by Jane Porter
The 84th Street exit approaches. Almost home. Usually I’m excited about going home, but not today. Today I just feel tired and very overwhelmed.
Back at the house, I discover everyone’s gone but Allie, and she comes sprinting out of the house the moment I park.
“I’m sorry,” she says, panting. “I’m sorry. She did it when we were in the studio working. I’m so sorry, Marta.”
Allie’s talking so fast that I can’t follow what she’s saying. “What has Eva done?”
“She was in her room, and the door was locked—”
I don’t wait to hear anything more. I push Allie aside and dash into the house.
I see what she’s done the moment I enter the living room. Eva’s standing in the middle of the floor, arms hanging loosely at her side.
She’s cut off her hair.
All of it.
Chapter Sixteen
This can’t be happening, I think, staring at Eva. This can’t be my child.
I stand there looking at her, jaw dropped, absolutely floored, so shocked that no words come.
Allie’s backing out the door. “I’m leaving,” she calls.
I try to nod but can’t even move my head. I hear the door shut. Allie’s gone. She’s left Eva and me alone together.
Eva still faces me, her chin lifted defiantly, yet as she stares at me, horrified tears fill her eyes.
“Eva,” I finally whisper, unable to say anything else.
Her hair had been so long, reaching all the way down her back, thick, silky, onyx. Beautiful. And now what’s left on her head is just a mess. Tufts and pieces, that’s all there is, tufts and pieces, as if she were the dying Cosette in Les Misérables.
And next Monday is picture day.
As if she can read my mind, her lower lip suddenly quivers.
“Eva,” I repeat, and it’s the only word that comes to my lips. It’s a plea, a protest, a refrain.
I think she’s going to burst into tears, but instead she forces a fierce smile, and the smile hurts her even more than tears. “I cut my hair.”
I can see.
She turns on her heel and marches away, leading me to her bathroom, where she performed the act of butchery. The foot-long tresses are all over the bathroom floor, her hair nearly a yard long in places.
“I’m not like you,” she says, chin jerking, eyes brilliant with unshed tears.
I see the scissors on the tiled bathroom counter. They’re the kitchen shears, the ones I keep in my big wood knife block.
“I’m nothing like you,” she adds, knuckles white, nearly as white as her face, and it crosses my mind that when people say childhood is the happiest time of your life, they’ve never met my Eva. And they never met me. My childhood wasn’t much easier than Eva’s.
I wanted so much then. I wanted so badly to be happy.
Yet happiness isn’t something you chase, it’s something you are. It’s something you think, it’s something you believe.
And I believe in Eva.
Just as I believe in me.
“I think it looks great,” I say, because there’s no way in hell I’m going to add insult to injury by crying about her beautiful hair now. Besides, she’s more than the sum of the parts—hair, eyes, uncertain smile—she’s also breath and heart, mind, spirit, and fire.
“You think so?” she whispers, some of the rigid tension in her shoulders going as she looks at me for hope.
Hope, I repeat silently. I can give it, I must give it, because this is what I do. This is why I’m her mom. “Yes.”
She reaches up, touches her sheared head. “No one else has short hair at school.”
“Your hair isn’t that short.”
She fingers the chopped ends again, one side far more dramatically mutilated than the other. “I don’t look ugly?”
Even though my waiflike Eva looks like a poster child for famine relief, I can’t tell her that.
I can’t really tell her much of anything. I just have to be here for her.
“No,” I say, wrapping her in my arms and hugging her until her arms reach for me and grip me just as hard. “You’re beautiful. You’re my beautiful girl, and you will always be.”
It’s easy to comfort her in the bathroom, but later that night I nearly cry in my pillow. I know it’s just hair, but I’m upset, more upset than I’ll ever let Eva know. I loved her hair. I loved how long and dark and thick it was. I loved how few children had hair as beautiful as hers. As mine.
And maybe that is what hurts, maybe that is what’s rolling around inside me like a rubber ball on fire.
She changed us. She made it clear that she didn’t want what we had. She wants something else.
She wants a mother that isn’t me.
I’m not going to take this personally. That would be foolish. Eva’s a little girl, a child, and children must try to separate themselves from their all-important parent figures. It’s part of growing up. Part of becoming an individualized person.
But oh, it shakes me, making me feel vulnerable all over again, vulnerable in a way I hadn’t ever imagined.
I knew in the teen years Eva would try some things, rebel as all teenagers do, but I didn’t think it’d be like this, this personal, this painful, this soon.
Another half hour passes, and still tense, sleepless, I get out of bed and go to the great room where my easel’s set up in the corner.
With a cup of tea at my elbow and the stereo on low, I squeeze great dollops of acrylic on the palette and I paint, losing myself in color and the picture in my head.
It’s not until two hours have passed and my canvas has been set aside while I wash my hands to go back to bed that I realize what is eating me alive on the inside.
I’m afraid. I’m afraid that I’m going to ruin Eva.
Eva begs to stay home from school the next day, horrified all over again by her cropped head of hair. I tell her she can stay home, but only so we can go into a hair salon and get it styled a bit. She agrees.
While the stylist at Gene Juarez works on Eva’s hair, I sit in the lounge, feeling as though a dark cloud has engulfed me. Yesterday started well—lunch with Luke was fabulous and fun—but then it all went downhill after that.
Thinking of Luke, I want to call him now. I want to hear his voice and have another of our semiridiculous conversations where I pretend I’m not interested when we both know I am.
I’d love to have him tease me now.
I’d love to have him give me one of those faint smiles I find so sexy, the one that just touches his mouth and makes his eyes warm.
But I can’t use him for comfort. We’re not in a relationship. I barely know him. I can’t start depending on him or his smiles or sexy voice.
I call Shey instead. “Shey, help,” I say the moment Shey answers.
“What’s happened? Have you fallen in love?”
I nearly crack a smile. I love her twang and yet think I could hate her. “No. It’s an Eva problem.”
“What’s she done now?”
“Cut her hair off, all off. The word pixie doesn’t even cover it.”
Shey whistles softly. “When did this happen?”
“Yesterday. We’re at the salon now, trying to see if there’s any way to make a style out of the mess, but it’s pretty bad. She looks like a Romanian orphan.”
“Why did she do it?”
I rub my forehead, feel my own heavy hair fall forward, against my hand. “She didn’t want to be like me anymore.”
I can hear Shey exhale. “I’m sorry,” she says, and her voice is gentle. “You two are having a rough go of it. But it’s a phase. You’ve got to know it’s just a phase, Ta. It’ll get better. I promise.”
My eyes just keep burning. They feel like little onions popped into my head. “She’s been trying so hard to make friends, she’s even planned this big sleepover, but now she says no one will come. I don’t know what to think anymore, but I do know this—if kids were making fun of her before she cut h
er hair off, it’s going to be even worse now. And it’s not just the kids who talk about her, it’s the parents, too.”
Shey’s quiet a moment. “Let me think about this. There’s got to be a way to turn it around, make it better. You’re in advertising. What would you do if it weren’t your daughter but one of the companies you represent?”
“I’m in advertising, not PR.”
“But they’re kind of the same.”
“They’re not at all the same. Advertising is about selling. Public relations is about building trust.”
“Come on. PR is about putting a positive spin on things, including disasters. And that’s what we need, a great reason Eva’s cut her hair off, something honorable, like she’s donating the hair to a good cause . . . donating the hair to make wigs for children undergoing chemotherapy—”
“A nice idea, Shey, but these kids are cruel. They’d never relate to that.”
“Then let’s give them something juicy. Something all the girls will be envious about. We make Eva a model.”
“What?”
“We’ll take some pictures, create a portfolio, find some print work for her—”
“Sure, and while we’re at it, let’s enter her in the Little Miss Beauty Pageants, too.” I make a sound of disgust. “No, absolutely not. I won’t have her modeling. I can’t stand that world. It’s even more fake than Bellevue.”
“Ta, get over yourself. Think about it. Will the girls there be jealous if they hear Eva missed school because she had a modeling shoot?”
I close my eyes. Shey’s such a pain. And she’s always right. “Yes.”
“And if she shows up without her hair, she can say it was for the shoot.”
“The kids will still laugh.”
“Not if they see her pictures. You know she’s photogenic. She’d be stunning in black and white with her pale skin, strong cheekbones, and dark eyes.”
Eva is beautiful in photographs. The camera sees something most people miss, and I cherish every photo of her. But to try to turn her into a model? To make her something she’s not?
The receptionist at the front desk waves to me. “Henri says they’re almost done. He’d like you to come see your daughter’s hair.”
“Shey, they’re done with Eva. I’m to go see the finished product.”
“Let me talk to Liza here at the agency. She’s been in meetings all morning with the producers from the Discovery Channel, but if I can get a moment with her, I’ll see who Liza recommends in Seattle. I know she’s got a favorite kids photographer there, and I’ll call you with the details.”
“Fine,” I answer grumpily.
“It’s going to be okay,” Shey repeats, Zenlike. “Just keep telling yourself these pictures and portfolio are for Eva’s benefit, not yours.” Shey pauses. “She’s choosing her own path, Ta. Support it.”
I stand behind Eva’s chair and inspect Henri’s handiwork. Eva’s hair is so short that it’s like a boy’s, but at least Henri has created a style, and the wispy ends frame Eva’s eyes, cheekbones, and mouth. Even if the hair is pixie short, there’s no way to confuse Eva’s face, with her big long-lashed eyes and full pink mouth, with a boy’s.
Later that afternoon, I drive Eva to photographer Kira Stewart’s studio in Seattle, a studio not far from the stadium where the Mariners play and the huge Starbucks corporate office.
ExpectingModels has used Kira for a number of her West Coast photo assignments as well as when they need to build a young model’s portfolio. Kira’s an expert with kids, and even I’m amazed at the shots Kira is getting of Eva, first in old-fashioned pinafores and then with Eva dressed in chunky turtlenecks and corduroy overalls with funky props like a wooden rake and an old red wagon.
While I don’t want Eva to really model, I do think Shey’s suggestion is brilliant. Instead of feeling hideous, Eva’s beginning to smile and shine, and her confidence is growing.
By the time we’re finished, it’s nearly dinnertime. We stop at the Burgermaster drive-in for dinner, and as we eat in the car, Eva chatters away, thrilled with some of the digital prints that Kira sent home with her to keep as a souvenir until the real photos are ready.
“So Aunt Shey is really going to use me as a model?” Eva repeats for the fourth time between bites of hamburger and fries, her photos tucked beneath her leg.
“She says she wants to.” I sip my Diet Coke, wishing it were spiked with rum. It’s been one very long day.
“That’s so cool.” Eva slurps on her strawberry milkshake, looks at me from the corner of her eye. “Modeling is cool.”
I say nothing.
Eva says louder, “Jemma models, did you know that?”
“No,” I answer wearily. “I didn’t know.”
“She does a lot for Nordstrom.”
“Mmmmm.”
“I just hope I get a real modeling job soon.” Eva swirls her shake, her expression dreamy. “A good one. You know, maybe as a junior bridesmaid for a wedding ad.”
Eva was right about the sleepover being ruined. The party cancellations start to pour in by voice mail and e-mail the next day, one right after the other. The excuses are lame, and some are barely excuses, just brief announcements that there’s been a change of plans and Paige or Brooke (or whoever) can’t come.
I don’t announce each cancellation to Eva. It’s not fair that she’s been snubbed because of me. It’s not fair that adults use children as pawns in their petty games.
By noon, I realize we don’t have a party anymore. I haven’t heard from two people, but if eight have canceled out, the other two can’t be far behind.
Equally awful, the whole Walla Walla winery campaign is shot. We did the work, but we’re not going to get paid.
I haven’t had lunch yet and decide to use my lunch hour to escape. In the house I change into my boots, layer on an extra T-shirt, and grab my old leather bomber coat. I’m going for a ride.
Wheeling the motorcycle out of the garage, I see Chris standing in the studio office door. He doesn’t wave or say anything, so I straddle my bike, stand it up, and kick up the kickstand.
I turn on the bike. Shift gears. One down, four up. The engine roars. I love that sound. I smile crookedly, and some of the tightness and hurt inside my chest eases.
I roar down the driveway, take a left onto 92nd Avenue NE, and head for the 520. I’m bummed we haven’t heard from Freedom Bikes, but I won’t panic, not yet. Everything’s going to be okay. It always is.
After merging onto the 405, I head toward Snoqualmie, where dairy farms fold into mountains and waterfalls tumble through a craggy gorge. I ride for over an hour, traveling past the town of North Bend, where Twin Peaks was once filmed, and on through the rugged Cascades until I reach the top of the pass. It’s a beautiful fall day, the sky almost too sharply blue and the trees along the 90 every shade of red, copper, and gold.
The air’s cold high up, and I wish I’d worn gloves. My fingers feel stiff on the handlebars, and everything in me rattles from the bone-jarring ride.
It’s not a gentle bike, and it’s not meant to be a soft ride.
On the way home, I stop in Issaquah at historic Gilman Village. Issaquah, once an old coal-mining town, has developed as the gateway to the “Plateau,” which is a traffic nightmare unto itself. But it’s early yet, not even two-fifteen, and traffic is light.
After parking my bike outside one of the village’s restored farmhouses-turned-coffeehouses, I yank my helmet off my head and, carrying it loosely in the crook of my arm, enter the yellow-and-white-painted restored farmhouse.
As I wait for my order, I realize people are looking at me. It’s been so long since I rode my bike, I’d forgotten how people stare when I’m in my biker gear. Men and women seem equally fascinated by the combination of long hair, scuffed lace-up boots, faded Levi’s jeans, and black, macho helmet dangling from my hand.
Still waiting, I spot a young mom with her daughter, and I watch entranced as they sit at their tiny table for two
and share a cookie.
The mother has a long dark ponytail, and the child—unlike Eva—is stunningly fair, Nordic instead of my coloring. The toddler dips her cookie crumble into her small paper cup of milk and nods seriously as if to say, This is good, and the mother smiles back and nods. Her nod doesn’t say just that the cookie is good, but that the daughter has it right, that the daughter is good, that life—the two of them together—is good.
I feel a tug inside me, remembering how that used to be us, Eva and me, the two of us alone, against the world.
I remember how we were once our own little family, and it was wonderful and painful, hopeful and terrifying. It was just the two of us. In those early years in New York, I’d never been more courageous or more anxious.
I used to lie awake at night wondering what would happen to Eva if something happened to me. And then I’d wonder how I’d survive if something happened to her. I used to torture myself with thoughts like these until they made me ill, and then one day I decided I wouldn’t play that game anymore. I refused to dwell on negative things, refused to give up one moment of life to sad, depressing thoughts. Nothing bad would happen. And if it did, I’d deal with it then and only then.
“Americano for Marta,” the teenage boy announces.
My drink order is ready, and I step forward for my cup. “Thanks,” I say.
“Is that your bike outside?” he asks, nodding to what would have once been a living room window with a view of the parking lot.
“Yeah.” I lift the lid of the tall, steaming cup to help it cool. “Do you ride?”
“I have a Honda I bought secondhand. Kind of a girlie little bike. It’s embarrassing. My dream bike’s a Fat Boy.”
“Good dream.”
He blushes, nods, smiles shyly. “You have a good day.”