The seniors quieted down, granting Hubert their full attention.
He stood up. “I think my grandfather spoke a little out of turn. I don’t know anything about running a country.”
I threw down my napkin and jumped to my feet, adding, “But he knows what’s right and what’s good. It’s time that my peers take their place in history, and this young man is as qualified as anyone to lead us. Aren’t you, Henry?”
Hubert’s mouth hung open. “Well, I was manager of the sophomore volleyball team once.”
The silverware on our table rattled from the ovation. The elated seniors would have carried Hubert on their shoulders if they could. Hubert beamed and flashed the peace sign. I smiled, too. For sure, this little gathering wasn’t going to change the world, but I savored the hope that its message might one day be embraced beyond those walls.
Things had returned to normal at Leisure Dale Manor. The dining room was rearranged for that night’s Bingo party. Old ladies gathered in the TV room to watch reruns of The Golden Girls.
Wheeling Lester back to his room, Hubert helped him into his recliner. “Great rally today, Hayward,” said Lester. “Let’s do it again tonight.”
A nurse knocked on the half-open door. “I think you’ve had enough excitement for one day.” She came in with a pillow and stuffed it behind Lester’s head.
“Guess we’ll be on our way,” said Hubert.
I gave Lester a peck on the cheek. “It was nice seeing you again, Les. Thanks for all your help.”
“Nice to see you, too, Amy. If you’ll excuse me, now, I think I’ll take a nap.” Leaning back in his chair, he gazed out his garden window before closing his tired eyes. “You know, you two make quite a handsome couple.”
“See you next time, grandpa,” he said.
“Next time . . . Hubert.”
Chapter 6
Customer Service
Everyone experiences a “wow” moment sometime in their lives. It might be when seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time. Its striking beauty and sheer size are breathtaking. Your first look at the ocean causes the same reaction. You feel so small and insignificant. Movies can sometimes wow you, too. I still ooh and aah when Dorothy steps out of her gray farmhouse into the Technicolor Land of Oz. I share Charlie Bucket’s exhilaration as he enters Willie Wonka’s world of pure imagination.
That was how I felt on my first work day at Ravi’s barbershop. I pushed open the weather-beaten door and entered a feast for the eyes! Gone were the shabby countertops, the cracked display case, and the squeaky ceiling fan. In its place was an exquisite shop, rivaling the finest European salons. I checked outside to make sure I hadn’t gone into the wrong building. No, the broken barber pole and flaking paint were still there. Remarkably, Ravi had remodeled the interior in a single day!
Construction crews worked round the clock. They laid pink marble tile where the old checkered floor had been. Wall paper in elegant patterns was pasted over the dreary walls. A beautiful trophy case displayed Ravi’s shaving mug collection. The mahogany woodwork, sconce lighting, and the ornate rinse basin were first-class all the way. And the biggest improvement of all: a new barber chair! Its shiny chrome pedestal and black leather upholstery gave the room real style. The only things untouched were the jingling door bell and the big round mirror. If the spirit of Floyd the barber had ever resided there, he had surely been evicted.
In my excitement, I had completely overlooked the brand new reception desk, marking the center of my own little domain. Its curved shape and modern design perfectly complimented the updated waiting area. I checked out the desktop, expecting to find the tools essential to being an efficient receptionist: a Bluetooth headset, a computer, an electronic cash register. But all I found was an appointment book and a pencil. The drawers were just as barren. Nothing in them but a box of Kleenex.
Ravi was nowhere around, so I decided to get back on the case and do a little detective work. The back room seemed like a good place to start.
Down the rear hallway, newly-lacquered oak doors ran along the back wall. The first one opened onto a deserted alley. The next revealed a utility closet. I inspected a stack of clean towels on a shelf, looking for remnants of foul play—like maybe blood stains. (Sherlock Holmes would have done the same thing.) Next was the private parlor that Ravi had talked about. It was a carbon copy of the front room.
My search had turned up nothing out of the ordinary, until I came to the final door. Alongside the frame was one of those keypad locks, like you see in high-security buildings. There was no way to enter the room without knowing the numeric code. I assumed it was Ravi’s business office, but what could be so valuable inside that it needed a lock like that? Keeping office equipment and bookkeeping records safe is one thing, but this was way overkill. For the heck of it, I jiggled the door knob, but the door wouldn’t open.
The only other thing in the hall was the staircase to Ravi’s 2nd-floor apartment. It was then that Ravi came through the door at the top. Coming downstairs, he smiled at me from the bottom step, and said, “How do you like it?“
“It’s amazing!” I said. “But, why are you doing this now? You didn’t do it for me, did you?”
“Let’s just say you inspired it. Think of it like cleaning the house before you have company over.”
That sounded reasonable enough, but I knew there was more to it. He was removing any objections I might have to working there. Making me feel special meant that I’d be less likely to quit, and Alec could spend more time with me.
As to the poorly-equipped reception desk, Ravi explained that my duties were to take calls, jot down appointments, and most importantly, make the coffee. I really had no right to complain. For sure, the work wasn’t very challenging, but it was a cushy job—and I was getting paid!
Ravi left me in charge while he prepped the parlor for the day. I was just making my first pot of coffee when a bright light caught the corner of my eye. The sun was bouncing off the windshield of a car pulling up to the shop. I raced to my desk and put on a welcoming smile.
To my surprise, the door flew wide open. A man rushed inside. Slamming the door behind him, he immediately closed all the window blinds, then nervously gazed out at the street between the slats.
You would expect someone that jittery to be in a prison uniform, but the man was smartly dressed in a pinstriped suit. He acted like he was being followed, or maybe he was hiding from the Law. Either way, he raced in so quickly that he didn’t realized there was someone else in his hideout.
“Good morning, sir.” I said.
He jumped, startled by the sound of my voice. “Who are you?”
“I’m Ravi’s new assistant,” I said. “Do you have an appointment?”
The frazzled man charged my desk like an angry bull. “Where’s Ravi?” he shouted.
By then, Ravi had heard the commotion and poked his head into the room. “Hello, Senator Reed. Come on back. I’m all ready for you.”
The man hurried past me, mumbling, “Thank God!”
I knew who Senator Reed was. He once awarded me a certificate of achievement in a public ceremony. He was running for re-election then. The local Press was there to cover the event—and what politician doesn’t want free publicity? The thing I remember most was seeing the senator arrive in a government limousine, complete with a motorcycle escort.
I figured it was now okay to open the blinds and let the daylight back in. Out the window I saw the senator’s car parked at the curb. It was a subcompact rental. Seeing Senator Reed around town without a limo was unusual, and you never saw him without his security guards.
The shop was now filled with that heavenly, fresh-roasted coffee aroma. My first customer’s hastiness gave me no chance to offer him a cup. I considered taking one to him in the parlor. Then the phone rang.
Ravi had instructed me on just what to say. “Good morning. Ravi’s 2-Bit Solution barbershop: home of the happy hairdresser.” (I added that last part myself.) “How c
an I help you?”
There was silence on the other end. Then a woman’s voice spoke: “Who is this?”
That seemed to be the question of the day.
“I’m in charge of scheduling hair appointments, ma’am,” I said.
Another moment of silence. “Let me speak to Ravi.”
“I’m sorry. He’s with a customer. Can I help you?”
I heard a long sigh. “Alright. Put me down for Tuesday at three o’clock,”
I opened my appointment book and flipped through the pages. Strangely, every one was blank. Not a single entry had been made.
“Yes,” I said. “Ravi can see you then. May I have your name, please?”
Another awkward pause. “Lady Litigation. Ravi knows who I am.”
“Can I have your phone num—”
She abruptly hung up.
I started penciling in the information, when, wouldn’t you know it? The pencil lead broke, and I didn’t have a sharpener. I heard chuckling that I figured was intended for me, but it was coming from the hall. Standing in the doorway were Ravi and Senator Reed, sharing a hearty laugh. The frenzied customer was now as happy as a sailor on shore leave. Curiously, not ten minutes had passed since he entered the parlor.
From the front door the senator smiled at me, “You’re doing a great job, kid,” he said. Then he skipped out to his rental car and sped away, all the while whistling. Ravi, too, whistled merrily as he retreated back into the parlor.
This was just plain weird. What had caused such a dramatic change in the senator’s attitude? I conjured up images of alien beings taking over human bodies. Then I recalled the local rumors—those suspicions of illegal activity. Rumor or not, something had put that light in the senator’s face, and Ravi was supplying the spark.
No sooner had the senator left, than another customer came through the door. This time it was an attractive young woman. She turned her body to the wall the moment she came inside. And no wonder: she was crying.
“Are you alright, miss?” I asked.
She turned slowly. Her beautiful, young face was all puffy and red. “Is this the place?” she said softly.
“What place are you looking for?”
She opened her purse and placed Ravi’s business card on my desk. “Am I in the right barbershop?” The card was exactly like the one found at Harley Fink’s crash site.
I didn’t quite know what to say, except, “Do you have an appointment?”
The woman choked up again. I brought out the Kleenex box from my drawer.
Ravi appeared. “I’m the hairdresser,” he said. “What can I do for you?”
The distraught woman looked up at him with tears streaming down her face. “Please, sir. You’ve got to help me. My husband doesn’t know I’m here. My kids are at my mother’s. I don’t have much time.”
I quickly poured out a cup of coffee. “This’ll help chase those blues away,” I said with a smile. Ravi waved me off as he tenderly walked her to the back room.
Like the customer before her, the woman came out a short time later, beaming with joy. Her glowing face was clean and bright as a sunflower. She glided past me like someone in the midst of a beautiful dream.
To say that this was a crazy morning wouldn’t begin to describe it. Ravi’s regular clientele was a bizarre mix of corporate executives, financial managers, media moguls, lawyers, lobbyists, and land owners. They all came into the shop anxious and depressed, and left with a song on their lips and a spring in their step.
Whatever was going on back in that parlor, one thing was certain: no one was getting a hair cut. Every head of hair that went in came out looking exactly the same. I should have suspected something was up when that bald-headed priest walked in.
On top of that, my mastery of the coffee machine was going unappreciated. Not one customer accepted my offer of a cup of joe.
It was nearing the lunch hour when one last limo drove up. The man who climbed out was dressed in street clothes, with his face hidden under a hoodie. He was younger than the others I had seen that morning, and I sensed something familiar about him. He was proceeded by a gorilla-sized bodyguard.
The big goon approached me. “Tell Ravi that Megaboy is here,” he said. The use of code names was another custom I had gotten used to.
“Do you have an appointment?” I asked, knowing by that time it was a stupid question.
The imposing man looked at me like I was a lowly insect to be stepped on. “Tell . . . him!”
“Come on back!” called Ravi from the parlor. Megaboy—or whatever his real name was—walked past me.
“Do I know you from somewhere?” I asked him.
The young man pulled back his hood, revealing a propeller-topped beanie on his head. His face had been on posters all over school: Z Beanie Run!
As the pop star sauntered off, Ravi came out. “It’s just about your lunchtime, Amy,” he said. “Before you go, be a dear and walk down to the Jiffy-Q and grab me a large Jiffy Fizz Cola, will you?”
“Sure you wouldn’t rather have a cup of coffee?” I said. “I just made a fresh pot.”
“Customer’s waiting,” he said, then hurried off.
I walked out the door and noticed that Snipper Jim wasn’t out in front of his shop as usual. Then I smelled something burning. Jim was standing behind me, his head in a cloud of cigarette smoke.
“Aren’t you on the wrong side of the street?” I asked him.
Jim took a long drag on his cig. “How does he do it?”
“How does who do what?”
“You know who I mean. I see all those rich folks comin’ in here, while I hardly get one customer all day. What’s Ravi’s secret?”
I fanned the smoke away from my face. “Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
“Me and him ain’t on speakin’ terms. But I’ll tell ya what. You find out what he’s sellin’ and I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I can tell you right now for free. He sells happiness. People come in sad, and they leave happy. Simple as that.”
“That don’t tell me how he’s doin’ it.”
“It’s a puzzle to me, too. But anyone who can spread a little joy in this miserable world doesn’t need to explain himself. You should try it sometime.” I walked off, leaving Snipper Jim to stew over what I had said.
But, he had me thinking, too. He was asking the same question I had been asking myself all morning. Did Ravi possess some special gift, or was he an undercover drug lord?
I returned to the shop, with a large self-serve cup in hand, to find the Closed sign turned toward the street. With the door unlocked, I walked in and found Alec sitting in the barber chair, playing a video game on a handheld device.
“Is your dad here?” I asked him.
“He says for you to take the afternoon off,” he said, staring at his screen.
It was pretty obvious that Ravi had arranged for Alec and I to be alone.
“I brought Ravi the Jiffy Fizz Cola he asked for,” I said.
“Pour it down the sink. Sugary drinks are bad for you.”
I went to the rinse basin while keeping my eye on Alec, even though he hadn’t once looked up at me. Ol’ Lester had stressed the importance of being available, should Alec want to share his dark past with me. With his shy ways, Alec was a little hard to read, but this didn’t seem like the right time.
“Should I lock up?” I said.
“I’ll take care of it.”
I caught Alec’s face in the mirror as I crossed the room. His head was now tilted up, his eyes watching my every move. Then I heard him mumble, “Do you . . . ?”
“Do I what?”
I thought for a moment that he might want to talk to me after all, but he went back to his game.
“Is there a good place to have lunch around here?” I asked.
“Nowhere you’d like.”
“Where do you go?”
“Someplace little girls shouldn’t be seen.”
I may have on
ly been a teenager, but I had been around enough to know when I was getting the brush off. Unfortunately for Alec, he hadn’t yet learned that I don’t like being treated that way.
“Show me!” I demanded.
“What?”
“Show me this place I’m supposed to hate, or are you too busy?”
“I’d rather not.”
“Why? Are you worried that I might like it? Are you afraid of being wrong, then having to apologize to a boneheaded girl?”
Alec turned off his device and jammed it into his pocket. “Alright, little miss know-it-all! But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
As he stepped off the barber chair, his false leg twisted under him. I quickly moved in to help keep him from falling, but his hand instantly went up, warning me to stay away.
For the first time, I saw the conflict that raged within him. His disability was robbing him of his dignity. He was a model of strength and a proud soldier, and he didn’t want me to see his weakness. I was sorry, now, that I had badgered him. That might have been a big mistake.
Chapter 7
The Afternoon Off
My little Volkswagen beetle wasn’t designed for broad-shouldered men like Alec. He sat in the car’s passenger seat, his knees jammed against the dashboard. He would have preferred to drive us both to lunch in his own car. He was fully licensed, but driving tended to put him on edge. One of his nagging battlefield memories involved driving an armored Humvee across hostile terrain, and his fear of being in command of a vehicle had yet to be overcome.
Aside from Alec giving me directions, our trip to his lunchtime hangout was relatively quiet. He examined my car’s interior, running his fingers over the wood grain glove box and vinyl headliner. My ‘68 VW had been restored to its original condition, and then some. His roaming eyes led him to some junk I had tossed into the back seat. One was a Save the Northern White Rhino bumper sticker. Finding my Agatha Christie book, he placed it on his lap and thumbed through its pages. “Have you read Murder on the Orient Express?” he asked.
The Age of Amy: Mad Dogs and Makeovers Page 5