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Portraits Rebecca Teagarden

Myung Jung | Has many heads on her shoulders

Myung Jung snaps a stocking onto a bald head and fits the young woman with a long, brunette wig. The woman sits in one of two hairdresser's chairs at the back of Jung's shop, Fair Hair Wig Shop in downtown Seattle.

"Can I color it?"

"Oh, yes. It's real hair."

"Too dark."

"Her hair's coming back blonde anyway," her husband says, sitting in the other hairdresser's chair. "It's the chemotherapy."

Out comes a long, blonde wig.

A hundred or so mannequin heads wearing all manner of hairstyle in all the colors of the rainbow stare blindly all around them. Their fake eyelashes never blink.

Jung fits the hair onto the woman's head.

"Maybe you like this?" is all she says. Her hand rests on the woman's shoulder. She asks no other questions.

Jung teases the bangs a little bit.

"I just want my hair back."

"She can have that cut and styled?" her husband asks.

"Yes."

The woman nods slightly. This will do.

Jung gives the new hair a quick trim.

"We've been all over the place trying to find a shop that has real hair," the husband says.

"How do you feel?"

"Better.

"Will this make my hair grow back quicker, too?" This is a serious question. The woman is eager, slightly hopeful.

They rise. He goes to pay. Real-human-hair wig, $300. She looks in the mirror a minute more. Not happy. Not sad. She stands and puts on the stocking cap she wore into the shop.

In bald. Out blonde.

Passing her on the street, you would not know.

She says to nobody on her way out, "Now I look like a girl again."

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