Every few weeks she leads me to the back room of the

salon.  I relax into the recliner and close my eyes, ready

for what she will give, a little pleasure, a little pain.

She heats my brow with the hot melted wax letting

it sit for a few seconds before she presses down the cloth

strip and quickly tears out the delinquent strands. 

I've come to crave both sensations, the caress of the heat

and the ripping and pulling, hard and fast, of the hair.

She discourages flinching. I may wince in my mind, but never in

her chair.  

Last week as she sat behind me, she said my first name softly,

as if she might ask me a personal favor or question. Then she said,

"I want to change your life. Just a little bit. A little. Will you let me?"

She held a mirror to my face and pointed to my brow's arch.

"See? See this? Here. Here is where I want it to go up more. A little bit

more. This will change your life. Just a little bit. I will heighten the arch."  

The area of her focus is my weak spot, I know it well, intimately;

the place where I secretly pull a few hairs between waxings. 

We've been through this before - she instructs me not to pluck and I

oh-so-discreetly use my tweezers at home.  At the next visit

she tsks her disapproval. "You should wait for appointment. Wait for

me. You don't know how. You don’t know what I know, what I see."

For the few years I have gone to her, we've struggled with

a communication barrier, not because Vietnamese is her first language

and English is my one and only, but because of what I call the

'beauty barrier'.  I don't really know what treatments to ask for

and she has given up offering me new ones. I don’t speak ‘beauty’.

Other women go to the back room for things I can't even name. 

This day though, she studied my arch. She touched my arm when

she said, “Your life. Just a little change. Yes? Will you let me

do this? Asian and Japanese cultures say this will give your life a little

change. Like feng shui. You know feng shui? I will do feng shui with

your arch. You need change in your life, yes? Just a little bit. I do this for

you. Please, you let me." 

"Yes. I trust you. I like a little change, too," I said.