L.A. Woman by Cathy Yardley Page A

like she was running through a perpetually sun-dappled meadow. She knew she had wavy hair, but this was artistically wavy, not the Sonic the Hedgehog tangles that she was used to.
    She, too, had gone into a sexy wind tunnel and lived to tell about it.
    “How long will this last?” she said, her fingers reaching up but only touching the aura of her hair, as if by touching the hair itself the whole thing would vanish in a puff of smoke and she’d be reduced to the hedgehog looking thing she’d resembled when she walked in.
    Joey laughed. “You just need to do a few simple steps,” he said. “I’ll give you some molding mud, and you need to put that at the roots…then some of this mousse at the tips…you just go like this—” he tilted his head upside down, pretending that his closely-cropped hairstyle matched hers “—and then like this, swing your hair up, and it’s just that easy.” He grinned. “And tell everyone you came here, naturally.”
    Martika and Taylor could not have been prouder if they were her parents. “Let’s hit the town,” Martika said, and in that moment, Sarah could have said yes.
    Taylor nay-sayed. “What do we always say in Marketing? It’s all about positioning. The haircut is a fabulous start, granted. But we’ve still got to draw up a game plan.” He grinned, taking Martika’s arm. “I say, dinner at El Torito with absolutely tons of margaritas.”
    “I concur.” Martika linked her arm in Sarah’s, and Sarah smiled. Martika saw the hat in her hands, frowned and took it, tossing it in a tall artsy silver trash canister. Sarah still smiled.
     
    “You did what?”
    Judith watched Sarah calmly eat her salad, her hair glinting platinum and honey-blond in the afternoon sun. “I dumped Benjamin.”
    “Would this be before or after your emotional pyrotechnics at Salamanca?” Judith asked. “Because if it was before, maybe I could negotiate to get your job back. Sort of like temporary insanity. I mean, Becky herself has been under some emotional strain and would probably cut you some sort of slack, especially as she’s shorthanded now…”
    “I don’t want to go back,” Sarah said firmly. “I’m sorry if it made you look bad, Judith.”
    Judith smoothed her napkin in her lap, glancing out the window. “It did cause some commotion. I mean, I did recommend you.”
    “And I’m sorry, but I couldn’t work for that horrid woman one more day,” Sarah said, her green eyes earnest. “She wanted me to clean out her cat box, Jude. I swear, the woman was a nightmare.”
    “You could have handled it better, Sarah,” Judith corrected her gently. “You could have simply told her no.”
    Sarah sighed. “I don’t think you’ll be able to understand.”
    “I’ve been there,” Judith said. “We’ve all had nightmare bosses. You just pay…”
    “Don’t say pay your dues,” Sarah said, her voice uncharacteristically steely. “I mean it. I’ll scream.”
    Judith was so surprised, she put her fork down. “Sarah, what’s gotten into you? First the outburst at Salamanca, then dumping Benjamin—and what really happened there, anyway?”
    “He was being a dick. Don’t even try to argue with me on that point.”
    Now Judith openly gaped. “What do you mean?”
    Sarah pushed radicchio leaves from one side of the broad white plate to the other. She looked like a bored starlet with that hair, Judith noticed. “I mean, he’s been so insensitive. Here I am, working thirty hours in one day, and all he can say is I have to pay my dues, keep my chin up. Everything I was doing was for him, Jude,” she confided. “Everything was to convince him that I could make the cut, that he wouldn’t be making a mistake in marrying me. Can you believe that?”
    “It can’t have been that bad.”
    “Couldn’t it?”
    Judith couldn’t believe the bitterness in Sarah’s voice. “Sarah, moving to a new city is hard—and working at an ad agency in Los Angeles is brutal. You might