Written By: Mikiko Miyakawa
Between the Summer and Me lies only one thing, usually a T-shirt, a camisole or a summer dress. No wonder. It is too hot for anyone to wear more, although this poses a hazard for me.
I am Asami, a blossoming fortuneteller and a color therapist. I run a salon ”Color Me Astrology” downtown. The organic decoration and nice warm lounge music of the salon contributed to our sound reputation. But I owe my success practically to my queer ability since childhood.
One misty morning when I was eight, I heard a high-pitched voice saying “Wear me today.”
There was no one in my small room, and the voice came from my cream yellow T-shirt in a half-opened old drawer. I somehow followed its revelation and met a charming event: At an extracurricular program, during a scavenger hunt game, I was hunted because of my yellow clothes and the team gave me one of their prizes, the latest Barbie Doll.
Maybe the yellow T-shirt had gotten information about the game previously from somewhere through diplomacy with other clothes. From that day, I started developing “Dress language”.
My clothes taught me that they willingly communicate with the people who paid to get them, as they regard these people as their masters. That is why most children don’t hear Dress language during the period they are developing innate LAD (Language Acquisition Device). I used to buy my clothes even when I was under ten, because my mom was busy working as a psychologist and never cared about me. Needless to say, it is too late for teens and adults who pay for the clothes to learn Dress language.
Psychologists don’t know that human relations are mainly formed by the negotiations between their clothes. They act behind the scenes like hidden ambassadors. The famous Stanford experiment, “prisoners and prison guards”, declares that human roles determine the relationships. But that is not true. I know their uniforms matter more, so that I utilize information from customers’ clothes in my counseling.
Since the opening of the salon last fall, I let my customers hand me their coats and jackets upon arrival. Then I would bring the clothes to the kitchen to talk to them alone, while preparing herbal drinks for the session. I whisper in Human language and the clothes give me the information from clothes of customer’s loved ones and related persons. Then I mix the information with astrology and give it to the customers as if it were all from astrology.
Everything is excellent with me except for the looming summer. For, it gets difficult to find chances to talk to the clothes in person; People have no extra clothes or no clothes to take off.
Finally the summer came.
After spring, I asked my customers, mostly women, to bring some clothes for color therapy. But few customers remembered this. Naturally my advice became less accurate than it had before.
One day, to make things worse, two middle-aged customers happened to see me talking to their clothes. As an excuse for this, I told them a lie.
"I was just simulating how clothes would help you if they could speak.” But the customers were half in doubt, maybe thinking I was insane.
Besides, a student customer who was knowledgeable about astrology posted SNS “Asami’s astrology answers are odd.” Due to word of mouth, many customers got skeptical about me, and my salon went slack.
Even a few remaining customers stopped bringing their clothes. They told me, ”Prove that you could give us nice advice only by astrology, without clothes.” No way. My consulting became more and more colorless in front of the threatening eyes of customers. I worried if I could pay my salon’s rent the next month.
Not knowing what to do, I went to my frequent hair salon for a change of mood. My hair-stylist Rudy, whom I liked in my heart, asked me all of a sudden.
“Are you able to speak to dresses?”
“What?!” I cried. Then I lowered my voice to reply, “How did you know?”
Rudy smiled innocently in the mirror.
“ I suspected from your conversation with salon receptionists.” he whispered in my right ear. His rather slow speech with a sweet voice is my favorite as well as his slim physique.
“Asami, to be honest, I can speak to hair. My parents are wig makers and I developed this ability as a child.“
“What a surprise! Let me guess. You dealt with money regarding wigs.”
“Exactly. I sometimes bought cut hair and sold the wigs when my parents were out.”
I told Rudy my ongoing crisis. Then I asked him, “Please help me out. I want to save my customer Noriko, who fears breaking up with her boyfriend. But Noriko always wears a tank top in this season and I can’t have her undress."
“Well, Asami, I know a tip. Make someone seduce the girl and you offer a room for two in your salon.” Rudy replied playfully and added, “I am not going to do that for you though.”
I was speechless and just sighed. Rudy quickly retrieved a straight face and said,
“So bring me one of her hairs okay?”
Following Rudy’s advice, I luckily found a hair on Noriko’s shoulder and brought it to Rudy. Rudy talked to the hair.
“Do you know the true feeling of Noriko’s boyfriend Nick?”
Rudy shook his head as he heard Hair language in his brain and said,
“It says ‘Sorry, I am merely hair. A hairstyle as a whole could communicate with someone else’s hairstyle, but not me. Plus Nick’s hair doesn’t reveal his thoughts easily. I dimly sense that his career situation is not good. That’s all.”
On my way home, I deeply understood what Noriko’s hair said. For, in the past, I commonly tried to elicit or tap something from the clothes of my-type boys, wondering if they could be my date. But I failed every time. Clothes are not eloquent about their owner’s private information, although they tell me what they saw.
Disappointed so much, I did not feel good when I met Noriko in the next session. But she looked pleasant and curious. She asked ” To which hair salon do you go, Asami? Your medium length hairstyle always looks cool, and especially today.”
“Oh does it? It’s RH + hair salon in uptown. Do you want to go?”
“Why not? I want something different. Who is your hairstylist?”
Then Noriko went to RH+ the next week. From Noriko’s entire hair, Rudy fortunately got accurate background information about Noriko’s boyfriend Nick. The next day, I met Rudy at a cafe. He said,
“Noriko’s hair told me that Nick became awkward because Noriko had gotten a promotion these days. He might have lost his confidence a little bit.“
“That means a lot. Now we could plan something to fix this relationship. By the way, how could you talk to her hairstyle without being noticed?”
“It’s nothing. I whispered to her hair while using two noisy hair dryers near her ears.”
“So smart!”
“Speaking of, is Noriko’s promotion presumably because of your smart advice?”
“Probably. She dramatically improved the relationship with her boss.”
“If so, it is kind of unfair that her boyfriend doesn’t have such a nice adviser, isn’t it?”
“You may be right. But how can I give him some advice? Most boys don’t like visiting fortunetellers.”
At that moment, Rudy’s cell phone rang. He took the call.
“Yes, this is he. Ah, sure. What time would you like to come?”
After a short conversation, Rudy hung up and said.
“It was Nick. He is coming to my hair salon.“
“Great! He must have liked Noriko’s hairstyle and wanted to ask you.”
“I suppose. So I will pass you his information and you could give him good advice through me, right? I could either tell him casually or ask his hair to communicate with the related people’s hair in profitable ways.”
During the rest of the year, Rudy and I tried our best to improve Nick’s career situation. I loved the way Rudy worked so hard to help Nick. I was secretly excited to do something with Rudy, even though we were just temporary project partners. His passion also reminded me that I was not a bad astrologer. My color therapy worked as well. I even asked Rudy to drop a tiny citrine in Nick’s hip pocket of his pants and wallet, hoping its yellow color will help him insist his opinion at the work place. After the fall, I got a little help from the Dress language of Nick’s jackets which hung on the coat-rack of the hair salon. The good news was that Nick began displaying his talent prominently over time.
Accordingly the relationship between Noriko and Nick turned out to be fantastic and they got married right before Christmas. During their wedding in a church, Noriko looked fabulously beautiful with Rudy’s hairstyling and makeup. How happy and proud I was. After the heart-warming ceremony, Rudy came to me with a serious expression and said,” Why don’t we have our own salon? You know we are good partners.”
Soon we opened “A Hair of Fortune”, a hair salon with color therapy and astrology. Getting an appointment at this hip salon is nearly impossible. People don’t want to miss our holistic consulting, which has proven that it brings a bunch of fortune. The tip is that I could whisper to the customers’ clothes even when they are worn, covered up by the dryers’ sound in here.
Now spring has come. Between the Summer and Me should be a wedding dress of a June bride, for the wedding of Rudy and me hopefully. Yet I still have no idea about Rudy’s feelings toward me.