Finding the Forger (7 page)

T
HE REST OF my week was pretty uneventful, and pretty much consumed with how to mask my hair disaster from the outside world. The bandana thing had to go the next day. Sarah was right. It violated the dress code in some perverse gender-equality way. You see, boys aren’t allowed to wear caps or hats in our school, so in order to make things “equal,” the powers that be have declared that girls can’t wear any head coverings, either.

Now, maybe I’m a little nutso here, but I think the reason the boys can’t wear the caps is because it’s a symbol of disrespect. You know, that whole backwards baseball cap kind of thing (and yes, I’m ashamed to say that Doug has worn backward baseball caps on occasion, too) is a sort of “in your face” iconoclasm. (Okay, okay, so it’s vocab week in English. “Iconoclasm” is attacking settled beliefs or institutions.)

Wearing a bandana, on the other hand, is merely adornment. It has nothing whatsoever to do with attacking institutions, or rebellion of any kind. It’s a fashion statement—the height of conformity! I wanted to look nice, just like the other girls!

But this kind of deep thought has not penetrated to the Founding Mothers of our Dress Code Constitution, and, as Sarah had predicted, Mrs. Taney asked me to remove the bandana on
Wednesday afternoon.

When I took it off, Barbara Jaworski fainted. Fell like a tree right in the back of English class, and barely missed hitting her head on the folding table with our English projects. Boy, was I ever embarrassed! I started saying “I’m sorry,” while Taney rushed to get the nurse.

While I thought there was a cause-and-effect thing going on here, it turns out Barb had a fever and was coming down with the flu. She was sent home early.

On Thursday and Friday, I didn’t want to risk any more hair casualties, so I managed to work the wiry strands into two pigtails, which would have been a cute retro style if it weren’t for the fact that I don’t look good in pigtails.

This whole hair ruckus, though, kept me from focusing too much on the Sarah/Kerrie ruckus, which seemed to quiet down into an uneasy truce. My guess was that Sarah had given in and given up on the Boston trip. Whatever had happened, it did the trick, at least enough for Kerrie and Sarah and I to eat lunch together with some polite, if frosty, conversation about our school work. We scrupulously avoided two subjects—the weekend, and college applications.

I thought a lot about the museum weirdness and even tried to get more out of Connie after school on Thursday, but all she would tell me was that there were some “improprieties” and maybe it was a little deeper than just some misplaced artists’ supplies.

“Art theft,” I’d announced standing in her doorway, and I could tell from her quick smile that I’d hit the bull’s-eye.

“That only happens in books,” she said.

“Why else would they be checking out the modern stuff? You don’t need to restore something that was just painted, for cryin’ out
loud.”

She said nothing.

“And they’ve contracted with you because they don’t want the police in on it—it would get in the papers. The alarm going off and the cops coming freaked them out.” Woohoo! I was figuring it out. Her body language was giving it all away—she was squirming, picking non-existent lint off her skirt.

“The stolen art supplies,” I said, suddenly inspired, “was just a cover—something they said to keep the cops from digging deeper.”

“Your hair’s looking a little better today,” she said, emphasizing the “little.”

Ah-ha. In Balducci language, her response had meant “you are correct, oh wise younger sibling, but it will cost me too much in pride and honor to admit it, so I must insult you in this sly, subtle way. Please forgive me.”

So I had all this to think about as I headed into the weekend.

Ah, the weekend. I was in one of those friend dilemmas. Sunday was the museum shindig Sarah had invited Doug and me to. I was really looking forward to it because not only would I get to be with Doug at some posh get-together. I’d also have a chance to play PI at the “scene of the crime.”

The fly in this ointment? Call me crazy, but I don’t think Sarah had invited Kerrie. Probably because she knew Kerrie and Doug and I were doing the mall crawl on Saturday together, so we’d have had an opportunity to girlfriend-bond, and Sarah would want Sunday for her own chance at that emotional pie. Plus, Sarah had given up the trip to Boston, so she might not have been feeling very “inviting” to Kerrie. Didn’t I tell you I felt like a kid in a bad custody case? Pulled back and forth?

My dilemma—should I mention the museum thing to Kerrie?
Or, should I suggest Sarah invite Kerrie, too? And if, as I suspected, Sarah was deliberately leaving Kerrie out of the invite, should I decline to attend as well?

In religion class, we deal often with “love thy neighbor” stuff, but we don’t get into real-life details like this. And, as they say, the devil’s in the details.

I’d have to think about it. But for now, I put it off. Friday evening was rolling around and I was headed to a hair doctor, then out to dinner, then back home and some blissful time emailing Doug, who would be home from his part-time job. Then Saturday, I’d see him in the flesh. Ah, life was good. Moral dilemmas could wait.

On Friday afternoon, right after school, my mother picked me up. The fact that she did this emphasized just how bad this hair thing was. She took off work early to drive to school, chauffeur me to Hair Force One, and back home after I was done. If I thought about this too much, I could get really depressed.

To add to the sense of crisis, as soon as I walked through the door of Hair Force One, the beautician took hold of me as if I were an accident victim entering an emergency room for treatment. “Oh, dear, come right this way. Yes, we were told you’d be coming . . .” Really made me re-evaluate the impression I had made all week and the control I thought I’d mustered over The Hair Situation.

After they tucked me in the chair and placed the plastic apron over me, my mother stood nearby, explaining the perm event, which only added to the atmosphere of medical crisis. During this recitation of the disaster, the beautician nodded sagely while I looked from her to my mother, half expecting someone to connect me to an IV drip and heart monitor. I was beyond caring. I didn’t want to wear pigtails any longer. I couldn’t wear the bandana.
Anything would be better.
Anything
.

For an hour and a half, they shampooed and conditioned and clipped and shaped, and I felt comfortable, my ego-wounds soothed. There’s something ultra-relaxing about sitting in a beauty shop chair, having someone fiddle with your hair. The very name— beauty shop—makes you feel pampered and special. As if anyone who walks in looking foul will automatically walk out a beauty. I, for one, was ready to believe.

By the time the beautician—Nell was her name—handed me a mirror to take in the 360 degree view of my new hair, I was ready for small improvements—the frizz tamed, the Brillo controlled, the Annie ratcheted back a notch or two to, oh, “understudy” level maybe. My expectations were modest.

Instead, when I finally let myself look at my new hair with wide open eyes, what I found was, well, what I was aiming for in the first place—casual attractiveness.

I couldn’t believe it. My heart started pounding. I thought I heard angels singing. I knelt and kissed the ground Nell walked on.

Well, not really. But I sure was grateful.

My hair was cut short—much shorter than I ever would have opted for on my own—and it was tinted a little with reddish highlights. The frizz was cut off, leaving only waves, nice natural-looking waves that framed my face and trickled down my neck. I was dumbstruck. I was moved.

“Do you like it?” Nell asked.

“Uh. Yes. Yes. A lot,” I managed to say. I was already envisioning which earrings would look good with this new style. Maybe big hoops. Or even fake diamond studs—the ones my mom bought from the Avon saleswoman last year. This was perfect. This was hair nirvana. Hair paradise. A little make-up and the right clothes
and I would look . . . human!

“Bianca, I’ve been wanting you to get your hair done like this forever,” my mother said, standing next to the chair. “It sets off your face so well.”

While she paid for this extravagance, I continued to walk on clouds. Doug would be so impressed. Doug would love it. Everyone would love it.

My mother even listened intently to Nell explaining the benefits of some million-buck shampoo and conditioner, and then—I am not making this up—Mom bought some for me! So this is how gorgeous women lived—buying million dollar shampoos and hair treatments, having people stare at them in a good way, not the “what’s that on your head?” way.

In fact, as soon as we left the shop, I caught a guy staring at me—the “hmmm . . . nice” kind of stare. I sopped it up like a sponge. I was where I wanted to be—in Lovely Land.

I was beginning to wonder if I was dreaming, but when we ended up at my Aunt Rosa’s restaurant, yet more manifestations of my altered state occurred. The waiter, who usually made bug eyes at Connie, started hitting on me! He hovered near my place while taking our orders (only a formality at Aunt Rosa’s since she told us what was good and we ordered it or suffered family excommunication). He placed the bread basket in front of
me
. Ignoring everyone else, he asked
me
if I would like more iced tea. Even Tony picked up on it and muttered something about how I should ask him out. I kicked Tony, of course, while thinking “darn straight he likes me. I’m a babe.”

Life was good. And by the time I got home that night and did my IM routine with Doug, I was feeling like nothing, but nothing, could drag me down.

T
HEN CAME SATURDAY, which started out well enough. Pancakes, made by Mom, Connie in a good mood, Tony silent (hey, what more could I ask for?), and I was still feeling pretty—well — pretty.

I didn’t even fret over what to wear. The night before, I’d laid it all out on the one clean spot on my dresser—a khaki skirt (almost like Connie’s, but hotter), black long-sleeved tee, gold hoop earrings, and clogs.

Things didn’t really start going wrong until right before I left for the mall. I was standing at the door waiting for Doug to pick me up when Connie breezed by.

“Guess you heard,” she said, sipping on some herbal tea that smelled almost as bad as my hair the morning before.

“Heard what?”

“That museum thing—now they’re fingering some guard.”

“What?” A guard—Hector? And fingering him for what? But before she had a chance to answer, I saw Doug pull up and I had to go before he tried to parallel park in the one open spot on the block. I’d seen Doug try to parallel park before. It’s not something women and children should watch.

So when I went to the car, I was already feeling out of sorts. Then—more bad vibes! Really bad! Kerrie was sitting in the front seat!

Instead of picking me up first and then going together to retrieve my girlfriend, Doug had violated the first rule of Girlfriend/Boyfriend Regulations—that is, the girlfriend comes first! Always.

When she saw me, Kerrie, a big grin on her face, said, “Here, let me get in the back.” But just then a car behind Doug started honking because he was double-parked and I muttered a quick “that’s okay” and slid into the back seat. Or I should say, I sulked in the back seat, because that’s what I felt like doing. Sulking.