Merle

Wig shop memories

I used to love Craigslist. I started with the free and for sale section, scrolling and scrolling and clicking on every single listing to see what anonymous people from all around my college town were selling. This is how I got an old portable record player, in the Chipotle parking lot for $40. I kept the origins of the record player, a gift for my sister, a secret from my mom. In hindsight, this was way too much money for what it was. But I was hooked. My search expanded beyond “For Sale” and into the Gigs section.

I eventually got a gig hanging posters around Tallahassee for a Beatles cover band performance. It was $1 a poster, and I got to visit nearly every cafe, restaurant, store, everything in town to do it. I made $100 and it was amazing, but fleeting. I wanted a regular part time job to fund my Anastasia Beverly Hills brow pomade addiction. This led me out of the Gigs section and into Jobs.

I applied for one, and only one. It was for a makeup and wig shop, which seemed fitting, because I’d just learned how to do winged eyeliner right.

The interview lasts fifteen minutes, in the mall food court.

I’m sitting across from a short but imposing older woman, with short maroon hair and square glasses. Her name is Gertrude. She’s wearing a black Merle Norman uniform, which looks like it could be worn for a shift at the hospital. I’d be wearing one soon, because by the end of it I’d been given the keys to the store.

I’m introduced to the other store manager, Mae, and the other assistant, Molly, who is so cool with perfectly bleached hair that makes me a little jealous. She knows what she’s doing and it makes me nervous. I only know what YouTube has taught me. It doesn’t matter, anyway, because she quit to work at Clinique after training me.

She told me through text that Gertrude yelled at her, “You’re throwing your life away. Just ask Mae, she used to work there. She was a manager. She worked at the counter for years. You’ll miss this place.” Molly texts me to tell me that no, she will not miss it. We never speak again but she hopes I like it. Mae tells me probably not, and that they put too much alcohol in the toner at Clinique. To me, it’s a level up. I wished I could work at a department store counter or a Sephora instead of Merle. I hoped it could get me there.

I learn how to match foundation shades with a video on a tiny portable DVD player in the middle of the store, while drinking a triple shot venti that gives me heart palpitations. I can’t wait for my lunch break, whatever snack I brought in the narrow closet with the wigs. I have to memorize their names. The only one I remember now is Glitterati by Raquel Welch. It’s big and blonde with a lot of layers, like it’s stolen right off Miss Piggy.

My training comes with lore, and from Mae I learned that once the couple that sits outside the store asked if they could keep the poster. “And by the way. Have you noticed they’re out there every day? They’ve done that for years. He shows up first. Then he goes and he gets his wife. Or girlfriend. Who knows. They sit there every day. Ever since I’ve worked here.” She’s right, every shift, there they are, sitting at the outskirts of the food court at the Governor’s Square Mall, a part of the ecosystem. Coming in and out like clockwork, waiting for Raquel Welch to fall.

They’re gone by the time I have to lock up the store, often by myself. After I’d been taught how to fit a wig, how to say no to customers wanting to return a wig because their husbands don’t like it, how to match the lightest lip gloss with the darkest lip liner, how to close the cash register, how to look right. My managers are stricter than I imagined, I foolishly tell them I want to dye my hair purple, and Gertrude responds with a laugh. “Now why would you do that?”

I’m mostly on my own after Molly quit, and I’m not happy about it. They didn’t feel like hiring a new Molly, they never even started interviews. It was just me. Walking around the store and carefully adjusting wigs, stocking lipsticks and lip gloss and pulling down the gates when it was time to leave.

Occasionally, a customer would come in to buy skincare. Their famous product is a face cream sold to anyone looking to look eternally youthful, with secret ingredients. I don’t know why I remember them as being secret, but I do. I don’t think this is true (or legal) anymore.

“So if anyone asks,” Gertrude says, “You have to tell them it’s simply the best for anti-aging, but it’s a company secret. It’s historic. You’re young, now is your chance to get a head start. It’s good to sample the product so you can really sell it. Once you start, you shouldn’t stop. You’ll keep your smooth skin forever.” She tells me I’m supposed to slather it all over my face, neck, chest, and let it absorb. I take home a packet of it to practice. It’s slimy and translucent pink and smells like Lysol. It burns my skin just enough to make me think that’s intentional. I will be young forever. I lie and say I’ve been using it all week.

A man comes in one day, shyly picks up a container of slime cream to take home, and is then swiftly escorted to the wig section by Mae. “Is this the one you wanted?” He nods and he’s whisked away to the back. Gertrude is nearby, both of us situated by the cash register. She whispers: “He’s one of our male customers. They wear wigs too, you know.” I watch Mae whisk him away to the back, the secret part of the store reserved for employees with a small bathroom. Gertrude leans closer to me, her voice softer, with a serious look in her blue lined eyes. “He is the only customer allowed to go to the back to try them on. The barber will style it for him later. Right now it’s a women’s haircut. ” He’s happy with the color. I never see him again.

At first, I’m happy to help customers find a wig. I loved taking them off the mannequin and learning the correct way to put on wigs. The lace front ones are the nicest, and you can adjust the part on some of them. You need to put a wig cap on the customers first, for hygiene reasons, and to hold back their hair. I loved seeing when customers would try on a wig and admire themselves in the mirror. Even if I didn’t make a commission, which I never did in the end anyway. I helped them find the right shade of brunette, black, blonde, white, red, and in the correct cut and color. I told them not to worry about judgemental husbands at home who only liked certain shades of honey blonde. I wanted my commission.

But wig customers, or customers in general, were few and far between.

The longer I work there, the longer it’s apparent that they have no intention to replace Molly. I’m left alone time and time again with the keys. It’s probably because I was only 19, but the days felt like months. I get scared when I’m left in the shop alone. There’s rarely any customers. Just me and 35 glamorous, disembodied plastic heads.

During the day it’s okay, but as it gets darker I become increasingly aware of my solitude and the long, dark walk back to my car. I stand near the entrance and watch the mall ecosystem, desperate for entertainment. I make bets with myself about people who walk towards the store, who is actually going to come in? The answer is zero, except a man who wants to rant about World War Two as I pretend to be busy re-organizing the lip glosses to get him to go away.

I play another game with myself, inching further and further out of the store and into the mall to see how far I could get before it looks like I’ve abandoned the store. I look at the store from the outside, pretending to check if Raquel Welsh’s new poster is pasted straight. I watch to see if anyone will approach the store and count the minutes until I can make a run for it.

My last week was the best. I love having something to do, and Gertrude finally let me do a makeup test on a customer. There weren’t many chances for this, but usually when a customer came in either Mae or Gertrude would help if it was a makeup test since they had more experience.

A woman came in with an entourage, her aunt and her mother, looking for a full set of new makeup. I do my best to recall the training video, analyze her skin and determine if her skin tone had more red or yellow undertones. We try both because she wants to. And then every shade of eyeliner, lipstick, lipgloss, whatever her heart desired. She picked out one of each, with her entourage nodding and agreeing which ones looked the best. She used a handheld mirror to examine her face.

“No, actually, no.” She smiled and thanked me, her entourage agreeing, “I wanna think about it.” They don’t come back.

Gertrude looks a little pissed at me, I could’ve been more convincing. But it is what it is. “Get ready for more of that on Black Friday.” I get nervous. I tell her this must be a mistake, but it’s not. “No, you’re scheduled. There’s not enough of us and we’ll need you.” I have an exam that day, and in the afternoon I’m starting the eight hour drive back to my hometown. I can’t do it. I explain again and I’m told “You’ll need to figure it out.” Gertrude is getting heated. I don’t like the look she’s giving me behind her rectangle glasses.

I take a deep breath. I’m shaking. It feels like I’m doing this on a whim, but whatever. It’s a part time job at the mall. For the first time ever (and thank god for that) I gracefully remove the store key from my keyring and take off my jacket. “I’ll be back for my last check next week, I quit.”

I hold my tears until I’ve turned the corner and the JC Penny is in sight. Only a few tears fall down my face, leaving green eyeliner streaks in my foundation. I pick up my check the following week, relieved that it’s Mae handing me the check and not Gertrude. The store is empty. I don’t remember if we said anything, I barely made eye contact. I look at the Glitterati wig one last time and make a plan to pick up purple hair dye on my way home.

Goodbye, Raquel Welch, goodbye Merle.