By now he was making sure we were never alone. His weekends were spent being Super Dad, a role I still admired him for. Then one Sunday, on a weekend when my kids were at their dad’s, I headed out to the car with my trumpet, anxious to get to church early to warm up before the crowd arrived. There, in the driveway, was Mr. Right hurrying all his kids into the van.
“Why so early?” I asked. He didn’t answer. I never saw Mr. Right and his kids again. Soon we were divorced. I later heard he had moved to Florida and come out as gay.
For once Inner Debbie didn’t seem to have much to say. And I really didn’t need her to remind me about the next disastrous relationship, the one that sent me packing to Afghanistan. I had married a preacher—a jealous, hot-blooded, hotheaded Latin preacher. At least something good came out of that union, even if it did come from a place of dark desperation. But honestly, when you leave during a screaming match with your husband, swearing that you’d rather die in Afghanistan than live one more day in Michigan with him, you know it’s time to go.
The truth was, I had already started making an attempt to head down a different path well before that confrontation with my preacher husband. I’d always yearned to be more than just a hairdresser. To me, hairdressing was what those girls did who got pregnant in high school, or who weren’t smart enough or rich enough to go to college. I didn’t look at my trade as something to be proud of. It was just something I had settled for. What I really wanted to do was help people, and to the younger me that meant either cop, firefighter, or military. But back then, at least where I lived, girls just didn’t do that. I considered becoming a missionary, but the thought of cramming religion down people’s throats just didn’t fly with me. That, and I hated the outfits.
But times had changed, and now that my kids were nearly grown, I was determined to turn my energy toward something that mattered. By that time I was too old to be accepted by the police academy or the military, and I wasn’t even close to being in good enough shape to battle a raging inferno. So when I came across a Christian organization in Chicago that was offering disaster relief training, I jumped at the chance.
Two weeks without my husband was like a spa vacation, that is, if your spa focuses on teaching CPR and the basics of decontamination. Then, two weeks after my training was complete, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 hit. I was on a plane to New York within hours of a call to come help. Day after day, I’d massage weary firefighters’ callused, pungent feet and listen to the horror stories of what they’d been through, happy to be able to give them even a few brief moments of comfort and calm, while at the same time trying my best to ignore the cell phone constantly buzzing in my pocket. My controlling husband and my sorry life seemed far, far away. Even in the midst of all that chaos and despair, or perhaps because of it, it became abundantly clear to me that it was time for my life to change, big-time, and that I was capable of being the one to make that happen. So when I heard that the organization I was working with was putting together a team to be sent to Afghanistan, I immediately began to campaign for a spot. I would spend a month, I thought, putting my training to work helping those who had suffered from the Taliban’s brutal regime. It would be the start of my new future.
Speaking of Afghanistan . . .
“C’mon, do we really need to go there? I did a lot of good things in Kabul.”
Sure, the reproachful Debbie inside reminded me, but let’s not forget that you ended up running away from there, too.
That one really hurt. On my best days, I understood that I didn’t run away from Kabul at all. I hung in there until it became impossible to do anything but leave. In fact, it was a voice inside, much like the one now bumming a ride to the border, that convinced me to stay as long as I did. You can’t leave, you’ll let everybody down, it would say, over and over. You have no choice. And honestly, if it had been just me on the line, I probably would have stayed. I had become used to putting myself out there, and had become weirdly inured to the danger. But when my son was threatened, the mother lioness came roaring out of me and whacked me back into reality. Staying would have, no doubt, ended in something I’d rather not even imagine. No, it did not end the way I wanted. Of course, I was still struggling with the pain and guilt of leaving everything, and everyone, behind. And no matter what my situation might have been at home, I went to Afghanistan in the first place thinking I might, for once in my life, actually be able to do something good, perhaps make a difference. When the opportunity came to use what I knew best in a way that could help other women gain their own independence, to share the tricks of a trade that had, more than once, saved my own life, it seemed like it was all meant to be.
And where did that leave you? Running away again?
“I am not running away.”
You always run away.
“I do not!”
Do so.
“Cut it out!” I answered out loud. “Can’t you see I’m trying to drive? And that, I might add, is a big deal for me these days.”
Big deal? Driving? Who are you kidding, Rodriguez? You’re nothing but a . . .
Whoosh! My heart jumped into my throat as the gust from a barreling eighteen-wheeler thrust my little Mini off onto the gravelly shoulder of the road. I slowed to a stop, shut off the ignition, and turned around to check on Polly, who was frozen in a crouch, her green eyes wide with fright.
“It’s okay, baby,” I lied, lighting a cigarette, the one I swore would be my last, with a shaking hand. An oven blast of sweet, dry air flooded the car as I slowly lowered the windows. In the distance I could see a range of snow-covered peaks jutting out from the flat desert floor. On either side of me, a strange vineyard of giant white fans turned lazily in a synchronized waltz, in rows and rows stretching out for miles against the cloudless blue sky.
Personally, I had to admit that it was hard to believe I was actually doing this. Mike (or rather Mike’s mother) breaking up with me might have been just the kick in the ass I needed to get me on the road to a new phase in my life, but I was far from feeling sure about it. If only I could simply reach across, open the passenger door, and boot that belittling voice inside out into the scrubby sand. I still had more than a thousand miles to go before I reached Mazatlán, and she was starting to really, really piss me off. Instead I pulled back onto the highway and turned up the radio to try to drown her out.
Was I running away? How can you run away from something you never really had in the first place? Napa was not my life. It was more like my rebound life, the one your girlfriends warn you against and the one you jump into because it’s easier than facing up to the reality and pain of what just hit you. In Napa I had been on hold for two years, trying to make something work that probably never should have happened at all.
THE SKY HAD TURNED INTO a melted neon Creamsicle swirl by the time I pulled up to the Days Inn on Palm Canyon Drive. I barely had enough energy to pour a bowl of Friskies for Polly before flopping down on the bed, the stiff polyester bedspread practically cracking beneath my weight. If I hadn’t been too exhausted to pray, I would have. But what would I have asked for? I would have had to come up with an actionable scenario, a clear-cut vision for what I wanted my new life to be. But, as usual, I didn’t really know what I was getting into, so instead I just held on to the little santo around my neck and hoped that this time things would turn out differently.
“MAYBE I COULD DRIVE A taxi down there. I’m getting a lot of experience, right? What do you think, Pol? Or maybe I could, if worse comes to worst, sell time-shares? We both know I’m a good talker. How does that sound?”
Polly didn’t answer. We were on our way to Tucson, and my poor cat was moping in her carrier, miserably wedged in the backseat between mountains of vacuum-sealed space-saver bags that, for some reason, seemed to be expanding by the minute. I was trying hard to keep Debbie Downer from entering the conversation. But I couldn’t deny that my lack of a plan was more than a little scary. My future was staring me down like a pissed-off pit bull. It wa
s hard to look away, but more frightening not to. Even the cactuses standing tall by the edge of the road, waving at me like funny, giant green men, couldn’t distract me from my anxiety.
One thing was for certain. I was not going to be a hairdresser in Mexico. Though I knew I was damn good at it, my dismal attempts at getting a salon job in California had done a real number on me. Realizing that I was being looked at as an old hairdresser was like getting a kick in the teeth. The whole experience only served as a reminder of the negatives of the profession. When I really think about it, I can’t really say I ever actually wanted to become a hairdresser. Though it had been kind of fun playing hairdresser in my mom’s salon when I was little, folding the towels and taking the rollers out of the old ladies’ hair while they sat under the dryers, I was all too aware of what it actually meant to be a real one. I can, to this day, picture my mom on the couch at night, heating pad stuffed under her spine and swollen feet propped up on a cushion, her smile slowly thawing from having to remain cheerful whether she felt cheery or not. Back then I wanted to be a princess. That, or a famous opera singer. My doting mother never failed to indulge me in my fantasies. Nevertheless, when I turned fifteen, she sent me to beauty school. “It’s a great skill to fall back on,” my overworked and underpaid mother insisted.
So for a year after earning both my high school and beauty school diplomas, I worked in my mom’s salon. It was expected. It was easy. But I wanted more. Though I had struggled in school, I longed to be an educated, sophisticated world traveler, a woman of importance. So I told my mom that I wanted to go to college. “Oh, honey child,” she crooned in her sweet southern drawl, “you know you’re not college material.” After one year at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, I proved her right.
I fell back on hairdressing, of course. And when, a few years later, with a husband, two kids, two cars, and a house, I called my mom sobbing, she was perplexed.
“Are the kids okay?” she asked as she rushed through my front door, scanning the room for any signs of an accident or mishap. I nodded.
“Are you okay?” She took my chin in her hand, my tears cascading over her fingers and onto the floor.
“Yes. I mean, no. Oh, Mom, I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m miserable, and I have no right to be.” She went into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove. I followed. “I mean, I should be happy, right? I have so much.” Mom nodded. I plopped down on the kitchen chair. “I just don’t get it. Why doesn’t this work for me? I still keep feeling there has to be more.”
Mom poured the hot water over a tea bag and handed me the cup. “I’m not sure, baby girl,” she answered as she stroked my hair. “But I do know one thing. You can do anything you set your mind to. What do you want?”
“That’s the problem,” I said, sobbing. “I just don’t know.”
She pulled a tissue from under her sweater sleeve. “Well, that just doesn’t make any sense. You’re a dreamer. Always have been. Come on, what does your heart tell you?”
“I’m a hairdresser. I’m already a mom. What else can I be?” I whined.
“Listen to you. You don’t have to be just one thing, or even two. You can do anything you want. And that, child, is not a reason to cry.”
“I know, Mom.” I sighed. “I just wish I could figure it out.”
My mother sat down across the table. “You know, you always did want to be a princess. It’s not too late . . .”
I snorted a laugh in response.
“Well, that’s not very princesslike of you,” she admonished, producing yet another tissue.
“Thank you, Queen Mother.”
“Debbie, I think you can be a mother, and a hairdresser, and a princess.”
And as she reached across the table to take my hand in hers, I wondered if this woman, whose own mom had died when she was just a baby, who married at sixteen to escape a household of fourteen kids, living a dirt-poor existence in the Arkansas cotton fields, who remained trapped in a disappointing relationship until death did them part, had once wished for someone to tell her she could be a princess, too.
I carried my mom’s words with me wherever I went. They were there as I patrolled the prisoners’ bunks for shanks and battled the misogynistic prison staff, they were there while I was swatting away the killer insects on the Bahamian beach, and they were there when I boarded that first plane to Afghanistan. I heard them every single time I stepped out of the supposed comfort zone, which, for me, was never particularly comfortable in the first place.
It wasn’t until Kabul that I finally embraced the hairdresser in me. I saw that I was doing as much, or maybe even more with my scissors and dyes than a lot of people with fancy degrees and big titles achieve in a lifetime. Over there, I realized that it was about so much more than simply doing hair. For the first time in my life, I respected my job, and myself. I wasn’t “just” a hairdresser anymore! I was living proof that anyone could make a difference. You just needed a lot of determination, a good amount of energy, the willingness to take a few risks, and a good sense of humor.
But a few risks too many, and you might find yourself like I did—lost, confused, and starting all over again. By the time I got to Napa, I could no longer hear my mom’s voice. I couldn’t even call her for a reminder. By that time she was starting to forget things, and wasn’t really capable of helping me much. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t have it in her to tell me that I could be a princess anymore.
So now, with hairdressing and reigning over a kingdom of adoring subjects out of the picture, what was left? What would I do in Mexico? I didn’t have a clue. Part of me pictured myself spending the rest of my life sitting quietly on the beach, sipping a margarita. I was tired. Tired of men, tired of moving, tired of being scared, tired of being confused. But who was I kidding? I’m not one to sit quietly, anywhere. All I was hoping was that being in Mexico would give me the chance to figure things out.
I tried to focus on the one thing I knew was waiting for me down there—my little house on Carnaval Street. I could not wait to settle into my own place. After all that time in California squatting in someone else’s home, I was more than ready to plant some roots.
Mexico I could afford, at least for a while. The way I figured it, my savings would last for maybe a couple of years, if I was careful. So in a way, I realized, I should consider my house in Mexico to be an investment in my future. It was my house that would allow me the time to figure things out, to fix myself. That’s a lot of pressure for one little house, I thought. I hoped it could take it.
THIS WAS TO BE MY last day in the U.S.A. The skyline of Tucson faded in the rearview mirror as Polly and I headed south down Interstate 19 toward Nogales, Mexico. We were off to an early start. Who knew what I’d find at the border? I began to picture humorless guys in sunglasses with machine guns, narcos and federales in blood battle, trigger-happy Border Patrol agents chasing down fleeing immigrants. In another life, those kinds of guys might have been a piece of cake. Now I just wished them gone, gone from my imagination and anywhere else they might be lurking.
Driving through that flat, barren landscape on a road that seemed to go on forever in a hypnotic straight line, my thoughts turned to my mother. How I wished she could see my new home. Hell, she might have even enjoyed this road trip, if things were different.
I had been able to convince my mom to visit me once in Afghanistan. She had never been out of Michigan, and by this time I was beginning to see signs of a slipping mind and slowing body, so I knew the time was short for her to enjoy an adventure. I really wanted her to see where I lived, meet my friends, and maybe do some hair in the beauty school. I was anxious for her to understand why I had chosen to make my life half a world away, and desperately wanted to hear her tell me that I had done well.
We arrived in Afghanistan together after a shopping spree in Dubai. She saw a lot during that first week in Kabul, but we both were yearning for a road trip. Of course, I doubt she understood what
a road trip in that part of the world really meant, but I decided it was time for us to do something we’d both remember forever.
So one morning a bunch of us packed into a van and headed twelve hours north through the Hindu Kush mountains, into the open countryside leading to Mazar-i-Sharif. The next day we decided to have a picnic in the countryside near the Afghan-Uzbek border. It was really beautiful up there, with the fields in bloom. Mom kept insisting that Sam pull over so she could pick some flowers. I didn’t have the heart to tell her they were opium poppies. We eventually did pull over for lunch. Sam was excited about a new gun he had bought, so as we feasted on roasted lamb, naan, and pomegranates, we began to take turns at target practice, aiming at an abandoned old tank in the field. Seriously, that’s just the kind of thing you do for entertainment over there. We were all hooting and hollering and having a fine time when all of a sudden the turret on that tank began to turn toward us with a grinding whir.
“Run!” Sam yelled.
“Run, run!” I yelled at my mom.
“Why? Why?” she yelled back.
I grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the van, her headscarf slipping down over her eyes, and stuffed her in back while the others frantically gathered up the food. As the car doors slammed shut I started to laugh, uncontrollably. So did Mom.
Mom told me she’d never go on a picnic with me again. But she sure got her adventure. Oh, and when she returned to the United States, one of her customers asked her what her favorite part of Afghanistan was. Mom smiled and said, “Dubai.”
But now, all alone in another desert, I wasn’t sure I was equipped to handle that kind of drama anymore. Vultures circled overhead as the road began to bend and turn, taunting me with every twist. Go north, go back. Move ahead. Drive south. No, wait, turn around. C’mon, just go. Around me, the scorched brown hills stretched out for miles, broken only by the chain-link border fence that even I could have climbed over had I wanted to. This measly barrier couldn’t even keep the cows in, or out. I could see them squeezing under, heading north in herds in search of that elusive greener grass.
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