“Yes. How? Don’t some people do dry cuts?”
“Yes. Some do. But this part is actually important for you. Because as I massage, I want you to relax and talk about your work.”
“Huh?”
I have to elbow him back down, but I finally get my fingers into his hair. And, just as I start to work the shampoo in, running my nails over his scalp, I finally feel him start to relax.
“Better,” I murmur. “Now, start talking.”
“About what?”
“About dirt. Or soil. Or whatever it is you study.”
He opens one eye to glare at me.
“If I’m going to help you write a lecture for the audition,” I tell him, “I need to understand what you’re studying. More importantly, I need to understand why you love it.”
It takes several more minutes of coaxing, but eventually he starts talking. I massage, letting my fingers work on the tension in his scalp and neck, letting the slippery strands of hair slide through my fingers. I rinse. I massage some more. I condition and rinse again.
And he talks some more.
He talks about how soil isn’t dirt. How it’s a complex web of organisms that work together and depend on one another and how modern farming methods have messed it up. How he’s working with researchers and farmers all over the world to inoculate over-farmed, “dead” dirt and transform it into living, thriving soil.
I finish washing, move him to another chair, and start cutting. Aside from the occasional suspicious look, he just keeps talking. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t believe I’m smart enough to follow his research. Clearly he’s forgotten that I was married to his boss for six years. I ask questions. I make sure they’re good ones. And eventually he seems to buy that I might be smart enough to follow along.
By the time I get out the clipper to trim up his neck and beard, he seems to have almost forgotten why we’re here. I turn him away from the mirror and tip the chair back so he can’t watch, but he doesn’t even notice.
I’m starting to see why the McPherson committee short-listed him in the first place. Once I get past his blustering, his work is fascinating. Moreover, his enthusiasm for it is catching. I start to see just how important it could be, how it could change the way people grow food and how it could affect humanity’s relationship with the planet.
I get lost in the work and in his words. Cutting Max’s hair is both second nature and completely different.
Sure, in college, I always flirted with the customers. Nothing too overt. Just enough to keep them coming back and tipping well.
But it was always just a job. I never felt aware when I was cutting someone’s hair. Aware of how close you have to stand. How much you have to touch them.
When I lean back Max’s chair and start to trim the beard and shave his neck, everything feels much more intimate.
His words slow. My heart rate speeds up.
I am painfully aware of the heat of his skin under my fingers, the pulse in his throat.
As I slide the blade of the razor down his neck, he stops talking entirely, but I can still feel his breath against my skin. I follow the razor with a clean warm towel, wiping away the last of the shaving cream. Then I move on to his cheeks. I leave most of the beard intact as promised, but clean up the stragglers on his cheeks, shaving his right cheekbone smooth. And then I move on to the left side, where his scar is.
Despite my promises that it won’t be as bad as he remembers, I’m nervous. And the more skin I reveal, the tighter the knot gets in my belly. I’m terrified I might nick his skin. Shaving around scar tissue is different that shaving normal skin. God knows I had enough trouble getting him in the chair at all; I certainly don’t want to cut him.
But more than that, now that all of my concentration isn’t focused on trying to cut his hair and understand his research, now that this transformation is nearly complete, I’m getting a better picture of what Max really looks like.
His unruly curls are shorter and back off his face, which somehow makes his eyes look even brighter. More blue than gray. I can finally see his lips, which are ridiculously full. Max has been hiding the mouth of a sensualist beneath all that hair. As for the scar? Yes, the scar slashes down his left cheek, thinner at his temple, nearly a half inch wide where it enters his beard.
I run my finger along the length of the scar, down to where it meets his beard, where it doesn’t quite disappear. Now that his beard is trimmed, the scar leaves a visible gap. It makes him look . . . roguish. Dangerous.
He reaches his hand up and wraps my fingers in his hand, stopping my progress down his cheek.
My gaze meets his and I can hardly breathe past the intensity of the questions in his gaze.
“How bad is it? Is it horrible?”
I swallow and shake my head, unable to put my thoughts into words:
