Chapter 30
Edit Scissorhands… (Part II)
"Mommy, LOOK! Him's head is shiny! Can me have that?" Kaylin asked as she twirled around in front of the full length mirror on the wall and pulled up the curls tight on the side of her head to make them disappear.
"May I, and I don't think Daddy would be too happy with me if I brought you home that way. He's fussier than any guy I know about your hair… has to be just so," Eddie laughed as she lay back suspended in the big hydraulic barber chair that was the centerpiece of "The Chop Shop's" main floor for her shampoo. As Maria had promised, the atmosphere there was more akin to that of a friendly local neighborhood cop bar where frankly she felt more at home than Erin's swanky salon and the two blond Reagan ladies had found themselves treated as royalty from the moment they entered, with the place of honor on what was likened to an experience on a mechanical bull quickly vacated by the current occupant… a Lieutenant Cyrus Mitchell from the local 7-8 as soon as he was informed of Eddie's married pedigree and destination for the evening.
"Have a seat Officer Reagan," he ordered in a deep commanding voice when she balked after being urged by the other patrons to take the spot from a superior, even if he was off duty. "Ladies first… just doing my part, ma'am," he assured after moving down a station and giving Kaylin a high-five.
"It's true, Cy here doesn't need much of a shampoo anymore," Maria's father, Emery Willard, retorted as he instead took out a hot towel and buffed the man's mostly bald head affectionately. "I'm the only one in the city that can still manage to give him a quiff… best cut for older men with thinning hair," he advised. "Soon though, my friend," he kidded as he pulled out his scissors and prepared to finish off the look. "You'll have to go see a magician instead."
"Papa!" Maria chided as she rinsed Eddie's hair and began to towel dry it. "Be nice! Mr. Mitchell has been coming here since I was that age," she said as she nodded towards Kaylin who had stopped in mid-dance to stare with fascination at the shiny silver scissors and comb in the older barber's hands as they flashed in the light and flew over the man's head snipping and shaping with the speed of forty-year's experience.
"Eh, you like, little girl?" Mr. Willard smiled at her rapt attention. "You come here and stand on this box like my Maria used to do and I show you how," he offered as Kaylin eagerly scrambled over and up at the invitation to watch the action so close. "You don't mind, do you now, Cy?"
"Not as long as I walk out of here with at least some of what little I've got left," the lieutenant good-naturedly quipped and continued the small talk with the older man and his little helper as Eddie's hair was prepared for its style.
"As fast as I am with the shears, my daughter is with her fingers," Willard reported with pride as he watched Maria quickly section Eddie's hair and begin her work. "I don't often get to see her do this anymore since she moved to that over-priced poodle dog parlor up the street. What will you give her?"
"It's a salon, Papa," Maria sighed at his apparent disdain for her current workplace. "I'm doing a waterfall braid over a curled messy bun that will look lovely with the highlights you already have in your hair," she explained to Eddie. "Very chic."
"And usually very expensive," her father reminded as he finished and brought out a soft brush so that Kaylin could enthusiastically help sweep any stray clipped hair off the lieutenant's shoulders before he stood up with a smile of thanks at the little girl's efforts. "For what I charge twenty-five, that fraud charges ten-times so he has the privilege of insulting you and his clients as he empties their wallets. Here you go little one," he added as he picked Kaylin up and slid her wooden box over to Eddie's chair with his foot before placing her down once more. "You can help with your momma now too. Maybe my Maria will think why I am still waiting for another grandchild. Easier to find a nice husband here than in the middle of all those overdone old women," he asserted.
"This is the work I like to do, and I'm only twenty-five, Papa!" Maria reminded him as she quickly tamed Eddie's tresses and began the intricate braid. "Not many of your clients come in and ask for an updo. In fact, almost every one of them gets a buzz cut. Hold this right here, sweetie," she added as she placed the little girl's hand on a clip to make her feel like she was helping.
"Buzz?" Kaylin asked while thinking about a recent encounter with some nasty wasps at the soccer field. "Like buggies?" she shuttered. "I no like that!"
"No, baby," Eddie assured from the surprising comfort of the infinitely adjustable chair. "Buzzed means short with clippers… like Uncle Danny's," she explained. "A lot of policemen like to keep their hair that way because we have to keep it looking nice on the job and it's easier than something like this to fit under our hats," she joked as she waved her hand at her own head and watched in the overhead mirror Maria quickly and efficiently build the base and layers to the extravagant style for her evening out with a three-year-old's hands eagerly assisting in every step along the way.
"Oh," Kaylin nodded in understanding. "My Daddy is a policeman, and him wears a hat. Me like helping!"
###
"Daddy! LOOK!" Kaylin exclaimed as she burst through the front door with great excitement only to find her father laying flattened lengthwise on the couch where he had collapsed into a near coma-like state a mere forty-five minutes earlier upon his arrival home as more than twelve hours on shift at the desk coupled with that power nap Renzulli had touted had done little help other than to get him home in one piece. "Mommy's SO PRETTY! And I helped!" the little girl announced milliseconds before launching herself on top of his back and forcing his eyes open like window shades snapped up.
"Gentle, baby… Daddy's tired," Eddie chided as she followed her in with her arms full of the dry cleaning. "Jamie, it's late!" she gasped when one look told her he had done nothing more after arriving home than to find a soft landing spot face down in the living room with one arm hanging off the cushions. "Get up! Honey, you're drooling on the floor! The car is coming in just over an hour and you haven't showered or shaved yet! What are you doing down here? We have to get ready!"
"M'm sleeping, Ed, and for the last time I don't drool," he explained the obvious before sitting up and leaning heavily back while subconsciously rubbing the side of his mouth and lifting his eyes to bring her in focus. "Besides, you had my tux… Wait, you do look good!" he added in surprise as her appearance hit him. "See? I told you not to worry about taking her before."
"We went to the 'arber chop shop," Kaylin announced. "I helped!" she insisted adamantly again that her contribution be thus duly noted.
"Huh?"
"Never mind, I'll explain later," Eddie fluffed in her urgency. "We need to get dressed!" she reiterated.
"So go," Jamie sighed and waved as he sank back down in the seat and lay back with his head over the armrest. "Guys can get ready for something like this in no time. Just put my stuff out on the bed and call me when you're done with your makeup. I won't get near the bathroom until then anyway," he griped. "Give me fifteen more minutes here," he begged.
"Okay, you'll watch Kaylin?"
"Course," came the yawning reply as half of his brain had already gone back to a state of blissful slumber with the rest ready to follow. "She can tell me all about how she helped with your hair," he mumbled.
"Me show you, p'ease?" his daughter begged as she ran to the toy box and pulled out a little bag with her baby doll brushes and hair clips in it before pausing to retrieve one last item from her cherished art supplies… a light blue pair of Fiskars Children's safety scissors.
###
"Okay, Jamie… I'm done up there, so you can go…" Eddie trailed off as she hurried down the steps carrying her shoes and putting her earrings in before pausing as her eyes widened and nearly bugged out of her head while they registered the sight of her husband still reclined and peacefully sleeping while adorned with various little plastic colored clips around the edges of his hair while a notable amount of the same was laying in little snippets on the floor underneath him and a tiny girl was busily brushing away at the now obvious speckled bald spots on his head where they had gone missing from. "OH! MY!... OH NO! OH… GOD! OH, NO, NO, NO! Baby, what have you done?!" she gasped at low volume, unwilling to spook their daughter or clue him into this development and set off the panic alarms yet with just thirty-five minutes to go before the car picked them up for such an important event.
"Me making Daddy's hair nice for his policeman's hat… him say so," Kaylin asserted. "Like Uncle Danny's."
"Oh, but sweetie… we can't do that!" Eddie insisted as she drew closer and felt herself on the verge of hyperventilating once the full extent of the sporadically cropped damage on the top of his head was visible. "You mustn't use scissors on people's hair! Only paper!"
"I know how!" Kaylin insisted, offended that her artistry was being questioned. "The 'arber man show me and say good!"
"Okay, okay… stop, we need to fix this fast… somehow..." Eddie huffed as she fanned her face, that evening pregnancy flush and sick feeling in her stomach hitting fast, early and hot now that her heart was pumping and her mind frantically whirring away knowing how fussy her husband was about his appearance and how equally adamant a certain grandfather was going to be about the show going on. "Sweetie, please go up in your room and close the door," she asked calmly to spare her daughter the forthcoming spectacle even as those light blue eyes looking back at her started to well with the apparent notion the little girl behind them had done something wrong. "Don't worry… it's not your fault… Mommy knows you were trying to do a nice thing, but Daddy is going to be just a little upset about this when he first finds out. I'll talk to him and then he'll come up to see you and give you a hug, okay? I promise. Now scoot," she ordered and waited until the little footsteps had cleared the landing and the door upstairs closed before proceeding to hurry and grab a box out of the back closet before putting it down on the coffee table and sitting on the couch to rouse him.
"Jamie… Jamie, get up… now!" Eddie hissed as she started pulling off the hair clips and a few more unfortunate tuffs along with them.
"Mm-hmm, 'kay," he stirred reluctantly as he peeked at her. "Hey, you look great. My turn upstairs?"
"Yes, um… but there's a small problem that's come up," she interjected with pursed lips and a wrinkled brow. "Now, don't freak."
"What?" he questioned with one slowly opening suspicious eyeball trained on her. "Did you use all the hot water? C'mon Ed, we talked about this. I hate being cold."
"Nooooo, it's not that," she trailed off with a continued pained look. "Please don't freak."
"You already said that!" he reminded while sitting up and swinging his legs over as his senses came to full alertness. Something was definitely up for her to be acting like this. "What, exactly, am I not supposed to freak out about?"
"Now, remember Kaylin was just trying to help," she warned as she stared back at him like a deer in the headlights while her eyes could not help but lift upwards and focus on what was missing as a choppy fringe ringed his forehead. This was bad, oh so very, very bad. "Like she said we were at a barber shop and they were really nice to us there and showed her how they did it… so she thought she could..." Eddie squeaked out. "She thought she could help you look good with these too," she offered with a grimace as she picked up the safety scissors from the end table and showed them to him and waited for the realization to hit while she counted down in her mind… three… two… one...
"WHAT?!" he gasped as his hand flew to the top of his head with the immediate recall of his daughter's soft little touches as she was chattering away while ninety-five percent of his consciousness was turned off. "EDDIE!" he cried as he leaped up and went to see for himself in the foyer mirror. "OH, HOLY, AND YES I'M DAMN WELL FREAKIN' OUT HELL! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"
"I know! I'm so sorry!…"
"WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!" he demanded as he turned around with eyes in full panic mode. "There's no way to fix THIS!"
"There's one," she admitted while pointing to the retrieved box and watching the defeat spread on his face as he sank back against the doorjamb.
###
"Gotta admit the kid looks damn good up there in his dress blues and sergeant's stripes," Danny noted as he sat back and relaxed with an arm around Linda's chair at an elegantly decorated ballroom table in the famed Park Avenue Waldorf Astoria Hotel and watched while his little brother wrapped up his part of the presentation to an attentive audience with a heartfelt personal plea for their support for the new scholarship fund. "Better him than me, I hate wearing mine although these penguin suits aren't any better," he added as he ritched up against the stiff collar of his tux. "Gramps really pulled out all the stops by having him wear the uniform to show he puts that above a fancy black-tie Harvard Law degree," he added as he took another sip of his second or third mixed drink. "Should've probably taken his hat off inside though, right? But what do I know about etiquette? Guess I don't rate," he added with a slightly inebriated peck on his wife's cheek. "Thank God I'm just a grunt and not the next Reagan in line for a big boy's office. I couldn't take the pressure."
"Eddie, I'm surprised you came," Linda diverted as she turned her attention to the company they had at the table knowing that her husband's public speaking style had been more of a deterrent than anything else. "Your dress and hair are simply gorgeous, but you look a little pale… still feeling sick?" she asked while trying to be polite even though her sister-in-law's now pregnant state was secretly gnawing at her.
"A bit," Eddie admitted as she crunched down like a frantic beaver on yet another saltine cracker that had been spirited here inside her purse and sipped some more ginger ale to settle her anxious stomach. "I guess it's between that and being nervous for Jamie up there… we weren't expecting to come and he pulled a double shift before this so hasn't slept much," she revealed part of the cause for her angst, although she held no doubt it wasn't being tired that was causing that red tinge of embarrassment in her husband's cheeks at the moment. "I'm not sure how long we can stay tonight; we might have to leave soon," she added and set up the escape phase of Jamie's hastily conceived plan to arrive late, complete his obligation "under cover" of his formal uniform and most importantly hat, feign fatigue with a wife suffering from baby-to-be chemistry shifts before dinner where he would be expected to sit at the table and remove said headwear and hightail it out of there before anyone, and by that he specifically meant Danny, could take a gander at Eddie's rough attempt to emulate Mr. Willard's version of a "quiff" before he had an appointment the next day with the master himself to make due with what little Kaylin had left intact. The only saving grace in all of this, and the driving force behind his resolve to make it through the night, was that his wife was wearing that dress which promised those much-needed extracurricular activities and the fact that Kaylin was indeed off with her highly amused but sworn-to-secrecy Grandpa after many hugs and reassurances that Jamie was not truly upset with her after the shock had worn off and he had calmed down a bit.
"Oh, that would be a shame to miss the dinner and dancing part after taking all that time to get ready," Linda added. "I'm sure you had to sit in the chair for hours listening to all those uppity Park Slope women complain about this and that while they were under the dryers. It's like they're in a little coven when they get together."
"No… I ended up not being able to keep that appointment because I had Kaylin with me. I went to see an… um, friend, and she did my hair. She was pretty fast. Her brother Mark works ESU out of Brooklyn South," Eddie explained with some truthful details since no doubt Erin would bring up the price-gouging scheme at the salon, but she had not been prepared to fork over that kind of cash to cover it after Melba made it clear she was not welcome.
"Willard? Mark Willard? His dad has a barber shop over there on 9th," Danny observed as he watched his brother suspiciously now while he worked his way back across the room shaking hands and moving through the crowd with Henry anxiously leading and making introductions. "He's still wearing his hat," he muttered under his breath before finishing his thought out loud. "Anyway the old man is a legend up there around the 7-8… they call him Scissorhands, you know… like the movie 'cause he can cut so fast. Guys go there on their meal breaks all the time… in and out. Place is a goldmine. Got some crazy kind of chair that swings around too. Maybe I'll stop in there for a cleanup next time I go up to visit Erin," he added with a brush of his hand over his hair.
"Right, because you have so much left up there to take care of," Linda chided while shaking her head. "I think I do okay with the clippers… saves us another bill every few weeks, what with the boys growing out of that look," she reminded. "Especially since you guys bought us the new ones… they're a lot nicer and don't leave any marks. Danny wouldn't let me use the others anyway after you borrowed them for Bear," she confided to Eddie. "Did you ever get all that pink glitter glue out of his fur? Poor thing, Kaylin was just trying to make him look pretty."
"Oh, Bear," Eddie swallowed nervously as she recalled exactly why they were in possession of those clippers after another of the little girl's beauty-slash-art projects went awry a few weeks earlier resulting in the original hair-impaired member of the family. "Yeah, that stuff got all over the place. He's doing fine… and um, starting to look more like himself now that it's growing back."
"Three-year-olds and art stuff," Danny agreed. "If it's not the melted crayons in the dryer or the glue and the damn glitter, it's the scissors. Glad we're out of that stage," he added without thinking about his wife's suppressed desire before Linda suddenly excused herself from the table and headed towards the ladies room for a cry. "Ah, damn," he muttered under his breath and cursed himself for unwittingly starting something over between them again after the tension that had been brewing for the past few weeks since the unexpected baby announcement. Thankfully Eddie had not seemed to notice as her eyes were still fixed on her husband as he drew closer and she prayed they could pull this off… really the way she was feeling at the moment it wasn't even a lie to say she needed to go home and lay down.
"Harvard!" Danny called out and stood up to greet his brother. "Helluva good speech up there! You've got Gramps prancing around and raking in the dough," he added with a firm clap on Jamie's shoulder when he reluctantly came near… a motion that saw his older brother draw away with something sparkly on his hand that set his still razor-sharp detective brain on overdrive until it locked on with laser sights… the hat, the uniform… was that… just the tiniest bit... of pink glitter?
###
"Really, lambchop… hardly anyone even noticed," Eddie tried to assure her husband after they returned home and were wearily climbing the steps towards the bedroom. "I think I did a pretty good job with the clippers and scissoring off the worst part on top in less than ten minutes, if I do say so myself," she insisted.
"Yeah sure, no one noticed. Danny almost peed his pants right there at the table after he flicked my hat off and I thought someone was going to have to call EMS for him when he hit the floor. Everyone noticed, Edit Katalin!" he asserted after turning around and shaking his head. "Especially Pop. I was afraid he was going to stroke out himself… Linda was crying for whatever reason and had to sit him down and take his pulse. You were back and forth to the bathroom throwing up. Great impressions his grandkids made in a swanky place like that."
"That's because Danny thought Kaylin had glued you up just like Bear and that's what you were trying to hide. There must have been some glitter in the clipper box and I got it on you when I brushed off your shoulders off after you put the coat on. If it hadn't been for that we would have made it out of there free and clear, but when everyone heard about the scissors it wasn't as bad. They understood it's a kid, and she didn't mean anything… it happens," she shrugged. "No one else really knew you there anyway and we'll get it all fixed up tomorrow, I promise. Didn't you hear? The military look is totally in right now and Mr. Willard is a legend… even your brother knows his reputation. Wait until you get to try that chair."
"Oh, sure… it happens. Like Danny should talk with that damn widow's peak he tries to pull off, and I bet that's what you would say if she took a nice hunk of your precious golden mop off and it took like three years for it to grow back. Can't wait to see what'll be sitting on my desk when I get back to the 3-5 on Monday," he griped and fell back crosswise on the bed after throwing his coat on the chair and kicking off his spit-shined shoes. "Probably a few cans of that spray on bald spot stuff. Oh, God… and that'll just be from Renzulli," he trailed off and closed his eyes.
"Well, lucky for us yours won't take that long… a few months, tops," she assured from the bathroom while taking a few minutes to freshen up and prepare for the anticipated activities. "Now, Sergeant Reagan, how about I help you forget about all that in the meantime," she added in her most sultry voice while coming out to lean in the doorway. "You're one sexy man, even with a little less for me to run my fingers through, and I've got a zipper here that's stuck," she cooed before being met with silence other than soft, even breathing.
"Jamie?..."
Okay, okay… I know this Snapshot really should have been called "Kaylin Scissorhands," but that didn't sound right besides it was Eddie that saved the day for the most part at the end with some fancy snipping and clipping work done at speed so forgive the creative license, and please let's assume that she will wake him up for those extracurricular activities. Poor guy deserves a break. :)
Starting on Monday next week, the prequels to "Resurgence" kick off here with Part I of another fun two-shot entitled "No Good Deed…" as poor Sergeant Reagan finds himself with an eventful shift in the days before Thanksgiving battling rampaging loose turkeys on the street with Annabel, coupled with an unhappy and judgemental nun and an impending just-announced holiday visit from mommazilla… all while newfound best buds Eddie and Danny make him squirm in utter discomfort in memorable fashion as they tackle a minor plumbing project at home without him. That will be followed on Wednesday with a one-shot of "Grandmommazilla" as Eva arrives to hear the news of her latest unoka bean before dropping a few bombshells of her own and perhaps even enjoying a night out on the town with a familiar 'stache in the process, and after a closer look, we'll do a **Bonus Day** right off the start with the first installment of the main story also posting later that afternoon as well since the Reagan family Thanksgiving dinner scene is really covered in the second chapter of "Resurgence" so seems a shame to miss the timing for Thursday. Busy days in werks-world! Hope everyone enjoys their holiday week!
