Lyuba stood at the mirror, brushing a client’s hair. Edik was supposed to come at six. With rings.
Finally.
“All right, Maria Ivanovna,” she smiled, taking the cape off the elderly woman. “Goodbye.”
The client left, and the salon emptied out. Lyuba stayed alone with the mirrors reflecting her from every angle. Half past six. Seven. Quarter past seven.
At last the door creaked. Edik came in slowly. His face looked like he’d been forced to eat something disgusting.
“Lyuba,” he began, not daring to come any closer.
She kept cleaning her station. Scissors into the case, combs into the disinfectant. Familiar, automatic movements.
“Lyuba, listen,” his voice broke. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Thinking?” She turned. “And what did you come up with?”
He swallowed, stared at the floor, then looked her straight in the eyes.
“I’m sorry. But my mother said—there won’t be a wedding with a loser.”
A loser—that word hung in the air like a sentence. Edik stood there waiting—for her to cry, to beg, to argue, to prove something.
But Lyuba just nodded.
“Got it,” she said quietly. “Your mom’s against it.”
“Lyuba, it’s not like that.”
“It’s exactly like that, Edik. Mom knows best. She’s the head of the clinic, and who am I? A hairdresser. Cutting people’s hair for pennies.”
He tried to say something, but she raised a hand.
“Go on. Don’t upset your mother.”
Edik stood in the doorway a moment longer, then left without a word.
Lyuba sat down in the styling chair—the very one Edik had sat in a month earlier, the first time she’d cut his hair. She closed her eyes.
A loser.
And you know what? Maybe she really was a loser. Her whole life—one mistake after another. Trade school instead of college. A little hair salon.
And the men she’d met before Edik weren’t much. But Edik—Edik had seemed different. He talked beautifully, a scholar, glasses, all that. And his mother was the head of a clinic.
He had seemed special.
Lyuba opened her eyes and looked at herself in the mirror. An ordinary girl. Not a beauty, not ugly. Average. A middling hairdresser in a middling salon.
The next day Lyuba woke up at half past six. Got up, shower, coffee. An ordinary morning.
Only her head felt… strange.
As if something important had been pulled out of it yesterday, and the hole never got sealed.
“Lyuba,” her coworker Irinka called when she came in, “how are you? After yesterday?”
“Fine,” Lyuba answered honestly. “And how am I supposed to be?”
Irinka looked at her with sympathy and didn’t ask anything else.
The workday stretched like rubber. The clients were the usual—women over forty who wanted to look twenty. Lyuba cut, dyed, styled. Mechanically. Her hands remembered what to do.
But her mind kept thinking.
“Lyubochka, have you ever thought about taking advanced training courses?” one client asked while Lyuba touched up her roots. “My friend told me there are ones that teach new coloring techniques. They say it’s expensive, but it pays for itself.”
“How much are we talking?” Lyuba asked automatically.
“Forty thousand, probably. Maybe more.”
Forty thousand. Where was she supposed to get that?
That evening she sat at home with a calculator for a long time. She added up what she earned, what she spent, what she saved. It wasn’t much.
Then she opened her laptop and started looking at courses. There were a lot. And they really were expensive. But the people who finished them… Lyuba stared at photos of graduates’ work and understood: this was a whole different level.
Maybe she should actually try.
A week later, for the first time in her life, she went to a bank for a loan. She sat in the office of a loan manager—a woman about twenty-five in a strict suit—and felt like a complete idiot.
“Purpose of the loan?”
“Education.”
“Understood. And what education do you have now?”
“Trade school. Hairdressing.”
The woman nodded and wrote something down. Probably noted: typical loser trying to claw her way up.
They approved the loan. With insane interest—but they approved it.
Lyuba enrolled in the courses. For three months, every weekend, she traveled to the regional center. She studied color theory, mastered complex dyeing techniques, learned trendy cuts.
The instructor—a man around forty with a fashionable haircut and impeccable taste—looked at her work and nodded.
“You have good hands. And you have a feel for color. You just need more practice.”
Practice. Lyuba came back to her salon and tried to apply what she’d learned. But the clients were conservative. They were used to simple cuts and familiar shades.
“What are these fancy transitions?” her regular client Galina Semyonovna grumbled. “I just need my roots covered.”
Lyuba sighed and covered the roots. Like always.
Still, she started posting photos of her work on social media—the rare occasions when clients agreed to experiments. She didn’t have many followers, but the likes kept increasing.
And then something unexpected happened.
During her lunch break, a stranger walked into the salon. Pretty, stylishly dressed.
“Are you Lyuba?” she asked. “I saw your work online. I have an important meeting tomorrow, and my stylist got sick. Can you do something interesting?”
Lyuba glanced around. The owner had stepped out somewhere. Her coworkers were busy too.
“Of course,” Lyuba said. “What exactly do you want?”
“I don’t know. Something that suits me. And looks stylish.”
For two hours Lyuba worked like she was possessed. She did complex coloring—transitions from dark to light, created volume and texture. Then a cut—not just “take off the length,” but real hair architecture.
The result exceeded expectations. The girl stared at herself in the mirror and couldn’t believe her eyes.
“Is that… me? Oh my God. How much do I owe you?”
Lyuba named the salon’s usual price.
“You’re kidding,” the girl said, opening her wallet. “For work like this in Moscow they’d charge me five thousand. Here—take four, and that’s still cheap.”
Four thousand! Lyuba almost choked.
“And can I recommend you to my friends? I have a social media group—we share contacts for good мастers.”
A week later Lyuba had new clients. Girls from the regional center who came specifically to her. They paid well and asked for exactly what she’d trained for.
And a month later the salon owner called her in for a talk.
“Listen, Lyubasha,” she said irritably, “what do you think you’re doing? Clients are complaining you’re offering them some weird stuff. And those city girls of yours ruin the atmosphere. They want one thing, then another.”
“But they pay well.”
“I don’t care. This is a family salon for locals. Don’t come in here showing how smart you are.”
That evening Lyuba thought for a long time. She sat at home with a notebook and calculated. The new clients brought in more money than her regular work at the salon. And if there were more of them?
And what if…
The idea was crazy. But it lodged in her head and wouldn’t let go.
What if she opened her own salon?
And now ten years had passed since the day Edik called her a loser.
Lyuba stood in her new salon and looked at the sign through the glass: “Lyuba E. Salon”—gold letters on a deep navy background. Elegant. High-status.
Who would’ve thought?
In those years everything happened. A loan at insane interest, advanced courses, the first clients from the regional center. Then leaving the old salon and renting a tiny space in the basement of a shopping center. Sleepless nights counting every ruble and thinking, what if it doesn’t work?
But it worked.
First the basement started bringing in more money than her old job. Then she got regulars who came specifically to her. Then—second hall. Third. Staff.
And that morning the city newspaper ran an article about an “successful businesswoman who built a chain of beauty salons from nothing.” A full-page photo. An interview where Lyuba said the most important thing was not being afraid to take risks.
Only the irony was—
She was reviewing the portfolio of a new stylist when the door creaked softly. Lyuba raised her eyes and…
Oh God.
In the mirror she saw him before he saw her. Edik stood at the entrance, looking around, confused. Older. Different glasses now—expensive ones. A good suit. But something in him had deflated, like the air had been let out.
“Can I get a haircut?” he asked uncertainly.
Lyuba turned slowly. Their eyes met, and for a second time stopped.
“Eduard Petrovich?” she said calmly, with a light smile. “How would you like it cut?”
He recognized her. You could tell by his eyes—recognized her and got completely thrown. He looked at her, the interior, the certificates on the wall, the framed photo: “Director of the Salon Chain.”
“Lyuba,” he breathed. “Is it really you?”
“And who were you expecting to meet?” she asked.
He walked into the salon like a sleepwalker. Sat in the chair. Lyuba draped the cape over him and switched on the hairdryer for background noise.
“Same as usual?” she asked professionally.
“I… however it turns out,” he muttered. “Lyuba, I didn’t know you…”
“Didn’t know I what?” She started combing his hair. “That I have a salon like this? Or that I’m not just a hairdresser anymore?”
“I thought…”
“I know what you thought,” she said. “You thought I stayed a loser.”
He flinched.
Lyuba worked in silence. Cut carefully, professionally. Like with any client. Only her fingers trembled slightly—only he could see it.
“How’s your mother?” she asked, not looking up from her work.
“She’s retired. The clinic got shut down—reorganization.”
“I see. And your wife? Kids?”
A pause. Too long.
“I didn’t get married, Lyuba.”
So that’s how it was.
“And why not?” She stopped and met his eyes in the mirror. “Too many losers?”
He blushed—just like ten years ago, when he’d been ashamed.
“Lyuba, forgive me. Please. I was an idiot.”
“You were,” she agreed. “So what now?”
“I realized I made a mistake. The biggest mistake of my life.”
Lyuba went on cutting. Silent. Every snip was precise, measured—like she wasn’t cutting hair, but cutting the past off piece by piece.
“You know, Eduard Petrovich,” she said at last, “I’m actually grateful to you.”
“For what?”
“For what you said back then. About me being a loser. If it weren’t for that, I’d have worked my whole life in that salon. For pennies.”
He stared at her in the mirror and said nothing.
“And now I have three salons. Twenty employees. An apartment downtown. A car.” She put the scissors away and brushed the hair off the cape.
Edik got out of the chair, standing there, not knowing what to say.
“How much do I owe you?” he asked quietly.
“Three thousand.”
He reached for his wallet and pulled out the money. His hands were shaking.
“Lyuba… maybe we could meet sometime? Talk?”
She looked at him for a long time. A very long time.
“Why?” she asked simply.
He lingered at the door a moment longer, then left quietly.
Lyuba watched him go through the glass door and smiled. For the first time in ten years—she smiled genuinely, thinking of him.
For a week after meeting Edik, Lyuba felt strange. Not sad, not happy—just light. As if someone had taken a heavy backpack off her shoulders, one she’d been carrying for ten years without even noticing the weight.
She worked as usual, took clients. But sometimes she caught herself smiling for no reason.
“Lyubov Yevgenyevna, are you okay?” the administrator Nastya asked.
“I’m great,” Lyuba said—and realized she was telling the truth.
The following weekend Lyuba went to see her parents. They lived in the same district where she used to rent a place and work in that hair salon. Driving past the old salon, she slowed down without meaning to.
The sign was peeling, and rental notices hung in the windows. It was closed. It hadn’t survived the competition.
“Sweetheart,” her mother was setting the table when Lyuba arrived, “do you remember that guy who used to court you? Edik, was it?”
“I remember. Why?”
“I ran into his mother at the market. She’s complaining—her son never married, she’ll never see any grandkids. She keeps asking how you’re doing.”
“And what did you tell her?”
Her mother smiled slyly.
“What could I tell her? I said: my daughter built a chain of salons, a successful businesswoman. Newspapers write articles about her. She’s not married yet—she’s choosing her suitors.”
Lyuba laughed. Her mother always knew how to put people in their place—delicately, but precisely.
“And what did she say?”
“She went pale and hurried off. I guess it finally sank in what a daughter-in-law she let slip away.”
It’s good to have a mother like that
