Sunday, October 7, 2007

Kathy's Hair, Part 2


Kathy had had her hair cut short in high school, partly because of me. Or maybe it was all because of me. It happened during the summer after my junior year in high school. I was seventeen, then, Kathy was sixteen.

I was visiting her house one afternoon, to celebrate the start of summer vacation. At the end of my visit, that day, we had had our first kiss in her garage. I had felt as if she cornered me.
She probably had just gotten tired of waiting for me to make the first move, ever since we had met at the beginning of the school year, nine months earlier. She had claimed, later, that she hadn't wanted the neighbor kids, across the street, to see us kissing.

I don't think I called her after that, I'm not sure.

What I do remember is going to a school's-out party, that weekend, and seeing Michelle there, with an eye-catching new haircut. Yeah, I definitely didn't call Kathy. I started calling Michelle, after that night's party.

Michelle was polite, and she allowed me to pursue her a bit, but it didn't last.

I hadn't seen Kathy all summer, until right before school started again. I was out walking the dog when she drove by. She stopped her car and I saw that she had gotten a very cute, pixie-short haircut. We were able to resume our friendship before the beginning of my senior year.

Six years after that summer, at the age of 23, when I had already survived the throes of coming out, Kathy and I were cuddling on my apartment couch. I was looking at her dark hair, which had been grown long, again, for a while, by then, when a question suddenly occurred to me.

"Hey. Did you cut your hair that summer because I had gone all gaga over Michelle when she cut hers?"

"Man!" Kathy exclaimed. "It took you long enough!"

Straight or gay, it doesn't matter--men are just inevitably dense around women, sometimes, I guess.

4 comments:

the last noel said...

Haircuts are major things for women. I understand if a woman shaves her head, she's crying out for help.

golfwidow said...

Yet, oddly, I have always liked my end-result hair better when a man has styled it than a woman. I have no idea why men, who "don't get it," seem to know instinctively how I want my hair to look.

Peter Varvel said...

Noel, LOL! Is that a Britney remark?

Golfwidow, maybe it's a yin-yang thang. I always have complete confidence in any woman who cuts my hair, even if it's for the first time. They always "get it."

quin browne said...

if it's a cry for help, sinaed has been screaming.

for my daughter, it was letting a friend 'trim' her hair with the dog trimmers.. set on low. miss h ended up shaved to the scalp, in the middle of the spring denver was having hate crimes committed by skinheads.

i told her to tell people she was recovering from chemo.

what? i was going to have her beaten up for a bad hair decision?