The Hair
On a chilly Thursday evening, Marley Henderson, the accountant, lay sprawled in nothing but boxers and a ribbed undershirt. In his master bath stood Georgina Hoak, the sweetest, most perfect woman who’d ever made herself available to him. And unless Marley had gravely miscalculated, the two of them were about to have sex for the first time. The usual questions danced through his mind – how had he gotten here? What had he done to deserve this? But for the moment, Marley chose not to obsess over them. Instead, he propped his head on his arms and tried to relax, humming Rod Stewart’s “Tonight’s the Night” in a soft falsetto.
“Marley?” Georgina said, her voice muffled by the door.
He sprang from the bed and bounded across the room, nearly battering himself against the dresser. “Everything okay?” he asked, straining to sound carefree.
“Do you have scissors?”
Marley looked from side to side, as if – as sometimes happened at his office – an assistant would magically hand him what he needed. “Just a second,” he said.
He scoured the condo. He rifled through his desk, the kitchen drawers, even dug through the tiny pockets of the laptop bag he carried each day. No luck. Scissors were the type of thing that taunted him. Something every home should have, but that – living on his own, working as much as he did – it had never occurred to him to buy.
He returned, slump-shouldered, to the bathroom door.
“No scissors,” he said. “Sorry.”
In the long silence that followed, he wondered what Georgina might make of a man who didn’t own scissors. Was it a telltale defect? A test he had failed? He wondered why she needed scissors in the first place. But mainly, he wondered about the long silence that followed.
“Georgina?” he said louder.
“Okay,” she said. “Just a minute.”
Marley returned to bed. He started to hum again, but this time, all that came out was “God Only Knows” by the Beach Boys. It seemed ominous. Marley closed his eyes, thought back to dinner at Briere. To when he could only have dreamed they might end up here. It was their second date, but from the moment they’d been seated, he’d felt oddly comfortable with Georgina, free from the getting-to-know-you nerves of their first time out. He’d listened intently to the story of her move from the Midwest, where she’d grown up a competitive gymnast, and after several twists and turns, had earned a living with the Pacemates, the official dance team of the Indiana Pacers. The ghost of a chance to join the Celtics dance team had brought her to Boston, where she coached junior high gymnastics, awaiting her big break.
When the conversation had turned to Marley, he’d opened up to a degree that was unusual for him, even venturing to talk about his work. How love of math – not love of money, as people always assumed – had led him to accounting during his days at BU. How he found comfort in numbers – their orderliness, their lack of subjectivity. How math, at its most pure, offered a window to perfection. Here he’d caught himself, embarrassed by the giddiness that had crept into his voice. But instead of rolling her eyes, or ignoring the moment, Georgina had reached across the table, put her hand on his.
The bathroom door opened, jerking Marley from his reverie. There she stood, completely naked, fumbling with her right hand until she found the light switch and clicked it off.
“I’m shy,” Georgina said.
Marley squinted into the blackness, finally picking up the outline of her form. Shadows played along every bounce and curve as she approached the bed. She slipped under the covers, and at last, her warm skin pressed to his.
He didn’t notice until the next morning. They’d gone at it, off and on, before finally passing out for good around two-thirty. Marley opened his eyes at six-fifteen on the dot, as usual, sunshine glinting through the skylight above the bed. Georgina lay on her side, both hands tucked under the pillow, ankle locked around his beneath the sheets. Eyes squeezed closed so tightly that a deep wrinkle had formed at the center of her forehead. Breathing through her mouth, which rounded now and then as if to form words. Marley smiled.
He lifted himself to check the clock, to make sure he still had a few minutes. When he moved, Georgina twisted in her sleep, flopping onto her back so the covers fell away. Her body was glorious, her skin almost glowing in the early morning light. After a brief look, Marley reached over to re-cover her. That was when he spotted it: a thick, black hair poking from the areola of her left breast.
A wave of tingles washed over him, like he was breaking out in hives. Against reason, he thought of rats, gorillas, of giant, hairy-legged spiders, and was seized by the urge to leap out of bed and run. Georgina stirred again. Marley closed his eyes, playing dead.
After several seconds, he felt a warm hand on his chest.
“Marley,” she whispered. She was propped on an elbow, covers wrapped tightly around her. “Don’t you have work?”
He grunted, feigning grogginess. “What time is it?”
Georgina, clinging to the sheets, rolled over to check the clock. “Six twenty-eight. What time do you usually leave?”
“Quarter past seven,” he said. “Usually.”
“That gives us a few minutes.” She nuzzled against his chest, running her fingers behind his ear, dancing them down the side of his neck.
Marley lay corpse-like on his back, staring up through the skylight. Maybe he’d imagined it. Maybe it was a hair of his, stuck to her somehow.
Georgina sighed. “You need to get in the shower, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said robotically. “Sort of.”
She rolled away. “I understand. I’m glad your job is important to you. Unlike the slackers I usually date…”
Marley groped along the side of the bed for his boxers.
“Here,” Georgina said, producing them from under the covers.
“Thanks,” he said. He grabbed them but she held on, using them to pull him closer. She kissed him, melting the wall between them.
Just look at her, Marley thought. I must have imagined it.
Georgina winked, then let go of the boxers.
Marley slipped them on and hustled to the bathroom. After a few minutes in the shower, it occurred to him what she’d been up to – touching his ear, that gives us a few minutes. He hurried through his shampoo and conditioner, intending to leap back into bed, into her arms. Though he always arrived at the office before eight, technically, he didn’t need to be there until eight-thirty.
But when he rushed from the bathroom, the bed was made. A sheet of loose-leaf paper lay propped on a pillow. It read, in giant, swirly letters: Gone home to shower. See you later? G.
At work, Marley couldn’t stop thinking about her. He’d been with other women, had lost his virginity during freshman year of college to a girl from his dorm, notable only because she’d been the first. He’d also had two long-term girlfriends – Jan Howard, sweet and bland, who’d lay like a slug during sex; and Rosemary Vega, bossy, commandeering, wild in bed. But after two dates, Georgina already felt like the most significant relationship of his life.
He scolded himself for getting wigged out. For blowing a chance at morning-after sex. But the larger issue was how coldly he’d treated her. So what if Georgina had a hair on her nipple? She was a human being. If it’d been a pimple or a mole or a birthmark, would it have bothered him one bit? Who was he, anyway, to be judgmental? Besides, if he was lucky enough to be with her again, he felt certain the hair would be gone. Surely there were products to deal with such things. And he couldn’t quite shake the idea that the hair hadn’t been there at all. That maybe it was a figment of his traitorous, undermining imagination.
He needed to get a hold of himself. He really liked this woman. Though he eschewed the idea of each of us having one perfect match in the world – the mathematics of it were impossible – he did believe that life was like a series of line segments. Moving from point to point, intersecting briefly with people we could love. And if the timing was right and there weren’t too many obstacles, two lines proceeded as one. His time with Georgina was now. He needed to be at his best, or he’d surely blow it.
But that morning, Marley was far from his best. Distracted, he made error after uncharacteristic error. He would start on a calculation, lose track of where he was, and find himself reworking the same tables several times over. Normally, he worked through lunch, eating at his desk. But today was the third Friday of the month. He had a standing lunch with his two closest friends – Dan Martenson, a salesman at his company; and Brian Valkanoff, a fellow accountant and former colleague who now worked for a financial firm down the street.
When Marley arrived at Legal Seafood, Dan and Brian were already seated.
“There he is,” Dan said. “I thought you were going to stiff us.”
“Let me guess,” Brian said, “you’re busy with yearend already. Is that it? Yearend?”
“Christ, here we go,” Dan said. “Before you start talking nerd for an hour, at least let me order another drink.”
Brian ignored him. “Want to hear something ridiculous? We haven’t even finished our third quarter numbers yet. Third quarter, I shit you not.”
“Wait a minute,” Dan said. “Hold the phone. Katie bar the door. You went out with her again, didn’t you? Last night? You and Georgina? The cheerleader?”
Marley opened his mouth as if to speak, a move he’d mastered. The best way to address an uncomfortable question from these two was to pretend to be ready to answer. After a half-second of silence, Dan leapt in to fill the void.
“I knew it, you sneaky bastard! And you weren’t going to tell us, were you? Well, pucker up, buttercup, because this just became lunch topic number one. And I expect details, goddammit.”
“Details?” Brian said. “How’s he going to give you details? You never let the guy speak.”
“Oh, he’ll speak,” Dan said. “You’ll speak all right, buddy boy. Don’t forget who introduced you two. If it wasn’t for me, you’d still be standing in a corner, nursing a scotch and soda with your dick in your hand. And somebody else would’ve gotten her number.”
This was fundamentally true, though Marley suspected Dan had only called him over to show Georgina what a nice guy he himself was. Still, when she’d warmed to Marley instead, Dan had gallantly stepped aside, declaring his need to visit the crapper.
“Bullshit,” Brian said. “I’m calling it right now. Bullshit on you, sir. The only reason Marley got her number is that she shot you down first.”
Dan karate chopped the air. “Immaterial. This was, what? Date number three? So you did the right thing, right? You did the right thing? You got in her pants?”
Usually, Marley enjoyed their ribbing, picking his spots to throw out a real zinger. But today – perhaps because he’d spent all morning wringing his hands over Georgina – he found the Dan & Brian Show exhausting.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” Brian said, “the boys’ locker room.”
“This is not the boy’s locker room, Brian. This is the men’s locker room. I don’t blame you for mistaking the two – I’m sure the math team locker room looked a little different. Guys showering in their underwear. Pin ups of a trapezoid doing a rhombus. But here in the men’s locker room, we tell all. With details.”
“You think I give you details every time I have sex with Marjorie?” Brian asked.
“You think I want those details? Look, Madge is a perfectly lovely girl.”
“Marjorie.”
“And believe you me, she’ll one day be declared a saint for letting you climb on top of her. But Georgina is a whole ‘nother deal.”
“She is very pretty,” Brian said to Marley.
“She’s not pretty,” Dan said, insulted. “She’s gorgeous. She’s a knock-out.”
She’s got a giant hair on her nipple, Marley almost said, just to derail the banter.
“She seems sweet,” Brian said.
“She’s stunning, for Christ’s sake,” Dan said. “So all I’m saying is, I want details, all right? Precise, pornographic details.”
Mercifully, the waitress came and they ordered their meals.
The rest of lunch was more of the same – Dan and Brian bickering about what Marley should or shouldn’t tell them, without ever giving him the chance to tell it. At the time, keeping the hair to himself felt like an act of chivalry, a sign of how much respect he had for Georgina. For women in general. But after work, he saw it more as an act of self-preservation. Despite the comedic tone, the underlying lunchtime theme had been: Georgina is way out of Marley’s league. Admitting to a secret flaw would only have underscored this, offering a ready explanation for how a girl like her could go for a good natured, slightly nerdy senior accountant.
But Marley didn’t want explanations. What he wanted was to call her. Her note had said, see you later. Did that mean later today? Or later in general, like at some undefined future point? Was it too soon to call?
He rubbed at his temples, head throbbing from a day’s worth of over-thinking. The Georgina situation was like a math problem. Marley needed to reduce it to its most basic parts: He liked her. He wanted to call her. Therefore, he called her.
Georgina already had plans that night. And the next day, a Saturday, the gymnastics team she coached had an all day competition in Western Mass. They agreed to meet for a drink when she got back to town, at a bar in Cleveland Circle called CitySide.
Marley got there first and lucked into a small table. Georgina arrived about fifteen minutes later, waving to him as the bouncer checked her ID. Every eye in the place seemed to follow her as she crossed the room and gave Marley a quick peck on the lips. When she took off her coat to reveal a tight blue dress, cut to mid-thigh, three nearby college kids nearly fell off their barstools.
“Sorry I’m late,” she said. “What a day.”
They ordered drinks and she told him about the gymnastics meet, where her team had come in last. Worse, right in the middle of it, the father of one of her girls had tried to hit on her.
“Can you believe it? He had to be forty. I was like, really? With a wedding ring on your finger and your daughter, like, twenty feet away?”
“That’s terrible,” Marley said. “Did you give him your number?”
“Of course. I’m meeting him at ten.” Georgina hit Marley on the arm. “No way. No more jerks.”
As if on cue, one of the college guys stumbled over and struck up a conversation with them. He was a good-looking kid with sparkling blue eyes, like a young Alec Baldwin. Within a few sentences, it was clear he was making a play at Georgina. Marley sat back, impressed with how politely, yet deftly, she shooed him away.
Alec Baldwin shook Marley’s hand. “Good for you, bro. No hard feelings?”
“None taken,” Marley said.
The guy paused a second, then stumbled back to his friends.
Georgina stirred her drink. “Sorry about that. I should’ve worn a different dress.”
“Maybe a burka,” Marley said.
She stared at him, smiling with her eyes. “You want to get out of here? My place is right around the corner.”
Her place was a hole in the wall walk-up. Georgina started kissing him in the hallway, while she dug around for her keys. She opened the door and had her panties off before putting down her purse. She pushed him into an armchair and straddled his knees. For her next trick, she put one hand inside her sleeve and pulled her bra out the other. Marley closed his eyes.
Forget the hair, he ordered himself.
Luckily, as Georgina eased on top of him, his mind cleared and there was nothing in the world but the feel of her.
Afterwards, she slept in her dress.
But later that week, Marley came across the hair again. This time he felt it first, coarse as a cat’s whisker against his palm. He nearly lost his erection.
He wanted to embrace it, to find beauty in Georgina’s secret flaw. But the truth was, it flat out repulsed him. On the one hand, Marley couldn’t get enough of her. Couldn’t wait to see her, to hear her voice, to smell her perfume and gaze into her shining eyes. On the other hand, he just couldn’t get past the hair. Georgina had to know it was there. Its persistence, at best, spoke to a disregard for self-grooming that seemed completely out of character. At worst, Marley feared, it was indicative of something deeper, more disturbing.
One night, right in the middle, Georgina repositioned herself so he somehow went deeper inside her than ever before. She was in ecstasy. But instead of enjoying it, Marley was afraid to move. Afraid he’d never find this spot again. Afraid, in short, of losing her. Afterwards, slowly, something inside him began to turn.
Over the next few weeks, he started to resent the duplicity of his situation. Not just the presence of the hair, but its invisibility to the rest of the world. On their first few dates, he hadn’t minded the double takes and jealous glances. On the contrary, he’d found them flattering, a testament that Georgina was as stunning to other men as she was to him. But as time passed, he lost patience with being looked up and down everyplace they went. He began to feel, subtly, that he belonged with a girl like Georgina. That if the oglers knew about the hair, they’d see this match was, at worst, balanced. At best, tilted in his favor.
Again, Marley was tempted to bring it up at lunch with Dan and Brian. But it still felt like too big a betrayal. Besides, Dan was on a roll about a stripper he’d begun dating, named Agnus.
“Honest to God,” he said, “I’ve never been with a woman so flexible. It’s like boning Stretch Armstrong.”
Brian’s head seemed to spin all the way around. “Stretch Armstrong,” he said, choking out his words, “was filled with poisonous jelly.”
Marley was thinking about bras, the fancy kind they advertise at Victoria’s Secret or Frederick’s of Hollywood. Maybe if he bought a gross of them for Georgina, she’d insist on wearing them at all times.
Dan stirred his drink. “Maybe it’s like this,” he said, as if tuned directly to Marley’s thoughts. “Georgina is so pretty, every dude looks sort of ugly to her. So from her perspective, there’s no huge difference between Marley and, say, Brad Pitt.”
Marley fixed his eyes on the table. He felt like a child, eavesdropping from the next room as his parents discussed his shortcomings.
“Now that,” Brian said, “is truly moronic.”
“Oh, yeah, whiz kid? Then riddle me this: Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett. Paulina Porizkova and Ric Ocasek. Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton.”
One weekend morning, while Georgina slept on her back, Marley carefully peeled away the covers, determined to face the hair once and for all. There it was – jet black, even longer than he remembered. Sprouting from a small, pink bump, like a boil, on the circumference of the areola. Thicker at the base, tapering to a point that curled over. Like a hair from an old man’s ear.
Marley reached towards it, hovering his palm above the end as if it were a flame. Georgina stirred. So close to perfect, he thought, his heart racing. Surely she’ll understand. He clamped his fingers around the hair and counted to three. Then he gave it a quick, firm tug.
Georgina screeched, shooting bolt upright.
“Shit!” she said, clutching at her breast. She looked at Marley, then down at the hair, then at Marley again.
“I’m sorry,” Marley said. “I didn’t…I thought it was a hair of mine.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I mean, I didn’t think it was attached.”
“Well, it is,” she said. “And if you pull it, it fucking hurts.”
“I know,” he said. “I mean, I can see that. I really am sorry.”
Georgina rubbed at her nipple. When she caught Marley watching, she covered both breasts with her hands, then pulled the covers up to her chin.
“How long has it…I mean, have you ever thought about…?”
“Thought about what?”
“I don’t know,” Marley said. “I realize it is, you know, a sensitive area. But maybe if you used tweezers? Or I’m sure a doctor could –”
“A doctor?” she said. “It’s a hair, Marley. A little hair attached to my body. Not some, like, hideous disfigurement.”
“No, of course not –”
“Don’t you think I’ve tried?” She raised a hand, ticking off the ways with her fingers. “Tweezers, razors, wax, scissors, electric shavers. It always hurts like hell. And it always grows back anyway, longer and thicker. So now I live with it, okay?”
“Absolutely,” Marley said. “It’s not so bad, really.” He bit down on his lip. “You say you’ve tried everything?”
Georgina’s mouth tightened. “You know, I expected this from most of them. I’ve tried hiding it, being upfront about it, ignoring it. But in the end, they all break up with me. Then finally – finally – I find someone who isn’t all about looks. Who supposedly tries to see more than what’s right in front him. Who seems interested in me. All of me – not just certain parts.”
Her eyes glistened in a way that, to Marley’s shame, made her more beautiful than ever.
“But now you, Marley?” she said. “You, too?”
“Georgina,” he said, putting a hand on her knee.
She sniffled, then wriggled out of reach. “I have to go.”
He watched from the bed as she gathered her clothes and disappeared into the bathroom. This was bad. How could he have been so stupid? He had to stop her, to convince her that the hair didn’t bother him one bit, no matter how much it really did. He was prepared to say anything. To make promises, broad declarations – the more grandiose, the better. He was prepared to admit, here and now, that he loved her.
Within seconds, Georgina burst from the bathroom, fully dressed.
“Georgina,” he said, this time with all the conviction he could muster.
But she charged straight past him, out of the bedroom. A few seconds later, he heard the front door open, then click shut.
Hours passed before he worked up the nerve to call her. He tried all afternoon and into the night, but only got her voice mail. Eventually, he gave up and went to bed. Then, very late, he tried again. She still didn’t answer. The next day, Marley stumbled into work like a zombie, physically and mentally drained, as if he’d been up all night working balance sheets.
He ordered flowers with a note that read, simply, I am so sorry. He wanted it to say more – what an insensitive jerk he’d been, how he hated himself for hurting her. How not knowing if he’d ever see her again was the worst kind of hell he could imagine. But he couldn’t bring himself to tell all this to the woman at the florist.
Later that week, after Marley had nearly given up hope, Georgina answered the phone.
“How are you?” he said, elated by the sound of her unrecorded voice.
“Fine.”
“Listen, Georgina, I just want you to know that –”
“Did you hear about halftime at the Celtics game?”
“Halftime?” he said. The night before, a dancer had tripped and fallen during the halftime routine. “I watched it live. I thought of you. Not that you’d ever do something like –”
“It’s okay, Marley,” she said, cutting him off again. “I understand.”
The next time they got together, neither of them mentioned the hair. In a way, it was like starting over. They dated, but didn’t sleep together for over two weeks. When they finally did, Georgina came to bed in a camisole – silky, lemon-colored, sexy as hell.
By Marley’s next lunch with Dan and Brian, the whole incident seemed to have happened long ago, to somebody else. At the same time, it was ever-present in the air between them. Yet in an act of complicity, both Marley and Georgina ignored it, as they now ignored the hair itself.
“They’ll get rid of her,” Brian said. “The playoffs are coming. And this is the Celtics, the most storied franchise in basketball. She’s fallen, what? Three times now?”
“I hear it’s vertigo,” Dan said. “And that other one, the redhead? Got herself knocked up.”
Marley wished he’d skipped lunch. He was already thinking up excuses for next month – Toothache? Surprise audit?
“How could you possibly know that?” Brian asked.
“Agnus,” Dan said, defensively. “A couple of the players are regulars at her club. The point is, that’s two spots opening up for Georgina.”
Irritable bowel syndrome, Marley thought.
“That’s true,” Brian said. “I also heard the Patriots Dance Squad is recruiting. Some of them don’t even have to dance – they’re spokesmodels, for car shows and such.”
“Agnus could do that,” Dan said.
Brian turned to Marley. “Has Georgina heard from the Celts yet?”
Marley opened his mouth, waited.
“I don’t know, man,” Dan said. “I’m not sure how comfortable I’d be with my girlfriend around all those NBA players. They’re loaded. They love to party. They’re freakishly tall.”
Invisible puffs of steam shot from Brian’s ears. “But you just told us that your girlfriend is around NBA players. In fact, she’s naked around NBA players.”
“That’s true,” Dan said. “But that kind of shit doesn’t bother me. I’m only saying, if I was Marley, I’d rather be going with a gymnastics coach than an NBA cheerleader.”
A case of the Black Death, Marley decided.
On the way out of the restaurant, Brian pulled Marley aside, to ask if he and Georgina would like to get together with him and Marjorie. “I think the girls would really get along,” Brian said.
Marley hesitated. “Sure,” he said. “But what about Dan? And Agnus?”
Brian looked from side to side, as if speaking Dan’s name would conjure his reappearance. “Maybe just the four of us this time. Between you and me, Marjorie’s not too keen on Agnus. And she thinks of Dan as, well, the Anti-Christ.”
It took a couple of weeks to schedule, but Marley, Georgina, Brian and Marjorie eventually had dinner. They met at the Cheesecake Factory at the Prudential Center on a Saturday night. During the three hour wait for a table, Marjorie brought up the Patriots Dance Squad.
“Autograph signings, charity events,” she said. “Car shows.”
Georgina fiddled with the buzzer – wishing, Marley suspected, that it would light up and deliver them elsewhere.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” Georgina said. “To be honest, I’m holding out for the Celtics.”
Marjorie made a theatrical wave of her arm, then sipped her cosmopolitan. “I understand that, sweetie. But the reality is, one team’s looking for girls, and one isn’t. And with the Patriots, you get paid for standing around. No cheerleading required. I mean, who wouldn’t want a job like that?”
Marjorie turned to Brian, who nodded in silent support – his natural state of being whenever she was around.
“Anyway,” she said, “we’ll email the information to Marley. In case you change your mind.”
“Thank you,” Georgina told Marjorie, smiling sweetly. “That’ll be helpful.”
“It was insulting,” Georgina told Marley later, as they arrived back at his condo. “I’m not saying she meant it that way, but that’s how it felt.”
Marley shrugged. “I think she was genuinely interested in your career. It was just a suggestion.”
“I understand that, Marley. But I’m a dancer. A gymnast. Not a model. Certainly not a cheerleader.”
Marley kept quiet. Georgina went into the bedroom, then came back in her bra.
“Maybe it’s me,” she said. “Am I the only one who sees the difference?”
For the first time in weeks, the hair poked to the forefront of Marley’s mind.
“There’s a difference, clearly,” he said. “But you have to admit – it’s not a huge one.”
“I see,” Georgina said, eyes narrowed. “Like the difference between, say, an accountant and a bookkeeper?” She unclasped her bra.
“Senior accountant,” Marley said, attempting but failing to avert his eyes. “That’s completely different.”
Georgina let her bra drop to the floor. She lingered a moment, topless, which seemed to Marley like an act of aggression.
“I’m going to bed,” she said. “To sleep. I don’t feel well.”
Marley sat on the couch, staring at the dark, lifeless screen of his television. He pinched at the bridge of his nose. He wished he could turn back time. Return to the morning he’d pulled on the hair, and not pull it. But immediately, he understood that this wouldn’t be far enough. To be truly happy, he’d need to go back to a state of ignorance, back before he’d noticed the hair. To the night of their second date, sitting at that table, having that conversation. To Georgina’s hand touching his, over and over, ad infinitum. That would be perfection. That would be bliss. That would be the exact inverse of where he found himself now.
“So what exactly are you saying?” Brian asked. “That Marjorie is a snob?”
“Don’t put this on Madge,” Dan said. “All four of you went out. And since you didn’t even bother to ask Agnus and me –”
“You were busy,” Brian said.
“Immaterial. The point is, it would’ve been nice – just common courtesy, really – to be invited. But since you chose to wipe your collective asses on common courtesy, my only assumption is, some or all of you are uptight about hanging around an exotic dancer. Which is your prerogative. But it’s also close-minded. And elitist. Classist. Maybe a little fascist. That’s all I’m saying.”
Brian rolled his eyes at Marley, who didn’t want to be here. Who, in truth, didn’t want to be anywhere these days.
“If it makes you feel any better,” Brian said, “you didn’t miss much.” He gave Marley a nervous look. “Not that we didn’t have fun. Honestly, it was great. But the wait at that place is insane. And for what? A fish taco? Meatloaf? I mean, the cheesecake is excellent, but really.”
Marley knew then that, afterwards, Marjorie had complained about Georgina as much as Georgina had about Marjorie.
Brian turned to Dan. “Actually, what you missed was a chat about Georgina’s prospects with the Celtics Dance Team. Or maybe the Patriots. Whatever she decides.”
“It’s the Celtics,” Marley said. “She’s got a tryout.”
Dan and Brian stared at him.
“Shit,” Dan said, from the side of his mouth. “I forgot he could talk.”
“Actually,” Marley said, “she’s so focused on the tryout, she hasn’t had time for anything else. Including me. Not for two weeks.”
“Yikes,” Brian said. “Sorry to hear that. You two seemed like, you know, such a good match.”
“We were,” Marley said, looking each of them in the eye. “We were and we weren’t. It was complicated.”
“You want to hear complicated?” Dan said. “The other night, Agnus came home with this huge welt on her inner thigh. You know, from the pole.”
“The worst part,” Marley said, turning to Brian, “is I think she’s seeing somebody else.”
“You’re shitting me,” Brian said. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” Marley said. “The guy who got her the audition, maybe.”
“Dude,” Dan said, barely masking his relief. “That sucks. Sincerely. But look on the bright side. You had a nice run, right? I mean – and I’m only saying this because I’m your friend – it’s not like you two were going to get married or some shit.”
Somehow, the conversation shifted topics, and Dan and Brian returned to their usual bullshit. Oblivious to Marley’s renewed silence, to his open wound of a heart. Or to the fact that this would be his last Friday lunch with them, ever.
Marley was dreaming – himself and a woman who looked vaguely like Georgina, searching for one another, through the halls of a labyrinthine office building – when the rattle of his intercom jolted him awake. He rolled off the couch, stumbled towards the front door.
“Hello?” he said into the speaker.
“Marley?”
He straightened up, afraid he was still dreaming. “Georgina?”
“Can I come up?” she said. “Please?”
He held the buzzer extra long, to be sure she made it in. He wanted to brush his teeth, but was afraid to stray too far from the door. Instead, he tucked his shirt into the waistband of his sweatpants. Then changed his mind and untucked it again. Finally, he heard her knock.
“I’m sorry,” Georgina said. “I know it’s late.” Her eyes were puffy. Her cheeks, tearstained.
Marley offered her a drink.
“No, thanks,” she said. “I won’t stay long. I just need to talk.”
Georgina sat on the couch. She began to tremble, then sob. Marley sat next to her, putting an arm around her shoulder. She leaned into him. Her hair smelled like orange blossoms.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “I’m glad you’re here. What happened?”
That afternoon, she’d had her tryout with the Celtics. Ten minutes before she’d been scheduled to go on, Julian, the guy who’d set up the audition – who she hadn’t slept with, she swore – had come into the changing room.
“To check on me, he said. Then he got all serious, and was like, ‘Please, Georgina, I beg of you. Just let me look at you.’ He’s Albanian, you know? And he’s been such a big help. What was I supposed to do?”
Marley patted her lightly on the shoulder, blood throbbing through the vein in his forehead.
“Right away, I thought, what if he notices the hair? But he went on and on about how beautiful I am, how special, the same old bullshit. And they were about to call me on stage. So I tried to flash him, just quick. But he put his hands on the straps of my top – you know, gently – and he…” She motioned with her hands, pulling down the invisible straps, fighting back tears. “Then he stared a few seconds, pulled the straps up, and left.”
The tryout had gone horribly, one misstep after another, Georgina distracted by what Julian must think, what he might say to the judges. Then, ten minutes after her routine, they’d called her back out.
“Do you know what they told me?” she said in mid-cry. “We’re sorry, you’re more experienced than what we’re looking for.”
“Experienced?” Marley said.
“Old,” Georgina said. “Like twenty-eight is too old to be a fucking cheerleader.”
Marley handed her a tissue and she blew her nose. He tried to comfort her. “There’ll be other auditions,” he said.
But Georgina shook her head. “No way. That was it. My one shot, and I blew it. Because of a stupid hair.” She stared down at her chest. “It screwed up my audition. It screwed up things between you and me.”
She looked deep into Marley’s eyes. So beautiful, he could imagine cutting off an ear for her.
“I want to get rid of it, Marley. Please. Help me get rid of it.”
Fifteen minutes later, Georgina lay topless on his bed, a soda can held to her left breast. Marley came in with a pair of flat-nose pliers – from his Craftsman toolkit, a gift.
“Is it numb yet?” he asked.
“I think so.” She pulled back the can. The nipple was hard, but Marley noticed it only clinically, his eyes focused on the hair, longer and thicker than ever.
“Ready?” he asked.
Georgina nodded.
“And you’re sure? This is really what you want?”
“Just promise me, please, that you’ll pull it out all the way. Even if I scream and cry. Even if it kills me.”
Marley let out a nervous laugh, then regained his composure. He climbed onto the bed, straddling her hips. Then he lowered the pliers and clamped them around the base of the hair, careful not to pinch the skin.
“Ready?”
She closed her eyes, smiling meekly.
Marley took two quick breaths. “One for the money,” he said, “two for the show…”
“Please just pull it,” Georgina said.
Marley pulled. Right away, it felt as if he had hold of something other than a hair. Something longer, more deeply rooted. Something that stretched to the very core of Georgina, like a tendon or a length of intestine. But he kept pulling, ignoring the agony on her face. When he looked down, he noticed a drop of blood had formed.
“Don’t stop,” Georgina said through gritted teeth. “It’s coming. I can feel it.”
Marley shifted from his knees to the balls of his feet. He pulled again, putting his legs into it, and could feel the hair give. But it still wasn’t out. The dark part had cleared the skin, but it was still connected to her by a thin strand of bloody tissue.
Georgina let out a low moan, and Marley braced himself for one last, epic pull. He put his full weight into it, launching himself from the bed, crashing to the floor. As he regained his equilibrium, he found the hair still squeezed between the pliers, trailed by a raw-pink strand nearly twice its length.
On the bed, Georgina looked pale, exhausted, like she’d just given birth.
“I got it,” Marley said giddily. “It’s over.”
He held the pliers above her face, the length of tissue wriggling like a wet noodle. He felt proud, elated, like a man who’d conquered nature. Like from this moment forward, everything in his life would lock into place and go straight.
Blood welled in the hole where the hair had been. “I’ll get a washcloth,” Marley said, his joy only slightly diminished by worry.
When he returned, Georgina stared up at him. She felt woozy, as if waking from an anesthetic sleep. And as Marley applied the washcloth with a nervous smile, she was struck by the deep set of his eyes, the hooked angle of his nose, the stoop of his shoulders. She’d always known he wasn’t handsome, but hadn’t noticed until now how he resembled a vulture, lurching over her. Georgina stared and stared, marveling at each grotesque detail, dazzled by all the ugliness she’d failed to see before.
Bio:
Jason is a graduate of Boston College and the MFA program at The Ohio State University. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in Alaska Quarterly Review, Washington Square, The Journal, Red Rock Review and River Oak Review.