My mother comes home and stares at me doing my physics for a few silent, wracked moments before asking about my hair, which is down today. It looks mysterious like this, the black shimmering over the bright blues and secret greens. She wants to know precisely how long I plan on keeping it. I shrug off the question like an unwanted mink stole, because I honestly don�t know. It might well take forever before I feel inclined towards doing anything about it. I like this hair, which is an unusual and pleasant occurrence.
It reminds me of Fire, and allows me to be moody within reason. I am not written off by creative types and I tend to earn the secret respect of people like me who have always wanted to severely fuck up their hair. It takes power, and it gives power. What more could one expect from dead cells?
Then it�s around 6 and I have finally packed away the last book. My mother leaves for a book club meeting she attends with other well-off fake debutantes, and reminds me that Dad will be home in a few hours and to microwave something for dinner or get a pizza or something. If only Domino�s delivered by the slice. I spend the time browsing eBay with an air of melancholic dullness, looking for new jeans. They have cheap ones up there, but I can�t stand the official measurements, cos I�ve got no idea what mine are and I don�t like the idea of measuring myself. It seems like the kind of thing bodybuilders and pigs waiting to be trussed have done to themselves.
So I browse and then log off, and wander around singing a little tuneless song to myself. It�s sad, and I am heartened by a text message from Jenna, asking what I am doing RITE NOW. I text back to say nothing, and then the phone really goes off. My ring tone is an irritating old rap song that is thoroughly copyright-protected. I pick up and listen to Jenna talk about this thing in the woods that Brian�s holding. Like some huge ridiculous party in his backyard. She warns to dress warm and bring something awesome to drink. She promises to pick me up in an hour.
I put on some hardy makeup, because I haven�t been in the woods since about eight and I have no idea whether blue mascara is appropriate. I mean, I suspect not, but there hasn�t been a forest party around here since about the eighteen nineties.
I put on twill jeans that have seen better days and thick socks with warm old Vans on top. I also port a tight, under-armor type shirt with another one on top and then my excellent battered hoodie made of some indestructible material over it all. I find a matching scarf and toss that on under the hoodie. I grab a bottle of my mom�s undrunk Puerto Rican rum from the back of the liquor cabinet and I am good to go.
The party has trash cans filled with fire. It�s very ghetto chic, and Jenna and I seek out Natasha to cling to ourselves. There are loads of people we don�t know, and Brian is bouncing from girl to girl like a cue ball, obviously on something. This is the party scared Scarsdale mothers immortalize in stern email forwards and taped Oprah episodes. Brian�s mom is one of these (though not from Scarsdale) and he delights in the irony and exploits it. Hence the party.
We find Natasha, hanging with some bald guy from a few towns away. He is talking about the oppression of the masses and we nod carefully and offer him the rum in exchange for Natasha. He accepts it gingerly and the rest of us march on, through the woods, looking for something perfect amid the frozen leaves. Twigs flutter from under our feet, and I feel part of an enchanted collective, like an elf or something. I hope Natasha and Jenna feel the same, or else I must come off as a total dork. I practically prance, but with this hair I think I can pull it off.
It�s funny, thinking about hair just now. A man clambers out from behind a tree to lean smokily against it, and we stop. He brushes a stray dreadlock, pencil-thin, from his dark eyes, and says, �Nice hair.� I nod, and thank him, return the compliment. He tugs at one. �What, these?� He tugs particularly hard and they all slide to the ground, massively. His head gleams faintly now, that coppery skin only a few special ethnicities have. Something about his skin�it looks furrowed, like he�s got a lot of scars. I wonder about his past.
He turns to me. �I had cancer. I always wanted dreads.�