Natural Beauty (2 page)

Transition:
A period of time when a person goes from chemically processed hair to natural
hair. This is also often referred to as ‘growing out the perm’.

~~~

Hair
tip#1: There are many ways to transition from relaxed hair. Many people wear braids
or wigs for a few months to let their hair grow out. Others go for the big
chop. One good style for transitioning is Bantu Knots (See Chapter 11). It
helps blend the two textures of hair nicely.

~~~

Someone
like me.

Someone
like me.

He
couldn't marry
someone like me
. Those
were the last words he said to me almost a week ago. What the hell did that
even mean? Did he mean someone like me as in a beautiful, college educated,
independent woman?
Because that is what I was.
Maybe
he didn't see me like that at all.

Could
he possibly have meant someone with my skin color? That couldn't be it. We were
practically the same shade of brown. And if he happened to spend more time in
the sun than I did, he could even be darker than me sometimes.

I
set down my glass of wine and stared at myself in the mirror so long that my
eyes started to cross. It was like I was staring at one of those magic shape
pictures and I was expecting another image to suddenly appear. I knew that
wouldn't happen. I was black and I would always be black. The correct term was
supposedly African-American though I had never been to Africa a day in my life.

Was
race really that important this day and age? I guessed so.

But
who cared? So I was black. Did it mean I was less pretty? Did it mean I was
less deserving of love somehow?
Of course not.
I
deserved someone who loved me no matter what I looked like. I thought that
person was
Vinny
but I guess I thought wrong.

After
I fell in love with
Vinny
, I never thought I would be
at this point in my life. I was supposed to be in the happily ever after stage.
I was definitely not supposed to be in this stage of transition.
This phase between loves.
What if I never fell in love
again? What if this was
it
for me?

Speaking
of transition, my hair was going through one right now. I had ripped out the
long overdue weave the day after
Vinny's
house
proposal. That was the day he had spent banging on my door begging me to let
him in after I had the locks changed. I couldn't let him in. I had spent the
last seven years letting him into my heart and he had effectively ripped it out
of my chest.

He
couldn't marry
someone like me
.

Maybe I should have
let him explain
,
I thought feeling the edges of my dry damaged hair. I didn't know whether it
was falling out in clumps because I hadn't been taking proper care of it for
the past couple of months or because I was so stressed out about my love life.

Love.

I
had loved
Vinyay
Gupta for nearly a quarter of my
life. He had bought me a house. He wouldn't have bought me a house if he didn't
really love me.

Maybe
I was overreacting.

That
was the conclusion I came to four days later. After calling in sick all week
and not leaving my apartment, I had probably stumbled into an unsafe mental
state somewhere between pathetic and hallucinogenic. I thought maybe if I just
talked to him, we could work things out. I think really I was starting to panic
since he had stopped calling. It had been a full twenty-four hours since his
last message on my phone. What if he gave up trying to get me back? I couldn't
let that happen. So I slapped on a hat and caught a cab to his apartment in
Georgetown.

When
I got there, his roommate Anthony opened the door.

"Oh,
thank God you're here," he said sweeping me up into a bear hug.
"Please take him back. Please say you're here to get back together with
him."

Anthony
wasn't the touchy-feely type. He was a huge scary looking black guy who used to
play football in college. But when he stopped playing, his muscle kind of
morphed into fat. He and
Vinny
had been roommates
since senior year and I don't think Anthony had ever given me more than a high
five. So now the fact that he was hugging me kind of freaked me out. Too
stunned to actually respond I just said, "Huh?"

"He's
a broken man, Maggie. Broken and stank. The boy can barely get himself out of
bed let alone drag himself to a shower. Do you smell that?" Anthony said
waving his arms in the air. "That is the smell of an Indian boy with a
broken heart. And let me tell you, it don't smell too good. Just take him back
and you two go take a shower together or something."

"Okay,"
I said still a little taken aback about how forthcoming Anthony was. I wasn't
used to him being much of the talkative type.

"He
bought you a house. I don't see what the problem is. He loves you. Just take
him back. Please. I'm not used to him being around here all the time. He was
the perfect roommate when he spent all of his time with you. Now that he's
here
 
just
whining
about how he misses you all day long. I can't take it. I don't think I ever
realized how annoying he is. Look, take him back or take me. Yeah, let me move
in with you."

"He
misses me?" I asked picking up on that one sentence from Anthony's little
tirade.

"Yeah,
I do." I turned to see
Vinny
standing in the
hallway. He was unshaven and so sloppy he kind of looked homeless. He really
was messed up without me.

"I
miss you, too," I said running to embrace him.

"I'm
so sorry, Maggie. I didn't mean what I said. Of course, I want to marry
you."

"You
do?"

He
nodded.

I
wasn't sure if that was a proposal or not. I decided not to assume anything.
That was how we had gotten into this mess in the first place.

"Anthony's
right. You stink. Why don't you go take a shower and then come to my
place?"

Vinny
smiled then kissed me. "I
love you,
Mags
."

"I
love you, too," I said before he headed to the bathroom.

I
turned around to see Anthony plop down on the couch and pick up a game
controller. "Thank the Lord," he said as he turned on one of the
games
Vinny
had created. "I knew you two would
work it out.
Vinny
may be lazy, opinionated and have
a weird obsession with French rap music, but he is no racist. His best friend
is black, his girlfriend is black. I made him
an honorary
brother years
ago." Anthony held up an extra controller and said,
"
Wanna
play?"

I
shrugged, grabbed it, and started choosing my character. It was one of those
war games where you could only see the character from behind holding a gun so I
never understood the point of choosing the character to begin with. I told
Vinny
this, but he never took my suggestions when he was
developing a game.

"And
look, once his family sees how crazy he is about you, I'm sure they'll love you
too," Anthony added. "They have no problem with me."

"What
do you mean?" I asked as I changed my weapon from an AK-47 to a rocket
launcher.

"When
I met them, they seemed to be fine with my race."

I
paused
the game. "When did you meet his
family?"

"Two
years ago right before his sister's wedding. They flew in to DC from India.
Then they came by and picked him up on their way to Toronto. Hey, why did you
pause
it?"

"You
met his family two years ago? His family was here two years ago?" I stood
and started pacing the room. "So his parents were here in Washington DC.
Not only did he not introduce me, but he didn't even tell me they were in the
country.

"Oh.
You didn't know. I probably shouldn't have said that," Anthony said as it
dawned on him what was happening.

"
Vinny
told me that his parents have never been here,"
I said, anger welling inside me. "He told me that he would introduce me to
his parents the first chance he got. What else has Mr. Gupta lied about?

I
stormed down the hall and busted through the bathroom door. After flinging open
the shower curtain I yelled, "Your parents were here two years ago?"

"What
the hell,
Mags
?" he yelled trying to cover
himself with the curtain. As if he had anything I had never seen before.

"Don't
call me that. That's not even my name. It's Mahogany." I don't know why I
decided to bring up my proper name at that time. It's not like I ever cared
that he called me
Mags
before. But since he was the
one who gave me that nickname, maybe I felt like the name was associated with
my time with him. And that time was now over.
Forever.
"I'm never going to be good enough for your family, am I?"

He
went to turn off the water, but didn't answer. I took that as a no and stormed
out of the bathroom.

"Maggie,
wait," he said following me.

"I
told you don't call me that. It's Mahogany."

"Mahogany, please.
What do you want me to do?"

"What
do I want you to do?" I stopped walking in the living room and turned on
him. "How about not lie to me? How about be proud enough of me to
introduce me to your family? I bet they don't even know I exist."

Vinny
adjusted the towel he had
wrapped around his waist. He looked down and wiped water away from his face. I
stared at his slim, brown defined chest. It always amazed me how he never
worked out and never lifted more than a bag of popcorn on a daily basis, but
was still somehow able to keep a nice physique. That annoyed me even more at
the moment. I took my eyes off of his chest and waited for a response. None
came.

"Seven
years,
Vinny
. Seven years of my life I gave to you.
And for what?
So you can pretend I don't exist to every
person in your life except your roommate? Is he the only one that is allowed to
know about me because he's black too?"

Vinny
stole a glance at Anthony.
Anthony shook his head disapprovingly and then turned around and went back to
his war game.

"Why
can't things just keep going the way they always have?" he asked.

"Because I'm better than
that.
That's
why. We're done."

Transition over.
It was time to move on.

The
Big Chop: Cutting off all the chemically processed parts of your hair leaving you
with only a few inches or less of tightly curled natural hair.

~~~

Hair
tip #2: Don't chop off all your hair when you're drunk and pissed at your
boyfriend.
Correction, ex-boyfriend.

~~~

Sunday
morning I woke up on the couch around noon. I saw three empty bottles of Merlot
lying on the floor next to me along with a pair of scissors. Looking around I
noticed hair.
My
hair everywhere.
I touched my head and screamed.

~~~

"All
right, what happened? What's going on?" My friend
Carnece
said in a hushed panicked voice.
Carnece
and I had
been friends since middle school. I think we bonded over our odd names. I went
through elementary school with half the kids unable to say my name and the
other half shortening it to hog.
Carnece
hated the
fact that her name was a combination of her father's name Carlton and her
mother's name
Denece
but neither one of them were in
her life anymore. Her father left when she was an infant and her mother was in
jail. She hated her name, but unfortunately she didn't even have a middle name
to go by.

Carnece
came through the door, threw
down an arm full of trash bags and started looking around my apartment
suspiciously.

I
had called her hysterically crying about my hair a few minutes after I
discovered what I had done. Even thirty minutes later, I was still crying too
hard to actually speak.

"Calm
down. Calm down. We'll take care of it," she said, hugging me.

"We
can't take care of it! It's too late. I want to die."

"Don't
talk like that. I'm telling you we can handle it." She led me to the couch
and sat me down. "Now, tell me. Where is he?"

"Who?"
I asked through the tears

"
Vinny
."

"I
don't know." Why did she care about
Vinny
at
this point in time?

"What
do you mean you don't know? Were there any witnesses?" she asked.

"Witnesses?
No witnesses. I barely even
remember what I did. There was no one else here."

"Oh my God.
Is he still alive?"

"Still alive?
Who?"
I asked.

"
Vinny
?"

"Why
wouldn't he be alive? Did something happen to him?" I asked as my tears of
sadness suddenly melted away into anxiety.

Carnece
held up her hands in the
international sign for stop. "Okay. Pause.
Rewind.
What are you talking about?"

"My hair.
Can't you see? Look what I did
to my hair?"

Carnece
looked at my head for the first time.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Is that
what we're talking about? You cut off your hair?"

"Yeah,
what did you think it was?"

"Girl,
I thought you had done something to
Vinny
. I was
about to help you hide the body."

Carnece
and I looked at each other and
then busted out laughing.

~~~

"Did
you really think I killed him?" I asked a few minutes later while she was
inspecting the damage of my self-inflicted haircut.

"I
didn't know what to think," she said. "I knew you were really upset
about the break up and then you called me and you were hysterical. The only
word I could make out was scissors. I thought you might have stabbed him with
some scissors."

"Well
now I know the depth of our friendship. You were willing to cover up a homicide
for me."

"No
judge would have convicted you. Well, no female judge anyway. Not after what he
did to you. I can't believe it took you seven years to figure out what a racist
prick he is."

"Do
you really think
it's
racism?"

"What
else can it be, Mahogany?" she asked.

I
sighed. She was right. I had just spent seven years of my life with a man who
was ashamed to be with a black girl. What was wrong with me? Was my self-esteem
that low? How could I not realize it before? In all fairness, he did a great
job of covering his true feelings up.

"But
why would he be with me in the first place? Why not date an Indian girl if that
is the case?"

"Uh,
do you remember where you went to school?"
Carnece
asked as she started cleaning my living room. She stuffed empty wine bottles
into her trash bags which apparently we were supposed to use to transport
Vinny's
body.

She
was right. Cobalt University was beyond predominantly white. It was almost
completely white. Of the three thousand students there, only thirty seven
considered themselves non-white. We all knew each other by name. That was how
Vinny
and I got to know each other in the first place.
Carnece
had gone in the complete opposite direction and
attended an all-black university. Somehow we remained best friends all through
college even though I was in Minnesota and she was in DC.

"But
why not break up with me when he realized our relationship wasn't going
anywhere. Why put me through seven years of hoping?"

She
shrugged and sat down next to me. "Maybe he was hoping too," she said
putting her arm around me. "You have to know he really loves you. No one
stays with someone for seven years if there isn't some amount of love there.
Or money.
And it
ain't
money; I've
seen your bank statement. So it's love. But when it comes to race, sometimes
love
ain't
enough."

It
was a heartbreaking thought.
Vinny
didn't love me
enough to get over our different races. I couldn't cry anymore, though. I had
no more tears. I needed to focus my attention on something else if I was ever
going to get through this.

"So
what are we going to do about this?" I asked indicating my hair.

Carnece
smiled. "I might not be
able to fix your relationship problems, but I can definitely hook up your
hair."