Marie held a comb between her teeth, squinting as she eyed the neon sign in the plate-glass window. She motioned to a young man with long hair the color of bing cherries, who stood holding the sign, waiting for her direction. "A little down on the right," she said finally, and smiled. Marie had a high, rosy color to her cheeks and looked almost feverish. Her straight shaggy black hair was pinned on top of her head, and she'd taken her nose ring out. Newly developed biceps bulged under her tight white T-shirt, and a tightly cinched black vinyl smock emphasized a tiny waist.

She'd been separated from Gavin for almost a year now. The last time I'd seen my hair stylist, the bank had just approved her loan to set up her own salon. Now, among sheetrock, dust and the smell of new paint, she sat me down in an old-fashioned barber's chair as we looked in the cloud-shaped mirror. After showing me around the place, we'd spent the next 15 minutes discussing why I couldn't look like Winona Ryder. "It's just not fair, Marie," I said. "Why bother with haircuts and infinite hair products that cost a fortune when all you get is the same hair you've always had?"

"Look, life is not fair. And hair most of all is not fair. I could lie and say you'll look like Winona Ryder when I'm finished. But you won't. You don't have straight, thin hair. And she doesn't have thick, curly hair. Why do clients always want the opposite of what they have? Why can't you come marching in here and tell me you want to look like Nicole Kidman? Now, that I could accommodate."

"Because I don't want to look like Nicole Kidman."

"Good for you." She kicked a little pile of shorn hair away from the chair and looked over at the new sign. "It's still a little crooked, Chuck," she called. "Did I introduce you to Chuck? We went to high school together. He's known me forever." Chuck, bored, waved at me lamely.

I settled into the chair. "Well?"

"Gavin is calling me four or five times a day," Marie said, without expression. "He wants to get back together. He says he made a horrible mistake. He says he'll do anything -- counseling, trial marriage, even Buddhism, if that's what I want." Chuck, his back to us, snorted loudly. Marie rolled her eyes. "Chuck's helping me with my sign," she said. "And he just met Brian, whose hair I cut before you. That was Brian, the one you bumped into, when you came in."

I tried to remember. "The little, um, I mean the short one? Skateboarder, right?"

"Snowboarder. He's cute, don't you think? Don't you think so, Chuck?"

"I dunno. I guess, if I swung that way." Chuck sat down heavily on the window sill and inspected his split ends.

I looked at Marie curiously as she yanked a comb through my hair. "You're not thinking of going back to Gavin, are you?" That didn't strike me as Marie's style at all. She was a no-nonsense, in-your-face, completely unsentimental person. She'd laughed her way through "Titanic." But now she seemed to be a bit giggly.

"Well," she began, actually blushing a little, "I hate him, I really do. But there's the baby. And, well, maybe he's changed."

"He hasn't changed." Chuck spoke up, examining the sole of his shoe. Marie whispered, "Chuck doesn't like Gavin."

"How come you don't like him?" I asked.

"Because he's a total fucking dickwad," said Chuck solemnly. "I know this kind of guy. I knew when she married him. I tried to tell her. But would she listen? Noooooo." Marie shrugged. He adjusted one of his rubber bracelets and continued. "He works in this stupid fucking place, this bar --"

"He doesn't work there anymore," Marie interrupted.

"-- which might as well be a whorehouse, where Willie Brown comes in with his dates, and money gets thrown around. Hookers sit at the bar, people are smoking Havanas, champagne is at every table, and I could see a million miles away what a guy like Gavin would do. He's one of those guys that needs approval, you know? He's got a pregnant wife, he's trying to impress his bosses, who themselves fuck all the waitresses there. So he thinks he has to be one of them. He starts fucking one of the cocktail waitresses, this cheap little piece of trash who goes to co-dependency meetings, who's got fake tits, and he's surprised that his marriage falls apart? And now he wants to get back together with Marie? Gimme a break."

"I didn't know about the meetings," Marie said, then giggled. "How do you know that?"

"I heard," said Chuck darkly.

"That's terrible." Marie laughed again. "Would you get the phone, Chuck?" she asked as she started to spritz my hair.

"Do you want to stay with that snowboarder then?" I asked.

"Well, I don't know," she said, frowning. She watched Chuck sit up and flip through her appointment book. "The thing is, I really, really, really like Brian. He has such an amazing body. It's incredible, these great arms, this ripply stomach -- I can't keep my hands off of him. I just love having sex with him, I love it. I don't want to give that up."

"Can you fit this woman in tomorrow for a semi-permanent?" Chuck shouted, waving the appointment book. "Maybe at 1? It says here you have a 'Joan' at 2 for highlights."

"That's fine," Marie said. Turning back to me, she stopped snipping. "Sex is very addictive, you know."

"I know. Well, are you in love with Brian?" I asked.

"Love!" Chuck interrupted, after politely saying into the phone "OK, we'll see you here tomorrow at 1 for a semi-permanent, and you're sure you know where we're located?" and hanging up with exaggerated delicacy. "What the hell does love have to do with it? Gavin supposedly 'loves' Marie. And now she's got her salon together, and she's independent, and she's with this new guy, and she doesn't need that scumbag anymore. And of course he comes crawling back, ready to fuck everything up again. He doesn't want her to be happy. He just doesn't want anyone else to have her!"

"Did you write the 1 o'clock in?" Marie asked mildly.

"Yes, I did." He closed the book and sat on a three-legged stool as if he were about to milk a cow. "Believe me, I know this guy. I've done that stuff myself -- broken up with a chick and then get all upset and want her back when she moves on. Nothing more attractive than independence in a woman. It'll get us pigs back every time. And Marie," he started waving his finger, "you know he'll do it again to you if you go back. You know he'll start fucking some little piece of dirt the second your back is turned."

"I know," said Marie. She held her hand on her hip. "But, well, I love him. I can't help it."

Chuck groaned and pulled on his long, plum-colored ponytail. "OK. whatever. You didn't listen to me before you married that jerkwater. You should listen to your guy friends, Marie. Guys know how guys think." He looked at me curiously. "What do you think?"

"I don't know these people," I said. "She has great sex with Brian. But she's not in love with him. She loves Gavin. She said before that she had great sex with Gavin because she was in love with him. Hell, I don't know." Chuck waved his hand in irritation, as if swatting away a fruit fly.

Marie placed a comb between her teeth again and smiled at both of us. "Do me a favor? Shut the fuck up and let me cut your hair. And you, go fix that sign, please."

Chuck and I exchanged looks. In other words: Case closed. Welcome home, Gavin.