She pointed to her ears and held her hands palm up.

Irritated, he picked up her hearing glasses and handed them to her.

She shook her head.—My hair is wet. It’ll short the circuits.

He said something.

She nodded.—It’s a problem.

His eyes brightened. Later on, she’d learn this was the sign that he’d had one of his sideways ideas.

He said something fast that she didn’t hear.

—What?

He held up a finger for her to wait, then strode off into the house. He was the man in power who didn’t edit, who said whatever flashed through his mind and watched how others would react. He had little experience with holding back words, the mental weight of an awkward moment on his tongue, the branks of powerlessness buckled round his head. He came back in a moment carrying his electric shaver plugged into a long extension cord. With her watching, he mimed shaving the hair on his head off, then offered the shaver to her, his eyebrows raised in a question.

(The current fashion for women was to have hair long enough to wrap it several times around a foam sponge and pin the now impressively large bun on top of the head. Or, alternately, they could tease their locks up in a beehive several inches above their skull and spray it in place. The purpose, either way, was to showcase the volume and length.

Men, on the other hand, cut their hair short and greased it down, trying to make it as small and obedient as possible. Although some young men had begun to grow their hair past the bottom of their ears, this made the adults suspicious of them as true males.)

If she shaved her hair, she would be able to wear her hearing glasses more since her hair would dry quickly, but she would look different. Unfeminine. Deviant. And the strangely thick arms of her glasses would be visible, her defect revealed.

Surely, she thought, this would stop Eh and Blum from staring at her. She’d be able to work with the dolphins without being bothered.

And so, impulsively she nodded.

His face lit up. He admired unusual choices.

He held out the attachments for the shaver for her to choose from. Not knowing what any of them did, she tapped the nearest one and he snapped it onto the front of the shaver.

He gestured to a chair and she sat down. He flicked the machine on, its busy mechanical hum, and cupped the side of her head against his belly to hold it still. He paused, waiting for her to jerk back, to change her mind.

She didn’t move, so he placed the shaver against her forehead and ran it slowly up into her hair. It buzzed up along the top of her head and down the back, a vibrating massage. Her hair fell to the ground in a sheet, as though it had been waiting to let go. He paused, staring at what must be the fuzzy stripe of her scalp. She could feel the admiration off him like a heat. Then he began the second pass of the shaver, and the third.