Story: New Look

He started telling people weeks in advance what he was going to do. To those whom he’d known the longest, he mentioned it with the least affect, knowing, somehow, that they would be the least interested. “Really?” they would say with a false note of enthusiasm. And sensing that he was still waiting: “Why?”

The girls at work were his favorite. “What? Your hair? No way, you can’t!”

He smiled.

“Guys with long hair,” Marissa, the girl in the station adjoining his said, “They’re just… rare, you know?” She seemed to falter here, and he loved her for that. “It works on you,” she said in summation.

It had been two years since his last haircut. He’d started growing it during a period when he and his girlfriend, Nora, were split up, and when they started seeing each other again eleven months later, the mane he wore seemed to symbolize all the ways he had changed during their time apart. The ways he had matured and the habits he’d grown out of. Nora loved his new look—everyone did—and silly or not, somehow it managed to promise them a new beginning, one absent the flaws that had originally driven them apart. It occurred to him only some time later that during the entire time they’d been apart, he had not been with a single other person.

Three more of his coworkers stopped by after lunch to see if the rumor was true. Two tried to talk him out of it, and one just grasped his locks with a forlorn expression on her face before continuing on her path toward the coffee pot, which he could see had been refilled.

“I’m ready for a change,” he explained to the group gathered at the beverage station.

“You’ll keep the length though, right?” asked Shelly. “I mean, you won’t cut it all off.”

He shook his head. “The way I see it, if I’m going to have long hair, I’ll have long hair. If not—” He made a snipping motion with his fore and index fingers. Theresa, the office coordinator, stared unbelievingly at him for a moment before lifting her hand dismissively and walking away.

At 5:24 pm he drove home with the windows down. Sounds from the street filled his car; the decompression of a bus’s breaks, the static beat of a portable radio on the corner. In the morning time, these were things he struggled to overcome. Every sight and sound somehow seemed to conspire against his one wish, which was to get to work so that he could perform his job and be done with it. In the evening it was different. The hurriedness of the city did not feel like part of a sickness, but something for him to sink back in to. He could feel himself relax the more things outside seemed to whir, disseminated by the variety of forces acting upon his senses. The buzz of commerce, pulse of traffic, the homeward trek of all the other nine-to-fivers out there somewhere in the process of “winding down”.

Nora was waiting when he got home. She arrived home from work an hour before he did, though she left an hour earlier in the morning. She was finishing her first glass of wine when he entered.

“What are you smiling about?” she asked.

“Nothing,” he said, and continued to grin. He took off his jacket and laid his handbag (which she referred to as his “murse”) on one of the bar chairs. Under a pot of water he could see that the stove was lit, and on the counter a board of chopped parsley rested beside a box of pasta.

“What is it?” she persisted. He could tell by her demeanor that his silence was making her excited. In truth, he had only told the girls at work to get their reaction. He hadn’t actually been decided until just this moment.

“I’m going to cut my hair.”

“Off?”

“Off.”

He watched her eyes lift and scan the terrain above his forehead, along his shoulders. She would not know it, but it was for her that he was doing this. In the months they had been back together he had begun harboring an illicit sense of vanity, fueled, at least in part, by the attentions of the girls at work. They petted him and made comments, seemed only to be encouraged by his modest appeals. The flirtation had culminated at the company Christmas party while Nora was chatting with his manager, Theresa, and Joanne, his office crush, followed him into the bathroom, claiming to have gotten the girls’ and the guys’ mixed up. Nothing happened. At least, nothing substantial. But it was enough to make him reconsider the kind of relationship he wished to cultivate with the women at work—and with women in general, who were not Nora. The haircut was his solution.

“Are you sure?” she said, still scanning his features, and his expression dropped. “Not that I don’t think you’d still be beautiful,” she said, moving closer. She was holding him now. “It’s just, I don’t remember how you looked without it, is all.”

“I was attractive before I had long hair,” he assured her.

“Oh baby, I know. I remember.” She buried her face in his neck.

“And there have been others who can vouch for it.” This statement caused her to stop, and he waited to see what she would do. She pulled back and looked at him, a slight smirk on her face, which faded as she assessed whether or not to believe him. He wondered if she did believe him. She let go.

“Well, it’s your goddamn head,” she said, evidently not in the mood to humor him. “Do whatever you want to with it.” She moved toward the kitchen and he bowed, defeated, before offering to help with dinner.

***

It was important to him that she believe things about his sexual history that, in fact, were not true. She’d been his first, and barring a few adolescent occasions upon which he’d made it to second, and even third base, there really had been no others. He did not believe in the mysticism associated with one’s first, especially since the novelty was on his end alone. Nora had been with other guys, he knew, and that fact created some issues for him.

There was a part of her that always seemed withheld, mysterious; one which, oddly enough, gave her leverage on a range of issues from sexual positions to grocery supplies. Initially he’d responded with fear. He was jealous, needy, and in general, required a great deal more assurance as a lover than she felt able to offer. But that was before their separation, his maturation, and the confidence he’d gained with his new look.

He began to view the girls around him, particularly those who seemed interested, as a kind of dowry forgone. Deep down he believed somehow that Nora owed him a sexual experience with someone other than herself, for edification, for balance, and if nothing else, so that he might know how unique she was. He didn’t expect to find anything better, per se—the difficulties they experienced together sexually, he understood to be givens—but there was something incomplete, he thought, about an experience that could not be judged relatively.

Despite what sense of entitlement he felt though, he knew that it would never happen, and had decided it was for the best. He loved Nora, and was lucky to have her. He had been given a second chance after things appeared to have been over between them, and that kind of luck could not be measured against something as trite and abstract as sexual curiosity.

The following day at work, the processions of mourners continued to pay their respects. At one point, his coworker, Matthew, leaned over the boarded partition which separated their work stations. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” he said. “I always thought it made you look like kind of a pussy.” Matthew had tried growing his hair out the previous summer, but had given up by mid-July. He was easy to forgive.
On her way to lunch Joanne too stopped by to see him, and he felt instantly uneasy. She stood behind his chair rubbing his shoulders and lamenting his decision, insinuating the impact it would have on her daytime fantasies. He did not react, but accepted her behavior for what it was: dated. His mind was made up. What difference did it make now, how close they came to a line that would never be crossed? In 24 hours it wouldn’t matter; would be like a dream one forgets upon waking.

He spent his own lunch at his computer, surfing images of Edward Norton, Collin Ferrell, and Leonardo Dicaprio. Since most employees left the office during break, he did not feel bad using the printer for personal business. He printed five pages, each with three images on it, and stuffed them into a copy of GQ he’d stolen from the lobby. When it was time to leave for the day, he rose holding the mass of inspiration haplessly under his arm, hoping that his coworkers would notice and make one last attempt to dissuade him. But they did not. A rumor had begun circulating that their office was switching campaigns, from cable to office supplies, and the threat of having to learn yet another product line all but trumped his own concerns.
He sighed, and left the building feeling as though a light had gone out. Take a deep breath, he told himself. You’re not a child anymore.

***

When he came into the apartment he could hear Nora in the kitchen around the corner. She heard him too, and began to speak: “Baby, I’m really sorry.” He stepped into the room and saw that she was stooping before the refrigerator, placing something into one of the produce drawers. He wondered if she noticed that he was later than usual, then saw the empty bottle of wine looming on the counter like an hourglass. She was slow standing.

He imagined she wanted to talk about the other night, how she should have been more supportive. He would tell her that it was Ok, that it didn’t matter anymore because he had finally sanctified himself to their relationship. He now wore proudly the skull-cap of male responsibility and was ready to “grow up”, as she’d so often encouraged.

She turned, and her hand moved toward the sink faucet before she lifted her eyes. They were uncomprehending at first. Both of them felt suspended. In that moment everything seemed suddenly new: their apartment, him, her. Objects looked familiar, but absent of association. A near-lifetime of connections unmade in an instant. Anything was possible. They spent some moments in that freshness and he forgot all about what he’d hoped to accomplish. Forgot his intention, and did not know any longer what he expected of her. Finally though, the rapture lifted, his expression dropped, and he watched with horror while, softly, she began to cry.