h2>Dating : The Mysterious Toupee
Appearances can be deceiving
“It looks good,” Linda remarked.
“It feels good.” he answered, grinning like a kid.
Standing behind Todd, she glanced at her own reflection in the full-length mirror to make sure she looked convincing. To her, the toupee he wore looked like a freeze frame of a straw nest caught in a hurricane.
“Quite the find,” he remarked to his image. Then he nervously spun around. “The rug, I mean. You just found it, you say?”
Linda answered with a shrug, unsure about how much to disclose. She found the hairpiece on a deserted workbench in the museum basement where she worked. She was often alone among the groaning pipes and shadows, as budget cuts reduced the staff to a handful of PhDs like herself. She had been hunched over a Sumerian vase, meticulously relieving it of dust, when she took a break to sit up and stretch her back. And there it was on a nearby desk. Waiting, it seemed.
The timing of the find aligned with Todd’s recent comments that he was considering a change up top. He had just separated from his girlfriend of four years. Linda knew his thinning hair wasn’t the issue, but more likely his chronic insecurity. And fear of commitment.
Linda and Todd, however, had been friends since college. There were opportunities for something more, but she resisted. Though he was often disappointed whenever she pulled away, he always stayed on. After one of her rejections he declared “If nothing else, I’m committed to the friendship.” And that was something she didn’t want to mess up.
Her shrug seemed to satisfy him. She watched Todd preen for a moment, then looked around his bedroom: a shelf of action figures, a brown broad-leafed plant that was beyond the point of no return, and the complete Horatio Hornblower series stacked neatly on a chair in the corner. An English lit nerd, his interests seemed much more interesting compared to hers. Linda’s only passion was the study of objects from the past. She found them comfortable because their future was already determined, devoid of uncertainty. “It might be boring, but it’s safe,” she tried explaining to Todd once. “But it’s still boring,” was his reply.
She turned back to see his reflection, giving her an impish grin that was spawned from newfound self-confidence.
“I should get going,” she said.
His expression soured slightly but he didn’t protest. He never did.
