“But Eric, I hardly know you!”

“I’m not putting extensions on the whole of your head,” said Theo. “I’m leaving gaps, and I’m using short extensions, so it’ll look like little feathers hanging down your neck.”
Lorna wasn’t sure about that. Part of her was also livid that Shaun had insisted they get married so soon. And right after she’d had a haircut. She’d always expected she’d have at least a year’s notice before her wedding day, so she could grow her hair out properly.
Now the silly fool had gone and proposed during their weekend away in Clarens and she’d gone and agreed to get married the next month. What had she been thinking!
Now mom and dad had to come screaming up from PE to help organise the wedding, she’d had to take leave at the last minute to make time for the honeymoon and there was no time to save up either!
“Clarens is lovely,” chatted Theo as he applied a weft . “I went there with my ex-boyfriend in March. They had snow last weekend.”
“Mmm,” said Lorna as she sipped her second glass of Lyric of the morning, “My brother’s also gay.”
“Who, Eric? You lie!”
“Ja, I think so. He hasn’t had a girlfriend in ten years. He must be gay. I think he’s just too shy to tell us. He doesn’t want to hurt my dad’s feelings. And now I feel terrible because he’s going to feel forced to bring some poor girl to our wedding.”
“You should never do that to someone,” gasped Theo as he moved to a track lower down on Lorna’s scalp. “I was in the closet the whole way through varsity and while I was in the army and I’m telling you it was the worst time of my life!”
“I know, it must be terrible!” said Lorna.
“Lorna, I want you to pick up your cell this very minute and call your brother,” said Theo. “Tell him you’ve always known he’s gay and you want him to bring a boy to the wedding!”
“You think?”
It was a bit of a big step for Lorna, and besides, her wedding was all about her, not her brother’s sexuality.
“I’m positive, Lorna! Do you know what a nightmare it is having to pretend to be romantic with someone you have no interest in at all? Have you any idea? I mean, how would you like it if you had to go to a wedding with a lesbian woman and hold her hand the whole way through the ceremony?”
“Well, now that you put it that way…”
Lorna was starting to think Theo had a point. “I tell you what, Theo. You’re single at the moment, aren’t you? Well, why don’t you give Eric a call and invite him to come to my wedding as your date?”
“Mmmm,” growled Theo as he applied another weft, “I have been single for far too long…”
That evening Eric was on a date with Liz Griffith-Reid at Soulsa in Melville when he got Theo’s call on his cellphone.
“Theo? The hairdresser? Er, how can I help you?”
Liz raised her eyebrows and then headed off to the bathroom to give Eric some privacy.
When Liz returned five minutes later, Eric was looking flushed and a little wild-eyed. He immediately invited her out onto the balcony for a breath of fresh air.
“We can watch the cars going up and down Seventh Street.” He told her. “It’ll be lank er… romantic.”
“Ja, why not. I could do with a smoke,” replied Liz.
But the minute they stepped onto the balcony, Eric got a funny look, like Anakin in that one love scene in Star Wars. The next thing he puts his arms around her, leans her back over the balcony and kisses her deep and passionately, half on top of an elderly Greek couple’s table.
“But Eric, I hardly know you!” gasped Liz, when she’d dug herself out of his clutches, handed him off and got her breath back.
“What’s to know, Liz,” he replied. “I’m a man, you’re a woman. It’s pointless denying our desires!”
Involuntarily, Liz moved a chair between them, suddenly glad she’d come in her own car. “I think I need to be going. I’ll, I’ll call you…”
She retrieved her bag, left a hundred on the table and hurried downstairs.
“Wait!” Eric called after her. “Are we still on for my sister’s wedding?”
Just then his cellphone rang again. It was Theo.