"Once upon a time." His lips moved toward a smile. "Long enough ago that nobody would believe it."
From reception, Vanessa announced that my VIP client had arrived early. I looked at the clock: only six minutes had passed. I could finish. My hands moved with the quick, careful assurance that had earned me the position in the first place. Gideon sat still despite his tremor, occasionally closing his eyes when the comb touched his neck.
"Are you really interviewing for a porter job?" I asked quietly.
"I am. Why?"
"No reason."
"People usually want a different answer." He watched my reflection. "An old man with torn cuffs must be pretending to be poor or must have made some terrible choices. Sometimes he's simply old. Sometimes the choices weren't his."
I felt my face warm. "I'm sorry."
"You didn't accuse me of anything." He considered the room behind us. "Others did enough of that."
When I finished, I brushed the last silver hairs from the cape. I turned the chair toward the mirror. Gideon studied himself for a very long time. A man who had entered looking worn and uncertain now had a neat taper, clean edges, and an expression I could not read.
"It's perfect," he said. His voice trembled more than his hand. "My wife used to say I looked ten years younger after a decent haircut. She was generous that way."
I offered him a tissue. He accepted it, then returned the dollar and quarter to the counter between us. "Please take this much at least."
"Keep it for the bus."
"No. A man ought to be allowed to contribute what he can." He laid the money beside my shears. "That's a distinction people forget."
Vanessa appeared behind us. "Clara, my office. Now." She looked at Gideon. "And sir, your visit is finished."
Gideon rose slowly. His coat slid from his lap and the metal object inside knocked against the chair. A corner of the inner pocket opened. For the first time I saw the object clearly: a brass case, darkened with age, stamped with a small sunburst inside the outline of a pair of scissors.
I knew that mark. It was carved above Lumina's oldest mirror, where nobody ever looked because a modern illuminated sign had been bolted across it.
"Where did you get that?" I whispered.
Gideon did not answer at once. He lifted the case with fingers that shook and turned it so the worn emblem caught the light. "Someone told me this place had forgotten what it was built for," he said. "I hoped they were wrong."
Vanessa advanced on us. "Sir, I'm going to call security."
Gideon slipped the case back into his coat. His expression was no longer uncertain. He looked at Vanessa with quiet grief. "You can call whoever you need," he replied. "But ask your employer one thing first. Ask him why station four still has my initials under the seat."
Vanessa went absolutely still. She was not looking at his money anymore. She was looking at his face.
And I realized, too late to pretend I had not heard, that the cheapest haircut of my career had just become the most dangerous.
Vanessa took my appointment tablet before I had removed the cape from station four. She did it with the brisk efficiency of someone confiscating a weapon, not rescheduling a client. "Back office," she said. "You have one minute." The woman waiting for my VIP service stared at us with an expression of mild annoyance. I apologized to her, but Vanessa's fingers were already moving across the screen, assigning the booking to Madison.
Gideon was standing beside the mirror, carefully buttoning his coat. I offered to walk him out. Vanessa refused. "He knows where the door is." Gideon bowed his head as though he had been dismissed from far grander rooms. He placed a narrow piece of cream paper on my station and left before I could protest. Through the glass frontage I watched him pause in the rain, touch his hair with an unsteady hand, and take a small breath that suggested the pavement had become an obstacle he was not sure he could cross.
I retrieved the paper. On it, in slanted handwriting, were a telephone number and five words: Thank you for seeing me. The handwriting was strong despite the tremor. I folded the note twice and slipped it into my pocket.
Vanessa's office was hardly an office. It was a closet converted into an immaculate shrine to control: white shelves, branded product boxes, a surveillance monitor, and a framed weekly revenue target on which I never appeared except as a number. She closed the door and spoke with such measured quiet that I wished she'd shouted.
"You embarrassed Lumina in front of a prospective investor."
"I gave a man a haircut."