Thanks for the Memories (7 page)
“Pull over here, please.”
“What are you doing, Joyce?”
“I can’t take it anymore, Dad, I have to get my hair cut.”
Dad looks at the salon and then to the taxi driver, and they both know not to say anything. Just then, the taxi directly in front of us moves over to the side of the road too. We pull up behind it.
“Will you be long, love?”
“Ten minutes, fifteen max. Do you want to come in with me?”
Dad shakes his head vigorously, and his chin wobbles along
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with it. Keeping the taxi waiting for me is indulgent, I know, but having Dad outside the salon, distracted, is better. I watch the cab in front of us. A man gets out, and I freeze with one foot out of the car to watch him. He looks familiar, and I think I know him. He pauses and looks at me. We stare at each other for a while. Search each other’s face. He scratches at his left arm; something that holds my attention for far too long. The moment is unusual, and goose bumps rise on my skin. I decide the last thing I want is to see somebody I know, and I look away quickly.
He turns and begins to walk.
“What are you doing?” Dad asks far too loudly, and I finally get out of the car.
I start walking toward the hair salon, and it becomes clear that my destination is the same as that of the man in front of me. My walk becomes mechanical, awkward, self-conscious. Something about him makes me disjointed. Unsettled. Perhaps it’s the possibility of having to tell somebody, a stranger, that there will be no baby. Yes, a month of nonstop baby talk, and there will be no baby to show for it. Sorry, guys. I feel guilty for it, as though I’ve cheated my friends and family. The longest tease of all. A baby that will never be. My heart is twisted at the thought of it. The man holds open the door to the salon and smiles. Handsome. Fresh-faced. Tall. Broad. Athletic. Perfect. Is he glowing? Do I know him?
“Thank you,” I say.
“You’re welcome.”
We both pause, look at each other, and over to the two identical taxis waiting for us by the curb, and then back to each other. He looks me up and down.
“Nice cactus.” He smiles. I notice he has an American accent.
“What?” I ask, confused, then, following his eyeline, notice I’m still carrying the cactus that I brought from the hospital. “Oh!
t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
/ 5 7
Oh, my God, I meant to leave it in the car.” I feel my face turn pink.
“It was a gift,” I explain.
“Nice gift. I have one at home.”
I think he’s joking with me, and I wait for a laugh that never comes. We enter the salon, which is empty save for two staff members who are sitting down, chatting. They are two men; one has a mullet, the other is bleached blond. They see us and spring to attention.
“Which one do you want?” the American says out of the side of his mouth.
“The blond.” I smile.
“The mullet it is, then,” he says.
My mouth falls open, but I laugh.
“Hello there, loves.” The mullet man approaches us. “How can I help you?” He looks back and forth from the American to me.
“Who is getting their hair done today?”
“Well, both of us, I assume, right?” The American looks at me, and I nod.
“Oh, pardon me, I thought you were together.”
I realize we are so close, our hips are almost touching. We both look down and then take one step away in the opposite direction.
“You two should try synchronized swimming.” The hairdresser laughs, but the joke dies when we fail to react. “Ashley, you take the lovely lady. You come with me.” The American makes a face at me while being led away, and I laugh again. The two of us get seated at nearby stations.
“I just want two inches off, please,” I hear the American say.
“The last time I got it done, they took off like, twenty. Just two inches,” he stresses. “I’ve got a taxi waiting outside to take me to the airport, so as quick as possible too, please.”
His hairdresser laughs. “Sure, no problem. Are you going back to America?”
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The man rolls his eyes. “No, I’m not going to America, I’m not going on holiday, and I’m not going to meet anyone at arrivals. I’m just going to take a flight. Away. Out of here. You Irish ask a lot of questions.”
“Do we?”
“Y—” He stalls and narrows his eyes at the hairdresser.
“Gotcha.” The hairdresser smiles, pointing his scissors at him.
“Yes, you did.” Gritted teeth.
I chuckle aloud, and the American immediately looks at me. He seems slightly confused. Maybe we do know each other. Maybe he works with Conor. Maybe I went to school with him. College. Perhaps he’s in the property business, and I’ve worked with him. But I can’t have; he’s American. Maybe he’s famous, and I shouldn’t be staring. I become embarrassed, and I turn quickly away yet again.
My hairdresser wraps a black cape around me, and I steal another glance in the mirror at the man beside me. He looks at me. I look away, then back at him. He looks away. And our tennis match of glances is played out for the duration of our visit.
“How about I just take this from you,” my hairdresser says as he reaches for the cactus still in my hands. I hold on to it, not wanting to let go, and a minor tug-of-war is played out. He wins. “I’ll just place it here for you.” He talks to me as though I’m a patient out on a day trip. “So what will it be for you, madam?”
“All off,” I say, trying to avoid my reflection, but I feel cold hands on the sides of my hot cheeks raising my head, and I am forced to stare at myself face-to-face. There is something unnerving about being forced to look at yourself when you are unwilling to come to terms with something. Something raw and real that you can’t run away from. I see in the mirror that I am not okay. The truth of it stares me in the face. My cheeks are sunken, small black semicircles hover below my eyes, my red eyes still sting from t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
/ 5 9
my night tears. But apart from that, I still look like me. Despite this huge change in my life, I look exactly the same. Tired, but me. Yet the mirror told me this: you can’t know everything by looking at me. You can never know just by looking at someone. I’m five foot five, with medium-length hair that is midway between blond and brown. I’m a medium kind of person. I’m pretty, not stunning, not ugly; not fat, not skinny; I exercise three times a week, jog a little, walk a little, swim a little. Nothing to excess. Not obsessed, not addicted to anything. I’m neither outgoing nor shy but a little of both, depending on my mood, depending on the occasion. I like my job, but don’t love it. I’m okay. Nothing spectacular, but sometimes special. I look in the mirror and see this medium average person. A little tired, a little sad, but not falling apart. I peek at the man beside me, and I see the same.
“Excuse me?” The hairdresser breaks into my thoughts. “You want it all off ? Are you sure? You’ve such healthy hair.” He runs his fingers through it. “Is this your natural color?”
“Yes, I used to put a little color in it but I stopped because of the—” I stop as my eyes fill, and I look down to my stomach, which is hidden under the gown.
“Stopped because of what?” he asks.
I pretend to be doing something with my foot. An odd shuffle maneuver. I can’t think of anything to say, so I pretend not to hear him. “Huh?”
“You were saying you stopped because of something?”
“Oh, em . . .” Don’t cry. Don’t cry. If you start now, you will never stop. “Oh, I don’t know,” I mumble, bending over to play with my handbag on the ground. It will pass, it will pass. Someday it will all pass, Joyce. “Chemicals. I stopped because of chemicals.”
“Right. Well, this is what it’ll look like.” He takes my hair and ties it back. “How about we do a Meg Ryan in
French Kiss
?” He pulls clumps out in all directions, and I look like I’ve just woken up. “It’s
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the sexy messy bed-head look. Or else we can do this.” He messes with my hair some more.
“Can we hurry this along? I’ve got a taxi waiting outside too.”
I look out the window. Dad is chatting to the taxi driver. They’re both laughing and I relax a little.
“O . . . kay. Something like this really shouldn’t be rushed. You have a lot of hair.”
“It’s fine. I’m giving you permission to hurry. Just cut it all off.”
“Well, we must leave a few inches on it, darling.” He directs my face back toward the mirror. “We don’t want Sigourney Weaver in
Aliens
, do we? No GI Janes allowed in this salon. We’ll give you a side-swept fringe, very sophisticated, very now. It’ll suit you, I think, show off those high cheekbones. What do you think?”
I don’t care about my cheekbones. I just want it off.
“Actually, how about we just do this?” I take the scissors from his hand, cut my ponytail, and then hand them both back to him. He gasps. But it sounds more like a squeak. “Or we could do that. A . . . bob.”
American man’s mouth hangs open at the sight of my hairdresser with a large pair of scissors and five inches of hair dangling from his hand. He turns to his stylist and grabs the scissors before he makes another cut. “Do not”—he points—“do that to me!”
Mullet man sighs and rolls his eyes. “No, of course not, sir.”
The American starts scratching his left arm again. “I must have got a bite.” He tries to roll up his shirtsleeve, and I squirm in my seat, trying to get a look at his arm. I can’t help myself.
“Could you please sit still?”
“Could you please sit still?”
The hairdressers speak in perfect unison. They look to one another and laugh.
“Something funny in the air today,” one of them comments, and the American and I look at each other. Funny, indeed. t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s
/ 6 1
My hairdresser places a finger under my chin and tips my face back to the center. He hands me my ponytail.
“Souvenir.”
“I don’t want it.” I refuse to take my hair in my hands. Every inch of that hair was from a moment that has now gone. Thoughts, wishes, hopes, desires, dreams that are no longer. I want a new start. A new head of hair.
He begins to snip it into style now, and as each strand falls, I watch it drift to the ground. My head feels so much lighter. The hair that grew the day we bought the crib. Snip. The hair that grew the day we decided on the name. Snip. The hair that grew the day we announced our news to friends and family. Snip.
The day of the first scan. The day I found out I was pregnant. The day my baby was conceived. Snip. Snip. Snip. The more recent memories will remain at the root for a little while longer. I will have to wait for them to grow out until I can be rid of them too, and then all traces will be gone, and I will move on for good.
The American man joins me at the register as I’m paying.
“You forgot your cactus.” He hands it to me.
Our fingers brush, and my body zings from head to toe.
“Thank you.”
“That suits you,” he comments, studying me.
I go to tuck some hair behind my ear self-consciously, but there’s nothing there. I feel lighter, light-headed, delighted with giddiness, giddy with delight.
“So does yours.”
“Thank you.”
He opens the door for me.
“Thank you.” I step outside.
“You’re far too polite,” he tells me.
“Thank you.” I smile. “So are you.”
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“Thank you.” He nods.
We laugh. We both gaze at our waiting taxis and look back at each other curiously. He gives me a smile. I feel like I should stay in this place and not move. I feel like moving away from him is the wrong way, that everything in me is being pulled toward him.
“Do you want to take the first taxi or the second?” he asks.
“My driver won’t stop talking.”
I study both taxis and see Dad in the second, leaning forward and talking to the driver.
“I’ll take the first. My dad won’t stop talking either.”
He studies the second taxi, where Dad has now pushed his face up against the window, staring at me as though I’m an apparition.
“The second taxi it is, then,” the American says and walks to his taxi, glancing back twice.
“Hey,” I protest and watch him get in his car, entranced. I go to my own taxi, and we both pull our doors closed at the same time. The taxi driver and Dad look at me like they’ve seen a ghost.
“What?” My heart beats wildly. “What happened?”
“Your hair,” Dad simply says, his face aghast. “You’re like a boy.”
s t h e t a
x i g e
t
s c l
o s e r to my home in Phisboro, my
A stomach knots tighter.
“That was funny how the man in front kept his taxi waiting too, Gracie, wasn’t it?”
“Joyce. And yes,” I reply, my leg bouncing with nerves.
“Is that what people do now when they get their hairs cut?”
“Do what, Dad?”
“Leave taxis waiting outside for them.”
“I don’t know.”
He shuffles his bum to the edge of the seat and pulls himself closer to the taxi driver. “I say, Jack, is that what people do when they go to the barbers now?”
“What’s that?”
“Do they leave their taxis outside waiting for them?”
“I’ve never been asked to do it before,” the driver explains politely. Dad sits back, satisfied. “That’s what I thought, Gracie.”
“It’s Joyce,” I snap.
6 4 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
“It’s a coincidence. And you know what they say about coincidences?”
“Yep.” We turn the corner onto my street, and my stomach flips.
“That there’s no such thing as a coincidence,” Dad finishes.
“Indeedy no,” he says to himself. “No such thing. Oh, there’s Patrick.” He waves. “I hope he doesn’t wave back.” He watches his friend from the Monday Club walking with two hands on his hips.
“And David out with the dog.” He waves again, although David is stopping to allow his dog to poop and is looking the other way. I get the feeling Dad feels rather grand in a taxi. It’s rare he’s in one, the expense being too much and everywhere he needs to go being within walking distance or a short bus ride away.
