Wreckless

by Bria Quinlan

  Missy looked me over, squinting in the dim light of the porch, and then asked, “Have you bleached it?”

  “No ma'am.”

  “Tell her not to ma'am me.”

  “Bridget, don't ma'am the elderly lady.”

  Missy took a swipe at Jake where he leaned against the porch railing, looking like James Dean come back.

  “Let's see what you have.”

  I reached back and pulled the elastic from my hair, unbraiding it through my fingers as I pulled it forward.

  “Oh dear heavens, how long have you been growing this?”

  “A little over three years. It reached just past my shoulders before.”

  “It's like moonlight.”

  Missy and I both turned toward Jake, surprised he'd spoken. My heart skipped and flipped over, the warm tingliness filling it now too. All because he’d said my hair was like moonlight—I wasn't sure what to do with that.

  He seemed to snap to attention as we both looked at him.

  “It's just, um, really…pale.”

  “Um, yeah.” Missy took my hair and ran it through her fingers. “This is nice. Thicker than most silver blondes. Alright, come on in and we’ll give you a trim.”

  “What?” I could hear the panic in my voice. This stranger was just going to set me down in her kitchen and chop my hair off?

  I don't think so.

  “Yeah, that’s okay. I wouldn't want to put you out.” I tried to step back, but Jake's hand had settled on my lower back, so I couldn't go anywhere without jerking my hair away and diving around him toward the truck.

  “Bridget, Missy's a hairdresser. She works over at the salon by the mall.” He was using that don’t panic voice again.

  Missy let my hair go. Everything was much less threatening when someone didn’t have a hold of the rope that was attached to your head.

  “I can give you a nice trim and just bring the braid in to work Monday for the donation.”

  Jake’s hand stayed firmly placed on my lower back. He was waiting for me to chicken out. Again.

  But this had been the plan. Grow the hair. Cut the hair. No big deal. It wasn't a rule or a safety blanket. It wasn't a red flag. It was just hair.

  I hadn't been—or so I told myself—holding on to this since…

  “Okay.”

  I sighed like an oversized weight had shifted off my shoulders.

  Missy smiled one of those really comforting smiles she probably had to practice on women all day.

  “Don't you worry. You'll be fixed up just fine. It's not like we're cutting it all off.”

  She took my hand and led me toward the front door as if I might bolt at any second. Jake reached out and held it open over her head.

  “Where do you think you're going?”

  “Inside?”

  I loved that he didn’t sound that confident. It was nice to find someone who could put Jake in his place, even if that place was just out on the porch.

  Missy shook her head. “I don't think so. Off you go.”

  She pulled the screen shut behind us and led me toward the back of the house.

  “Let me grab my stuff. Make yourself at home. Grab a drink or something.”

  I settled in at the table, feeling awkward enough. I wasn't going to start going through her cabinets. The tap, tap, tap of her feet hurried up the stairs and then back down, slowing before she turned the corner into the kitchen.

  “Bridget, you're sure you want to cut your hair?”

  I thought about Jake saying any hair so long you could accidentally pee on it was too long. That seemed like as good a reason as any. Probably better actually.

  “Yup. I definitely want to cut it.”

  “Even with ten inches, it's still going to be pretty long.” She measured out the length she'd need to cut and wrapped an elastic band around it. It still came past the middle of my back. “We can take a little more than that if you want.”

  I looked at the large mirror in the hall from the small one she handed me. The hair was still really long. I'd still have the longest hair in school. Of course, it wasn't like that was a source of pride. If it was, maybe I'd want to keep it, but the way my hair was now, I really couldn't have cared less about it.

  “Can you give me a cut that looks good and isn't…” I didn't want to sound stupid. I knew most girls loved to do their hair.

  “Isn't hard to do?”

  I nodded, relieved she understood.

  “What if we cut it enough that it looks done if you just dry it and brush it out, but you can still put it in a ponytail or braid?”

  Who would have known there was all this thinking to do about a simple haircut?

  “That sounds good.”

  I crossed back to the chair and settled into it as she wrapped the towel around my shoulders.

  “Wow, it's still wet. How long ago did you wash it?”

  I started to tell her that morning, but then remembered a very specific time it got wet again.

  “Not long ago.” Lies seemed to be coming easier and easier to me tonight.

  “I'm going to take off the donation first and then we'll cut the style. Don't panic.”

  There were those words again. Did I look like someone who panicked a lot? Probably. Of course, I was someone who panicked a lot.

  Maybe not panicked, but worried.

  The sound of the scissors hacking through the thick section of braid above the elastic was enough to have me rethinking that panic thing.

  The pressure gave way, and I lifted my hand to run it over the rough, uneven ends of my shorter hair. She was right. It was still really long. But I only wanted to have to do this once.

  “Great. I'm going to take another three inches. It will still come a few inches past your shoulders. You have beautiful hair.”

  “It's too pale. I'm half Irish, half Swedish. There's no pigment in my DNA.”

  Missy laughed. “No, Jake's right. It's almost the color of moonlight on water.”

  I thought about the light glancing off the water earlier that night, about the sight of Jake wading to the shore and catching me more-than-peeking.

  “I don't think I even want to know what that blush is.” Missy came around to the front and started pulling my hair out in front of me, making each side even as she cut more small chunks off. “Are you dating my cousin?”

  I couldn't believe she was actually asking that. How could she take a look at us and believe there was a chance a guy like Jake would be dating someone like me? She obviously wasn't taking a close enough look.

  Still, it was the easiest question I'd had all night. “No. Not dating.”

  She ran the brush through my hair again, catching a few snags before taking a comb to the part down the middle.

  “Not yet?”

  I laughed. She was persistent.

  “Not at all. I highly doubt I'm the type of girl Jake would go for.”

  Missy gaze dropped from my hair to look me the eye. “You're exactly the type of girl he should be going for.”

  She straightened, going back to my hair. “That last one, she was just hoping to raise a little hell, and he was just hoping...”

  She stopped when all I wanted her to do was finish that sentence. What was it Jake Moore had been hoping for from his last girlfriend?

  “Just the cut?”

  I snapped my attention back from the danger zone.

  “Um, yes?”

  Missy laughed. “No idea what else you'd do, huh?”

  “Well, I'm not sure what else I'd want. I mean, nothing that involves curling, waving, drying, or anything other than washing. Washing is about as much as I can manage in the morning.”

  “So nothing funky, like color.” She shook her head. “Your hair's so pale, it would hold color real nicely.”

  “You mean, make me a redhead or something?”

  “No. Just something fun, something temporary. What if we tipped it?”

  I had no idea what that meant. The girls at my school were
mostly natural-in-a-completely-fake-looking-way. Like, they would have really obvious blonde streaks in dark hair and call it “highlights.” As if the sun only highlighted your hair in half-inch chunks.

  “What's tipping?”

  “We'd just add a fast color to the ends in the back. It will look cute. With almost white hair, you'll take color like that.” She snapped her fingers.

  I started to say no, then rethought it. This was more than a change. It was a new beginning.

  “What color?”

  Missy smiled and headed back to the little box she'd pulled the scissors out of. “I've got red, pink, blue, and lavender.”

  Lavender sounded soft. Daring, but still girly. Not punky.

  “Okay. Do it. Put the lavender in.”

  She wrapped most of my hair in a sloppy bun on top of my head with a clip. “You're going to love it.”

  I tried to laugh, but it came out as this sick sound.

  “Here's the deal,” she said while she mixed some smelly stuff in an odd plastic bowl. “We're only doing about an inch in the back. If you don't like it, come back tomorrow night and I'll cut it out. No one ever needs to even see it at school.”

  Ok, that sounded good. I could do that. Be a little daring tonight and decide tomorrow.

  She used a little brush to add the smelly stuff to the ends of my hair and wrapped them in aluminum foil.

  “You're all set. We just need to let it sit for a bit.”

  “Great.” I know I sounded less than enthusiastic, but this was a huge change for me. It was the one thing so far that lasted more than tonight, except for...

  I glanced at the clock. Eleven thirty five.

  “Can I borrow your phone?”

  “Sure, hun.” She unplugged her cell and handed it to me. “Be careful with those foils.”

  I glanced out the window as I waited for one of my parents to answer. Outside, Jake was tossing something in the back of his truck. When he was done stowing it, he glanced up and saw me in the window. He raised a hand, not really a wave. Just a hand saying he saw me and was watching me again.

  I'm such an idiot. It's just…he was so easy to look at.

  “Hello?”

  Oh. Reality. Right.

  “Hi, Mama. It's me.” I took a deep breath. It was five minutes after my curfew, and I was about to lie to my mother. “Sorry I'm late. We had to get to a spot with reception.”

  “That's okay, dear. We figured that was probably it. Are you on your way home?”

  “Actually, I'm going to go stay at Leah's.”

  “Alright. You'll be home in time for church.” It wasn't a question. And man, did I feel bad bringing God into this.

  I'm really sorry, Lord.

  “Yup. I'll definitely be home in time for church.” I paused, feeling the cold damp of my short hair across my neck. “Mama? I think we're going to cut my hair.”

  The phone was silent for a long moment. “Well, I think that's good.”

  I closed my eyes. I didn't know what I thought she'd say. The first year I'd refused to cut it, she'd asked every month. And every month I'd refused. It had been one of the things I could control then. One thing I had say over. One thing that didn't have to change.

  Only everything did change, and now it was, as Jake had said, long enough to pee on.

  He was so classy.

  “I'll see you tomorrow.”

  “Love you.”

  “Love you, too.”

  I snapped the phone shut and turned to see Missy standing at the table, arms crossed, one eyebrow lifted.

  “This looks a lot worse than it is.”

  “It looks like you just lied to your mother so you can spend the night with my cousin.”

  Yeah, it did look like that, didn't it?

  “Well, technically, I don't know if I'll be spending the entire night with him.”

  I realized how that must have sounded when Missy's jaw dropped open.

  “I mean, not that I'm going to spend it with someone else. I'm not looking to spend the night with anyone. And I'm definitely not spending the night with anyone. I'm just not going home. Which is a completely different situation to…you know.”

  “No. What do I know?” I couldn't tell if she was giving me a rough time or not.

  “You think...” I glanced back out the window to where Jake sat on the back of his truck, the dog curled beside him on the tailgate, his head happily being stroked. “You think I'm going to…?”

  Well, I think we could safely say there was zero chance of me losing my virginity if I couldn't even say…oh, jeez.

  “I think you're going to sneak out to a field somewhere after whatever party you two are going to and have sex with my baby cousin.”

  Wow. That was blunt. And embarrassing.

  And kind of complimentary.

  Because, there was no way a guy like Jake was going to be interested in a girl like me. Even for one night.

  “Um. Yeah. No.” I handed her back her phone. “Tonight I caught my boyfriend cheating on me with my best friend and then I didn't have a way home, so Jake was going to drive me and then we got in this fight about how boring I am and I made a list and now we're just doing the whole list.”

  “And sex is on the list?”

  “Sex is definitely not on the list. It's nowhere near the list. If it were on a list, it would be its own list. Way far, far away from my list. Like, in a different notebook.”

  “Okay. Got it. No sex with Jake.”

  “Right.”

  We stood there, staring at each other across the table, her still trying to figure me out, me trying to stop blushing like a stoplight.

  “You're saying you don't think he's cute?”

  Was she trying to kill me?

  “I don't think cute is really the right word for him. He's more...”

  More. Period. End of sentence.

  Missy was grinning at me again and I had zero idea what to do.

  “Alright. I'll leave you alone. No sex. Nothing for us to talk about then.”

  I don't know what was getting into me, but my eyes welled up a little at that. I hadn't realized it was me she was looking out for. Like a big sister. That was something I could use right now.

  “Come around to the sink and we'll wash out that coloring.”

  I stuck my head over the sink and she used the sprayer to rinse the smelly stuff out, shampooing and conditioning my hair quickly.

  I was amazed how fast she did it. I was going to save hours with shorter hair.

  We toweled my hair and she pulled the end forward enough so I could see the light lavender tinting the very edges in the back.

  “Nice.” She grinned. “It's like an angel dipped in lilac juice.”

  I laughed, handing her the towel. This was my least angelic night. I'd stolen. Okay, I'd stolen an ex-friend's key. But still. That totally counted.

  We went to the bathroom so she could dry my hair, having me flip my head over to blow it out upside down. She swore that with how thin my hair was it would give it a tiny bit of body.

  Yeah, I really wasn't buying that one.

  “Alright, take a look.”

  I flipped my hair back over and checked it out in the mirror. She'd given me choppy layers around my face, and the longest bit was in the back. And bangs. I hadn't had bangs since I was five. It completely changed the look of my face. It was…amazingly cute. I looked really different with it.

  I kept waiting to hate it, but it was like Reese Witherspoon’s but with some color added.

  “Thank you so much.” I ran my fingers through it one more time, shocked at how light I felt. “This is really cute.”

  Missy was grinning. She seemed pleased with her own work, too.

  “I should pay you, right? I mean, I don't know how much a haircut even costs.”

  She was shaking her head before I was even done. “That was too much fun. Besides, we never charge people donating hair. Just enjoy it.”

  I really thought I would.<
br />
  “If you change your mind about the color, come on out tomorrow evening and I'll strip it out or trim it before you go back to school.”

  “Thanks.” I glanced in the mirror one more time, glad to see that even with such a different look, I still looked like me…just with some extra color.

  “Why don't you head down?” She started tucking things away. “I just want sweep up.”

  I wove through to the front of the house, Jake’s deep voice echoing down the hall.

  “No, man. You saw it. Are you kidding me, that's as much as you're getting... Yes. Hot. Very.” He looked up and froze. “I gotta go.”

  He was looking at me like he didn't recognize me. Like I was a different person. I was feeling like a different person. But he was making me really nervous with the whole staring thing.

  It wasn't like I'd had a huge makeover and looked completely different or anything, but this was a big change for me.

  “I heard the hairdryer.”

  Well, that was…vague.

  I suddenly wasn't sure about the color or the cut or the whole darn thing.

  “Do you like it?” I pulled the lavender tips around to show him.

  And waited. And then gave up.

  “Oooohkay.” I guess he wasn't loving the hair. Or the lavender. Or both.

  “Jake Whitney Moore, what is wrong with you?” Missy gave him a smack upside the head like only a relative can.

  I guess his middle name wasn’t Trouble. Or at least not that she knew of.

  “No. Sorry. It's just so different. It looks really good. I just didn't know girls’ hair could look so different.”

  I had no idea what that meant, but I figured half of what he said was beyond me.

  “Ready to go?” I really needed to get us going so everyone would stop looking at my hair.

  Jake took in my outfit and shook his head. “Bridget, you're not going to the party dressed as a kindergarten teacher. Plus, you don't match your haircut.”

  I looked down. What was wrong with what I was wearing?

  I glanced at Missy, who was obviously trying not to look all judgey about my clothes.

  “Are they really that bad?” I asked her.

  “Well, they aren't that good.” Missy eyed me again. “You're tiny. If my clothes fit you, I'd loan you something. I mean, you're wearing gym shoes with a sundress.”