Chapter 3

Have you ever been to a mall on a Saturday afternoon? It's what Hell must be like if they serve cappuccino. Even in high school, I was never a mall rat. (I waited in the car, remember?) Now, I looked around like I was an alien a billion light years away from my home planet. There were so many people inside this one building, I wondered why the streets hadn't been empty on our drive over. As it was, I think we ended up parking in Wisconsin.

I sighed to myself. We were here so we may as well get started. Amy must have been thinking the same thing because she pulled out her list. I grabbed a map from the information center and we headed out to our first destination, the salon.

"Guido will be right with you." The receptionist said after she'd checked Amy's appointment.

"Guido?" I whispered.

"He's a friend of Miriam's cousin's landlord." Amy whispered back. "He's supposed to be really good and hard to book, but he squeezed me in 'cause of Miriam's cousin and all."

"Great, but Guido?"

"Hey," a deep voice, in a Brooklyn accent so thick it almost didn't qualify as English, said behind us, "how's youse doin' to-day?"

We both turned to get our first look at man of the hour. My jaw dropped, whatever I'd been expecting, it hadn't been this. Guido was not your typical hairdresser - in fact in the white bread suburbs around Chicago - Guido was not your typical anything. He looked like Sylvester Stallone when he played Rocky Balboa the first time. That is, if Rocky had been partial to gold chains and leather pants that were so tight they made my balls ache to look at them.

For his part, Guido looked us both over critically. He raked me up and down once with his eyes, smirked and then he stepped up to Amy and took her chin and gently lifted it up. His eyes narrowed.

"Jesus boom, babe. What was ya thinkin' here?"

Amy stepped back and dropped her head hiding her eyes.

"We were thinking," I said quickly, "of a haircut."

"Yeah, and?" It was obvious from his expression, that Guido wasn't convinced a haircut would be enough.

"And ah," I looked nervously at Amy and then decided what the hell, there was no point in not pointing out the obvious. "Ah, maybe something with her eyebrows." Amy squeaked but I kept talking. "Do you do that here?"

"Sure, dis is a full healt' and beauty salon, we'll wax da shit outta dem."

"No."

We both looked at Amy. She turned pleading eyes on me.

"I don't want to do that, Charlie," she whispered pathetically. "I never said I'd do that."

Guido answered for me, thank God, "Babe, trust me; it's for da best." He looked over her head and winked at me.

Uh oh, I hoped that wink wasn't what I thought it was, or it was going to be long afternoon.

Guido looked back down at Amy. He smiled kindly at her and stroked her cheek softly. "Trust me sweet pea. You'll like havin' two eyebrows, it's da style now."

Without another word, he led her over to the shampoo girl. Amy went, but the look she shot me over her shoulder reminded me of blindfolds and firing squads. Guido got her settled in the chair and patted her gently on the shoulder. Then, like a hunter who's put his sights on dinner, he turned and sauntered back to me.

Shit.

"So," he crossed his arms and leaned nonchalantly against the wall, "how's about after I fix up da little friend here, we drop her off and go dancin'?"

He grinned at me and I grinned back. I couldn't help it; I kinda liked the guy. Well, I don't mean 'liked' the guy but... Oh, you know what I mean.

"Sorry Guido. You're not my type."

He watched as my eyes followed a curvy butt; attached to a tall brunette, walk away from us. "You straight?"

I wasn't that thrilled with the note of surprise in his voice, but I decided to ignore it on account of - A, I'm a liberal and we don't think there's anything wrong with alternative sexualities and - B, because he looked like he could take me down with one punch.

I grinned, "Oh yeah."

"Geez," he shook his head, "hey sorry man, hope I didn't piss ya's off or nuttin'."

"Nah, don't worry about it."

"Usually I can tell - good gaydar - ya know? It's just, when you came in wit da little girl, it kinda confused me. I mean we don't get dat many good lookin' straight guys coming in here wit ugly women, ya know?"

My mouth tightened. "Amy's not ugly."

"Okay not ugly, maybe just a little rough around da edges, right?" He grinned, and studied me for a moment. "But I'm bettin' she's hell in da bedroom."

Now, I was getting pissed. "I wouldn't know."

Guido's eyes narrowed again. "You sure you ain't gay? Cause if it's just me you don't like den tell me so; I can take a hint."

Oh God.

"No, I'm not gay," I decided a little more information was in order. "See, Amy's a friend, that's all. I feel sorry for her. And she's a great kid, real sweet and trusting. She cooks too. She's like this kitten and..."

Guido started to laugh.

"What's so damn funny?"

"You are cutie."

"Aw Jesus Christ, Guido, I told you, I'm not gay!"

"Yeah, I know, believe me I know." But he was still smiling. He looked at me for a few more minutes with his big grin still in place. Then he shook his head and sighed and chuckled again.

"Look," he pointed across the mall. "See dat store over dere wit da red awning. Dat's a sportin' goods store. Dey gotta TV in da back room and dey always got some kinda game on. Go over dere and tell 'em Guido says it's okay. Den come back here in a couple of hours and you can check out what we worked out wit da little friend."

He waved towards Amy, who was done with her shampoo and was being led off to another area of the salon. She was wearing a purple bathrobe that hung almost to her ankles and her hair was slicked back. For the first time, Guido got a good look at her face. He shivered.

"Jesus boom!" When he turned back to me, I thought I saw pity.

"I dunno," he shook his head. "But I'll try, man." He slapped me on the shoulder and squeezed. "I'll really try."

I shrugged my thanks and headed for the door.

"Hey Charlie."

It was Guido again. I turned.

"Ya wanna cappuccino to take whicha?"

The two hours was almost up and it was half time at Golden State, but I could see the game was over. The phone rang and Bill, the manager of the store, yelled to me that Guido said to get my ass back to the salon.

I got up and said goodbye to the guys and promised that next time, I'd buy the pizza. I made my way across to the mall, which was about as easy as crossing the Dan Ryan at rush hour, and stepped through the doors.

The place was still packed, but when people saw me they shut up fast and started to smile. Uh oh. It took every bit of will power I possessed not to look down and check my fly. In my experience, exposing yourself is the only reason people ever look at you with that particular type of shit eating grin.

Then Guido came around a corner. He looked like he'd just gone 20 rounds with Apollo Creed, but apparently he'd won, because he was grinning and showing all of his 50 or so very white teeth. Once again he winked at me, but this time I was pretty sure it wasn't a come on; then he turned his back and pulled somebody out from behind the wall.

I stared.

"I didn't tink dis would work," Guido said, "but once I got all da hair chopped off and da girls scrapped off most a dat eyebrow, we could tell dere was real good quality underneat'."

I nodded dumbly.

"She's a pretty lil thing, ain't she?"

When I didn't say anything, Guido lowered his head menacingly and scowled at me.

"Well, ain't she?"

I swallowed, and tried to get enough saliva back in my mouth to be able to speak. Every person in the place was frozen, looking at me, waiting to see what I was going to say.

"Uh, I... I..." I stood there with my mouth open.

"Sheesh," Guido rolled his eyes and muttered to no one in particular. "Spit it out for Christ's sake. We ain't got all day here."

I looked at Amy and the rest of the room faded. Pretty was not enough of a word to describe her. Guido had cut her hair into some short, spiky, wavy, thingamabob that curled around her ears so that only the tiny pink lobs peaked through. Her two eyebrows were arched like little wings over her eyes, which I supposed had always been big, but before, had been overshadowed by the hedge that grew over them. Her face, now that the curtain was gone, was small and heart-shaped and her mouth was this soft full pink bow that stretched and curved to show small white teeth when she smiled. God, she had a pretty smile. No way in hell was Liam going to be able to ignore her now. I tried to figure out why this thought was making me slightly nauseous.

"Charlie," Guido hissed.

My head shot up and I forced myself to walk over to the woman who bore no resemblance to the girl I'd dropped off a couple of hours before. I tipped her face up and smiled down at her. "You really look great."

So I'm not Cary Grant, sue me.

At least it got a smile out of Amy. "You really think it's okay?" She asked in a soft voice and all I could do was nod and try to remember to breath when I looked at her.

The crowd slowly started to drift away. Guido stayed, but at least he'd stopped looking like he wanted to hang me up on the coat rack and punch me the way that other Italian Stallion had beat the shit out of that meat when he'd been training for the big fight. "Okay now," he said abruptly turning practical. "Here's da plan for da rest of the afternoon." He turned to Amy. "You got da list?"

She nodded.

"Great, ask for Sophie at Nordstrom's. She's my cousin Vito's ex-wife's niece. Great kid, she'll fix ya up."

He looked at me. "And you, take dis lady and feed her lunch, she's too fuckin' skinning."

I nodded.

After Amy had thanked everybody twice, we finally made it out of the salon. As we cleared the doorway, a cheer went up. I looked across the mall to see Bill and the rest of the guys from the sporting goods store acting like the Cubs had finally had a winning season. I turned around and raised my eyebrows at Guido.

"Hey, I told 'em da deal here when I called for youse." He shrugged. "What can I say? Dey admire my work."

We did eat lunch. Amy didn't want to, but I insisted. She had an appointment for a trim with Guido in six weeks, and I had a feeling if he didn't see some extra pounds on her by then, my ass was grass.

We ate at a little French Cafe, with an 'outdoor' seating area that was lined with fake chestnut trees that fell over if you breathed on them. The tables were right in the traffic route of the shoppers, so you had to hunch over your food to protect it from loose shopping bags and hungry children who grabbed for your pickle.

Amy had a Monte Cristo and I chose the French Dip with Fries. International cuisine at it's finest. She ate half her sandwich, so I finished it up along with my own. The food was lousy, but the conversation was interesting.

Of course, I did most of the talking, but it seemed a success from the expression on Amy's face. I found myself pulling out the stops to entertain her; telling all my best stories. I figured I owed her that much after our last meal together. I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, until I noticed her eyes had stopped sparkling and the corners of her mouth were turned down.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

I sighed. I knew what the problem was. If I read Amy correctly, she was feeling guilty about enjoying herself. When you're caught up in the throes of unrequited love, it's not enough to be miserable just when you're in the company of the one you feel unworthy of. It's got to be a 24/7 kind of agony, or you feel cheated.