A Cut Above

By TAD BARTIMUS

When I feel a paradigm shift coming on, I go in search of the perfect haircut. I equate this urge to the definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.

My haircut safaris are nearly always disastrous, yet I still cling to the refrigerator-magnet credo that "life is an endless struggle, full of frustrations and challenges, but eventually you find a hairstylist you like."

My quest for the perfect coif began in a one-chair beauty shop my godmother Lois presided over in her garage. She was the first to cut my copper-colored curls and the first beautician to make me cry.

My next salon crisis occurred the day of my first (and only) prom. I had a date with a dreamboat and wanted to look like Gidget. I came out from under the dryer looking like a mop. I cried again.

For years, I got haircuts without expectations, submitting to successive strangers' scissors and not complaining. On a dare, I even let each member of my brother's high school football team take a snip; I knew it would grow back. I viewed trims as necessities, not events.

In my mid-20s, I arrived in Hong Kong for a break from nonstop war reporting in Vietnam. As an act of mercy, my city-based friend, who never chipped a nail, hauled me off to a "day of beauty." She deposited me with the words, "Can you do anything with her?"

Five hours and $100 later -- a fortune back then -- I walked out minus blackheads, chewed cuticles and split ends. I'd been initiated into female overhaul; ever since, when my gears won't shift and my motor is sluggish, I know it's time for another "day of beauty" tune-up.

Mostly, I come out of it with a great manicure and a lousy haircut. It's not the stylist's fault. I set myself up. I go in as Tad Bartimus, with the expectation I'll come out as Julia Roberts -- or at least Catherine Deneuve. Never happens.

The only one who didn't disappoint was Patrick. A handsome Frenchman with a one-chair salon on Madison Avenue, he claimed to be the man who first cut off Diane Sawyer's trademark long blonde tresses. His first 30 minutes with me he just ran his fingers through my hair. Then he ordered me to stand up, bend over and shake my head like a wet dog clearing its ears. He spoke with such charming authority that I did it. Then he pushed me back into the chair and spun into action, his tiny scissors snapping and snipping. Ten minutes later, VOILA!

If hairstyles help define us -- think Sandra Dee's flip, Audrey Hepburn's pixie, Jacqueline Kennedy's bouffant, Princess Diana's wedge -- Patrick gave me me. The person staring back at herself in his mirror was the woman I felt I really was. I didn't look like me, I looked somebody better, more glamorous.

I loved my hair. It bounced (coltish-like, I fancied) when I tossed my head, then fell into a soft halo of straight, fine strands. I couldn't stop admiring my reflection in Madison Avenue shop windows. My friend meeting me for a celebratory lunch didn't recognize me until she was 3 feet away.

But channeling joie de vivre through a coiffure is an illusion: it's like moving mercury, you can't control it. That illusion lasts only until you wash your hair. Then, you are once again an ordinary woman with an unruly cowlick.

For the past five years my generous neighbor has sat me on a stool on my porch and trimmed my locks every six weeks. She kindly keeps me looking like the woman I've become. But the tantalizing prospect of finding another Patrick occasionally leads me off the porch, as happened this week in Beverly Hills.

"I need an experience," I told a friend I was visiting on the eve of my new book's publication. "I don't just want a haircut, I want a LOOK."

"I know just the salon," she replied. "The best cutter there is a wizard, who will also listen to what you want."

My friend got the first part right. As I sat in my black silk robe in front of her mirror, sipping pink lemonade, she gossiped about this film location and that movie producer, the merits of plastic surgery, and how her Botox injections have stopped her forehead from wrinkling. Like Patrick, she cuts the hair of the rich and famous; one of her favorite clients is a Hollywood hunk.

Now I look just like him.

© 2002 The Women Syndicate

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