Mystic Maggie's Hair Salon

I parked my car outside of Mystic Maggie’s Hair Salon, wondering if the ad I saw claiming “Heartbreak healed or your money back!” was true. It was a tiny hole-in-the-wall joint sandwiched between a Greek restaurant and an insurance agent’s office in a strip mall that had its heyday a decade or two ago. The parking lot was nearly empty on a Tuesday morning, which I felt didn’t bode well for the efficacy of Maggie’s services. Nonetheless, I took a deep breath and sighed, willing to try anything to erase my pain.

Mystic Maggie’s Hair Salon was unlike any salon I’d been in before. The door chimed with a dozen or so tiny silver bells as I walked in. The strong scent of patchouli incense greeted me first, followed by aromas of barbicide and lemon. The salon was dim, the overhead lights turned off in favor of an antique Tiffany lamp in one corner, a pink Himalayan salt lamp in the other, and an iridescent grow light above a tray of plant sprouts. Colorful tapestries adorned the walls and houseplants and crystals dotted shelves and tables interspersed between the chairs in the makeshift waiting room. The place reminded me more of my pot dealer’s apartment when I was in college than a hair salon.

The back position of the salon had been sectioned off with more hanging tapestries, and a pair of female voices issued from within.

“You look lovely, dear,” a woman gushed. “And how do you feel?”

“Much better,” a younger voice replied. “It’s a big change but… definitely worth it.”

“Let’s get you settled up at the front desk. It appears I have another customer.”

I hesitantly took a seat in one of the chairs, holding my purse close to my body. An older woman, who I assumed to be Mystic Maggie, held the curtain of tapestries aside for a customer sporting a fresh buzz cut to emerge. The women went to either side of the front desk as Maggie created an invoice at her computer.

“So my basic services are $200,” she said, her long nails click-clacking on the computer keys.

I blanched, thinking about my dwindling bank account and the three days of work I had to miss this pay period because I was dealing with the crisis in my personal life. For as unprofessional and even shabby as this place was, I was shocked to hear Maggie was charging so much for her services. It looked as if she’d done nothing more than shave her customer’s head, something that requires little skill. This had to be a scam. But the woman, tears drying on her cheeks, pulled out her wallet nonetheless, seemingly happy to pay whatever it cost.

“However,” Maggie continued, “you gave nine inches of hair, or roughly one and a half year’s worth of memories, which brings your total down to $20.”

The shaved woman took out her debit card and tapped it to pay. Maggie handed her a receipt and the woman was off. What was this place?

“Your aura is so dark,” Maggie said, turning her attention to me as the jingling bells of the door stilled. Her face, wrinkled and aged, displayed genuine concern. She clasped her hands together in front of her as she rounded the front desk to greet me. “Have you come for a haircut?”

I wasn’t sure what to say. A lump formed in my throat and I pulled the crumpled ad I cut out of the newspaper from my purse and showed it to her.

“Ah,” Maggie said, her coral pink lips parting to reveal a yellow-toothed smile. “Your heart has been broken and you’d like to forget?” I nodded. “Then you’ve come to the right place.” She gestured to the back room, holding the tapestry aside for me to enter.

This half of her shop looked more like a traditional hair salon than the waiting room portion. There was a single salon chair in front of a large mirror, a table with combs and scissors below it. The lights were dim back here too and I wondered how someone of Maggie’s advanced age could see her clients’ hair well enough to cut it properly. Maggie gestured for me to sit in the chair and then wrapped the nylon cape around my shoulders.

She ran her long stiletto nails through my blonde hair, the shiny black polish glinting in the flickering light of a pillar candle. We looked at each other through the mirror as she stood behind me, examining her canvas.

“Hair holds memories,” she said, her spiderweb lashes fluttering against her teal eyeshadow. “It stores everything, your joys and your sorrows. Anyone can cut hair, but my services are a bit different. When my magical scissors cut your hair, I take the memories too. Only the ones you want to be rid of, mind you.” She stopped playing with my hair and handed me a laminated page from a rack next to the mirror.

Mystic Maggie’s Hair Services:

Basic haircut with memory removal… $200

Simple trim for minor memory removal… $50

Extended trauma removal haircut… $500

$10 is taken off the final bill for each month of memories surrendered to Maggie. ½” hair = 1 month of memories.

I gawked at the page, trying to make sense of what Maggie was offering. She took the price menu from my hands and returned to playing with my hair.

“I am first and foremost a psychic medium,” Maggie said, sending shivers down my spine as her nails ran along the nape of my neck. “Let me see if I can deduce what brought you in today.” She closed her eyes and continued to run her fingers through my hair. “Hmm, you have about eighteen inches here, which means the memories stored in your hair go back about three years. Lovely, beautiful hair. I see that you met someone about a year ago. You dated for a while, but then they left you for someone else. Is that accurate?”

I nodded, my eyes welling with tears. How could she figure that out just by touching my hair? It was only then that I noticed Maggie’s own hair in the mirror’s reflection. It was gray, as was to be expected for someone of her age. But it was long. Very long. She kept it in a massive braid that reached her thighs. Had she never experienced heartbreak or pain? She had the capacity to remove the bad memories, yet she’d clearly not invoked this ability on herself.

“I can remove all memories of your once lover,” Maggie said. “Unfortunately since the memories of them are recent, we’d have to go pretty short. You can wait until the hair, and memories, grow out a bit. But to have them removed today, you’re gonna have to be shaved down to the scalp.” It was true, the breakup only happened a few weeks ago.

I touched my long, golden locks. I loved my hair. I didn’t want to lose the length I’d been carefully curating for so long. I slept with a silk pillowcase, used heat styling sparingly, and never touched my hair with dye or bleach. I suppose I’d hoped Mystic Maggie could give me a fresh style that would build my confidence and self-esteem without cutting it all off. Isn’t that what most women who go to the salon post-breakup want? I’d already lost the person I thought I was going to marry. I didn’t want to lose my beautiful blonde hair too. But was it worth it to lose the memories and pain of the breakup? The woman who’d just left the salon with a shaved head seemed to be very pleased with Maggie’s services.

Maggie could tell I was feeling conflicted. She came around the front of the chair to face me, leaning against the table containing her haircutting tools. She pulled her long braid to the front of her body and ran her hands along its length. “Do you want to know what I do with the memories I cut from my customers’ hair?” she asked. I nodded. “I collect them. They don’t simply vanish. And they are valuable to me. That’s why I offer a credit towards the cost of my services for the memories surrendered. I don’t judge folks for wanting to be free of their pain. But I would never make the same choice myself.” She gave a small laugh and flipped her braid back over her shoulder.

“When someone leaves our lives,” she said wistfully, “all we have left are those memories. If you want yours removed, I will remove them. But if you want to keep them, to hold them close, to remember that the love you had was real, that’s okay too. Heartbreak is the evidence that you experienced something even more magical than a memory-erasing haircut. And perhaps in keeping that memory, you will trust that you can love again. You have the capacity to create that sacred alchemy with someone new, even if things hurt right now.”

I’d been at a loss for words since I stepped into Mystic Maggie’s Hair Salon. I expected her to be a hairstylist, and maybe even some kind of witch. But not a kindly crone offering advice to a young woman struggling to heal from heartbreak. I made up my mind and unbuttoned the cape and handed it to Maggie. She set it aside and took my hands in hers.

“Choosing to remember the pain will make the next chapter in which you find love and happiness all the sweeter.”