Chapter 23 Heaven
Heaven
I didn’t think two members of the Ford family would pop up this summer and stress me out, but here we are.
I do want to work the party and also I’m scared out of my mind.
I remember being twelve and very pointedly not being invited to sleepovers or birthday parties, so being at one with Saylor’s sisters and her friends will probably trigger some very specific PTSD.
Still, Mrs. Ford’s offer is hard to pass up—paid practice sounds like a pretty good deal, and Saylor will be there.
But also, Saylor will be there. We’re making our way through the mall.
I try not to freak out when Saylor takes my hand and tugs me toward the land of LEGO.
We stand there for a second, just looking at each other, our fingers intertwined, and maybe I should just ask her if we’re still just friends, but the last time I asked a relationship-related question, I found myself wishing I could pull my own lips off my face and throw them in the trash, so I go with the safe option.
“So should we get one big LEGO set or work on a couple smaller ones?” I ask.
“Hmm, smaller ones? I really like the flower kits.”
“Cool.” Cool is safe, right? Saylor tugs me farther into the store and keeps her grip on my hand until she grabs one of the succulent kits. It takes me a little while to figure out what I want. I settle on the LEGO Kawasaki Ninja.
Our parents worked out some sort of deal, so Saylor pays this time. I take the bag and Saylor takes my hand. I don’t care if anyone is looking. We start toward the food court when Saylor suddenly stops and pulls me to the side.
“We have to talk,” she says. The four worst words in the English language. I nod and will myself not to cry.
“Sure. What are we talking about?”
“I don’t want to scare you.” She laughs. “But we need to seriously discuss the makeover. We need to talk about ground rules because I won’t lie, I wanna give you the works.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. “You don’t like the way I look?”
“Um no. That could not be further from the truth,” she says with a wide-eyed shake of her head. “I just need to know how far is too far. Like are shorts too far?”
“Yes,” I say.
“Okay. Come with me.”
Twenty minutes later, we walk out of Old Navy.
I think about how long I can go giving Saylor the silent treatment.
She gives me about four seconds to sulk before she’s back in my space.
She doesn’t hold my hand again ’cause she’s carrying a bag now, but she does tickle my palm with the fingertips on her broken hand as we make our way past the food court. My whole arm starts tingling.
“Stop pouting.” She laughs. “You don’t have to even wear it outside. We just have to show your parents and take, like, one picture for the time capsule. You’ll survive, I promise.”
“Yeah, whatever. I hope you like black ’cause I’m going full goth. Kiss that blond hair goodbye,” I joke, focusing in on the Vans store across the way.
She gasps. “Heaven, wait!”
“What? What’s up?” I automatically start looking her up and down, looking for signs of fresh injury. Saylor just stares back at me, her mouth hanging open. “What?”
“I should dye my hair.”
“Nah. No way.”
“Why not? It’s a makeover, right?”
“Yeah, and you said it yourself, like ninety percent of the content your mom makes is about your hair. I will not be put on a hit list because I ruined your precious blond curls,” I tell her.
“You will not be put on a hit list. Listen, it’s my hair and my mom is all in on the bingo.
You saw the T-shirts. If we’re doing a makeover, one of us needs to fully commit, and since it’s harder to strip dark hair than it is to dye light hair, I think that person should be me.
Actually, I need it to be me. This is my act of independence,” Saylor declares.
“Okay, George Washington, but you have to promise me this isn’t gonna come back to bite me in the ass. I don’t want to be banned from your house or you banned from your—your person,” I say, gesturing around her. “I’m trying to hide you from your mom. Not piss her off.”
“You’d miss me, wouldn’t you?” she says with a smile, and I force myself not to touch her scar-free cheek. I have to push the urge to kiss her in the middle of the mall out of the way.
“Yeah sure, whatever. We can dye your hair, but just know your mom is gonna freak.”
“And then maybe she’ll stop putting me in her videos.”
“I—you have a point. Let’s dye your hair, but first…” I take the Old Navy bag from her so I can hold her hand again and then I head right for the Vans store.
· · ·
Our field trip is pretty successful. We grab everything we need and lunch from In-N-Out.
When we get back to my house, I grab some towels my mom won’t care about and make sure the dogs have their quick pee break before I put them back in their crates.
Saylor and I can do whatever we want, but the dogs cannot be an accidental part of our makeover.
Mom would kill me. The goal is to keep from getting hair dye all over my bathroom.
Saylor gets comfortable on the edge of the tub, and I put on one of my favorite lo-fi playlists before I look over the directions on the dye container.
“Why did you start wearing your hair back in a bun like that?” Saylor asks.
“And don’t play dumb. All those pictures going up the stairs tell the truth.
” It would be easier to lie if there wasn’t proof all over the house.
I just had to be my parents’ only child.
“I mean, I get wearing it back and out of your face, but you wear it the same way every day.”
“My dad used to do my hair all the time. He refused to be the dad who could barely do a ponytail, so he learned how to do all the cute styles.”
“Then what happened?” Saylor asks.
“I don’t know. Racism, mostly. When I was out with my mom, white women would come up to us and question her claim over me.
Plus, the cuter my hair looked, the grabbier people got, so I started slicking it back.
It’s out of my face when I skate so that’s good, but yeah, I just got sick of people touching it. ”
“Ugh, relatable. Some lady touched my hair in Sprouts a couple months ago,” I tell her. “Glory said next time someone does that to me, touch their hair back until they let go.”
I burst out laughing. “That’s genius. Okay, let’s do this.”
I’ve never dyed hair before, mine or anyone else’s, but the instructions are pretty clear and I’ve seen enough videos of other people getting the job done.
I spread Vaseline around Saylor’s hairline and get to work.
Once I get about halfway through, I realize there’s no turning back.
I scoop a few fingers full of the dye and just start spreading it everywhere.
No one should hire me in their salon, but it’s doing the trick.
Finally, her blond-brown curls are covered in Electric Fox’s Autumn Sunrise, wrapped, and secured in a disposable shower cap. Now we just have to wait.
“Okay, it’s your turn,” Saylor says.
I look in the mirror like I’m never gonna see this person again. “You wanna shave my head, don’t you?”
“No.” She laughs. “I just want you to wear it down or like half-down. We gotta try something different.”
“Fine,” I groan. “Switch with me.”
Saylor hops up and I think she’s gonna stand by the sink so I can get to the shower and rinse my hair in the tub, but she stops right in front of me.
“Hi,” she says, and before I can say anything, her fingers are on my hips and she’s kissing me again.
Once quickly, on the lips like she’s not quite sure if this is the right way to say hello.
She leans back just a few inches with her eyes roaming over my face, and then she kisses me again.
It’s short, but not as short as the first. I never considered how different kisses could be, but the second kiss gives me a lot to think about.
Saylor steps around me after a few moments, and I take the hint and head over to the tub so I can dunk my hair. My heart is beating in my throat and stomach at the same time as I carefully pull down my hair. The front is slicked into the next lifetime, but I feel my damp curls fall down my back.
“Heaven. Are you kidding me?”
“What?” I glance over my shoulder and Saylor is staring at me with her hand on her hip.
“You’ve been hiding all that hair this whole time?”
“Yeah, I don’t like people touching it.”
She puts her hand up in surrender. “That’s fair, but damn.”
I quickly wash the gel out of my hair then wrap it in a towel before I check my phone again. Saylor still has another five minutes for her dye job. It’s gonna take a while to finish both our hair, but I can manage it. And it’s something to do while I quietly panic.
I work my leave-in through my curls, trying to ignore the way Saylor is looking at me, but it’s not working.
My bathroom isn’t small, but it feels so with her in it—like she takes up my whole world.
I know it’s not the cool thing to say. Still, I don’t have any experience with this sort of thing and I need to know.
“So, are we still friends?” I ask, my voice giving out at the end like I’m dying of thirst, which let’s face it, I totally am.
I really want to kiss her again. Saylor grips her bottom lip between her teeth before she nods.
My heart drops a little bit. I know getting over her is gonna hurt, but I’m okay still doing the bingo.
Kissing and holding hands and just being friends, even though I want it to be more than that.
“But like friends who are more than friends?” Saylor suddenly says.
“You wanna be more than friends?” I ask cautiously.
She nods again. I realize then that even though Saylor’s kissed someone before and maybe more, she doesn’t have experience with this. I’m the first girl she’s kissed and that is a big deal. So maybe it’s okay if we just let this ride for a little while.
“Okay.” I nod back. Saylor smiles that big smile of hers and I think we might be able to figure it out, together.