Chapter 71: The Perfect Hairstyle and the Regretful Miss
The door opened wider, revealing the living room scene to everyone's eyes.
Monica stood in the center of the room with her back to the doorway, shoulders heaving with emotion. When she spun around, Bruce felt his eyelid twitch involuntarily.
Monica's once-carefully styled, shoulder-length brown hair now looked... catastrophic.
One side had been cropped so short it nearly touched her scalp, jagged as if attacked by a weed-whacker. The other side still clung to a longer length, equally messy and chaotic.
The "finishing touch" was at the crown: a tuft snipped so short it stood straight up like a ridiculous rooster comb.
Her entire head was a living embodiment of "hairstyle disaster," overflowing with post-modern chaos and... absolute horror.
Her face was flushed red, eyes blazing with fury as she glared at Phoebe, chest heaving—clearly beyond furious.
"Phoebe!" Monica's voice shook with rage, her finger jabbing toward Phoebe, the tip trembling. "Look! Just look at this! How am I supposed to go out in public? How am I supposed to live?!"
Phoebe shrank back, the scissors in her hand now seeming like incriminating evidence. She tried to defend herself, her voice quavering. "I—I thought you wanted... that... that Dudley Moore haircut from 10! It's... it's supposed to be cool!"
"That was Dudley Moore! I said Demi Moore! Demi Moore! Ghost! Indecent Proposal! Long! Elegant! Feminine!" Monica was nearly hysterical, her hands clutching at her ruined hair. "Oh my God! I look like I stuck my finger in an electrical socket!"
Right in the middle of the chaos, when the tension in the air could practically catch fire, Susanna—who had been standing quietly beside Joey—suddenly stepped forward.
She stared at Monica's disaster of a haircut, her brows knitting together in professional assessment. She pointed at the hair and rattled off a rapid string of crisp German:
"Mein Gott! Das ist... eine Katastrophe! Diese Linien... total verzogen! Und dieser Strubbel oben... wie ein verirrter Igel! Das geht gar nicht! So unprofessionell!"
The air froze instantly.
Monica and Phoebe broke off mid-argument, identical blank expressions on their faces.
Their gazes snapped toward the doorway and the unfamiliar blonde girl speaking what sounded like an alien language, as though she'd dropped from the sky.
"Uh..." Phoebe opened her mouth, looking between Susanna, Joey, and Bruce, her eyes full of question marks. "What... did she just say? Something about a cat?"
Monica, momentarily forgetting her hair catastrophe, eyed Susanna warily. "Who is she?"
Joey finally snapped into action, hurrying forward to introduce her like an enthusiastic but clumsy interpreter. "Oh! Right! This is Susanna!" Then, pointing at Monica and Phoebe, he used the simplest English combined with exaggerated gestures. "Susanna, this is Monica, this is Phoebe. Friends! My friends!"
Susanna's gaze swept politely across their faces. "Hallo!" Though she probably hadn't understood Joey's exact words, she gathered that Phoebe and Monica were Joey's friends, just like Bruce.
But she was clearly more concerned with the hair emergency that needed immediate attention. She pointed again at Monica's hair, this time speaking slower, trying to use simpler words while miming combing and trimming motions:
"Hair... bad. Very... bad." She frowned with a stern expression, then tapped her chest, straightening with professional confidence. "Ich... Film! Makeup! Haare!"
She made scissoring motions in the air, then a "make pretty" gesture, looking hopefully at Monica. "Gut machen?"
Joey caught on first. "Ha! I get it! Monica, Susanna's a movie stylist! Makeup! Hair! She knows this stuff inside and out! She can totally save your haircut! She wants to fix it—right, Susanna?" He looked to her for confirmation.
Susanna hadn't followed every word, but she caught "hair," "save," and Joey's excited expression. She nodded vigorously, beaming with relief. "Ja! Ja! Gut! Schön!"
Perhaps out of sheer desperation, Monica's anger and despair flipped to hope in a heartbeat.
"Really?" She gingerly touched her wrecked hair, her eyes shining hopefully at Susanna. "You can actually fix this disaster?"
Susanna didn't catch the full sentence, but she understood the hopeful eyes and the gesture toward the ruined hair. She offered a reassuring, confident smile, nodded firmly, then gestured toward the living room chair with a "please sit" motion, her eyes promising Leave it to me.
Almost tearfully grateful, Monica allowed Susanna to guide her back to the chair where Phoebe had butchered her hair.
Susanna took the scissors from Phoebe's trembling hands, rummaged through Phoebe's styling kit, and produced a professional comb, clips, and a spray bottle.
She first ran the comb carefully through Monica's tangled mess, her fingers working to create neat sections, then she lifted the scissors with practiced precision.
Snip. Snip.
Soft strands drifted down to the floor. The living room fell silent except for the crisp sound of steel meeting steel. Susanna's eyes never left the lock of hair in her grip, narrowing to gauge angles, occasionally stepping back to check the overall silhouette.
While everyone watched Susanna work to rescue Monica's hairstyle from total disaster, the apartment door swung open again.
Ross bounced in cheerfully, an Asian-American woman with gentle eyes at his side.
"Hey, everyone! Look who I—" Ross's voice died abruptly as he took in the scene before him.
His gaze swept over the unfamiliar blonde wielding professional scissors on Monica's head, then moved to Bruce and Joey watching from near the door, Phoebe looking relieved she wasn't the one being yelled at anymore, and finally settled on his sister's half-rebuilt hair. His expression became priceless.
"Joey, you're back!" Ross's delight lasted exactly one second before bigger curiosity took over. "Who's this? Did Monica hire a professional stylist?"
Joey had already surged forward for a shoulder-bump bro-hug. "Hey, Ross! Missed you, man!" He released him, but before introducing Susanna, his eyes were drawn to the woman beside Ross. "And this is...?"
Ross flashed a sheepish, goofy grin, his arm curling naturally around her shoulders. "Everyone, this is Julie! Julie, you've met most of the gang already. This is Joey, just back from Germany." He gestured toward the busy Susanna. "And that's... uh..." He looked questioningly at Joey.
Joey supplied helpfully, "Susanna. My girlfriend from Germany."
Ross laughed. "Looks like we both came home with unexpected travel companions!"
Joey asked, "So Julie, where are you from originally?"
"New York, born and raised," Julie smiled warmly. "Ross and I met at a paleontology conference in Montreal—I'm a paleontologist too, same field as Ross."
While the room continued to watch Susanna work her magic on the haircut, Joey leaned close to Bruce and whispered urgently, "Dude, I was gone for what, five weeks? Ross was completely crazy in love with Rachel—totally lovesick—and now suddenly, boom, new girlfriend?"
Bruce watched the cozy couple, recalled Rachel racing from the birthday party to the airport, and sighed quietly. Life's favorite plot twist: terrible timing.
He turned back to Joey and lowered his voice further.
"You missed the epic disaster—at Rachel's birthday party, Chandler accidentally blabbed that Ross has feelings for her."
Joey's eyes went wide as saucers.
"Rachel totally freaked out, ran straight to the airport to catch Ross before his Montreal flight—but she missed him."
"And when Ross flew back from Montreal," Bruce nodded subtly toward him, "Rachel raced to the airport to meet him..."
"And?" Joey asked, already dreading the punchline.
"And Ross walked off the plane with Julie on his arm."
"Oh man..." Joey shook his head, genuinely heartbroken for them. "They keep missing each other by inches. The universe is seriously cruel."
Just then, a bright, satisfied voice rang out from across the living room.
"Fertig!"
Every head snapped around immediately.
Susanna set the scissors down with finality, unclipped the styling cape, and handed Monica a hand mirror, looking as proud as an artist unveiling a masterpiece.
Monica sucked in a deep breath like she was facing a firing squad, then slowly, carefully raised the mirror to her face.
A second later, a squeal—half sob, half pure delight—filled the entire apartment.
"Oh... my... GOD!"
The disaster was completely gone. In its place was a sharp, expertly layered pixie cut, neat and tapered at the sides with slightly more length and texture on top, full of movement and style.
Susanna had transformed Phoebe's accidental ultra-short sections into a clean, modern taper, maintained soft volume on top with strategic texturing, and shaped the fringe to perfectly flatter Monica's face structure.
The cut added playful energy and sophistication, softened every angle, and screamed contemporary chic.
Monica's cheekbones and eyes were suddenly more prominent. She looked absolutely radiant—confident and stylish.
"It's perfect! It's absolutely perfect! Susanna, thank you so much!" Monica threw her arms around Susanna in a grateful hug, babbling her thanks.
Across the room, Joey was still processing everything. Watching Ross laugh companionably with Julie, he muttered quietly to Bruce, "I still don't get it—he just... moved on from Rachel? Just like that?"
He scratched his head, looking utterly mystified by the whole situation.
[Power Stone Goal: 500 = +1 Chapter]
[Review Goal: 10 = +1 Chapter]
If you liked it, feel free to leave a review.
20+chapters ahead on P1treon Soulforger