The Call
By Joseph Han

“You’re toast, you hear me?”

At this point I was on my twenty-seventh call refusing appointments and already told the man that the restaurant would be booked for the next three months. This man’s anniversary was coming up in two weeks, and the threshold between pleading and demanding broke like football players running through a banner. I explained that the manager doesn’t take phone calls concerning booking and wouldn’t make special exceptions for patrons.

“We don’t serve that here sir, I apologize.”

I heard him mutter under his breath but only caught the mother part.

“It’s a phrase you imbecile. I mean if you don’t get me a table, I swear, sweet Jesus…”

“My name is Jonah, sir, not Jesus. Though I’m not even sure he could help you right now.”

His huffing suggested that he was preparing what to say next.

“I will cut you up into slices of toast and burn you!”

I heard him as if he were a tiny version of himself yelling into my ear canal. I flipped through the scheduling book to pretend that I was being ardent in finding him an opening for his occasion, even though he couldn’t see.

“Well sir, as a matter of fact, it is the bread that is sliced and then toasted. Toast can be a verb and noun, but it’s the bread that is the direct object of the toast-ing.”

I thought I heard the receiver on his end slam down, wondering if it’s actually possible for the sound of the slam that ends the conversation to transmit to the other end, like if you were to feel pain from a bullet in the brain. But that would mean that he was using something outdated like a flip phone or some landline.

The restaurant I worked at was the premiere place to dine. Patrons take photos in the kitchen with the chefs. Proposals happen as often as refills of water, yet everyone claps and drinks it up the same. Those couples make reservations on the spot for anniversary dinners based on a projected wedding date. There’s a legend among the staff that a couple planned to go into labor here, but it may have just been coincidence that the water broke when their aperitif was served.    

I initially applied to pay my way through graduate school by collecting tips as a waiter, but the restaurant moved me to the phones with three other people and all we do is reject people. Majority of the time, callers will follow through and make a reservation for dinner three months later, and a lot of the time we get callers who forget about prior commitments and have to go through the wait again.

“I’m begging you,” she said. After a while on the phone, I could hear what exasperation sounded like, which came off a person’s breath as an after-taste – the smell of alcohol. “My mother is ill and this is her last wish.”

Just as I was tasked to do by the restaurant, adhering to response number seven on a list of scenario claims by callers, I forced the words.

“Is your loved one capable of sustaining the duration of a fourteen-course meal?”

Children have been born here, yet no one has died while dining. The closest it came to that was a choking incident on a meal that is suggested to be swallowed whole, which has since been removed from the any future rotation of courses. The extern who came up with the mode of consumption has been removed from the kitchen.

“I hope you enjoy what you do,” she said.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but it’s out of my control.”

The pause in the call was filled with the voices of my coworkers repeating our refusals.

“I’m sure some things aren’t.”

I wanted to tell her about the secret rules in place that made sure that the restaurant ran at such a high level of sophistication, to the point of absurdity. How even if someone arrives on time for an appointment, they will lose their seats. How a certain standard of dress is upheld as a silent law, where one gentleman was refused because he wore a patterned tie on a striped dress shirt. How children under the age of twelve are not allowed. How a single toe cannot be crowded out of your footwear. How a certain amount of oil and light that it reflects on your skin is permissible. How some of the most powerful people in the state eat here two nights in a row because they can.

“Do you ever think about what it would be like to eat where you are? I mean, actually tasting the food, not the experience.”

Keeping the conversation beyond the recommended fifteen seconds already felt like a rebellion that I didn’t plan. My ear became a throat and I drank her voice as it flowed through the receiver like cream.

“Sometimes I do. Sometimes…I just need to know.”

My coworkers looked at me when they didn’t see me put down the phone and wait for a ring, which usually arrived in three-minute intervals.

“Well how about this for an idea,” she said. “Put me down for three, including yourself.”

The surprise took me so instantly that I began weighing the options of what I would wear, imagining what she would look like. I pictured the envy worn as masks for the rest of the evening on my coworkers’ faces. I saw carousel images of a proposal, an anniversary, life coming to be, and death punctuating all of it. A whole lifetime going through courses.

I flipped through pages and hoped to find an opening among the filled slots. I flipped back and forth, hoping that I could somehow shake the finality of names and the words on the pages off so that strokes would fall like dead ants. Searching, I tried to find a place for us in the cycle.

Joseph Han is a graduate student in English at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He is also the current director of Mixing Innovative Arts, a monthly reading series in Honolulu. His work has appeared in Hawaiʻi Review, Metazen, Used Furniture Review, The Molotov Cocktail, Word Riot, and elsewhere.

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* * *

I'll Be Good
By Michael P. Kashgarian

To push the boys, the leaders bragged that Dini didn’t take any crap.

“Come, Mewa, why you such a baby? You don’t see Dini crying, and he’s only eight and that’s two years younger than you,” said the soldier, who was tall and thin like the others but whose distinguishing feature was his wildly crooked teeth.

“I’m trying,” the boy said. “The gun is heavy.”

“You not trying hard enough,” the soldier said. “You want your feet beat again tonight?”

“No, no, I’m sorry. I’ll try harder,” the boy said, unable to control his frail body from shaking.

“Why you sorry? Dini not sorry.”

Mewa did not reply. He looked at the soldier, making sure to maintain eye contact and not let his eyes fix on the soldier’s crooked teeth.

“What you look at? What you think about my teeth?”

Mewa focused on the soldier’s left eye, despite the boy’s desire to look at the crooked teeth that summoned. When Mewa didn’t reply, the soldier took the boy’s rifle from him.

“Why you look scared?” the soldier asked. “You smile for me.”

The boy forced a smile, and just as quickly the soldier jerked the rifle back, then smashed the butt into the boy’s mouth. The boy immediately began crying as blood gushed from his mouth and dripped onto the dusty, dry dirt.

“Spit,” the soldier ordered.

Mewa spit on the ground, and a little white pearl of a tooth stood out among the splatters of purple.

“That’s better,” the soldier said, smiling.

The soldier held out the rifle for the boy to take, and looked down the row of little bodies practicing holding the rifles, shoving them forward and yelling, “Tell me or I shoot and kill you now.”

“Dini,” the soldier shouted.

The smallest of the boys, holding a rifle almost as long as he was tall, turned, then ran over to the soldier.

Dini stood before the soldier, looking firmly into his eyes. Dini did not have the urge to look at the crooked teeth.

“Dini, show Mewa how you talk to a captured one.”

Dini took a step back, and heaved the rifle up like an Olympian weight-lifter. He pointed the gun at Mewa and moved forward a step or two, thrusting the barrel to tell the enemy that he was ready to shoot.

“Where are your weapons?” Dini yelled. “Where? Where? ... What you mean you have no weapons? Why you lie?”

Mewa didn’t say anything as he thought he was just to observe Dini, not play the part of a captured one.

Dini pulled the trigger, and the gun clicked, and Mewa shook even more.

“Why do I not get any bullets?” Dini demanded to the soldier.

“Because you don’t need the practice,” the soldier answered, pushing Dini to go back to where he was.

The soldier turned to Mewa, and Mewa hoisted the rifle to his shoulder, pretending he was Dini. “Where are your weapons?” he yelled, his voice a little distorted as a result of the missing tooth.

The soldier stepped over to observe the next boy.

Meanwhile, Dini’s voice could be heard above all the others, demanding the submission of his enemy. Dini’s expertise was fueled by the fact that all the other boys had bullets, and he, regularly commended for his spirit, had none.

The sun was setting, signaling an end to exercises.

Dini and Mewa walked home together, as they lived next door to each other.

“You will have to eat dirt tomorrow,” Dini told Mewa as they were about to separate in front of their homes.

“You eat dirt,” Mewa replied in an attempt to be tough.

“My gun is clean. Son’s gun was dirty, and he had to eat five hands of dirt. Your gun is dirty, Mewa.”

Mewa began shaking, bowed his head slightly and rubbed his tongue in the hole made vacant by his missing tooth. Dini put a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

“Mewa, don’t worry. Trade me guns, and I will clean yours tonight.”

Before Mewa had time to consider the offer, Dini took Mewa’s gun and handed him the other.

Dini nodded at Mewa and said, “There is little light left. I will go clean your gun now.”

The two boys departed, and Dini went inside his home and cleaned the gun just as he said he would.

Afterwards, Dini ate a bowl of thick-skinned red beans and stale bread, and fell asleep on the floor next to his dirty bowl and clean gun. The darkness always made Dini sleepy and the flickering light from the fire didn’t make a difference.

In the same way, Dini’s failure to wash his bowl after dinner always made his mother angry. His respect from the tribesmen didn’t make a difference.

“Dini, wake up,” his mother said, shaking his upper arm as he slept curled in a ball on his side. “You must wash your bowl.”

Dini gazed absently at his mother and didn’t reply. As he became aware that his mother once again was asking him to wash his bowl, he made an effort not to look at the bowl. Instead, he closed his eyes and put his head back on the floor.

“Dini, wake up and clean your bowl.”

“The bugs will clean my bowl,” he said, opening and closing his eyes to wave his mother away.

“Dini,” his mother yelled, “you must wash your bowl or I will get word to Santa Claus of your behavior.”

Dini opened his eyes but did not get up.

“You do not know Santa Claus,” he said.

“The tribesmen know Santa Claus, and I will tell them and they will tell Santa Claus.”

“They will not listen to you, mother. You are a woman.”

“The one with the crooked teeth will listen. He wants to marry your sister.”

“No, no, I’m sorry,” Dini said. “I’ll be good. I’ll clean my bowl. Please do not tell Santa Claus.”

Dini sat up and grabbed the bowl. His mother walked away. But Dini lay back down and fell asleep.

The next morning, Dini woke up and the first thing he thought about was the dirty bowl and Santa Claus. He got up quickly to wash the bowl, but the bowl had disappeared. He started to shake, but he calmed himself with anger and picked up Mewa’s rifle.

As he walked outside, Dini greeted Mewa as he did every morning.

“Can we trade guns?” Mewa asked anxiously.

“We better wait until after inspection,” Dini said, “It was dark last night, and I might not have done a good job. The gun you have was cleaned during much light.”

Mewa didn’t say anything.

As the boys stood in a row, the soldier with the crooked teeth began inspecting their guns from one end while another soldier started from the other.

The soldier with the crooked teeth smiled when he came to Dini. He had not smiled at any of the others.

Instead of handing the soldier his gun, Dini stepped back, pulled the gun to his shoulder and pointed the firearm at the soldier.

“What did you tell Santa? Tell me,” Dini yelled, squinting his left eye. “Now, now, now.”

The soldier did not answer. Mewa, a few boys down in the row, dropped his gun and ran away. Dini pulled the trigger.

​

Michael P. Kashgarian is a former newspaper journalist wearing down a path as a fiction writer. His fiction has been published in one literary journal, and in 2012 he published an e-novel titled John Doe Versus Death.

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* * *

Waiting Room
By Daniel Machado

In the waiting room, I sat with my face buried in my hands, trying to make sense of the nightmare I found myself in the midst of. I’ve never been good at handling death, or even just the prospect of it. Of all the noises resonating throughout Saint Anne’s emergency room, none were louder than the sound of my heart pounding in my chest, as if trying to make its way out. The knots in my stomach were as much from the uncertainty of what was happening on the other end of the corridor as from knowing that I was going to have to break the most horrible news to two people whom I had tried to avoid whenever possible over the last several months.

    Just an hour earlier I had sat in the living room of our apartment, watching television while sipping coffee and eating a bowl of cereal, dreading the imminent task of having to put on my uniform and head off to work. As I picked up the remote and began to flip through the channels, the doorbell rang. It took me off-guard, since it was nearly nine-thirty at night. Looking over my shoulder, I gazed out the window and saw a storm raging outside. Then I noticed a police cruiser. That can’t be good, I thought. I hurried down the stairs and opened the front door. Two police officers stood on the other end of the threshold. The older one spoke: “Sorry to bother you, sir, but is this the home of Kristen Quinn?”

    I nodded. “It is.”

    “And you are?”

    “I’m her boyfriend.” I looked at the younger cop, then back at the older one. Neither of them was very easy on the eyes. “Is everything alright?”

    The police officer appeared to be agitated, as if I was the one who had suddenly showed up on his doorstep. He continued in a callous tone, as if he were about to hand me a speeding ticket, “Sir, we’re going to need you to head over to Saint Anne’s Hospital. There’s been an accident.” 

    As I raced to the hospital, horrid scenarios ran through my head. I had no idea what I was about face. I had received no further information from the police officers. Just that my girlfriend and her two children had been in a car accident. It wasn’t until I arrived at the hospital that I realized I still had to call her mother and step-father. I told them to come to the hospital, to hurry, Kristen and the kids had been in an accident. Her mother, suddenly frantic, asked what happened. I told her I had no idea, that I had just arrived myself.

  Kristen and I had gone to school together during the sixth and seventh grades. Although we never actually spoke back then, I had quite a crush on her, despite her overbite and excessively short bangs. However, during the summer following the seventh grade, my father moved us to Massachusetts and I never saw her again.  

  Until sixteen years later when I received a message from her on Facebook, in which she said that I looked familiar and she asked where I grew up. I messaged her back, stating that I grew up in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, until the age of twelve, when my family moved to the Bay State, where I’ve been ever since, for better or worse. She replied that she grew up in Portsmouth too and she thought that maybe we had gone to school together. She gave me her phone number and told me to call her. After a few phone conversations, we met up for some coffee, and the following evening I stopped by her house. After that, we spent at least one night a week together, usually a Wednesday or Thursday, since those were my days off from my security job. We usually just watched a movie at her apartment, since she had two children and finding a babysitter during the week was no easy task. From the very beginning, my instincts were telling me to run, that I was way over my head, since I had never dated a girl who had a child, never mind two.

  But despite my better judgment, I stuck around. Despite the earnest, almost desperate, pleas of my parents and sister, I continued to date her. After about four months of seeing her, I took the plunge and moved in with her and her kids. Up to that point, I really hadn’t spent too much time with her children. Her daughter, Mallory, was three, and her son, Kyle, was six. Kyle was a bit of a wild child, always getting into trouble in school, constantly being sent to the principal’s office. I figured that was to be expected, probably the result of never having a father-figure in his life. Kristen and Kyle’s dad had split up less than a year after the birth of Kyle, and Kyle never saw his dad again. Mallory was a handful too, as are most three-year-olds, but she was one of the cutest three-year-olds I had ever seen, with her blue eyes and her blond pigtails. Although Mallory’s father was in her life to an extent, she would cry every time she saw him. She wasn’t at all fond of him, and I loved her for that.

  Ashamed as I am to say, prior to moving in, I had more or less tried to avoid Kyle and Mallory like the plague. But that changed soon after I moved in. Although I worked the third shift, I spent a good deal of time with them, helping Kyle with his homework, throwing the football around in the front yard. I would read to Mallory and we’d watch Tom and Jerry cartoons together. Before long, the four of us were going to carnivals together, where Kyle and I would ride on the bumper cars together, and I’d win over-sized stuffed animals for Mallory shooting basketballs or firing water guns. I spent as much time with them as I could. They became the family I never had and, frankly, never wanted. I had admired kids, usually from afar, but having a family was something I never really desired. But I was glad that I had come into their lives, and that they had come into mine. As much or as little as I had given to them, they had given me so much more.

  It seems that people are sometimes shaped and defined by the obstacles they manage to avoid. But most of the time, they’re shaped and defined by the obstacles they choose to encounter and face head on, and, hopefully, conquer. And in a life where I was constantly avoiding obstacles, not wanting to deal with any unnecessary hassles, this was one obstacle I was glad I hadn’t fled from.                 

  But as is usually the case, that happiness did not last. In fact, it came to an unforeseen crashing halt. I sat in that waiting room, sick to my stomach, knowing something that was about to break the hearts of two grandparents: their grandchildren were dead. A four- and a seven-year-old, dead. On arrival. At the point of impact. A white minivan. A patch of black ice. An over-sized pick-up truck. Shattered windshields, smashed head lights, burned rubber, contorted steel. A disaster. A catastrophe. An utter nightmare come to life.

  And I was the one who had to break the news. I was the one who had to reach into their chests and tear their hearts out, the one who had to destroy their dreams. Pluck them out of their minds and stomp on them, smash them beyond recognition.

  I knew what my duties entailed, but what sickened me even more was what I didn’t know: Kristen’s condition. Was she going to pull through, be given the God-given curse of having to live on, of having to bury her own children, watch them be lowered into the ground, robbed of the opportunity to live full lives? Would she be forced to suffer through that? Or would the Selfish One take her too, there being no limits to His greed and wrath. I sat there and waited, trying desperately to hold the contents of my stomach down. For a moment, I imagined a plug at the base of my esophagus, keeping my coffee and cereal down where they should be. A quick, one-second, much-needed distraction. But then I returned, and so did the burden and worry, heavy as ever.

  I leaned over and clutched my stomach, needing questions to be answered. I shook my head, involuntarily. I had no control of it. I had control of nothing. You can plan and plan your whole life away, but it will all amount to nothing. Always it will.

  I looked up, hoping to see the doctor approaching me, needing not to see him, needing not see anyone. What I needed was to be turned off, to hit the reset button, to start over again. To fix this awful mistake that had somehow occurred.

  But I knew it couldn’t be fixed. It was a wrecking ball that would irreparably destroy lives, shatter hearts, and soil souls. Rape us and leave us where we lay, bloody and broken, hollowed human beings. Leave us stumbling through the rest of our days, not even allowing us to remember the people we used to be.

  I stood as the doctor approached. I knew the news before he even opened his mouth. She was gone too. The girl I had first laid eyes on as an eleven-year-old was no more. She would never she her thirtieth birthday. She ceased to exist. She had woken earlier that day by my side, a happy, contented woman. But less than twenty-four hours later she was gone. The woman I had kissed and touched every day for the past seven months was no longer with me. She was gone forever, never to be heard from or seen again. The woman I had loved so deeply, carried away by the wind.

  But I was here, stranded, alone. Alive. But not really. Breathing? Yes. But alive? No. I turned away from the doctor as he continued to speak. I couldn’t hear him anymore anyway. My head was filled with a loud humming. All around me, people were walking about, talking, but all I could hear was that humming.

  I knew it was only a matter of time before her parents would arrive. I wasn’t sure that I could manage to utter a single sound, never mind speak an actual sentence. I lowered my head, placed my palms over my eyes, tried to pull it together. Or at least that which still remained.

  If there was one thing I didn’t wish to be, it was the bearer of bad news. I didn’t want to bring sorrow to anyone. My whole life was pain, be it real or imagined, and I didn’t wish for anyone else to feel that same hurt. That unbearable sting, which always leaves a mark, perhaps large, perhaps small, but always indelible.

  I sobbed into my hands as tears slipped down my face. I wanted to run out to my truck, slam the door shut, and pound my forehead into the steering wheel. To shout questions that no one would ever hear. To cry and sob and pound my fists.

  But I remained seated in the waiting room, reluctantly standing by to carry out my unfortunate duty. And, ten minutes later, I did just that. Graceful and poised I wasn’t. But the necessary words emerged from my mouth. I told them how sorry I was. They embraced, sobbing into each other’s shoulder, and, not knowing what else to do, I rubbed Kristen’s mother’s back for a few moments. I lowered my head, wiped at my tears, then patted Kristen’s step-father’s arm. The news had been broken and, for some odd reason, I felt a bit lighter.

  My hand dropped as I lifted my head and, with blurred vision, spotted the exit sign overhead. I meandered towards it, taking my time, thinking there was no hurry, that all had ended anyways. And though the humming returned suddenly, it seemed as if it had been with me my entire life. And that it always would be. It seemed as if it were the most natural sound that existed, a subtle, yet mighty vibration that could accomplish anything, bring entire universes into existence. I welcomed it, wanted it to always be there for me, to comfort me.          

  Through the glass double doors I saw the rain falling furiously, violent gusts of wind getting tangled up in flags, blowing them every which way, forcing the branches of trees to shake and bend. I didn’t speed up, I didn’t slow down. I knew the storm awaited me, and that I would get there as I should. Like everyone else, I would enter into the storm the moment I was meant to.      

  As the doors slid open and I stepped through, onto the pavement and into the storm, I was immediately assaulted by the heavy rain and gusting winds. As I tried to navigate my way through the parking lot to my truck, which I spotted just ahead, my forearm pressed to my forehead, staggering this way and stumbling that way, I realized that, for the first time in a long time, I was free; and, at the same time, completely lost.    

Daniel Machado works as a correction officer in Massachusetts. He studied at Rhode Island College.
 

* * *

Slipping Away
By Sharon Sees

Midnight, breathless.
I am floating floating floating.

I am free.

The day I first arrived, I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t speak. My back against the cracked concrete walls, I fixated on nothing but my trembling hands, a hangnail on my left forefinger. I couldn’t feel the stone-cold floor against my legs and I couldn’t hear Big Jane’s cackle three cells down and I couldn’t see the mold growing between every crack on the wall--a web of pain and loss and regret and time wasted.
One, two, three freckles on my left palm.
I know nothing else.
I know nothing of fists, nothing of scratching, nothing of screaming, nothing of blood. I know nothing of anger, nothing of hatred, nothing of revenge, nothing of power.
Look at these hands. Look at these hands. I pick at a callous and tell myself to forget.

The worst part was the hiding. I hadn’t expected it. You stare at the body and you know that you’ve won and you’ve proved that you’re stronger. Smarter. Better.
And now what?
Now you run. Now you’re scared. You do all this planning and preparation and then what do you have? Congratulations, you did it! Take a look at yourself- aren’t you proud?
Yes, very proud. Now hide from who you are.

And that’s what I did: that night, I ran. I whisked through the wooden front door, still hanging wide open; I stormed down the rickety porch steps. I faced the dark, quiet street and the peaceful breeze brushing my cheek. Onward, it said, nudging me forward. And so I followed the wind.

That’s when my hands started trembling—they haven’t stopped since. In a panicked haze I drove 300 miles north; somehow I landed in the woods in New Hampshire. For six weeks, that’s where I stayed--cooped up in my rusty red car, the one my father bought for me when I was sixteen.

Ah yes, my father. The man with the perpetually messy hair and a gleam in his eye.
I wondered if he’d be proud of me too.

And then I stared at my hands.

It wasn’t long until they found me and took me away. I hadn’t hidden well; I was too agitated to stay in the car. I would pace around the highway by the woods and stare at my hands and tell stories to myself—shh, Carolina. Calm down, calm down.
Remember that time you tripped during the school play in third grade? I would laugh to myself. And remember that time you went to the beach with your friends? I would smile and nod. Shallow breathing. There you go. Remember that time you won that award? How about that time when you started college? Happy thoughts. Good. And remember that time when you flunked out of college and remember that time when your parents kicked you out and remember that time you got fired from your job and remember that time you lost your apartment and remember that time your father got cancer and remember that time no one cared to even tell you and remember that time he died and you cried and remember that time you killed a stranger just to get back at God

I remember, I remember.
And I stare at my hands.

And so I sit here each day, intoxicated by the sickly sweet aroma of bodies and sweat and the realization that I am not strong, I am not smart. I have nothing to be proud of.
I just listen to the clock as it ticks and it tocks. Coward, it says, hanging from the wall.
Coward.

“Carolina,” the prison guard snaps at me today. I see his pasty skin and slimy mustache from behind the crusty iron bars. He has always kept his head held high, spitting on the gates as he saunters by.
I wonder if he knows he is a coward too.
“It is time,” he says. I notice a strange, solemn tone hidden beneath his words. Sure, buddy--now you have a heart. He clutches my arm and leads me down the prison corridor, slowly passing each inmate and cell. There is silence. Pure silence. Not even Big Jane lets out her usual cackle.
Step, repeat. Step, repeat.

The guard and I enter a small, dark-lit room, lined top to bottom with gray stone. Am I shivering? I am shivering. Yes, I am shivering. Step, repeat. Step, repeat.
 
The guard leads me to the chair in the middle of the room, a single dangling lightbulb hanging above it.
“Carolina Dodge, Prisoner 00324. First degree murder. Be seated. Thank you. Now, don’t move.”

And I stare at my hands and they are no longer mine.
They are the chair’s.
They are God’s.
They are the hands of my guard and my inmates and my victim and my father and my sins and I am strapped in and what have I done what have I done what have I done

And suddenly-
Midnight, breathless.
I am floating floating floating.

I am free.

 

 Sharon Sees is a college student who spends her free time writing. She lives in Lebanon, Pennsylvania and recently published an essay on thisibelieve.

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* * * 

Cover Girl

By Linda Wisniewski

​

Bobbi slid her black and white patrol car to a stop in front of Hagey’s House of Hair.  She knew that taking the empty parking spot might discourage walk-ins but what could she do? She needed a haircut and the side lot was full.

Annie, her favorite stylist, smiled when she saw Bobbi push on the glass door and enter the little shop. Beams of sunlight poured through the floor to ceiling front window, even shining through the posters taped on the glass. The soccer team fundraiser, the beef and beer for an injured neighbor, the bingo at the senior center: Annie said yes to them all. She had a hefty mortgage on the shop, but it was hers, and she was proud of it. Pink and gold wallpaper, white track lighting above the mirrors at the six workstations, pink ceramic sinks, Annie had chosen them all when she took over from the previous owner five years ago. A whole new look, and a whole new start, Bobbi knew, after her divorce. Annie was not shy about sharing her story, and her customers loved her. She was a kind and generous boss, and the other two stylists, though she could only give them part-time hours, loved working here.   

Bobbi had come to know these things over the year she’d been coming here for haircuts. Though she was a short and muscular cop, Bobbi felt comfortable amid the feminine décor, and the local women chatting around her. Two of them wiggled their fingers at Bobbi then returned to reading magazines, their foil-wrapped heads under bullet-shaped dryer hoods. A young woman smiled at Bobbi as she swept hair from the floor into a dustpan. 

Annie waved the scissors in her hand toward the washing section of the shop. Her other arm was wrapped in a thick gauze bandage from elbow to shoulder.

“Take a seat at the sink, there. I’ll be with you in a sec,” she said.

“Thanks, don’t mind if I do,” Bobbi answered. She strode to the shampoo chair and lowered her body into it with a sigh. Bobbi had a woman’s figure but you wouldn’t call her slender. That would be Annie, an ash blond with soft tendrils of hair framing her heart-shaped face. “Boy, do I need a haircut,” she said.

“Yes, you do, my friend. Same style as always?” Annie spoke while brushing loose hairs from the neck of her customer and handing her a mirror.

Bobbi chuckled. “You know me well.”  Her gaze swept over the mirrors and larger than life photos of glamorous-looking young women on the wall across from where she sat. Models, she reminded herself. No one walks out of here looking that good, and I’m fine with that.

Annie swept the black plastic cape from around her customer’s shoulders. “All set, Mrs. Supsic. Candy will take that over at the register.”  She arched her lower back and massaged it with both hands. Then she walked over to Bobbi’s chair.

“Busy today?” Bobbi said. Then “I know…” and both women laughed as they said in unison, “Busy every day!” Bobbi lowered her head back over the edge of the sink. She enjoyed the shampoo, the vigorous way Annie shampooed her head and rinsed it with warm water, soothing and relaxing. She felt her shoulders release inside her black uniform shirt.  The hum of the hairdryers and the low buzz of traffic outside lulled Bobbi into a moment of peace. For this bit of time, her lunch break, she could let her guard down. She was technically off duty.

“Guess I won’t get robbed today,” Annie joked.  “Not with that cruiser parked out front.”

“Not while I’m gettin’ my haircut, anyway,” laughed Bobbi.

“And I guess the rest of the neighborhood’s safe.  You’d answer a call even if your hair was wringing wet, wouldn’t you?”

“Chief Haber doesn’t take kindly to excuses,” Bobbi said, “especially from his only female officer. And wet hair is no excuse when duty calls.”

“Well, let’s finish you up, just the same, and you can be on your way, protecting Plum Grove from crime and corruption.”

“Do my best on the crime, don’t know about corruption.” 

Both women laughed. The other two customers and their stylists smiled into the mirrors on the wall. It felt good here, Bobbi thought, among only women and safe; a woman’s place.

Annie threw a cape around Bobbi’s shoulders and snapped the Velcro snug around her neck. After running a long comb through the officer’s short hair, she picked up her scissors.

“You do pretty well with that arm,” Bobbi said. “What happened?”

“Yeah, the one-armed hairstylist, that’s me.”  Annie dropped her eyes from the image in the mirror.  She took a second to lightly touch her left arm where the bandage was, wrapped around it just above the elbow.  Then she gave the answer, the practiced answer. “Bumped into the door jamb when I was closing up last night.” She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Gave myself quite a whack.”

Later that day, Bobbi cruised by the shop, though it was not on her regular route. She would have been hard pressed to say why, only that she had to do it, had to satisfy that odd feeling things were not quite right. A cop with women’s intuition, she laughed to herself, better not let that get out.   

Over the next couple of weeks, she dropped by the House of Hair to just say hi, checking in with the pet shop next door and the couple who made custom blinds upstairs to make it look official.  Nothing wrong with that, she thought, just being the “friendly police presence” the Chief talks about so much.

When she was ready for her next haircut, Bobbi walked into the shop and noticed a long scar on Annie’s arm where the bandage had been.  Annie tossed her head, as if to show she was fine, but her hair fell back to reveal ugly purple marks on her neck.  Bobbi stood just inside the door, her boots planted wide.  She recognized these marks.  She had seen them before, on other women whose husbands or boyfriends had put their hands there and squeezed hard.

“Annie, oh Annie.” Bobbi sighed. 

“What?” Annie muttered.  When her eyes met Bobbi’s they filled with tears. “What, you’ve never seen a bruise before?  I fell, okay?”

“Annie, stop.  You didn’t fall on both sides of your neck and leave fingerprints.”

“It’s my private business.  I don’t interfere in your life, do I?”

“You don’t deserve this, Annie, no woman does.  Let me call it in.  He can be arrested for doing this to you.”

“Get out. Just get out.” Annie turned away and strode toward the back of the shop, pushing aside the pink drape that led to the storeroom.    

Bobbi left, slamming the cruiser’s door as she got in and drove out of the parking lot. She had to report this. The evidence was on Annie’s neck. But what if it didn’t stop him? What if it made him madder, and he hurt Annie even worse? She drove around for a while until her heart rate felt like normal. She finished her shift without incident, though she almost hoped for something to happen, to justify her lack of action on Annie’s case. 

April turned to May, prom season. On Saturday morning, a shy sixteen year old walked into the shop.  “I have an appointment for my prom do,” she whispered to Candy at the front desk. Even though the day was warm, her arms were covered in long sleeves. Her hair fell over her face but not far enough to cover the purple splotch below her right eye.

When Annie saw her she felt her stomach drop. She ran to the bathroom and retched into the sink, dry heaves of spit and bile.  Holding onto the sink, she took a few deep breaths and saw her face in the mirror. Horrified, she looked down, splashed water on her face and hands, and turned to the towel dispenser. The paper stuck as she pulled on it, tore into shreds she used to mop her face, then tossed into the basket. She pushed open the door and walked back out into the shop.

“Okay, how shall we do your hair for the prom?” she said, feeling tender as she washed the girl’s hair, massaging her scalp.  A flash of memory took Annie back to high school, the boyfriend who hit her in the face. She could not remember why.  Why he hit her, why she went out with him.  Why she kept dating him until another girl hit on him and he ditched Annie.  Today, she remembered how free she had felt when he was gone.

Annie cut the teenager’s hair and styled it to fall across her face, and recommended makeup to cover the bruise over her right cheekbone.  She showed the girl how to apply it to her pretty young face.

“It’s not your fault, you know, whoever hit you,” she said.

“I know,” the girl answered, shocking Annie into silence. She remained quiet while the girl gave Annie a small shy smile.

She watched out the front window as the girl walked to her car and drove away alone. The shop was empty now, the other stylists long gone. Annie sat down at the counter and picked up the phone. Her hands trembled. She had to concentrate hard to push down the three numbers.

“911, what is your emergency?”  Annie’s body was so heavy, and her mouth so dry. “911, what is your emergency!” She had to place the receiver back in the cradle but her fingers didn’t work and it fell to the countertop. “911! What is your location, please?”

Emergency? Annie’s mind went blank. Location? Not here. Not her business, their livelihood.  What if they could trace her call? Mark said he was sorry. He hadn’t meant to hurt her. She had to do something to stop this now. She had to turn things around before …

She picked up the receiver and held it to her mouth. Her voice came out in a high squeak, but it came out of her, thank God. She could stop this.   

“Sorry, my mistake.”  
 

Linda Wisniewski lives in Bucks County, PA where she writes for a weekly newspaper and teaches memoir workshops. Her book, Off Kilter, was published in 2008 by Pearlsong Press.

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