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Tammy at the Cut Above
- Southern Illinois University Press
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53 Tammy at the Cut Above You should hear the things that people tell me. Once I get my hands in their hair they can’t shut up. Yesterday a lady told me she came home and found her husband dressed in her lingerie. As soon as she gets her hands into my hair, she tells me about the hardbody Russian she started dating after a shampoo and cut. Two weeks later, when he proposed, she decided a green card was all he wanted. Twelve years was long enough— she’s not ready for the wrong man again. Anyway, married men make passes at her more than the single ones, she says. I’m losing what it probably takes to catch a hairdresser. I say to trim the top like I would have when I was seventeen, and she does with a few slow snips. She’s businesslike as she gathers hair, tilts my head, and clips. Her body never brushes against me, but I pretend that sliver of space between us is charged, let myself imagine a hairdresser wild for bald-headed men, pretend she wore those worn-out jeans because she knew that I’d be in today. Then, she’s undoing and taking off my cape, brushing hair from my neck, asking how it looks. 54 She takes a phone call—the lawyer she trims every other Tuesday wants to take her to Acapulco. She hopes he isn’t married. ...