Genny watched the neon flash ‘Hairy erub.’ She let out a grunt of discomfort.
“Careful, Quince. You’re hurting me.” Her hand reached to the back of her head. “Did you pull out some more hair?”
Quince looked at the blonde strands stuck in the hairbrush, then, at the patch of hairless scalp. “No. You’re good. You just have sensitive skin.”
“You sure?”
Quince caressed the side of Genny’s face like she imagined Senator Biden would do. “Of course, sweetie. Would I lie to you?”
“Alright,” Genny said. “Try to be more careful, though, will you?”
“Sure thing. Now, what were you telling me?”
“We were talking about medical school.”
“Right. Where’re you going again?”
“The Beijing Online School. Remember? I got accepted into the school for hairstyling, but they accidentally placed me in the medical school. The dean blah, bluh blah blah blah, bluh blubber dee doo.”
Quince made a rough estimate of how much hair she would need for a patch job. She picked the blonde ones out of the brush and laid them in neat rows on the portable tray. They fell well short.
“Are you listening to me?”
“Yes, Gen. You were rapping the latest from Tupac.”
“Close enough. Anyway, I got a 98 on the Che Guevara medical ethics exam. The only wrong answer I put was ‘You shouldn’t shoot dissidents in any part of the body.’ Apparently, kneecap, liver, and between the eyes were the acceptable body parts.”
“I’m proud of you, Genny.” Quince’s eyes wandered the room. A bevy of golden locks rested in a dustpan which sat on the corner. “They’ll get me halfway there,” she thought. A pair of cucumber slices slipped over Genny’s peepers.
“What’re you doing?” Genny asked.
“I’m throwing in a facial,” Quince replied. “On the house. Keep going with your story.” Her feet tiptoed to the dustpan.
“The class I’ve found most fascinating,” Genny continued, “is internal medicine. You’d be surprised how many things there are inside of us, most of which we don’t really need.”
“Like what?” Quince formed her collection of dusty blonde hair into a knot. “Ugh. Less than half of what I need.”
“How long’s this going to take?” A middle-aged woman in the latter stages of aggravation tugged at the black cloth wrapped around her neck.
“Just a few more minutes,” Quince answered.
“I mean, we all know about the appendix and the spleen,” Genny said, “which humans evolved to digest brussels sprouts. Fun fact, around four thousand years ago, someone – I think it was Confucius – discovered that brussels sprouts were, in reality, disgusting and banned their cultivation on penalty of death. The Chinese kept a few of the bitter balls of horror in Ming vases with the intention of developing biological weapons and stored them in a facility outside of modern-day Wuhan. Well, a few years later, Marco Polo, who pole vaulted over the Great Wall using a giant, uncooked linguine noodle …”
“I’ve got a rehearsal dinner I need to get to,” the cloaked woman said, “so if you could hurry it along.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Quince said. “I’m coming … saaaay, what lovely hair you have. I don’t know why I didn’t think of that … I mean … I don’t know why I didn’t notice that before. Is it natural or do you dye it?”
“It’s all natural, sweetie. I’ve been blonde since the day I was born.”
“You don’t say.”
“… by then, of course, the pepperoni had become an Italian staple, thanks in large part to Da Vinci’s painting, whose exquisite beauty draws a few billion Chinese tourists each year to the quaint Tuscan countryside. Did you know that Tuscan is an Italian word that means frijole?”
PLUCK.
“OWWWWW!!! What are you doing?”
Pluck. Pluck, pluck, pluck. Pluckity, pluck, pluck, pluck. “Where do you think you’re going, ma’am?”
“I’m leaving! This is the worst shampoo I’ve ever received.”
“I can’t let you go halfway through the ’poo, ma’am. You’re going to have to sit back down and wait until I’m done.”
PLONK.
“You’re deranged! I swear I’ll call the police. Take your hands off my shoulders and let me go.”
“Can’t do that.”
“You better, or I’ll …”
Pick, riiiiiiippp.
“OWWWW!”
Pluck, plunk, fluffle.
A black cloth flew off the lady’s shoulders and onto Genny’s lap. “Why, I never!” the lady with the bad attitude said and stomped towards the exit. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”
“Tell all your friends about the Hairy Cherub,” Quince yelled out the door. “Now, how am I gonna get them to stick?”
“So, he says, ‘Genny, that’s no way to remove a kidney.’ I go, ‘Why not? He says, ‘You have to wait ‘til they’re not looking.’”
Moisten, spffft.
“Hair roots taste funny. Now, if I just push hard enough.”
Ugh. Unnngggg. Umph.
“This ain’t workin’.”
“Hey, Gen. You got a stick of glue on ya’?”
“Sure. It’s in my purse.”
“Great. Thanks.”
“My advisor, Dr. Fao Chee, says I should drink sake every day so I don’t get viruses when I’m older. Something to do with Yin and Yang, who, from what I can tell, are the Cain and Abel of Chinese atheism.”
“I don’t see it, Gen. Where is it?”
“Look under the unfinished pair of woolen underwear I’m knitting for a friend.”
“This is steel wool.”
“Yeah. I ran out of yarn.”
“Won’t that hurt?”
“I’m mad at him.”
“OK.” Ruffle, ruffle. “I see it now.”
“Anyway. Where was I? Oh, yeah. The farthest I ever ran was ….”
Pop. Squishy, squishy. Ummph. Stick. Pat, pat, pat. Sluuuurrrpp. Mush. Hooooolllllllldd.
“Perfect. She’ll never suspect.”
“And that’s why I never wear clogs.” Genny pulled off the cucumbers and looked around. “Wasn’t there another lady here a moment ago?”
“No … I don’t think so.” Quince spun Genny around so she could see herself in the mirror. “Take a look and tell me what you think.”
Long, wavy, golden tresses cascaded over her right shoulder like a silky waterfall. The hair on the left side swept behind her head, exposing one decorated earlobe and her delicate neck.
“That is … fantastic! I’m jealous. You are sooo talented.”
Quince beamed with pride. She brushed a few loose blonde hairs off Genny’s shoulders and removed the cloth.
“You’re mad at him, huh? I assume you’re talking about Marvin.”
“Yeah,” Genny said. “I’m talking about Marvin.”
“He’s the one taking you to the party?”
Genny nodded.
“What’d he do this time?”
“Nothing really.”
“Nothing? Then, why the Brillo boxers?”
Genny hesitated. Her mouth quivered as she searched for the words. She lowered her head towards the floor and kicked at a spider which crossed the floor in an eight-legged hurry.
“He’s never around,” she said. “Always working or studying. Back home, we were thick as thieves. Basically grew up in the same house. You couldn’t see one of us without seeing the other. People used to think we were Siamese twins. I could talk to him about anything, too. It didn’t matter how bad things got. He was always around for me. When I got an 85 on my geography quiz, he talked me off the proverbial and literal ledge. Or the night before the track meet against Westchester High. They had this girl there, Billy Joe – had a five o’clock shadow by noon and a bulge in her pants; broke the record in the 100, 200, and 400 meters. I was so nervous that I slipped out the window at two a.m. and went to his house. He was waiting on the front porch as if he was expecting me. Now …,” she paused and took a deep breath, letting the air out in a steady, nasally flow. “Now, I hardly see him, and if I do, he’s got his nose buried in a book or in his computer. When I try to talk to him, he’s so preoccupied I might as well be talking to a brick wall.”
“What you’re saying is ….”
Genny cut in. “That he’s a selfish jerk.”
Quince swept the clippings into a pile and leaned the broom against the mirror. “What you’re saying,” she repeated as she rearranged the lotions, creams, and shampoos, “is that you miss him.”
Genny felt the emptiness, that weighty void which she kept repressed beneath layers of anger, float to the surface of her chest. “It wouldn’t kill him to spend time with me, would it?”
“It wouldn’t kill who to spend time with you?”
Genny and Quince turned towards the voice.
“Oh. Hey, Jorge. I didn’t hear you come in,” Genny said. “You been here a while?” A nervous sweat formed on her upper lip.
“Nah. I just got here. So, who you talking about? You’re not referring to that Country guy, are you? Because you know what Pierre said about him.”
“No. Of course not.” The nervous sweat dripped onto her lips and transformed into uneasy laughter. At the same time, she flashed a look at Quince to tell her to keep quiet. “There’s this cute guy. I don’t know his name. Has the unibrow and the matching uninostril. Looks like a professional bowler.”
“You must be talking about Ramón. Handsome devil. Don’t know why he has such a hard time with the ladies.” He scanned the entire length of her body, starting at the freshly manicured toenails and finishing at the top of her head. “You going on a date with him? That why you’re all made up?”
“What? This? No. No date. I haven’t built the courage up to talk to him. Not sure I ever will. This … this is my regular Saturday routine.”
“Why haven’t I seen you do it before, this Saturday routine?” Jorge asked.
“I just started today,” Genny said.
The Tortuga mulled over her response but didn’t comment on it other than to say, “Mm.” He turned to Quince. “Give us a minute.”
Quince grabbed a jar of hairspray, mainly to have something to occupy her hands, and headed towards the front. Jorge waited for her to be out of earshot before he spoke to Genny.
“We got a meeting tonight. Seeing as how you’ve got nothing going on, you should be there.”
Genny nibbled at her cuticles. “I’d love to. I really would, but this isn’t a good night.”
A curious eyebrow raised itself. “Oh. So, you do have plans tonight.”
“No. Well, not exactly. Unless you count a long, hot bath as plans.”
“I’m sure the bath can wait.” Jorge’s tone was nearly dry, moistened only with a drop of venom.
“I suppoooose it could, but I’ve been looking forward to it all week. I’m just going to have to take a raincheck.”
Genny started walking towards the front. A strong arm and firm grasp prevented her from leaving.
“I believe you misunderstood me,” Jorge said. “You really should be there. As in, you’re going. We start at seven, which means things will get rolling around eight, eight-thirty.”
He released his grip. Genny felt a new fear tighten her jaw. Hands unconsciously cracked knuckles. A blankness covered her mind as though it was a book shaken in such a way that all the words had slid off the pages.
Jorge took a couple steps and stopped. “By the way, I’m glad you’re not seeing your former friend tonight. I’d hate to think of what Pierre would do if he thought you were disrespecting him behind his back.”
The tinkling of bells tolled Jorge’s departure. Quince slowly approached Genny, looking back over her shoulder a couple times as she walked.
“What was that about?”
Genny did her best to shrug it off. “It was nothing,” she said.
Quince folded her arms across her chest. “Don’t lie to me, Gen. It’s obvious he has you spooked. What did he mean by ‘former friend’? Was he referring to Marvin?”
Genny stared for a few seconds, then, subtly nodded. She kept watching the door as though afraid Jorge might reappear at any moment.
“They got a beef against him?” Quince asked.
“Yeah.” Genny’s face had the same expression an atheist’s face would have when standing before the judgment throne.
“What is it?”
Genny shook her head, a quick shake to indicate she didn’t want to talk about it. Quince’s expression changed to match Genny’s.
“And did I hear him say you needed to go to their meeting tonight? Are you one of them now?”
Genny didn’t answer this question either, but Quince didn’t need a response. The silence told her everything she needed to know.
“Be careful,” Quince said. “I’m not sure you understand what you got yourself into.”
Genny just stared out the door.