It was true.
“It’ll be okay,” Keira said. “Trust me.” She gazed into Minni’s eyes in that way that reminded Minni she would always have at least one other person in the world who knew what she looked like deep down inside. “Okay?”
“Okay.” She followed Keira into the salon.
The front room was painted a deep lilac, and everything, from the jewel-encrusted lamps to the black iron curtain rods to the red velvet chairs, screamed hipness. Tendrils from potted plants in the corners trailed along the walls. All the chairs in the waiting area were taken. A few women sipped wine from real glasses. Others drank coffee. The air smelled of heat and hair products and the dried lavender Mama hung in all the windows of their house.
Most of the women waiting looked on the younger side—not even as old as Mama, who insisted she wasn’t old even though she was already pushing forty-three. Then there were some women who looked around Mama’s age. Grandmother Johnson was definitely the oldest person there.
“This is where you get your hair done?” Minni asked.
“No. But I thought Keira might appreciate having hers done by someone a little—what do you young people say?—‘cooler’ than my stylist. This is also supposedly the best salon in all of North Carolina for African American hair.”
Keira smiled. A genuine smile. For a second, Minni thought her sister might even give their grandmother a hug. Keira squeezed Minni instead. “Isn’t this so exciting?” She jiggled up and down.
But as hard as Minni tried, she couldn’t be excited for her sister. She loved Keira’s hair. How many times had she wished hers could be as curly and dark? As many times as she’d wished her skin were browner so that people would see they were sisters and not just friends.
Minni looked around. All the stylists, whom Minni could see in the other half of the salon, were black. All the women sitting in the chairs around them were black. Standing in the center of the room, she suddenly felt like a marble statue on display, even though none of the women had looked up from their magazines to notice them.
The receptionist walked up. “Would you like a soda?” she asked the girls.
Minni started to say, “Yes, please!” but Grandmother Johnson butted in. “At ten o’clock in the morning? I don’t think so. Besides, children drink way too many empty calories these days. Not to mention all that carbonation and acid—very hard on the digestion. Water will be fine.”
She couldn’t just say no. She had to go and give the woman a lecture about the evils of carbonation. The receptionist looked at Minni and Keira as if she felt very sorry for them, then walked over to a small refrigerator.
A chair opened up and Grandmother Johnson went to sit.
The receptionist returned with two bottles, leaned over with a definite twinkle in her eye and whispered, “It’s sparkling.” She winked. “Do you want to sit over here?” She pointed to two hair-drying chairs on the opposite end of the room from where Grandmother Johnson had sat.
“Sure! Thanks,” they said together. They sat and twisted off their bottle caps. The carbonation let out a small tshhh. They looked over at Grandmother Johnson just in case she’d heard it. Like all the other ladies, she was flipping through a magazine. Unlike the other ladies, she tsked at each page and shook her head.
Minni sipped the fizzy water. It tickled the insides of her mouth and made her feel like laughing. In the room where the stylists worked, a stand held hot combs and pressing irons for straightening curly hair. Why did women want to get their hair pulled straight? She would have given anything to have thick, kinky black curls.
Port Townsend didn’t have any salons for black women. Whenever Mama needed to get her hair washed and retwisted or she wanted to change up her look, Daddy would fly them to Seattle and they’d all make a day of it.
Mama went to a woman who did natural styles in her living room by appointment only, so they were always the only ones there, not at all like being here at the crowded Salon D’Vine.
The first time Minni could remember going with Mama to her stylist’s house, she and Keira had been six. That visit, she had learned two things that would stick with her forever.
One, it was possible to get rid of your name if you didn’t like it and become a whole new person. The stylist told them she had changed her name in college from Diane to Kenya. She’d gone to a government office and signed papers and everything, and no one was supposed to call her Diane any longer. Minni had decided then and there that as soon as she got to college she would do the exact same thing—she would head straight to that government office and unload the burden of “Minerva” once and for all.
The second thing she’d learned was about her hair.
Mama had asked Miss Kenya on the phone if she would do her daughters’ hair while they were there—“Clips-n-Snips is no longer ‘cutting it,’” she had said with a laugh, “especially for my one daughter’s hair.” Minni had known she meant Keira, since the last time they’d been to the budget salon, Keira had cried all the way home that her head looked like a pyramid.
Miss Kenya scheduled them all for appointments, but as soon as they walked in the door, the woman said she wouldn’t be comfortable doing Minni’s hair. She specialized in black hair. She could do Keira’s, but Minni would be better off with Clips-n-Snips. She apologized to Minni and told her not to feel bad—there was nothing wrong with her hair. The texture was just finer than she was used to working on.
But Minni did feel bad, because she understood what Miss Kenya was saying: She had white-people hair.
Once again, she felt too different from her mother and sister. One of these things is not like the others….
Afterward, they had gone down to the pier with Daddy. Minni insisted on walking between Mama and Keira. She gripped their hands tightly, not wanting either of them to let go. They had been to the city many times, but she had never been so afraid of getting lost in the crowd.
Minni’s attention was brought sharply back to Salon D’Vine. Keira had poked her in the arm and was pointing at Grandmother Johnson with a look of glee. Their grandmother had nodded off. Her chin rested on her chest.
Minni was about to wonder aloud if they should wake her before she got to log sawing and embarrassed herself (and them) too badly, when Grandmother Johnson snorted.
Keira had just taken a sip of her drink. “Pffft!” Water sprayed from her lips. Women looked up from their magazines.
Grandmother Johnson’s head jerked. She glanced around to see if anyone had been watching. Minni and Keira looked away quickly but ended up looking at each other. They jumped in surprise and then busted up.
Grandmother Johnson rose.
Minni pinched her sister’s arm.
Keira choked down the water she’d been holding in her mouth.
Grandmother Johnson beelined toward them. Minni could see it in their grandmother’s eyes: Her embarrassment over herself was about to be taken out on them.
Fortunately, a stylist in an apron arrived at the same moment as Grandmother Johnson, sparing them from another lecture. “Are you Keira?” the stylist asked. Her hair was sleek and shiny, pinned into an elaborate twist at the back of her head.
“Yes, ma’am.” Keira was suddenly full of Southern manners.
“I’m her grandmother, Minerva Johnson-Payne.” Grandmother Johnson bent her extended hand at the wrist, almost as if she expected the woman to kiss it.
“Pleasure,” the younger woman said, shaking the ends of Grandmother Johnson’s fingers. “I’m Angelique. Now, let’s see what we’ve got to work with here. Can you take these out?” She pointed to Keira’s Afro puffs.
Keira pulled out the ponytail holders and shook her head.
Angelique picked out a curly strand, pinched the hair near Keira’s scalp, then yanked the other end. “No breakage. Good. You’ve got a healthy head of hair, young lady.”
“I deep-condition twice a month.”
Angelique nodded.
“What are you going t
o do to her hair?” Minni asked.
“I think we have you down for a relaxer, am I right?”
“That’s right,” Grandmother Johnson said.
“How do you do it, though? Make really curly hair so straight?”
“First of all, relaxers don’t make hair all the way straight.”
“They don’t?” Keira looked disappointed.
“That’s why they’re called relaxers. They relax the curls—get them to chill out a bit.”
“I need them to chill out a lot,” Keira said.
“Don’t worry. The difference will be dramatic.”
“Dramatic goes well with this one,” Grandmother Johnson said.
Keira narrowed her eyes.
“But how does it work?” Minni asked once more. She felt her sister glaring at her, as if to say, Would you stop talking already?
But Minni needed to know. What if this ruined Keira’s hair forever, the way Mama seemed to think chemical straighteners did? She had told them the process was so harsh, a person might as well put a match to her head.
“Basically, the chemicals break the bonds inside the hair shaft, then reset them in a new, looser arrangement. Is that a good enough explanation?” Angelique put her hands in Keira’s hair and felt around some more. “With the texturizer, you’ll be able to wear it curly or straight.”
“Straight hair, here I come!” Keira exclaimed.
“Can I get a perm?” Minni blurted. She’d always wanted to have Keira’s tight, springy curls. Maybe now was her chance.
Angelique looked at her. She felt the end of one of Minni’s pigtails. “Your hair’s pretty fine. And it’s already nearly straight. If you perm out what little curl you have—”
“Not a straight perm. A curly one. Really curly. Like my sister’s is now.”
Grandmother Johnson interrupted. “And ruin your perfectly good hair? No.”
Keira’s face wrinkled up almost as much as one of the prunes Grandmother Johnson had been making them eat every day. “Ruin?” She crossed her arms. “Do you think there’s something wrong with my hair the way it is?”
Angelique’s eyes slid back and forth between Grandmother Johnson and Keira.
“You seemed more than happy to have it relaxed,” Grandmother Johnson said.
Women in the waiting area were starting to stare. “Mama says we both have good hair,” Minni said.
Grandmother Johnson looked down her nose. “Well, some of us need a little more help to have that good hair than others.”
Keira huffed. Then she turned and walked straight out the door.
Grandmother Johnson’s mouth flew open, but nothing came out. She looked about as shocked as if she’d just heard a donkey talk. So, the woman could be silenced after all.
Minni ran after her sister. It appeared that Keira would be keeping her curls, and for that, Minni was very, very glad.
Chapter Seventeen
On Sunday, Grandmother Johnson woke them early to shower. She had informed them the night before that as long as they were staying under her roof, they would be attending church.
No more had been said about the salon or how the excursion had ended. Grandmother Johnson must have known it was no use trying to get Keira to go for the relaxer once she had soured on the idea. Their grandmother couldn’t exactly drag Keira back to Salon D’Vine and chain her to Angelique’s chair.
Keira bathed first, since her thick and still kinky-curly hair took extra long to wash. When she came back to the attic, she looked as if she’d discovered buried treasure. She pulled a plastic bottle from under her shirt and sat next to Minni on Minni’s bed. “Look what I found in the medicine cabinet.”
Minni had almost peeked behind the mirror herself but had been too scared that the sound of it clicking open and shut would alert Grandmother Johnson to her trespassing.
Keira handed the container to Minni. “I didn’t feel like figuring out everything the label said, but I could read a few of the words, no problem: ‘gets rid of’ and ‘gas.’” She made a fart sound with her mouth.
Minni snickered at the name of the medicine. “Flatulex?”
As she read out loud about gastrointestinal distress and embarrassing odors, the need to laugh built—just like the air trapped in Grandmother Johnson’s colon. “It works by making you burp and fart your gas out!” She dropped the bottle of pills on the bed, grabbed her pillow and smashed it against her face. She laughed until her stomach ached and she felt as though she would suffocate.
Keira took no such precaution. She just fell out on the bed, hooting and hollering. Her feet pounded the footboard.
Minni was too busy trying to suppress her own laughter to shush Keira. She flopped alongside her sister. Whenever she felt a giggle attack coming on, she shoved her face into the pillow again. She shook uncontrollably…like that dog pooping on Grandmother Johnson’s TruGreen lawn.
Thinking about the dog and Grandmother Johnson running toward it like a crazy Amazon woman made Minni laugh even harder. The pillowcase was getting wet from tears and drool. She felt as though her laughter had been piling up like snow on a mountain; the antigas medicine had set off an avalanche.
Keira snorted, sending them into another fit. The bottle bounced on the bed between them. Minni laughed so hard she gave herself the hiccups.
“What’s going on up there?”
Minni bolted upright. Grandmother Johnson’s voice worked like her pills. They both knocked the air right out of you.
The door below cracked open. “Minerva, have you showered?”
Minni opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a hiccup.
“She’ll be down in a minute,” Keira said.
The door closed and Grandmother Johnson clip-clopped away.
“She really knows how to make a stink,” Keira said. They clapped their palms over their mouths and laughed some more.
“That’s because she’s so full of hot air,” Minni replied. More giggles.
How would they get through the rest of the day—the rest of the trip, for that matter—without breaking into inexplicable laughter at the slightest mention of anything gas-or odor-related? Grandmother Johnson would never stand for the rudeness of such outbursts. And if Keira snorted in church, Minni didn’t know what their grandmother might do.
Keira’s arms flopped from her stomach to the bed. She let out one last giggle and sighed. Hearing the air rush from her sister’s lungs helped Minni to exhale, too. Her stomach muscles finally relaxed.
“I’ve got an idea.” Keira’s eyebrows danced the way they did when she was thinking something devious. “Grandmother Johnson may need some gas relief while we’re at church. We’ll just slip a couple of these into her oatmeal—”
“Yes!” Minni sat up. “After yesterday, she deserves it.” They grinned at each other.
Justice for Grandmother Gasbag Johnson.
Sweet, sweet justice.
All the way to church, Minni worked hard not to look at Keira or think about the plot they had executed flawlessly. Keira had dropped in the pills and Minni had given the cereal a quick stir while their grandmother retrieved something from the kitchen. She had eaten the whole bowl without comment or a single raise of The Eyebrow. Keira had returned the medicine to the bathroom before they left the house.
As they drove along, Grandmother Johnson’s stomach gurgled like a swamp monster. Each time, she let out a small gasp of surprise. Minni pressed her lips together, stared out the window and pretended she hadn’t heard a thing.
Finally, they arrived at the church—Good Shepherd African Methodist Episcopal. The front rose steeply toward the sky, solid as a rock-climbing wall, with big, castlelike wooden doors. Families with boys in suits and girls in frilly dresses, couples and older people came from all directions.
Grandmother Johnson parked in a gravel lot a block away. Before getting out, she reached across the seat to the mystery box she’d brought to the car. She removed the lid and pulled out a hat covered i
n spiky white feathers. Somewhere a crested ibis was flying around with a naked behind.
She put on the hat and with four quick jabs pinned it to her head. “Let’s go. No dillydallying.” Her stomach rumbled again. “Ooo,” she said, holding her belly. “The oatmeal’s not settling so well today.”
Keira smirked at Minni, who clambered out of the car. She didn’t know how long she could maintain her poker face.
“She looks like she’s wearing a feather duster on her head,” Keira whispered as they followed behind.
“And a nurse’s uniform,” Minni whispered back. Grandmother Johnson was dressed completely in white.
She strode ahead of them down the sidewalk, commanding them to keep up. Her dress, gloves and hat feathers glowed in the humid gray air. Minni watched the sky, expecting any second to be dive-bombed by a flock of angry seagulls avenging one of their own.
“Deacon Barnes,” Grandmother Johnson said with a curt nod to a man on the front steps.
“Deaconess Johnson,” he said, tipping his hat.
They passed through the large front doors into a reception area. People milled about, chatting and laughing. All the women wore fancy dresses. Two boys in suits chased each other. No one wore a hat that looked like a blow-dried bird.
A picture of a husband and wife hung on the wall. Minni could tell they were married by the way the woman leaned into the man and had her hand on his shoulder. An engraved gold plaque read, THE REVEREND DR. JAMES JULIUS AND HIS FIRST LADY.
Grandmother Johnson stopped to talk to another woman. Minni peered through the propped-open door that led to the inner part of the church—the part that had rows of pews all facing the front and a kind of stage with a podium. The part that made you feel like you had to be quiet. The altar, Minni seemed to recall it was called.
A large stained-glass picture high on the wall over the altar showed a brown-skinned shepherd with a staff in his hand and sheep around his feet. A light glowed around his curly black hair as if the sun were coming up behind his head. Was the shepherd Jesus?
She didn’t really know much about Jesus, except that he was supposed to be God’s son. She’d never seen him pictured with brown skin but she liked the idea that he could change colors depending on where he was, like a chameleon. She’d like to be able to do that.
The Other Half of My Heart Page 11
