Free The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman

scissors.

    "Are you serious?" she says. "Those things are the size of my torso."

    "What do you mean by 'torso'?"

    "I'm just saying they're big scissors."

    "It'll be fine! Don't you worry, Hardy."

    He sits on the closed toilet seat. He's now almost the same height as she is standing. She rises on the balls of her feet and snips, handing him the first amputated strand. "This is actually kind of fun," she says, and cuts another. The discarded locks pile up like kindling. His ears, bared now, are bent slightly, like a rabbit's. He raises a mirror.
    Both are reflected: Rory studying his shorn head; she studying him. He grins at her and she laughs, then catches sight of her own face and recoils, shaking hair from her shoes.
    "That look okay to you?"

    "Looks brilliant. Thanks very much. My head feels so light." He shakes it, like a wet dog. "You know, I'm starting to think getting robbed wasn't so bad after all. I got my stuff back and I got a free haircut out of it."

    "Fine for you, maybe. I didn't get all my things back."

    The next morning, Hardy awakens thinking of Rory. At noon, she sends him a text message. Thereafter, whenever a mobile beeps she checks hers. But it's never him.
    She rues having sent that pathetic message ("I still have your underwear!") and hopes that somehow he never received it. After a few hours, she can't bear waiting any longer, so she phones him. He picks up and promises to "pop by" later.

    By midnight, he still hasn't showed. She phones again, but no answer.

    It's almost 1 A.M. when he appears, grinning, on her doorstep. She makes a point of looking at her watch. "I'll get the stuff now," she says. "It's kind of freezing if you leave the door open like that."

    "Should I come in, then?"

    "I guess." She fetches the plastic bag containing his underwear. "I hope those weren't your only pairs."

    "Course not." He takes them. "I wondered before why a thief would want my underpants. But now I see they're a pretty popular item."

    "So, okay, I guess that's all. Or, uhm, did you want a drink or something?"

    "Yeah, nice one, yeah. Lovely."

    "I have stuff to eat. If you want."

    "Super, super." He follows her into the kitchen.

    She opens a bottle of Valpolicella and heats up a casserole of lasagna that she had planned to bring to the office. (She cooks abundantly and expertly but eats none of it; she has seen the bricks of butter, shovels of sugar, gallons of double cream that disappeared into the mix, ready to reappear on her hips. So her creations--the Leaning Tower of Potato, the Seattle Swirl Cookies, the Sesame-Crusted Salmon Cakes with Lemon Tarragon Sauce--end up at the paper, spread out for the staff, nibbled by distracted editors, spilled on the carpeting, as she observes from her desk, feeding only on their praise.)

    Rory devours the lasagna, downs most of the wine, and chatters, all at once.
    "Lovely. Super." He tells her about his father, who owns a plumbing company outside Dublin, and his mother, a secretary at a medical-supplies company. He briefly attended university in Ireland but quit short of a degree and traveled to Australia, Thailand, Nepal.
    Next, he was in New York, working at pubs. He took a class there in improv comedy and performed at an open mike in the East Village. After that, he trekked through Europe, took a ship from Marseille to Naples, passed a few months in the south of Italy, then made his way up to Rome.

    She fills his glass. "I'd never have the courage to teach a class in anything. Not that I'm qualified to. Let alone in a foreign city. It's pretty brave."
    "Or
    plain
    stupid."

    "Brave," she insists.

    He asks about her work. "Hate to admit it," he says, "but I've hardly read a newspaper in my life. So bloody small, isn't it."
    "Small?"

    "The writing. You need to make the writing bigger."

    "Mm," she says. "Maybe."

    "What do you write about then, Hardy?"

    "Business." She sips her wine. "Sorry, I'm not keeping up with you here."

    "You won't keep up with