I gave up arguing with the small man and went to watch him give Magni a makeover.
“Braids or haircut?” Jonah asked.
“Braids,” Magni said after looking at me. “I’m not fucking cutting my hair like that.”
“Wonderful, I’ll make you really pretty.” Jonah eagerly started combing Magni’s hair. “By Mother Nature, have you ever heard of hair products?” he complained. “Your hair desperately needs a deep impact treatment.”
Magni had his eyes closed and I was sure he was trying to refrain from saying something vile.
“And your beard?” Jonah asked when he was done. I had to look away to swallow my laugh. Jonah had braided blue ribbons into Magni’s mane and created what he called a butterfly braid.
“What do you think?” he proudly asked me.
“It’s… lovely,” I said, my lips twitching from my suppressed grin. Magni got up with a scowl and moved to the bathroom, where I heard a deep groan.
When he was clean-shaven and we had both suffered through Jonah’s fashion tips and been schooled on what colors worked with our complexion and shit, I looked at Magni, who was wearing a blue scarf that complimented the blue ribbons in his hair.
“I love it,” Jonah said and clapped his hands with excitement. “The turquoise color truly makes your blue eye pop out, and you…” He turned to me holding up two different scarves against my face, biting his inner cheek over what looked like the toughest question of his existence. “I think we’re going to go with golden. Yes, those piercing gray eyes of yours can use the warm contrast.”
I had to stand still while Jonah arranged the scarf in a fashionable way and when he finally announced he was done, Magni pulled me close with his eyes narrowed.
“I swear, if you ever tell anyone about me dressing this way, I’ll use that hair remover I took from David tonight and make sure you live the rest of your life without eyebrows.”
“Right back at you,” I groaned. “And just so you know, I don’t think I would stop with the eyebrows.”
“So we never speak of this,” Magni stated firmly.
“No.” I didn’t point out that if we were successful our wives would see us in this pitiful state.
“So, where is it that you need to go exactly?” David asked us.
“My wife is a professor at a university called New Berkeley; do you know it?”
He nodded, “Yes, it’s down in Old San Francisco, but that’s hours away”
“So?” I challenged him. “You have a drone.”
“It’s notmydrone. It’s a public drone and a trip like that would cost me all my energy points.” He sighed and looked at Magni. “Andyourwife?”
“I don’t know where she is.”
Confusion spread on David’s face. “You want me to guide you to your wife but you don’t know where she is.”
Looking tormented, Magni tensed his jaw. “That’s right, I don’t know where she is. Her name is Laura and she’s a Northwoman.”
“Wow…” Jonah whistled. “Talk about impossible odds.”
“We’ll go to find Christina, and look for Laura on the way,” Magni ordered.
“All right.” David looked at Jonah. “Thank you for your help. May peace surround you my friend.”
“No, no,” Jonah chuckled. “I’m coming with you; this is too exciting to miss out on.”
David lit up. “You sure?”
“Yeah, we can use some of my energy points too. I’ve never been on a guys’ trip before – this is like a real adventure, right, boys?” Jonah was smiling from ear to ear.
“We’re men,not boys.” I said firmly and didn’t miss the irony of my first meeting with Christina when she’d felt offended because I called her a girl.
