Tristan's Gap

Well-trained golden retriever versus scrappy miniature dachshund. That was the difference between my two daughters, and it was never more obvious than when we were talking about their father. That August night as I drove Tristan to work with both of them in the car, it would have sounded to anybody else like we were discussing Tristan's hair. But when we got right down to it, everything always came back to Nick. "Did you ask Daddy if I could cut it?" Tristan said. "I did," I said. "He said no, right?" "He said he'd think about it." "That means no," Max said from the backseat. "You're done, Tristan." I glanced in the rearview mirror at my ten-year-old's dark paintbrush-like tails, sticking out from her head while the rest of her hair straggled down to her shoulders. We hadn't even begun to discuss that do. "I really wish I could cut it," Tristan said. "All I ever do is put it up in a ponytail anyway." The tendril of wistfulness in her voice was as close to arguing as Tristan ever came. I pulled up to a Stop sign and looked at her. Brush handle in her mouth, she secured a thick, deep-brown bundle of hair with one hand and snapped what we Soltani girls called a pony holder into place with the other. She executed the whole thing the way she did every task: neatly and with graceful resignation. I had to agree I'd seen her do it for at least ten of her sixteen years. She pulled the tail tight and let it splash against her cheek as she leaned over to return the brush to its precise place in her purse. "I'd miss your ponytail," I said. "It's you." I grinned into the rearview. "Now, Max, honey, we need to talk about yours." Max pointed to the intersection where we were still idling. "Mom, there's, like, nobody coming." "I knew that," I said. She cocked one eyebrow, a trick she'd learned recently. "I did know," I said. Tristan wound her arms around her lithe, long legs as she perched her feet on the edge of the seat. "He said he'd think about it, baby girl," I said. "And that doesn't always mean no. He had to think about it before he let you get a job, and that turned out to be a yes." "There's a way big difference between working on the boardwalk and getting a haircut," Max said. There's nobody like a ten-year-old to reduce everything to the lowest common denominator. Must be something about the recent introduction to fractions in the fourth grade. "Daddy's afraid you might regret it if you cut it," I said to Tristan. "They like it long for dance, right?" "Yeah," Max said, "you gotta do that tight-bun thing that makes your eyes go all slanty." I didn't have to look at her to know she was demonstrating. The pizza places and hoagy shops on Garfield Parkway, which led to the boardwalk, were revving up for suppertime, but I was lucky enough to snag a parking space. "We'll talk to Daddy about it when he gets home tonight," I said. "We'll have plenty of time since you're only working a couple of hours to fill in for Sondra." I brushed my fingers against her cheek. "Maybe we'll soften him up with some ice cream." "Chocolate chip cookie dough," Max said. "Aunt Pete's gonna want pistachio, but that stuff is foul." I exRue, Nancy is the author of 'Tristan's Gap', published 2006 under ISBN 9781400070343 and ISBN 1400070341.