Bad Hair Day

Curly Placation

Curly Placation“I sat him on a plastic stool in the shower.” Mrs Rashid dried her hands on a towel and ignored the knocking on the front door. “He’s sulking.” Her lips quirked upwards as she gave in to the grin. “His hair has never looked so shiny. Like a Bollywood star.”

Kit shook her head and sat the mop back in its bucket. Grease snaked across the water like an oil slick. “I’ll finish up and then go. He fired me.”

Mrs Rashid inhaled. “Don’t even think of not coming in tomorrow. That silly old man needs you.”

Kit pursed her lips and smirked. “Not as much as he needs you, apparently.”

A flush crawled up Mrs Rashid’s neck and intensified her stunning mocha tones. She blinked in a rapid-fire motion. “I’d be grateful if you didn’t mention this to any of my sons,” she said, lowering her voice. Her fingers strayed to her ample bottom and she grappled around in her voluminous skirt. Kit heard a distinct twang. “Mr Rashid bought me fancy underwear and I need to get it off fast. I’ve lost an entire seam in an intimate crevice.”

Kit closed her eyes, but the mental image stayed imprinted inside her eyelids. She shook her head. Nope, still there. “Okay, but at least put cones at both ends of this aisle until the floor dries. Then we can open the shop before that customer breaks down the door.”

Mrs Rashid shuffled off in obedience before returning upstairs to rescue her pruned husband from the shower. Kit shoved the mop and bucket behind the counter and served the distressed man who snatched a tub of baby milk powder from the dried foods’ aisle and barrelled towards the counter waving a fifty dollar note. “Don’t have kids!” he snarled. Snatching his change from Kit’s hand, he ran for the door.

“I don’t intend to,” she replied to no one in particular.

“Oh, you’ll change your mind. Wait until you hit twenty-eight and those hormones start flowing. You’ll be popping out bubs with the rest of the crowd.” The middle-aged woman adjusted her suit jacket, causing her breasts to bulge against the narrow channel between the lapels. She dropped a jumbo-sized bag of confectionery on the counter and dug in her bag for her wallet. “I’m babysitting the grandkids tonight. Little buggers. These are for bribery.” She missed Kit’s wooden smile as she keyed her pin number into the credit card reader. Exiting amid a cloud of lavender and Rescue Remedy, the woman left without realising the offence she’d caused at having dismissed Kit’s life choices with a blanket statement.

Kit busied herself in between customer interruptions, using a bucket of soapy water to wash the shelf where the lube exploded. It had coated the underside of the shelf above and splattered other nearby products. She washed those too and put several of the items with soiled labels into a reduced bin near the counter. The floor seemed less of a skating rink by the time she’d run over it twice more with clean water and disinfectant. She spent the rest of her shift in bare feet as her plimsolls needed shoving in the washing machine. They were scarred both by the oil slick on the bottoms and the tyre mark across the instep from the mobility scooter.

Raj breezed in after lunch and frowned at the sight of the cones at either end of the aisle. “You dropped something?” he asked.

Kit communicated her irritation with a pointed glare. “No. Your father did. I’ve spent the morning clearing up and haven’t had time to even Scrunch Out the Crunch from my hair.” She waggled her head and ringlets bounced on either side of her face. “And this woman told me I’d change my mind about having kids. She doesn’t even know me.”

Raj jabbed an index finger towards her bare feet. “You can’t have kids. Dad won’t grant you maternity leave. Where are your shoes?”

Kit sighed and headed towards the bathroom. “Covered in what your father dropped.”

“No, no! Don’t leave me here! I just popped in to see my parents!” Raj threw his arms in the air, the drama wasted on Kit’s retreating back. “Have kids if you want to! I’m sure he’ll give you a couple of hours off just to give birth. He’s not an unreasonable man.” Raj sniggered at his own humour. The smirk drooped as he realised the statement summed up his father’s expectations for his assistants.

“Five minutes,” Kit announced, throwing the statement over her shoulder. “I’m entitled to a toilet break.”

It took six minutes for Kit to use the toilet, wash and dry her hands and crack the cast formed by the lube on her hair. Her ringlets lost their wooden appearance and sprang into place with perfection. She finger-curled a stray hair into a nearby clump to avoid it frizzing later and admired the final effect. Then she frowned. Raki made the lube she used, crafting two full vats of it in his laboratory. It worked even better than the purple-willy-shaped stuff she’d relied on until recently. As her thoughts returned to her missing friend, a line of anxiety carved itself into her forehead. “Where are you, Raki?” she breathed. Her reflection offered no clear answer and she sighed and turned away.

Raj chatted to his mother behind the counter. They laughed about something and Kit imagined she knew what. Mrs Rashid kept prodding her fingers into the back of her skirt, so Kit figured she still wore the painful body suit.

An hour later, Kit paused with her hand on the door handle leading to the apartment above the shop. Her arms ached from the effort of making a pyramid out of baked bean cans. Mrs Rashid’s eyelashes fluttered as she leaned against the counter. “Raj just nipped out to fetch his father’s prescription. He won’t take long. He’s a lovely boy.”

Kit ground her teeth in her jaw. “And I’ve known him since he still wet the bed. I don’t see a relationship between us working. Am I safe to get my bag and go home now?”

Mrs Rashid wrinkled her nose. “Mr Rashid is a little embarrassed. Perhaps don’t mention ‘the incident’ to him.”

“Okay.” Kit gave her a winning smile, while her mind worked overtime. Hell would freeze over before she let her vocal boss off the hook for this one.

“No, seriously.” Mrs Rashid raised a hand in warning. Bracelets cascaded along her forearm like tinkling bells. “One exploded last night after you left and we thought maybe it was a one-off incident. He was checking the batch numbers when the second one exploded in his face earlier.”

Kit’s complexion paled. “The second one?” The event lost its humour. “The ones I got from Australia?”

“Yes.” Mrs Rashid nodded, the action jerky and repetitive as she increased the emphasis of her statement. “He just rang and cancelled the next order from your friend. He wants his money back.”

“Debbie?” Kit felt the groan building in her chest and fought to keep it there. “Money back?” An accident with Debbie’s credit card had led to a thousand tubes of lube arriving at New Zealand customs instead of ten. Debbie hadn’t forgiven her. If she couldn’t offload the haul filling her garage, she’d excommunicate Kit from the local chapter of Women with Curls and send her back to Frizzy Hair Hell.

Kit took the narrow stairs two at a time. She snatched her bag from the shoe rack at the top and spun around to leave. A wavering voice called from beyond the lounge. “Is that you, my sweet? I’m still slippery.”

Kit closed her eyes against the thought of an excited Mr Rashid and almost lost her footing. She reached the bottom of the stairs at a run and blasted through the door. Raj caught her, his upper arms bulging with muscle and sinews. “Where’s the fire?” His eyes crinkled in amusement.

“I’m just in a hurry.” Kit grabbed her plimsolls by the laces and dangled them in front of her as she ran for the door. “I’ll be here bright and early tomorrow,” she called.

Raj released a whoop of joy at the thought of not being the one to open the shop for the paper boys at five in the morning. Kit didn’t wait for his reply, ploughing across the car park on a mission.

Her phone rang as she settled into the creaky leather seat of her yellow car. She answered it one handed, her tone impatient.

“Kit, Raki didn’t come home again last night.” Kit heard the strain in Langdon’s voice. She shifted the battered mobile phone across to her other ear.

“Where can he be?” she demanded. “He always tells us when he’s going away. This is too strange.”

“Jerry’s back from his visit with his parents and he’s concerned too now. He’s adamant Raki told him he’d be home for dinner five nights ago. I asked if he could be mistaken, but he says not. Raki said he wanted spaghetti Bolognese, so that’s what Jerry cooked specially before he left for Auckland. What should we do?”

Kit sighed and looked at her watch. “I’m on my way. We’ll talk about it when I get home. I agree it’s very odd and not something Raki would normally do. Does Jerry remember where he was going?”

“The university. He went to pick up something from his lab and said he’d only be half an hour at the most. That was five days ago.” Fear leaked from Langdon’s voice and infected Kit.

“Give me about twenty minutes,” she said. “We’ll sit together and work out a plan. I promise I’ll come straight home.”

“I think we should call the police again.” Langdon sounded funeral-serious. “Jerry doesn’t stress about much, but he’s worried about Raki.”

“Okay. I’m coming now. I need to make one more phone call about some exploding lube. I think I have bad news to break to a very scary woman.”

CHAPTER THREE