Let Down Your Hair (4 page)

My cursor hovered over the
Send
button and then retreated to the corner of the screen, as if trying to hide from what I’d written.

Two hours of redrafting, and it still sounded like a grant application. I made some adjustments, changed them back again, closed my eyes and pressed
Send
. Almost immediately, the office phone rang.

“Hello, Sage Rampion speaking.”

“Sage! It’s Ryan, voice of the underworld. How’s the view up there?”

Hairs rose on the back of my neck. “How did you get this number?” I said, my voice shrill.

“Off the email you just sent me.”

“Oh.” Contact details came up automatically on the bottom of college emails. I knew that.

“Anyway,” he went on, “I was ringing to see if you’re free for lunch on Friday.”

Lunch.
The word simmered in my ears. Did he mean just him and me? Was he asking me out on a
date?
The karaoke party heaved in my memory like a sinister whale. “Um,” I said, “you mean lunch with just you, or lunch with you and your friends?”

“Well, I thought just me, but you can bring Grandma to keep an eye on me, if you want.”

An appalled second later I realized he was joking. “Um, no, that’s OK, I … I’ll come. By myself.”

“I
see
.” His voice was arch and playful. “So you trust me now, do you?”

“So long as we eat in a public place,” I said.
Never meet a strange man alone
.

“Does The Gentle Lentil at twelve thirty qualify?”

“Is it public?”

“Very. It’s just outside the south gates of campus and it’s always packed.”

My brain seized up in disbelief, but my mouth kept on speaking. “See you there, then.”

“See you, Sage.”

I hung up, walked straight out the door and tottered down the hall to the mirror in the women’s restroom. My wild-eyed reflection stared back. I no longer had butchmeister hair, but I was glamorless and awkward, with clumpy shoes, shapeless clothes and ugly glasses.

Andrea had chosen these glasses for herself in the eighties. They were huge, roundish, and made from plastic, in a blotchy mix of purple and mustard yellow. When I’d first needed glasses she’d put my lenses in these frames as a virtuous nod to recycling.

The first payment of my doctoral grant came through yesterday. I could use this money to buy new glasses. But I had no idea what was fashionable, or how to pick frames that suited me. And even if I found out and bought some, Andrea would denounce me for vanity and waste as soon as she saw them.

Unless, of course, my current glasses met with an accident.

I took them off and was twisting them experimentally when Andrea walked in.

“Hi, hon.” She glanced at the glasses bent almost double in my hands, and I hastily cleaned them on my shirt. “When did you last have your eyes checked?”

“A couple of years ago.” I shoved the glasses back on my reddening face and took a deep breath. “Speaking of glasses,” I said, in my most casual voice, “I was thinking of getting a spare pair. Just in case.”
Just in case I go on a date with the model from my life drawing class.

“If you want,” said Andrea, locking herself into a cubicle. “I’ve got plenty more old frames at home.”

The contents of Andrea’s drawer of old frames leered into my memory. “Actually,” I said, even more casually, “I thought I might buy some new frames. Maybe.”

Behind Andrea’s door, the toilet roll gave a disapproving rattle. “Have you looked at the price of new frames?”

I flinched. “Not really.”

“If you had, you might have considered the ethics of charging several hundred dollars for fifty cents’ worth of metal and plastic. Which was probably made in a Third World sweatshop.” She flushed the toilet, as if condemning my idea to the sewer.

Shame bowed my head. One invitation from a man, and I was already placing sexual peacocking ahead of social justice. “Sorry, Andrea. I didn’t think.”

Andrea emerged. “No,” she said, washing her hands, “you didn’t. Glasses are an optical aid, Sage, not an accessory. Leave fashion to the likes of Fran.” She held the door open and I scuttled through it, conscious of my disgrace.

“Speaking of Fran,” I said, keen to change the subject, “I saw her yesterday in the staffroom.”

Andrea sniffed. “My sympathies. Wanted to chat about Freya’s breast implants, did she?”

Neither of us had seen Freya since the makeup and heels incident. By now, Andrea speculated, she was probably doing pole dancing and having plastic surgery.

“She wanted to congratulate me for starting a PhD,” I said. “And disapprove of me sharing your office.”

Andrea gave a snort of contempt and stabbed the door with her key. “Tell her to mind her own business. Speaking of business,” she added, “I spoke to Hilda for you, and she’s free at two on Friday.”

Hilda?
Then I remembered. Last week, Andrea had asked what I planned to research, and I’d said the feminist art movement. Partly to give Andrea an answer, and partly as a cover story in case she discovered my drawings. Feminist art was Hilda’s field, so Andrea had set up a meeting.

“Oh, good,” I said. “Thanks.”

We went to our desks, and Andrea picked out a folder labelled
Gender Discrimination on Campus: A Symposium
. “So how’s progress? Drafted your proposal yet?”

I pressed
Page Down
to hide my two lone bullet points. “Not really. I’m still at the exploratory stage.”

Her mouth thinned. “Then I suggest you explore more quickly,” she said tartly. “You know what Hilda’s like.”

Everyone knew what Hilda was like. She published more articles than the rest of the department put together, and made collages from bras, contraceptives and sinister brown stains of what students swore was her own menstrual blood. But she was a good supervisor, who held her students to exacting standards of progress and punctuality.

Andrea left for a meeting, and I rolled my desk chair over to the window, glasses squatting on my nose like a toad. Hunched with insecurity and fear, I stared through the skylight at Studio 3.

Why would Ryan ask a woman like me on a date?
Maybe he planned to mock me, like Caitlin and Kayla had. Maybe my ignorance made him feel superior. Maybe he thought I’d be an easy sexual target, because I was a plain, hairy feminist who couldn’t catch a man. But if that was the case, why had he volunteered to be seen with me in public?

I straightened, reminding myself I was an intelligent adult, not a sex toy or piece of arm candy. Ryan knew how I looked when he asked me out. If it embarrassed him, therefore, that was his problem, not mine.

This thought sustained me until Friday, when I flung open my wardrobe with my head held high. I coiled my hair into its bun with less care than usual, stepped into my flattest shoes and pulled out clothes at random, to show how little I needed Ryan’s approval. All the same, when I checked the mirror before leaving the house, I noticed that my hands had, quite on their own, selected the tightest pair of pants on the rail.

I hadn’t been to a cafe since my friendship with Jess. Since then, the streets south of the university had grown into a district, where bars and quirky cafes nestled among shops selling candles and brightly colored clothing.

The Gentle Lentil’s sign was made from actual lentils, arranged to form whimsical letters and glued to a piece of card. The entrance was obscured by dangling strands of broad beans threaded on brown string. With my stomach twisting like a kite, I parted the strands and stepped into air that smelled of soup and vegetarian curry.

“Sage!” called Ryan from a round green table. Behind him, a mosaic made from legumes covered the entire wall.

I took a seat opposite him, trying to look as though I went on dates every week.

“So,” said Ryan, “rabbit food? Or rabbit?”

What?
Then I realized he was asking if I was vegetarian. A tactical minefield opened up before me. Andrea’s vegetarian friends considered eating meat a crime on a par with murder. Jess considered being vegetarian a perversion on a par with goat worship. Torn between murder and goat worship, I opted for the truth. “Um, a bit of both. I eat meat, but only ethical, organic meat.” Andrea bought ours from a special supplier.

I tensed on the edge of my seat, not sure whether to expect diatribes on animal cruelty or ridicule for being a hippy wanker.

“Are you
happy to eat vegetarian today?” he said, doing neither. “Because we can go next door, if you want.”

My buttocks inched closer to the back of my chair. “Rabbit food’s fine.”

“Good move.” He slid a menu across the table. “The cafe next door
say
their meat’s organic, but I wouldn’t bet my ethics on it.”

The menu was round, like the table. Dishes were listed in three columns, labeled Peckish, Hungry, and Starving, with symbols alongside to indicate whether they were vegetarian, vegan or gluten-free.

“What about you?” I said. “Are you a vegetarian?”

“Nah, bring on the dead animals,” said Ryan. “The mind is willing, but the flesh is too tasty.”

I chuckled and then stifled myself. Laughing at his joke made me feel like I was conceding too much ground.

A waitress arrived, and we put in our orders—a vegetarian pasta dish for me, a Thai tofu curry for Ryan. When she left, Ryan pushed back his chair a little, looking amused.

“Sage, Sage,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m disappointed in you.”

My jaw dropped. I’d only been here five minutes. How had I disappointed him? By turning up in my normal clothes? By refusing to sexualize my body for his benefit? Outrage began to simmer in my guts. I shouldn’t have accepted his invitation. I shouldn’t have let myself chuckle. I should have … I should have …

“We’ve been here at least five minutes,” continued Ryan, “and you haven’t even
mentioned
my T-shirt of the day.”

He tweaked his T-shirt plaintively. It was pale green, with a bright green frog printed in the middle. The frog wore a crown and a doleful expression, and carried a golden ball in one flipper.

Confusion defused my outrage. “
The Frog Prince
?”

“Exactly!” said Ryan, looking pleased. “So you do know fairy tales, at least?”

“Sort of.” Andrea had used fairy tales to teach me about hidden sexist messages. According to her,
The Frog Prince
taught girls that they’d be rewarded for submitting to men.

“Screen-printed last week,” said Ryan, with a hint of pride. “My latest variation on the theme.”

Theme?
Then I remembered his business card. “Oh … your surname?”

He nodded ruefully. “I hated it as a child. Prince Charming jokes. Prince of Darkness jokes. Prince songs sung tauntingly in school corridors. Then I got old enough to understand irony and decided to run with it.”

I considered his other T-shirts. “
The Frog Prince
,
Prince Caspian
… What was the one the other day? With the boy and the giant lemon?”

His face lit up. “You noticed! It’s an illustration from
The Little Prince
. French children’s novel.”

“About giant lemons?”

“About a prince who visits lots of tiny planets. Carried through space by a flock of birds on strings.”

“Right,” I said, trying to get my head around this. “So it’s science fiction?”

“Philosophy, really,” said Ryan. “It’s about how people lose sight of what matters as they grow up. One of my favorite books.” He looked at me with his quizzical face. “You look stunned, Sage.”

“I am, a bit.” Though “stunned” wasn’t quite the right word.

“Why’s that?”

Because a philosophical French novel about a prince that travels through space by bird is one of your favorite books. Because you screen print illustrations from children’s novels on your T-shirts
. “I suppose I didn’t expect you to like … that sort of book.”

His face fell. “Why not? Because I’m too mainstream? Too conventional? Too …
banal?
”

“Not
that
. It’s because … because you’re …”
Because you’re a man
, I thought unguardedly. Men wrote and read novels. Socrates and Confucius were men. Why was I so surprised?

“… I’m not sure,” I finished in a sheepish voice.

The waitress arrived with our meals, and Ryan scooped a spoonful of curry into his mouth and shrugged.

“Oh well,” he said, “I suppose these things are subjective. Anyway … do you realize we’ve now had three conversations without asking each other the classic questions?”

“What are they?”

“Number one is ‘So, what do you do?’”

This time I didn’t suppress my chuckle. “So,” I said obligingly, “what do you do?”

“I’m studying for my teaching diploma. Three years of trying to be an artist has convinced me I need a back-up plan. And you?”

“I’ve just started a PhD.” Would this intimidate him? According to Andrea, most men were threatened by clever women.

“Cool.” He didn’t sound remotely threatened. “What in?”

“Women’s Studies,” I said in a small voice.

This time, surely, he’d react. Men found the very existence of Women’s Studies disturbing. Most felt obliged to ridicule or discredit it, and the few who enrolled were often only there to pick up women. I twisted my fork in the pasta, waiting for his response.

“What’s your thesis on?” said Ryan.

I cautiously lifted the pasta. “I haven’t decided yet. I was thinking about exploring the feminist art movement.”

“Really?” His eyes lit up. “I went to a feminist art exhibition once. One artist did a series of paintings of pregnant women, all in bright acrylic colors. Quite beautiful. I’ve still got the brochure at home, if you want to see it.”

A strange ache swelled inside my ribs. “Thanks.”

“Speaking of Women’s Studies, isn’t there a Professor Rampion somewhere on campus? Any relation?”

My spine stiffened against the back of the chair. Andrea was the sort of person most people at the college had heard of. “She’s my grandmother.”

Ryan nodded. “She raised you, didn’t she?” he said. “Why was that?”

My mouthful of pasta turned cold and tasteless. I made myself swallow it. “My parents were … they weren’t able to raise me.”

“How come?”

I twisted the spaghetti round and round my fork as I assembled a reply.

“My mother got pregnant at sixteen,” I said at last, lifting a huge wad of pasta. “She ran away when I was six months old and left me with my grandmother.”

The spaghetti unraveled and fell into my lap. Before I could do anything about it, the strange ache flooded up my throat and spilled down my face in an unexpected wash of tears.