Notes from Jayne’s styling chair

Standing Appointment

Thirty years behind the chair. A few things worth telling.

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From the salon chair to the streets of Monet

There’s always a story.

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23 stories in the archive

The One Who Knew

For nineteen years I had a standing Friday at ten o'clock, wash and set, with a woman named Opal.

3 min readPull up a chair

Nobody Called Me

On a Monday, my nine o'clock told me she was so sorry to hear I was selling the shop.

3 min readPull up a chair

Soft Money

Loretta paid cash, and the bills were always soft.

3 min readPull up a chair

The Bangs Rule

I have one rule I never broke, and here it is: I do not cut bangs on a woman who has been crying.

3 min readPull up a chair

The Photograph

Ruth Ann brought in a picture and asked me to make her look like it.

3 min readPull up a chair

Welcome to Monet, Kansas

People ask me why I set a murder series in a tiny Kansas town where the grain elevators are painted like Impressionist masterpieces.

3 min readPull up a chair

Fort Knox

Every family has a system for distributing news, whether they know it or not.

3 min readPull up a chair

The Perm Ultimatum

Dottie had been getting the same perm from me every twelve weeks for as long as I’d been doing hair, and from somebody else for a good decade before that.

3 min readPull up a chair

The Line

I want to be clear that I was a guest at this wedding.

3 min readPull up a chair

Busted

This was back when fuchsia hair was just starting to be a thing.

3 min readPull up a chair

The Cat

I want to be clear that I have heard a lot of things in thirty years.

2 min readPull up a chair

The Secret That Wasn’t

Diane had been coming to me for eleven years when she sat down in my chair one Tuesday afternoon, looked both ways like she was crossing a highway, and announced in a stage whisper that she had a…

2 min readPull up a chair

The Monet Telephone Tree

Keep a standing appointment.

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