Red Bob
The wedding had felt far away for ages, and then suddenly it didn’t. There were dresses hanging up, relatives arriving, flowers being dropped off, and people asking where things were meant to go.
For ages it had just been lists, messages, venue visits, and conversations that got interrupted by work, food, or one of us being too tired to care about things like cutlery. Then all at once, it was actually happening.
Becky’s hair had grown into her intended length of a long bob.
It had real shape to it. Brunette, polished, moving properly when she turned her head, tucking behind one ear when she was concentrating. It was the furthest away from the old icy-blue buzzcut it had ever been, and still somehow carried the same sense of choice. It looked entirely Becky.
Mine had ended up somewhere different.
A mid-length bob with a short fringe, fuller and curlier than it had been in the harder middle months, darkened enough to feel deliberate without losing itself completely.
A few days before the wedding, Leanne had refined the shape properly for me — not changing it so much as sharpening it, coaxing the curls into sitting where they were meant to sit, making the whole thing feel more finished without turning it into somebody else’s idea of pretty.
I came home that evening and found Becky on the sofa with her laptop open and the expression she got whenever wedding logistics had been offending her for more than twenty minutes.
She looked up at me, then looked properly.
Her whole face changed.
“Oh,” she said.
I shut the door behind me. “Good oh?”
Becky stood up at once and came over.
She touched one curl lightly near my cheek, then another at the side, then stepped back just enough to take the whole thing in.
“Very good oh,” she said.
I laughed.
The shape sat exactly where Leanne had put it, the curls more defined, the bob carrying more movement without losing its edge, and the short fringe stopping the whole thing from turning too soft. It was, annoyingly, very good.
Becky smiled slowly.
“You look lovely.”
That landed a bit harder than I expected.
“Thanks.”
“No, really.” She kept looking. “I knew it would suit you. I just didn’t realise it would suit you like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’ve quietly gone off and become some very polished version of yourself without checking whether I was prepared.”
“That does sound like me.”
“It does.”
Her hand came back to my hair then, more confidently this time, fingers grazing the curl at my temple and then the one near my jaw.
“I like it,” she said. “A lot.”
That made me smile despite myself.
“Good.”
“Very good, actually.” Becky’s mouth twitched. “I’m trying to be gracious about the fact you let Leanne have this much fun with your head this close to the wedding.”
“You’ll cope.”
“I will. But I feel entitled to a moment.”
“You’re having several.”
“That’s because it deserves several.”
Then she kissed me once, softly, one hand still resting lightly near my ear.
After that she made no secret of liking it. She touched it whenever I was nearby over the next few days, not constantly, just in that absent fond way people do when something new pleases them. Once while we were brushing our teeth she looked at me in the mirror and said, with toothpaste in her mouth, “I still can’t believe how good your wedding hair looks,” and I laughed so hard I had to put my toothbrush down.
That was the tone of it. Warm. Easy. Settled.
——
The night before the wedding, we slept apart.
Late that afternoon, after the last few bits had been dropped off at the venue, Kaye — Becky’s cousin — arrived to pick her up so she could stay at her house.
Kaye was confident and curvy, and worked as a makeup artist, which turned out to be extremely useful on occasions such as a wedding. She wore her brunette hair in a softly tousled highlighted bob with a wispy fringe.
As Kaye loaded Becky’s dress, shoes, emergency pins, and overnight bags into the car, Becky held my face in both hands and kissed me slowly in the corridor outside.
“You alright?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“You don’t sound convincing.”
“I’m getting married tomorrow.”
“That’s true. So am I.”
“That feels like enough to justify being a bit strange.”
Becky smiled. “Fair.”
Then she looked at my hair again, because of course she did.
“I still love this,” she said.
“That’s because you have excellent judgement.”
“I do.”
She kissed me once more, quick and pleased.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, curly.”
That made me laugh. “Tomorrow.”
After she got in the car and left, everything felt too quiet.
I went back inside and looked at the room: flowers, chair, wardrobe, little bottles of water placed more carefully than anyone would ever place bottles of water for themselves. Everything waiting.
It was odd being there without her.
Not dramatic. Just unfamiliar enough to make itself felt. I was used to ending the day with Becky somewhere in the frame. In the bathroom. At the wardrobe. On the bed taking her earrings off and saying something dry. The absence of that left the room feeling unfinished even with everything else in place.
My phone went after a while.
Miss you already.
I smiled and typed back:
I love you too. See you tomorrow.
——
By morning there was no time to stay still.
The day had become fully operational.
Last minute tweaks to decor with the inclusion of fresh flowers, along with cake arriving in one piece. All delegated by Vesper’s organisational touches.
Whilst I was finishing having my makeup done, I could see from out of the window that she had changed her hair. Her copper curls were shorter, and it was definitely brighter looking, but I couldn’t be sure of the exact colour.
One person whose length I could be certain of was Leanne’s, who was with me by my side that morning.
She was never sentimental under pressure, which was one of the reasons I wanted her there.
“Sit still,” she said, as she was adjusting one side of my hair.
“I am sitting still.”
“You’re thinking too much with your face.”
“That sounds invented.”
“It isn’t.”
She made the last few small corrections and stepped back.
I looked at myself properly then.
The dress first. Then the line of my shoulders. Then the hair.
The curls sat well. Better than well. Enough shape to feel deliberate, enough movement to keep it alive, and the fringe keeping the whole thing from becoming too pretty in a way that didn’t belong to me. Bridal, yes. But not borrowed.
Leanne folded her arms.
“Well?” I asked, seeking a snippet of reassurance.
“You look bloody good if I don’t mind saying”
“I don’t.” I laughed
“Hey, you know I’m not one for big complements.”
I reached over and took her hand, wanting her to understand how much I truly appreciated everything she had done for me in the build-up to this day.
We were interrupted by the soft click of the door and the familiar sight of my mum stepping into the room.
“Mum!” I called, my hand lifting from my lap.
She looked perfect for the day: elegant, polished, every inch mother of the bride. Her soft jacket sat neatly over her dress, and her bobbed curls framed her face beautifully.
Then she saw me properly and stopped.
“Oh, Car,” she said, her voice thickening. “You look beautiful.”
I swallowed. “Do I?”
“She really does,” Leanne agreed, already packing away her equipment.
Once Leanne had gone, the room softened. The busy bridal-suite feeling faded, leaving just me and Mum in the quiet before everything became official.
She poured us each a small glass of Prosecco.
“For courage,” she said.
“For nerves,” I corrected.
“For both.”
We touched glasses gently. For a few minutes, we talked about ordinary things.
As we spoke, Mum noticed my hands trembling. She covered them with hers.
“You’re allowed to be nervous,” she said quietly. “It doesn’t mean you’re unsure.”
“I’m not unsure,” I said. “I’m just… full. There’s too much of everything.”
“That’s what big days do,” she said. “They bring everything with them.”
When it was time for her to go, she smoothed her dress and gathered herself back into mother-of-the-bride mode. At the door, I caught her hand.
“Mum,” I said.
She turned back.
I leaned in carefully and whispered something into her ear.
She didn’t answer with words. Her expression shifted, and then she pulled me into a warm, careful embrace, one hand firm between my shoulders, the other hovering near my hair so she didn’t disturb a single curl.
For a few seconds, I wasn’t a bride waiting to walk into a room full of people. I was just her daughter.
When she let me go, her eyes were shining.
“Right,” she said, blinking herself steady. “I’m going before I ruin both our faces.”
Then she slipped out, leaving the room quieter than before, but somehow easier to breathe in.
——
A few minutes later, and with the ceremony looming, Vesper came in to check that I ready.
She stopped when she saw me and smiled.
“There you are,” she said.
I laughed a little. “That sounds ominous.”
“It isn’t. It means exactly what it means.” Her eyes moved once over the dress, the hair, the whole assembled version of me. “You look lovely.”
“Thank you,” I said, “You’re looking pretty special yourself. I’m liking the colour and tighter curls.” Referencing her hair.
”Yes. Claire had done something similar a few months back and tempted me to a little shorter”
“You’d suit any cut, and hey, if you ever get bored of Roxy, I’d gladly do something for you.” I offered
”Maybe,” She laughed, “But it might be a while before I need to visit a salon. I’m buzzing all this off tomorrow.”
“Wow, really.” I say almost too enthusiastically.
”Yeah, Claire’s had hers buzzed and bleached, and it’s made me want to follow suit. I’m going to surprise her tomorrow night.”
”She’ll love that, but do you not think you’ll miss anything about how it is now?” I asked.
”I love my hair when it’s been permed, but there’s something so freeing and special when I take it all off again, though you’d know all about that.” She winked.
“Anyway, enough about me. You’re looking very calm,” she reassured.
“That is almost certainly false.”
“No,” Vesper said. “You’re just keeping the panic under structure. Are you ready for later?”
“I think I know what I’m going to do.” I replied.
”It’ll be some moment”
Then she squeezed my hand once and went back out to deal with whatever chairs or aunties or weather-related concerns had momentarily disrupted the plan.
——
The first sight of Becky took my breath away.
We had been kept apart properly enough that when I finally saw her, standing at the altar, it landed in full.
Her hair was no longer brunette.
It had been taken back to ocean blue.
Not the frosted icy-blue of the old buzzcut, but a deeper, richer blue with movement in it, cool and saturated and unmistakably chosen. The long bob had been waved through the lengths so it fell with softness and shape around her shoulders, part of it pinned back from her face just enough to open it. It looked finished without looking overworked. It looked like Becky had remembered herself in time.
I let my gaze shift from Becky for a moment and noticed Kaye.
Gone was her brunette bob. Instead she wore a soft, even buzzcut, fluffy all over her head.
That wasn’t something I’d seen coming, especially from someone who was so obsessed with her hair.
For a second I forgot every practical part of the room.
Then Becky turned properly, saw me, and smiled in a way that made my whole body remember itself.
The ceremony did what Vesper had said it would do.
It went by with surprising speed.
Not because there was anything unusual about it in practical terms. Two women, dressed properly, standing up in front of the people they loved and saying what they meant. But practical things can still go straight through you when they happen at the right time.
Becky’s voice shook once at the start and then held.
Mine held all the way through, though only just.
I remember her hands, and her blue hair pinned back from her face, and the line of concentration she got between her brows when she was trying not to cry in front of people. I remember the room going quiet in the places that mattered.
I remember thinking, with sudden clarity, that I was not arriving at anything abstract. I was standing in the middle of the life we had already built and naming it properly.
By the time the ceremony gave way to the reception, the day had started to loosen around the edges in the best way.
People relaxed. Jackets came off. Glasses refilled. The whole thing began to feel lived in rather than watched.
Vesper had got exactly what we wanted. It looked beautiful, but more importantly it felt breathable. Nobody seemed trapped by the formality of it. Nobody seemed to be performing joy instead of having it.
Amy was receiving deserved praise for Becky’s hair with the expression of someone trying and failing not to enjoy praise.
Leanne was somehow involved in half the room while looking as though she had barely moved.
Kaye, who seemed to regard being Becky’s cousin and maid of honour as licence to involve herself in all available directions, had settled into the afternoon with determination and prosecco, and seemed to be enjoying the attention her new haircut was getting.
During the meal, she looked from Becky to me and back again, and announced, “Look at you both. You’re stunning.”
“Well, you did the hard work in making me look this good,” Becky said.
“We took it in turns, I think.” Kaye laughed, rubbing the back of her head.
“What made you change your hair, Kaye? I loved your bob, but this is something else on you,” I said.
“I’d been wanting something like this ever since I saw you both with your buzzcuts,” Kaye replied. “I asked Becky if I should try it, and she did it for me while her dye was developing.”
“It suits you,” I said, smiling.
“Thanks. I really do like your hair, by the way.”
“The curls?”
“Yes, the curls, ” she said. “Now there’s curls, and theres proper curls, and these look perfect on you. So natural. I’ve always envied naturally curly people.”
“You should try getting yours permed if you decide to grow it back,” I said.
“Maybe. I think it would be worth trying one day,” Kaye replied.
Then she wandered off again in search of another drink and somebody willing to discuss whether bouquet tossing was inherently sexist if the bouquet itself was nice enough.
It should have been enough just being there by then.
Married. Fed. Surrounded by people we loved. Becky’s hand finding the back of my waist whenever she passed close enough. The line of her blue hair loosening slightly as the day wore on. My own hair holding where it needed to hold.
And it was enough.
It just wasn’t all of it.
By the time someone called everyone over for the bouquet toss, the room had softened into exactly the kind of cheerful disorder that makes that sort of thing possible.
People were willing. Kaye was there early, already smiling in a way that suggested she intended to take the whole thing seriously for at least the next thirty seconds. Two of Becky’s friends came over laughing already. One of my cousins declared she was only participating “ironically,” which usually means not ironically at all.
I was handed the bouquet.
Everyone was looking in the right direction. The music had shifted. The room had that little collective attention these things get.
I turned my back to them.
And then, instead of throwing the bouquet, I took hold of my hair. Well — hair is generous. It was a wig. I pulled it free and threw it up.
The room lost a second.
I felt the sudden air on my bare scalp before anyone else understood what had happened, and by the time I turned back around the wig was already in flight.
Kaye caught it on instinct, both hands up, expression blank with disbelief.
The sound that went through the room changed shape all at once. Gasps first. Then laughter. Then that wider, warmer noise people make when surprise tips over into delight.
I stood there bald, smiling before I had even fully decided to.
And then I looked at Becky.
Her face had gone absolutely still.
Not for long. Just long enough for me to feel the shock arrive and register cleanly. Then it changed. Recognition. Astonishment. Love so visible it nearly made the whole thing impossible to stand through.
She laughed once, half breath, half disbelief, and came straight towards me.
“Oh my God,” she said.
“Hi,” I said.
That made her laugh again.
Her hand came up slowly and settled against the side of my head.
There it was. Skin to skin. No hair between us at all.
Her expression shifted the moment she felt it.
“Oh,” she said quietly.
“Yeah.”
Becky’s thumb moved once near my temple, and then she kissed me in front of everyone while Kaye, still holding the wig, said very loudly, “Well. That is new.”
Across the room, Vesper had one hand over her mouth and was smiling with complete, delighted understanding.
She did not look shocked so much as deeply satisfied by the idea and the execution both.
The room recovered around us in ripples.
People wanted to know if I had just done that. People wanted to know how long I had been bald. People wanted to know if the wig was expensive.
Kim laughed every time she caught my eye. We’ve worked together at the salon for years so I doubt it surprised her as much.
Leanne only looked at me once from across the room and gave the smallest nod, which somehow made me laugh harder than anything else had.
Kaye was trying my wig on, checking her reflection in one of the tall mirrors beside the bar. I don’t think she had expected to have curls so soon after our conversation.
”It suits you” I said to her
”It does, doesn’t it. But I think I may be more swayed but the symbolism of this wig. Does catching this must mean I should be next to go bald?” She teased, as she took off the wig.
”I hadn’t thought of that, it was just impulse to throw it,” I replied, “Either look would suit you”
Becky, for the rest of the reception, kept touching my head whenever she came near enough to do it naturally.
Not constantly. Just as if she needed repeated confirmation that it was still true
——
By the time we got back to the suite, the noise of the day had finally thinned enough to let the real question through.
Becky shut the door and leaned back against it for a second, still in her dress, blue hair slightly looser now where pins had shifted, face tired and bright and full of too many things at once.
I had kicked my shoes off halfway down the corridor and was standing barefoot in the middle of the room in my dress and my bald head and no remaining intention of pretending the day had been ordinary.
For a moment we just looked at each other.
Then Becky crossed the room, stopped in front of me, and put both hands on my head.
Not my face. My head.
Her eyes shut briefly.
“When?” she asked.
“A few nights ago,” I said.
She opened her eyes.
“A few nights ago,” she repeated.
I nodded.
“After you left the salon early.”
“For the wedding stuff?”
“Yeah.”
Becky stared at me for another second, then let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
“I left to deal with table numbers and wine and came back to curls.”
I smiled. “You did, technically.”
“That was not your hair.”
“No.”
Becky’s hands slid to the back of my head, fingers spread there now, and she gave me a look that was half disbelief and half something much softer.
“You let me talk about the curls.”
“I did.”
“I told you I liked them.”
“You did.”
“Several times.”
“I know.”
That made her laugh properly.
Then she looked at me again, more seriously.
“Did Leanne know?”
“Yes.”
“In advance?”
“Yes.”
“Did anyone else?”
“Vesper knew enough, and I let Mum prior warning, so not to give her a heart attack ”
Becky shook her head once, still smiling in that slightly stunned way.
“Probably best you did.”
Her thumb moved once near the base of my skull.
“And you were just going to let me get all the way through the wedding thinking that was your real hair?”
“Yes.”
Becky looked at me in open disbelief.
“That is outrageous.”
“I know.”
“It’s also very you.”
That landed deeper.
She was quiet for a second after that.
Then she asked, more softly, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I looked at her properly.
Because that was the real question. Not when. Not who knew. That.
“I wanted one decision before the wedding that was entirely mine,” I said. “I knew if I told you, you’d understand. You always do. But I needed to choose it first and let it become true before I handed it over.”
Becky held my gaze.
“And the wig toss?”
I laughed under my breath. “Once I had the idea, it got difficult not to do it.”
“That tracks.”
I smiled.
Becky’s hands stayed where they were, warm and steady against my scalp.
“Tell me properly,” she said.
So I told her everything…
——
Leanne already knew why I’d stayed behind that evening.
I’d told her two days earlier, quietly, in the gap between clients, that I thought I wanted to be bald for the wedding. Not as a joke. Not as a theory. Properly. She hadn’t made a speech about it. She hadn’t tried to talk me out of it or romanticise it. She’d just looked at me for a second and said, “Fine. We’ll do it properly.”
So when Becky left early that evening to deal with wedding things, and the salon emptied around us piece by piece, nothing about it felt accidental.
The new lady, Collette, went first, still talking while she packed her things. Then Amy. Then Kim. The last appointments were finished, the floor got swept, the till got counted down, and the whole place gradually lost the shape of a working salon and became what it always became after hours: quieter, barer, more exposed. Stations too neat. Mirrors with nothing happening in them. The smell of products and hairspray still there, but no voices moving through it.
By the time the music had gone off and the shutters were mostly down, it was just me and Leanne.
I came back out from the staff room in my vest and old jeans with my hair tied back off my face and found the chair already waiting.
Leanne was standing beside it with a comb in one hand and a row of tools laid out on the counter.
“Well,” she said. “Come on, then.”
There are some things that never stop mattering.
One person in the chair. One person behind it. Someone choosing. Someone witnessing.
I sat down.
At that point my hair was still in the version it had been living in for months. Darkened, mid-length, the fringe short enough to stay deliberate, the rest of it sitting around my jaw and neck with enough texture in it now to stop feeling like a stage and start feeling like an actual self. I had liked it. That was the thing. None of this was about hating what I had grown.
Leanne touched the ends lightly and met my eyes in the mirror.
“You can still change your mind,” she said.
“I know.”
“Good.”
I looked at myself before I spoke.
“I did think growing it out would answer the question.”
“What question?”
“Whether I wanted it again.”
“And?”
“And I have wanted it,” I said. “Some of it, anyway. I liked the bob. I liked the fringe. I liked the dark colour. I liked figuring out who I was with hair again.”
Leanne said nothing.
“But every time I pictured the wedding,” I went on, “the version that felt most true was me bald.”
There it was.
Once said, it stopped moving.
Leanne nodded once. Not surprised. Not pleased. Just there.
“Right,” she said. “Then we’ll do the route properly.”
I turned my head slightly. “The route?”
“If you’re doing this, I’m not taking you straight from here to bald without checking the ground in between.” She raised an eyebrow. “I’d rather not have you deciding halfway through that what you really needed was a very expensive compromise.”
“That sounds insulting.”
“It’s meant to be useful.”
She sectioned my hair with the same calm efficiency she always brought to anything worth doing well. No theatre. No unnecessary softness. Just comb, clips, spray bottle, scissors laid out in a row, her hands already knowing where to go.
“We’ll start by taking the weight out,” she said. “Then we’ll see whether you still think you’re clever.”
“I hate when you say things like that.”
“I know.”
The first version she gave me was short enough to feel like an event all over again.
She took the bob up into something cropped and neat around the ears, leaving more shape on top and breaking the fringe into shorter pieces that made my face look more direct at once. It was elegant. Not soft. Not apologetic. If I had worn that with the wedding dress, nobody would have questioned it for a second.
It was during the first haircutting process that I asked her about her hair.
”So I see you are keeping your buzzcut short. How is John finding you being nearly bald again?”
“He’s obsessed with it,” she laughed, “He liked it last time, but since I’ve keep my natural silver colour, it’s definitely got him going”
“Well he is right. You do look bloody good with it as it is. Are you keeping it like that now?”
“To be honest I think I am now. Though I still want another crack at being bald again.” She mused. “But that’s for another time”
When she finished rough-drying it and stood back, I looked properly.
It was good.
Very good.
All the old grammar of less hair and more face returned immediately. Neck longer. Eyes clearer. Everything more present.
“Well?” Leanne said.
I lifted a hand to the side of it.
“It’s nice,” I said.
“Nice is useless.”
“I know.”
Leanne waited.
I kept looking.
“It still isn’t it,” I said.
“No,” she said. “I didn’t think it was.”
The second version was shorter and harder to negotiate with.
Leanne took the top down, clipped the sides closer, cleaned the whole shape up until there was almost no softness left except what belonged to my face anyway. It looked sharp. Intentional. It would have been striking with the dress.
I looked at that version of myself for a long time.
Leanne did not interrupt.
“It’s closer,” I said at last.
“Yes.”
“But it’s still…”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Not really me is it?”
That got a dry little laugh out of her.
“That sounds tiring.”
“It is.”
“Maybe your right,” she said. “So let’s stop pretending, then shall we.”
The third version barely qualified as hair in the ordinary sense.
Leanne swapped tools. The clippers started up in the quiet salon and the sound of them went straight through me. She worked at the nape first, then the sides, then higher, and by the time she was done I had a very close crop. Not skin. Not bald. Just enough there to show me exactly what the next step was and exactly what it was not.
I put my hand over it before she had even turned the clippers off.
The feeling did something to me at once. Not because it was wrong. Because it was almost right.
Leanne saw it happen.
“There,” she said quietly. “That’s the problem.”
I looked at her in the mirror.
“That isn’t enough either.”
“No.”
For a second neither of us moved.
Then I smiled, because suddenly I was tired of pretending the final inch of distance mattered more than it did.
“Can you do it now,” I asked, “before I spend ten more minutes trying to sound thoughtful about it?”
Leanne put the clippers down.
“You’re sure.”
It was not a question in the usual sense. It was the old ritual. The one that mattered.
“Yes,” I said.
Leanne nodded once.
“Good.”
The shaving itself was quieter than I expected.
There were clippers first, taking the last close shadow down. Then hot towels. Then the shave proper. But emotionally, that was where the quiet sat. No performance. No adrenaline. No sense of forcing myself over some line because the line was there.
Leanne worked with the same clean attention she had always brought to anything worth doing well. Her hand steadied my head when she needed to turn it. Water. Cream. Razor. Wipe. Check. Repeat.
I watched some of it and shut my eyes for some of it and felt the shape of my own skull come back into the front of my awareness in a way it had not for a long time.
When she finished the first side, I lifted my hand and touched it.
Warm skin. Nothing to hide in. Nothing between me and the room.
I laughed once under my breath.
Leanne looked at me in the mirror. “What?”
I ran my hand over the same place again.
“Still good,” I said.
“Annoying, isn’t it.”
“Very.”
She finished the rest with the same restraint.
By the time she wiped the last traces away and stepped back, I was already smiling.
Not because I had gone back. That was not what it felt like.
If anything it felt simpler than that. As though all the growing and all the trying and all the interim selves had been real and worth having, and had still only been taking me in a large slow circle towards something I already knew.
I stood up instead of moving closer to the mirror.
Leanne was leaning lightly against the counter, razor set aside, expression unreadable in the usual way.
“Well?” she said.
I put both hands over my head and let them travel from forehead to nape.
Yes.
The answer was so immediate I nearly laughed again.
“That’s it,” I said.
Leanne nodded like someone hearing the end of a sentence she had been expecting.
“Thought so.”
The room changed after that.
Not emotionally. Practically.
Because once I was bald, once I knew with complete certainty that this was how I wanted to marry Becky, the rest of it became planning.
Leanne took photos first. Then more. Then short videos too, at my insistence, because Becky would want movement, not just stills. The first shorter cut. The second. The crop. The bald head. Me in the chair. Me standing up. Me touching it. Me laughing.
“This is deranged,” Leanne said, taking another one anyway.
“It’s romantic.”
“It is not.”
“It is to us.”
That earned me a look.
Then she brought out the wig.
She’d already arranged it. That was part of what “properly” had meant.
It had been made to echo the shape Becky thought I was choosing: my natural curl pattern, wedding-polished, cut with the short fringe and the soft mid-length around my jaw and neck.
Leanne fitted it, adjusted it, pinned it, took it off again, fitted it better.
The first time I saw it on over the baldness, I had to sit with the oddness of it.
Not because it looked false. Because it didn’t.
There I was again. Or one possible there I was. The bridal self people would understand immediately. Pretty. Intentional. Curled. Finished.
I looked at myself in silence.
Leanne watched me.
“You don’t hate it.”
“No.”
“But.”
I smiled. “But I’m going to enjoy taking it off.”
That, finally, made her laugh properly.
When Becky came home that night and made a fuss over the curls, I had stood there under her hands and let her love what she thought she was seeing.
And then the wedding happened.
And then I threw it.
—-
Back in the suite, Becky was still looking at me with both hands at the back of my head and that expression I knew better than I knew most words.
“So you’d already told Leanne,” she said quietly.
“Yeah.”
“In advance.”
“Yeah.”
Becky let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
“Typical of her.”
“It was.”
“And she already had the wig sorted.”
“She likes a plan.”
“She does.”
I picked up my phone from the table and opened the folder Leanne and I had made.
Becky came to stand beside me while I showed her.
The first crop. The second. The third very close version. Then the bald shave. Then me afterwards with both hands on my head grinning like an idiot. Then the wig fitting.
I watched Becky watching it.
That was the hardest part, in the end. Not the keeping of the secret. The witnessing of her receiving it.
When the last clip ended, Becky took the phone gently out of my hand, set it face down on the table, and turned me towards her fully.
“You know,” she said, “I’m very glad I liked the curls.”
I laughed. “Are you?”
“Yes.” Her hands came back to my head. “Because now I can truthfully say I liked every stage.”
That got me harder than I expected.
“I didn’t want to lie to you,” I said quietly.
“I know.”
“I just wanted one decision before the wedding that was entirely mine.”
Becky nodded at once. No hesitation.
“I know,” she said again, more softly this time.
“I knew if I told you, you’d understand. You always do. But I wanted to choose it first and then let you see it when it was already true.”
Becky smiled a little.
“That tracks.”
“Does it?”
“Yes. Annoyingly.”
Her thumb moved once near my temple.
“And for the record,” she added, “the wig toss was excellent.”
I laughed. “Thank you.”
“Kaye is going to be talking about that for ten years.”
“She was very pleased with herself for catching it.”
“She should be. It was an athletic catch.”
That set both of us off for a moment, the kind of tired helpless laughter that only arrives once the day is nearly over and you are finally alone in it.
Then Becky kissed me and said, “You looked beautiful today.”
I held her gaze.
“So did you.”
“I know,” she said, and then smiled properly when I laughed. “What? It was my wedding. I’m allowed.”
“True.”
We got out of our dresses in stages after that, helping and not helping each other. Becky took the pins out of her own hair one by one until the half-up shape loosened and the waves fell softer around her shoulders.
I stood behind her in my slip and touched the back of her hair lightly where the pins had been.
“You know,” I said, “I’ve got ideas.”
Becky caught my eye in the mirror.
“That is an alarming sentence on our wedding night.”
“Not tonight,” I said. “For the honeymoon.”
Her eyebrows lifted.
“Oh, have you.”
“Mm.”
“What kind of ideas?”
I smiled and leaned in to kiss just below her ear.
“You’ll see,” I said.
Becky laughed softly and turned in my arms.
“Marrying you was clearly a terrible idea.”
“Much too late now.”
“True.”
Then she put one hand on my head and the other in her own loosened blue hair, and smiled at me like she had just remembered something essential.
“Also,” she said, “before I forget.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“I changed the colour because the brunette never felt entirely like me.”
I looked at her in the mirror.
“No?”
“No.” She shook her head slightly, enough to move the waves. “I liked growing it. I liked the shape. I liked what it got me to. But every time I pictured the wedding properly, I kept seeing blue.”
That made me laugh once, softly, because I understood it at once.
“It took me a while to admit that,” she said. “The brunette was beautiful. It just wasn’t finally mine.”
I touched the loosened wave near her shoulder.
“The ocean blue is.”
“Yes,” she said. “Completely.”
Then she slid one hand back over my scalp and the other into her own loosened blue hair, and smiled at me like she had just remembered something essential.
“That feels more like us,” I said.
Becky’s thumb moved once at the side of my head.
“It does,” she said.
Then she kissed me, and because we were finally alone and finally wives and still not finished, I let her.
To be continued…
