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“I just think it’s stupid, you know? Like, we’re in the middle of a global pandemic, people should have better things to do than worry about my hair,” Bradley says, absentmindedly digging her nails into one of the tiny sacs of air that she’d pulled out of the Ulta box. “Also, I mean, I’ve had visible roots pretty much ever since the start of the pandemic, I don’t understand why now all of a sudden it’s such a big deal that I have to dye my hair immediately.”
As the bag gives way with a pop, Laura can’t help but startle, but though her breath catches, there’s a laugh on her exhale. “Jesus, Bradley,” she chuckles, “I have scissors for you to cut those open to flatten them, you don’t need to pop ‘em,” she says, her hands moving instinctively to Bradley’s hips to shift her slightly closer to the counter as Laura passes behind her, opening the drawer below the cutlery drawer to unearth the scissors.
“That’s where you’re wrong, babe,” Bradley counters, and Laura rolls her eyes at the pet name, because she knows that it can only mean that whatever comes out of Bradley’s mouth next will be profoundly stupid—Bradley’s leaned into that sort of thing lately. Laura leans a hip into the kitchen island herself, now, as she holds out the scissors to her girlfriend. “I do, in fact, have to pop these. If they’re going to make me spend this much energy on my hair, I’m at least going to take it out on these little bags. I deserve this.”
Laura rolls her eyes again and sets the scissors down, but not without sliding them purposely across the kitchen island toward Bradley. “Can you deserve it in thirty seconds when I’m out of the room, then? I’m gonna go read somewhere where I can’t hear you turning the kitchen into Times Square on New Year’s Eve.”
“What? Wait, no,” Bradley starts, her face falling as she reaches for Laura’s left hand, trying to keep her from turning and leaving the kitchen. As she does so, the second little baggie Bradley had plucked out of her delivery box escapes her grasp and flutters pathetically to the kitchen tile. Bradley presses her lips together, and Laura knows that means Bradley is insisting that Laura not laugh at her while trying not to laugh herself.
“First of all,” Bradley diverts after a moment, deftly redirecting Laura’s attention, “as someone who’s hosted New Year’s Eve in Times Square, I’ll have you know that me popping a few air baggies is much less apocalyptic.”
“I’ll have you know that I have also hosted New Year’s Eve in Times Square, once upon a time, and I beg to differ. It’s all relative. One loud bang in Montana is absolutely equivalent to a crowd of thousands in New York.”
“Smartass. And there’s a dirty joke somewhere there about banging in Montana, just know that I can’t get to it right now. But it’s on the tip of my tongue.”
“Ooh, tip of the tongue, so close and yet so far.” Laura laughs, taking a step closer so she can bring their joined hands to her mouth and press a kiss to the back of Bradley’s hand. “Like I said, I’ll be…in the study, probably, and when you’re done here and you find the joke, you let me know. Maybe there’s another bang in your near future.” She smirks and steps back.
“Wait, seriously, I had a second of all,” and Bradley practically pouts, though she lets Laura drop her hand.
Laura quirks an eyebrow, and Bradley goes on.
“Will you help me dye my hair? I’m not gonna bleach it and I bought a couple of shades, I’ll probably need your help making sure my roots blend into the colour in the right way, especially in the back.”
“Wait, you’re not going to bleach it? I thought they just wanted you to fix your roots?”
“Well, they did. But quite frankly, this whole blonde business was a pain in my ass when I was in New York—god it was so many hair appointments—and I’m just kind of done with it, you know? I mean, what are they gonna do? Follow me out to your ranch and make a hairdresser go through a 14-day quarantine so they can foist a double process colour on me? Honestly, I’d like to see them try, that sounds hilarious,” Bradley says, reaching into the box and pulling out several boxes of hair dye.
“So…” Laura starts, stepping closer once again to peek at the colours on the boxes.
“So it’s time to go back to my roots. In the literal sense, at least. See? I’m not all wordplay-ed out. Will you help me?”
“Fine. But only because I don’t trust you not to get brown dye all over my nice towels.”
“Bradley, I want it on the record that I think you’re very intelligent, but I don’t think this is the smartest idea you’ve ever had.”
“The way that you’ve phrased that makes me sound like I should be prepared for further criticism, which I don’t think is fair, since you don’t dye your hair.”
Laura laughs at the way Bradley’s eyes narrow as they meet hers through the bathroom mirror, hands stalling in mid-air where Bradley had been sectioning off a small slice of her hair towards the back. Laura raises her hands in mock surrender. “Listen, I just think that neither of us are professionals and while it’s like…objectively a good idea to test things out on your hair before you do them, I’m just not confident in either of our abilities to accurately recreate what we do on a test strand.” Her inflection quirks up, turning the statement into a question, waiting for Bradley to challenge her assertion. When it doesn’t come, she continues, “I just don’t want you to end up with a chunk of hair that looks completely different from everything else. I think we should just go for it, full tilt.”
“Fine, maybe you’re right,” Bradley acquiesces.
“I often am,” Laura intones, halfway under her breath.
“What was that?”
“Nothing,” Laura fires back too quickly, her tone too saccharine and her smile too Cheshire Cat to be honest, but Bradley lets her get away with it with another playful glare through the bathroom mirror as Laura eases her down by the shoulders onto the bar stool they’ve dragged into the bathroom.
As Bradley opens the boxes of the hair dye and pulls out a variety of little bottles, and Laura drapes a towel she normally keeps in the mudroom with her barn clothes over Bradley’s shoulders, Laura wishes that she could find a way to tell Bradley how proud she is of her without it sounding absolutely out of left field, an admission way too sincere for the moment they’re in. Bradley is just dying her hair—and it’s just hair, true. But it’s more than that, in a way.
Bradley’s been here in Montana for about a month now, and Laura can tell that she’s starting to settle . Into Montana, sure (as much as one can when they’ve scarcely seen other human beings in weeks). Into being with Laura like this, absolutely. But Laura has a sense that there’s some new degree of Bradley settling into herself as well. Certainly some of it must come from knowing that her brother is safe, that her brother is committing to making a change in his life, but Laura thinks there’s something else, too.
When they’d met in Iowa, in those halcyon days before the pandemic had changed everything, Bradley was all sharp edges. Now, Laura notices Bradley yielding more (into her, sometimes, too, which gives Laura a thrill every time she can feel Bradley relax in her presence, whether that’s against her mouth or when they can sit comfortably in silence together). It’s not that Bradley is any less principled than she was a month ago when she arrived, but Laura hypothesizes that in the absence of the city, in the absence of the network literally breathing down her neck, Bradley is starting to figure out what’s most important to her and assert her boundaries. Laura feels like she’s staring right into one of those moments, now: Bradley isn’t letting the job dictate how she looks as much anymore.
“Laura?” Bradley hands Laura a pair of latex gloves over her own shoulder, her voice knocking Laura out of her quiet contemplation. “Whatcha thinking?”
“Mm,” Laura murmurs, not immediately sure what to say. There’s no straightforward way to say “I’m proud of you for stepping into your power,” without making it a bigger conversation, and Laura isn’t sure that now is the time. So, instead, she continues, “just thinking about how sexy you’re going to look with dark hair again.”
Bradley turns in on the stool, then, so she can look Laura in the eye. “I didn’t know you had a thing for brunettes,” Bradley teases. “If I’d known, I would have done this sooner.”
“I don’t, not really,” Laura says. “I just have a thing for you.” And it’s true, and copping to that is not supposed to be emotionally charged, but there’s something about that disclosure that feels more intimate to Laura than it probably should. Maybe it’s this new side of Bradley she’s been seeing, and the way she’s been behaving lately. Maybe it’s the way the past month of playing house with Bradley has been far more comfortable than she’d anticipated it would be. Maybe it’s… well.
Laura thinks she might be on the verge of something—and she doesn’t even want to think the words, really. She doesn’t want to jinx it. Because thinking it, never mind saying it…She doesn’t want to put any pressure on them, not when asking Bradley to be with her like this had already been such a big step, had already turned out to be such an extraordinary leap of faith for Bradley with the state of the world and the state of her brother.
Privately, though she and Bradley haven’t discussed it, Laura knows that it’s certainly not wise for her to return to New York City just yet. So she’ll stay here until that changes—which may take them into the summer. And she hopes that Bradley will continue to stay, too, even when her brother completes his stay in rehab.
If she’s on the verge of something, she hopes they can both get there.
“In that case,” Bradley continues, oblivious to the way Laura’s stomach is turning a somersault as she stands behind her. “Do you want to pick which one we slap on? Let’s see, we’ve got…Genova Red, which is supposed to be a ‘light golden red,’ and we’ve got Lucca Light Brown, which is supposed to be a ‘light golden brown.’ I’ve always kinda thought that my hair was brown in some lights and auburn in others, so,” Bradley shrugs, holding the boxes aloft above her head for Laura.
Laura takes both from her and considers the packaging. “I don’t know, maybe we should mix the two? Equal parts? Hopefully get the best of both if you think you’re in between, anyway?”
“I’m game to try that,” Bradley agrees.
But Bradley is also game for other things, like leaving the dye on a little longer than the instructions specify because she’s pulled Laura down to straddle her lap and kiss her, long and slow, laughing when they pull apart and somehow, Laura’s face has tiny flecks of hair dye dotted onto it, too, or yelping when the water that Laura uses to rinse the dye off of Bradley (well, both of them) is a little too cold, leaping up from where Laura had her over the bathtub and dripping all over the bathroom floor.
Eventually, they end up outside, even though it’s a brisk May morning and it’s not quite warm enough to be running around outside with wet hair just yet, because Laura insists that if Bradley’s going to make a mess, she’s no better than the horses and she’ll be rinsed out in the barn like them.
Bradley eventually wrestles the hose out of her grasp and turns it back on Laura, naturally.
It’s different in a good way, Laura notices later, when she drags Bradley into the shower with her to rinse off for real (the smell of horses, and the mud and the dust, and the hay that had somehow found its way into Bradley’s freshly-dyed hair, this time), and strands of Bradley’s brown hair stick starkly to her shower tiles alongside her own black hair.
It’s silly, to be taken aback by something that she’s just going to wipe off the tile. But Laura finds she likes it, being able to see like this that Bradley has been here with her.
Laura laughs at herself, damp and naked and sentimental over hair she's about to gather up and throw in the garbage. She’s on the verge of something, that's for sure.