When Everything Is Blue(19)

I sit down on the chair, and he brings out a silky black cape, drapes it around my shoulders, and fastens it under my chin with a hair clip. “Should have seen my setup back home,” Dave says. “I had the mirror and the swivel chair. Lights. My tunes set up in the garage.”

It sounds like he had a good thing going. It helps to have a skill you can make money from. Maybe because we’ve never had much, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to make money and hang on to it. Chris is the complete opposite. It slips through his fingers like water, to the point where I’m, like, Dude, do you really need that?

“I’ll come by and mow your lawn for you sometime this week,” I tell Dave.

He glances around as though just noticing he has a yard, and nods.

“So, do you have a couple cuts to choose from, or are you all Edward Scissorhands with it?” I ask.

He smiles. “I’m pretty avant-garde. We’re in the renaissance of men’s hair. Sky’s the limit.”

I laugh. Dave says some weird shit, kind of like me. Except he doesn’t seem to second-guess everything he says. Just rolls with it.

“But this being your first time, I’ll narrow down the playing field. You want the Ronaldo, the Neymar, or the Lamela?”

“Why are you only naming Latin dudes?” I’m still not convinced he’s not a racist.

“Ronaldo is Portuguese. And they’re all hot men with great hair, though I can do a pretty good Beckham too.”

I shake my head. “I don’t know, man. You’re the expert. Surprise me.”

He grabs my chin, and I flinch. He pulls back his hand. “Jumpy fella, aren’t you?”

I don’t know why, but I’m not used to a lot of touching. We’re not that affectionate with one another in my family. My mom’ll kiss my cheek every once in a while. My dad, when I see him, will give me a manly thump on the back to jumpstart my heart. Chris is the only person I’ve ever really been affectionate with.

“Do you mind?” he asks, holding out his hand.

“No, it’s fine.”

He places his thumb at the bottom of my chin and turns my head from side to side, sizing me up. He fastens the hair on the top of my head, uses his clippers attached to an extension cord to shave the sides, then works his scissors over the top. I listen to the insects buzzing around the yard and the steady snip, snip of the scissors. Dave asks me some questions about my family so I give him our setup, how my parents met in Puerto Rico when my dad was in dental school, then they moved here to start his own practice. I skip over the part where he cheated on my mom but tell him they got divorced and my dad’s been pretty absent ever since.

“You and your sister get along?” Dave asks.

“Mostly. We used to be closer, but then she got popular and forgot about the rest of us.”

“That happens sometimes.” Dave fists a clump of my hair and says, “You have great hair. So thick and shiny. You take supplements?”

I laugh. What a weird question. “No.”

“Lucky. I’m giving you the early years Lamela, back when he played for Roma. A little treat for myself.”

I grin because he’s such a strange bird. “You play soccer?”

“No, but I’m a soccer enthusiast, if you know what I mean,” he says, eyebrows wagging.

I definitely do, though I never looked twice at the guys on my soccer teams. I played for school last year but decided not to do it again. Too much testosterone. Some of the guys are super competitive, which takes the fun out of it. And it was pretty much my whole life my freshman year, including last summer for conditioning. It’s a lot of time to spend with a group of people you don’t really fit in with.

Dave uses a straight razor to cut my sideburns, then asks if I’ve started shaving. “Not yet,” I say, a little embarrassed because I don’t exactly know how. I mean, there are YouTube videos, I’m sure, but it’s a little intimidating your first time. I don’t want to, like, slice my lip off.

“Come inside. I’ll show you how.” He pulls off the cape with a flourish and shakes it out. He even has a little brush he uses to dust the loose hairs off my shoulders. “Mind if I take a picture?”

I shrug, and he pulls out his phone, snaps off a picture before I even realize he’s done it.

“Damn, you’re a good-looking kid. I’m saving that one for later.” He winks and gives me a lecherous grin. My neck heats up because I’m not used to the attention to my looks or having dudes tell me I’m hot. Not that I mind. It’s just… different.

I follow Dave inside to the bathroom, where he flicks on the light. I check myself out in the vanity mirror. My hair does look pretty tight.

“You can part it this way too,” he says and combs it over the top. “I gave you a hard part, in case you want to use some product to slick it down for when you’re feeling a little more Dapper Dan.”

“Thanks, man.” I inspect it from a few different angles, wondering what Chris will have to say about it. And my skater punk friends. They tend to rip on anything that looks the slightest bit manufactured.

“You might want to take your shirt off for this,” Dave says and busies himself with switching out the razor on his blade, one of those old-school reusable ones made of metal. He lines up his instruments on the bathroom counter like a surgeon. I pull my shirt over my shoulders, and even though it’s a little weird having Dave right there in the tiny bathroom with me, it’s not so terribly uncomfortable.