Setting

The events described in the short story “Appointment” by Olivia Parkes take place in the hair salon where the narrator makes a haircut appointment. The “airy environs” and the mirrors that “made it hard to see where the room ended or began” suggest that the hair salon is a modern establishment. Moira, the hairstylist, is also wearing a modern outfit, in touch with the style of the place: “She was wearing a kind of plastic sheath dress with a lacy flounce collar.” At the same time, however, she keeps handwritten notes of her appointments in an old fashioned notebook, which is in contrast with the rest of the salon.

The hair salon is presented in contrast with the narrator’s modest basement apartment, which is cold and uninviting: 

… the super had turned the heat off. When I woke up a few hours before, my breath had filled the basement apartment with cold little puffs that hung around like Christmas baubles. It was a nice effect, but spooky, and I was glad to have to bundle up and hurry out. 

The narrator’s apartment is also briefly described when the narrator thinks about waking up with her face “frozen to a crust of vomit the same shade as the luckless carpet.” This heightens the sense of hopelessness that t...