“He’s home. I can’t . . .”
“Can’t what? What are you talking about? I’m talking about a job.” He paused. He had no real desire to tease her, only to have her. “Susannah’s been home the whole time.”
“That’s for you to sort out.”
Josiah chose a narrow, nameless dirt road. Almost all the nameless roads led up into the woods until they narrowed to the point of disappearance, and this one did the same. He cut the engine, allowing Emma’s remark to sift through him, a lit coal finally landing in his dark, angry stomach. “I need you to do something for me,” he said.
Emma scoffed. “Really.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a scissors he’d grabbed on his way out of the house. He hadn’t been sure he would have the courage but here he was, waving them at her across the backseat.
“Careful! What are you doing?”
“Cut my hair.”
“No.”
“It’s a mess,” he said, pushing the scissors toward her. In fact his hair had finally grown to how he liked it, but it wasn’t Josiah Story for Mayor hair, and Susannah had told him yesterday that she would cut it today. But he was so angry at her he couldn’t bear the idea, so angry he was taunting her by having Emma cut it. Of course in all likelihood Susannah wouldn’t even notice, just as she hadn’t noticed he’d been driving around in his one-of-a-kind Duesenberg with his lover, bringing her to their bathhouse instead of to a hotel, running naked—he’d run naked, more than once!—back to his own bed, his prick not even dry. Susannah’s privilege finally their great equalizer, for it made her blind, and Josiah free.
“You barely have to touch me,” he said. “I’ll sit here, and you cut my hair. Anyway, what’s with you, all of a sudden pure? Tell me this is your first time carrying on with a man. I’ve seen your dark girl. I’m not blind.”
Emma didn’t move. “What will Susannah say?”
Josiah turned on his knees, overcome by a sudden aggression. He forced the shears into Emma’s hand, worked her fingers into position, squeezed her wrist, hard. Emma watched him. The fact that she didn’t look alarmed made him sorry. “I’m not any good at this, you’ll see,” she said. But she swatted his hand away, told him to face forward, and, from the backseat, started to cut.
“When she interrogates you,” she said, “you won’t be mentioning my name.”
“I don’t even know your name.”
A little breeze touched the back of his neck—Emma’s helpless half laughter, he knew, all nose, no sound.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Your campaign said so, in the condolence letter. I don’t want to talk about it with you.”
The scissors thwacked at his ear. Hair fell into his lap.
“Have you gone to Mrs. Cohn yet, to ask her to withdraw her endorsement?”
“I went last week. She wouldn’t come to the door.”
“You can’t blame her for that.”
He lifted his head, to check her expression in the mirror, but she grabbed him by both ears and made him look straight ahead. “So what will you do?”
“What will I do?”
“About Mrs. Cohn.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what one does.”
“Do you have to know what one does?”
Josiah fingered the fallen hair. It was all different lengths. With Susannah, the entire business took less than five minutes, but Emma was jumping around, seemingly without a system or plan. She was snipping roughly at his sideburns. Susannah used a razor for these. Josiah’s heart pummeled itself in its cage.
“You don’t think,” Emma said. “If you think, you’ll know what to do.”
“I think!” Josiah said, touching his bangs, which felt poufy, like a duckling’s.
“I haven’t gotten to those yet. But I will. I’ll be as thorough as Delilah.”
Josiah nodded. He had forgotten about Delilah, and Samson, too.
“Stop moving,” she said.
He stared at the woods in front of them. He was struck by the constant motion of the leaves and the utter stillness of the tree trunks. It was hard to believe they were attached to each other. His heart felt like the leaves today: trying to fly, flailing. “I didn’t bring you here to scold me,” he said.
“No, you brought me here to offer me a new position.”
“There is a position!” Josiah saw the scissors come for him, open, glinting. “There will be. How cometh the pears?” he asked in a swaggery voice that only made his guilt more transparent.
“They don’t,” she said. “We’ve been busy.”
“I’m sorry. That was stupid.”
“Couldn’t you renounce her or something? Mrs. Cohn, I mean.”
“What, withdraw for her?”
“No, withdraw your acceptance of her endorsement.”
“Disown her.”
“I guess. It sounds awful.”
“It does.”
They were quiet for a minute as Emma cut his bangs.
“You don’t even want to be mayor, do you?”
A wheeze came from Josiah, nothing like the laugh he intended. “I didn’t say that.”