Waiting to Exhale by Terry McMillan Page B

hour. There were at least eight other women and men waiting; a few of them were asleep, the others were reading Jet, Ebony, Essence magazine, or an old National Enquirer that somebody had left. The reason people didn't mind waiting was that Oasis Hair was one of the few black shops in Phoenix that had a consistent reputation for keeping up with all the latest hairstyles and techniques.
    Desiree, who did nothing but weaves, was her own best form of advertising. Somebody had made the mistake of telling her years before that she could be a model, and she'd never forgotten it. Even though she was clearly in her late late thirties, she wore miniskirts when her thighs should've told her it was too late, leggings and crop tops, with a thick belt of fat in between that apparently everybody could see except her. There was no such thing as too much makeup to Desiree, and no one knew how she did those weaves, considering how long her acrylics were. Cindy was much pleasanter to work with. At twenty-four, she was already divorced and taking care of three kids. She dressed as if she was going to a nine-to-five, which had always been her dream, and although she specialized in individual braids and cornrowing, her own hair was cut short. And no one seemed to care (considering how everybody was so paranoid about catching AIDS) that Gloria's two best stylists-Phillip, whose hair was plati- nuro, and Joseph, who wore black every single day of the year-were gay. Now she had two full-time manicurists, since it seemed like everybody and their mother couldn't live without acrylics or silk wraps.
    Gloria loved the atmosphere of her shop. The place was sort of funky chic-everything was silver, black, purple, and white-and full of hanging plants, all of which were fake. There were huge, colorful posters of black models, male and female, wearing the latest hairstyles. She sold custom-made costume jewelry, T-shirts she made in a class she'd taken, and Brown Sugar panty hose that nobody ever bought.
    Most of the people who came to her shop either knew each other or knew of each other, and Phillip and Joseph knew all the gossip- a . K. A . dirt-about all of them and usually kept everybody in stitches in the absence of that person on that day. Gloria also had a little TV in the back room, and when it was slow during the week, particularly on Wednesday, which was Senior Citizen Day, they dragged it out front so folks could watch the soaps and game shows. On weekends the shop felt more like a nightclub, because Phillip-who was in charge of entertainment-played nothing but music videos on BET, and Gloria served wine, which she was beginning to think was not such a good idea, because some of her customers were drunk by the time they got in the chair.
    "So did you hear about Bernadine?" Phillip now asked Gloria. He was combing Lustrasilk through Sandra's hair. Sandra, who was LaTisha's mama, looked in the mirror to watch Gloria's face.
    "No, what? Sit up straight, baby," Gloria said to a sinking LaTisha.
    "John left her, honey. Get ready for this: for a white girl!"
    "No, he didn't !
    "If you don't want your neck burned, you better stop being so nosy and be still," he said to Sandra, then turned to Gloria. "Would I lie about something like this? Tell her, Joseph."
    Joseph, who was working at the station next to Cindy, was putting a male customer's hair on rods for a Jheri-Kurl. "I saw her coming out of a Circle K in Scottsdale last Sunday, and the chile had on her bathrobe and was all messed up. I couldn't believe it was Bernie- I mean, she was so out of it. Anyway, I asked her what was going on. I don't know if you know it but she takes those pills sometimes for her nerves but anyway her speech was slurred and I was scared to death so I told her to drive slowly and I followed her home. She was smoking those disgusting cigarettes again, and she was doing so good, chile. Anyway, she told me that John left her for some white wench named Kathleen. His bookkeeper.