“So you do care what people think.”
“No.”
“You care that they know you don’t care what they think.”
“All right, maybe a little.”
After a minute, she said, “Maybe I cut my hair for the same reason you don’t cut yours.”
“Maybe.”
Silence except for the blades.
He said, “I heard a story once about a woman who really turned into a man.”
“What do you mean really turned into a man?”
“She was Kootenai. An old guy in Shacktown told me. He said a hundred years ago there’d been a woman who married a white man in one of the traders’ parties but acted too wild and got sent away. She went back to her people and told them the white men had turned her into a man. After that she was a man.”
“You can’t just be a man.”
“She even took a wife. She gave herself different names, too. The only one I remember is Sitting-in-the-Water-Grizzly.”
“Then what?”
“She told people she was a prophet. She rubbed everyone the wrong way, and eventually someone killed her and cut out her heart.” He set down the scissors, said, “You’re not going to win no beauty pageant, but it’s better than it was.”
She ran a hand over the back of her head. It felt smoother than before. “There’s no mirror in here.”
“Don’t you trust me?”
“I’d trust a mirror more.” She stood and tried to look at her reflection in the window. All she could make out was a small head, round and pale. “But anything would be better than it was.”
Suddenly agitated, he scooped up the newspaper and crunched it into a ball that he tossed into the stove. “Don’t you want to know what I charge for haircuts?”
Nervousness down low in her. It had been a couple of years since they played any of his games, but he’d taken on that needling jumpiness he used to get before he proposed one. Games of captivity, games where the rules involved taking off clothes, touching. “Don’t you ever just do a friend a favor?”
“Sure,” he said. “Sometimes. I’ve done you lots of favors.”
An acrid smell emanated from the stove.
“Caleb!” she said. “Why did you throw that in there with all the hair in it? It stinks.”
“Listen, the price is a kiss.”
Kissing was never a part of any of their games. She laughed, more shocked than if he’d suggested she strip naked.
“It’s not that I’m sweet on you,” he said. “I want to practice for when I have a real girl.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“You’re welcome. Pay up.” When she made no move, he gave an exaggerated sigh and came to her, looking into her face, sardonic and unafraid. It seemed impossible they would press their mouths together, but then they did. Or he pressed his to hers, hard. She sealed her lips tight together, pulled away. He smirked. “Next time you want a haircut, you’ll have to kiss better than that.”
“Next time I want a haircut, I’ll go to a barber.”
“Someone’s got to teach you how to kiss.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Don’t be chicken.”
“I’m not.”
“Sure you are. You’re shaking. I can see it.”
She willed herself to stop. “Maybe I just don’t want to kiss you.”
The smirk came back. “That’s not it.”
After he’d gone, she sat stroking her head. A pressure built between her legs. She put her fist there. Sparks like dandelion fluff. Was she chicken? She wasn’t sure if she’d felt fear or only embarrassment. If she had returned Caleb’s kiss, let his tongue into her mouth, she would have been admitting she wanted to be kissed, that she wanted in general. Did she want? Pressure again. Some intuition: She was more afraid of the admitting than of the doing.
She ran her hand over her shorn head again, felt a stirring of pride mixed up with the pressure that was tightening in her like a bolt being turned into place. Her hair was a declaration, not an admission. All things should be declarations, not admissions. She pressed forward onto her fist as though riding a horse uphill, swayed on it. Soon she couldn’t get enough leverage and moved to sit astride the arm of the chair, thought of the beastly man with his face between Gilda’s legs, devouring, of Felix Brayfogle holding her shins, of Caleb’s mouth, urged herself on until she was emptied of all thoughts.
An Incomplete History of Sitting-in-the-Water-Grizzly