What I needed to install was some good, old-fashioned common sense. I’d let myself get so carried away peddling stupid twigs and rocks that I’d started to believe it was all real, and that my life would be buoyed by my good vibrations and the purity of my intent. That I understood how people ticked, and that somehow I’d figured out a way to escape the rat race each and every one of us is forced to run from cradle to grave.
I’d left myself open and vulnerable. And look where it got me.
* * *
At least I still had a phone. That’s what I kept telling myself. But it’s hard to feel grateful when you don’t have the cash for groceries. Trying to force gratitude down my own throat was only making me angrier, and no less hungry. Thankfully, it was Sunday. And that meant a raft of food would be ripe for the taking.
“I don’t see why we couldn’t meet at the Italian restaurant.” Maxine took in the steakhouse’s wood-on-wood decor with an overdone pout. I absently perused the menu. If I remembered correctly, this joint’s portions were big enough to feed a family of four. Which meant I could take home a doggie bag and fend off starvation, at least for a couple of days. “I thought the carbonara was good.”
“Something I ate there didn’t sit right.”
“And I’m sure it had nothing to do with whatever you drank the night before.”
“Go easy on the sarcasm. It’s not your color.”
As thoroughly convinced as I was that psychic powers were a huge scam perpetuated on a gullible public—by whom? Some lobby group that represents a greedy corporation making money off it, no doubt—I often wondered if there was some grain of truth in a mother’s intuition. Because whenever I was riding high, Maxine made sure to ask if I needed anything, insistently, like three, four times. And whenever I did need something, she cinched her purse strings tight.
I attempted to steer the conversation away from her disappointment in my restaurant choice and toward the housewarming gift she hadn’t offered. “So, my new place….”
“Ronnie tells me that whole area is one of the most up-and-coming neighborhoods to be in.” My cousin Ron sells real estate. Maxine has always thought this would be a perfectly respectable job for a college dropout like me.
“You know Ronnie ate paste until he was like, nine.” Maybe even ten. Yeah, that was about right. I was two years older, and by then I was already kissing boys.
Maxine prattled on about various businesses that were opening branches in Wicker Park, and how a factory that used to make light bulb filaments was now being converted to lofts that went for five grand a month.
“It’s a colorful neighborhood,” I said. “That’s for sure.”
“Ronnie says it’s an interesting job. Always new things to learn.”
“I’ll bet.”
We stared at our menus for a long moment, and she said, “Ronnie says he could get you a job interview.”
I let the corner of my menu dip and glared at her over the top of it.
“Don’t give me that look. You could make good money on commissions.”
“Except when I don’t, and then I’m taking home minimum wage. Plus I’d be a realtor.”
“That smart mouth is why you have such a hard time holding down a job.”
“My last salon closed. What does that have to do with my ‘smart’ mouth?”
“Lorraine Baker hired someone else to do her lawn after you sassed off to her.”
“That again? For fuck’s sake, I was in middle school.” I snapped up the menu-barrier between us and glared at the photos of rib eyes and filets and strip steaks with their perfectly diamond-shaped grill marks. “Look, there’s politics involved in my dry spell.”
Maxine sighed heavily. “Which is why you should really think about talking to Ronnie.”
“Whatever. In the meantime, could any of your friends be persuaded to let a big-city stylist take a whack at their hair?”
My mother isn’t what you’d call subtle. When she’s nervous, she flutters like a sparrow in a birdbath. At the suggestion that her cronies might be enticed into a haircut, she started plucking at her cuffs, smoothing her napkin and wriggling around in her seat.
Why?
“I do know how to cut hair,” I reminded her.
“Of course you do.”
“I wouldn’t talk them into anything outrageous. I’ve got more common sense than that.”
“People have their routines, that’s all. If they saw you, it would be like they were cheating on their own hairdressers.”
Maybe. Or maybe it was more than that. If anything, she seemed…embarrassed. “They already know I’m gay.” The PFLAG bumper sticker so proudly displayed on her Beamer made that abundantly clear. “So what’re you so ashamed of?”
She laughed. It was stunningly forced. “Now you’re being dramatic. Pick out an appetizer and we’ll talk about something else.”
“But why? The subject of you being unwilling to approach your friends about me cutting their hair has so many rich and unexplored depths to plumb.”
“If you’re that desperate for something to do, come over and trim Dumpling’s bangs.”
I stared at her uncomprehendingly.
She helpfully added, “They’re getting in his eyes.”
I’m not sure what was more insulting—that she sincerely saw no difference between a groomer and a stylist, or that she thought she was actually being constructive.
Chapter 20
Maybe I should have been a groomer. It’s nowhere near as glamorous as the life of a stylist, but at least my mother’s Shih Tzu has never given me a look that conveyed he saw me as an utter failure. Although maybe he would, actually, if he got a load of me in the orange and yellow checkered ClipLand smock.
It occurred to me, when I read and initialed page after page of the stunningly detailed and casually insulting employee handbook, that I was far too old for a minimum wage job. And that’s what ClipLand paid. Minimum wage. Plus tips…which we were supposed to report, according to the section on Wages and Tips I’d initialed. I tried to tally in my head what I might make. Even though we were expected to turn around a dizzying four cuts per hour, I couldn’t imagine anyone who’d only spring twelve bucks for a haircut would tip more than a buck or two. And on top of that, ClipLand would withhold taxes from the tips.
Plying hand-jobs under the viaduct was looking more and more appealing.
Still, as the weeks rolled by, it was a relief to have a job—even if, after all the deductions, I was lucky to clear three hundred bucks a week. I’d sold off most of my electronics to make rent. I was tempted to sell my car, but I kept it so I wouldn’t have to admit to Maxine how desperate I was. Plus I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t be living out of it soon.
It didn’t help that I was only working thirty hours. I’d make more if I could pick up additional shifts, but I hadn’t exactly endeared myself to management. Sure, I abided by the dress code. I took out my nose ring, kept a clear acrylic stud in my tongue, and made sure my “slacks” didn’t fit too provocatively—as if I’d bother wearing anything decent under that appalling smock anyway. But apparently my “smart mouth” refused to be dumbed down.
I’d met the shop’s owner all of once. I’ve heard he has no actual interest in hair, that he was just looking for a franchise where he could funnel his money. Judging by his cut, I’d wager that statement was entirely accurate. The store’s managers rotated through, depending on whether it was a weekday, weekend or evening, and whether or not they needed to sub for each other. Everything was distilled down to a formula so precise, theoretically a monkey could run the place. A very bitchy monkey.
I received multiple warnings for socializing and lingering too long over my cuts. And I hadn’t even given my phone number to the cute guy with the snakebite piercing and the scrollwork inked on his fingers. Soliciting business outside the shop was grounds for immediate dismissal; no booty call was worth losing my horrendous job.
Which was why I damn near had a
heart attack when I looked up from sweeping hair and saw Carolyn Brinkman giving her name to the receptionist. “You do haircolor here, right? I would only want Mr. Ash to do it.”
Oh hell, ix-nay on the olor-cay. Even if I had the two hours it would take me to do it, they didn’t stock the right product. No, I wouldn’t fry her regrowth…but I could never achieve the subtlety and dimension she was used to. Not in the miserly time slot they’d allot for me.
“Carolyn,” I called out—a mark on my permanent record for being too loud—“time for a trim?”
“No, the ends aren’t bad. But look at the roots.”
I hustled up to the receptionist and said, “Put her down for a cut.” I hadn’t yet determined which receptionists simply do their jobs and go home and which ones report back to the managers in hopes of catching one of us violating an obscure franchise rule, so I hoped we weren’t dealing with a tattle-tale. I didn’t think so. She just looked down the chart, glanced at the group of people waiting, and said, “I can get her in to see you at three-thirty.” My faithful client. After all the walk-ins. Right.
I turned around each customer in record time, and even still, hitting the fifteen-minute goal was a struggle. That amount of time might have been adequate for the actual cutting, but it didn’t leave me any mental space to think my angles through. Luckily I’d cut Carolyn’s hair before, and I could still feel the angles in my fingers and wrists.
She sat and watched me intently in the mirror as I dampened her hair with a spray bottle and quickly sectioned it off. “I was surprised to find you here,” she said. You and me both, sister. I could’ve asked how she’d managed, but she was a detective, after all. I imagine they have their ways. “What’s wrong with your phone? I get a weird automated message about your account being suspended.”
“The joys of my new pay-as-you-go plan. If I don’t keep putting money on it, they cut me off quicker than a bartender at last call. But that’s a whole story in itself. I’d never do it justice here.”
She kept on watching me like a hawk as I combed and cut, reacquainting myself with the side that tended to flip the wrong way if you didn’t finesse it just so. Was she reading my mind with her “psychic powers”? Who knows?
I gave her a soft zig-zag part so the regrowth looked less stripey and finished with a tousled blow dry, then leaned in close and whispered, “You don’t want your hair colored here.”
“I’m worried about you,” she said, even lower.
“I’m fantastic,” I said brightly. There might not be any Buddhas around, but according to my lengthy employee handbook, I was still under the gaze of a mechanical eye.
Her brow furrowed. “Do you have dinner plans? We really need to catch up.”
Chapter 21
We met at “our” Mexican joint, where I filled up on chips while I waited. Heads turned when Carolyn showed up. She’d found herself a tube of neutral red lipstick just like the one I’d picked out for her back at CUTTERZ, and a top to match. If life was a cartoon, every horny man in the place would have sprouted a wolf head with projectile eyeballs.
“Dang, girl,” I said when she slid into the booth across from me.
She gave me a sheepish eye-roll. “You were right. About Doug. My husband. He’s fine. We’re fine.”
“Glad to be of service.”
“We can be vague with each other sometimes. You know, because of my T3.” Gotta love how she referred to her “telepathy” as if it was some kind of genetic disease. “When I asked him how I looked and he said, ‘That’s some dress,’ I read something into it that I shouldn’t have. I thought he was avoiding commenting on my looks, when actually, he just liked that dress. A lot.”
“Listen, you don’t need to keep trying to convince me you can read people’s minds. As far as I’m concerned, you’ve got zero to prove.”
“When you said you were fantastic, I knew you were miserable.”
“Congratulations. You speak sarcasm.”
She gestured for the waiter, then said, “What’s with the water? Did you give up drinking?”
“I’m broke,” I said simply. No use in lying to a certified Psych, after all.
She gave me an “oh, please” look and ordered a pitcher. “Okay, first things first, just to get it out of the way. This guy is way too old for you, right?” She held up her phone briefly, like a flashcard, then shoved it back in her purse.
“Wait, whoa, time out.” I grabbed her wrist and said, “Show me that for real.”
She complied. Grudgingly.
“Holy Stiffness, Batman. That PsyCop guy? He’s gay?”
“You couldn’t tell?”
I arched my fingers in a parody of a gang sign and said, “He wasn’t flashing the secret rainbow symbol when I saw him on the news.”
“But usually you know, right? That’s what you said last time when you were checking out the waiter, that you can always tell.”
“My level-10 gaydar only works in person. You think the two of us would hit it off?”
“Not like you and Red.”
“Newsflash—Red has gone the way of soul patches and neon windbreakers. And the more I consider this partner of yours, the better he’s looking. But since you’re clearly not down with the idea, why bring it up at all?”
“I didn’t want to. Jacob saw that picture of us together and he’s hounding me for your number. But what could you possibly have in common? He’s in his forties.”
“So? That’s why they make Viagra.” Besides, I’d be looking at thirty soon enough. I pinch-zoomed in on his face. Even at the awkward angle, he was clearly hot. And a lot more interesting now that I knew he liked dick. “I’ll be gentle—I promise, I won’t break him.”
“It’s not him I’m worried about.”
“You’re adorable.”
“I’m serious. Listen.” She fixed me with a look. “Can you promise that what I say here stays between us?”
“Absolutely.”
Her “psychic powers” must have confirmed I don’t blab. She hunkered down close and said in all seriousness, “Jacob is not a nice guy.”
The poor thing was so damn sincere. So help me, I laughed. “Like, how? He’s on the take, or…?”
“Nothing like that. He’s ethical. He’s good. Morally, he’s a good person. He’s just not…how do I put this? He isn’t someone who’d make you happy.”
The more she warned me away, the more intrigued I grew. “You’d be surprised what makes me happy.”
“I’m not talking about in bed. Generally. His personality. It’s intense.”
I took another look at the photo.
“He’s selfish,” she added.
I pictured him naked.
She sighed. “And you’ll go right ahead and do what you want to do anyway. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
* * *
I almost didn’t pick up when Carolyn’s PsyCop partner called. I was on the bus. More specifically, I was on the bus because I’d finally sold my car—not for the meager thousand bucks left over once my loan was paid, but for relief from both the car and insurance payments, not to mention the disgust of finding a new ding or scratch every time I looked. As much as I appreciated my freedom from that massive liability, it was still a huge blow to my ego to find myself relying on public transportation not for my own convenience, but because I had no other choice. It wasn’t the ideal place to make contact. But I didn’t recognize the number, and since I’d seen a few clients under the table lately, lack of proper insurance notwithstanding, I couldn’t afford to let a potential customer go to voicemail.
“Sorry if this sounds incredibly forward.” Actually, he didn’t sound sorry whatsoever. “But I was hoping you’d want to get together for coffee.”
Hooking up with a complete stranger, I would have preferred something with more alcohol involved. But since I was scheduled for a half shift at ClipLand later that afternoon, coffee would have to do. I picked a place within walking distance of my apartment, not b
ecause I thought I’d get lucky…but because I had no fucking car. Turned out I should have vetted the place first. I thought the name Magic Brew was a reference to coffee beans. Instead, the walls were decked out in more New Age Psychic crap than Lydia’s waiting room.
Great. Now Jacob would think I was a gullible flake.
He stood as I came into the packed shop. I’d only seen him in a suit and tie before, and now he was in jeans and a very mainstream leather jacket, but there was no mistaking him. Most people you see on TV feel smaller in person, but not this guy. He was tall. And broad. Everything about him seemed larger than life. I was about to lead in with, we can go somewhere else—and make of that what you will, when he said, “This place is great. I’m glad you suggested it. Judging by the outside I never would have thought to stop in.”
“It’s something, all right.” Handsome, yes. Steady eye contact, too. Unfortunately, if the distinct lack of Vibe he exuded was anything to go by, he was only being polite, and he was finding me a lot less intriguing in person than he’d hoped. Good thing we’d only have to limp through a coffee’s worth of awkward chatting. How disappointing. Carolyn’s warning had built up all kinds of intriguing notions in my head, but honestly, maybe her first assessment was right, and her partner and I actually didn’t have much in common. It would be harsh to blurt out, Y’know what? Never mind, and turn around and leave, so I plunked into the seat opposite him and said, “So you’re really a PsyCop, huh? You don’t just play one on TV?”
“Five years now. And you? How long have you been a stylist?”
“About that long.”
“Carolyn’s looking fantastic, by the way.”
Which was more Red’s doing than mine, and it galled me to take any credit for it. But before I could figure out how to exorcise Red’s intrusion on the stilted date I was so valiantly attempting to have, a squeal of feedback sounded from the corner of the room, and a chick with a neo-bohemian jewelry fetish and rainbow tinsel glinting from her graying hair hoisted a microphone and said, “Thanks for coming out to the Psych-Out Poetry Slam, the most cutting-edge LGBTQIA psychic poetry event in Chicagoland.”
Skin After Skin - PsyCop 8 Page 16