Sixth Floor Girl's Bathroom, All Day

[cuzfriendship]

April took a step back from the wall where she had just posted her final flyer and admired her handiwork.

In bold, glittery text on cream construction paper, the flyer read:

Did you get scruffy in your time away from your parents?

Do you have a crush from home visiting that you're trying to impress?

Come to…

HAIRCUTS BY APRIL

6th Floor Girls' Bathroom

RIGHT NOW!

Reference photos or verbal descriptions accepted. Or let April go wild!

$5 per haircut, or trades accepted also.


Beneath the text, she had pasted a series of photos of makeovers she'd given over the years – Jo with side-bangs, Ripley's new 'do from the summer, and even a photo of Mal after she'd let April touch up her undercut.

With the last flyer posted, she pocketed the rest of her roll of tape and set off toward the sixth floor girl's bathroom. She figured there wouldn't be much call for the bathroom on the floor where no one lived, so it would be okay if she took up a lot of space and got some hair on the floor (which she planned to clean up, of course).

It took April several trips from her room to the bathroom to assemble everything she thought she needed. It wasn't just hair supplies, although she had plenty of those. She also stacked up some magazines on top of one of the sinks to give the whole place a real salon feel, and her laptop was around in case anyone wanted to watch a movie.

Then she propped open the door and waited for her first customers.

there is no chance i will get to pings at work today, but i wanted to get this posted early so i don't forget later.

5th Floor Common Room, Thursday Afternoon

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy had spent much of the morning making a list of all the things about her life that she was going to have to hide from her parents tomorrow when they visited. Sex, powers, Banzai, the island were obvious candidates, of course, but by the time she'd gotten to Raven's abilities, my piercings, Japanese friends, she just couldn't take it anymore. Hiding bits of her life and personality from her family was fine. She was used to that. But having to act like she was ashamed of her friends because her dad was a bigot who couldn't let history go? That was just a line too far.

So, rather than think about her parents at all, Kathy had found the most complicated recipe for strawberry cupcakes she could find, ran to the store for ingredients, and had come to the common room to throw herself into an whirlwind of baking. It was hard to think about, well, anything, when you were trying to made graham cracker crust by hand at the same time you were thickening strawberry filling in a saucepan and beating butter and cream cheese together for frosting.

Normally, she would have tried to distract herself with homework, burying all the things she didn't want to think about under piles of equations, chemical formulae, and essay outlines. It felt good to be doing the same thing with something as frivolous as baking, especially since her parents would have vastly preferred the former. And between snacking on cupcakes (for quality control!) and belting out classic rock, Kathy managed to jolly herself back into a good mood in a fairly short amount of time.