After work on Monday evening, I watched Mr. W cut his own hair with an electric hair trimmer razor thingie. He cuts his son’s hair with that trimmer, too, but had always turned down my half-joking request for him to cut my hair, claiming he didn’t know how to work with long hair. “If I had a boy-cut, would you cut my hair with that thing?” I asked him now.
Between the buzzing of the trimmer, he said, “Yes.”
I leaned farther out against the chairback I was resting my chin and hands on, crouched on the seat facing backwards like a little dog looking out a window. “Would you still be attracted to me if I had a boy-cut?”
Bzzzz. Bzzzz. “Yes.”
I peered at him, watching him stroke the blade methodically from the base of his skull up the back of his head. “Are you lying?” I asked.
Bzzzz. Bzzzz. “Yes.”
The chair creaked. I watched him work, observed his concentration as he examined his head from all angles between a hand-held mirror and the wall mirror that covered his bathroom closet doors. His eyes never left his reflections, which from my angle looked like a startling row of Mr. W Rockettes reflected over and over between two large opposing wall mirrors. The opposite mirror farther away from the light source reflected a darker Mr. W, so that the row of boyfriends seemed an M.C. Escher rendering of opposing and alternating pale and tan Mr. Ws.
“But what if it’s not my fault that I don’t have hair? What if I’m a cancer patient and the chemo made me lose my hair?” It didn’t seem very fair in my hypothetical that I’d have to endure cancer, its harsh treatments, and the loss of my boyfriend’s attraction to me.
I received a quick side glance. “If you had cancer and got chemo treatments, then we’d both have our heads shaved. And I’d still be attracted to you.”
For awhile, nothing in the room could be heard except the buzzing of the hair clipper and the distant churning of laundry whirling in the washing machine — the only signs of ordinariness in the extraordinary conversation I was having. His last words shimmered between us in the air in a way that was less surreal than the meaning of the words itself. I was no longer there. I was now back years and years ago, reading a newspaper article about the NFL football player who shaved his head in solidarity with his wife, who was undergoing chemotherapy for breast cancer at the time. I heard my past self say wistfully, “Do guys like this really exist?”

Have patience, I wanted to tell her. They do. They really do.