Interlude #2
I try to see it through fresh eyes. Yana, the owner, let a few of us lead the way on revamping the interior design a few years ago, now.
The floors and walls are mostly comprised of chipped, whitewashed wood, and there are two whole walls of windows to let in plenty of natural light.
We upgraded the mirrors and fixtures to brass and kept the rest of the décor to blacks and neutrals.
There’s an accent wall over by the washbowls with maroon-and-pink-patterned wallpaper, plus a few plants dotting the place here and there. Like shabby chic got a modern upgrade.
I feel a new crush of gratitude for this place and the fact that I genuinely enjoy my work.
When I quit college, I’d been floundering and dispassionate, my only concern being near my friend when she started treatment the first time.
When I started hair school, it all just .
. . clicked. I love making people’s outward appearance reflect how they feel—or want to feel—on the inside.
I like helping them say what they want to say with their hair.
I know better than most that hair is more than something shallow or vain.
For something that is technically dead, hair has a profound effect on so much of daily life.
My attention drifts back to Silas when he plucks one of my irons out of its holder, then puts it back immediately. He fingers the leaf on my ficus.
I swat his hand when I see it going for my shears. “Quit touching things.”
If anything, his smile grows. “First time someone’s ever said that to me, but as you wish. Where would you like me?”
“I included time for a wash if you want?”
“Gimme the whole nine.” I feel him following me to my bowl. “I’ll be your ideal customer. Treat me right and there’s a nice tip in your future.”
“Doesn’t seem fair. You get the whole nine and all I get is the tip?
” I’m glad my back is to him, because I wince as soon as I say it.
This is why it was easier to steer clear of him over the years, to avoid him bringing this side out of me.
I cannot let myself play with Silas that way.
He’s the one person I can’t be that way around, especially if we’re going to be real friends again.
Especially if we’re going to live together for a time.
I spin on my heel, about to apologize, but he cuts me off before I can.
“Maybe not nine then, yeah?” he says good-naturedly. His hands slide into the front pockets of his jeans. “Take it down to around seven or eight so I have a chance to reciprocate, at least.”
A snort tears through me, and I toss my head back with a relieved, grateful laugh. “Sit,” I say, still chuckling.
He flumps his big body into the seat, quickly finding the lever to kick up the footrest and settling himself back, smirking up at me with an innocent look.
I expect him to open the conversation, but he doesn’t.
Instead, the second the warm water hits him, his smirk softens, followed closely by mine.
I have to studiously ignore the intimacy of the whole process.
The solid, heavy shape of his skull against my palm and the insane temptation to pull him into my chest. The appreciative grunt that slips out of him when I scrub at his scalp with my nails, a sound that accordions the length of my spine.
I am not proud of how I speed through the rest and corral him back to my chair.
“So,” I say, securing the drape around his thick neck. A nearby dryer cuts off just in time for me to sound disproportionately loud.
“So. How’s packing going?” he segues without a hitch.
“I’m glad you asked, actually.” I run my fingers through his damp hair and pretend I don’t see his throat bob. “Same cut? Just trimmed all over?”
“Sure. Why mess with perfection?”
It’s lacking the panache I would’ve expected from him, completely emotionless and dry. But before I can prod him about it, Isabel appears out of thin air.
“Can I get you anything?” she asks him. “We’ve got bottled water, some peach sparkling waters, wine, and a few Starhopper beers.”
“You told me we were out of the peach waters,” I complain.
“We only have two,” she informs me. “They were hidden when I looked before.”
Little liar. It’s always a race between us to get the last one.
“I’ll take two of those, then, if that’s all right?” says Silas, before turning back to me. “You never answered me. About packing.”
Isabel, having been effectively dismissed, stomps off toward the break room, and I meet Silas’s expectant face in the mirror.
“It’s going fine,” I say, combing through a section of his hair and giving it a snip. “Is it still okay if I start to move in this weekend?”
He nods, and I readjust his head with an admonishing look. “I’ll be working tomorrow, but I can help with whatever boxes after that,” he says.
“I’ll be fine. Thank you, though,” I tell him. “I promise it’ll just be until I find a different rental.”
He shrugs. “Or don’t find one. I already told you you could stay through the rest of the year.”
He did tell me this. I’ve spoken with him multiple times over the last week to work out the details of our arrangement.
Learned that, despite the majority of our interactions taking place over text the last few years, when it comes to this new phase of our friendship, he definitely prefers talking on the phone, no matter how often I’ve explained wanting these things in writing.
A few moments pass, the snick of my scissors the only sound between us, little clippings of his hair falling around my feet.
“Can I be nosy?” he asks.
I cease cutting and give him an alarmed look. “Is that the first time you’ve ever asked permission to be?”
He grins at his lap. “Yeah, probably.”
“Well. Since you’re using your manners,” I say. And why did I say it like that? Why’d I choose that particular phrasing, and why’d it have to come out all sultry that way?
“When are you doing it? The baby.”
I dart another look at him and then around.
My defensiveness about the situation feels heightened, now, after everything with Mom, and everyone knows the salon is the watercooler for gossip.
I don’t want to tell anyone else yet. Don’t want anyone else’s feelings to have an influence over mine.
“If I stay on my current schedule, the transfer would be late June.”
“Why wouldn’t you stay on schedule?” he asks, then lets out a rueful, knowing sound when I don’t immediately answer. “My motivational speech was that terrible, huh?”
“No,” I breathe out, landing a playful flick to his ear. “If anything, it confirmed things for me. Made me . . . made me want it more, really. But it also made me want to do it right. Even more than I already did.”
Isabel returns with the sparkling waters and hands both his way.
He thanks her and uncaps them smoothly, then passes the spare to me.
We clink them together and each take a gulp before I set mine aside and get back to work.
I pick up where I left off on his cut, and he waits patiently for me to continue with the rest.
“I like to think I know the weight of this decision I’m making,” I say.
“I know that the financial part of it is only one small aspect.” I snip some more and absentmindedly card my fingers through his hair as I move to his front.
“I know how to save up enough money. How to read books and do research and prepare in that way. But I’m not sure how to know that I’m okay enough when it comes to everything else, I guess, and I want to be the best I can for a baby.
“Obviously, after Merritt died, everything was excruciating. But then time passed and I just had to find ways to cope. Staying busy helped. Having something I wanted, something to work toward, has helped. Or I thought it did, at least. Like some kind of grief inertia, I suppose.
“But then, since the wedding, I’ve wondered what I’ve avoided, too, all in the name of being okay.
Because actually feeling all my shit that night?
Felt better. And it got me thinking . . .
maybe I’m a little stuck because—because I haven’t let myself grieve actively.
Or on purpose, or something.” I’m struck by a sudden wave of self-consciousness when I realize how long I’ve been yammering on.
“Does that even make sense?” My gaze dips, and I find his eyes shut. “Gee, Byrd, am I boring you?”
He laughs through his nose, and his mouth tugs into a devastating half smile. “No, but you’re practically straddling my lap and your chest is inches from my face, and I’m trying my very best to listen and be polite.” A blush spreads up his throat, the end of a scar turning a furious pink.
He’s oddly vulnerable like this. I note the semicircles under his eyes and stubble that looks like a few days’ growth. Silas always seemed like he’d be perpetually young, but right now he looks every bit of his thirty-one years.
“But, yeah, Bea,” he says solemnly, lids still clenched tight. “It makes sense. Sounds like numbing.”
I don’t like the way that sounds. Numbing sounds more dysfunctional than what I’ve been doing, like drinking heavily or taking up recreational drugs to forget. Forgetting is the last thing I want to do.
But I suppose he’s still right, in a way.
I’ve filled my time with work as much as possible and then shut down my own emotions under the guise of “I don’t have time.
” I’m not trying to forget, exactly, but I have mastered some impressive mental gymnastics to avoid the minefield of my memories and feelings.
“No more numbing,” I vow to myself. “I don’t want to do that anymore.”
One turquoise eye squints open. “No more numbing,” he agrees.
The moment stretches like taffy, both of his eyes searching mine now. I swallow around the hummingbird in my throat and remember how I felt after my sunrise stop. Opening up to Martha and Joelle even when it hurt. I think of the letter I’ve been carrying around like a talisman.
“I . . . want to show you something.”