The decision to keep it secret becomes firm. It’s my body, and I’m the only one I need to answer to. The short film playing out in my mind stages a mini “letting go” ritual. I forgive myself then release it to the wind with a promise that I’m going to enjoy this weekend.
We arrive at our destination a little after midnight. The house is full of life as Sammy’s family celebrates. Marc Anthony wails romantic lines over congas, bongos, a horn section, and perfectly synced backup singers harmonizing our love of love. Sammy’s uncle, Ray, woos his wife with the lyrics and a shot of Bacardi as I follow my nose to the smell of pasteles in the kitchen.
Giselle, Sammy’s older sister, flirts with me while serving a plate of food. She always does this, and it leads nowhere.
“You’re all bark and no bite.”
“No, I’m not. You just haven’t gotten me drunk enough,” she says in between sips of coquito.
I wake up to her sleeping on my chest the following day, with Sammy knocked out on the couch across from us. A break of sunlight warms my face despite the frigid temperature outside. The legendary Philadelphia street art gets us out of the house early. My favorite thing to do is get lost in this city with my best friend.
“Sammy, I need a favor from you.”
“Depends on what it is. Your bright ideas aren’t always that bright.” she teases.
“I want you to cut my hair in the same style you do for your brothers.”
Her brothers Edwin and Albert have similar buzz cuts with a tape-up in the back.
“Where’s this coming from?”
“I need to switch it up. I read somewhere that every time a person cuts their hair off, it liberates them from the past. All that energetic junk they have accumulated gets cut off, too.”
Sammy cracks on me, “You talk like such a hippie. I can tell you spent all your summers around wypipo.”
“Man, shut up. Are you going to do it or not?”
“Of course, but how short are you trying to go?”
“Short, short. Like G.I. Jane, peach fuzz short. I’ve always wanted to cut my hair like that.”
I’m now in a complete daydream about the new look. The rest of our plans get canceled in search of scissors and clippers to get the job done. Sammy’s aunt, Tia Josefina, is in the kitchen cooking up another mouth-watering meal for everybody.
“Tia, can I cut Sol’s hair in the bathroom? I’ll sweep up when we finish.” Sammy promises.
“You’re cutting your hair? Why would you do such a thing?” Tia Josefina looks at me on the verge of tears.
For a young girl to chop long, beautiful hair into a boyish cut is a severe cultural offense for Latinos. I’m going to get drawn out lectures over this decision, but I have to go through with it. It’s a spiritual deed at this point – like I’m absolving myself of my sins. I’m the priest and the confessional, and this is an act of penance.
“It’s hair. It’ll grow back.” I smile.
My ponytail stays up for the first snip while Sammy tries a couple of times to shred through it all. The clipped strands are presented as a prize when she’s done.
Tia Josefina plants the idea of donating it to Locks of Love. This heightens the symbolism and purpose for me. Sammy keeps trimming it down until it’s time to switch over to the clippers. The hum of the machine passing over every inch of my scalp causes a flutter in my stomach. She then shapes up my hairline and cleans the edges as a finishing touch.
“I think I went too short,” Sammy hesitates.
“Well, it’s too late now. How does it look?”
I can easily stand up and see for myself, but I’m glued to the chair – absolutely not ready to look in the mirror yet.
“You look like a boy,” Tia Josefina says, shaking her head.
I take a deep breath and decide to face myself. The precision of Sammy’s lines and fading match that of professionals. Her skills have gotten better with her brother’s help. Albert works at a barbershop on Prospect Ave. and has taught her all his techniques and styling.
“Yo, you hooked it up!”
I study the cut from different angles. The way she has shaped my sideburns kind of does make me look like a boy. I caress the extra-sensitive hair follicles on my scalp in disbelief.
“Holy shit, you shaved it all off.”
“I laced you up, kid.” Sammy brags. “This is gonna get you so many girls.”
“Do I look too much like a dude, though? My mother is going to lose her shit.”
“Only the hair is like a boy. Your face is too pretty.” Tia Josefina says.
It will take some getting used to, but I don’t regret it one bit. A sense of relief has declared emancipation over me. After dinner, we decide to head back to New York earlier than planned. Sammy wants to see Natalia after admitting that they’re madly in love. My heart drops when we pull up to the front of the house hours later. I can see Mami washing dishes through the window.
“Wish me luck.”
I climb out of the backseat. Their beat-up hooptie pulls off, leaving me to deal with the obstacle ahead. Sammy – which also happens to be the name of my mother’s demonic chihuahua, also known as the Son of Sam, because he’s an evil little creature – barks at me when I come in. His tiny body is lunging towards my foot in full attack mode. Mami follows his lead and charges at me with a large soup spoon. Neither of them recognizing who I am.
“Ma, it’s me!” I yell while keeping her arms from swinging this makeshift weapon at my head.
“I know it’s you!” she fights. “What did you do to your hair?” Her arm still waving the spoon at me.
Knowing how violent Mami can be when she’s angry, I keep a firm grip on her.
“Ma, calm down. You can’t hit me. I’m not a kid anymore, and I’m stronger than you.”
The fact that she feels justified in hitting me for cutting my hair annoys me.
“Are you threatening me? Are you going to hit me? Go ahead, hit me.” Mami dares.
She never backs down from anything she feels right about, which is pretty much everything.
“I’m not threatening you, ma. I don’t want to fight. Please, just talk to me like I’m a human being.” My voice softens.
Hopefully, the olive branch will calm her down. There’s no need for all this drama. I have the right to do whatever I want with my hair.
“Solei, why did you do this to your hair? Ahora te pareces como un macho,” she yells. “Is that what you want? To look like a boy?”
“There are plenty of women that cut their hair and aren’t trying to look like a man. Remember Demi Moore in Ghost? You love her in that movie.”
“Yes, but they don’t have these lines. That’s not the shape of your hair.”
Mami presses her index finger into the hairline along my forehead.
“That’s the style. You’re just overthinking it. This is like when Zuli used a razor to do lines on her head in the 80s. That was the style, right?”
Zuli is my older cousin. She’s the oldest of all the cousins in my family. Knowing that she can do no wrong in my mother’s eyes, I always use her as a reference when defending my actions.
Mami walks away on a rampage.
“Did you see what your daughter did?” she stomps into the living room.
Her frustrations will now spill on to Papi, who is watching TV in his favorite chair. I walk in behind her, bracing for his disappointment. Papi’s opinion matters most to me. My father’s eyes widen, and his mouth drops.
“Mi muñeca, what happened? I have to call you muñeco now,” he jokes.
“It’s your fault for wanting a son when Mami was pregnant with me.” I crack back.
“This is not funny,” Mami interjects. “What are we going to do?”
“Do? What is there to do? She cut her hair. It’ll grow back.”
“And I’m an adult now. You can’t tell me what to do anymore.”
“I don’t care if you’re forty! My house, my rules.” Mami yells. “You got it out of your system. Now you grow it back.”
“After I enjoy it for a while. I’m not growing it back right away. So, get used to it.”
She grills me a little longer, then pounds up the stairs, mumbling under her breath. Papi is now shaking his head.
“What made you do such a crazy thing?”
“I just felt the urge to chop it all off, so I did.”
“You’re growing it back, right?”
“Eventually.” I smile.
The conversation ends there. Papi isn’t the type to push a topic further than it needs to go. In the good cop/bad cop parental scenario, he’s always the good cop. We watch a documentary about aliens for a bit before I retreat to my room. The privacy brings with it thoughts of Adelina. A dose of courage influences me to call her.
“Hey, stranger. Where have you been? TLC is so boring without you there.”
“I’m on a mental health break. That place gets me into trouble.”
“Well, I’ve been getting into a lot of it. You may want to come back and save me from myself.”
“I have a surprise for you.” I change the topic, not wanting to know what she means by that.
“I love surprises. What is it?”
“It’s not a present or anything. Just a change from the last time we saw each other.”
“Did you cut your hair?”
“Damn, how’d you know?” I’m shocked by her accuracy.
“You said it’s a change from the last time. It’s not that hard to figure out.”
“I guess I could’ve played that better.” I laugh. “Well yeah, I cut it.”
“I want to see it!” Adelina demands.
“You will. I’m coming back on Monday.”
“Monday?” she protests. “I haven’t seen you in a whole week. Monday is way too far. What are you doing tonight?”
“I was planning on staying in.”
“Come over. I want to see you.”
Adelina manages to convince me to take three trains into Queens for another late-night tryst that I’m willing to sacrifice sleep for. Add to that a twenty-minute walk from the station through the residential streets of Forest Hills. The directions bring me to the front of her house. As instructed, I follow the walkway under her bedroom window. It’s lit by dancing images of late-night television. The blue glow of my cellphone screen serves as a flashlight in the dark. I send a brief text because I’m nervous:
I’m here.
A few minutes pass with no reply to my message. A tiny rock becomes my next calling card, but it’s too small and barely makes a sound. I find a bigger one. The clink is louder this time. My adrenaline speeds up at the thought that someone else might’ve heard it.
Within seconds, Adelina pops into view, a finger pressed against her lips, gesturing for me not to make more noise. I tuck into the shadows for invisibility, then wait until she finally flicks the porch light on and walks around the bend of the house.
“Excuse me. May I help you?” she whispers playfully. “It’s about time you got here. Did you walk from the Bronx?”
“Well, I didn’t realize you lived in the boondocks when I agreed to this.”
“I’m just messing with you. Your timing is perfect. I was waiting for my sister to leave and my parents to fall asleep. You have to be as quiet as possible, okay?”
We ninja creep through the living room. The need to keep quiet causes me to become hyper-conscious of every tiptoe and breath. We go up the stairs and into her room. Adelina shuts the door gently behind us. The hood of my coat – which has been shielding me since I left the Bronx – comes off. Her reaction is difficult to decipher in the screen of a beer commercial that has darkened the room.
“What do you think?” I ask anxiously.
Adelina feels up on my head.
“It looks so good, baby. You look like a completely different person.”
She unzips my coat and helps me out of it. Once I’ve settled in, she puts on The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
“This is one of my favorite movies ever.” she shares.
A glimpse into this other side of her intrigues me. We manage to watch two minutes of the film before our limbs are tangled and tongues just the same. The night eases into salmon and deep blues of a morning sky. Somewhere between the pillow talk, we fall asleep, enamored with the potential of us.
CUPID’S ARROW
The girls at TLC welcome me back with mixed reactions to my new look. Their opinions range from loving it to hating it, sprinkled with a collective celebration over my return. Everyone except Cheri is happy to see me again. She barely acknowledges my presence or the new look when we pass each other in the hallway. After a few failed attempts at conversation, I resign myself to an afternoon novela, some reading, and finally a nap. Two hours have gone by with zero clients scheduled and no walk-ins. Anxiety has officially infiltrated my return to this reality by the time Adelina arrives.
“What’s up bitches?” she storms in.
I play it cool, pretending she hasn’t incited a mini-tornado within me. Cheri doesn’t look up from the magazine she’s been thumbing through. Adelina kisses me on the cheek, close enough to my mouth that I’m left wanting more, even though we’ve both agreed to keep our fling private while we’re here. The restraint turns me on. She looks over at Cheri on her way back out of the lounge, but they say nothing to each other.
When Adelina returns in new, seductive lingerie, I know she’s focused on booking clients today. For me, it’s the complete opposite. I’m sitting here wishing with all my energy that no one comes in, especially now that she’s here.
I watch her decompress – which always begins with a drink – then she grabs a chair across from Cheri. I’m the only one that seems to notice the tension cutting air between them. My longing to be around Adelina draws me there, too.
“Have you ladies decided what you’re doing for Valentine’s Day?” I ask.
“Wait, we haven’t talked about our plans,” Adelina turns to Cheri. “have you picked a place yet?”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” she replies sarcastically. “Did I forget to tell you? I have a real Valentine now. Sorry, plans changed.”
She tilts her head and gives Adelina a barren smile, then moves from the table to the couch. I watch quietly, asking questions with my eyes. Adelina reaches into her bag and pulls out a pen and a bright, multi-colored notepad. Some words get scribbled on the page, then the pad is pushed over to me:
We got into a huge argument last night over you.
I read it and write:
Over me? Why?
I pass it back.
Adelina writes again and shoves it my way, her body language more aggressive this time. I read on:
She doesn’t think we should get serious about each other. And that I’m leading you on and will lose interest fast because I’m not a real “lesbian.” She isn’t either, but she still liked you, right? Why is it so hard to believe that I could feel things for you, too? Does this mean I’m gay? I hope not.
Her words annoy me. What if I do end up heartbroken again? Things have felt different since I was with her this weekend. The one question that could shatter a lesbian’s heart, and I just had to ask.
“What do you identify as?”
It wasn’t the question that hurt. It was her answer.
“Straight.”
The inquiry must’ve weighed heavily on her, as well. Before sneaking me back out, she explained that her parents could never meet me because she didn’t want them to think she was gay. I write back:
What if you do hurt me?
Adelina doesn’t put pen to paper as quickly as before. She considers her answer for a
moment. Then writes:
I promise I won’t.
She follows my eyes as I read and look up at her. “I promise.” she mouths inaudibly.
I grab the pen and ask another question:
Will you be my Valentine?
Circle one:
Yes!
No :(
Adelina bites her bottom lip and smiles while making her selection. Yes, gets checked off. Cheri throws dirty looks at our classified conversation. Her only access is the grin on my face.
“I guess I’ve found my real Valentine, too,” Adelina announces to the room.
She leans in and plants her juicy, lip-glossed mouth to mine. So much for keeping our relationship hidden.
Later in the day, we play a game of Truth or Dare and Never Have I Ever. Brandy calls for a game of Seven Minutes in Heaven, but Adelina and I are the only ones who want to be locked up alone for that long. We sentence ourselves to our own private game in one of the rooms.
She climbs me like a palm tree as soon as the door closes. Her legs wrap around my waist, soft hands on my face and head – she snakes her tongue into my mouth lustfully. My fingers dig into the curves of her thighs, searching for the parts that are now open to me. A silky touch along her clit invites me to go deeper. The moisture leads the way to her most inner parts.
Our kissing intensifies.
The air is drenched in sex as she slides off of me. I grab ice from the bucket and make my way up her leg, allowing the cube, cleverly placed against my tongue, to trail her skin.
Lola trembles.
Lust rages between our bodies. Her nails pierce into my flesh with an appetite for pleasure. We drift to the loveseat, removing our clothes during the transition, naked by the time we get there. My pussy merges with her pussy as our juices mix. A slight desperation creeps in as we pound into each other over and over.
Lola.
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