She sat in a straight chair next to the door of the barbershop and tried unsuccessfully to pin a pleasant smile on her face. Jason slunk down in the black leather chair a bit farther, to no avail. Joe Hamlet, the barber, merely tucked his hands beneath the boy’s armpits and boosted him higher. It was an ordeal for both of them, Alicia decided. Jason, because he was the center of attention; herself, because the men who lined the wall on a row of chairs were offering her long looks of appraisal. She was unaccustomed to being the focus of male attention and found it disturbing. Not that the gentlemen who awaited their turn in the barber’s chair were rude, only curious. Somehow that fact did not ease her discomfort. The barber, mindful of the boy’s wiggling, placed a firm hand atop the lad’s head to hold him still. If it turned out to be a halfway decent haircut, Alicia would be most surprised. “I think an ice cream is in order,” she said to a very relieved young man as they exited the shop ten minutes later.
