During my last days in Boston, I paid a visit to the hair salon on the corner of Blackrock and Berkeley. Just coming from a big lunch, I sank into my chair with bliss and total abandon.


    The front door was propped open with a rough stone. People came and went. Invigorating winds blew in. My eyes wandered over the hubbub and settled on a petulant old lady in the corner. She reclined at one of the stations, and smoked a cigarette through the mouth-hole of her face mask.


    Despite the lushious styling chair, the woman’s body looked awkward and uncomfortable. I wondered absently if I would look that way in a few decades.


    Her eyes bore into me.


    “Is that hyphenated?” said a voice.


    I looked in the mirror. “Is what hyphenated?”


    The hairdresser shrugged. “Your name. E-Liza. Get it?”


    “No.”


    “Tough crowd.”


    I chuckled politely, and after a suitable pause, nodded my head toward the back corner. “Who’s that lady?”


    The hairdresser had been running a comb through my hair.


    “Is she staring at me now?” I asked.


    “She is.” The hairdresser hadn’t moved her head more than an inch. She grabbed her baby powder and slapped it gently onto the back of my neck. “Do you know that woman?”


    “I don’t think so. Do you?”


    “No. She isn’t allowed to smoke in here. I’m done, by the way. Are you happy?”


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    She spun me around in the chair until I faced the mirror, which was encrusted with plastic jewels.


    There I was.


    My own lustrous green eyes stared back at me, with bags under them. My t-shirt was wrinkled, and shoulders, broad and bony as a vampire.


    I turned my head back and forth to admire the cut. My hair was just two inches shorter than before, but something had changed in the texture and volume. A wave of confidence whelmed in me.


    “I look like a drug addict, but God, I love this cut.”


    “Was it worth an hour of your time?” She held her wristwatch in front of me.


    The watch read one-o’clock P.M.


    “I got here at twelve-thirty.”


    “It’s my lunch break.” She winked. Her perfume had wafted over me as she leaned in, and it was, “Endless summer.”


    “Not lunchtime though—,” I said, before I noticed her winking-eye.


    Her reflection considered me. “There’s a room in the back,” she said slowly, dipping her toes in the water.


    I chewed on that. Then I screwed up my face and said, “Sure.”


    “Really?”


    “Sure means sure. So, definitely.”


    I tried to recall her name while I paid the receptionist up front and she waited by her bedazzled mirror.


    When I returned she took my hand and led me to the back of the salon, where she ducked through a red curtain. I followed, and the curtain had more heft than I expected. As it fell into place behind us, the sounds of the hair salon faded, and a quiet buzzing filled the silence.


    The room was dark and warm, with a subterranean aire. Two brazen lamps cast a warm glow on the coffee table, flanked by two leather chairs. Two overlapping rugs covered the floor, like patches of moss.


    I sat in one of the beat-up leather chairs, kicked my boots off, and looked up at the girl standing above me.


    “This is our break room,” she said, sitting down next to me. Her gaze wandered over my face. “And I’m just taking a break. If anyone asks.”


    I took her face in my hands and stopped it a few inches from mine. “What if somebody comes in here?” I said, my heart racing enough to shake my voice box.


    She shrugged, sluggishly. “I say who cares?” Her eyes lingered on mine. Then she leaned in and kissed me. Almost too soft to hear, she moaned into my mouth, and her lips pressed merrily, messily into mine.