An Indian and His Tide (ManxMan)

13: North Carolina, If You Haven't Noticed

"Do you really call that clipping?" Ranil heard Roman yell on the other side of his salon.

It had been two weeks since they returned from the cruise. Apparently everyone passed the final exam for the first part of the apprenticeship. Now, all of the apprentices were allowed to work on the salon floor for morning shifts with Roman supervising. After a few months on the floor there would be the second final exam that would really be The Final Exam. Whoever placed first would represent Roman's salon in the Nation Wide Hair Tide, and Ranil was not playing any games with this.

On the salon, his station was placed between Lydia and Timothy. Benjamin was on Timothy's left.

Roman came up to Lydia and her client and Lydia stepped aside. He took out his own comb and brushed through the client's hair. After looking thoroughly Roman said, "Your foils bled." And he looked down at Lydia expectantly.

Ouch. Ranil thought. He glanced to the side as Lydia herself checked her client's hair and made a pain filled wince.

Roman let out a frustrated sigh, "You passed the cruise exam but you still don't know how to dye hair? Unacceptable. You need to foil hair properly otherwise the dye will get places that you weren't supposed to dye. You see this? Look here." Then he directed Lydia's eyes to a spot on the client's head with his comb. "Why is her scalp purple?" He asked with a raised eyebrow. "Why does she have dye where you didn't put the foil?"

Lydia didn't respond.

Ranil clipped his client's hair with bated breath. Lydia was such a sweet and timid thing. She made an 80 as a grade on the cruise, but it was still a passing grade. Lydia always seemed to make the smallest mistakes that would set Roman off. Sometimes Ranil wondered why Roman even chose her as an apprentice in the first place.

Roman left Lydia standing there to contemplate her mistake and suddenly he was on Ranil's left, tilting his hand, "Don't slack here or you'll get an uneven cut." He barked out. Then Roman turned to the whole salon.

"Is this elementary school?! Are we cutting hair or are we cutting out scraps for paper Mache?!"

Ranil grimaced at Roman's tone. Even though Roman gave his clients a disclaimer about students styling in the morning and a chance to reschedule, it still didn't seem to excuse his behavior. He wanted to tell him to shut up, but at the moment Roman wasn't Roman. He was Mr. Bousaid and Ranil was just an apprentice.

By noon the actual stylists came in to cover the rest of the day and the apprentices went back to the apprentice room. Since the cruise, even Benjamin had set aside his bias to Timothy (probably forced to by Josie) and now all the apprentices got a long very well. No one had seen Clarice since the cruise and everyone had assumed she had gotten a real job. She wasn't missed. The atmosphere seemed slightly lighter now that everyone was getting along somewhat.

Timothy was a lot better to talk to and he had even invited Josie and Ranil to shop with him. It was like an episode of Tales from the Darkside. Everything was new. He couldn't believe he had spent quality time with and laughed with Timothy. During their shopping trip he paid attention. It was then that he could notice the little sigh after every laugh, the slight glitter of pain in the eyes. Ranil realized then that Timothy and Roman were still, and always will be friends and that to get along with someone your love pays more romantic attention to will never be easy. What Ranil respected though, was that he tried. Deep in the bottom of his heart, he hoped that Timothy found someone that would give him the attention he needed because Roman wasn't doing it.

Ranil realized he was the last one there and decided to tell Roman goodbye before he headed out. They hadn't had much time to spend time together since the cruise. Ranil wasn't even sure that Roman wanted to. There wasn't much talking between them as of late, and Ranil would be lying if he said ge even thought that he didn't miss him.