Because it's fun. My Blog. My Rules.
Here's one.
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Curls
Heather’s hair is naturally curly. The kind of curls she doesn’t have to fight for. They effortlessly frame the baby fat left on her face. No halo of frizz, all perfectly spiraled and light. I watch her get ready sometimes, sitting in the bathroom floor, picking at my toenail polish. I tell her about last night’s episode of Blossom or how I have a crush on Mr. Basil. I tell her how I hate Danielle Fleming for getting to date Colby Bright and how I know, for sure, he would like me better if he would just figure out I exist. How Colby and I both love Green Day and The Offspring and how Danielle Fleming probably only listens to stupid music like Ace of Base.
She stares at the mirror and shakes her head and flips it over and scrunches. She owns a pick. She is the only one I know who owns a pick. My mom and I use paddle brushes. She knows it’s better for her curls if she doesn’t use a blow-dryer, if she just lets them fall naturally. Towel dried and setting themselves without any help. She says the blow-dryer makes her feel like everyone else and she likes the sound it makes when it ticks itself cool. Her mother bought her a diffuser so at least she won’t ruin her curls all together.
Last summer, she talked her mother into letting her get a perm. She begged and cried and stomped until her mother was finally defeated by the ridiculous request. She smelled like chemicals for days and days and couldn’t go swimming with me. She sat on the side of the pool, her feet kicking the water, watching me do flips and handstands. Sweat beading up around her temples and the back of her neck. The perm made her curls look exactly the same.
She likes to stay the night at my apartment before dance competitions. My mom sets my hair in sponge rollers, tugging and spraying and winding each one individually until my head hurts and my eyes are tight. Heather clicks an empty pink sponge with her thumb, open and closed, open and closed, until my mom needs it. Before we put a bandana around the sponges, Heather reaches out and touches them and tells me how she’s jealous because my curls will wash out tomorrow afternoon.
We talk about boys. She likes to talk to my mom about boys. My mom doesn’t think boys are a big deal. Heather can’t talk to her own mother about boys, but my mom laughs and giggles and understands. She doesn’t use scary words like pregnant or dangerous. My mom only uses words that sound like kissing and twitterpated and knows to be excited when Heather tells her about Mike Rich reaching over and holding her hand.
Once, we heard the word orgasm and didn’t know what it meant. My mom told us it was like the part in her supermarket paperbacks where things get really, really good. She told us it would probably be best to learn about them on our own for awhile before we tried to learn about them with boys. She says boys are different and they don’t always understand. You have to figure out who you are, she tells us, before you can teach someone else.
Heather and I wear the same size but we don’t borrow each others clothes. Mine are made up of plain cotton and denim and hers flow and pop with patterns and textures and layers. She never wears the same outfit twice in a month. She has a clipboard hanging on her closet door and before she goes to bed at night, she assembles an outfit and writes it down in pink and purple ink. Shoes and headbands and bracelets and earrings. Her closet smells like name brand fabric softener and her hangers are all padded and scented like rose petals. Left to right, light to dark, all the same distance apart. My hangers are plastic, multi-colored, and the empty ones stick out and point themselves in different directions. My closet smells mostly like color safe bleach and the sandalwood that drifts down the hallway. I don’t have a clipboard. My closet doors are covered in song lyrics and snapshots and quotes I write in black Sharpie.
When we spend the night in Heather’s room, we paint our fingernails pink with sparkles. When we spend the night in my room, we listen to music and talk to boys on the phone and lie on our backs putting foot prints on my wall. If Heather’s room is messy, her mother yells. If my room is messy, my mom just closes the door.
In the mornings, while we walk to school, she tells me about the names she likes for her future children. Taylor or Morgan for girls. Tyler and Benjamin for boys. I tell her I’m not having kids but when I get a dog, I’m naming him Lloyd Christmas. He’s going to be a Saint Bernard and sleep on the other side of my big, big bed. She doesn’t live in an apartment so she already has a dog. A poodle. Her name is Claire and her mother takes her to get her toenails clipped.
In math, I copy the answers from her. In English, she makes me re-write her essays. We’re both fine in science. We spend most of that class talking about Mr. Basil. She thinks Mr. Basil is old. I think he’s not. His wife is ugly, though, and the picture he has on his desk makes her look fatter than she is. I like the picture.
In P.E., we jog slowly behind everyone else so we can talk about Colby Bright and Mike Rich without being overheard. Sometimes, we talk about Danielle Fleming, too, but not as much. I hate her but Heather doesn’t want her to know that. I probably don’t either. She always smiles at me and once, she let me borrow her extra set of running shoes when I forgot mine at home.
Tonight, I’m sleeping at Heather’s. My mom is out of town with her new boyfriend. Her mother cooks us dinner on the stove and her father drinks milk from a frosted mug. They all close their eyes and say grace. I just close my eyes.
We’re supposed to go to a party tomorrow for Mike Rich’s birthday. She asks me what to wear. I tell her to wear the outfit she wore to that bowling thing last month. I tell her it makes her boobs look bigger. She looks at me like I’m stupid. I look at her like she is, too. We both laugh and she says she’ll just ask her mother to buy her something new.
When we lay down to go to sleep, I have to throw pillows on the ground. There are always too many pillows on Heather’s bed. We’re both wearing old dance competition t-shirts. I beg her to turn on her clock radio so I can sleep to music and she tells me if her mother gets mad, it’s my fault. I’m okay with that. Her mother won’t actually yell at me. Her hair is piled on top of her head but there are curls springing out everywhere. They smell like strawberries. I reach over and tug on one and I tell her how I’m jealous because hers won’t wash out tomorrow afternoon.
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