Cackle(69)

Sophie begins humming. I’m sure she’s got a gorgeous voice, but I’ve never heard her sing before.

“Do you sing?” I ask her.

“Not with witnesses,” she says. “Do you?”

“No, but I play the guitar. Or I used to. I haven’t in a while.”

“Why not?”

I shrug.

“Hold still,” she says.

“Sorry.”

“That’s all right.”

“I learned to impress boys,” I say.

“Darling,” she says, “you’re in desperate need of new motivation.”

“This was back in high school. Sixteen years ago. But yeah, you’re right.”

My motivation hasn’t changed much since. When Sam and I first met, he mentioned that David Foster Wallace was his favorite author, and an hour later I was in my dorm room reading Infinite Jest. I would have never read a book that long in college on top of all of my coursework had it not been for a boy. I thought it was whatever, but naturally I didn’t tell Sam that. I told him I thought it was brilliant.

And a few years ago, when Sam decided he wanted to take up running and train for a marathon, I was awake at four a.m. right there with him, even in the winter, ready to go in head-to-toe Nike. At the time, it seemed like I was merely adopting a good habit, a healthier lifestyle, but in retrospect it was clearly all for him. To spend more time with him. To support him.

“I want you to play for me,” Sophie says.

“Guitar? Oh, I haven’t played in forever. It’d be terrible.”

“I don’t care.”

“You’ll care. Besides, my guitar is shitty. And I don’t have strings or anything. I’d have to get all new strings, tune it. All that.”

“Too much trouble to go to for your dear friend Sophie?” she asks.

“I mean, if you really want me to, I will. You’re the one with the scissors. Whatever you want.”

“My favorite phrase. Look, pet. Look how beautiful you are.”

She reaches around and lifts my chin. My hair grazes the tops of my shoulders. I swivel my head, shake it back and forth, back and forth. I feel so much lighter. How heavy were my dead ends?

I never realized how much bullshit is bound to the bottom of your hair. How it carries with it the years and experiences, all it has witnessed, has endured. The reason you can’t let go of your past is that it’s still attached. That weight on your shoulders, the strain on your back and neck. It’s your dead ends.

Cut your hair! I’m going to scream it from the rooftops and while running down the street, all across America. Cut your hair!

“I love it. Sophie! I love it.”

“Here,” she says. She takes one of the many crystal bottles from the vanity and pours a drop of yellowish liquid into her palm, then rubs her hands together. She moves her hands through my hair, giving it some texture, some shine.

“You’re the best,” I tell her. “You’re everything.”

“Please,” she says, blushing.

When I get home the next day and show Ralph, he holds his face like Macaulay Culkin did in Home Alone.

“You like it?” I ask him.

He nods. He’s wearing a new hat Sophie made for him. It’s green and pointy and has a teeny pom-pom at the tip. He looks very, very cute.

“You’re such a good boy,” I tell him, tickling his chin. I sit on the couch and he climbs onto my lap. I pet his back with my index finger. I like the way his fuzz feels.

“I’m happy,” I say to him or maybe to myself. Then I say it again because it’s true and because I like the way it sounds.





VALENTINE’S

“There’s something different,” Oskar says, his eyes catching on mine. It’s early the next morning, and he’s rolling up the sleeves of his flannel while the espresso machine whirs behind him.

“My hair,” I say. “I cut it.”

He doesn’t say anything to this, just grunts and begins to steam milk.

“A compliment is common courtesy,” I say, delighted by my own audacity.

“Do you care what I think?” he asks, wiping a hand on his shoulder rag.

“No, not really.”

He grunts again. “Latte?”

“With honey.”

He taps the cup on the counter and pours the milk. Concentration wrinkles appear on his forehead.

“The cut looks good,” he says, still focused on the latte. “But it’s not the hair. It’s something else.”

“Oh,” I say.

He puts a lid on the cup and slides it toward me.

I hand him cash and wait for him to meet my eye again, but he doesn’t. A customer comes in behind me.

“Morning, Ed,” Oskar says. “Usual?”

I walk out to my car, considering the possibility that Oskar was flirting with me. Stranger things have happened.

I sink into the front seat and remove the lid from my latte to sip at the foam.

There’s a perfect heart. He made a heart with the milk.

He was flirting with me!

I’m smug in this belief until I get to school, where there are hearts all over the fucking place. Pink and red streamers. Paper roses. Everywhere.

Valentine’s Day is Friday.