By: Gabriela Yareliz
Ms. Shah is a pro— or so I heard. She had on spa music that matches my favorite massage place, and her storefront business was packed.
“That music is the secret to keeping everyone calm while they wait,” Ms. Shah said laughing.
I had wandered over to Ms. Shah’s eyebrow spa because my face framers were “abandoned.” And if you find someone with five stars, you test the situation.
If you want a fun afternoon activity, go onto Yelp or Google, and read traumatized reviews from eyebrow places. It is wild what people experience. I read one that was like, “she took a chunk off, and then she laughed.” The stuff of nightmares.
There was a thin, heavily tattooed blonde Turkish woman and her mom. Two Arabic speaking girls and a pot smoking boyfriend who belonged to the heavier set of the two. He would wander in and out, with a strange level of agitation.
The tattoo girl sat there with a dark eyebrow tint on. She looked like something from the movie Poor Things. Her mom sat there for an hour and later put on a mask, saying she had “an infection.” Was she not infected the whole hour she sat there maskless? Listen, I don’t care— all I am saying is she has some holes in her brain logic.
The Arab young women took turns in the chairs. They didn’t wince with the wax. They seemed used to it. The first finished and then got into a fight with her boyfriend who kept asking her if she was hungry. (People in this neighborhood have a lot of drama with food. Remember my fellow commuter who gets into fights with his invisible “mom” who isn’t there and he talks to himself the whole ride? The whole theme is lunch, always).
The other girl (I say girl because they were younger than me) kept putting her phone on speaker and yelling at her mom in Arabic— a mom who had called mid-eyebrow session, and she decided it was a good idea to pick up.
Occasionally, in the midst of the chaos, Ms. Shah would look over at me. I would smile. She looked over at the girls disapprovingly and definitely did not approve of the ski mask boyfriend.
The girls had come in looking like they had given up on life. They looked like they hadn’t showered in a week; they had on Christmas pajama pants with black puffer jackets, things that looked like shower caps and crocs. They kept yelling into their phones and sitting against a tapestry on Ms. Shah’s couch, making it fall. Ms. Shah adjusted it when the first girl and her boyfriend were fighting outside. Then, the girl came back in and knocked it down. I could feel the business owner’s judgment and simultaneous resignation. She checked them out with thread hanging from her pursed lips.
She then went back to the chair where they had both sat and Lysoled that thing like it was palo santo. (She really should have Lysoled the Turkish mom lady).
When the two girls and the wandering boyfriend in a ski cap left, there was a strange collective exhale in the place. It’s amazing how people’s energy is so felt in a space.
Once the trio departed, the tattooed blonde sat in the main chair and had her tint finalized. Jovial chatter began. The music seemed to take up most of the space. Stories of trips to Turkey swirled.
I sat in a corner with the plants, praying my eyebrows wouldn’t be the subject of a bad online review because you know I am always down to join the fun…
GABRIELA YARELIZ 