Bad Haircut (10 page)

“Keep this for as long as you want,” he said.

On Saturday morning my mother gave me a twenty-dollar bill and sent me to the Head Shed to see if Mario couldn't make me “look like a human being again.” Mario got angry when I told him what happened.

“Beauty Culture,” he said, shaking his head.

“Just because they have scissors doesn't mean they know how to cut hair.”

“She was my friend,” I said.

“Big deal,” he said. “I got lots of friends. But when I had to get my appendix out, I went to see a doctor,
capice?”

There was a party that night at Valerie Mc-Donough's house. Valerie was the Harding Hawk mascot; she wore a bird suit and danced around the sidelines at football games. She also sold pot. Through these activities, she knew a wide variety of people.

It was a pretty good party—her parents were in Florida—but I wasn't in a very sociable mood. It happened to be Valentine's Day, a stupid holiday, and a miserable one if you're alone and have a bad haircut. On Friday, the
Harding Herald
had put out a spécial issue in which people wrote messages proclaiming their love or secret admiration. I read the whole thing, but my name wasn't mentioned.

I stood in a doorway near the keg and watched the girls dancing in the living room. Most of them looked thoughtful and repeated a few simple movements over and over, while others whirled across the floor, all flying hair and arms. For about the tenth time, someone came up behind me and yanked off my hat. Now that I was a little drunk, it didn't bother me so much. I didn't even turn
around. A hand moved slowly through the stubble on the back of my head. Somehow, I knew it was Laura before I heard her voice.

“It doesn't look so bad,” she said. “Who fixed it?”

“Some guy at the Head Shed.”

“Are you mad at me?”

“No.”

“Good.” She slipped the hat back on my head and smoothed it over my ears. “I need to talk to you.”

“Okay.”

“I have my father's car. You want to take a ride?”

“Yeah. Just let me get my coat.”

She followed me upstairs to the master bedroom. The coats were scattered on the bed, a tangled heap of them several layers high. Mine was the only blue suede coat in the bunch.

“Okay,” I said. “Let's go.”

She shook her head and pushed the door shut with her foot. She stepped forward and put her arms around my neck.

“Do you like me?”

I nodded.

“Do you really like me?”

I nodded again.

“I want you,” she whispered.

It struck me as a corny thing to say, totally unlike her, and I almost laughed. But before I
could, she put her tongue in my ear. My whole body shivered.

“Me too,” I said, and we kissed, mashing our mouths so hard our teeth clacked together.

When we opened the door, Valerie was standing patiently in the hall with an armful of coats. She seemed surprised to see us but didn't say anything as she slipped past us into the bedroom.

Laura's father's car was a big old Impala with ice-cold seats and a bad muffler. We kissed some more while the engine warmed up, then cruised down North Avenue into Cranwood, past the strip of fast food places glowing bright and empty in the night. We drove past a theater just as the movie was letting out. Young couples streamed out of the door as if on a conveyor belt and scattered on the sidewalk.

“I'm sorry about your hair,” she said. “I still think you're cute.”

“Where are we going?”

“I'm not sure. You wanna go to my house?”

“I don't know. Do you?”

She bit her bottom lip and nodded.

“Okay,” I said.

We turned off Orange Avenue into a section of Springdale known as the spaghetti streets. It felt like we were moving through a maze.

“Where's Keith?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Who cares?”

“Don't you?”

She shook her head. “Not anymore. We broke up tonight. He tried to give me a ring, but I wouldn't take it.”

We pulled to a stop. Laura lived in a small house that was mostly hidden from the street by a big evergreen in the front yard.

“You'll have to be quiet,” she said, fitting the key in the front door lock. “My dad sleeps on the couch.”

“Your parents are home?”

“My dad is.”

“Where's your mom?”

“Ohio, last I heard.”

The door opened right onto the living room. Laura's father was sleeping on his back, breathing unevenly through his open mouth. One arm dangled off the couch. He stirred and mumbled something in his sleep. There was gunfire on TV, but I couldn't tell what show it was.

We tiptoed upstairs. Her room was small, the walls almost completely papered over with posters and photographs of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. She lit a candle on the nightstand and turned off the light. The door locked from inside.

“Is this all right?” I asked. “What about your father?”

“Don't worry,” she said. “He's out for the night. If he hears anything, he'll just think you're Keith.”

We lay down on the bed and started rolling
around. After a while I started touching her through her clothes, but it only made her laugh.

“Look,” she said. “Wouldn't this be easier if we got undressed?”

“Okay.”

“You first,” she said.

She sat on the edge of the bed and watched me strip.

“Those too,” she said.

I stepped out of my underwear and was instantly embarrassed by my erection. There was something absurd about the way it called attention to itself, like an exclamation point or a funny hat.

“You're beautiful,” she said, and I felt goose-bumps rising on my arms and legs.

She pulled back the covers on the bed and I climbed in. The sheets were cold. She pulled her sweater over her head and reached back to unhook her bra. Her breasts were small, her skin ghostly pale in the candlelight.

“Here I am,” she said, spinning slowly, like a model, wearing only socks.

I had spent so much time fantasizing about naked women that I expected the sight of one in real life to be a momentous event. But there was something strangely ordinary about the sight of Laura's body, her skinny arms and narrow hips, the tight, boyish curves of her butt.

“I knew this was going to happen,” she told me. “Ever since the day we smoked that joint.”

“Me too,” I lied.

“It's mystical, Buddy. It was meant to be.”

She got into bed and we found each other, her socks warm and scratchy against my cold feet. She kissed my chest and neck, then rolled me on top of her. Shivers passed through my body in taut, pulsing waves. She took me in her hand and spread her legs.

“Help me,” she whispered, guiding me inside.

All I could do was gasp in astonishment. This is Laura, I told myself, my partner in driver's ed, but that daytime world no longer seemed possible as we slipped and writhed, locking together like parts of a single machine. Fucking. Screwing. The words popped into my mind, then dissolved instantly. Nothing had a name anymore.

A voice said, “Slower. Take it easy.”

I opened my eyes. I opened my mouth.

A voice said, “Not yet,” a second too late. My arms buckled and I collapsed on top of her, as startled as if I'd crashed through the ceiling.

“Shit,” said the voice, and this time I recognized it as Laura's.

It took all the energy I had just to separate myself from her and flop onto my back. For a time, I felt like a stranger to myself. My body wasn't a body, but a humming void, peaceful and weightless. But the moment didn't last. The usual sensations returned to my arms and legs. The loud voice started up again in my head, the endless
drone of my own thinking.

Laura had rolled onto her stomach and buried her face in the pillow. When I asked if she was okay, all she did was shrug.

“I'm sorry,” I told her. “I'll do better next time.”

“It's okay,” she said in a muffled voice. “There's nothing to worry about.”

We got dressed and tiptoed back out to the car. With our clothes on, we seemed not to recognize one another. Except for directions about where to turn, we didn't say anything the whole way home. She drove faster than usual, like she was trying to get it over with.

After we kissed good night, I paused with one leg outside of the car. I wanted to tell her something that would do justice to the things I was feeling: that I thought she was beautiful, that I missed her already, that I would spend all night staring at the ceiling in my room, trying to remember the way she looked with her shirt off. But I chickened out.

“Well,” I said. “See you in school.”

She was absent on Monday and didn't answer the phone when I tried to call in the afternoon. By the time driver's ed rolled around on Tuesday morning, I was desperate to talk to her. I needed to know where we stood, what would happen next. I got to the gym a few minutes early, hoping
we could have a few minutes alone, but Bielski was already there, doing jumping jacks by the bleachers. He was in high spirits when he finished.

“Garfunkel,” he said. “Have a good weekend?” He held an imaginary joint to his lips and took a long toke. “Smoke a little dope?”

“Not me,” I said, pulling off my hat. “I got a haircut.”

He was impressed. “Jeez, Garfunkel. You look like a mental patient.”

Laura was smiling when she entered the gym.

“You're late, Daly.”

Bielski tossed the car keys to her, but she made no effort to catch them. She kept her hands in her coat pockets and watched them land at her feet on the hardwood floor.

“Elizabeth today,” Bielski said. “Wolfgang's Sporting Goods on Broad Street. I need to pick something up for the indoor meet.”

Laura and I lagged behind as we walked through the parking lot.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “Why?”

“You're not mad at me?”

She shook her head. “I'm not mad at anyone.”

It was her turn to drive. She was quiet behind the wheel, and I wondered if Bielski noticed a difference in the car, if he sensed that things had changed.

“Guess what?” Laura said. We were stopped at a red light in Darwin.

“What?” Bielski and I blurted out, almost in unison.

“Do you guys notice anything different about me?”

She waited a few beats for an answer that didn't come.

“My hand,” she said.

She twisted in the driver's seat and held up her left hand so Bielski and I could see the ring sparkling on her finger.

“It's a diamond,” she said. “Keith and I are getting married this summer.”

“I thought you two broke up.” I was amazed at how normal my voice managed to sound, as though I were simply curious.

“We made up,” she said. “We had a really long talk.”

“Are you quitting school?” Bielski asked.

The light changed. “Not really. I'll get an equivalency degree at night. We've got it all figured out.”

“How are you going to support yourselves?”

“Keith's a mechanic,” she said. “I'm a hairstylist.”

Bielski shook his head. “You're too smart for that. You should go to college.”

“What for?”

“What for?” Bielski said. “To get an education.
Broaden your horizons.”

“Oh yeah,” Laura said. “And if I do really well, maybe I can be a gym teacher. Maybe they'll even let me teach driver's ed.”

“You just better think about what you're doing,” Bielski said. “Marriage isn't a date for the prom. If you make a mistake you'll have to live with it.”

Laura's face turned red; her bottom lip trembled. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand and glared at Bielski.

“And I was so happy,” she said.

“Oh Christ,” he said. “Garfunkel, why don't you take over.”

I drove the rest of the way to Elizabeth. Traffic was heavy, but for the first time, I felt like I was part of it, like I had a rightful place on the road. I maintained a steady speed and changed lanes without hesitation. Bielski didn't seem to notice; he was busy examining a pink piece of paper he'd taken from his pocket, a receipt of some sort. I heard Laura sniffling in the back seat.

Bielski got out of the car at Wolfgang's and slammed the door. I watched through the plate glass window as he entered the store and shook hands with a stocky, gray-haired man wearing a suit and tie. The man disappeared down an aisle, and Bielski walked past a row of bicycles to a punching bag. He hit it twice, barely making a dent.

“You could at least look at me,” Laura said.

“Why?”

“All right,” she said. “Don't look at me. I don't care.”

I was searching for something suitably nasty to say when Bielski came out of the store with his new discus. He was gripping it with one hand, like he just might send it flying into the middle of Broad Street. He looked pathetic; like he'd gotten lost on his way to the Olympics.

“Just so you know,” Laura told me. “I'm three months pregnant.”

That Thursday, Bielski let me drive on the highway. Laura cut class, so he was my only passenger. We took Central Avenue into Clark and followed the curving ramp onto Parkway South. It was a boring stretch of road, no scenery except bare trees, squat office buildings, and the pale gray sky.

On my way to homeroom that morning, I had turned a corner and seen Laura and Keith up against a locker, kissing and laughing. They hadn't even noticed me as I walked by. Only now, at sixty miles an hour, could I even think about it without wanting to punch a window. With my hands on the wheel, I felt better and stronger, no more alone than anyone else.

Memories of my time with Laura flashed by like billboards. Our faces in the mirror, looking scared. Her body in the candlelight. Her father
mumbling in his sleep.
I want you.
When I remembered her saying that, I laughed out loud.

“What's so funny?” Bielski asked.

“Nothing.”

“It's quiet without Daly,” he said a moment later.

“I know,” I said. “I miss her.”

He nodded. “She reminds me of a girl I knew when I was your age. Arlene Müller. I still think about her sometimes.”

I kept my eyes on the road and waited for him to finish the story. It took me a minute to understand that it was already finished.