Half and Half (5 page)

Amanda gulped. “Okay. Maybe we can get Melissa to help. Like I told you, she's been thinking about dyeing her hair, but she still hasn't made up her mind to do it.” After a moment, she said, “Maybe seeing you do it will help her decide.”

Before going to the Tanakas' after school, Amanda and I went to the nearest drugstore to buy some hair dye. I found so many different kinds of dyes that I had no idea what to get. “What color are you trying for?” asked Amanda. It was a good question. I just wanted something that wouldn't make me stick out in the dance troupe. “Well, maybe I should aim for Ron's hair color.”

Mom's hair is a fiery red, but Ron's hair is closer to the color on the package labeled “chestnut.” So that was what I wound up buying.

We found Melissa at home. As usual, she looked at me without much friendliness. But her expression changed when Amanda said, “Fiona wants to dye her hair red, Melissa. Can you help her with the dyeing?”

Melissa broke into a smile. “Sure! Hey, when my mom sees how nice your hair looks, maybe she'll change her mind and let me dye mine.”

We got to work. Actually, it was Melissa who did all the work, while Amanda stood around getting in everybody's way in the crowded bathroom. Melissa put on a pair of rubber gloves that came with the kit and squeezed the goo from the tube of dye. Underneath the strong perfume, I could tell there was another smell, something chemical. I didn't know what it was, and I didn't want to know.

After all the goo was used up and worked into my hair, Melissa stood back and looked at me thoughtfully. “Hmm … your hair still looks awfully dark. Maybe it's because it was almost black to start with.”

“We probably have to wait a little before the color changes,” suggested Amanda.

We waited for about ten minutes, while I sat on the edge of the bathtub and peeked at the mirror every so
often. It was pretty uncomfortable. The package said to wait for forty-five minutes, but shouldn't the color be redder by now?

“I've got an idea,” Melissa said to me. “I have a package of dye for blond hair. That's the color I've been thinking of using. Why don't we put some of that stuff on your hair? It should lighten your color a bit.”

“I don't know,” said Amanda. “Better not take a chance.”

I looked in the mirror again. My hair was still dark brown, not Ron's chestnut. “Okay, let's try it,” I said.

So Melissa opened her tube of dye and worked some of it into my hair. “Hey, I'm beginning to see a difference,” she said after a few minutes.

I looked in the mirror. She was right. My hair was definitely lighter. Then things began to happen, and happen fast.

“It's red enough now!” yelled Amanda. “Isn't there some way to stop the dyeing?”

“We'd better rinse!” said Melissa.

I leaned over the washbasin while Melissa ran hot water over my head. “Ouch! That's too hot!” I cried.

“The water has to be hot enough to stop the dyeing,” panted Melissa.

After some furious rinsing and massaging, Melissa stopped the water. “It's not going to change any more,” she said. Her voice was shaking badly, and that really scared me.

What scared me even more was the sight of Amanda. She was hunched over, with her hands covering her face.

I took a deep breath, and slowly raised my eyes to look in the mirror.

You know when you scoop some orange Jell-O into a bowl and it's still wobbling? That was how my hair looked, as I stood there trembling and stared at myself. I swear that my hair would have glowed in the dark if we'd turned the lights off.

So much for blending in.

After a long silence, Melissa cleared her throat. “Maybe we should go back to the store and get some dark-brown dye.”

“I don't need to dye again, because I'm already going to die when my family sees this,” I said hoarsely. “Anyway, it's late and I have to go home.”

My feet began to drag as I approached our front door. What was I going to say to Dad and Mom? To Ron? To Grandpa and Grandma MacMurray? If my hair had turned out chestnut, I could have explained that I wanted to look like part of the dance troupe. But how do you explain orange Jell-O?

Ron was the first person I met in the house. He stared. “You've got to be kidding!” he said. “What were you thinking?”

“I guess I was thinking I needed a change.”

“It's a change all right. You look like a tree with leaves that are turning bright orange and falling off. Is your hair going to fall off too?” Then he laughed and went into the kitchen to fix himself a snack. It would never occur to him that I might want to have hair the same color as his.

The next person I met was Grandma. She was sitting in the living room, and when she saw me, she put her hand over her mouth. “Oh, my poor Fiona!”

Laughter I was prepared to face, but sympathy was too
much. My mouth trembled, and I could feel hot tears welling up.

“Come here, darling,” said Grandma. She pulled me over to the sofa and sat down next to me, putting her arms around my shoulders. “I suppose it's too late to change? The dye is permanent?”

“I'm stuck with it until my hair grows out!” I wailed. “It will take years!”

“Not years, only months,” she said, giving me her handkerchief.

That wasn't much comfort. I honked into the handkerchief, which became a soggy mess. “I dyed my hair because I want to belong to the troupe,” I said, sniffling. “I want to look like a Scottish dancer!”

Grandma's arms tightened around me. “Listen, Fiona, not all Scots have red hair. In fact some have dark hair, as dark as yours.”

I sat up. “I didn't know that!”

“Before the Celts arrived in Scotland, there were people living there called Picts,” said Grandma. “They were a smaller, darker people. They had mostly dark hair and spoke a different language.”

I had thought that Scottish people were all big and fair, and looked like Grandpa and Grandma MacMurray. I wiped my eyes with Grandma's soggy handkerchief. “Are there many Picts left?” I asked.

“You still see people in Scotland who are small and dark, especially in the Highlands,” said Grandma. “Your dark hair wouldn't have looked too out of place.”

“Then why is Grandpa so anxious for Ron to be one of the dancers?” I asked.

“Let me explain,” said Grandma. “Your grandpa loved to dance. He was a notable dancer in his youth. The name Alec MacMurray meant something in the world of Scottish dance.”

I tried to picture Grandpa leaping around in a kilt.

“Oh, you should have seen him when he was young!” said Grandma, her eyes sparkling. Then she sighed. “Your grandpa had always hoped that someday he would have a boy who would love dancing as much as he did.”

“Instead, you had Mom,” I said softly.

“We're both very proud of your mother,” said Grandma. “Don't think for a minute that we're sorry we never had a son!”

“But Mom doesn't care much about Highland dancing, does she?” I said.

Grandma gave me another hug. “And you do. How you look doesn't matter, Fiona. The only thing that matters is that you're a grand dancer. Grandpa will find that out soon enough.”

“Find what out?” said Grandpa, coming into the living room.

“Guess,” said Grandma, and she winked at me.

I waited for Grandpa to say something about my hair, but he just looked at me for a second and then said, “Better do your homework now, Fiona. We have more rehearsing to do this evening.”

Did he notice my hair? Would he even notice if my hair was the color of a red traffic light that blinked on and off?

I went upstairs and tried to do my homework, but I soon gave up because I couldn't concentrate. Dad was due home any minute and I couldn't stop thinking about what his reaction would be. Would he be hurt and angry because he'd think I was trying to look more Scottish and less Chinese? Of course that wasn't the real reason I'd dyed my
hair. I'd never do anything to hurt Dad's feelings. I just wanted to look like everyone else.

Dad came home twenty minutes later. I was waiting near the front hall so he would see me immediately and get it over with.

When he came in the door, he just stared at me silently. I couldn't read his expression, and my heart was thumping as I waited for him to say something.

“I'm glad you didn't change your features, anyway,” he said finally.

I didn't understand what he meant by that. Change my features? I may have dyed my hair, but even with permanent dye, nothing was really permanent. My hair would grow back its real color. I hadn't actually changed anything about myself. Couldn't Dad see that? At least he didn't look angry or upset. That was a huge relief.

I spent the next half hour trying to figure out the best way to wear my new hair. Finding a style that suited it wasn't easy. I'd already seen the bowl of Jell-O look. Next I tried braids, but I ended up looking like Pippi Longstocking. Then I tried a ponytail, but it looked like a cheerleader's
pom-pom. Putting barrettes in it just seemed to attract more attention to it. Finally I decided to just let it be Jell-O.

When Mom came home and saw me, she stopped dead. After a moment she sighed. “All right, all right, you're just expressing your independence or whatever. I'm not in a position to say anything, since I went through a stage of sporting long green fingernails.”

I wanted to hug her, I was so happy at her reaction. She knew I wasn't trying to deny who I was inside. I was just trying to fit in for once.

That left one more person to face, and it was the hardest one: Nainai, my Chinese grandmother. She's always telling me how much I look like Dad, her favorite son. How would she feel, now that I had orange Jell-O hair?

I would soon find out, because Dad and I were going to the airport to pick her up this evening.

a
s Dad and I drove to the airport, I tried to imagine how Nainai would feel when she saw my hair. Would she think I dyed my hair so I wouldn't look like Dad anymore? So I wouldn't even look Chinese anymore?

Anxiously scanning the passengers filing out of the airplane, I finally caught sight of her slight figure. I braced myself as she approached. What would she say?

She came up to us, and walked right past me. She didn't recognize me!

“Ma!” Dad called out. His voice was higher than usual, but at least it didn't become childish.

Nainai turned around and saw him. She beamed as he put his arms around her.

“And here is Fiona,” said Dad.

I gulped. “Hello, Nainai,” I managed to say, and waited for her reaction.

Nainai's eyes widened as she looked at my hair. After a pause that seemed to last forever, she turned to Dad and said, “Well, at least she didn't change her features.”

This was exactly what Dad had said, too. He and Nainai exchanged a glance. What did they mean?

We went to collect Nainai's baggage. Just as I expected, she had two huge pieces of checked luggage, a big suitcase and a paper carton containing Chinese groceries. For the past year, we've tried to tell her that we can buy perfectly good Chinese stuff right here in Seattle, but she still thinks we're far from civilization and need supplies of “real food” from San Francisco's Chinatown.

Dad grunted as he heaved the suitcase onto a luggage cart. I grabbed at the paper carton, and was nearly dragged aboard the moving luggage conveyor belt. Dad and Nainai hauled me back just in time.

Panting, Dad said something to Nainai in Chinese, and I knew it meant, “Mother, you shouldn't have brought all these things.”

Nainai just smiled her sweet smile. She probably thought Dad was being polite, and I guessed that she would bring as much stuff next time, if not more.

As soon as we got home, Dad went into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Nainai went with him, and I could hear them talking in Chinese. Again, his voice sounded a little higher than usual. I peeked into the kitchen and found him standing by the counter, meekly listening to Nainai as she told him how to prepare one of the dishes. It would be really embarrassing if he went into his little boy act at the dinner table, when Grandpa and Grandma MacMurray were there. To my relief, Dad spoke in his grown-up voice at dinner.

When Grandpa and Grandma MacMurray visit us, Dad usually cooks dishes that are familiar to most Westerners,
things like beef and broccoli or sweet-and-sour pork. But tonight the dishes he cooked used many of the new ingredients Nainai had brought with her.