Feeling Curious (Part 4)

I kept my new cut bob for nearly two months before I asked Liz to take it shorter again.

By then, it had lost it’s initial sharpness. Yes it was shorter than I had been used to, but upkeep meant I could wash it without needing most of the morning to dry it. I still wore it straight for work, curled it when Nick and I went out and left the natural movement in it at weekends, but everything took half the time it used to.

I was having fun with it.

I had spent years treating my hair as something to maintain. Keep the colour rich, keep the ends healthy, keep the length. Every appointment had been about preserving what I already had rather than seeing what else I could do with it.

Now I changed the parting because I felt like it. I tucked it behind both ears, pinned one side back with a gold clip and sometimes curled it more tightly just to see what happened. With less weight pulling it down, even my natural waves appeared more readily than they had when my hair was long.

—-

When Liz arrived for my next appointment, I had no intention of doing anything particularly dramatic.

She unpacked her things in the kitchen while I finished my coffee, then fastened the cape around my neck and brushed through the bob.

“Can you believe the weather out there today?” She said referencing the heavy downpour she had to endure when carrying her equipment from her car.

“I wouldn’t know. That’s the joy of having someone coming to the house to take care of my looks.” I cheekily replied.

“It has it’s perks.” She laughed. “Just a trim?”

I looked at myself in the mirror.

“Maybe a bit more than a trim.”

Liz stopped brushing.

“Again?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.”

“I’m not surprised. I’m enjoying this.”

She gathered the hair at the back and let it fall through her fingers.

“What are you thinking?”

I lifted one hand to my jaw.

“About there.”

Liz looked at my fingers and then at me.

“That is quite a lot shorter.”

“It’s still a bob.”

“I am aware of that.”

“I’m just saying.”

She smiled.

“For someone who used to supervise every centimetre, you have become remarkably relaxed.”

“I’m evolving.”

“Apparently.”

Liz combed the sides forward and studied the shape.

“I could take the back up properly this time and bring the front to around your jaw. Keep enough softness that it still moves, but lose some of this weight underneath.”

“Could I still wave it?”

“Yes.”

“Curl it?”

“Yes.”

“Tuck it behind my ears?”

Liz looked at me.

“You really like doing that.”

“I do.”

“I had noticed.”

I smiled.

“Do it.”

There was considerably less ceremony this time.

Copper pieces slid over the cape as Liz worked around the back, gradually bringing the line clear of my neck. I watched without the strange hollow feeling I had expected during the first bob. If anything, I was curious to see how different I would look when she had finished.

By the time she moved around the sides, the ends were sitting close to my jaw.

“That feels short.”

“You requested short.”

“I know.”

“Changing your mind?”

“No.”

The answer came easily.

Liz smiled and carried on.

—-

When she finished the cut, she made a suggestion.

“I wouldn’t normally say this straight after a haircut, but this shape would really suit a few lighter pieces through it. They’d bring out the movement and make the cut look even sharper.”

At this point I was feeling high on impulsion, so agreed, almost without thinking. “Do it, only if you have time.”

Liz smiled. “You’re my last booking, and it’s still raining outside.”

The foils took next to no time to apply to my newly shortened hair. Liz worked a handful of fine lighter pieces through the top and around the front, keeping them soft rather than stripy.

Once it was dried, the difference was greater than I had expected. The back sat neatly against the upper part of her neck, while the sides curved around my jaw, still long enough to move but short enough to make the whole shape feel sharper. The lighter copper-gold pieces caught the light through the layers and made the cut stand out properly.

I tucked both sides behind my ears almost immediately.

Liz caught my eye in the mirror.

“There.”

“What?”

“That thing you do.”

“What thing?”

“Make it look even shorter.”

“I’m just seeing it.”

“Of course.”

I ignored her and turned my head slightly.

With both sides tucked back, there was almost nothing framing my face. My ears were completely visible, my neck looked longer and the line of my jaw seemed more obvious than it had with either of my previous lengths.

It should have made me feel exposed.

Instead, I liked it.

“I love it.”

“I know.”

“You always say that.”

“You always put your hands straight into it when you love something.”

I realised one hand was already at the back of my head.

I dropped it.

Liz laughed.

Nick noticed the difference as soon as he came downstairs.

“You’ve gone shorter again.”

“It needed trimming.”

“That is becoming quite a broad definition of trimming.”

I smiled.

He came closer and looked at the back.

“That is definitely shorter, and you’ve gone lighter.”

“It’s still a bob. And yes, Liz added some foils.”

“I know what a bob is, Natalie. It looks stunning”

I laughed and kissed him.

The shorter bob was probably the easiest haircut I had ever had.

I could dry it smooth with a round brush in fifteen minutes and have it polished enough for work. If I used the curling wand, I could turn it into loose waves around my jaw rather than having curls hanging down over my shoulders.

Some days I curled it more tightly and separated everything with my fingers. Other days I straightened it sleek and tucked both sides behind my ears, which remained my favourite way of wearing it.

Nick preferred it with more movement.

“You look like you haven’t done anything to it,” he said one Saturday morning.

“I have.”

“What?”

“Product.”

He nodded seriously.

“Exhausting.”

I threw a cushion at him.

The strange thing was that cutting my hair had stopped feeling like giving something up.

I still cared about it. I still noticed when the colour needed refreshing and still spent more money than necessary on products promising shine, but I was no longer protective of every inch.

The shorter bob suited me, and I knew it did. I liked the way it exposed my neck, the way earrings showed properly now and the fact that changing the parting or pushing everything behind my ears could alter the whole shape.

For a while, that was enough.

Then I began noticing short hair again.

Not bobs.

Short hair.

A woman would step onto the Underground with the back of her hair clipped closely against her neck and my attention would go there before I had properly registered anything else about her. Someone walking ahead of me would have a pixie shaped neatly around both ears and I would find myself looking for a few seconds longer than necessary.

It became automatic.

I could be thinking about work, dinner or whether I had remembered to put petrol in the car, then somebody with a close crop would cross my line of sight and my attention would sharpen.

It was never some enormous reaction.

Just a small quickening of interest.

A pull that happened before I had decided to look.

—-

One afternoon, a woman from another department arrived for a meeting having cut what had previously been a shoulder-length bob into a soft pixie.

“You’ve cut your hair,” I said before I had even said hello.

She laughed.

“Yesterday.”

“It looks brilliant.”

“Thank you. I nearly cancelled twice.”

I wanted to ask why.

I wanted to know how long she had been thinking about it and what it had felt like when the first section came away. I even found myself wondering whether she had spent the previous evening touching the back of her head simply because she could.

Instead, I showed her where to sit and opened the meeting.

Half an hour later, I was explaining amendments to a medical claim while occasionally becoming aware of the neatly cropped hair around her ear.

That evening, I thought about it again while washing my own.

It was becoming difficult to pretend I noticed these haircuts in the same way I noticed somebody wearing a good coat or a pair of shoes I liked.

There was something more personal about it now.

I just preferred not to examine exactly how personal.

Marija herself rarely entered my thoughts anymore. Months had passed since Dubrovnik, and most of the holiday had settled into photographs on my phone, a bottle of Croatian wine Nick and I were inexplicably saving and occasional conversations beginning with, Do you remember that restaurant near the harbour?

But every so often, usually after seeing a particularly close haircut, I would remember the sensation beneath my palm.

Warm skin.

Soft resistance.

Six millimetres.

Then it would go again.

I had never seriously thought about having Marija’s buzzcut myself. That still seemed like something belonging to another category entirely.

But touching hair that short had made it real in a way photographs never had.

So had the photographs I kept saving.

The first cuts in the folder on my phone had been soft, longer pixies with plenty of hair around the face. Lately, there were more exposed ears, shorter napes and much less fringe.

There was one photograph I kept returning to.

The woman in it had copper hair, which was probably why I had stopped on it initially.

At least, that was what I told myself.

The sides were clipped close around her ears and the top had been cut into tiny textured pieces. There was only a broken suggestion of a fringe, leaving most of her forehead exposed, and the back finished neatly against her neck with a narrow softer piece at the nape.

It was much shorter than anything I had ever worn.

I had favourited it months earlier.

Sometimes I opened it and looked properly.

Other times I scrolled straight past.

I never deleted it.

—-

One Thursday afternoon, I had left work late after a meeting overan. With twenty minutes before my train, I stopped at a coffee shop near the station and ordered something I did not particularly want.

A woman was standing ahead of me at the counter.

She was probably around my age, perhaps a few years older. She wore navy trousers, a pale shirt and small gold earrings, and there was nothing especially unusual about her appearance until she turned slightly while waiting for her drink.

Then I saw her hair.

It was dark brown and very short.

The colour was nothing like mine. Rich espresso rather than copper, almost black where the light did not catch it.

The sides were tapered close around both ears, while the top had been cropped into small textured pieces with almost no fringe. When she turned to collect her coffee, I could see the back sitting close against her neck with just enough softness at the bottom to stop it looking severe.

I looked once.

Then again.

I tried not to stare.

I probably failed.

The cut was remarkably similar to the photograph I had saved, but seeing it in dark hair made it feel different. She did not look like some convenient preview of what I might become.

I had to imagine that part for myself.

The photographs on my phone had always felt slightly removed from real life. They were models or salon pictures, chosen because the lighting was right and somebody already knew the haircut worked.

This woman was simply waiting for coffee after work.

She was not especially young.

She was not dressed to make the haircut into a statement.

It was simply her hair.

And she looked fantastic.

She collected her drink and instinctively ruffled the top of her hair. There was barely enough there to make the gesture make sense, which for some reason made me smile.

Then she left.

I watched her pass the window before looking down at my coffee.

There was no great revelation and no sudden panic. I was still sitting beside a window with a cappuccino I had not really wanted and a train I needed to catch in fifteen minutes.

But for months I had allowed myself to say that I liked short hair.

I liked seeing it.

I liked the photographs.

I liked how it looked on other women.

All perfectly safe.

What I had never quite allowed myself to admit was that every time I stopped to look, some part of me was translating the haircut onto myself.

My copper instead of her dark brown.

My ears exposed.

My neck clear.

My hair clipped close around the sides.

Almost nothing across my forehead.

I looked towards the door where the woman had disappeared.

I wanted short hair.

The thought arrived with surprising simplicity.

I waited for the panic.

It did not come.

My stomach tightened slightly, but the feeling was closer to excitement.

For the first time, I did not immediately argue with it.

—

By the time I got home, Nick was cooking.

He looked over when I walked into the kitchen.

“You’re late.”

“Meeting.”

“That bad?”

“Very.”

I put my handbag on the chair.

Nick turned back to the pan, then glanced at me again.

“What?”

“What?”

“You’ve got your thinking face on.”

“I do not have a thinking face.”

“You absolutely do.”

I smiled.

For a moment I considered saying nothing.

Then I realised that would only mean having the same conversation with myself again.

“I think I’m going to cut my hair short.”

Nick looked immediately at my bob.

“Shorter than this?”

“Yes.”

“How much shorter?”

“Properly short.”

He put the spoon down.

“Right.”

I laughed.

“That sounded worrying.”

“It wasn’t. I’m trying to work out what properly short means.”

“It means short.”

“Helpful.”

I leaned against the island.

“Are we talking short like the lady from holiday?” he asked.

“No.”

The answer came immediately.

“Not that short. But much shorter than this.”

Nick nodded.

“A pixie?”

“Something like that.”

That was as much as I intended to tell him.

He looked at me for a moment.

“You know exactly what you want, don’t you?”

“Maybe.”

“That means yes.”

I smiled.

“I’m not showing you.”

“Why not?”

“Because if I do it, I want you to see it afterwards.”

“So you want to surprise me.”

“Yes.”

“That seems slightly unfair.”

“You’ll survive.”

He smiled, then picked up the spoon again.

“You’ve decided, then?”

I thought about the woman in the coffee shop.

“Yes.”

Saying it aloud felt good.

Nick nodded.

“That’s different.”

“What is?”

“Usually you ask me what I think first.”

I looked at him.

He was right.

“I still care what you think.”

“I know.”

“I just don’t need you to tell me whether I should do it.”

“Good.”

He came around the island and touched the ends of my bob.

“I really like this, you know.”

“I know.”

“So don’t cut it because you think I secretly want something shorter.”

“I’m not.”

“And don’t keep it because you think I want this.”

“I’m not doing that either.”

Nick smiled.

“Then I suppose that’s sorted.”

I laughed.

“That was remarkably straightforward.”

“I’m learning.”

He kissed me and went back to dinner.

I stayed beside the island for another moment, running my fingers through the ends of my bob.

I still loved it.

That had not changed.

The difference was that I had finally stopped using that as a reason not to want something else.

For the first time since our getaway, I was no longer wondering whether I wanted to go properly short.

I knew I did.