• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Carolyn laughed. “Oh, he’s been after me for a long time to cut my hair. Besides, he’ll have a month to get used to it.” Having said that, she opened the door and walked into the salon. I followed.

Carolyn began to speak in halting Italian, but the receptionist cut her short. “I speak English,” she said, speaking English. “How may I help?”

After explaining to her that she had no appointment, Carolyn asked if it would be possible for someone to cut her hair that afternoon. The receptionist’s exquisitely arched eyebrows shot up in alarm. “Without an appointment! I think it is not possible.” She consulted her book. “But we could take you one month from today.”

“I think it is not possible,” Carolyn said, “as I will be getting married in Florence in one month.” She said it with her usual sly humor but her face showed her disappointment.

A young man standing nearby interrupted, telling the receptionist in good but not perfect English, “Yes, but I have been canceled. Now I can take her.”

The receptionist looked at Carolyn who, for some reason, was hesitating. “Vincenzo is very good,” she said reassuringly to Carolyn.

By this time Carolyn’s face was quite flushed. “I’m sure he is. But I need to ask … I should have asked first … but what I wanted to know is … what do you charge for a haircut?”

“For Vincenzo that would be 210,000 lire.” Carolyn’s flushed face turned pale. By this time we both were able to convert lire into an approximate dollar figure without consulting a currency converter. The haircut would cost close to $150. I knew Carolyn couldn’t afford this. Suddenly I knew what my wedding gift would be.

“She’ll take the appointment,” I told the receptionist. Then turning to Carolyn, I said, “Please allow me to do this. It will be my gift to you. After all, I am the mother of the bride.”

I waited in the reception area, relishing the chance to watch some of the most stylish women in Milan enter and exit. It was like being at the theater, only here the drama lay in the expectations, hopes, and disappointments surrounding a new hairstyle. I worried that Carolyn might be among those who emerged disappointed. Or worse, that Vincenzo, like many hairstylists, might get carried away and do something drastic. I looked at my watch. An hour had passed. What could be taking so long? I grew apprehensive, as though this were a hospital waiting room and Carolyn a patient.

Five minutes later, Carolyn reappeared. She was smiling. And with good reason. She looked wonderful. Her hair was parted on the side and cut to a length that just brushed the top of her shoulders. “Well, Mom, what do you think?” Carolyn asked.

“I think you’re going to make a beautiful bride,” I said.

The next morning Carolyn went off to Florence to get married and start a new life. We had said our good-byes the night before, but I walked down to the lobby with her for a final farewell.

“Be a good daughter now and write,” I said.

“I will, Mom. Promise you’ll write back.”

I stood outside and watched her walk toward the train station, her newly cut red hair bouncing up and down with each step. I envied her, off to start a new life. But even more than that, I envied the fact that if her new life didn’t work out, she had plenty of time to start another one. Carolyn had made a commitment, a big one, but there were many more important choices to be made in her future.

I thought about my own life and wondered: would there ever be another large commitment in my life? Or would my life now become just a series of small ones? It occurred to me that perhaps, in the long run, small was better.

Right now I had two excellent commitments to carry out: to spend my last day visiting, if I could find it, the Casa di Riposo per Musicisti; and to get ready to leave for Venice, where I planned to hook up with a group traveling south to Tuscany, Umbria, and the Amalfi Coast.

True enough, neither of these plans amounted to a major life commitment. Still, I found myself thinking that