by Katia Rose
It’s not about the cut or the colour or the products or the style; it’s about the way you feel when you walk out the door to take on the world. It’s about confidence, intention, and ownership. Whether we want it to or not, our hair says something about us. Just like clothes and makeup, our hair sends a message. Hair can be heard, and there’s nothing quite like the power of knowing your hair says exactly what you want it to say.
When I first showed up at school with my spaghetti highlights, I felt like I was the shit. I don’t know if we’re allowed to swear in these letters, but that’s what it was like to walk into my classroom and be the only girl who’d ever dyed her hair permanently. I’d flip it over my shoulders and say, “Oh actually, it’s permanent,” when kids asked if I was wearing clip-ins. I pretended like it was no big deal, but it was the first time in my life that I felt like I was really seen as the person I wanted to be and knew I was inside.
I spent a lot of my childhood feeling alone and powerless. I watched a lot of important people in my life walk out of it at a very young age, and if I’m being truly honest, I’ve spent a lot of my adulthood feeling alone and powerless too. That first dye job was a way for me to find my power. It was a way for me to have control when it felt like everything was falling apart. It was a way for me to remind myself that I was still me and I still mattered, even when other people seemed to forget.
I dyed my hair pink when I was sixteen, and it’s been some shade of pink ever since.
Some days, I wear my pink hair like it’s a billboard. It’s everything I try to be in the eyes of everyone else: bold, bright, and exciting. Pink hair screams fun, and there are always going to be people looking for fun. Having people around has been important to me for a very long time. I thought being noticeable and intriguing was what drew me to the colour. I thought all I wanted was to stand out as the ‘fun girl,’ but I’ve been thinking about it for a while, and now I know that’s not totally true.
Having pink hair is kind of like wearing my heart on my sleeve. I could have picked electric blue or bright green. They would have had the same effect, but I went with pink, and I think that’s because of how vulnerable pink can be. Pink is the colour we use to express love. Pink is the colour we use to lay it all on the line, and maybe I was ready to let my hair say something about me way before I was ready to say it myself. Maybe all the searching for fun and adventure was really about searching for something much rarer and much more precious.
And maybe, when I look in the mirror and see a girl with hair the colour of roses and candy and blushing cheeks staring back at me, maybe I will be ready to give myself all the love I need. Maybe I will be ready to open my arms to that rare and precious thing and find it all on my own.
I want to study at Cheveluxe because I think that maybe, just maybe, I’m meant to give that gift to other people too—even if it comes in the form of a crew cut.
Sincerely,
Dénise ‘DeeDee’ Beausoleil
“Sacrement.”
I tap my fingers on the wooden, mug-stained tabletop as I try to decide if I should cut the ‘DeeDee’ part. I didn’t put Dénise at all to begin with—it feels too weird to sign a letter that’s all about being myself with the name even my mom doesn’t call me—but that’s what I had to use for the application, and I don’t want to confuse anybody.
They’re probably going to be confused by this whole letter. I don’t know what they were looking for in a ‘letter of intention,’ but I don’t think it was this.
I didn’t know what else to write. I tried and tried to come up with something formal about techniques and skill building, but it all sounded like bullshit. It was bullshit. When I think about why I want to go to hairdressing school, it’s not so I can become fancy enough to cut hair for celebrities or work in a super expensive salon.
It’s so I can give people something that makes them feel good. It’s so I can feel good about being me.
I tap my fingers on the table for a couple more minutes before letting out a long breath.
“Ҫa suffit,” I order myself. “It’s done.”
I click back to the application portal and find the ‘Save File’ button again. Then I glance down to the clock in the bottom corner of the screen.
Okay. One more minute, and I will send it.
I hover my finger over the mouse pad.
“Ah, câlice!” I swear loud enough for a few people to turn their heads when I accidentally click before I’m ready.
“Oh, shit, shit, shit,” I mutter as I look around for a cancel button, but there isn’t one.
It’s a terrible letter. It’s stupid. They’re going to read it and laugh.
I clutch my empty lemonade glass so hard I’m in danger of breaking it as I keep staring at the screen. I’m sure I could cancel the whole application, even if I have to give up the fee, but I keep squeezing the glass to stop me from doing it. I force myself to focus on something my psychologist said in our last session. I only started seeing her again a couple weeks ago, and it was the first time I walked out of her office feeling better and not just confused.
She said all our fears are a story we tell ourselves.
I let go of the glass and open up a blank document on my computer. I decide to write myself a new story. It’s a short one—just one sentence long—but it might be the best story I’ve ever come up with. Even as my heart beats loud and fast in my ears, there’s a part of me somewhere deep inside that knows my story is completely, totally true:
It’s a great letter, and I am so brave.
Twenty-Five
DeeDee
FLOAT: the act of pouring a light liquor on top of a heavier liquor to create a drink with a layered effect
“Open it!”
“I’m too scared!”
Valérie puts her hands on her hips. “Open it, or I’ll open it for you.”
We’re standing in our tiny kitchen, looking at the envelope Valérie just slapped down on the counter. She grabbed the mail on her way up to the apartment a few minutes ago and found a letter from Cheveluxe.
The letter is addressed to me.
“You sneaky bitch!” Valérie teases. “You didn’t even tell me you applied.”
I didn’t tell anyone. The school is popular enough that you have to do a phone interview after you get past the first round of application reviews. I’ve never been good at writing, and as the weeks after I submitted my application went by, I got more and more sure they’d take one look at my letter and put it in the reject pile. I didn’t want to have to face anyone’s disappointment but mine.
I was so shocked when they called me I almost fell over. I don’t even remember the questions they asked, or what I said back. That was a week ago, and they told me they’d be making final decisions by the end of July.
“DeeDee, open it! You totally got in.”
I shake my head and chew on my lip. “I don’t know. Tabarnak, I just don’t know.”
“Well, you won’t know unless you open it.” Her voice gets softer. “Do you want me to do it for you?”
I take a deep breath. “Non. I will do it, but first I need to sit down.”
My fingers are trembling when I reach out for the letter and take it into the living room. I tuck my legs up under me on the couch and start ripping the paper open. My hands are shaking so much it feels like it takes half an hour just to get the letter out. I can feel Valérie’s eyes on me as I hold the folded page up in front of my face.
This is it.
This is the whole reason I was supposed to come to Montreal in the first place. This was going to be my adventure with Clém, the one we talked about since we were teenagers having sleepovers in her basement, whispering about dumb boys we’d kissed and the dreams we had for our futures.
That was before the club—and the men, and the nights when the only thing that seemed to put a smile on Clém’s face were those little white pills—but even then, we’d talk about this. We’d talk about the day her letter would com
e from makeup artistry school and mine would show up from Cheveluxe.
We were going to do it together. I was never supposed to do this alone, and I think that’s what stopped me from trying. That’s what kept me behind the bar all these years, telling myself it was the only thing I wanted when my heart was always beating for something more.
I wipe the tears out of my eyes, and I think of Clém, free and happy somewhere, as I open the letter and read the first line.
The paper falls to the floor. My hands fly to my mouth.
“What?” Valérie demands. She’s still on her feet, watching me from across the room. “What is it?”
I shake my head. I can’t speak. She rushes over and grabs the letter for herself before shrieking.
“You got in!” She pulls me into a hug. “You got in! You did it!”
“I did it!” I repeat, even as I start sobbing against her. “Me. I did it. I really did it.”
I go down to the Old Port by myself that evening. It still makes me feel itchy and off to go anywhere by myself, especially at night, but I’ve been giving myself little challenges to feel more okay doing things on my own. I don’t go anywhere that isn’t safe, but I do push myself to try things I never would have done before without dragging friends along.
I take myself out on coffee dates or go poke around in the boutiques on Boulevard Saint-Laurent, and I fight the need to fill the silence. I let the silence fill me up instead. I listen to my thoughts instead of drowning them out with whatever’s around me.
I got the idea from my psychologist. I still don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do or how I’m supposed to feel when I go see her. I always sit on my hands so I won’t start picking things up off her desk, and I get so nervous I start talking about my hair or the weather for twenty minutes. Sometimes I don’t even know if it’s making me any better, but she told me that’s normal, and I’m trusting that.
I’m trusting myself.
I walk by the bench where the little girl called me a princess. I hope she remembers the most important thing I said to her: that sometimes my hair makes me feel like a princess.
It was her big, chubby-cheeked smile that made me start thinking about applying to Cheveluxe. I looked at her, at the moment of total joy just a bright splash of pink can bring, and I thought about all the other people whose eyes have lit up when I’ve told them it’s time to look in the mirror and see their new hair. That’s exactly what happens: they light up. They glow. They jump around and do a crazy dance and start high-fiving everybody just like I did after I got off the zip line.
That’s how powerful the right hair can be, and maybe some people would call me silly for saying hair can be powerful, but I believe it with all my heart. The right hair makes you feel like you can do anything, and if I can make other people believe that about themselves, there’s no reason I can’t believe it about myself too.
The sun has already set, and the violet sky is turning a deep, dark blue, the colour spreading like an ink stain on a purple envelope. I walk to the edge of the boardwalk and stand with my hands on the rail, watching the night set in.
The sunset always makes me think of Zach, of standing on the Jacques Cartier Bridge and hearing my heart get faster and faster in my ears as our bodies got closer and closer. I can still picture the look in his eyes just before he kissed me: like he’d been waiting his whole damn life for that moment, like he’d painted the sunset himself, just for us, because he wanted everything about that kiss to be perfect.
It was perfect. It was the kind of kiss that gets stuck in your head like a song you play over and over and over again. It was the kind of kiss you wish would last forever even as you hope it will end so you can have another one just like it. It was the kind of kiss that splits your life into two pieces: before that moment and after.
I still find myself pulling my phone out to text him every single day. I still see a funny ad on the metro or a meme on a website, and I’ll catch myself thinking, ‘I need to tell Zach.’ I look for him when the door of Taverne Toulouse swings open and I’m standing behind the bar. I put down whatever pint glass I’m holding or glance away from whatever customer I’m chatting with, and I search for his flannel shirt and goofy smile before I realize I’m doing it.
It’s never him walking through the door.
The July air is a little colder than usual tonight, and I shiver at the wind coming off the water. The zip line must be closed for the night because I haven’t seen anyone going down it, but there are still a few pedal boats in the bay and the Ferris wheel is turning around and around above me. The artist stands all have their lights on, and there’s live music coming from somewhere close by.
There are a lot of couples and families walking around, a lot of tourists in big groups, a lot of teenagers kicking around with their friends and looking to get into trouble.
Everybody has someone.
I start twisting my grandmother’s ring around my finger. I do it so often that I usually don’t even notice until somebody asks about it or tells me to stop fidgeting, but today I pause and bring my hand up in front of my face instead.
I run my thumb over the blue jewel, tracing the faces of the stone and the silver border around it. I’ve never taken it to a jeweler to find out, but I’m pretty sure it’s a real sapphire. I don’t buy expensive jewelry because I always seem to lose it—pink hair and piercings are enough accessories for me anyway—but I don’t even take this ring off to sleep.
I wear it for the nights I wake up in the dark with no one else in my bed. I wear it for the shifts when I have to walk home by myself, jumping like a frightened rabbit at every sound in the street. I wear it for all those hours I spent on my own as a kid, wandering the sidewalks of my neighbourhood looking for a friend. I wear it for when the memories of every person that’s left my life start hitting me like blows to the head.
I wear it so that when I’m wrapped in someone’s arms, saying ‘I love you’ to a person I know I don’t love, I can remind myself that anything is better than being alone.
I pull the ring off.
I lay it in my palm and stare at the white band around my finger where the metal has sat for so many years. I wonder how long that band will take to fade.
I want to find out.
As I tuck the ring into my pocket and go back to watching the water and the Ferris wheel and the lights coming on along the piers, I catch the distant strains of live music again. I still can’t tell where it’s coming from, but I hear a crowd cheering and singing along, and after a few seconds, I realize what song the band is playing: ‘Sweetness’ by Jimmy Eat World.
My hips start swaying, and soon I’m humming along.
I could stand here and dance on my own. I could have a little dance party for one, and I know I would be fine. I would smile and clap to the beat and maybe even drop my booty down low, but as I hear the chorus and remember him singing it in my ear in a sweaty little punk club with my arms around his neck, I know I’d rather be dancing with him.
Maybe that’s fine too.
And maybe I should tell him.
Twenty-Six
Zach
LAST CALL: a phrase used to announce that a bar will be closing shortly and final orders must be made immediately
The Old Port is the last place I would expect Monroe to want to do a business meeting. Sometimes we shake things up and have our weekly face to face at a cafe instead of her office, but when she texted and asked if we could meet this Saturday afternoon in front of the giant Ferris wheel, I sent her the meme of that woman being confused while doing difficult mental calculations.
All she said was that she wanted some fresh air. I figure maybe Julien’s out of town for a few days and this is her Monroe-esque way of admitting she needs some socializing outside of the bar. She’s such a workaholic that I wouldn’t put it past her to be incapable of a Saturday hangout unless it’s under the guise of a meeting.
Whatever the reason, I head down to the Old Port to
meet her. On a late July weekend, the place is crawling with tourists and locals alike. Even the metro is packed with people heading down to enjoy the cobblestones and old world charm. I weave through the crowds until I get to the riverside and then walk along the boardwalk to the spot Monroe picked out.
This is really not the place for a meeting.
There’s no sight of her even after I’ve paced up and down the whole front of the Ferris wheel area, scanning the packed railing and any nearby benches for my boss. The fact that she’s five-foot-nothing doesn’t help.
Giving up, I take the free end of a bench where a guy in a baseball cap with a Canadian flag on it is eating a food truck hamburger. I shoot Monroe a text describing my location and wait for a reply.
A loud whirring sound rings out, and I snap my head up in the direction it’s coming from. Farther along the path, I see someone zooming down the zip line that stretches over the boardwalk and out onto one of the piers. I watch them whiz by, kicking their legs a little and staying calm enough that this can’t be their first zip line rodeo. The next person screams like a banshee the whole time.
Not for the first time today, I find myself thinking of DeeDee. She still slips into my thoughts anytime I let my mind wander. She’s still the first person I want to run to when I have exciting news. It’s still her skin and her mouth and the way she tastes that keeps me up at night.
I remember how terrified she looked when I asked if she wanted to go down that zip line, all wide eyes and worried lines in her face, shaking her head before I could even finish the question.