Month to Month with Emily
When I met Emily, we were on a collision course: she, a recent Paul Mitchell School of Hair Design graduate, and I, well, I needed a haircut.
Over the past sixteen plus years, I have gotten to know Everything Emily, her life and the players in it. There’s her heroin addict brother who got clean and lives in rural Maine with his wife and newborn son, and her out and proud gay sister who works at corporately homophobic Hobby Lobby. Comic relief is provided by Emily’s dogs, Lulu and Coco, scrappy, demanding twin rescue chihuahuas. Then, there are her love interests.
Emily’s life story is fascinating to me, a sequence of shitshows and silver linings. At my hair appointment yesterday, Emily told me that the guy with two young kids she’d been dating for almost a year- I’ll call him Chris because that’s his real name- had been cheating on her for almost their entire relationship with a former girlfriend. Emily had broken up with Chris before finding out that his ex was pregnant and miscarried and yes, Chris was the father!! because she didn’t like the way he treated his mother. Apparently his mom bought his kids art supplies without first telling him about the school project they were for, so Chris called her a cunt. (I’m sorry, I hate that word, too). Oh, and did I mention Chris has a cocaine problem that he told Emily he kicked but he hadn’t? I also learned that Chris’s dad is distantly related to the British royal family but he embezzled money so they disowned him. Chris’s older kid has all three of the warning signs that he’s a sociopath. He tried to suffocate his little brother by putting a pillow over his head and sitting on it.
Emily laughingly told me that her life sometimes feels like a bad action movie with no point, just car chases and fiery explosions. But here’s the thing: when I go to make my next appointment, I realize I’d be okay at this point to let my hair go but for Emily, and my need to find out what happens next.