Natural Beauty

Natural
Beauty

Leslie
DuBois

Copyright © 2014 Leslie DuBois

All rights reserved.

 
PUBLISHED BY:

Leslie
DuBois on Amazon

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rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no
part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a
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This
is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents
are either the product of the author's imagination or are used
fictitiously.
 
The author acknowledges
the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in
this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The
publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or
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Author’s
Note – I am not a professional cosmetologist. All of the hair ideas and tips
are solely based on personal opinion from the things I have tried on my own
hair.

Relaxer:
A chemical process that straightens or 'relaxes' the natural curl pattern of
hair. Since a chemical relaxer changes the natural formation of the hair it can
be very damaging if done incorrectly or if not properly maintained. The crème
or lotion relaxer must be reapplied every 6 to 8 weeks to the new growth of the
hair.

~~~

I
try to think that I'm not one of those sad, pathetic girls who can't live
without a man. The ones that stay with a man they know
is
no good for them because they're afraid of moving on. Or the ones that try to
force or manipulate a man into marrying them because they want the ring and not
the actual man. I'm not that kind of girl. Or so I thought.

I
had been dating my boyfriend
Vinny
for seven years
and in all that time I had never pressured him into marrying me. Okay, well
besides the few comments here and there about where I wanted to live after I
got married or how many kids I wanted to have. But those were innocent general
statements. I didn't do anything blatant like leave wedding magazines around
his apartment. Okay, so I did that
once
,
but that was all.

Anyway,
all of that was behind me because tonight was the night. I knew it.
Vinny
had been planning a special dinner for me for over a
week. And since it wasn't my birthday and our seven year anniversary was still
two months away, I knew it had to be the proposal. Why else would he have
called me three times in the last hour to make sure I was still coming? And two
weeks ago, he asked for my dad's number at work and then went out to lunch with
him. Tonight was the night.

I
sat back in my vanity seat in front of my mirror and sipped my pre-dinner wine.
I was completely relaxed. I knew he was going to propose and it didn't scare me
at all. I loved him and he loved me. I would have married him two days after we
met if he'd ask. I was
that
crazy
about him.

Of
course, he didn't ask then. And in seven years, he had never brought up the
word marriage unless I dragged it out of him. The only time we had openly
talked about it was four years ago when I jokingly asked when his parents would
be signing him up for an arranged marriage.

"Don't
joke about that. Arranged marriages are still very common in my culture,"
he had said.
Vinny
, or shall I say,
Vinyay
Gupta was a first generation Indian American. His
parents were still in India and had never even been to visit him in this country.

"Fine,
all joking aside," I had said. "Are you going to have an arranged
marriage one day?"

Instead
of answering,
Vinny
finished off his beer and said,
"I
gotta
take a piss."

And
that was the last time we had an actual conversation about marriage. We didn't
even discuss it two years ago when he flew to Canada for his sister's wedding.
I didn't dare ask whether her marriage was arranged or not.

Of
course, I only had his word to go on about the whole arranged marriage thing.
He was the only Indian person I knew. I had never met his family so I couldn't
verify it with them.

My
stomach lurched suddenly. What if this wasn't a proposal? I mean, I had never
even met his family. Would someone as traditional as
Vinny
marry someone without his parents’ approval?

I
shook off my doubt.
Vinny
wasn't
that
traditional as evidenced by the amount of pot he smoked on a
daily basis. I needed to relax. Speaking of relax, I thought as I leaned toward
the mirror. I needed to get my edges done. This weave in my hair probably
should have come out a few weeks ago, but I didn't have time to worry about my
hair lately. We had a new needy client at work that was sucking away all my
free time. As a temporary solution, I picked up my already heated curling iron
and straightened my edges. Then I smoothed them down with some gel to cover the
tracks in my head.

My
cell phone buzzed. It was
Vinny
… again.

"You
in the cab?" he asked.

"Would
you chillax?"

"You
know no one says chillax anymore, right?"

"And
you know no one calls their girlfriend four times in an hour to make sure she's
coming to a regular old dinner," I said "This is just a regular
dinner, right?"

He
paused. I knew I shouldn't have been trying to pump him for information like
this, but I couldn't help it. I was too curious.

"Just
hurry up and get here," he said effectively avoiding the question.

"Maybe
I could hurry up if you would let me get off the phone."

"You
mean
,
you're not in the cab?
Mags
, seriously?
You're
supposed to be here in ten minutes."

"Goodbye,
Vinyay
," I said clicking off the phone.

I
was planning on putting some curls in my long weave, but the way he was
flipping out, I knew I wouldn't have time. I'd just have to wear it straight.
Vinny
liked it straight anyway. His favorite hair style of
mine was when I had a weave that went all the way to my butt. I didn't think he
would stop touching it for the entire three months I had it. I joked that it
was probably hair of one of his cousins in India. He didn't find that funny.

~~~

When
I saw
Vinny
standing in the lobby of the restaurant,
I knew it was a special night. He was clean shaven and wearing the suit I
bought him when we graduated college four years ago and he needed to go on job
interviews. Fortunately for him, he ended up with a job that didn't require
dressing up. As a video game designer, he rarely had to get out of his pajamas.

"You
look beautiful, baby," he said kissing me and petting my hair.

"So
do you."

He
smiled shyly showing the dimple in his left cheek. I loved that dimple. It was
so sexy.

"You're
not supposed to tell a man he's beautiful."

"Well,
I can tell my man anything I want," I said kissing him again.

~~~

Dinner
was painfully long. Since when did we need to eat a five course meal? Usually, our
date nights consisted of ordering pizza and passing a bottle of Pepsi back and
forth.

Every
time a plate was put before me, I kept checking it to make sure there wasn't a
ring hidden in my food.

"What
are you doing?" he asked when he caught me once.

"Oh,
just making sure there are no...
mushrooms
in my
food."

He
looked at me strangely. "That's Bananas Foster."

"You
know I hate mushrooms.
Can never be too careful."

"Right,"
he said as he finished his ice cream. When he asked for the check, my heart
sank. It wasn't happening.

"Hey,
let's go for a walk," he said after he paid the bill.

"A walk?"
I said still a little stunned at
the lack of a ring on my finger. "Why walk when we can drive?"

"Come
on, it's a nice night. It will be romantic."

Romantic.
"I started to perk up a
bit. Maybe he was going to ask on our walk.

~~~

"Would
you slow down? What's the rush?" I said a few minutes later.

"What?
Oh yeah, okay," he said slowing his pace. He seemed distracted. And he was
walking in an oddly specific direction as if he had a certain place to go.

"I
remember this neighborhood," I said, looking around. "We're in
Barney." Barney was an old neighborhood of DC that had gone through a
major face lift. It now had an air of folk trendiness with a backdrop of
beautiful classic brownstone homes.

Vinny
and I literally ran across this
neighborhood two years ago when we were training to run a marathon together. Of
course, after a week of training
Vinny
decided
marathons weren't his thing and went back to his steady diet of marijuana and
grilled cheese. I ran the marathon alone.

"Oh,
it's the house!" I said as we came across my favorite house in the
neighborhood. It was a three story brownstone with a stained glass window in
the door. The door frame was painted a warm mahogany brown just like my name. I
even loved the ornate red window shutters that gave it a pop of color.

"You
still like this house, huh?"
Vinny
said stopping
in front of it.

"Are
you kidding? I'm completely in love with this house. You know that."

He
turned my face toward his and said, "And I'm completely in love with
you." He grasped both my hands and then kissed them.

As
he stared into my eyes, I knew this was the moment. I would soon be Mrs.
Vinyay
Gupta. I took a deep breath and waited for what he
would say next.

"I
love you more than anything in the world," he continued. "Your
happiness means everything to me. This is why I bought you this house."

Still
holding my breath, I couldn't say anything. I was still waiting for him to get
on one knee and say those four little words. When he didn't and I was about to
asphyxiate, I finally breathed and said, "You bought me a house?"

"Well,
us. I bought
us
a house. I hoped we
could live there together."

I
looked back and forth between him and the house. Yes, I loved him and I loved
the house. But there was something missing for me.

"So
you want us to live together?"

"Yeah!"
he said excitedly as he held up a key.

"That's
what you are
proposing
?" I put
special emphasis on the word proposing. He didn't pick up on it.

"We
practically live together already,” he said. “Why don't we make it
official?"

"And
you think this makes it official?"

"Well,
yeah.
Why not?"

"And
this is all you wanted to ask me tonight? There's nothing else?" I asked,
hopeful.

"Um, no.
Why?"

I
rolled my eyes and started walking away.

"
Mags
, what's wrong?" He stepped in front of me to
block my escape.

"Why
did you meet with my father two weeks ago?"

"Your dad?
Babe, he's a mortgage broker. I
worked with him to get the loan for our house."

Why
the hell didn't I consider that possibility?

"Maggie,
please tell me what's wrong? Don't you want to live with me? Don't you like the
house?"

Just
then I saw a taxi turn on to the street. I waved it over to me.

"Of
course, I like the house. Do you remember what I said two years ago the first
time I saw it?"

"You
said you could see yourself raising a family there."

"I
said I could see myself raising a family there with my HUSBAND.
HUSBAND!"

"Oh,
my God," he said as recognition finally dawned on him. "You thought I
was going to propose."

Vinny
wrapped his arms around my
waist. I rested my head on his shoulder as the first of many tears began to
fall on my cheeks.

"You
know I can't marry someone like you. I thought we'd talked about this."

"We
did? When did we talk about this?" I wiped tears away just as the cab
pulled up next to us.

"I
love you, Maggie, but I'm Indian. I can't marry someone like you."

I
wiggled out of his arms. "Well, that means you don't really love me,
asshole."