Chapter 22

“I don’t believe it,” Mia said for about the fourth time. “I just don’t believe it.”

“Well, do you like it?”

She looked at me in the mirror over my bureau. “I don’t know.”

Last night I had cut my hair. Strands of hair had fallen all over the floor, long strands of hair I’d grown for almost thirteen years.

“I’m still in shock,” Mia said. “We look so different now! You with your short hair and me with my long hair.”

“We never looked the same, Mia.”

“I know, it’s just—it’s so different.”

I picked up the scissors and snipped the air. “I didn’t know I was going to do it. I didn’t plan it, I just did it. I took a shower and washed my hair, and—you know how good the shower makes you feel? That’s the way I felt. I was singing this song a friend of mine wrote—”

“What song?” Mia said. “What friend?”

“A friend of Fred’s.”

“You mean Jan? She wrote a song?”

“No, not Jan. Someone else.”

“Who? What’s her name?”

“His name. Bill.”

“Who’s he? What’s he got to do with cutting your hair? You know what? When I walked in, I almost didn’t recognize you.”

“I know, it’s so funny. I keep looking at myself. Is that Ami? Remember how you wrote the note to Robert? Just did it? That’s the way I cut my hair.” I opened my bureau drawer and showed her an envelope. “I put some of my hair in here. Maybe my mom will want it.”

“What’d your father say?”

“He didn’t see it yet.”

“Well … I think I like it,” Mia said.

“You do? Honestly?” I was relieved. I went to the window and pulled up the shade. Just this morning, it had started snowing.

Mia sat down on the bed. “It makes you look almost like someone else.” A little smile came and went on her face. “Ami, now that you’ve cut your hair—I know this sounds stupid, but I’m going to tell you something.”

“What—are you going to cut your hair, too?”

“No. Not that. Robert and I went to the movies.”

“You and Robert? When?”

“Last week. Last Saturday.”

I sat down on the bed next to her. “Last Saturday, when I went to visit my mother?”

Mia nodded. “He called up and we were talking, and he said what did I do on Saturdays? And I said when Ami’s not around, not so much, it was pretty boring.”

“Did you say that, really?”

“Well, it’s true. I said maybe I’d go to the mall or something. And he said he was going over to the mall to see a movie. So then I said was it a good movie? And he said he thought so, and did I want to meet him there and go, too?”

“You sat together?”

She nodded.

“Was it fun? Or what?”

“Not exactly fun. Not the way I have fun with you.… He put his arm around me. Are you mad?”

“I know you and Robert like each other.”

“Ami.” She looked at me seriously. “Just because I like Robert, I don’t want it to change us. I’ll always love you.”

I hugged her. “I’ll always love you, Mia.”

After a moment, she got the scissors. “Want me to fix your hair up a little? You didn’t get it so good in back.”

I sat there, with my eyes closed, listening to the little crackle of the scissors and that other quiet sound, of snow falling, that’s hardly a sound at all.

“There,” Mia said. “See if you like it.” I looked in the mirror. Mia looked over my shoulder. “We should take a picture.”

I got Dad’s camera. It has a setting on it so you can take your own picture. I set the camera up on the bureau, then ran and stood with Mia in front of the window. Our arms were linked, our heads together.

“Cheese, Ami! Say cheese, Amikins!”

“Cheese. Cheese, Miaseea!”