Shear

Artist: Summer Jewel Keown

Previous version written for the 2017 Fountain Square, Indianapolis Masterpiece in a Day contest. First place prose winner. 

“You don’t see too many females working in a barber shop,” the man said, as he checked out his fade critically in the mirror. 

“You don’t say,” Clara replied. 

“Not bad,” he said, turning his head this way and that. “Not bad at all.” 

Clara heard the unspoken words for a girl. She supposed she could be annoyed by it, but comments like these were so common they were like the sound of water by now. Clara pulled the cape from his shoulder and gave him one last dust-off. Not bad indeed, she thought, admiring her work. The lines were perfect. The man ran his card, adding a few dollars as a tip, and made his exit into the grey twilight outside. 

Cleaning up, Clara admired, not for the first time, the owner’s records hung neatly on the wall. Obscure recordings by The Four Tops hung next to more obvious LPs by The Beatles. Ray was an eclectic collector, and it gave the shop a classic feel the patrons enjoyed. She’d offered to bring in some of her own records: Joan Jett, Pat Benatar, L7. Ray had laughed and said maybe, 

but Clara knew he wasn’t quite ready to change the feel of the place. She knew what he meant by that, but didn’t take offense. If she was going to get offended at every non-inclusive mention, she’d spend all her time being offended. She really loved being a barber, and wasn’t trying to make her job any harder.

Some guys seemed offended at her being in their all-male space at all, one of the last places where guys could still be guys without women listening in. But Clara’s saving grace – and the main reason the owner hired her in the first place - was that she had the best skills with a straight razor in the city. She could cut lines so precisely it was as though they had been done by machine. And slowly, she’d began building a clientele more interested in looking sharp than talking shop. 

Tonight she was the only one working; no more appointments on the books. She read through a well-thumbed tabloid while she waited out the clock. They had a good stock of these magazines, hiding under Car & Driver and GQ. It was funny how many men kept tabs on the private lives of the stars, not that they would ever admit it. 

The door’s bell chimed, announcing a visitor. 

“Excuse me,” a woman’s voice said. Clara jerked her head up, surprised. Other than herself and the rare visit from the owner’s wife, she’d never seen another woman in the shop. She jumped to her feet. 

The woman standing in the doorway looked nervous, fiddling with the keys in her hands. “Can I help you?” Clara asked. 

“I’d like a haircut,” she said. Clara glanced her over. The woman’s gray v-neck shirt tucked into her faded black jeans, which in turn tucked into short black engineer boots. Her blonde ponytail just reached her shoulders. This was not the shop’s usual clientele, to say the least.

The woman looked nervous, before her face composed itself into something like resolve. Clara was about to ask if she was in the right place, but then she caught herself. How many times had she been asked that exact question, resenting it every time? 

Ray wouldn’t like it if she started doing women’s hair in the barber shop – not that there was a specific policy against it. It was just one of those unspoken things. The guys were used enough to Clara by now to allow her to be “one of the boys” but that also carried with it the flip side of “the only one of your type allowed amongst the boys.” And Ray was proud of his barber shop. “This ain’t no beauty parlor,” he’d said before. But since Ray wasn’t here and there weren’t any other customers waiting, she decided to do it anyway. She led the woman to the chair and fastened the plastic cape around her neck. 

“What are you thinking today?” she asked. 

“I’d like a French crop.” 

Her surprise must have shown, because the woman explained, “It’s like a taper, but…” “I know what a French crop is,” Clara interrupted. “You’re sure that’s what you want? That’s quite a bit shorter than what you have now, and it’s also pretty…” she searched for the word. 

“Masculine? Yes, I know. It’s what I want.” 

Clara was reluctant to do it. A French crop wasn’t just a short haircut, like Halle Berry in that James Bond movie. It was more Hillary Swank in Boys Don’t Cry. 

“You’re sure?” 

“I’m sure.”

Clara considered. She didn’t want to deal with the fallout if the woman changed her mind when they were all finished, but at the same time, the woman seemed to know exactly what she wanted. 

“All right then. I’m Clara, and I’ll be your barber today.” 

“I’m… Elle.” The woman’s tone said there was something she wasn’t saying, but Clara didn’t push it. “And I’m ready to be sheared.” The woman took a deep look into the mirror and nodded. Clara threw the cape around her shoulders and began. 

She pulled Elle’s ponytail out into the air, and, with three quick cuts, chopped it right off. She held it up, showing Elle in the mirror. Elle broke out in a huge smile, her face a mix of emotions. 

Clara turned the chair so that Elle was facing the room now, not the mirror. She picked up the straight razor, and readied herself to begin cutting. With a comb in one hand and the razor in the other, she began. She worked like an artist, cutting each strand of hair to its exact length and angle to create the vision in her mind. 

She knew she should make small talk, but she hated asking banal questions about the weather. “What made you decide to make such a big change?” she asked, after several minutes of near-silence. 

“Wasps,” Elle said. 

Clara cocked her head sideways, waiting to hear more. She knew the best way to hear a good story was just to listen, not to interject. 

“Last summer,” she continued, “I nearly died. I was taking my dog for a walk through the park, and he upset a huge wasp’s nest. I wasn’t carrying my EpiPen, and they must have stung

me dozens of times. The next thing I remember, I was laying in the ambulance, staring up at its ceiling, sure that this was the end. And that’s when I decided, if I made it through, I wasn’t going to hide anymore. That I was going to live the rest of my life honestly.” 

“And here you are,” Clara said, completing her last cuts. “Are you ready to see it?” Elle nodded. Clara spun the chair around. Elle was silent at first. She leaned forward and turned her head side to side, taking in her reflection. Reaching up a hand, she ran her fingers across the short strands so cleanly cut. She was silent. Clara held up a mirror to let her see the back, her heart in her throat. What if she had done the wrong thing? What if Elle was regretting letting her take the razor to her head after all? 

“It’s perfect,” Elle said. A tear escaped and rolled down her face. “For the first time in my life, I look like me.” 

Clara felt like she might cry herself, but the last thing she needed was Ray to walk in and see two women crying over a barber’s chair. 

Elle thanked her, paid, and made her exit. Clara watched as she opened the door and stepped out onto the sidewalk in the evening’s fading light. She thought she noticed a greater surety in Elle’s walk, her back a little straighter now then when she’d come in. Clara wondered if she would see Elle again, and if she would still call herself that the next time she walked through the door. 

Clara swept up the hair, and turned off the neon “open” sign. Tonight, it was all worth it. The teasing, the mocking, the stares. All of it. Because this was more than just a job. It was a calling.