Chageet's Electric Dance

by Ashir, Rebecca

Rave shifted in his seat uneasily. “You sure you don’t want to dine and ditch?”

  Barbey looked at Rave and smiled gently as she said, “Ok, let’s dine and ditch.”

  ****

  While Dreambee’s was abuzz with laughter, chit chat, and crying children, the player piano pounded out a piano rendition of Cindi Lauper’s “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” Barbey wanted to have fun; she wanted to unveil herself and bask in the delicious sensuality of the forbidden. Her grandmother’s canopy seemed a sort of mythical cage now, marking moral boundaries, separating her from perceived redemption. Images of the white fabric flowed through the air in her mind. “So, how about we, like, put a piece of glass in the food and then complain to the waiter,” Barbey suggested. “They’ll give us the meal free cause they want to avoid a lawsuit. I saw it in a movie once.”

  Rave grinned at her endearingly, as if she were a little girl in need of guidance. “Nah, too cliché. You…you wait here while…while… I go to the restroom. I’ll be right back.” He grabbed his heavy overcoat. “Signal the waiter over and ask him to refill your water.”

  Without delay, Barbey signaled the waiter, following Rave’s directions, and then sent him to get a refill. She sat there for a moment twirling her hair between her fingers, glancing around the restaurant, and then looking under the table at all the colorful chewed gum wads stuck beneath. When Rave returned to the booth, he told her to go have her fortune told at the mechanical fortune teller in the lobby where he’d meet her shortly.

  She looked at him inquisitively, blinking her glittering eyes. The lights overhead seemed hot to her now, causing the thick white shadow on her lids to suddenly slide off from perspiration in an avalanche of snow that trapped her frozen in place from the floor to her waist.

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said. “Everything’s taken care of.”

  A bolt of lightning shot out of each eye simultaneously. Storm clouds slid across her pupils as each eyeball welled up with cold water.

  The pile of snow surrounding her began to melt as rain poured from her eyes.

  She was frightened.

  Turning away to hide her thoughts, she grabbed her handbag quickly and went to the fortune teller machine. Internally, her body raced with adrenaline, but externally, she maintained a calm façade. What is his plan? Why didn’t he explain it to me?

  The fortune teller was a life-sized ceramic woman with sharp features, ghostly eyes, and a sharp red slit for a mouth that sat inside of a wooden booth. Upon her head, rested a large emerald turban coiled up like a snake and upon her body draped a long black cloak, translucent as a shadow. Barbey stared at the crystal ball resting in the fortune teller’s hands, as she inhaled deeply, her heart beating fast in her chest. Quickly, she glanced over at the table where Rave was finishing his soda and observed the waiter pointing to the entry/exit way, as he handed Rave the check. Wiping her eyes with her delicate, shaking fingers, Barbey looked at the doorway, near the candy section, where the cashier was located. He was cashing a customer out as he chatted about being from Dallas.

  Taking in another deep breath, she put a quarter in the machine and the crystal ball lit up as the fortune teller blinked and raised her hands over the ball. The ceramic woman suddenly looked up from the crystal ball, wide-eyed, directly into Barbey’s glassy eyes. An icicle sliced through Barbey’s body. With a maniacal laugh, mouth open, head tilted back, the fortune teller demanded, “Take your fate.” The machine spit out a card and Barbey took it.

  The restaurant smelled of smoke.

  Quivering, she read the card: The only true reality is light—all else is an illusion—just as I am. She dropped the card to the floor. The fortune teller appeared to her now to be dark and coarse, physical, and anything, but light. Barbey’s head ached, her nose began to shrink, but her hands felt so hard and plastic; she wondered if light was beneath their physical surface. Smoke was exuding from the men’s restroom. Her head pounded and all her thoughts retreated into some movie reel on the shelves of her mind and seemed to hide from consciousness. Some of the customers in the restaurant were looking around inquisitively, raising their chins as if sniffing the air, tapping on their partner’s shoulders.

  Then Rave yelled out, “Fire! There’s a fire!” He ran to Barbey and grabbed her by the arm and quickly guided her toward the exit. Other people in the restaurant started running for the door, while others looked around stunned, holding onto their children’s shoulders or wrists. Rave yelled to the cashier, “There’s a fire coming from the restroom.”

  “What?” The cashier looked alarmed. People started running out of the restaurant.

  “A fire!” Barbey said, as she and Rave ran out the door.

  When they got inside Barbey’s car, she said accusingly, “How could you set the parlor on fire?” Rave started the car as she continued, “People could get hurt or, like, even die. Why’d you do such a horrible thing?” She started crying. “How could you?”

  “Calm…calm down. It…it was only a…a smoke bomb,” Looking over his shoulder, he backed out of the parking space. “It just lets…lets out a lot of smoke—not fire.”

  “So, nobody could get hurt? It’s just smoke?”

  “Yeah. Nobody could…could get hurt,” he looked at Barbey affectionately and then, screeching the tires, he pulled out of the parking lot.

  Barbey giggled in relief, “You really freaked me out. That was such a smart idea. How did you get a smoke bomb?”

  “They’re…they’re easy to get. There’s mail order magazines for fireworks and other ways, but I made this one.”

  “Watch out!” Barbey screamed, as Rave slammed the brakes at a red light. She didn’t want to embarrass him for not initially noticing the red light, so deflecting the attention off his mistake, she continued, “You made it? How did you do that?”

  As they waited at the light, Rave started tapping out a heavy metal song with his fingers against the steering wheel. “A buddy of mine taught me. I can make some that smoke up a…a whole neighborhood.”

  “What song are you playing with your fingers?”

  “It’s Metallica,” Rave seemed lost in the rhythm, in the intensity of his victory. “We did it. They’ll never know it was us.” With his eyes closed, seemingly in a state of drummer’s nirvana, his head slowly raised to the accelerando of the set and finished with a quick snap forward, as his eyes opened. He looked at Barbey flirtatiously and smiled coolly. Barbey’s body tingled in rapture as his cold, dark pupils imprinted the hollowness of her plastic body. The light turned green.

  “Your pupils are so large,” Barbey said, as she basked in the intensity of the night. “It’s as if you’re other worldly. I’ve never seen such large pupils.”

  “Yeah, I’m…I’m from the ‘Twilight Zone,’” he smirked.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Uh, actually,” he paused and responded dryly, “I don’t.”

  Barbey liked the rhythm of his voice and the almost contrived manner in which he paused in the midst of sentences with a confident air.

  Looking in the side mirror, as he merged onto the freeway, he continued, “But, I…I expect to know everything about you—every detail of every part of you. That…that is my intention.”

  For an instant, Barbey felt as if she could not breathe. No man had ever confessed with such confidence and conviction inner feelings of this manner. The foreignness of his proclaimed intentions aroused Barbey, lighting a tiny alien flame within her heart. It was only a slight flicker, yet unexplainable, exotic in nature. This flicker seemed to elevate Barbey, as if an inner flame had been ignited and then turned up the slightest notch. The diminutive flame was more esoteric than her perceived soul connection from the night prior. The flicker seemed to be burning away something old, while making space for something new. She felt high, bursting with life. For the rest of the drive, neither of them uttered a word. Barbey was unable to speak and Rave seemed to be in deep contemplation.

  The night air was
thick and heavy, casting shadows with flickers of light from the city left behind, as the Jeep, like a shiny metal snake, slithered up the windy road of Shadow Mountain to a secluded place at the peak where young people park to kiss each other under the dark sky. To Barbey’s surprise and dismay, Rave did not attempt any physical contact with her the entire night. With his flirtatious conversation and penetrating stares, he trifled with her emotions, intentionally or unintentionally—it could not be clear to an onlooker, drawing her in and then, slightly turning away to gaze out the window aloofly as a subtle rejection, like a cat cruelly toying with a mouse—the mouse inwardly begging for relief, while the cat gently loosening its grip, letting it out of its clutch for an instant and pulling it back in, slowly clawing and biting at its tail, its neck, until it surrenders helplessly, passively, entirely to the cat. Oblivious to this possible design, Barbey was only aware of the deepening of her emotions, her increasing desire, and her ever growing love for the bad boy of her dreams, her rock and her redeemer.

  15

  Foxmore Beauty Academy was located in an old, non-distinct, white washed building situated across the street from The Salvation Army in a rundown business district on the corner of Main and Third in downtown El Cajon. The building contained a front main office that smelled of coffee and pastries, three classrooms that smelled of perm solutions and other sharp smelling liquids, and a bathroom off the hall that smelled of lilac air freshener and cigarettes. Because Barbey was a first semester student, her classroom was the smallest of the three square-shaped rooms with gaudy flamingo pink walls and sea foam green trim moldings, reminiscent of early ’80’s Floridian design. In the front of her classroom, there was a large green chalkboard, a lecture pulpit, and the teacher’s desk with drawers. In the middle, there were three rows of rectangular tables with chairs. And in the back, there were two hair washing basins and two sit down hair dryers.

  Now, sitting in the cool air conditioned room with their mannequin heads firmly fastened down on the tables, the students listened to Mrs. Sanders, an uptight middle aged woman with short black roller-set hair, demonstrate a finger wave on her mannequin head which was fastened to the pulpit. “First you heavily sprits the mannequin’s hair with water and then smooth styling lotion over the hair, thoroughly saturating until it is nice and wet.” She combed the wet hair smooth. “Then with your comb, slide the first section of hair forward while directing the hair above and below the comb in the opposite direction as such. You want the hair to be neat and smooth much in the form of a wave.” Mrs. Sanders looked up. “There, you see. She’s looking much like a 1920’s flapper.”

  Kimberly Jenkins, a blonde quarrelsome young woman, interjected, “What’s the point of this Mrs. Sanders? Nobody wears their hair like that anymore?”

  “Not so Kimberly. The finger wave has crossed all eras. Yet, that is not relevant to our learning, for the finger wave teaches control and technique and is going to be on the state licensing exam…” She paused and looked around the room at the students’ faces. “…so get used to it. We’ll be doing finger waves regularly.”

  Barbey began working on her mannequin head with heightened confidence—exhilarated from her adventures with Rave the night prior. Everything that had seemed burdensome or mundane in the past now seemed effortless and exalted. She felt superior, in a sense, to the other girls now that she had met Rave. I’m the luckiest girl in the world—higher than anyone! The thought caused her cheeks to blush pink as sponge rollers. Oh, how I wish everybody could experience true love as I have. Her mind twirled on its frontal lobe toes in triple pirouette. I wish everyone could be as happy as me!

  Her thoughts pivot stepped into a reminiscent daydream of her first night with Rave at the ocean, as they walked along the shoreline to the pier. Fan kick—she remembered seeing and feeling the waves rise and fall in a rhythmic, awesome dance—shoulder roll, barrel turn, jazz split. Inspired by the memory, she thoroughly saturated the hair into a dark ocean of water and styling lotion, combed it straight and began sliding the comb through the hair like an oar slicing the water. Wielding the oar precisely, she guided the hair, running her fingers around and over the waves fluidly to the rhythm of the ocean dance, until the entire head of hair was positioned into preeminent three-dimensional waves.

  “Ok, students, make sure you don’t strain or drag the hair,” Mrs. Sanders interjected, as she positioned Rosa Sanchez’s comb into the hair. “The comb must be positioned against the scalp.” Mrs. Sanders slowly weaved in and out through the rows of tables criticizing and praising various students’ works.

  Some of the girls were complimenting Barbey’s finger waves, envious of her creation. From across the table, Kimberly Jenkins yelled at Barbey, “You’re not supposed to make the waves like that—all raised up off the head! It’s supposed to be flat! Right, Mrs. Sanders?” Kimberly Jenkins was a thin, average looking blonde who wore heavy makeup, dressed in cheap, risqué clothing and tried too hard to look attractive.

  Mrs. Sanders walked over to Barbey’s station and examined her mannequin head. “The assignment was to make two-dimensional finger waves, not three, but in a few weeks we will be learning three-dimensional waves after we’ve perfected the two-dimensional.” She turned to Barbey, “Who taught you three-dimensional waves?”

  “Nobody taught me, Mrs. Sanders. Sometimes I just tap into another world and this time, this is how it turned out.”

  “Well,” Mrs. Sanders appeared perplexed. “You should follow the assignments and stay out of that world while you’re in class. We don’t have time for experimentation. Brush out the hair and start over.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Sanders.” Normally Barbey would have been hurt or offended by a teacher’s rebukes, but today she was not able to let this affect her because she felt above all reproach. Consequently, she sloppily finger waved the hair into a two-dimensional design, put her head down on the table, and returned to her fantastic thoughts.

  “Barbey!” Kimberly called out from across the table.

  Startled, she jerked her head up and looked over at Kimberly.

  “Are you going out with Rave Robinson?”

  Her forwardness embarrassed Barbey. The room seemed brighter suddenly, as if she were sitting under a spotlight. Feeling the perspiration rising to the surface on her forehead, she glanced around the room to see if anyone else was listening. A few of the students looked up, but most seemed uninterested, likely used to Kimberly’s obnoxious behaviors. Barbey was uncomfortable speaking openly about her new love interest to a girl she hardly knew and even more uncomfortable speaking before a room of people. “I didn’t realize that you were friends with Rave.”

  “Well, I know about him is all. I heard you were making out with him in TJ.”

  Barbey was indignant. “I wasn’t making out with him! Who told you that?”

  “Everybody knows the two of you are seeing each other. Parker Pennington told Suzie Albers and Suzie Albers told Liz Strothers and Liz told me.”

  She was appalled that rumors were already starting about her relationship with Rave. “I didn’t know you knew Parker or Rave,” she spoke softly, trying to tame her anger, as it writhed in invisible smoke over her head. “I thought you go to El Cajon High School?”

  “Yeah, so does Parker Pennington. Rave Robinson hangs around at school sometimes with Parker or I see him at parties. And Rave Robinson used to go out with Suzie Albers. Suzie Albers goes to my school. You go to Lexington High, right?”

  “Yeah,” Barbey was visibly upset now, her throat tightening, her cheeks red as Kimberly’s long fingernails. “I don’t know why people can’t, like, just keep their mouths shut and mind their own business. I wasn’t making out with him in Mexico and it’s nobody’s business anyway.”

  “Elvira and I are going to Deliville for lunch. You want to come?”

  Considering she thought that Kimberly wasn’t fond of her, the invitation surprised her. But she accepted anyway, hoping that if she made friends with her, she would hav
e a more peaceful experience in class. Her anger waded over her head, glaring down at her as it swung from the fluorescent lights above her desk, but she tried to ignore it. School had only started a week ago and she hadn’t made close friends with anyone yet. Kimberly Jenkins and Elvira Lopez seemed to be the most confident, outspoken students in the class; therefore, the most popular in the sense that bullies most often rule in an animal world. It would be wise to get on their good sides.