Emma Straub - Modern Lovers

“This is such a good session already,” Dr. Amelia said. “I’m really impressed.”

Elizabeth beamed. “Thank you,” she said. “No one’s complimented me for what feels like a really long time.” She turned to Andrew, whose face had turned pale. “You can start there, if you like.”

Andrew swallowed. “I will.”

“Now would be a great time, Andrew,” Dr. Amelia said. “Why don’t you tell your wife what you think she’s great at? It can be something big or small, doesn’t matter.”

Andrew looked down at his hands and knocked his thumbs together. The room was silent. “You’re a great songwriter,” he said. “Truly great.”

“Thank you,” Elizabeth said.

“And you’re an incredible mother. Harry adores you.”

“Thank you,” Elizabeth said.

“That’s a great start,” Dr. Amelia said. “Elizabeth?”

“Hmm?” She looked up.

“Anything you’d like to compliment Andrew for?”

“Maybe in a little while, but I’d really like Andrew to keep going, for now, if that’s all right.” She crossed her arms and waited.

Once Ruby decided she was going, the plans came together fast. She would fly into San Diego on the last day of August, and fly out of Loreto, Mexico, three months later. The program was for people over seventeen, offered college credit and provided all the equipment. After Mexico, she was considering doing a program in South America, but it was mostly hiking, and she wasn’t sure. Harry was helping her pack. Ruby’s flight was in two days.

The proposal hadn’t gone precisely the way he’d hoped — Ruby had slipped the ring onto her middle finger and said “No,” clear as day, but he understood. They were too young. He still had a year of high school left. No one got engaged in high school, not really. He was glad she’d kept the ring.

It was late in the afternoon. Ruby’s mothers and his mom were at the new space — they couldn’t stop talking about it, the three of them, cackling like witches about doughnuts and jam. It was cool, Harry thought. They were making something out of nothing.

Ruby was standing in front of her closet. She wasn’t supposed to bring any clothes like the ones she wore — there was a list, and everything was made of out bathing-suit material. She was going to be sitting in a kayak for three months, but still, for now, Ruby was trying on dresses, maybe to say good-bye. She was pulling on hangers over her head, so that she looked like Frankenstein’s monster, with metal bolts jutting out of her shoulders.

“That’s the one you wore to graduation,” Harry said. The white tassels swung by her bare thighs. She was wearing only underwear. Harry wanted to take pictures of every part of Ruby’s body, but knew that was no way to keep her.

“When you were my hero,” Ruby said.

“You were always my hero,” Harry said. “Let’s be clear about that.” He got up and walked over behind her. “I want to hug you, but I don’t want to impale myself.”

Ruby laughed and pulled the hangers off. “You may hug,” she said.

Harry wrapped his arms around her and looked at the two of them in the mirror. “Hey, you know what? You were supposed to bleach my hair, but you never did.”

“Want to do it now?”

“Are you still my girlfriend?” Harry wasn’t sure why it mattered, but it did.

“I think I’m your girlfriend until I get on the airplane,” Ruby said. “How does that sound?”

“I can live with that. Let’s do it.”

She clapped her hands and pointed to the bathroom. “Step into my salon!” Harry sat on the lip of the bathtub while Ruby opened and closed all the cabinets. “Aha!” she said, and started performing a chemistry demonstration in a plastic bowl in the sink.

Ruby started painting his hair with some cold, white goop. After a few seconds, Harry’s scalp begin to itch and then sizzle. “Is this normal?” he asked, and Ruby rolled her eyes.

“Guys are such wusses,” she said. “Yes, it’s normal.” She worked her way around his head, section by section. When she was done, she pulled a giant plastic shower cap over the whole thing.

“Will you play some music?” Harry asked. He needed something to take his mind off the fact that his head felt like it was on fire. Ruby pulled out her phone and scrolled through until she found what she was looking for, hit the button, and then set the phone on the lid of the toilet.

It was a slow song, one Harry didn’t know. A guy sang “Love and happiness,” and then a guitar did a little wail behind him, and the rest of the band kicked in.

“It’s Al Green,” Ruby said. She started to dance. Harry put his hands on her thighs and closed his eyes, trying to memorize everything he could. They listened to the song three more times before she hit a button and played the rest of the album. “Okay, let’s check your hair.” She pulled back the shower cap and peeked. “Oh, shit,” she said. “It’s kind of orange.”

Harry pulled the cap off the rest of the way and stood up. It looked like he had bright orange dreadlocks. “Well, let’s wash it out, maybe it’s not as bad as it seems.” He shoved his head under the faucet, and Ruby rinsed, her fingers separating the bigger clumps. She washed it twice before she let him get up and dry off with a towel.

They stood next to each other, shoulder to shoulder. Instead of blond, Harry’s hair was the color of bright new rust, or a very dirty traffic cone. He touched a curl and then put his hand on his chin. It was terrible, so terrible that Ruby couldn’t even argue otherwise for show. They grimaced in unison.

“Do you have clippers, by any chance?”

“I think my mom does. Hang on.” Ruby scampered up the stairs to her parents’ bedroom and came back wielding a pair, the cord dangling behind her. Harry plugged them into on the wall and switched them on. “Have you done this before?” she asked him.

“Nope,” he said. “But there’s a first time for everything.” He started at the front — you had to start somewhere — and dragged the clippers back along his scalp. A long strip of hair fell first to his shoulders and then to the floor.

“Wow,” Ruby said. “Keep going.”

He did the right side first, leaving the hair about an inch long, maybe less, with no trace of the bleach. He stopped long enough for Ruby to take a picture, one half orange, one half gone. She put a towel on the floor to catch all the falling locks.

It only took a few minutes. “I guess I wasted your bleach,” Harry said, swiveling from side to side to look at himself.

“Here,” Ruby said, and handed him a mirror. “Look at the whole thing.” She held it up in his hands like he was in a barbershop, and spun him around so that he could see the reflection of the back of his head in the mirror.

“I look like my dad,” Harry said.

“Kind of,” Ruby said. “I think you look more like you.”

He knew what she meant. Harry looked like a different person — older. Tougher, even. He ran his hand over his head, which was both prickly and still itchy from the bleach. He didn’t look like a kid anymore, and he didn’t feel like one, either.

“I should go home,” Harry said. “Just for now. I’ll come back tonight.”

Ruby nodded. “I love you, Harry Marx.” She kissed him on the cheek, both of them covered in strands of his hair. There were so many ways that he wanted to remember Ruby, images of her that he wanted to freeze forever, but this was what Harry wanted to freeze for himself — however he was, right at this second, when those words came out of her mouth, and he was still standing, still able to walk out the door. There would be no better summer, as long as he lived. Harry kissed her back and then closed her bedroom door behind him.