She came down to my dorm that night, knocking on the door around nine o'clock. Martha was at the library, and I was eating graham crackers and reading 'Glamour'. She didn't wait for me to open the door but turned the knob herself and stepped inside. Seeing her in the threshold was both surprising and perfectly natural - since I'd left her classroom, my head had been pretty much continuously buzzing with pieces of my conversation, and her presence felt merely like the physical manifestation of what I'd already been imagining.
"I'm not interrupting, am I?" she said.
I stopped chewing. "No."
"Here's what I want." I could feel the energy coming off her body - she'd had an idea, she'd decided something, she'd walked briskly through the cold air across campus - and how it contrasted with my own inertia, my bad posture, the crumbs dusting the front of my shirt. I sat up straighter.
"I want you to cut my hair, " she said. "I'll give you a grade for it. And that's how you can make up the paper. Whatever grade I give you for the haircut replaces the F".
I looked at her and felt suddenly, extremely tired. "How's that for a deal?" she said.
"I'm not interrupting, am I?" she said.
I stopped chewing. "No."
"Here's what I want." I could feel the energy coming off her body - she'd had an idea, she'd decided something, she'd walked briskly through the cold air across campus - and how it contrasted with my own inertia, my bad posture, the crumbs dusting the front of my shirt. I sat up straighter.
"I want you to cut my hair, " she said. "I'll give you a grade for it. And that's how you can make up the paper. Whatever grade I give you for the haircut replaces the F".
I looked at her and felt suddenly, extremely tired. "How's that for a deal?" she said.
( Curtis Sittenfeld )
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