Follow Emily’s Diary and The Salon: two serialized story series filled with romance, emotion and humour, with new episodes published regularly.
Two ongoing stories, two different worlds. In Emily’s Diary, a young translator writes candidly about work, friendship and love. At The Salon, clients and unexpected situations turn everyday life upside down for Lara, Mia, Nico and Gael. New instalments arrive every week, and you can start both series from the beginning.
My bar counter is finished! I can't believe that just last week I was only dreaming about it, and now I'm writing my diary on it. An off-white matte top and four elegant bar stools with curved backs and pale gray upholstery. I'm bursting with pride. I can't stop looking at it.
It was a crisp, fragrant autumn morning at the salon. Mia was the first to arrive. She looked over the day’s appointments, then jotted down on little heart-shaped sticky notes what the others needed to know about their first client. She smoothed one onto the wall above the hook where Nico’s apron hung, and the other onto the top of Lara’s UV lamp. She loved that even small things like this let her show how much she cared.
What a morning to kick off my vacation! On Monday I got to wake up next to Ben in a glass-walled hideaway overlooking the gorgeous garden of a fabulous house. Once we'd surfaced a little, we took a nice, refreshing shower and then crawled back into bed to make sure the day got off to a proper start. Ben is still a god in bed.
"Good thing I brought a scarf with me," a sharp, high voice sliced through the quiet of the salon. Lara jumped. She hadn't heard the door open, so the guest's voice caught her off guard. Mia was in the back, pulling towels out of the dryer. The tall young woman, barely into her twenties, with thin, tattooed eyebrows, scanned the salon with a stern look. Her lips pursed, the muscles in her jaw tightening.
I still can't believe it's over. Not just the job, but this whole week. I'd hoped to finish at a decent hour on Friday. My plan was to call Ben and moan into the phone how badly I wanted him. He'd come racing over, of course, and take me in every corner of the apartment. Instead, at ten to midnight, eyes swollen from crying, I managed to send off the last batch. I was tired, furious, and so sorry for myself that I didn't want anything. Least of all to get undressed.
Mia shifted from foot to foot on the sidewalk and craned her neck, eager to be the first to greet Rosita, the salon’s elderly regular. The receptionist's fine, bleached-blonde hair kept catching in the light summer breeze drifting up from the river. In her pale blue blouse and slightly darker linen trousers, she looked like she'd been placed there on purpose, just to liven up the dull street.
Until the project wraps up, Ben and I won't see each other, only talk on the phone. A few more days, and the all-nighters, the sleep deprivation and the constant stress will be over. Of course, there had to be one last bit of drama: someone at the telecom operator had miscalculated, so for the final week I’m getting fifty percent more material than we originally agreed on.
The warm summer rain drummed softly and steadily against the salon's glass door and front window. Mia's sleepy face brightened when she saw on the monitor that their first client would be Vera. At least Vera would shake them awake.
Mark says there's no such thing as intuition. According to him, the only people who constantly get bad feelings are the ones who are already "miserable about everything anyway." From that point on, it's no longer some ominous thought tied to a specific event — it's just the usual "self-flagellating nonsense" the person's gotten hooked on. The person, meaning the woman. Men don't complicate their lives like that.
The forty-something man settled into the shampoo chair, wearing a faded football jersey and knee-length cargo pants. He wore a belt bag slung across his chest, its strap stretched tight over his protruding belly. He'd gelled his thinning hair until it shone, and on his thick wrist sat a digital watch so large that Mia could have read the time off it from the reception desk.