Hallway Diaries

by Felicia Pride

  Some of the price tags made my stomach jump. A hundred and ten dollars for jeans? Seventy-five dollars for a shirt? People always assumed that A&I spoiled me. The only two things that they splurged on were education, which was no longer the case now that I was going to a public school, and travel, which they viewed as education. They didn’t believe in becoming “slaves to capitalism.” Even at Christmas, it was about the handmade gifts: poetry, socks, or paintings. Luckily, A&I’s guilt was worth two hundred dollars today.

  I’d gotten my share of handmade goods from my mother, and some of the Fashionista clothes just didn’t look that well made.

  “Nina, no one looks at stitching or how well it’s made. If it’s cute, it’s cute. Here, take these.” That was Sheena’s response. She handed me a pair of jeans. “You need a pair of Apple Bottoms. They are made for us, you know, to fit our hips and our butts,” she said as she shook hers.

  I guess Sheena hadn’t noticed that I was built like a fine piece of cardboard.

  “Okay, sporty, time for the next round of fun, fun, fun!” Oscar said. “Try on each outfit that we’ve carefully selected and come out to show us. Don’t forget your Tyra strut!”

  “Oh, I can’t wait to see you in the outfits I picked out,” Sheena said. The new fabulous trio—Oscar, Sheena, and Nessa—pulled up chairs and waited for me to transform.

  Inside the dressing room, I was overwhelmed by the number of clothes. Most looked like things that Sheena wore. But I had to stay focused. I thought about Jeffrey saying “Damn, girl, bring your fine self over here.” So I slipped off Nina and pulled on a tight denim miniskirt with an even tighter baby tee.

  I walked out to applause like I was on one of those extreme makeover shows. I could hear the announcer say, “Here comes Nina, she’s gone from pitiful pauper to dashing diva!”

  “Wow, Ms. Thang. Look at how you’ve instantly changed!” Oscar said.

  “That’s more like it,” added Sheena. “That should be your outfit for your date.”

  “Cute, cute, cute!” Nessa agreed.

  I looked in the mirror and didn’t smile. I didn’t frown, either. Definitely not me, but I was getting used to doing things that were out of character.

  “What do you think?” Oscar asked.

  “It’s in fashion,” I replied, trying to mask my disappointment. What the hell did I know about what was fashionable?

  With Sheena’s and Nessa’s style and Oscar’s professional help—although he was probably only a year or two older than me, so I wasn’t sure of his consultant credentials—I walked away from the store with a pair of stretch, low-rider boot-cut jeans, two baby tees, and a denim pencil skirt. Sheena said we caught a serious sale.

  I was tired like I’d just run three miles with my cross country group, but the journey continued. Next stop: DSW shoe warehouse.

  “I go crazy in here,” Sheena told me. But I didn’t think she could be any wilder than her frenetic behavior in Fashionista.

  I was wrong.

  Sheena was a madwoman! Mad, I tell you! She was grabbing shoes, carting boxes upon boxes, and fighting over discounts in the clearance section. A few times, she pushed Nessa and me out of the way. I had to nicely step in between Sheena and a stocky, linebacker-shaped girl to defuse a fight over yellow sandals. The shoes were pretty hideous, so I wasn’t sure why Sheena wanted to fight over them. Power shoe shopping was exhausting, but I can’t lie, I had a ball. I left the store with a new pair of black BCBG boots and Nine West flats. The moment I got home I was throwing out the Jesus sandals.

  We headed to our last destination: the Fly Stop hair salon. This place was as foreign to me as Disney World, a place that A&I believed celebrated the worst of capitalism. Yeah, they could be that uptight.

  The only impression I had of a hair salon—wait, scratch that—I didn’t have any impressions of beauty shops. My mother had taken care of my hair since I was a child. She taught me how to twist it, condition it, and manage a healthy head without ever having to pay someone else.

  The Fly Stop was bustling on Saturday afternoon. The minute we walked in, all eyes zoomed in on my Afro. I took it out of the ponytail during the shopping madness. The salon smelled like some of the chemicals my father used to renovate apartments. Amy would probably have described the décor as “cheap chic.” There was a long, comfy sofa in the corner that I was sure wasn’t real leather. A glass table covered with magazines in front of the sofa had gold painted legs. Chandeliers hanging from the ceiling looked like they were made of fancy plastic. Cheap chic.

  We walked over to the counter and the receptionist looked up at me like I had just escaped from the zoo.

  “What’s up, Tasha?” said Sheena. “This is my girl, Nina. She’s here to see Maxine.”

  Nessa took a seat while rapping along to her iPod. She pulled out her red single-subject notebook that was covered with cartoon-character stickers and started composing rhymes.

  “What is Maxine going to do with that?” Tasha asked with an attitude.

  “She’s gonna perm it!” Sheena responded with just as much attitude. “Now can you get on your J-O-B and tell her she’s here.” The receptionist rolled her eyes and walked over to a stylist with gold streaks that matched her gold apron. She was pulling big plastic rollers out from a little girl’s hair who was playing with a bushy-haired Barbie doll. But who was I to talk about wild-looking hair?

  I looked around at the women in different stages of hair metamorphosis. Some had white cream on their heads. Others were seated in high chairs with a hairdresser combing their freshly styled dos. Two women under hair dryers were holding a very loud conversation and strained to hear each other. I was fascinated that I could walk in with hair that was thick and free and walk out with straight, bouncy hair.

  Straight. Bouncy. The thought of drastically changing my hair crept up my back and crawled around my neck. I began to itch and squirm. Had I really thought about what I was about to do? I hadn’t even discussed it with my mother. A&I would be extremely disappointed. I loved my non-bouncy hair. It was all I knew. And now it could be gone forever? I didn’t know how to care for straight hair. It seemed difficult, time-consuming. The heat from the dryers made it hard to breathe.

  I…couldn’t…do…it.

  Before I passed out, I pleaded, “Sheena, maybe they could do something not so permanent to straighten my hair.”

  “Not ready to get a perm?” Sheena asked, as if she understood.

  I shook my head forcefully.

  She looked disappointed, but said, “All right, that might be too big of a step for you. Let me see if they got a hot comb in this place.” Sheena inquired with Maxine, who shook her head.

  She returned to talk with Tasha, the angry receptionist.

  “No hot comb? I’ve seen little girls get their hair straightened up in here before.” I could tell Sheena was about to go off. Luckily, before she battled with Tasha, a stylist who didn’t have anyone in her chair, stepped forward, lifted a hot comb, and said she could straighten my hair.

  It was like she raised a black fist in the air during a sixties protest, I felt the power. Whew. That was close. I felt my pressure rising. This was the perfect compromise. A relaxer was too permanent.

  “Okay, thanks. “Sheena directed me to the stylist. Although I found out later that she was hesitant to let Cynthia do my hair because there was a reason no one was sitting in her chair.

  After getting my hair washed and blow-dried, I was completely calm. The shampoo girl massaged my head and I almost fell asleep. I’d come back just to have her wash my hair.

  But the show had only begun for the rest of the women in the salon. As Cynthia straightened my hair with that hot apparatus that could double as a deadly weapon, all eyes were stuck to the girl with the half ’fro. I tried to ignore the dozen eyes peering at me.

  I opened an issue of XXL magazine that Cynthia had given me. I figured I should spend the time wisely and brush up on my hip-hop knowledge.

  H
ere’s what I eventually added to “How to Be Down”:

  Grow a butt or some hips (work on becoming Eye Candy)

  Get a weave

  Get some bling

  Get a hustle

  Learn how to do the Chicken Noodle Soup dance

  Learn lyrics to all Jay-Z songs

  Rappers to know: T.I., Lil Wayne, The Game, Dipset (this is a group)

  Sheena was finished and came over to watch me. Her hair was wrapped around her head and it was held together by hundreds of bobby pins. It looked like it hurt. I still didn’t know if it was her hair or not.

  “Hold your ear,” the stylist told me.

  “Damn, girl, I never realized how nappy your hair was,” Sheena said. “But she is workin’ it out. It’s gettin’ straight.”

  Before I knew it, the stylist had swirled my chair around and I was staring at a totally different person in the mirror.

  Straight. Bouncy. Beautiful. My hair hung past my shoulders. I had never realized how long it was. I flipped it back and forth like Jill and Amy used to do. The women in the salon who had watched my transformation flooded me with compliments.

  “Wow!” Nessa said. “Your hair looks amazing. You look like Lil’ Kim on her last album cover.” I did look sensational. Where was a photographer when you needed one? I looked like one of the models in XXL, just with more clothes on.

  “You do look like a different chick,” Sheena said. “Damn, I’m good.” She gave herself the credit.

  I felt different, too. In the words of Lil’ Junebug, one of the rappers profiled in XXL, “That’s what’s up.”

  We went to grab a bite to eat back at the mall. Nessa and I ate greasy French fries and fattening hamburgers on plastic tables while we sat in uncomfortable plastic chairs. Sheena got a salad and asked me if I knew how to deal with guys.

  “Do you know how to even holla at a guy?” Sheena asked.

  “What do you mean?” I needed a translator.

  “Watch and learn.” Sheena got up from the table, looked around the mall with a cheetah’s gaze, and attacked the first prey she thought suitable.

  Everything about him was oversized. His hat. His shirt. His necklace. His jeans. His boots. He was sinking in his own clothes. She flagged him down and waved him to come to the table. He pointed at himself to clarify that she was indeed talking to him.

  “Yeah, you,” Sheena responded.

  “What’s up, ladies?” Supersize said.

  “What’s up with you?” Sheena asked.

  “Nothin’, just came to pick up a few things.” He lifted his bags as evidence.

  “Whatsyourname?” Sheena asked it so quickly it came out as one word.

  “Jason,” he said, making his voice an octave deeper. Nessa and I tried to conceal our giggles.

  “Jason, do you got a girl?”

  “Uh, you know, I don’t have a wifey, if that’s what you mean. I’m just chillin’, doin’ my thing.”

  “Where you go to school?”

  “Baldwin,” he answered, this time making a nasty gesture with his tongue and lips.

  “Well, can I get your phone number?” Just like that. She didn’t even know him and she asked to call him.

  “Oh, mos def,” he said as they whipped out their cell phones and she added his number to her pink phone.

  “Cool, I’ll give you a call sometime this week,” she said.

  Jason looked like he didn’t want to leave, but Sheena dismissed him. It was really quite amazing to watch.

  Nessa and I burst into laughter.

  As Sheena sat down, she looked for Jason’s number and erased it from her phone.

  “Why’d you do that?” I asked.

  “’Cause I ain’t callin’ him, I was just showin’ you how to holla. I was not feelin’ him, those boots he had on were like three years old.”

  “See, with guys, you got to take control. They like that. They like to be the ones to fall back for a change instead of always havin’ to pursue us.”

  “Take control, got it.”

  “But honestly, I wouldn’t say this if Vivica was here,” Sheena said, “I think you and Jeffrey make a cute little couple.”

  “Is she mad at me or something?” I asked.

  “Vivica is just mad moody,” Nessa said as she stabbed a fry into a pool of ketchup. I felt relieved that I wasn’t the only one who noticed.

  “I think she struggles with being light-skinned,” Nessa concluded. “She’s always talking about it, like it’s some illness.”

  “Like that,” Nessa said as she pointed to a black boy and a white girl holding hands. “She’d have a fit if she saw that. I think she has self-esteem issues.”

  It made sense. And now I felt bad for Vivica.

  CHAPTER 18

  The moment I walked into the house, and not a second later, my mother screamed like she just witnessed a horrific crime. It was one of those high-pitched, disturb your eardrum shrieks.

  “What have you done?” she asked hysterically. My father ran from the kitchen to respond to the commotion. He stopped like he was about to run into a crime scene.

  “Isaiah, look! Look at what Nina did. Her hair, her beautiful hair is ruined!” My mother was now in tears. She grabbed her dreads to check if they were still there.

  “Annie, calm down.” My father walked over and hugged me. He smoothed my silky hair, put his palms on my cheeks and kissed my forehead.

  “You’re beautiful,” he whispered.

  My mother looked like she was going to fall flat onto the hand-stitched rug behind her. Usually when my mother was angry, she’d get a few forehead lines, which helped me judge the intensity of her mood. This time, there weren’t any lines. Her forehead was just burning red. I could only imagine what that meant. On second thought, I didn’t want to.

  She stormed into the family room, snatched a picture album, grabbed me by my arm, pulled me down on the couch, and began a rather torturous history of my hair.

  “Since you were born,” she said between sniffles, “your hair has been kept pristine, unadulterated.

  “See, this is you at five years old with the cutest Afro I’ve ever seen.” I looked at my father and he shrugged his shoulders.

  “This is you at seven years old with little braids, so sweet.” She turned and her eyes burned a hole into me.

  “Why? Why would you do this to yourself?”

  I wanted to say, “Ma, it’s just hair, it’s not like I’m telling you I’m pregnant,” but I wasn’t stupid. Instead, I said, “Mommy, it’s not a perm. It’s just straightened with a hot comb. I didn’t want such a drastic change. I do love my natural hair. I just wanted a different look.”

  My father started laughing. My mother silenced him with a look.

  “All that carrying on, Annie, and it isn’t even permed! Our daughter is growing up and finding herself. We have to respect the young woman she is becoming.”

  My mother wiped her tears with the sleeve of her shirt. “I don’t understand why you felt that you had to change your hair. Or get new clothes. It’s like you want to be a different person.”

  She’s the one who had transported me from my happy little life in New Jersey to bring me down to the city that XXL referred to as “the concrete jungle” in their review of the Baltimore-based show The Wire.

  “I’m just doing what you told me to do, embrace change.” That seemed to settle her a little. But I still knew it wasn’t a good time to whip out the baby tee that said “Don’t You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me.” It was a cue to go upstairs and not be seen or heard but wallow in the tragedy that was my new life.

  I marched to my bedroom, making sure not to stomp, because that would be asking for trouble. In my room, I dived into my pillows. The day had been a whirlwind like one of those carnival rides and I was beginning to feel sick.

  CHAPTER 19

  I was scheduled to help Vivica Saturday morning. I tried everything to get out of it, even bribery.

  “Mommy, if yo
u don’t make me do this, I promise to attend any college you want me to, including Howard.” She knew I didn’t want to go there. She was helping me unpack the boxes in my room that were making it hard for me to move around.

  “While I appreciate your enticing offer, I don’t understand why you are so reluctant to help a friend.”

  “She doesn’t like me.” A&I couldn’t fathom the idea that someone would dislike their perfect creation. They thought they could convert lost souls to believe in the goodness of Nina Parker.

  After we finished unpacking my room, my mother told me it was time to go over to Vivica’s.

  Mr. Lamont answered the door. Every time I saw him he was dressed like he was going to work. I liked that, but I wondered if he ever threw on sweatpants to relax.

  “Hi, Nina,” he said. “I didn’t recognize you at first with the new do. Come in.” I walked into the living room, which looked like it could be in anyone’s house. The neutral brown carpeting, plain walls, and mandatory sofa made it feel very common. But maybe they were still acquiring things for their new space. The dining room was empty and the kitchen was filled with boxes. The smell of pancakes lingered and made me remember that I hadn’t eaten breakfast. Mr. Lamont led me to Vivica’s room and thanked me for being a lifesaver.

  When Vivica saw my hair, the first thing she did was tilt her head and squint her eyes. I wasn’t sure what that meant. Then she said it looked nice. She looked nice just to be lounging around the house. A denim dress, tights, and shoes that didn’t look like they’d been broken in yet. I wondered where she was going. I still had on the sweatpants and T-shirt that I’d worked in that morning.

  Vivica was definitely one of those girly girls, but her bright pink room confirmed it. The walls, throw rugs, bedding, lamps, furniture, all pink. I felt like I was inside a piece of strawberry bubble gum.

  My eyes zoomed in on a copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez on her antique wooden nightstand, one of the few nonpink objects in the room.