger tea, a specialty of the salon; comfortable brown leather lounging chairs; a computer and printer at one’s disposal; a porch with wicker chairs to sit on while one waits for her colour to take hold; two darling, dedicated young assistants; never more than three or four clients; and Pascal, the messiah, holding court as he cuts and colours the hair of his female devotees. He runs his Israeli/Moroccan/Parisian hands through each woman’s hair, massaging their heads and shoulders, kissing their cheeks, smiling and listening intently to every word they say. Each woman whose hair is caressed and styled by Pascal believes she is the most beautiful woman alive on the planet. He is the Houdini of Hair, and every woman who meets him is under his spell.

I met Pascal at a West Coast spa in 2002. We were both guests during one of its four coed weeks. He was there by himself, as I was. He was adorable, with unruly wavy dark hair that somehow managed to look stylish no matter how much sweat was pouring down his olive skin. He had magnetic charm and an introspective demeanour, and his emotions ran the gamut. He was quiet on the hikes, mischievous in cardio boxing, weepy during yoga, frisky in the pool, shy at dinner. He was mysterious. He stood out at this coed week because he was single and forty. The typical man that came to the coed week came with his wife, and the average age of the couple was sixty-five.

I had been a regular guest at the spa for over ten years and had never met anyone like Pascal. I had hiked, biked, and dined with authors, lawyers, businesswomen, surgeons, entrepreneurs, behavioural therapists, dermatologists, computer scientists, artists, textile designers, psychologists, nutritionists, journalists, gemologists, and philanthropists, but never with a French hairstylist. Pascal spoke with a soft, sensual accent and mispronounced English in the most adorable way. He was fit, and small in stature. Sexy and boyish, and a big, big flirt.

We hiked the first few days together in a group. Then we began to hike apart from the others. We laughed and gossiped. We became instant friends. After four days of getting to know each other, Pascal felt comfortable enough to tell me what he had been holding back: that my hair was a hot mess. A disaster.

“Who cut your hair?” Pascal asked with disgust as he scoured my head. “It is not good. Your colour is too charcoal and the highlights too chunky and it doesn’t match your own pigment and then you look green. You don’t want to look green. You need more warm. Let me make you look beautiful. I have everything with me. Come to my room later and I will make you look sexy.”

His sincerity and confidence, combined with the no-holds-barred surrender of my spa brain, propelled me without hesitation to say yes.

I tell you this because Pascal, a man I had known for
only four days, a man who could have been a serial killer, who could have cut my throat instead of cutting my hair, this heterosexual hairstyling stranger, I completely trusted. Alone in his phoneless, carbohydrate-free room, isolated at a spa in the middle of the California desert, I surrendered to the hands of Pascal Bensimon and was given the best haircut of my life. He coloured all fifty shades of grey with the artistry of Van Gogh and blew my hair out so full and sexy that Jennifer Lopez would have wept. From that moment on I became his groupie, a devoted fan, a crazy addict.

After my first haircut with Pascal, I trusted no one else to touch my hair. I know it seems preposterous that I couldn’t find an equally good hairstylist in Manhattan, the mecca of sophistication and beauty, but I couldn’t. Occasionally, however, when my work schedule prohibited me from making the twelve-hour commitment to Atlanta, I would be forced to go to a salon in New York. I’d book an appointment with some famous stylist to the stars who came highly recommended, and in good faith I would sit in his or her chair, wringing my hands incessantly and trying to conceal my increasing anxiety. None of the stylists, however, was as invested in the final result as Pascal was. They were indifferent and aloof. And I was intimidated. I would leave the salon enraged at the crazy cost and the inhumane treatment by the stupid Pink-wannabe technicians, and what’s worse, the cookie-cutter matronly hairdo they’d give me. Most of the time, I’d leave looking like Leona Helmsley. I counted the days until I could fly back to Atlanta, where Pascal, my saviour,
would restore my roots to their original colour and reinvigorate my confidence to the likes of Nicki Minaj.

My hair obsession was excessive, yes, but like an addict, I was unable to stop. I began to lie to my friends. I told them I was flying to Georgia for work, or visiting an old college roommate, or conducting a master class in acting at a local high school, or doing research at a restaurant chain because I was thinking of opening a raw food café.

Eventually, exhausted by my lies and running out of creative excuses, I came clean to a couple of friends. They were appalled. I think the word “insane” was bantered about. And then I became indignant.

“You know, it actually costs me less to fly to Atlanta than it does to get my hair cut at a fancy salon on Fifth Avenue,” I argued. “And Pascal’s cuts are consistent. And he’s not condescending,” I rationalized. “I mean, I am so sick of narcissistic assholes. They are defensive and they don’t listen. They are so full of shit. And it’s not as if I haven’t tried,” I pleaded.

I’d gone a few times to a fancy hair salon on Madison Avenue where the owner cuts everyone’s hair from Hillary Clinton to Madonna—at least that’s what he tells me. Anyway, I kept returning in spite of his cocky attitude because, miraculously, a few months ago he gave me a brilliant haircut.

“Oh my God, Jerome, I love what you’ve done,” I said, stroking his already inflamed ego. “It’s beautiful. And hip and youthful. Please do this every time.”

Well, you’d think I’d insulted him. He moved on to his next client, some young movie star I was told, who I didn’t
recognize but he was all over, and without looking back at me he nodded his head dismissively and walked away.

The next appointment came, and I was giddy with anticipation. But after he finished with me, the haircut this time didn’t at all look like the haircut he had given me months before. I said to him, hyperventilating but trying to hold it together, “Oh my gosh, Jerome, what did you do?” My speech was wavering, my voice uncomfortably high. “My hair is so uneven. My bangs are too short. And you covered all my highlights. I look like Judge Judy.”

He replied defensively, “It’s exactly what I did the last time. I didn’t change a thing.” With that, he vanished into his office with his little ugly pug dog and shut the door.

I was in shock. I sat for a few minutes looking at myself as I pulled my bangs down as far as the little severed hairs could travel.

Traumatized, I walked up to the receptionist and told her I was very unhappy with the way my hair turned out. I was near tears. I thought she would completely understand, being a woman with a head of hair herself, and not charge me. Instead, the Eva Braun of hair salons looked at me with a murderous glare and said, “That’ll be $750 for today’s services. Would you like to leave a tip?”

“Can you believe that?” I asked my friends. “They’re all lying frauds and thieves, and I won’t be caught dead in their salons. I’m not giving them a cent of my hard-earned money. Fuck them.”

“My God, Andrea, you’re completely out of control,” they replied. “Listen to yourself. You’re scary. That was just one salon. Certainly you can find someone here in New York that will do as good a job as the guy in Atlanta.”

“It’s my life. It’s my hair, goddamnit,” I shouted back defensively. I was rapidly turning into one of those frantic belligerent alcoholic mothers on
Intervention,
just before she’s carted off to Betty Ford.

“My hair is important to me, don’t you understand?” I yelled maniacally. “Jacques Lecoq taught us that
hair
is the most defining characteristic on a clown, I mean, a person.” Now I was using my mime teacher to justify my uncontrollable hysteria. “And it’s my livelihood, how I look,” I continued, not even convincing myself with the obvious lie. No one to my knowledge had ever hired me, a sturdy character actress, because I was having a good hair day.

I was pacing and shouting and acting like a chicken with its coiffed head cut off.

“Pascal is the only person who can make me look pretty, and no one can keep me from flying to Atlanta to get my hair cut!”

After that outburst, we never talked about my hair again. My loving friends made a decision to treat my ongoing insane behaviour with compassion, as you would a mentally challenged child.

And so I kept making the twelve-hour trips to Atlanta, and never shared my secret with anyone else again.

2001

My dad and I were driving from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, back to Portland, Maine. We had been visiting my dad’s first business partner and close friend, George Amergian.

Dad and I had been staying in Maine for a family reunion, and it had been my idea for us to make the drive together. Neither of us had seen George for a year, since he had been moved into a nursing home. I was now living in Toronto, and Dad had moved to Florida. Two years before, George had had a stroke and could no longer speak. But he was alert, understood everything, and had been so happy to see us. He was now in his eighties and understandably frail, the frailness that comes with immobility.

We had wheeled George around the nursing home, and I had tried my best to keep the mood upbeat, and Dad had tried his best to disguise his pain at feeling helpless. George would not be around for much longer, and Dad understood this would probably be the last time he would see his old friend. During our visit, Dad told and retold the same familiar stories that he and George had shared together. There was deep affection and tenderness between them. They laughed infectiously, these two proud Armenian men with a sixty-year history between them. They kept up the bravest of fronts for each other, even as it was time to say goodbye. They hugged and kissed. As George was wheeled down the long corridor and back to his room, Dad smiled and waved to his old friend for the last time.