At sunrise she knew it was over.
Today would be new.
Tracey had been awake nearly an hour when the golden beams of light began to stream silently through the blinds. The long luminous rays suspended light and dust and air and her thoughts in slow motion. She turned to look at the 195 pound mass weighing down the other side of her mattress and giggled to herself. He was snoring; she did that.
The wine.
Her dress.
Her curves.
At her birthday party the night before she celebrated more than just her arrival into the Dirty 30 crowd, she celebrated her awakening. She was feeling herself and called it The Decade of Tray! Her months of running and weight training, yoga, salads, and smoothies had given her the confidence to walk into her thirtieth birthday party with a white dress that fit like a second skin. Svelte and curvy, no longer the ever-chubby and slightly hunched girl from childhood. She kissed and hugged and greeted her guests like a woman whose confidence had been grown from a bulb buried deep, cultivated in the elements, and was now emerging, tough and fibrous, like a late-blooming lily, redolent and open. Last night even he couldn’t take his eyes off her, finally. They capped the night off with a final act that was neither submission, nor domination. It was a force of wills converging. She had always been drawn to his brown skin and he was compelled by her newfound boldness. The arch in her back was a declaration and he was forced to bear witness.
Tracey cat-stretched and yawned her way past her dress and shoes that sat slumped in a mound on the floor. She grabbed clean underwear and stared at the family photo that sat atop her dresser. It was the rhinestone-studded frame of a family who fit all of the Cosby-esque stereotypes. Her handsome, successful father, her beautiful petite mother, her two sisters, and her—all perfectly posed with post-braces smiles and long beautiful hair. But Tracey saw something different in that portrait and every other like it. She viewed it with the self- critical eye that sees only the flawed parts and not the whole. All she saw was herself as the chubby child with thick hair standing centered behind her smiling parents, flanked by her smaller, older sisters. She saw the justification for every childhood tease and taunt that stained her sight and dented her self-image— Baby Huey, Chewbacca, Big Boned, Thickums, Big T, Big Tray, and the Big Little Sister. In her eyes, she stood as the mountain on their beautiful island, in this, their last photo together before her father passed away.
As for looks, she and her sisters were somewhere in between. All taller than their mother and smaller than their father. Troy, the oldest, got their mother’s petite frame, face full of freckles, and a love of all things prissy and refined. Her youngest sister, Laina, got their mother’s hazel eyes and unfiltered tongue. Of their father’s looks, Tracey got the lion’s share, particularly the mane. The women in his family were bold and brazen. They wore big jewelry and big hair with full lips, wide smiles, and loud infectious laughter. They were solid women with strong legs like tree trunks, big wide hips, and big ol’ heavy booties. Tracey and her sisters wore their hair long like their mother’s, long and straight, flowy brown tresses with hints of gold and copper. But, where their hair was naturally wavy, Tracey’s was thick and coily. Washing and blow-drying her hair was quite the ordeal in comparison, and Mama never let her forget it. Mama would have to section and divide it to conquer it, using creams and oils and heated styling tools, along with a few cuss words and other exclamations.
Girl, you got your Daddy’s hair! Shit! You know your hair is THICK! Whew! My arms are tired!
Takes me twice as long to do your hair!
Thank the Lord that Troy and Laina have hair like mine, I couldn’t handle three heads like this!
Through the years it seemed as if each strand soaked up every sting, every slight, and every backhanded compliment. They sank deep within the cuticle, past the cortex, to the core. And as Tracey got older, her hair seemed to grow thicker and stronger and more coarse. After washing, it would rage and protest and stand in defiance. And only after conditioners and oils and a couple of passes from the blow dryer would her coils finally surrender and accept defeat. The heat and the weight of the products would take effect and the vented brush would finally glide smoothly through.
Today her hair stood straight up on her head, still celebrating from the night before and shouting Hallelujah for freedom. She showered and dressed with purpose and brushed it back into a neat-enough, low ponytail.
“Happy Birthday!” Her boyfriend’s words startled her. “Good Morning. Thank you!”
“You still going through with it, huhn?” “Don’t say it like that. It ain’t surgery, babe.”
She glimpsed him as he stood up from the bed in his underwear. The morning sun on his deep earth-colored skin awakened her as well. She eyed his long lean muscles as he joined her in the bathroom and turned on the shower.
“Well, you could probably pull it off. I mean you got a cute face.” “Cute face?”
“Well, I’m just saying. You ain’t got the same kinda hair as your mama and your sisters. That look ain’t for everybody. Shit, you gon’ have to keep giving me what you gave me last night to distract me. Then I ain’t gon’ care what your hair looks like,” he said as he grabbed her waist from behind, pulling her to him and kissing her neck.
In the mirror they made a cute couple, and she smiled, but not at him. His words arrested the heat and dissipated the steam. She was lucid again.
“Man, you unleashed the freak last night!” he said as he stepped in the shower. “Now that’s what I’m talking about. Shit! I don’t know if it’s all that running and working out or what! But they say women hit their peak when they hit thirty. I guess that shit is true!”
For her, another steam was rising. Lately she had grown more and more irritated by his playful arrogance. She had once thought it was fun and sexy, but now it was over and she was done. She didn’t even say goodbye. The shower water and his voice grew distant as she walked out the door. He’d lock up and she’d get her key back later.
*
Tracey felt her stomach drop and her armpits get warm when she stepped into Epic Cuts.
“Wassup, Tray,” her cousin Rico called to her from across the barbershop.
She was conscious of every step as she walked half the length of the place to his chair. The shop was a long wide corridor of mirrors with barber chairs on each side and a leather sectional in the center as a waiting area. It was full of hungry, watchful eyes, both patrons and barbers. Some spoke hello and some nodded as she passed, but none made any attempt to be subtle with their glances.
“I still can’t believe you are serious!” he said as he hugged her. “Yeah,” she said.
“Ay Rico, who dat? Is that one of your fine-ass cousins?” said the barber on the other side of the shop.
“Yeah B. This is the uh . . . the middle one, Tracey. Don’t be harassing her while I’m gone. She got a boyfriend.”
Tracey noticed the pause but appreciated the protection, from him especially. He was the cousin who dubbed her Heavy T and called her and her sisters “Small, Medium, and Large” when they showed up to family functions.
“Gone? Where you going?” Tracey asked.
“I’ll be back. I gotta few runs to make. I know you didn’t think I was cuttin’ off all yo hair? Shiiiit, your mama ain’t gon’ cuss me out. I wanna be able to look her in the eye and say I ain’t have shit to do with it!”
“Ay, Leevon!” he shouted behind him.
A short-ish muscular guy with a neatly lined beard and black baseball cap came out from the back.
“Ay, Leevon, this is my cousin Tracey. Take good care of her, alright?” “Aw, okay, most definitely. You ready, beautiful? Let me get you set up.”
His ultra-cool manner and pseudo-New York accent made her chuckle to herself as he took her jacket. But that aside, his gentle manner quickly put her at ease. He showed her to his chair and draped his cape across her in one smooth motion. He offered her a magazine and a bottle of water. She took both as her hands began to tremble and her throat turned to dust. She hoped no one else could hear her loud gulps as she drank.
“It’s only hair,” she told herself.
What would her mother say? What would they say at work? Why didn’t she go to a salon? All these thoughts swam in her head as she heard—Shhhhhpp!— the sound of the scissors’ metal blades as Leevon cut her long ponytail.
“Damn!” One of the men cried out. She hadn’t intended to be a spectacle, but now all eyes were on her, and it wasn’t as she had imagined. It wasn’t like getting a shot from the doctor or ripping a Band-Aid. After the initial snip, it still wasn’t over.
“You want it?” “Huhn?”
“The ponytail,” Leevon asked as he tied a rubber band on the end. “No.”
“Shit, I’ll take it. My girl will sew that right on in!” said Flirty Barber from the other side. The men all laughed and nodded in agreement.
“You better take it before they try to sell it.”
She could feel her insecurities crawling up her skin like fingers trampling over all her badassness from the night before. She wanted to hide from all the eyes. But, then she felt a heat closing in around her as Leevon leaned in to whisper, “Don’t worry, Queen, I got you from here.”
She heaved a long sigh and closed her eyes with wishful anticipation. It reminded her of when she was thirteen. That year her mother had vetoed everything she had asked for— concert tickets to see Usher, a Tommy Hilfiger outfit, new skates for the parties at The Rink. When she closed her eyes to blow out the candles, she just knew that she would open them to something lame like another Barbie Doll that she was too old for or some dumb designer outfit for one of her mother’s bougie social events, but she kept hoping. When she finally opened her eyes, she saw a pair of pink Timberland boots. The ones she had begged for after seeing them in a music video. She never actually believed that she would get them after her mother called them “ghetto” and unladylike. But there they were, a symbol of her own personal style, and they were better than she had hoped for.
As the clippers buzzed, she sat hoping for the same feeling. She could feel Leevon’s swift movements as he combed and snipped and shaped what was left of her hair. When his hands slowed, her heart began to race. It was over.
Leevon swung her around to the mirror and all the hungry eyes in the shop waited for her reaction. She opened her eyes and was disoriented at first by the sight of the familiar stranger staring back at her. As the men watched, she quickly nodded and feigned a smile as she put on her earrings. This was no pink Timberland moment. The shock of it all threatened to well up in her eyes, but she shook it away, applied her lipstick, and put on her sunglasses.
“Aw Shit!” yelled Flirty Barber.
Tracey slid Leevon’s fee and tip into his apron pocket and strutted the length of the shop toward the door with a chorus of catcalls and “all right now’s” behind her.
Outside she nearly ran to her car, she needed to lock the door and be alone with it. She craned her neck from side to side to see the shape of it in the visor mirror, then opened her silver mirrored compact and took a closer look. She made note of the sixteen freckles under her brown eyes and her long eyelashes. She turned to the side to observe her daddy’s jawline and her grandmother’s full lips. She smiled at her unique collection of features and flaws. Her own image. Seeing her ancestors smiling back at her made her warm. She raised the compact to see her crown. She grabbed a handful of it and squeezed. It was thick and spongy with sassy waves and tiny curls—liberated and unrestricted. It was lilies and white dresses, it was sunshine and it was freedom, it was empty apartments and new beginnings, it was pink Timberlands.
She took a quick selfie to mark the moment and opened the sunroof. She wanted to let in the sun so that her scalp and each strand above it could finally drink in the rays.
Cheryl Dyer is a writer, screenwriter, and blogger. She was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago and wrote her first pieces while teaching literature and writing to high school students. Cheryl loves to write about urban life, personal journeys, transformations, and the many shades of love with humor, warmth, and grit.