Liza Lewis looks like a Barbie doll, undoubtedly due to intentional injections. Her dyed blonde hair and always made up face makes her look so put together. She has that kinda face that scrunches up like she smelt something unpleasant, even her smile was tainted by it and she never failed to have an enormous maroon purse as her unnecessary companion. My boss told me that Liza is in real estate and that she has a paid off Manhattan apartment and a mansion here in Pawleys Island.

“Liza is the kind of client who will show up twenty minutes late for a one-hour facial, take an hour-long shower and then apply all of her make up just to ruin all that goodness she just paid for.” Ariel always saw through a client, and she was always right. My boss is the kind of woman who can get your life story out of you without saying two words herself. Thick black hair with a pale complexion and over forty, she’s an oddity to the barbies that walk in and out of her spa.

Liza rarely got any services, she normally brought her thinner replica of a daughter to get a Brazilian wax. The daughter is fifteen and a Brazilian is all the hair, but I hold back my cringing judgment. Upon entering the double doors of our aging building she’s met by Ariel at the wooden reception desk. The wood floors and beige walls create a light aura in the room, which Liza never failed to ignore as she showed up fifteen minutes late like always, with no apology.

Walking past the endless shelves of all-natural products, through the doorway to an open hall, they wait. The two large green and blue chairs nearly swallow them whole as Sarah checks her watch for the fourth time and the esthetician approaches to take Sarah’s daughter to get waxed.

It started with asking Ariel for a pen that was never returned. Then, packs of tea conveniently located in the hall with those two monstrous chairs went missing. Then, the extra roll of toilet paper in the bathroom, which couldn’t even be considered a tissue due to Ariel’s necessity of getting the thinnest and cheapest rolls to keep the building’s old pipes from clogging.

We began to prepare for her, stashing the tea and extra toilet paper- even the air freshener in the bathroom. All that was left was testers of our orange blossom lotion and soap which you could get up front. This was how I met Liza, hiding tea and pens, I watched her from my spot next to Ariel.

A Brazilian wax normally takes about forty-five minutes, and after a good twenty minutes in the bathroom, Ariel and I knew it was time to worry. I had run to the cubicle of a laundry room to switch out loads while Liza and her daughter left. Ariel refused to let anyone check the bathroom but herself.

“Lindsey, you’re not gonna believe this.” Her face twitched with disdainful disgust.

“Did she take the lotion?!” I was mad at myself for forgetting to remove it.

“There is lotion all over the damn toilet, and inside it, too!” Ariel insisted she would clean it, that I should never have to deal with this, but I peeked in first. The toilet was coated with a lemon colored crème, smeared beneath and inside the white porcelain toilet bowl. I couldn’t contain my laughter.

“Ariel- why would she do that?” I said between laughs, Ariel responded with a frustrated shake of her dark locks as she closed the door to clean up the scene. Liza didn’t come back for a while after that, we thought we were in the clear. Foolishly, as it always happens when you ask about someone you haven’t seen for a while, I asked about Liza.

“Why would you even say her name!?” Ariel knew she’d be getting a visit soon, and less than a week later Liza called to make herself an appointment for a facial. We were in full-fledged panic mode. Products in the room are easily worth over a thousand dollars, and we didn’t have people place their belongings in a locker and change into a robe unless they were getting a masage.

Ariel and I had to plot a plan. We took giant clear containers and stored all of the products the esthetician wouldn’t need under the massage table the client would lay on, the large white sheets perfectly covered both sides, so it was impossible to see the bins of products unless you looked. I had come up with an idea to get that hefty purse away from Liza.

“So what if I take her to the locker room and have her keep her things in a locker? She’s never had a facial here, so she wouldn’t suspect anything?” Ariel loved the idea and the esthetician could get her as soon as she came out because her room was right across from the locker room.

We were ready, we had our game faces on (fakely unagitated smiles), and I was ready to do my part. We scheduled her fifteen minutes past the time we told her, so when she showed up in a rush, she was actually right on time.

I led her through the hall and another set of double doors that led to the more private rooms of the spa. I made a quick left, going down a short hall, lined with a greenleafed rug that held two facial rooms on the right and on my left, my destination, the women’s locker room. Liza saw the esthetician in her room, and sauntered in to say hi. A good five minutes of menial small talk as I watched her place her maroon companion on a chair in the room. I couldn’t hide my disappointment as she followed me into the locker room without her thieving purse in tow.

After the facial, she showered in the locker room for an hour, and as I went to make sure she didn’t pass out or something, I heard her using the hair dryer.

“She had to have taken something.” Ariel said when I told her none of the products were missing.

“I can’t find anything.” Disheartened, I left to collect the laundry in the locker room. One robe…two robes…only robes?

I ran up front, stood in front of Ariel’s desk, and in the most dramatic way possible, flung the robes to the floor.

“Ariel! There’s no towel!!”

Ariel’s face contorted as she pieced together Liza’s goodbye.

“As she was leaving she pointed out this towel in her bag, she said she took it from the office across the street and was going there now to return it. I just thought it was weird.”

“She must have thought you saw it and felt the need to explain herself.” It felt like I had pieced the puzzle together as Ariel and I stood in disbelief.

Liza never returned that towel.