Chapter 3: Not What It Appears To Be

The pounding on my door started at ten a.m. sharp. I wasn’t happy. I’d only been asleep about two hours, having spent most of the night living another man’s life half a world away. What sleep I’d had was restless as the dreams kept flooding my sleeping brain—dreams made so vivid in my mind through his laptop computer.

People don’t realize how much of their lives are on their personal computers. Photos, email, links, music ... lovers—it’s all a part of who they are. When I dive into a computer, or ferret out information on the Internet, they become so real that I can talk to them in my head and it feels like they’re answering. Getting that deep into someone else’s head makes it hard to keep track of your own. It takes a while to decompress and I do that best while I’m sleeping.

The knocking continued and I finally dragged myself out of bed, pulled on a pair of sweats, and went to the door.

A little blonde bundle of energy almost poked me in the nose with her fist as she raised it to knock again. About five-three and weighing about a buck ten, she glowed with scarcely contained élan. She smelled of something fruity that I guessed must be her shampoo and I was instantly thankful that it wasn’t floral. I’d be sneezing all over her.

“You’re not up? It’s time to go!”

“Why would I be up at ten on a Saturday morning, Cali? And how did you get into the apartment building? Go where?” I know. I wasn’t giving her an opportunity to answer as I kept asking question after question, but once she started talking, I was pretty sure I wouldn’t get another chance to say anything.

“Your makeover! Mom says you should meet us at the Analog by ten-twenty. Your hair appointment is at eleven o’clock.” She wrinkled up her nose as she looked at me. My eyes weren’t quite open yet. “And shower and brush your teeth before you come down. Did you stay up all night again?” My nod was all I got out. “Mom says that kind of schedule will age you prematurely. That’s what she tells me. If I keep staying up late at night, I’ll get wrinkly. She might as well say, ‘Cali, go to bed or you’ll end up looking like Dag.’” She giggled. “Anyway, Mom’s heading down to the Analog and is going to order coffee for everyone, so you need to be there in—let’s see—twelve minutes. ‘Bye!” With that she skipped off down the back stairs outside my door and was gone.

Makeover? Oh. Yeah. Bring money. Damn.

I read somewhere that on average women who have been dumped spend $800 on a makeover. When Hope left me and cleaned out my loft, I spent $12.95 on a case of beer and didn’t change clothes for two weeks. That was the last makeover I’d had. When you do most of your work in cyberspace, who cares what color your t-shirt is?

My self-image is a cross between the dark intensity of Sam Spade and the suave sophistication of Nick Charles. Really? I’m a tall, skinny, rumpled Columbo in faded jeans and a t-shirt. I showered quickly, brushed my teeth, pulled on said jeans and t-shirt, and headed out the door to meet the mother and daughter—all the while feeling like the golden sun logo on my shirt was turning into a massive target on my chest.

On the street corner outside the Analog Café, a guy dressed almost like me was tacking posters to a utility pole. The broadsides were stapled from the ground to as high as he could reach and all the way around the pole. About twenty posters, I guessed, each for a different band or venue. He stepped back and took pictures of the pole from all sides on his cell phone, then closed up his kit and walked over toward Denny. I shook my head, knowing that by noon, Jared would come out and tear them all down while muttering about how he’d call the police if they didn’t already have too much to do. He and the owner of the Analog, across the street from our apartment, were vigilantes when it came to keeping the neighborhood clear of flyers and playbills.

Just inside the door of the Analog, a couple in matching, studious black-rimmed glasses, tight black jeans, and army surplus jackets sipped coffee and read. He was reading Tolstoy. For pleasure. Intellectual. She read Still Life with Woodpecker. She typed messages into her phone one-handed without looking. She might have been transcribing the book for all I could tell.

Andi turned away from her conversation with the barista and held out a cup of coffee for me. Hot, strong, and black. Cali was right beside her, sipping something that looked sweet and chocolaty with a big dollop of whipped cream on top.

“Finally,” Cali declared. “Let’s go!”

Andi smiled and greeted me. “She’s kind of excited about the shopping expedition today.”

“Why would she be excited about getting me a new pair of pants?”

“Oh, she just figures that if we are shopping there is a high likelihood that she’ll be able to divert the purpose to her own benefit. I know she has her eye on a sweater she saw at Candy’s. And Candy’s just happens to be next door to the Men’s Wearhouse.” Andi pulled her keys out of her purse as we left the café. “I’ll drive. Nothing we want is within walking distance of here.”

I tried to think of what was around. Well, there were more costume shops per capita on Capitol Hill than anyplace except Reno, but aside from a few vintage clothing stores there isn’t much in the way of actual clothing—at least not if you’re over twenty. Granted, if you wanted to dress like a vampire or a zombie, this was the place to come, but neither of those would go over well at a finance company.

Fifteen minutes later we walked into an upscale hair salon in a fancy hotel. I was pushed into a chair in the waiting room while Andi and Cali walked back to where I could see half a dozen stylists clipping at their customers. I was trying to remember when I’d last had a haircut. I usually kept it pulled back in a ponytail and just whacked enough off the ends to keep it above my shoulder blades. I hadn’t really been into short hair since my Navy days, though I’d gone through various lengths when I was a rising star. I just quit caring about it a few years ago.

My beard was thin. Blondes have lousy beards. My Swedish heritage showed up in my skin and hair tones. Granted, the beard wasn’t really long. I had a pair of hair clippers my mother gave me years ago and once a month I put the longest attachment on them and buzzed my face. I picked up one of the magazines and flipped through it. The pictures were of men that all looked fifteen years younger than me and several millions richer. They’d all either walked off the pages of GQ or had just come from performing with the Chippendales. My boney ass wasn’t going to measure up to these guys no matter how they cut my hair.

Andi and Cali came out to sit with me and said it would be a few minutes before Sinclair was ready to see me. Somehow I pictured a big green dinosaur lumbering around grazing off what was once on my head. Andi and Cali got busy with the magazines, pointing and then shaking a head and turning the page. Before long a middle aged woman just over five feet tall and just under that wide came into the waiting room from the studio. She was not, however, green. When she said my name it sounded like a frog had dragged itself out of a particularly filthy swamp and taken up residence in her throat.