Read Online Thanks for the Memories by Cecelia Ahern - Free Book Online Page A

from his hand. He turns to his stylist and grabs the scissors before he makes another cut. “Do not”—he points—“do that to me!”
    Mullet man sighs and rolls his eyes. “No, of course not, sir.”
    The American starts scratching his left arm again. “I must have got a bite.” He tries to roll up his shirtsleeve, and I squirm in my seat, trying to get a look at his arm. I can’t help myself.
    “Could you please sit still?”
    “Could you please sit still?”
    The hairdressers speak in perfect unison. They look to one another and laugh.
    “Something funny in the air today,” one of them comments, and the American and I look at each other. Funny, indeed. t h a n k s f o r t h e m e m o r i e s / 6 1
    My hairdresser places a finger under my chin and tips my face back to the center. He hands me my ponytail.
    “Souvenir.”
    “I don’t want it.” I refuse to take my hair in my hands. Every inch of that hair was from a moment that has now gone. Thoughts, wishes, hopes, desires, dreams that are no longer. I want a new start. A new head of hair.
    He begins to snip it into style now, and as each strand falls, I watch it drift to the ground. My head feels so much lighter. The hair that grew the day we bought the crib. Snip. The hair that grew the day we decided on the name. Snip. The hair that grew the day we announced our news to friends and family. Snip.
    The day of the first scan. The day I found out I was pregnant. The day my baby was conceived. Snip. Snip. Snip. The more recent memories will remain at the root for a little while longer. I will have to wait for them to grow out until I can be rid of them too, and then all traces will be gone, and I will move on for good.
    The American man joins me at the register as I’m paying.
    “You forgot your cactus.” He hands it to me.
    Our fingers brush, and my body zings from head to toe.
    “Thank you.”
    “That suits you,” he comments, studying me.
    I go to tuck some hair behind my ear self-consciously, but there’s nothing there. I feel lighter, light-headed, delighted with giddiness, giddy with delight.
    “So does yours.”
    “Thank you.”
    He opens the door for me.
    “Thank you.” I step outside.
    “You’re far too polite,” he tells me.
    “Thank you.” I smile. “So are you.”
    6 2 / C e c e l i a A h e r n
    “Thank you.” He nods.
    We laugh. We both gaze at our waiting taxis and look back at each other curiously. He gives me a smile. I feel like I should stay in this place and not move. I feel like moving away from him is the wrong way, that everything in me is being pulled toward him.
    “Do you want to take the first taxi or the second?” he asks.
    “My driver won’t stop talking.”
    I study both taxis and see Dad in the second, leaning forward and talking to the driver.
    “I’ll take the first. My dad won’t stop talking either.”
    He studies the second taxi, where Dad has now pushed his face up against the window, staring at me as though I’m an apparition.
    “The second taxi it is, then,” the American says and walks to his taxi, glancing back twice.
    “Hey,” I protest and watch him get in his car, entranced. I go to my own taxi, and we both pull our doors closed at the same time. The taxi driver and Dad look at me like they’ve seen a ghost.
    “What?” My heart beats wildly. “What happened?”
    “Your hair,” Dad simply says, his face aghast. “You’re like a boy.”
    C h a p t e r 8
    s t h e t a
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    o s e r to my home in Phisboro, my
    A stomach knots tighter.
    “That was funny how the man in front kept his taxi waiting too, Gracie, wasn’t it?”
    “Joyce. And yes,” I reply, my leg bouncing with nerves.
    “Is that what people do now when they get their hairs cut?”
    “Do what, Dad?”
    “Leave taxis waiting outside for them.”
    “I don’t know.”
    He shuffles his bum to the edge of the seat and pulls himself closer to the taxi driver. “I say, Jack, is that what people do when they