Andre was sweet and extremely sympathetic about her anxiety. He loved, loved makeovers. With a heavy accent, he told them he was from the Czech Republic. They would have a consult first to make sure she got exactly the cut she wanted. Her hands shook as she handed him the photo of a beautiful model with a short pixie. It was definitely not as radical and edgy as some other photos she found. She decided she could not cut her hair and go extreme all in one day. Choppy, spiky and short was edgy enough. She wished she were as beautiful as the model.
Andre explained he could achieve this look with a chisel. It looked like a box cutter, the latest haircutting tool from a stylist in Australia he informed her. He was going to cut the hair all over her head to two centimeters. “Oh my God, how many inches is that?”
“Roughly an inch, but with the chisel it’s choppy and has a lot of texture. It’s standard peexie length.” She couldn’t help giggling over his accent. It must have been nerves because what he said sounded more scary than funny. “Does it have to be that short?”
“To look like this, yes.” He pointed to the picture she gave him and the way the model had it styled all spiky and mussed up. “Hers is definitely two centimeters.”
“That doesn’t look like less than an inch.”
“The top is a little longer. Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t worry about it? Easy for you to say.”
“I am going to be dropping the chisel at a forty five degree angle,” he swung his arm with his elbow, “working my way all around the head. It gives a soft, spiky, uneven look. You will look nice with this cut. It suits your face.”
“Katie, can you open the wine?”
“Sure, and don’t forget I have those Captain Morgan nips in my pocketbook.” Katie reached in her bag, rummaging around for the rum.
“Oh, right. Can I have one now?” She cleared her throat.
Katie handed her the nip bottle and she swigged it down in one gulp. “So, is her hair going to really look like this? I know sometimes you bring a photo but your hair is a different texture and it just doesn’t end up looking the way you wanted it too.” She was so glad Katie was there. Katie got her haircut every six weeks and had numerous styles over the years. For her it was like buying a new pair of shoes or a dress. Right now it was cut in a short bob. Nick would like it.
Andre was running his hands through her hair, lifting it up and letting it fall down her back. “Her hair is perfect for this. It should look just like peeksure.”
She laughed again. “Am I going to be able to style this myself?”
“Definitely, it is, how you say, low maintain? I’ll show you what to do.”
“Okay, let’s do this.” They headed over to the chair. Her knees were wobbling, her heart pounding. She thought she might faint. Andre snapped the black cape he was holding as if he were a toreador at a bullfight and wrapped it around her neck. He lifted her long hair out of the cape. “Okay, first because you are donating locks to love, we’re going to make a pony tail and cut off ten American inches, which is requirement.” He got some coated elastics out of a drawer, pulled her hair into a pony tail with one elastic at the top and two further down to hold the hair in place. With a ruler, he measured the ponytail. “Little over ten inches. Perfect.” He grabbed some very large scissors and made a clip, clip motion with them, smiling devilishly. “Are you ready?”
She squeaked out a yes and closed her eyes. She felt her stomach muscles contract causing her knees to bounce up. Katie got up and held her hand. Andre was sawing through her thick hair and it seemed to take forever. She felt loose pieces of hair fall towards her face, brushing her chin. When it was over, her head felt lighter. Her eyes shut, she squeezed back the tears. Katie placed another nip bottle in her hand. Unscrewing the top with her eyes closed she swigged the rum, then looked in the mirror. Her eyes popped when she saw a girl in the mirror with a choppy chin length bob. “Oh my God.”
Andre handed her the ten-inch ponytail and gave her a plastic bag to put it in. “Some little girl with cancer is going to get a very nice wig. You have beautiful hair.” Her eyes welled up but she did a good job keeping back the tears. “You can change your mind and stick with the bob. I can just clean it up.”
“No. I got this far. Let’s do it.” It reminded her too much of the violin concert haircut.
He brought her to the sink, washed her jagged bob and put a towel loosely over her head. Back in the chair, he vigorously rubbed her scalp with the towel. “This cut requires little to no combing, just fluffing.”
She gulped, sipping some wine while trying to think about something nice, like sex in the bathtub the next time she was in Newburyport. But instead, she started to think about how itchy her throat was. Katie was worried she might be getting a nervous rash so she wet a towel and wiped the front of her neck while trying to calm her down. “Breathe. Just breathe.”
For the rest of the haircut, Andre never used the scissors. He sectioned her hair then just kept slicing with his new fangled chisel, eyeballing the length to two centimeters (she had to get a guy who used the metric system), working around her entire head. When he got to the top and front, he asked her to bend forward a little. He kept parting her hair, chiseling, then parting it again. The haircut took fourteen minutes. She wanted to reach to the nape of her neck and touch it, but she was petrified.
When he was done, he slipped his fingers through her hair, checking her entire scalp to make sure the length was the same throughout. It appeared he did a good job because he didn’t cut anymore. Thank God, she thought. He pulled little pieces in front of her ears and fussed with them. She saw a pile of hair in her lap and wondered how could there be so much after she already lost ten inches? She shook the cape, knocking the hair to the floor so she didn’t have to look at it anymore. Her hair was shorter than it had ever been, even after those horrible haircuts her mother made her get. It was very messy and spiky.
She looked over at Katie and said, “What the hell did I just do? Spitefulness is a terrible thing. If I ever make myself the heroine of one of my novels I guess I will have to deal with this character flaw. Oh God, everyone told me this was rash and stupidly impulsive.”
Katie was smiling at her. “You look really awesome. I love it.” She was whimpering, so Katie jumped up and hugged her. “I wish you knew how really pretty you look.”
“I’m scared he’s going to hate this. Talk about cut your hair to spite your face, and he told me that, you know. He pretty much said the same thing as you, that it was a crazy, quixotic idea.”
“Nick? Don’t we want him to hate it?”
“It’s Olivia I’m mad at, not Nick. Well yeah, him too for wanting to change me into someone I’m not, but I meant...” She sobbed and shook her head no. “Oh, right. Don’t worry about him. From what you’ve told me, he loves you very much. So, when do I get to meet this guy? I know you told me.”
“Why are you so forgetful, Katie? Monday night after the wedding. He’s picking me up at the bus station and we’re coming back to the apartment.” She pulled a two-centimeter piece straight up on top of her head. “If he wants to come back with me. Look at this. I am having serious flashbacks, but my mother never made me get my hair cut this short.”
“You still have money on that Lord & Taylor card, right?”
“Yeah. Two hundred dollars.”
“Okay, we are getting you the sexiest backless dress we can find for the rehearsal dinner. You are going to look so hot and awesome. Stilettos too. Clothes for the whole weekend.”
“I love you, Katie. I could never have done this without you.”
Andre got the blow dryer. “Just watch how easy this is, anyone can do this. If you choose to air dry it sometimes, just run your hands through it every once in awhile.” He turned the dryer on and started massaging her head with his other hand, working his fingers through her hair, sometimes squeezing the hair and rubbing with his fingertips, scratching her entire scalp. Then he took the palm of his hand and rub
bed it all over her head as if rubbing a cat’s belly. The whole process felt really, really good. When he was done, he fussed with the bangs, pulling a few short pieces down over her forehead, getting them to lay exactly the way he wanted. Her hair was spiky but soft looking and little curls in the back peeked out from behind her ears.
She left the salon, slightly tipsy and very light headed. It was styled exactly like the photo. She actually liked it, but she was sure she’d never get it to look like that again.
BETTER TO LIGHT A CANDLE
THAN CURSE THE DARKNESS
-Old Chinese Proverb
Sophie woke up in bed alone, light streaming through the lace curtains. They lost power so she had no idea what time it was. Breathing a sigh of relief that the storm was over, she could see her breath as she exhaled. She got out of bed, put on her bathrobe and slippers and went downstairs to look for Ray. He was in the sitting room, sleeping on the sofa by the wood stove. “Hey, Ray, how long have you been down here?”
“I don’t know, probably four, the power’s out. I wanted to keep the stoves going. It’s really cold out and without heat, the pipes will freeze. I’ve got some bad news.”
“Do I want to hear it? As you always say, do we have to start every day like this?”
“I went out to get more wood and checked the driveway. That loud noise we heard while making love? A tree landed on the cab of my truck.”
“Your new truck? How bad is it?’
“Just the back cab, looks like nothing else is damaged. Insurance will replace it.”
Sophie started to cry. “Yeah, but we have a deductible.”
“I don’t need a cab on the bed. I’ll just get it removed. It’s more a pain in the ass with the ladders.”
She walked over to Ray, sat down next to him on the couch and put her head on his shoulder. He put his arm around her. “I can’t take it anymore. Do you think somewhere on a sunny island in the Caribbean, people wake up to sunshine and happiness every day?”
“Not when there’s a hurricane.”
Sophie's laughter sounded like crying. “Okay, so weather can’t be controlled. But what if most days you had a job you actually enjoyed, and your bills weren’t more than you make. Most days were sunny and warm. Admit it, weather affects your mood.”
“Well, we know it affects your mood. But it has been a bad year, hasn’t it?”
“It seems like just a year to you? We’ve been here twenty-five years, Ray and it’s just been one thing after another. The neighbors said the house was haunted and I think they were right.”
“Well, let’s just get through this storm, then we’ll see. I mean, I agree, I need a change too. The boys are finally off on their own and I’m tired of this old house, too.”
“I called the weather hot line at work and electricity is out there too, so they’re closed for the day. That’s good news.”
“Snow day, all right. See, things are looking up. We’ll be okay.”
Sophie put her arms around Ray and said, “It was good when we were first married, wasn’t it, Ray? In the beginning?”
“It's still good, Sophie. We just hit a rough patch.”
She kissed him. “My eternal optimist.”
Later that evening, Ray and Sophie sat by the wood stove playing Scrabble and eating sandwiches. “This is fun, as if time stopped for a while, but I sure hope the power comes back tomorrow. I imagine this will get old quickly, especially with the well and no water.” She looked over to the sink at a pile of dirty dishes.
“So, you’re definitely going to Lynn’s tonight?”
“Well, I have work tomorrow. I checked and their power is back on. Lynn has a generator and I need a shower. You should come. It’ll be warmer.”
“It’s fine here. I have to keep the fires going, we can’t have the pipes freezing.”
Driving through the dark streets of town where most of the power was still out and very few cars were on the road, she used her high beams the entire drive to Lynn's house, even while driving through the center of town, which had an eerie, deserted feeling about it. She imagined she was the sole survivor of a nuclear disaster, seeking companionship in a new landscape.
* * *
Forty five minutes south of her house things weren’t quite so bad, everything pretty much back to normal. The workday passed uneventfully, the only highlight an interesting conversation with Dan. Somehow the subject of doing something other than accounting came up. “My friends and I are writing a screenplay,” he said.
“Dan, get out of here. I’m writing a screenplay. That is so weird.”
“Yeah, really. Where are you at with it?”
“I’m half way through, but I haven’t had much time lately. I do have a beginning, middle and end. I just have to find the time to get it down on paper. How about you?”
“We’re halfway through. One of my friends does most of the writing and we meet on Tuesday nights to read it out loud and critique it.”
“That’s a really good idea.”
“We know a guy in L.A. we can show it to when it’s ready.”
“This is so strange. We sit in cubicles next to each other, working in accounting, and we’re both writing screenplays. What does that tell you? I think it tells you cubicles lead to madness or creativity.”
He laughed loudly, “Or both. Hey, if I get mine sold first, you can send me yours and I’ll give it to this guy.” They were still laughing when Tina returned from a meeting. They quickly went back to their desks and got to work.
* * *
Unable to reach Ray all day, she assumed his phone died, and without electricity he wouldn’t be able to charge it. She pulled into the driveway and cringed when she saw his truck with the crushed back cab. Ray was loading the wood stove, a stockpot sitting on top of it. “Hmm, smells good in here.”
“I’ve got beef stew cooking on the stove. I figured I would use up the stuff in the fridge before it goes bad.”
“Really? Wow.” She laughed. “That’s,” she paused, thinking of the dream she had the other night, “a good idea.” She hugged Ray and gave him a long kiss.
“Power’s still out. Are you going back to Lynn’s? You should stay for dinner. I’ll open a bottle of wine. A romantic candlelight dinner, you and me?”
“Okay. I’ll just go upstairs and get a few things for tomorrow. I’ll be right back.” Grabbing a flashlight from the table, she walked through the dark house, following the beam of light up the stairs. In the bedroom, she hunted around in the dark closet, pulled open some drawers and packed a few things in a suitcase. Back downstairs, Ray placed a few candles on a footstool in front of the fire, set out two bowls of stew and two glasses of wine and sat on the rug. “It’s warmer here by the stove.”
“Very romantic.” She sat next to him on the rug and smiled shyly. He was loading a small wooden pipe. He lit it, took a toke and passed it to Sophie.
“Careful. Go easy.” Sophie took a big hit, held it too long and started coughing. “I told you to go easy.”
“I wasn’t getting anything.” She laughed while still coughing then took a sip of wine. They ate quietly for a while, both lost in their own thoughts.
“Do you remember the first present you ever gave me, Ray?”
“Of course I do, it was a Christmas tree.”
“Right. You pulled up to my apartment in your old VW bug with a Christmas tree tied to the roof. The tree looked bigger than the car.”
“You always knew when I was coming, the muffler was so loud. Despite all the noise in the city, you knew the sound of my car.”
“I looked out the window and saw the tree and ran out on the sidewalk. It was starting to snow. We decorated it with a box of tinsel and Mardi Gras beads. We made a popcorn garland, too. Did we have anything else?”
“I don’t remember. Didn’t we use a sparkly mitten for the star on top? I do remember you later got poison ivy. I cut the tree down myself in the woods near my house and there must have been poison ivy in
the tree.”
“That’s right, I forgot that part of the story. Was that an omen?” She laughed.
“Whatta ya mean?”
“I don’t know. We'd have to take the good with the bad? For better or worse? Like the fairy tale, watch out for the troll under the bridge.” Sophie smiled at Ray and touched his cheek.
Ray shrugged. “It hasn’t been all bad.”
“No, it hasn’t.” She ran her hand through his hair and gazed into his eyes. “Remember Valentine's Day? You came into my office with a dozen red roses. You got off the elevator and that crazy lady I worked with, Leslie I think her name was, said Look, it’s the Human Valentine. You used to be so romantic, Ray. Where is that guy? Where’d that girl go for that matter? I don’t think she was so cranky and pessimistic way back when.”
Ray shook his head. “They got married and bought a really old house that needed tons of work and lots of money. They never had money but they had energy, at first anyway. Then they had kids who became teenagers, who needed to go to college and they had to work more and more just to make ends meet. They got older, and now they not only don’t have money, they don’t have energy. But they do still take vacations, they have their health, they have their friends and they have each other.”
“Gosh, we used to have so much fun. We met dancing in a bar, Ray. Remember all the concerts we went to? The two month cross-country trip? We hiked the Grand Canyon. You won money in Vegas. When the boys were young, we had weekends on the Cape and the year you worked in Nantucket. We like to have fun. Whatever made us think we could settle down in a three hundred year old house that constantly needed work?”
“I admit the upkeep was more than I ever expected. It never ends, there’s always something.”
Sophie sighed. “I always said I was happiest in hotel rooms and other people’s vacation homes.” She laughed at herself. “I love those little bottles of shampoo and hand lotion. But I thought we could make this work, living a middle class life in a funky old house. Fix it up, have dinner parties with friends. And we do that, but the work never ends and there is never, ever enough money.”
The Reverse Commute Page 21
