Dolly All the Time(23)

“Because you’re competing on the U.S. volleyball team?” Naomi asks. “You don’t need a ponytail.”

Lee says, “You actually have the right kind of hair for it. A little product and you can tuck it behind your ears when you need to.”

I do not want a dramatically new haircut. My hair has been the same, cut twice a year and often by me, for decades. Every other change is already drastic. That celery-green dress is a drastic step out of my comfort zone. But maybe a drastic haircut will help shift me into this new role. Maybe the strange woman with the chic haircut will be perfect in yellow pants.

I look at Lee in the mirror. “Let’s do it,” I say. Busy squeals with delight.

I turn my head to accept Naomi’s hug and kiss, and Lee drags my chin back to the mirror. Giant chunks of hair fall to the floor. My heart rate ticks up a bit because I cannot turn back. There is so much of me exposed—my face, my neck. I push my shoulders back because now I can see them. It’s as if someone has come into my bedroom and ripped off my covers.

My second phone rings. “Shoot, sorry, I have to get this quick. Work.” I grab it on the second ring. “Good Sports. You’re on a recorded line. How can I help you?” Busy steps back and folds her arms to watch me. “I’m sorry to hear that. If you want to initiate a return, please go to our website and select returns. Yes, return the weights too. In the original packaging.” This goes on for a while because he doesn’t have the original packaging. They never do.

“So what’s your job?” Busy asks when I’ve been assured there is nothing more I can do to be of assistance.

“I’m a teacher, but I also answer calls for a sporting goods company.”

“How did you know that’s what you wanted to do?”

I laugh, but I shouldn’t. I understand why she’s asking, the world is full of people trying to identify their passion. When I was a kid, my passion was baking. I was going to grow up and sell cakes and cookies and every pie my grandmother thought up. I was going to be a baking tycoon. Brick Fish House and Bake Shop. The events of my actual life have left me with more of a passion for providing protein and health insurance for my kid.

“Well,” I say. “I studied to be a teacher because I like kids, and I think what happens to you when you’re little matters. That worked out great because I had a baby at twenty-six and I could be around in the summers for him. The call center is just extra money because everything is more expensive than I thought. I also drive an Uber sometimes.”

“And the fish house,” she adds.

“With my dad, yes.”

“You’ve figured out four things to do, I can’t figure out anything. I keep thinking I should go to med school and then I don’t go, and then I feel lazy about it all.”

“I hear med school is kind of a commitment,” I say with a laugh into the mirror. My wet hair is cut at an exact angle. It’s even blacker when it’s wet like this, and my eyes look bluer than usual. I look like a flapper, I think, and I like the playfulness of it. I look like I could get into some trouble while looping a long strand of pearls around my fist. Stewart Whitfield’s girlfriend would totally do that.

“If you want to know,” Naomi says. “I opened a T-shirt shop because I live in Whitfield and there aren’t that many choices.”

“That might be your problem,” I say to Busy. “You have too many choices.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, it’s like when you go to a TGI Fridays.” I narrow my eyes and read her expression. She’s never been to a TGI Fridays. “Like a restaurant with too many things on the menu. You walk in hungry but end up overwhelmed. The only thing to do in that situation is just make a decision and live with it.”

“Like just go to med school, and that’s that.”

“Do you want to be a doctor?”

“Not at all,” she says, no hesitation.

We all laugh, and Lee starts blowing my hair dry.

“Can I make you up?” Lee asks when my bob is dried to shiny perfection. I can’t quite manage the smile on my face, it embarrasses me how changed I feel by this haircut.

“Sure,” I say. I’ve come this far.

I watch as she darkens my lashes and my eyes go a shade bluer.

“Stewart’s going to go nuts,” Busy says.



* * *





“I’m not going to recover from today,” Naomi says on the drive home. “You look like a princess, and I can keep cutting your hair like that when this is over. I watched how she did it.”

I run my fingers along the straight line of my bob. I really do like it. I feel lighter. “It was very fun. And Busy is a dream.”

“I wish this was all real so I could come to your wedding.”

I laugh. “In their chapel. I’d wear this necklace, because I am in love with it.” I finger the dahlia around my neck.

“You should be,” she says.

“We’re sharing the stuff I get to keep. You can borrow it all. The lavender dress would be gorgeous on you.”

“It’d be worth driving to your place in Boston to pick it up,” she says. I smile at the thought of Naomi and me wearing these clothes for the next twenty years until they’re threadbare.