Unbeweaveable (9 page)

Dance, Ballerina, Dance

Watching my mother dance had been one of my favorite pastimes. She only did it when she thought no one was watching, so it was hard to catch her. But when she did—oh, how she took my breath away! She would dust off her dancing shoes and dance around the house, high up on tiptoes. She moved so easy, so graceful, I thought she could float on air.

I've seen pictures of her in her costumes, doing a performance of Swan Lake at her school, her tutu white as snow as she danced the lead.

“Why'd you stop?” I would ask her as she stretched.

She shrugged. “Just didn't want to do it anymore.”

“Why, Beverly? You're so good at it.”

She winced at the sound of me using her first name, but by then she'd gotten used to it and she didn't try to discipline me.

“I made some decisions that took me away from it. Sometimes being good at something doesn't mean you have to do it.”

“Am I the reason you stopped dancing? You couldn't dance with a baby, could you? You regret having me, don't you?”

She caressed my cheek. “It's not you I regret.”

“Then what
do
you regret?”

“Mariah, will you stop with the questions! I love you, okay? What more do you want from me?”

It was a question without answers. What did I want or expect from her?

* * *

On Beverly and Anthony's eleventh anniversary they flew to Paris for a week. We stayed with Grandpa, a place I would rather be anyway. When they came back and picked us up, they sat us down and gave us our gifts—
for being good
, they said.

Renee unwrapped a beautiful porcelain ballerina jewelry box. When she opened the lid, a soft melody played that brought tears to my eyes.

“It's beautiful, Mama! I love it!” I watched them hug and waited eagerly for my present.

It was wrapped in newspaper. I tore it away and stared at a snow globe. Of the Eiffel Tower.

“This is it?” I shrieked. “A stupid snow globe?”

“What's wrong with it?” Beverly asked.

“I don't want it! I want that!” I screamed, pointing at Renee's gift.

“Oh, Mariah, you can't have everything she gets. Your gift is just as special, let me show you.”

I threw the globe on the floor, shattering it into hundreds of little pieces.

“Mariah!” Anthony said sharply. “What has gotten into you?”

My feet were wet from the water that leaked everywhere from the globe. “Why do you try so hard to show that Renee is your favorite?” I asked. “Why can't you treat both of us the same? I want what she has, too!”

Beverly shook her head and pulled out another bag wrapped in tissue paper.

“Open it,” she said, her voice shaking from anger.

It was a ballerina. A beautiful, black ballerina.

“Oh, Mama—”

“No. From now on, call me Beverly.”

Breaking Rattail Combs

I tested Renee's phone for long distance by calling Norma.

“I was getting worried about you! How are you? You were supposed to call me as soon as your plane landed.”

“Sorry, I was too busy trying to kill myself.”

“That bad?”

“Worse. My sister is pretending like having me over here is the best thing ever, and Beverly—”

Just the sight of me brought a glimmer of sadness to her eyes that was much easier to ignore in New York. “Well, Beverly acts the same as always when I'm in a room, so I guess that's comforting.”

“Would it make you feel better if I told you how much I miss you?”

I started to grab a piece of my weave and twist it around my pinky finger, but remembered it was gone. I settled for scratching my head and said I missed her, too.

“I could make some arrangements in my schedule to come down there in a couple of weeks.”

“Elizabeth is due in a couple of weeks. You can't do that—“

“I know, but I
want
to. Besides, I haven't been in Houston in years. I can visit my family.”

“Isn't all your family up there waiting for that baby to pop?”

“Yes. But I still have other family in Houston. Some cousins that need visiting.”

We both knew that her suggestion was empty and would never come to pass, yet I continued to talk as if it could become real. “That would be great if you could, Norma. Man, I wish you were here right now.”

“Well, at least we can talk on the phone. You can call me every day, okay?”

“Yes. Believe me, I'll probably have to.”

She laughed. “Call me tomorrow, okay?”

“Sure.”

I hung up.

* * *

I must have forgotten to close my curtains the night before, because I woke up to the sun blinding me and someone beating on my bedroom door. I was still dressed in my clothes from yesterday and walked like a wino to open the door. Beverly stood there, fully clothed in a black St. John pantsuit, a small strand of pearls around her neck and her face made up and lips stained her trademark cherry red. Her hand was raised in a fist as she prepared to knock on my door again. When I opened the door, she put her hand down and smoothed her perfectly coiffed silver hair.

“Henry had a cancellation this morning so he's willing to squeeze you in now instead of this afternoon.” She ran her eyes over my short hair that I'm sure was all over my head and said that she had explained how difficult my situation was and he still was willing to take me on as a client.

“I don't have any money.”

“We know that, dear. Isn't that why you're staying with us? Renee has offered to pay for it, along with a few other things you desperately need. I've sacrificed my Friday morning for this, so be ready in ten minutes.”

She turned on her heel and walked down the hall.

I closed my door and searched through my luggage and pulled out the only thing that didn't need ironing: a pair of jeans and a long-sleeve blue tunic. I always thought that if I ever moved that I would have tons of clothes, but after selling all my designer pieces and pricey handbags and purses, my wardrobe better fit a suburban housewife than a trendy twenty-nine-year-old. I threw on some flats, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and
attempted
to comb through my hair. After breaking two rattail combs I gave up and threw a New York Yankees baseball hat on my head. I couldn't believe I was leaving the house like this. A few months ago, my skin only touched clothes with four digits on the price tag. Now I looked like some of the people who used to wash my clothes. I shuddered.

Beverly took in my outfit and smiled.

“What?”

“I didn't say anything.”

I crossed my hands over my chest. “I saw the way you looked at me.”

“Why, for goodness sake, Mariah, does everything have to be such a battle with you?” Her face fell, and the sadness returned.

I let my arms hang by my sides. “No, I just—”

“Come on, let's go.”

She grabbed a pair of keys off the wrought iron table as we left the apartment. “Renee made you a set of keys.”

“That was nice of her.”

She shrugged as I followed her to the elevator and we were silent as we reached the parking garage. It was hard to follow my mother's quick steps; she ran-walked everywhere and I was breathless by the time we reached the SUV. She stood near the passenger door, waiting.

“Well?” she asked, after a few seconds, the faint tone of irritation in her voice.

“What?”

“Open the door.”

“I don't have the keys.”

“I just gave you a pair of keys, Mariah.”

“Renee made me a copy of the car keys, too?”

“I just told you that.”

I fumbled with them and pressed a button, unlocking the car. My mother got in and I followed suit.

“Wouldn't it be better if you drove? I don't know how to get there.”

She sighed. “You did have navigation in New York, didn't you? Renee has the salon programmed in. If you press that button,” she said, pointing to a button on the wood grain steering wheel, “you can just say the name of the salon and the directions will pop up on the screen. The salon is called Elite Hair.”

“Okay,” I said, following her directions. She must have assumed I had navigation in the car I never owned, but I decided to let the subject drop. I hadn't driven a car since—well, high school. And even then it was just a couple of rides taking Henrietta to the store. Her Toyota Corolla had nothing on this thing. It took me a couple of turns and yelps of terror from my mother to handle the behemoth, but after a few minutes I got used to turning wide and loved the smooth ride and the feeling of sitting on top of the world. The salon wasn't far and we arrived in minutes at the modern, glass-enclosed salon.

“You have to parallel park,” Beverly said.

“Parallel park? In this thing?”

“Oh, come now, you can do it.
Renee
never has a problem with it.”

Determined to do better than, or at least just as good as Renee with parking, I accepted my mother's challenge with vigor. Too much vigor when I heard my mother shout, “Stop!” and heard the loud crunch of metal on metal.

“You backed into someone!” Beverly shouted, getting out of the car to inspect the damage.

I jumped out, too, which was mistake number two, considering I didn't put the car in park. I jumped back in when I realized what I'd done and shifted the car in park, but not before slamming into the silver BMW parked in front of us.

“What is wrong with you?” Beverly screamed, coming around front. “Don't you know how to drive?”

“I do, it just took me a while to get used to it.”

“You caused damage to
both
of these cars, not to mention Renee's car. She trusted you!”

“I'm sorry,” I mumbled, standing back to look at the damage. And damage it was.

The silver BMW had a damaged bumper and broken taillight, and the car behind us, a white Mercedes, was smashed in the front with scratches of black paint. The Escalade was in pretty good shape, nothing a good mechanic couldn't buff out, but it still was enough damage that I didn't want to explain to my sister. Especially my first day behind the wheel.

“We need to find the owners of these cars,” Beverly said.

“How?”

“Well, they're probably customers of the salon, we'll just go in and ask who was driving what—”

“What did you do to my car?” a lady screamed, silver foils dancing around her head, her body draped in a white robe with gold embroidered letters that said “Elite Hair.”

“We saw the whole thing, why did you back up so far?” She stood close to Beverly, biting her fist as she struggled to stifle a scream when she saw her Mercedes.

“John is going to kill me!”

“I'm sorry,” I mumbled again. Beverly pulled out her wallet and started exchanging information with the woman. She told her how I wasn't from here and wasn't used to driving a luxury vehicle. After a few minutes the woman's anger dissipated and they were laughing like old high school buddies. Beverly's quick thinking came in handy; I didn't have a Texas driver's license or insurance in my name and the last thing I needed was to talk to a policeman.

“We deeply apologize,” Beverly said. “Do you know who owns this car? We need to give them our information.”

The lady seemed to calm down and told her who she thought it might belonged to. She gave me another hard glare, told me to be careful and walked back into the salon. My mother turned to face me, and I stepped back from the anger in her eyes.

“Tell me, Mariah, is this a preview of what your visit is to entail?”

She paused for a long time as if I was supposed to answer. When I realized I was I just shook my head.

“I have never been so embarrassed in all my life. When we walk in here let me handle the car and you handle your hair appointment. Or do you think you'll screw that up, too?” She didn't expect an answer to that one as she turned her back to me and entered the salon.

So Nappy

I walked into the salon and was blinded by white. Everything was white—from the bleached wood floors to the white leather salon furniture, to the white silk upholstered chairs in the waiting area—even the customers. I followed Beverly to a white desk and she introduced me to the thin receptionist. She gave me the once-over and dismissed me to the waiting area. I sat down while my mother trolled the salon and found the owner of the silver BMW parked out front. I felt out of place in the white crispness of the salon, like an octopus that inked itself or a Sharpie marker that escaped from its top. I felt my blackness purely and succinctly.

“Oh, my God,” a woman said suddenly, and I knew Beverly had found who she was looking for. She led the woman outside to survey the damage, but not without sending me daggers across the room. I slunk lower in my chair, wishing I was invisible, but sticking out like a Dalmatian's spots. I was offered water or herbal tea and declined both. I was just ready to get the whole thing over and done with. A young woman handed me a white robe and escorted me to Henry's styling chair. His station seemed to float on air. It was made of clear acrylic and had shelves that held a few beauty tools. Everything else was kept hidden in a white chest of drawers near his floor-length, frameless mirror.

“Please remove the baseball cap,” he said in a tone of utter disgust.

“Sorry, I forgot I had it on.” I took it off and saw my hair in the mirror. It had taken the shape of the cap and looked like I was trying to pop popcorn on the stove on my head. He ran his fingers through it and shook his head.

“Your hair is dry. Very, very dry,” he said, his pale hands separating my strands. “Are you trying to go natural?”

“No, I—”

“Then why is your hair so nappy?”

The cardinal sin that any white person could make is calling a black woman's hair nappy. It was like using the N-word; if you weren't black, you couldn't use it. What was Beverly thinking by taking me to a salon that didn't do black hair? Her hair was soft and bouncy, she could go anywhere. But me? I needed a stylist from the Motherland, someone who understood
my
roots as much as
their
nappy roots. This man couldn't help me. But after causing not
one
, but
two
accidents, I was too embarrassed to leave. I sat in his chair and listened to him tell me why my hair was so
ugly,
as he called it.

“I am going to relax your hair and then give you a trendy short haircut—”

“Haircut? I'm having a hard time already with it being this short. Are you sure we have to go shorter?”

“Do you trust me?” he asked, his pale blue eyes piercing mine through the mirror.

I wanted to shout no and hightail it out of there, but I simply nodded like an obedient first-grader.

“Good,” he said patting my shoulder. “You have to trust me, or why would you be here?” He laughed to himself and then called his willowy, redheaded assistant to apply my relaxer.

I kept chanting in my head that a free hairstyle is better than no hairstyle, but I somehow felt like a laboratory experiment instead of a spoiled client. Beverly approached as my relaxer sat for a couple of minutes, telling me that Renee was on her way to look at the car.

“What did she say?” I asked, ignoring the tingling sensation on my hairline.

“Your sister is much more patient than I am. She wasn't too worried. I, on the other hand, am very upset. But more than that, I'm disappointed that you don't know how to take care of someone's personal belongings.”

“It was an accident! I didn't mean to!”

“Was it?” she asked, her eyebrow perched up.

“What's that supposed to mean?”

She ran her hands through her hair. “Nothing, okay? I'm just a little tense from the accident.”

“You think I did this on purpose?”

“Of course not, Mariah,” she said, sitting down in the chair next to me. She sounded tired, as if just being near me drained all her energy.

“Beverly!” Henry said, walking over to us. She stood and they air-kissed. “Your hair is wonderful, as always. You want a blow-out?”

“You have time?”

“I always have time for my favorite client.” He looked down at me.

“You okay?”

I nodded.

“Beverly, you never told me you had another daughter. She looks so, so…unlike you,” he said.

She looked at me and twisted the strand of pearls around her neck. She slapped his arm playfully. “Of course you remember me telling you about Mariah. She moved to New York.”

He seemed confused, then simply shrugged.

“Come with me, darling, and let Jessica shampoo you.” He called his redheaded assistant over and she handed Beverly a robe.

“This will be a first, right? Both of us getting dolled up!” Beverly said. She squeezed my arm and followed Jessica to get shampooed.

* * *

“Voila,” Henry said spinning my chair around so I could see myself in the mirror.

I was baldheaded.

Bald.

The little hair I did have lay like chicken feathers to my scalp; something by the light in his eyes he deemed a grand achievement.

“It's a pixie cut,” he explained when words failed me.

“It's short,” I stammered, feeling my hair. The texture I'll admit was a little softer, like changing the grade of sandpaper—rough, but a little finer. It didn't fit my face at all; I felt more
African
than African-American.

“I don't know about this,” I said, turning my face different angles to see more of my bald head.

He shrugged. “Your mother said you were difficult.”

“Let me tell you something about being difficult,” I said, snatching the cape of my neck and throwing it to the ground. “I've endured your criticism and your ignorance, but now I've had enough.”

He crossed his arms over his chest. “You people are always so dramatic. So come on, sistah,” he said, rolling his neck and snapping his fingers side to side, “tell me what's wrong with your hair?”

I looked around the salon and saw a sea of white faces looking back at me, including Beverly's. They were expecting a show, another black woman to act a fool about her hair. But I was nobody's clown. Squaring my shoulders I turned on my heel and walked out.

I walked down the sidewalk a couple of paces, just enough for the faces in that glass-enclosed salon to not see me cry.

“Don't do it,” I warned. But the tears wouldn't listen and down they poured. I wiped them fast, but still they came.

“Stop it. Stop it right now.” I bit my lip so hard that I tasted blood, and only then would the tears stop.

“Get control of yourself.” I took a couple of deep breaths and wiped my face again.

“Mariah?”

I groaned as I saw Renee close the door of a Mercedes and walk toward me.

“You okay?”

I nodded.

“Have you been…crying?”

“Of course not!”

“Okay. You want to explain to me what happened?”

I walked her back to her car and told her what happened, leaving out the part about Beverly's challenge. She shook her head at the damage to the other cars and grazed her hand over the scuff marks on her Escalade.

She sighed. “Well, at least you and Mama are okay. I'll call a tow truck and get it towed to the dealership.”

“I'm really sorry.”

“It's fine. Really. I should have asked how your driving skills were before I gave you the keys.”

“I
know
how to drive.”

“I know. I wasn't insinuating that. Where's Mama?”

I pointed in the direction of the salon and she went in. I closed my eyes and tried to summon the feeling I had every time I left the salon in New York.

I'd practiced for years to find the wind, so my hair looked bouncy and light and floated behind me. Everyone stopped to tell me how pretty my hair was. In the couple of minutes I had been outside, no one looked at me—except the man who stepped on my toe. After apologizing profusely, he just kept walking. He didn't remark on my hair or me.

Renee came out in a few minutes with Beverly trailing behind her. Her silvery hair was bouncy and caught the slightest summer breeze.

“Tow truck's here,” Beverly said. “I'll tell him where the dealership is.”

“You look great, by the way,” Renee said. “I like your hair.”

“I hate it. I'm not used to short hair.”

“Really? When we were younger your hair was always short.”

“Not by choice.”

A few minutes passed and then Renee's SUV was hooked up to the tow truck. We got in Renee's Mercedes, her weekend car, as she called it.

“I really do think you look great,” Renee said, looking at me in the back seat. “The short hair accentuates your long neck. You look just like Grace Jones. No, even better, Alek Wek. You know, the supermodel?”

I turned to look out the window.

“You know who I'm talking about, right?”

“Yes.”

“So what's wrong with that?”

I know we have worked long and hard in this country for dark women to be considered beautiful, but I wasn't there yet. And I don't think a lot of people were there yet either, they were too busy looking at the Alicia Keys or Beyoncé posters.
They
were considered beautiful in Black America. Certainly not Grace Jones. White people thought they were gorgeous, could see past their shiny ebony skin to their fine bone structure, but it reminded me too much of what I looked like in the mirror. And I didn't like it.

“What's wrong with looking like Alek Wek, Mariah? She's gorgeous.”

“If you think so.”

“Leave her alone,” Beverly said. “She had a hard time at the salon.”

“Yes, I did. You want to explain why?”

“You didn't like your hair?”

“Why on earth would you take me to a white salon, Beverly? Henry has no clue how to style African-American hair.”

“He does a good job with mine.”

“Gimme a break, your hair is straighter than Brooke Shields'.”

“I thought it would be something nice we could do together.”

“Oh, so now you want to bring me to the salon with you? When I was little I begged you to take me shopping with you or to go with you to get your hair done, but all you did was take me to the library or some boring bookstore.”

“You weren't into all that feminine stuff, Mariah. You liked to read. So I indulged that aspect of your personality.”

“Maybe I would have liked being made up, too.”

She turned around to face me. “Is that what I'm going to be doing this whole time you're down here? Apologizing for every little thing I do? I'm sorry, Mariah, okay? Are you happy now?”

She clicked on the radio to stop me from answering.

No, I wasn't happy. I planned to question her on why she never mentioned she had another daughter to Henry, but I was tired of being the bad guy. I leaned back in my seat and closed my eyes.