Teen Idols And Happy Meals

Frappes And Hair Dye

 Jacen's POV

"And we're done," announced the bubbly hair stylist, "What do you think?" 

I stared blankly at my reflection for a moment, already knowing what my answer would be. "I hate it," I said plainly, meaning it to.

"Oh, well I could part it differently," she offered, beginning to mess around with my hair some more. Her fingers, with their long artificial nails, raked through my scalp like little daggers.

"I could care less about that," I muttered, swatting her hand away, "It's the color I hate."

"Oh, well I can't do anything about that," she said airily, absently fluffing my hair. Her smile, were it was reflected in the mirror, was bland and carefree."The director wants it this color." 

"Yeah I get that," I grumbled, glaring at the boy in the mirror. He didn’t look real.  "But what I don't get is why we had to dye it. Couldn't I have just worn a wig?"

"Wigs look fake," she told me philosophically, smoothing out my bangs so that they dipped in my eyes. I blew them away irately."Authentic is the way to go."

"You do realize that hair dye is fake, right?”

"I like it," said Pat from off to the side, where he was lounging in a leather armchair with his sweatpant clad legs dangling off the side while he flipped through the pages of a glossy magazine. In his free hand, he held a glowing cigarette.

"Yeah, well no one cares what you like," I snapped, picking up a piece of my bangs so I could examine it more closely. The color made me want to retch. It was offensively blonde, practically platinum. I scrunched up my face in disgust. I looked like eurotrash.

"The readers of People magazine do," he disagreed, flashing the cover of said magazine at me. A picture of him was plastered all over it, the caption reading "Blockbuster in the Making: Patrick Kent tells all about what it's like on set of what's predicted to be the movie of the year."

I snorted. "They only interviewed you because I was busy at a photoshoot for Vanity Fair." To be fair, they had tried to work around my schedule, but I’d ended up blowing off the makeup date.

Pat just rolled his eyes. "Yeah, yeah, yeah, we all know you’re the most famous person alive. Girls pass out when they see you, paparazzi regularly trample themselves to death just to take your picture, and talk show hosts have a better chance of booking Jesus. Blah, blah, blah. No need to rub it in.”

"Why would I?” I answered plainly. "You basically just did it for me.”

"Haven't you ever heard that modesty is an attractive quality?" he asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Don’t you think I have enough attractive qualities,” I responded, eyeing him meaningfully, “Any more and people like you will be out of  a job.”

Pat, used to my rudeness, just laughed as he carelessly flipped through the magazine. I didn’t understand why he read that garbage. At best, tabloids were just a bunch of lies occasionally broken up by a stalkerish photo of one of us buying smokes. "You'll catch more flies with honey." 

"Why would anyone want to catch flies?” I muttered irately.

"Alright Jacen," my hair stylist interrupted, finally ending her assault on my hair. I felt like her fingernails had just made rough love to my head. "You're all done. You can head on over to wardrobe now. And Patrick, you can come take a seat over here. I just need to mousse your hair a little bit."

I didn’t say anything, rose to my feet, cracking my stiff neck. I spared my reflection a last glance, brushing platinum hair out of my eyes. I’d been blonde before, but never to this extent. I kept waiting for my IQ to drop but nothing happened.