BROWN SKIN | BOOK 1

|| C H A P T E R . 11 ||

My vision blurred till I held my eyes closed and the sudden dizziness drummed in vibrating patterns, shaking my brain and slowly went away like a puff of a cloud.

The Dominican beautician popped the bubblegum stuck into her cheek and placed a hand on the armrest till the black chair came to halt.

Older women with bright colored rollers scanned through magazines with huge flashing titles all sat in an aligned arranged row. They talked about their annoying husbands and all the "Kiera's" and "Tiana's" that get on their nerves. Other beauticians like the shampooers and barbers and colorists and stylists, talked about clients like loved family members. Bratty children raced in and out of the hair salon with rap and hip hop music over their heads.

"Volià," The gum popped for a sixty-third time and some spit landed on my cheek.

"Do you like it?"

I looked in the mirror.

Well, another mirror that needs to be broken on my list I joked inwardly.

She began touching the surface of it, fluffing it out to make it voluminous and pulled the short hairs from the frame of my face.

My hair wasn't as short as I thought it would be. I expected she shaved it all off or designed a sheen pixie cut, but waves creased in the black stresses covered my ears and traveled down the majority of my neckline. A sleek defined wave-styled bob.

"Your hair is very full," She responded for me and wanted to say more, but stopped herself in mid-sentence, "so it was easy and good. No trouble."

She admired her work some more in the mirror as if it were Picasso's pieces hanging on a wall, and I pursed my lips together and veered the seat around to let Jewelz give her dainty opinion.

Jewelz earlier pulled up a seat for herself in front of the counter to have a leg tucked under the other, arms entwined and eyes veiling her bitter disappointment.

She muttered something in the air no one heard and picked up her purse. "How much?"

How much? That's all? Her tone carried throughout the salon like a mobster dealing money in secrecy. Since money means everything in a person's mind, the Dominican hair stylist rushed over to the payment counter like her money would run away.

A strand of hair tickled my cheek and I looked in the mirror again. Thankfully, I didn't have to come up with a compliment or mess up the style she fixed up for an hour. Tucking away one of the uncrinkled hairs, I followed behind Jewelz out the door after thanking the lady quietly.

The walks were silent until we got in the car and the car door slammed shut to hush the silence.

"What the hell Ebonee!? Why would you ever cut your hair?"

"What do you mean? I like it!"

"This isn't you! You don't do this! You- you don't pick up scissors and decide to chop away your precious hair, what happened!" She whined in a high-pitched voice. I hated how much she cared right now.

"What happened?" I repeated like she knew more than me when I didn't bring up the date situation to her all day and the next. I didn't ask for her to make an appointment to take me to the hair salon. I didn't ask for her concern.

"Did something happen? On the date? Is that why you were crying? Beau?"

His name made me sick to my stomach but left it fluttering afterwards. Oh, how backwards I was.

I sneered at his name being brought up and rolled my head around to glare out the window. "No. It has nothing to do with Beau."

If a movie role were casting actresses for a typical scene on hearing horrible news from a loved one and their reaction, Jewelz would immediantly get the part. Her delicate fingers enclosd over her parted lips and furrowed her worrisome eyebrows.