The secret: details of their membership in Skull and Bones, the elite Yale University society whose members include some of the most powerful men of the 20th century.

Bonesmen, as they're called, are forbidden to reveal what goes on in their inner sanctum, the windowless building on the Yale campus that is called the Tomb.

Since the final result was hairlessness, he didn’t see why he couldn’t save lots of time-not to mention his mental health-by simply plugging in a razor. I can’t exaggerate the exhaustion for all involved in going to Michael’s.

And since my parents were apparently under the impression that the only way to cope with four boys was to treat them like military cadets, or rather prisoners of war, we all had our hair cut on the same afternoon every other week. From the age of 3 until I was 8 or 9, no one but Mr. Until suddenly one day, without explanation, my mother dropped him for Mr. Gay’s customers, that it was hardly less significant than if she’d just filed for divorce from my father. Gay, so utterly had she banished him from her memory.

I recently asked her why we abruptly switched from Mr. Michael, a sweet-natured opera buff with the world’s bushiest eyebrows, who ran the salon from Chair No. Eventually, she admitted there must have been some falling out over hair.

The story centers around a man and a woman, whose fates are intertwined and will change forever.

Nelson is an avid advertiser living in San Francisco.