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"Miss Peterson asked who cut my hair today," my sister said during a lull in dinner conversation.

It seemed like the family's hair discussions were happening at the dinner table now. To save my sister from the ravages inflicted by a blue-hair salon stylist, I became her barber, clipping her overgrown badly-layered near-shoulder-length hair to, I had to admit, a striking closely-clipped nape that was sheared short over her ears, with full, feathered mid-length bangs.

This led to the unexpected consequence of my mother asking that her shoulder-grazing one-length style be cut by me. Her instructions to "give me a haircut, please" as she sat on the stool in the basement that had so recently been used by my sister resulted in a cropped pixie that my mother was still getting used to. In off-moments, I would see her running her hand through her hair, still getting used to her first off-the-ears cut.

But, a schedule was set. Every fourth Saturday was officially designated family haircut day, when I would be expected to cut both my sister's and mother's hair.

The family ran by rules and schedules. If my mother had any displeasure at her new short style, she never expressed it. She had said she liked her cut a lot, but one would expect that from a mother in any event.

"How did THAT topic come up," I asked my sister.

"I went over to Gretchen's this afternoon to talk about her weekending with us, and Miss Peterson commented on how nice my hair looked and inquired who cut it. So, I told her that my brother cut it and that he had become the family stylist now," my sister said with a sly smile.

"Well, that is one way to get a reputation," I said.

"You have no idea. Anyway, Miss Peterson asked me to ask you if you would cut Gretchen's hair when she visited."

"You serious?" I asked.

"Yeah, well... here is the deal. I have been around when Miss Peterson had strongly hinted that it was time for Gretchen to get her hair cut. And Gretchen has kinda been ignoring the whole issue. It looks like it is at the point when it can't be ignored anymore. When Gretchen's hair got to the point that she had to move it out of the way before sitting down, then that got to be too much for her aunt. I guess there was a bit of an ultimatum: Gretchen would get it cut, or her aunt would take her to get it cut, but the long hair had to go."

Now, a lot of issues started to collide in on me. Not the least of which is I had a devastating, and unrequited, crush on Gretchen. Possessing a brilliant mind, her parents had shipped her off from her small West Virginia village to live with her aunt.

The hope was that in a larger town, Gretchen would get a better education, better college, better life. Downside: the aunt was Miss Peterson; a spinster disciplinarian of the type that is impossible to parody, because she was the parody of the spinster disciplinarian. That Gretchen chafed under these shackles was obvious, and her hair was one of those quiet rebellions in which Gretchen could engage without directly confronting the authority of her aunt.

Gretchen of course was allowed no boyfriends, and to my knowledge, had no interest in such. In any event, high school being high school I was barred by any application for that position by the simple disqualifier of age. One year her junior - insignificant in any other endeavor - the age difference was fatal to teenage relationships. A boy may date down a year, or possibly two, a girl, never.

All men, as my mother was wont to say, lead lives of quiet desperation.

"Well, I will cut her hair, if she wants. But she may want to go to a salon, if her aunt expects a major change," I said doing my best to appear nonchalant.
"I figured you wouldn't mind cutting her hair," my sister said with another small smile. "So I said that you would probably be happy to do it while she is here. And I think this is the best of a lot of bad options for Gretchen too. I gather the place her aunt had in mind for the cut would not be... pleasant... for Gretchen."

"Well, I'm all for domestic harmony. Anything I can do to help, I just that kinda guy," I said.
"Speaking of haircuts, your sister needs some attention, and I could use a cut also, so why don't you work on your sister's hair while I clean up here, then I will be down for a cut," my mother said.

"Oh," my mother added, as my sister and I headed to the basement where the "shop" was set up, "can you cut her hair so it doesn't look so shaggy so quickly? And I would like mine neatened up quite a bit too."

I had taken to leaving my “shop” set up full-time, so the cape and cutting tools were all laid out when my sister sat on the stool. As soon as the cape was secured around her neck, she bent her head and waited quietly. As was her wont, she did not request any type of cut.

I quickly combed her hair to smooth the locks, lifting her head to comb down the bangs, which had fallen to the bridge of her nose. I tackled the bangs first, quickly snipping them back to the middle of her forehead.

Then I picked up the clippers and placed the quarter-inch guide on the head. Pressing her head back down, I flipped on the motor and ran the clippers from her nape to her crown. In keeping with my mother’s instructions to cut her hair so it wouldn’t get shaggy so quickly, I decided to giver her a little boy’s cut, with closely clippered sides and back, and longer layers on top.

Four inches of her thick black hair tumbled to the floor as I worked the clippers around her back and sides. I reduced the nape to an eighth of an inch, with final cleanup at the neck and ears with the guards off.

I quickly scissored the top to an inch at the crown and blended that in with the long bang-length locks in front.

In a half-hour, the floor was covered with my sister’s hair and I hear our mother coming down the stairs.

“Very nice, Martin, “ my mother commented as she saw my sister looking at her new crop in the mirror. “Something like that for me, but.... please I don’t think a mother-daughter cut would be a good idea. But that does look wonderful on your sister.”

My sister ran her hand over her closely-clipped nape and smiled. “Thanks, Marty – you get to keep your job for another month!” and gave the stool to her mother.

I give my mom a longer version of my sister’s cut, not clipped quite as close in the back, with a longer top, not as “trendy” as my sister’s shearing, which seemed to suit everyone fine.

If she were surprised by the first time clippers had been run over the back of her head, she didn’t offer any indication. But frankly, as I flicked the clippers around my mother’s head, my full concentration was not on my current client. My mind was reeling with the potential of cutting Gretchen’s hip-length hair.

Miss Peterson arrived with Gretchen promptly at 1 in the afternoon the following day.

Miss Peterson was from another era, assured, knowing no doubt, and not suffering fools gladly. A silent reproach was more devastating than any verbal invective. She was nylons and heels, Palmer-method handwriting and saw great virtue in sitting erectly in straight-backed chairs.

“Martin, I understand you have become quite the accomplished hair stylist – your sister speaks quite highly of your skills,” she said to me without preamble.

“I lay claim to no great skill, Miss Peterson. Only the modest advantage of convenience,” I said evenly. My one pleasure was to verbally joust with Miss Peterson, a lame effort to match her formality of language with my own.

“I confess, I do not understand the hair styles of today’s young women. But, their world is not mine – I need not approve, only accommodate where appropriate. Gretchen has requested that her hair be cut by you. Is that agreeable? It appears that my stylist is not satisfactory for the current fashion whims of youth.”

“To the extent that my modest abilities are of use to you and Gretchen, I would be honored to be entrusted with such a charge,” I responded.

My sister gave me a look that said I was treading on dangerous verbal grounds. But if any parody were perceived by Miss Peterson, she did not indicate it.

“Very well then. If I may ask then that you cut Gretchen’s hair in a more appropriate length and style. Your sister says you are particularly adept at the shorter styles currently favored. I leave it to your discretion then to come up with an appropriate coif for my niece.”

I stood up and turned to Gretchen. “My shop, such as it is, is downstairs,” I said. Gretchen made a small smile and stood up, her hair swirling around her.

“Andrea, help me in the kitchen with the tea for Miss Peterson,” my mother said to my sister.

My sister looked up with a start at my mother. The message was clear, Gretchen and I were to sort out her haircut by ourselves.

I led Gretchen to the basement and offered her the stool. She sat down, back straight and shoulders square. I had seen her penmanship also – the influences of Miss Peterson were many and varied.

I pulled her hair back and placed it over one shoulder as I secured the haircape around her neck. Then, handing her a mirror, I asked if she had a cut in mind.

Gretchen placed the mirror on her lap without looking, and stared directly at me. “I leave it to you, Martin,” she said clearly.

I removed the small wire-framed glasses from her face and looked into her cool gray eyes. Gretchen was more strikingly handsome than beautiful. Her strong jaw and regular features belied a determination that was evident in being able to live with as strong a force as Miss Peterson without going completely bonkers.

I picked up the comb, then hesitated.

“I am sorry, Gretchen,” I said softly.

“What for, Martin?”

“For cutting your hair.”

Gretchen paused, lowered her eyes, then returned my gaze.

“Believe me, believe this. You, here, today, are the very best situation I could have. This is what I want. I want you to cut my hair – cut it in a way you think is best.”

There were many things that could be said. There were many potential interpretations. I took the coward’s way out.

“If t’were be done, tis best done quickly,” I said.

“Your Macbeth is little mangled, but I appreciate the thought,” she said laughing.

The tension was broken, and any doubts I had vanished.

“I’ve never had a man cut my hair before,” she said as I started combing her hair.

“Who did cut your hair?”

“Well, we live in the middle of no where in West Virginia. My mom cut my hair – twice a year, stand in the kitchen and get it chopped in five minutes, straight across the back.”

Then she paused. “I have never had my hair cut short – you are going to cut it short, aren’t you.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Yes, Gretchen. Quite short.”

She paused. “I will like that, I think.”

It is not as if I hadn’t been planning this cut – I knew exactly how I wanted to shear Gretchen. Her features would be perfect for a short crop, her low forehead ruled out bangs, so I was going with a classic boy cut – short sides and back, top longer and combed over with a left-side part.

Gretchen’s hair was parted in the middle. As I smoothed out the long locks, I knew I would have to find her natural part. First, the long hair had to go. I picked up the seven-inch shears and placed them at her jaw. In seconds, four feet of lustrous brown hair had tumbled in a sheet to the floor as I took the shears around her head.

Gretchen showed no emotion as her tresses were snipped – keeping her gaze straight ahead.

I combed her bobbed hair straight back, then pushed it forward from the crown. Her hair separated both in the middle and at a spot on the left side of her head. This was her natural part.

I parted her hair on the left, and combed over the rest to the right, gathering the top together and pinning it out of the way. Slipping on a half-inch guide on the clippers, I saw Gretchen’s eyes blink and her lips tighten ever so slightly as I thumbed the power switch.

I pushed her head forward, and took the clippers through her thick, brown hair to just above the occipital bone. Her silken locks fell over the clippers and onto my hand as I moved the appliance over the back of her head – pulling the clippers away at the top to create a soft clipped layer.

It took just a couple of minutes to clip her back to a half-inch. I then put on a quarter-inch guide and clippered her shorn locks, feathering in the quarter-inch section with the longer half-inch area.

Then I put on the eighth-inch guide and worked the lower part of her nape, finally taking the guide off entirely to shave her neck and give a closely-clipped transition to the rest of her back.

The rest would be scissor work. Angling the hair between my fingers, I layered her left side between a half-inch to an inch and a half, the scissors slicing cleaning through her locks, the severed lengths gathering on her caped shoulders. I repeated the process on the right side, then unpinning the hair from on top, I dampened her hair with water from a spray bottle.
Straight scissor-over-comb technique reduced the top locks from jaw-length to the middle part of her right side.

Blowing her hair dry, I picked up the thinning shears and used them to blend and layer the closely-cut sides with the longer top layers, and to provide a smoother transition at her back.

In half-an-hour, I was finished. The floor was covered with her silken tresses, her lap filled with the remnants of the scissor work I had done. I took a small squirt of styling gel, rubbed it between my palms and worked it briefly through the remnants of her hair. Just enough to keep the forelocks from tumbling in her face, until her hair got used to the new direction.

I stepped back, and was amazed. What I thought would be a good cut on Gretchen was an incredible cut. This due not so much to my skill as a cutter, as a glow was released from her face.

Something inside Gretchen had been released during the cut. What it was, I didn’t know, but it was real, and it was there.

I took the cape off, and shook the shorn locks to the floor. Now she looked in the mirror.

An initial look of shock gave way to a small smile.

“Are you finished?” she asked.

“It’s all over except for the tears,” I said.

She looked up at me from the stool.

“No, no tears. This was much better than I had ever thought.” She stood up, reached out and touched me gently on the arm. “Thank you, Martin. For everything. Now, let me clean up here.”

“No, don’t bother. I need to stick all this stuff away. Go on upstairs and see what Miss Peterson has to say. I will be up in a minute.”

Gretchen nodded, and started up the stairs.

“Martin,”...

“Yeah?”

“Would you cut my hair again?”

“Anytime, Gretchen. Anytime at all.”

She looked directly into my eyes for several seconds through her glasses.

“Thank you.”

She paused again.

“You know...”

I nodded. “I know, “ I said softly.

She nodded too, and went upstairs.

I knew. We had been flirting with a moment. The haircut was a transformation for Gretchen, a bond that was now between us alone.

But, Gretchen was senior year, destined for an Ivy League school, out of the hills of West Virginia and ready to bolt from the restrictions of Miss Peterson. I knew. In that plan, junior mid-western Martin didn’t fit.

I heard the gasps, oohs and ahhs through the flooring above me as I picked up the broom. There was a lot of hair to sweep up.

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