You don’t know what I look like (and that’s fine by me), but I have to tell you — my hair is black now, deep, midnight, light-cannot-escape-its-gravity black.
I kinda like it.
I don’t know, it makes me feel exotic, dangerous. My mom hates it; my dad stares at it in a sort of disbelief when he thinks I’m not looking. Of course, my brother probably wouldn’t have noticed if mom hadn’t called him in for support: “Brian, what do you think of Britney’s hair?” I think she meant to have him say he was shocked, just shocked, but he studied me for a moment, then said, “Different. Not too bad.” And then I knew I’d hold out, because that’s a compliment coming from my brother. Honestly, he’s a lot nicer than he comes off, he’s just usually stuck in his head and forgets people need to hear from him. He’s a lot like my uncles that way.
Something weird happened tonight. When I was getting my hair done, Beth asked me all kinds of questions, and I answered pretty honestly. You know, I’m not Catholic, but if I ever had to go to confession, I think I’d like it done by a hairdresser.
I managed to ask a little about her. I guess she’s never had a good situation at home and moved out as soon as she graduated. She’s slowly gaining a customer base at Curl Up and Dye, and I kept hearing about Jordan, her boyfriend. Anyway, she told me we should get together sometime. And I said, Yes, of course, even a bit excitedly since it was nice to talk to someone with some distance, someone who didn’t care enough about me to try to help me but who knew me enough to treat me like a person.
But, you know how it is. When you tell someone, Let’s get together sometime, what you mean is, I like you enough that I won’t avoid you, but not enough to actually set a specific time aside. Because life is busy and stuff.
But during supper, my cell rang. It was Beth. She wanted to get together for lunch tomorrow.
Well, okay, why not? I guess sometimes people do mean what they say.