Kay

I will wonder if this is going to be a very long post, for if I wish, it could really be quite involved. My friendship with "Kay" was a very, very long time ago. It was while I was in college, that I became friends with Kay and her husband, Paul. He was the Youth Pastor at the Church that I was attending, and she was the church pianist and organist.

In a time when cash was short, and she could use a few extra dollars herself, Kay offered to cut my hair in her home. As I mentioned a remarkably talented pianist, her main source of personal income was teaching piano in her home, so slipping me in between lessons wasn't a problem.

I suppose that I never really noticed that every time that Kay offered an appointment time, Paul wasn't around. When the kids were in school, he had flexible hours, and was generally into and out of the house, including having a weekday or two off. Yet Kay's and my time was uninterrupted, and we grew to a closer friendship than what might develop merely within the confines of a "Church" relationship. Undisturbed and alone, she and I had a wonderful time sharing thoughts and observations. Generally, Kay would greet me at the door to the dining room, I would turn a straight-back chair away from the table, and she would begin trimming away.

I should tell you a little bit more about Kay, what I remember about her. Some people might consider her living a fairy tale life. A Pastor's daughter, I'm sure that she grew up sheltered, innocent and naive...a topic that I'll post on later. Pretty and a woman of faith, she went off to a small Christian college, where she married an athletic star, and they went off to be missionaries, then Paul settled down to be a Youth Pastor.

About ten years older than me, Kay was lithe and bright. Very pretty, even cleanly beautiful, I looked at her femininity from a distance. After all, to me both "married" and a "faithful Christian woman" equated to "unavailable"...and in combination were utterly so. And besides, she was beautiful and attractive, so why should she be interested in a geek like me? Yet it was clear that Kay has a wonderful, musical soul, and I have always loved to hear her laugh.

If her life was a fairy tale, it began to be fractured somewhere along the line. For one thing, it quickly spread through the church that she and her husband found themselves unable to conceive. Frankly, I never asked just who the problem rested with. And then there was a not so subtle personality difference.

My friend "Samantha" once assured me that engineers were simply too logically and mathematically minded to be emotionally or romantically available to a woman (that's a paraphrase). She based that opinion on personal experience--and you'll read more about Sam before too long. And I have to wonder if Paul, a former jock, might not have quite fulfilled all of musically gifted Kay's more emotional needs. After all, I do recall him telling "funny" stories about some of the misadventures of his youth "before he was saved". Some of them were simply...cruel. And sometime I'll have to tell you about Paul's case of mistaken identity.

And that, generally is the environment that I found myself in, as best as I can describe it. I also think that Kay was just beginning to realize and embrace her femininity...after years of being "sheltered and naive", she was beginning to blossom. After all, some of the girls of the youth group that she was close to, who confided in her, were hardly innocent or naive (or especially "sheltered")...and I think that some of their more worldly knowledge (especially feminine fashions) was starting to soak in to Kay.

I do remember her first, dramatic foray into fashion. If I didn't mention it, this was a hugely conservative church. Girls or women were not to wear bikinis, and often a one piece suit was even covered with a tee (someday I'll write about chadors). Kay's swimsuit, soon to be mentioned, was a prime example of this...repressive misogyny.

And I'll remember the shock that rippled through the congregation the first time that Kay settled behind the organ attired in black. She had purchased a sheer, long sleeved black blouse, the kind that many women wear over a second, abbreviated blouse of some type...but Kay was wearing only a black bra beneath it. I know that she had tested the garment and matching black skirt out on a trip with the Youth Choir, to another congregation at a sister church in another town. For I remember hearing of Kay's consternation when it was time to get dressed for the service--and she couldn't find the black bra.

Somehow I came into this with Kay, and I almost think that I can see where it began. Aside from my haircuts, I was in the habit of dropping by to talk to Paul, help around the house and yard, or chat with Kay. One afternoon as I bicycled though their neighborhood, I decided to drop by to see if anyone was home. Imagine my surprise to find the door unlocked, but the house empty.

Curious, I circled the house, stepping into the moderately sheltered back yard. I was more than a little surprised to find Kay there, stretched out on a towel beneath the living room window. Peach skinned and blond, I had no idea that she sunbathed--though I had seen her swimming at the Bible camp pool several times.

And Kay was wearing her usual suit, the swimsuit appropriate for the wife of a youth pastor. I wish that I could do this...monstrosity justice. Certainly it was a one piece suit, but that's where all justice ends. Perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that it was the type of suit that you often see, err...overweight or overage women (or a very young girl) wear. Only...Kay was in her prime, a lithsome 5'3" or so. Yes, it even had a little "skirt"...and that was one of the kindest things that I can say about it. I suppose that it was "cute" in some small way...but really, it was a horrid mass of ruffles, all the way up to her throat. Honestly, I can't see why she bothered to wear it, because she wasn't really showing any extra skin to the sun that wouldn't have been revealed by shorts and a tank top.

Enough of my fixation with that silly swimsuit. Kay didn't seem dismayed to see me, so I settled down and chatted with her for a while, sitting with my back against the house. I really don't know what we talked about, but that suit was starting to bother me. It was all too familiar, and as I sat there right next to her, I realized just how much of her figure that it really muffled. I do remember that eventually, looking at her lying there, I told her that the swimsuit simply had far too many ruffles. Greatly daring, I even went so far as to tell Kay, in shy and utter confidence, that I was sure that she would look good in a bikini. She had a really nice figure.

In retrospect, I don't think that Kay was very...affirmed in her femininity. I am reasonably sure that her husband didn't spend a lot of time telling her just how beautiful, how special she was.

Somewhere, the haircut appointments changed subtly. I soon arrived to find Kay just a bit more...feminine each time. Once it was reasonably short shorts, a pink tee and those little ruffled footies that girls were wearing back then...and oh my yes, Kay most definitely had the legs for it. We simply had fun talking together, and I think that Kay enjoyed my simple appreciation.

Everything kind of came to a head one day (did I mention that I was clueless? Even after this I really didn't understand). I walked in for my appointment, and was surprised to find Paul home, spreading papers across the dining room table to do his income taxes. I began to wonder of something was up when Kay almost immediately suggested that the kitchen floor would be easier to vacuum hair from then the dining room. Then, having barely relocated, obviously discomfited, Kay quickly declared that the basement floor would be easier yet...and off we went yet again.

In the unease of the moment, I helped Kay gather up her equipment, finally noticing her attire. Being April, she was dressed in a pretty, lightly ruffled long sleeve blouse (either pink or rose, I don't remember which), and suddenly spectacular in white corduroys. You ladies out there, you know what those white corduroys could do for a woman...and after that horrible little swimsuit, this was my first intimation that Kay had a really great backside.

Yet I digress (and there's another story there). Frankly, I was looking for a little privacy to talk with Kay on some of the personal issues that we sometimes discussed. Yet no sooner had Kay and I settled into the basement rec room, when Paul appeared, lugging his income tax documents down to spread across the ping-pong table, commenting that there was more room to spread out there. Even as dense as I was, I could feel the tension in the room, as silence stretched. And it only got worse.

For as Kay began trimming my hair, slowly working around and through my (then) thick brown hair, Paul spoke. And a part of me shriveled inside. "That's an awfully nice blouse to be cutting hair in," he observed. "Why don't you go upstairs and change?"

I was suddenly horrified, but Kay quietly sat down her scissors, and walked over to the stairs. My back was to them, but I could hear her marching up the carpeted steps. And moments stretched into hours in the silence of Paul and I alone.

Finally I heard her steps descending, as still quiet, Kay returned. She had changed into a pale blue, utilitarian blouse. Silently she picked up the shears, and I cringed to here Paul speak again, quite diffidently. "Aren't those awfully nice pants to be cutting hair in, too?"

Without a word of protest or comment, again Kay set down the scissors, and I heard her walk away, march firmly up the stairs. Again, utter silence ensued, until finally I heard her footsteps returning down the cushioned stairs. She had slipped into a pair of plain blue jeans almost the precise shade of her shirt, and I have to admit that despite how the blue complemented her eyes, where Kay had moments before been dazzling, she was now quite subdued

I didn't understand. All that I really knew was the pain that I felt inside...for her. No woman should be treated like that--for any reason.

The silence lingered, hung heavily like some miasma throughout the rest of the cut. However, when Kay finally worked her way around to trim my bangs, on the far side of me from Paul, I silently breathed the few words that I knew that I needed to. "I thought that you looked incredible."

Oddly enough (or perhaps not), when the haircut was completed, we returned upstairs and I paid Kay, and slipped out the door. Still in silence. I left, head down, trying to decipher, to grasp, to understand exactly what had just happened there. When I was about halfway down the block from their house, I heard a noise behind me...and looked back to see Paul's car pulling away from the house. Another puzzling piece. I suppose that I should have turned around and gone back.

I am going to tell you the absolute truth, right here. For more than twenty years, I've remembered that day vividly, borne the pain of how Kay was treated, and how she must still (another story) be treated. I ache inside simply to think of it...

I suppose that my only other cogent reaction to that controlling behavior, all of these years later, is that it would have served Paul right if Kay had returned back downstairs braless. Now, that's just a silly thought. Honestly, if or when I ever have another haircut from her, I know exactly what I'm going to say.

Just for accuracy's sake, this was over twenty years ago--and I don't recall whether the blouse or the pants were the first decried, and forced to go. I don't know that it really mattered--another case where "it was the thought that counts".

I suppose that there are one or two more (highly relevant) stories about Kay that I could add, right up until the final, startling, revealing moment. I guess that'll wait for another post...