Professor Maria Vladimirovna Kovaleva, director of the Institute of Information Machines, who lives with her two adult sibling sons, feels that she is tired of everyday life and decides to somehow diversify her existence, for example, to cut her hair and change her hair. While waiting in line at the hairdresser, Maria Vladimirovna is thinking about how she will start a new life (her dad loved to repeat until his death: “Cut off my hair and start it”), you can go to Novosibirsk and get a one-room apartment there, or you can marry a friend of youth, in love with her, and go to him in Yevpatoriya ... Suddenly she hears a "sharp boyish voice", offering the ladies from the queue to "be served." It turns out that this is not a master yet, but an intern, a guy of about eighteen years old with a crest on the top of his head. He looks contemptuously at the line, and “he is all not just skinny, but narrow: a narrow pale face, thin, bare hands to sharp elbows, and burning dark eyes on his pale wild face. Not a deer, not a wolf cub. ” None of the women wants to go to him, but Marya Vladimirovna decides: "Let's freak out." The boy laughs in response, and she is surprised to find that there is “something wild not only in his eyes, but also in a smile. The teeth are sharp, bright white. ” However, Vitaly (that is his name) turns out to be a first-class hairdresser, just an artist.He makes Maria Vladimirovna an amazing hairstyle, but she needs to be regularly kept in shape, which is why Marya Vladimirovna begins to go to Vitaly every week, and gradually they become friends. Marya Vladimirovna learns that Vitaly, in order not to sit on his neck with his stepmother and father drinking, could only graduate from the incomplete seven classes, but is craving for education and “works on his overall development” according to plan: he reads, for example, Belinsky’s Complete Works and dreams of going to college. Strange as it may seem, Vitaly is interested in dialectical materialism. He is interested in politics and feels that he would be useful in this area (“Curious guy!” Marya Vladimirovna thinks). He has a peculiar, rather official style of speech and at the same time - an unusual seriousness, love of work and knowledge. Once Vitaliy tells Marya Vladimirovna that he spent his childhood in an orphanage, where one nice woman, Anna Grigoryevna, wanted to pick him up, but then his father, sister and stepmother were found (his mother, “rumored”, an intelligent woman, died when he was completely small) and they took him, and he longed for Anna Grigoryevna, who now does not even want to see him. Even Maria Vladimirovna unexpectedly discovers that Vitaly has amazing musical abilities, but Vitaly himself, knowing this, notes: “... in order to acquire a piano, you must first be provided with an area.”

At work, Maria Vladimirovna is a rather strict and harsh boss, whose deputy, Lebedev, is a "foolish, talkative old man,"and the secretary is a beautiful but stupid girl Galya ("not a secretary, but grief ... a burden"); Marya Vladimirovna does not find a common language with Galya, who is carried away not so much by work as by young people, cinema, rags and dances, but the boss and secretary are still attached to each other. On the day when Maria Vladimirovna, to the amazement of her colleagues, comes with a new haircut, Galya once again asks to the store for scarce goods, a conflict arises with Lebedev, and the director remains at her workplace, but, despite this, for the first time in a long time (apparently, under the influence of a haircut) manages to solve a complex scientific problem.

After some time, Galya, embarrassed, asks Marya Vladimirovna who is cutting her so superbly, and she directs her to Vitaly, who by this time passed the exam for the master and has become a very popular hairdresser with a "solid" clientele. On a youth evening, Galya and Vitaly come to the club together, and Gali has a beautiful hairstyle that turns her from a pretty girl into a beauty. After this evening, Galya and Vitaly begin to meet. Every three or four days, Galya comes to work with a new haircut and with a happy face, but it only does not last long, and once Marya Vladimirovna finds her in tears. It turns out that Galya fell in love with Vitaly seriously, and he was indifferent to her. Marya Vladimirovna offers Gale to talk with Vitaly, and she happily agrees. Vitaly explains to Marya Vladimirovna that he “was interested in Galya as a suitable material for a hairstyle,” and now he “has exhausted her head.”In addition, Vitaly says that he and Gali have no living space, that he is not ready for marriage "neither by age nor economically." Marya Vladimirovna finds this approach cynical. In her opinion, the most important thing is whether Vitaly Galya loves. This question perplexes Vitaly, because he is still young and does not understand himself what it means to love. Marya Vladimirovna believes that love is a constant feeling of the presence of a person. Vitaly “fully understands” this interpretation and comes to the conclusion that “in this sense” he does not like Galya.

But Vitaly’s work is in trouble: his employee, the oldest hairdresser, Moisei Borisovich, dies, and in his place comes the vulgar dyed blonde Luba, “big, heavy, like a bitumen”. She immediately disliked Vitaly, beating her entire clientele. There are other envious people at the professional ladies' master, and once Marya Vladimirovna catches him already in tears, and not Galya. It turns out that many do not like that Vitaly has his own clientele and that he does not serve everyone in a row, but only those whom he can “draw for his development”; as a result, Vitaly was stolen a notebook, where the addresses and phone numbers of clients were recorded, and transferred to "a trade union organization to deal with the case." Marya Vladimirovna wants to help and calls Matyunin, head of the local hairdressing sector, but in vain (later it turns out that Matyunin expects a monthly bribe from all employees, including Vitaly). Vitaly decides to leave the hairdressers - among other things, he’s tired of “depending on the good wishes of clients, whom I don’t always respect.”Marya Vladimirovna advises him not to rush, but soon he gets a job as a mechanic’s apprentice, deciding to turn in “for a decade, then for college,” but she always promises to serve Marya.

Marya Vladimirovna herself does not know whether to rejoice at her or upset this news. There is a vague feeling that she “overlooked something”, although on the whole she hopes that something good has happened and mentally wishes her good friend Vitaly a happy journey ...