The Improvement Plan

Four

Hope told Alex to wait outside her front door so she could talk to her mom.

"Mom?" she said as she walked through the apartment. "Mom, where are you?"

"In here!" her mother said from the kitchen. The smell hit Hope as she walked closer. Her mother wasn't the best cook in the world and it made her nervous.

"What are you making?" she asked, her nose crinkling as she stepped into the small white kitchen space.

"Tacos. I was getting hungry and I figured they were simple enough that I wouldn't catch anything on fire."

Hope leaned against the counter near her mom. "You know that boy, Alex?"

"Yeah, he's the one you've been talking about, right?"

"Yeah, so I brought him here. Will you cut his hair?"

Her mother dropped the spatula she had been using to stir the meat. "Hun, I don't think that's a good idea. I cut women's hair. I'm not a barber-"

"Once you see it you'll understand that anything you do will be better than what it is right now," she looked at her mom, giving the puppy dog eyes. "Plus it doesn't need to be short. Please."

Her mother sighed. She removed the food from the hot eye on the stove. She pulled her light brown hair into a ponytail, something she always did before working. "Fine. You get to take over dinner."

*

*

Alex sat in Hope'smother'ss chair. He sighed as her mother looked at his hair.

"Don't worry, babe. I'll take care of this mop-"

"Mom!" Hope scolded her mother from the kitchen for calling it a mop. It was only okay for Alex to call it that, openly at least.

"It's okay," Alex laughed lightly. Now that he paid attention he realized that his hair was a lot worse than he had originally thought. "Thank you, Mrs. Gibbons."

"Please, call me Adelyn," she said. "I am your hair stylist after all."

"And if you were Mrs. Stevens you would call her Adie," Hope said with a humor filled voice.

"Don't even get me started on that woman," Mrs. Gibbons groaned. 

Alex's stomach flipped as he watched her pull out the scissors. She turned the chair around so he couldn't stare at his reflection. One by one hair fell to the floor as his hair got shorter and shorter until it was at his shoulders. Hope sat with a poker face as her idea was put into play as she watched through the archway in the kitchen as she cooked taco meat until dinner was done. He wanted to ask for some food but neither Hope nor her mom was worried about eating while he was being fretted over and he did not want to be rude.

When it was over the two women looked at him, almost like they were examining their handy work.

"How does it look?" He asked.

"Mom? You're the expert. What do you think?" Hope questioned Mrs. Gibbons. She paused, either being dramatic or to think about the question.

"I think he looks very nice," she finally said with a smile. "Let's turn him around."

"Alright, you ready?" Hope asked him. Her eyes sparkled and Alex couldn't help but just look at them. To not weird her out he ended up responding with just a head nod, he couldn't think straight with her so close. He could smell vanilla shampoo coming from her blonde curls. He wondered since her mother was a hairdresser if the blonde was real. It looked real and he hoped it was.