That night, I felt real remorse, like the gambler who has squandered the family paycheck, or one of those credit card people who can’t stop charging, although, I couldn’t actually say I was getting any kind of a high from this. I dreamt of a hair therapist who looked like Dr. Phil. I was lying on his leather couch, which was shaped like a comb. The teeth were uncomfortable, too widely spaced to lie flat on.
“I’m obsessed with my hair,” I told him.
“You should be,” he said.
“I can’t leave it alone.”
“It’s a very important part of every couple’s life.”
“But I’m not a couple!” I sat up and my long hair fell forward. “My hair’s long again!”
When I woke, I spent a half an hour trying to contemporize my new cut. Gina will fix it, I told myself.
But I had been unfaithful to Gina. How was I going to tell her what I did because she couldn’t fit me in ‘till Saturday? What would I say?
I knew what I was going to say. I would lie and say someone had given me a gift certificate, and since she couldn’t fit me in, I’d gone to that salon, and look what that butcher did!
Next afternoon, I was in a gourmet food shop picking out a gift basket for a sick friend. The woman waiting on me had the most beautiful auburn hair layered in what used to be called the “shag” cut.
“Who cuts your hair?” I asked, unable to stop myself.
She didn’t reply at first. She rang up my basket and then wrote a number on the back of my receipt. “I should get a commission for all the business I send her. I go to Chase Henley,” she said, sighing, as if this common occurring question was becoming an annoyance. I carried my basket out of the store, and turned over the receipt. Under the phone number, she had written the name Morgan. Under Morgan, she had written the word expensive, and had underlined it twice.
