Natural Beauty (3 page)

Wash
N Go: This is kind of self-explanatory. It's a hair style that requires little
effort. You wash it, and you go.

~~~

Hair
tip #3: Own it. No matter what your hair looks like, you have to own it. You have
to make it seem like whatever is on your head is there because you wanted it
like that. If you believe that, everyone else will as well.

~~~

Most
of
Carnece
'hooking up' my hair involved her
convincing me how good it looked. But considering the state I was in, it was
probably exactly what I needed. I didn't have any more days to take off of
work. I would be forced to face the world with my short, nappy hair.

"There
is nothing wrong with short, nappy hair. Hair is hair," she had said.
"Straight is beautiful, curly is beautiful, nappy is beautiful. If you
don't believe that, how will anyone else?"

Logically,
what she said made sense. I just didn't believe it. If our nappy hair was so
beautiful, why did we spend our lives trying to hide it? Even as she was saying
this I was thinking back to when I was six years old sitting in my
grandmother's hot kitchen getting my hair straightened with a hot comb. If my
nappy hair was so beautiful, why did I have to spend two hours using fire to
straighten it? And what was worse, was that after spending all that time
getting my neck and ears burned by a hot comb, I was no longer allowed to go
outside and play with my friends for fear I would ‘sweat it out’. Forget summer
swim camps. I couldn't get my hair wet for fear my hair would revert back to
its natural nappy state. As far as I could see, there was no beauty in this
hair. But I would sure pretend there was.

Carnece
tried to convince me to wear a
wig to my first day back at work for an easier transition. She even had a couple
in her car that I could try on. But they just didn't look right on me. Probably
because one had a streak of hot pink and the other had a streak of purple. Not
exactly my style.

I’d
never had Wash N Go hair. All my life, doing my hair was a process that
required me clearing two days off of my schedule. So despite my hatred of my
new hair, I kind of loved being able to just hop out of the shower, rub in a
little oil and gel, and head out. It was kind of freeing. No, I didn't love the
style, but I did love the freedom.

I
dreaded the looks I would get with my hair like this. I especially dreaded what
Trent would say. I hated that guy. He always had something to say about
everything. And usually, whatever he had to say was offensive and laced with
profanity.
 

The
morning began without even a word from him.
Just a look.
A look I didn't quite understand. He just stared at me for several seconds from
his desk that was unfortunately just inches away from mine. I decided to make a
preemptive strike.

"Yes,
I changed my hair," I said slamming down my bag and staring at him.
"And I happen to like it." Okay, that was a bit of a lie, but he
didn't need to know that. "This is the way my hair grows out of my head
and this is the way I'm going to wear it."

Trent
still didn't say anything. After a few more seconds of staring he said,
"That..." He didn't finish his thought. He kind of just trailed off
and kept staring at me. I knew what he was thinking. He probably wanted to say
something racist and offensive like how I looked like a slave or something.
Once I caught him talking about how he just wasn't attracted to black girls. I
walked in the break room just as he was telling Frank how he didn't understand
how anyone could find a black woman attractive.

"What?
What are you trying to say?" I asked standing my ground. I was not going
to let him intimidate me.

He
shook his head as if trying to wake himself up.
"Nothing.
Didn't say anything."
Then he took out his
wallet, pulled out a dollar, and stuffed it into a jar sitting on his desk.

For
the past three months, he had been constantly stuffing money into an old jelly
jar on his desk. I had no idea why and before today I had never even cared to
ask. But given that he just stared at me before dropping money into it, I had
to admit that I was a little curious.

Just
when I was about to ask what was going on with the jar and the cash, Sharon,
the company accountant, walked by and said, "Welcome to the club."

"What
club?" I asked.

Pointing
to her head she said, "Natural hair. You're going to love it."

Honestly,
I had never noticed that she was natural. But looking at it now, I could see
that she had an adorable afro puff sitting at the top of her head. I had to
admit, I was a little jealous of it. If my hair was long enough to poof like
that I think I would like it a whole lot more. But right now I felt I looked
like a boy. I had to make sure I wore something extremely feminine to
counteract the effect of my lack of hair.

"Thanks,"
I said to Sharon as she kept walking toward accounting.

The
momentary confidence I felt from Sharon's comment soon evaporated as Eliza came
over to my desk. Eliza was an eighteen year old intern who had just graduated
high school and was trying to get some experience in marketing before going off
to college. I was less than ten years older than her, but the way she spoke
like a walking text message made me feel like we were in completely different
generations.
"OMG!
I knew you were sick, but I
didn't know it was that bad.
SMH.
You should have told
someone," she said.

"Told
someone what?" I asked.

"About the cancer.
It was cancer right?"

I
touched my hair self-consciously.

"You
dumb ass," Trent said out of the blue. "She's been gone less than a
week. You really think chemo works that fast?" Trent took a quarter out of
his pocket and dropped it into the jar before saying, "Why don't you go
turn on some Justin Bieber and let the adults get some work done, okay?"

"You
see, this is why no one likes you," Eliza said.

"Are
you still talking? Are you really still talking? Mahogany, is there blood
dripping out of my ears?" Trent asked touching the sides of his face
dramatically. "
Cause
I'm pretty sure the sound of
idiot teenagers makes my ears bleed."

Eliza
rolled her eyes and stormed away.

"A
little harsh there, Trent," I said after she had gone.

He
shrugged. "Whatever. I hate that kid. She makes me want to get a vasectomy
for my 30th birthday." He cleared his throat and said, "Your hair
looks good like that. She's a moron. Trust me. Last week she was confused at how
a pencil sharpener worked."

"Still,
she's just a kid," I said. "You could have found a nicer way to say
it."

Trent
looked straight ahead. I could tell there were some things going on in his
head. Thankfully, he didn't share. Inside his psycho brain was probably one
scary place. Once again, he took a dollar out of his wallet and stuffed it in
his jar.

"What
is it with you and that jar?" I asked trying to count the money in it.
There had to be almost twenty dollars.

Trent
grabbed it and put it in his desk. "You don't want to know," he said
after slamming the drawer shut.

"If
I didn't want to know, I wouldn't have asked."

Instead
of responding, he stood up and walked away. What a jerk.

~~~

There
are a couple of things you should probably know about the social media firm
where I work. It is run by my boss Mr. George who refuses to admit that he is
going bald and about to turn 60. Therefore he does everything in his power to
seem hip and cool which includes growing his hair to his shoulders and running
his company as if it was a candy factory. A few months ago, he decided that
desks were too conventional and made everyone get rid of them and go to bean
bags. He also instituted a companywide weekly fitness regime which really only
included putting on yoga pants and breathing deeply. I think I put up with all
the weird stuff because the pay was great and the job was really flexible. But
the one thing I couldn't stand was the bathroom thing. Since Mr. George
believed that men and women were created equal, he felt we should all use the
same bathroom. Therefore, we had one bathroom with three stalls inside for all
forty-two people in the company to use. Because of this, I usually waited until
lunch to go to the bathroom, but today I couldn't wait. After the cancer comment
from Eliza I needed somewhere to go shed a few tears. And I refused to cry in
front of my workmates.

I
waited until it was clear and then slipped into our stupid unisex bathroom.

It
only took a quick look at my horrible hair before the tears started. What had I
done? What was I doing? I had cut
Vinny
and my hair
out of my life. Maybe I would go wig shopping with
Carnece
after work.

As
I heard the door swing open, I tried to wipe away tears and get myself
together.

"Oh,
sorry," Trent said from the door.

Great,
I thought. All I needed was for him to go around telling everyone in the office
how I was blubbering in the bathroom.

"I'll
just go," he said backing out of the bathroom.

The
fact that Trent saw me like this made me cry even more.

"Uh,
you don't want to go in there," I heard Trent say from outside.
Great.
This was his chance.

"Why not?"

"It
needs to air out. I had bad sushi and, uh, what I just did in there was not a
pretty sight," he added.

Was
he covering for me? Why?

Ten
minutes later when I was finally able to stop crying, I stepped outside the
bathroom to find Trent still standing there.

I
cleared my throat and said, "Thanks."

He
shrugged and said, "Never happened."

TWA:
Teenie
Weenie Afro. Yeah, this is also pretty self-explanatory.
It’s an afro that’s kind of small, maybe no more than three inches or so even
fully picked out.

~~~

Hair
tip #4: By using a moisture and gel, you may be able to add adorable curls to
your TWA. Take one small section of hair at a time, add a moisturizer and then
twist the hair around your finger with the gel. It does not need to be as
perfectly defined as finger coils.

~~~

Let's
face it. My big hair chop was an unconscious attempt to symbolize cutting
Vinny
out of my life.
It kind of made sense.
But, unfortunately, my conscious mind didn't completely agree with my
unconscious mind. I hated my hair. And when you hate your hair, it's kind of
hard to like anything else about yourself.

I
think I might have been able to deal with my natural hair a little better if it
was longer. I'd have more confidence if I had a huge sweeping afro like Angela
Davis or something. But as it was, all I had was a TWA, a
teenie
weenie afro. It took all of my effort to look confident and pretend like I
loved my hair when most days all I wanted to do was crawl into a corner and
cry. No amount of colorful flowers in my hair or jewelry could change the fact
that I felt extremely ugly and unattractive, especially to the opposite sex.

I
just wanted my hair to grow, and quickly. Like the nerd I am, I started doing
research to figure out what I could do to help my hair grow faster. There had
to be some kind of vitamin I could take or a special elixir to massage into my
scalp.

From
my research, I learned that human hair grows an average of six inches per year.
The only way to increase that was to have a healthy protein rich diet and take
vitamin supplements. This might increase the growth rate to seven or eight
inches per year.

Somehow
I thought chopping off all of my hair or breaking up with my boyfriend of seven
years would be the hardest thing I'd have to encounter for a while, but I was
sadly mistaken. The hardest thing would be telling my parents that I had cut
off said hair and broken up with said boyfriend.

"Sweetheart,
it's your life," my dad said leaning against the wall of my apartment
sipping a glass of merlot. I had inherited my attachment to red wine from him.
My mother was more of a gin and tonic kind of girl. "But do you really
want to break up with him over something like this. I mean marriage isn't all
it's cracked up to be. Look at your mother and me."

"Amen
to that!" my mother said from the computer screen. She was on one of her
yearly shopping trips in New York and thus had to join the conversation through
Skype. "And please, for the love of God, let me send you some cash so you
can get that hair fixed. I think my stylist will still be able to sew in a nice
weave."

"I
don't want a weave. I like my hair just the way it is." Okay, I was back
to the same old lie once again, but I was not about to admit that I thought my
hair was a mistake to my parents. They would just use that as a sign of
weakness and then somehow convince me to get back together with
Vinny
."

"Well,
I don't understand what made you think he was going to propose in the first
place," my dad said pouring himself another glass.

"Really?
You don't understand? Well,
let's see, we've been together for seven years and he had lunch with you three
weeks ago."

"Honey,
I'm a mortgage broker. We were just working on his loan." His calm
demeanor and perfectly tailored suit was really starting to piss me off for
some reason. I suddenly felt like I was presenting my case before Congress or
something.

"Of
course, it seems obvious now, but at the time -"

"Well,
you're never going to get him back with your hair like that, Mahogany,” my
mother said interrupting me. “You have to do something."

"Who
the hell says I want him back?"

My
mother and father rolled their eyes simultaneously. For two people who hated
each other so much, they sure did agree when it came to my life.

After
my dad left and my mother signed off, I went back to my hair books. I took out
a ruler and tried to measure my hair. I was going to test the half inch a month
statistic for the next month. I really wanted to see how much my hair would
grow. If it really did grow half an inch or more, all hope was not lost. I
could make a goal of how long I wanted to be in a year. I would follow a strict
hair growing diet if I had to. This was the new me.
A new
life, a new journey, and my key to getting over
Vinyay
Gupta.