I touch the picture of Mama. She is actually there in the church. She is in a place that is not 4520 Fargo Drive. There are no other pictures like this on the planet. None with Mama in a different background at all.
Man, I would really love to step inside these pages for a few minutes and hang out with my parents. See what it was like before the topic we don’t speak of. Be in a time when she actually went someplace to buy a white dress and married a redheaded guy.
“What are you looking at?” Mama asks. I didn’t even hear her step into the hallway. I’m glad the album is partially covered by my comforter.
“Just a book showing events in Texas history.”
chapter 32
Here is a girl feeling the rumble and tremor of the universe.
Saturday morning and the ants are invading our kitchen like Santa Anna’s army: by the thousands. I tell Laura to get the chalk from the garage and she goes to town drawing around the baseboards. Mama is still asleep, of course. Laura and I eat breakfast in front of the TV. The air is cool and full of fall. I open all the windows in the house. I decide that it should be clean-sheet day for everyone, so I run around like a wild maid until the house is filled with the scent of dryer sheets. I want to make everything just right so that when I come back from the store today, everything will be just right for my surprise. Today is the day I get my hair cut. I had a dream about it. In the dream, I had short hair and I was wearing a French beret. In the dream, I looked happy. When I woke up, I felt happy. Instead of waiting for change to happen, my new policy is to make it happen first.
In the afternoon, I tell Mama that I will be walking to the store again, did she want anything?
“I don’t know.”
I say, “Cookies. And Laura drank the last of the milk. And wouldn’t this be a great day to make your fantastic banana bread?”
Okay, I’m buttering her up good for the surprise. I’m trying to get her to do something that makes her happy. Fresh bread. So what.
“Well, that does sound good. But I was thinking of ordering pizza tonight.”
“Really? You will do that?”
“I’m trying, you know. I think I can take that small step,” she says. Or maybe she is trying to not cook anymore. Who knows.
“Just wear the coat.” She doesn’t even look at me when she says this.
The coat.
The dreaded orange coat.
The one that magically turns a human into a walking safety cone. The one they can probably see from space. It is car-stopping, neon orange.
I want to say that it’s not really that cold outside, why do I need a coat? Especially a hideous coat. But at least she is showing some signs of caring for my safety.
The price of freedom and cookies is the horrible, awful, fashion-offending orange coat. So I go.
I crash into Woman Who Goes Somewhere and believe it or not, she actually pauses.
Because I am that orange.
It must be said that with all her crazy outfits, mine is crazier.
I allow myself to become Aware of the Dog and only have one scary moment when I hear what sounds like a gunshot. Just so you know, a car running over a solid acorn makes a similar popping sound.
As I turn onto Bray Road, I seriously consider ditching the orange coat behind a bush. But if something happens to this coat, Mama will never let me out again even though, by some people’s standards, the coat itself is nefarious.
I wave to Wilson Carver and his brilliant real-estate-agent smile.
Yeah, you dig this coat, don’t you, Mr. Carver? What’s that? You like my hair the way it is? Well, the thing is, you always have a good hair day on the day you decide to cut it. It’s like the hair knows!
When I looked in the mirror this morning and brushed my hair, it looked super good. Sort of like the hair of a girl in high school. But the rest of me still looked tragically seventh grade. So now, as I walk past Wilson Carver and head toward the shopping strip, I’m even more excited about cutting it off. I’ve thought about it for a while. Maybe since the henchmen made their stupid threats. I lay in bed, stared at the Alamo, and listed ways I could take my own stand and stop gum from invading my hair.
Ponytail? Potentially easy to grab and target.
Baseball cap? Potentially stolen and flushed.
Haircut? Target destroyed. Potentially… hip?
Now as I cross the Tom Thumb parking lot, I think, Here is a girl in love with the idea that her outside should match her inside. If a guy can change his world with a hat, a girl can change hers with a haircut.
For the moment, I am a human safety cone from head to toe, standing in front of a giant Supercuts poster featuring a stranger with deep-red hair. The opposite of hip. But I take it as a sign that this is the haircut for me. Longer around the chin, short in the back. I will appear one way from the front, another from the back. It will confuse Beatty Middle School jerks and make it a challenge to lob things into the back of my head.
Inside the store, I sign my name on the sheet.
“Do you have an appointment?” a lady asks.
“No.”
“Have a seat.”
Soon, there are huge chunks of red hair on the floor. My old red hair.
“This style will really complement your features,” Yvonne the stylist says.
This makes me feel solid about my decision to change my look. A genuine hairstylist believes in my choice and I feel so good I almost smile until I hear the stylist behind me tell an old gray-haired granny, “Oh, this style will really complement your features.”
People can really let you down in unexpected places like Supercuts.
I get out of the chair. My head feels lighter. Around my feet, it looks like a red bear picked a spot to sit down and have a good shed. I step over it carefully.
Later, long hair.
My body tingles with excitement as I breeze through the Tom Thumb checkout with our groceries and those Halloween cookies with the orange frosting stuffed inside.
I float home with no long, heavy hair weighing me down. Even the grocery bags don’t feel heavy today.
I pass the Jenningses’ house and catch a whiff of a strange chemical smell. Before you know it, I’m standing in the driveway, peering into the garage where the Next Great Thing is still being worked out.
Maybe I am curious.
Maybe I am delaying a possible lecture from Mama.
Maybe I have new-haircut regret.
“You might want to get away from here, ma’am,” Mr. Jennings says. “Dangerous fumes.”
“What caused them?” I ask.
“Powerful combinations.”
“Are you closer to finishing it?”
“Let me just say that we’ve made an application to the national patent office,” he says with a wink.
I move to leave just as Mr. Jennings calls out to me.
“I see Miss Murphy is reinventing herself with a new do.”
My face turns hot and red.
“I heartily approve,” he says. “Very elegant.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I plunk the groceries on the kitchen counter and run to look in the mirror.
Here is a girl unsure of her decision.
“What happened to you?” Laura stands at my doorway, an appraising look in her eyes.
“Do you like it?”
With the slow careful movement of one of her favorite wildcats, Laura touches the back of my neck where the cut is “stacked.” At least, that’s what Yvonne of Supercuts called it.
“It feels good. Soft.”
I put my hand on my neck. “Yes, but how does it look?”
“And we’ll save lots of money on shampoo.”
“You’re not telling me the truth, are you?”
“Did you remember the cookies?”
“No cookies until you say what you think.”
“I think it takes a lot of courage to wear this style.”
I don’t know about co
urage. It seemed like a good idea at the time. Now, it seems like Supercuts stylists should be trained to ask more questions before customers choose drastic hairdos.
Have you been under any stress lately? Are you lonely for your former best friend? Are you currently losing the “Notice Me, Sandy Showalter” challenge and deluded into thinking this tactic will work? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, you might want to consider a simple trim.
By dinnertime, I’d worked out that I should try to predict the rain of insults that will come at school. Because they no doubt will. Laura is the perfect person to perform this job.
“Okay, Laura, now I want you to think of the worst insult someone at school might say about my hair.”
Laura takes her time, gives me a grand inspection.
“Any time you’re ready.”
“Don’t rush creativity.”
“Fine.”
“I’m not going to say it out loud because you’ll hit me.”
“I will not. You are free to insult me without consequence.”
Laura steals a piece of notebook paper and a pencil and scribbles an insult, then dashes out into the hallway like a coward.
What happened to you, Mysti, did you get two haircuts or something?
That’s not so bad.
“Halloween Oreos await you on the countertop.”
I go down the hallway and start to open Mama’s door to get her reaction.
“Mysti, don’t go in there,” Laura shouts.
“Why not?”
“She’s been crying and looking at her wedding album.”
Didn’t I put the wedding album back on the shelf? Or did I leave it out for all to see?
I open her door anyway.
“I’m back.”
“Good girl,” she says. “Please close the door tight, Mysti. I have a headache all of a sudden.”
“Want to watch Judge Judy later?”
“Oh, yes.”
Here is the joke I was going to tell:
What did one mountain say to the other mountain after the earthquake?
It’s not my fault!
Mama stays in her room and there is no ordering of pizza or making banana bread. I close all the windows when it gets dark. Laura and I have cookies and milk for dinner because no one wants macaroni and tuna again.
It’s Monday morning before school. Laura receives five dollars to lob more insults at me so that I can develop an insult callus big enough to shove me out the door. Laura tosses out verbal missiles that might have made a lesser girl wince.
Who do you think you’re trying to be?
The fashion police will be ticketing you later!
Did you run into the back of some garden shears?
Did you let your dog cut your hair?
Now appearing: Mis-take Murphy.
Ooh, that last one stings. (I wonder how Anibal Gomez and his henchmen have failed to come up with Mis-take on their own.)
Laura suggests I wear as much black as possible.
“Your hair now has an edge. You should dress with an edge, too, so it looks like you did this on purpose,” she says.
“I did do it on purpose!”
“Here is a black shirt I stole from Mama’s closet,” she says. “Here is a slap-band bracelet I made for you with a black marker.” The bracelet smells pungent with ink. I give myself one more quick glance in the mirror. What shines back is not a fashion model, but not altogether unappealing, either.
Here is a girl regarding herself in the mirror and hoping that a complete stranger might perceive slight attractiveness in her ginger hair.
We pack up our lunches (bread and peanut butter and a protein bar) and head toward the front door.
“Bye, girls,” Mama says as she heads for the kitchen. “Have a good day.”
“Bye, Mama.”
“Thanks for getting the lunches together and everything,” Mama says.
No comments from her about my hair.
She must hate it. Nothing I can do about that now.
At the bus stop.
I detect several glances at the bus stop and on the ride to school. Rama does a double take and then gives me a thumbs-up as if she was in on my whole weekend makeover.
“Nice, Mysti,” Rama says.
“Really?”
“Would I lie to you?”
“No. You would tell me if I looked like a lawn mower ran over me.”
“I am nothing if not brutally honest,” she says. “Which is why you like me so much.”
“The brutality of your honesty is both your best and worst quality, depending on who it’s aimed at.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“I knew you would.”
Morning.
Homeroom classmates try not to stare in an obvious way, but they lack the art of subtlety. Even I know how to give a sideways glance.
Lunchtime.
“It’s really growing on me,” Rama says. “Maybe I should do that to my hair.”
“How would anyone know if you got a haircut?” I ask. “Would you ever show it to me?”
“It would be against my religion, remember? But maybe,” she says, tugging at her scarf, which is a beautiful shade of Rosemarie Pink today. “Wait a minute, Mysti. She’s coming.”
“Who?”
Sandy Showalter stops at our lunch table. At the Loser Island.
“Your hair is pretty. Are you doing a whole French theme now or something?”
Sandy Showalter just paid me a compliment.
Wait, Sandy Showalter just paid me a compliment?
I wasn’t prepared for this, so I just shrug.
Sandy smiles and moves back into her natural habitat.
“It’s starting to happen,” Rama says.
“What?”
“This is what they do. They will like you now. People like the new thing. The new thing is exciting until it’s the old thing. Then, poof!”
“Poof?”
“I’ve seen it happen. Do you know what fickle means?”
“Of course I know what it means.”
Here is a girl thinking the word fickle is desperately underused in modern times.
“You just wait and see. Be wary.”
“Sandy’s not bad.”
“Just be very wary.”
“Okay, I get it. I’m thoroughly wary.”
“I’m still waiting for my bracelet, too.”
“I’m still waiting for a lot of things.”
Girl Who Likes Horses and Girl Who Draws Tortoises come by. In unison they say, “Nice hair.”
I don’t know exactly what Rama was predicting, but it gives me a little boost, I have to tell you.
Poof!
My hope grows.
In the hallways.
“About our Texas History Alamo project,” Anibal Gomez says. “I heard about what you did, but we need to redo it.”
“You’re incredible.”
He smiles like I complimented him. Boys do not always get when you are mocking them.
He says, “Thanks.”
Texas History.
I play with Laura’s bracelet all through Ms. Overstreet’s discussion of important people in the Texas Revolution. There is a black marker stain around my wrist. When class is over and the bell rings, Ms. Overstreet corners me.
“Please stay for a minute, Mysti.”
I stay.
She talks.
“You know, it’s okay to want to experiment with your style, and sometimes, even your attitude toward education and assignments,” Ms. Overstreet says. “But sometimes that is a sign.”
“A sign?”
“That you’re going through something weighty and serious.”
“Ms. Overstreet, I’m going through seventh grade. It’s very weighty and serious.”
“Don’t deflect with humor,” Ms. Overstreet says. “This ain’t my first rodeo.”
I don’t doubt one bit that Ms. Overstreet has attended many rodeos.
>
“May I go now?”
“My door is open.” Actually, it’s closed right now.
“I just have one question.”
“You can ask me anything, Mysti.”
“Why is it when a door is open it’s ajar, but when a jar is open it’s not adoor?”
In return for my observation, I receive the classic Ms. Overstreet head tilt to the side in mild annoyance with a side of grimace. I am not so dumb that I don’t know what Ms. Overstreet is getting at, so I say, “Thanks for asking.” For this, I earn a smile.
I hope she understands that in the middle of a Texas History classroom, I feel more comfortable joking than discussing the weighty and serious issues of life. I mean, if we opened up that chapter, we might be up all night talking like mushy girls and Mr. Maynard, the janitor, would chase us out with his mop. And maybe, under different circumstances, I would stay and talk. If I didn’t have to get home and see if I put Mama into a state of silent panic because of my haircut, I would wait to see if Ms. Overstreet would be up for an all-nighter. I really would.
chapter 33
Here is a girl standing at the intersection of I Miss Talking to You Street and You Annoy Me Drive.
I am in my room staring at the message alert on my phone.
Never have I been a person who looks at the name and thinks, should I answer this text? No, I answer everything and everyone. I am like the dogs in that Pavlov experiment Laura and I learned about on Animal Planet the other night. Every time Dr. Pavlov rang a bell, the dog would be given food. So the dog always went running toward the sound of a bell.
I am the Pavlov’s dog of cell phones.
Bleep and here I come running.
Hey, M.
Hey.
Let’s redo the project. K?
Nope.
Why not. It’ll b fun!!
U didn’t do it the first time.
Don’t be trippin. I did 2. Don’t be a jerk.
Me?
Yeah.
Call off the Sandy thing and I’ll help.
UR jealous.
NO WAY.
UR annoying.
I look at my phone and don’t respond. Soon, Anibal messages a string of question marks. I don’t do anything. I don’t want to be a dog who runs toward something just because a bell is ringing. I want to walk someplace far away from here. Maybe just to Tom Thumb to buy a loaf of French bread. I could eat it in front of the computer screen while I look at the Eiffel Tower cam. I would pretend I left my phone on the plane to Paris. Oh, did you call? Sorry, I was dining with the French.
Courage for Beginners Page 12