by Weston, Dani
8.
In the morning, Ladies in Waiting met in the back room of a well-known Hollywood salon. I had never been the kind of girl who got excited about a makeover. Partly because I was too busy with my music, partly because makeovers were for white girls with big blue eyes and silky hair, not mixed girls like me with gold eyes and an unruly afro. But the rest of the band was excited, so I put on a smile and hoped the stylists knew what they were doing.
We were seated the moment we walked through the curtains to the back room. The leather or vinyl or whatever material the chair was made out of was warm, as though another body still inhabited it. Before two seconds had passed, a tall woman with long, flat bangs across her face closed in on me. She swathed my front in a cape, then stepped back with an expectant look on her face. I didn’t even have time to grab one of the beauty magazines on the little table to my right.
“Hello, darling,” came an accented voice from behind me. I began to swivel around in my chair but my actions were halted by hands on my shoulders. “No. You stay right where you are.”
I lifted my eyes to the wall of mirrors in front of me and sought out the man holding me in position. He was not what I was expecting. He was the same height as me, probably, and drop dead gorgeous, with skin as dark as mine, but a warmer shade of brown. Latino. He winked at me in the mirror.
“And what shall we do to you today?”
“Don’t you know it’s a capital crime to mess with a black woman’s hair?” I said.
He laughed and looked at his assistant. “I like her.” The assistant smirked at me.
“My name is Rodrigo and you may call me…Rodrigo. I have the pleasure of taking you, my little ugly duckling, and turning you into a swan.”
“That’s the first time since childhood that I’ve been called ugly.” I tried to sound offended, but a smile tickled the corners of my mouth. I could already tell Rodrigo was the type to “call it like it is,” even if his version of “is” was a little embellished. He liked the attention.
“I have seen worse,” Rodrigo conceded. “But this hair…it just doesn’t scream pop starlet to me. Does it to you?” He didn’t look at his assistant, but she shook her head anyway.
“That’s my signature look,” I said, dryly.
“In my world, women only get to have a signature look once they’ve made it. Until then, you belong to me.”
“I don’t know…” I snuck a glance over to Bea. She didn’t seem to have any qualms about giving herself over to a stylist. She was leaning back in her chair slightly, her eyes closed, totally relaxed, while her stylist hovered over a stack of foil squares.
Rodrigo came around to stand in front of me. He bent close to my face. “I know it’s hard to give yourself over to someone else. Especially because there is so much to navigate, culturally, for you. Do you think I don’t know about that? Hair is my life. And I’m the best there is at it. It’s my job to understand good hair and kinky hair and girls being teased for their hair and product and texture and, for real, all of that.
“It’s a minefield. But try to get through it. Because I understand women. And I understand power. And I understand the connection between women, power and beauty. That’s my very specialized job. It’s what makes the most famous of women line up for me. So relax. Let me make you beautiful and confident and powerful. You won’t have to thank me today. Rodrigo is a patient man.”
Part of me wanted to get up and walk away. Rodrigo talked about power and beauty, but I stumbled over the idea that giving in to other people’s visions of beauty wasn’t exactly powerful. It was letting other social systems dictate my personal style. Fitting a standard. But I knew image was a powerful force in this industry. I didn’t have to accept that, but I wasn’t prepared to be the one who ruined our chances. I heaved a sigh.
“Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
I reached around Rodrigo and grabbed a beauty magazine. “Okay. Make me beautiful. Create my signature look.”
Rodrigo grinned. His teeth were big and white. Then he straightened, reached for my hair and slid his fingers through it. He paused, did it again. Then he grabbed a fistful and inspected the strands more closely.
“Melva,” he whispered. The assistant snapped to attention and leaned toward him. “Is this what I think it is?”
“It’s ugly enough to be,” Melva said, not trying very hard to hide her boredom.
“Melva, Melva,” Rodrigo muttered. “When you have been styling as long as I have you will understand how precious this is. See? My hands are trembling a little.”
He could tremble all he wanted; my neck was beginning to ache with the strain of him tugging my hair backwards.
“This is virgin hair, isn’t it?” Rodrigo asked. “You’ve never dyed or relaxed or gotten extensions or had any of those things done to your hair before, have you?”
“I’m all natural, all over, Rodrigo.”
Rodrigo dropped my hair and clasped his hands together, staring at the ceiling like a man possessed by angels. Then he picked up a comb and caught my eye in the mirror. “Two things. One, thank you for trusting me with your hair. And two, believe me when I say that your image does matter. It’s a part of who you are, who you will become. And it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. It can be empowering.”
He began to run the comb through my hair, unknotting the tangles so gently that my scalp barely registered it happening at all. Rodrigo started barking orders to Melva. A series of letters and numbers. He would spit out one string, then backtrack and start over again. Melva didn’t bat an eyelash as she scribbled notes, crossed them out, scribbled more.
“Courtney, you are going to be so sexy. And badass, too. Bassists have to be badass.” His words lifted my soul. For the first time, I believed him when he said he knew what look was best for me. Then, he said to Melva again, “She’ll need a deep condition, of course. Hot. After the color and before the cut.”
“What color?” I asked.
“What color would you like?” Rodrigo shot back.
“Pink,” I said. I was joking, but Rodrigo seemed to consider it seriously.
“We’ll just do a little bit of color,” he said, and I knew pink was off the table.
When Rodrigo finished giving Melva order, he gazed at me in the mirror. “Here we go, darling.”
Rodrigo and Melva had their hands in my hair for hours. They foiled and wiped and rinsed and oiled and cut and I just sat there, trying to relax. This sort of thing was supposed to be fun, right? Before they would turn me around to the mirror, a make-up woman came in and worked for another half hour. Finally, I got to see the new me.
Looking at the woman in the mirror was like finding a long lost sister. I knew it was me, and there were parts of me that looked familiar, but so much was different. Rodrigo had taken off a lot of hair. One side was artfully shaved and the other remained long, with a bit of wave, like a 40’s film star. My neck was now exposed to the warm L.A. sun and my head felt much lighter. Black was shot through with blond and, across my forehead, one strand of pale pink forced me to smile. My makeup was gorgeous: thick kohl around my eyes, shimmering gold on my lids and a succulent raspberry on my lips.
“Well?” Rodrigo asked, arms crossed behind me. “There is nothing to hate, correct?”
I caught Bea and Kaitlin’s eyes in the bank of mirrors across the room. They looked like they’d been done for a while, relaxing with their new, hot styles. We all looked like we’d just leveled up in a video game.
“Nothing at all,” I said.
I kept peeking at myself in the rearview mirror as the driver took me back to the house. What would my DG sisters think about my new ‘do? What would Jimmy Keats think? I didn’t have time to find out right away, because after the salon visit, we were swept away by Kendra, a stylist, for a round of Fill Your Closet, where we visited clothing boutique after boutique, putting together our signature style, all on someone else’s dime.
“You need clothes that fla
tter your curves,” Kendra said to Bea. “Cinch your little waist, don’t hide it. You need something to give you curves,” she said to me.
With a chagrined expression, I took the high waisted sequin shorts she passed me. My body was more athletic than va va voom. Normally, that was fine with me, but I was a business major: I knew sex appeal sells.
“And you,” Kendra told Kaitlin, “have great boobs, but you’re so short that you disappear. Platforms, my dear. Learn to walk in them.”
“I’m going to break my ankles,” Kaitlin muttered, when Kendra gave her a stack of sky-high stilettos and thigh high boots.
“I’d guess you could charge the medical bill to Jimmy Keats, too,” I assured her. We all giggled at that, even Kendra. Because spending someone else’s money was fun.
*
I hung the new clothes in my closet, but went right back to my skirts and t-shirts for classes. My new hair was enough of a change, without adding designer labels and risqué cut fashion to my daily style. The DG ladies loved the look, impressed that I would make such a change. I redirected their questions—why the change? Why now? What does it mean? Was it for Jimmy?—by shrugging and pretending it was for MBA interviews, and definitely not for a man. Their puzzled looks were the only follow-up to my excuse, because, yeah, it was a pretty cutting edge cut and color. Not the sort of thing I would normally do for grad school interviews. I considered that it might actually be a strike against me, when I did apply, but then I played with my hair all through my classes and smiled indulgently when I caught people looking at me too long and I realized I loved the change. Even when I discovered I’d missed a full ten minutes of a lecture with my head in the clouds, daydreaming about walking the red carpet with my hot look.
After classes, Bea came over to study and she, too, seemed slightly distracted by her new style, continually twirling her long, honey brown hair around her finger.
“Oh, Duncan called me while I was in lab. Left a message. We have a photo shoot tomorrow morning.”
“I have classes,” I said, blowing a stream of frustrated air. Fantastic hair or not, I had to buckle down and get my studying done.
“It’s before that.”
“That’s…early.”
She twisted her mouth with half-amusement. “Yeah.”
I made a mental list of all the things I had to do: practice music, photo shoot, classes, study, apply to grad school, DG duties, be a decent human being, sleep.
I guessed I could mark sleep off that list.
“Argh. Thank goodness I downloaded this new study app to my tablet last weekend. It’s a timesaver. I’ll show you.” I lifted the stack of paper on my desk, then checked my drawers and my bag. A dark feeling took root in my belly. I swallowed. “That’s weird. My tablet’s missing. Last week, I lost my planner, too.”
“It’ll show up. Maybe you left it in a class.”
“Maybe.” That didn’t seem likely. I was great at remembering to gather all my things after classes. I checked under my bed, just in case, then sat in the middle of my floor, pondering. My glance went to my open window, just above my desk. It was almost as though someone was stealing my things. I stood and closed the window, trying to bury the uncomfortable thought that a stranger had been in my room, and got back to studying.
9.
A car came by first thing the next morning to take us to our photo shoot. The moment I saw the van pull into the driveway, I smashed my banana and mango chunks into the blender fast as humanly possible and flipped to the highest setting. I smelled that rank odor that comes with a frying motor, but at least the smoothie was done before anyone could yell that I was taking too long. Bea and Kaitlin were already in the car.
“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked Bea as we began to head out of the city. The sun hadn’t even made an appearance yet. I yawned, then I sipped at the smoothie I’d poured into a travel cup and, for the millionth time, touched the short hairs on the shaved parts of my head. Would I ever get used to the cut?
“Secret location,” Bea said.
“Do we really have to be up this early?”
“Apparently, the light is best early in the morning.”
“Pre-dawn sucks, but maybe we’ll be done early enough for me to get to my class at ten.”
“Yeah.” Bea chewed on a piece of her newly golden hair. “I don’t want to fall behind on the lectures.”
Kaitlin rubbed her eyes. “I didn’t even get off work until ten last night. Whoever thinks musicians have it easy was totally wrong. Suck ass dawn sucks.”
“Duncan told us they need time to style us,” Bea said.
“Again?”
“Your hair is sticking up too high on one side,” Bea pointed out.
“I like the styling part, at least,” Kaitlin said. “Just lay back and enjoy the attention.”
“Your life motto?” I teased.
Laughter filled the back of the car. “Hell, yeah.”
I stared out the window at the scenery lining the freeway and watched the houses turn into strip malls, then into industrial buildings, then not much of anything at all. We drove for an hour, heading up into the mountains. I fell asleep partway there and didn’t wake again until Bea gave my arm a little squeeze.
“We’re here,” she whispered.
We emptied out of the car, looking at the people already there, milling around outside. We stretched our arms and kicked up dirt. The morning light filtering in through the branches was sharp on my tired eyes.
“It’s green,” I mumbled.
“And too early.” Kaitlin yawned.
“Good morning, ladies. Come with me, please.” An older man with gray hair and a sharp, tan jaw beckoned for us to follow him. We trudged through the trees. The trees opened into a clearing where a portable styling station was set-up around a circle of cameras and motorcycles.
A styling team waited at the secret location, led by Melva. “Those are some dark circles under your eyes,” she said to me by way of greeting.
“Thanks for the alert. I wouldn’t have noticed them without you pointing them out.”
She rolled her eyes at me, and I regretted snapping at her. But it was early. She hardly had the right to look so fresh and dewy, herself. But there she was, defying time with her smooth skin and perfectly coiffed hair. She urged Kaitlin into the styling chair and I turned away to watch another car pull up the dirt and gravel road behind us.
Jimmy Keats stepped out.
I caught my breath. If Melva looked pretty in the morning, it was nothing to the way Jimmy Keats entered the clearing, as though the dawn belonged to him. Power slid off his body in waves. His dark jeans were fitted and his soft cotton t-shirt clung to his muscles. He caught sight of me behind his sunglasses, and let his gaze linger on me before moving further into the clearing. I suddenly wished Melva had taken me to the styling chair first and that I didn’t have circles under my eyes, or that my hair wasn’t standing on end, as I knew it was.
But Jimmy Keats didn’t mention the way I looked. Or the moment we had at his house just a couple days ago—and the week before that. He didn’t talk about our—my—song, and he certainly didn’t approach the topic of our secrets. He didn’t say a word to me.
I felt like a container of milk that had been left on the counter. Lukewarm and ready to spoil.
Fuck him.
I turned my attention back to my bandmates and refused to think about Jimmy Keats. We took turns at the stylist stations, after which each lady was led to one of the motorcycles for an individual shoot. While Bea slunk over the bike like a sexy cat, I was fussed over by Melva and her assistant, who argued about whether my bangs should go vertical and if gold stick-on jewels around my eyes would look better than pink. In the end, I had swathes of green eye shadow extending past the outside corners of my eyes, a smattering of gold sparklies cascading down my temples, and lips frosted thickly with pale pink lip gloss. I was then pulled behind a temporary dressing curtain and given a skin-tight pair of
leather pants and a shaggy orange tank to wriggle into. I peered at myself in the hanging mirror.
No doubt about it, I was hot as hell.
And even if I hadn’t known it, the looks I was being given by the rest of my band and the shoot crew would have confirmed it. Kaitlin pushed her new extensions over her shoulder, the fat black curls bouncing with her movement.
“Damn, look at you,” she said.
“They pretty much overdid it, huh?” I said, pressing on the sparklies at the top of my cheekbones.
“No way. You look amazing.”
“Thanks.”
I watched Kaitlin pose for her shoot. She was a little more awkward than Bea, giggling nervously when she was asked to give a fierce face or to pout at the camera. But she pulled off the “look over your shoulder seductively” pose, her hair cascading down her back like a waterfall.
Then it was my turn on the bike. Someone handed me a bass guitar, molded me and the guitar on into position like I was playdoh, and instructed me to stare intently into the camera.
Stare intently? I wasn’t a model. I twisted my face a few different ways, but got an exasperated looked from the photographer. Jimmy Keats, standing behind the oversized lollipop camera lights, put his fist over his mouth, as though to keep back a laugh. I glared.
And that seemed to work. The photographer came to life, hovering over me and flitting around me and saying things like, “wow, that’s raw” or “oh, more of that please.” I could see Bea, from the corner of my eye, smirking at us. I stuck my tongue out at her and laughed when the photographer tsked me. But I know he really liked it – the both of them – because Bea laughed back and the photographer told me to keep up the smile.
When I was done, the photographer held his fingers in the air. “Five minute break, then group shots.”
I lingered near the motorcycles as the crew moved temporary backdrops and lighting around under direction from the photographer.
