How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti Read Free Book Online

simplicity to my life when I was there, and I looked forward to going, and I was never bored. I knew what was expected of me, and I was happy that I could comply. It fulfilled my serving instincts—­my desire to uplift humanity. I knew nothing bad could happen in a hair salon, and nothing out of the ordinary ever did. I felt more comfortable and safe there than I had ever felt anywhere. The days I spent at home, working on my play, ­were miserable days; I longed to be at the salon. When I was at the salon, I wished to be nowhere ­else.
    One day, watching me wipe down the basins, Uri came up beside me, put his heavy hand on my shoulder, and said, “I have decided to teach you everything I know.” I bowed my head in gratitude.
    Uri had been a stylist since he was fifteen years old. His mother had owned a salon, and she had supported herself during the war by cutting hair. He learned from this that a hairstylist could go anywhere in the world, live in any conditions, and always be able to feed his family. All he needed was his talent and the scissors in his hand.
    One afternoon he wanted to show me a cut, and I stood near and observed as he chopped away at the woman’s puffy brown hair in the back. “Most people would rather have more hair,” he said, “but if the hair at the sides is thinner than at the back, you have to cut away some of the hair at the back in order that the head be balanced. Balance masks flaws,” he told me. I wanted to write this on my arm. Beauty is balance—­yes! As much in a haircut, as in a work of art, as in a human being.
    As I was taking a break by reception later that day, my hands in the big pocket of my black rubber apron, the receptionist told me about the few days she had spent with Ruby and Uri when she first moved into the city. When I asked what Uri was like at home, she said, “He’s exactly the same as ­here. You will never meet a more consistent person than Uri.” In that moment, I wanted nothing so much as for someone to say of me: She is the most consistent person you have ever met. Even at home, she never changes!
    I vowed to attend closely to Uri, to learn how he could be this way, so I could become it too.

• chapter 2 •
    FATE ARRIVES, DESPITE THE MACHINATIONS OF FATE
    I f a literary man feels like going to the zoo, he should by all means go to the zoo,” E. B. White once wrote, so after working one day at the salon, I did what I most felt like doing: I took a stroll down the longest street in the world. I walked past stores with slutty dresses out front, past second- ­ rate jewelers, novelty shops, and arcades, when a silver digital tape recorder in the window of an electronics shop caught my eye.
    It has long been known to me that certain objects want you as much as you want them. These are the ones that become important, the objects you hold dear. The others fade from your life entirely. You wanted them, but they did not want you in return.
    Though I had vowed not to spend more than seven dol lars a day, since I was hardly making any money, I went into the store. I actually rushed in, as though everyone ­else in the city was about to have the same idea as me. I asked the old man what the tape recorder cost, knowing full well that I would buy it, no matter what it cost. I gave him my credit card and signed a slip of paper on which I promised to pay one hundred and twenty-­nine dollars and thirty-­two cents. Then I went across the street into the oily, red-­awninged croissant shop, where I ordered an almond croissant and sat on a tall stool by a wall of windows.
    As the beginnings of a shower mottled the street, I whispered low into the tape recorder’s belly. I recorded my voice and played it back. I spoke into it tenderly and heard my tenderness returned.
    I felt like I was with a new lover—­one that would burrow into my deepest recesses, seek out the empty places inside me, and