Chapter 3
The next day after classes, Marie dragged me to a real salon with chairs—like in the movies. Gulping down my anxiety, I entered with dread growing in my stomach.
Marie explained to the stylist what we wanted.
The receptionist gave us a knowing look, and referred us to Hans.
“This is the latest style.” A man with way too many earrings held open a book of a girl with a nice flowing haircut.
I shrugged, unsure.
“Let’s do it!” Marie said.
The man slapped the book together. “Allons-y!”
I held up my hand. “My hair. I get to say it.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s do it!” I said with more enthusiasm.
Hans led me to a chair by a big black bowl. I leaned back, afraid to lose my balance.
When the warm water poured over my scalp, making it so I couldn’t hear Marie or see her, I made a confession to Hans.
“You won’t believe it,” I told him, “but this is the first time someone other than my dad has cut my hair.”
Hans nodded over me, threading his fingers through my unruly locks. “Oh, I believe it.”
I wasn’t sure what he meant.
The shampoo and scalp massage felt tingly and revitalized me. Having someone else wash my hair was the epitome of indulgence. I could get used to this.
“Do her eyebrows, too,” Marie said just out of my line of sight.
Hans nodded.
My eyebrows? I still had my head tilted backwards into the bowl.
“Watch out. It’s hot.” He carefully laid his hand over my eye. Warmth smothered my eyebrows.
“What is that?” Lavender and something else reached my nose overtaking the smell of shampoo.
“Wax.”
A little burble started in my tummy. Dread? Fear? Anticipation of pain? I’ve heard of people waxing their brow, but I’d never had it done.
He brought out a tissue, patted it across my brow and—riiiiiip!
I jumped six inches into the air. He’d warned about the hot wax but he didn’t warn me about the rip! It hurt! I gripped the armrests of the chair, seething in pain.
Seeing my obvious discomfort, he moistened the area with a vial of oil, pushing on the inflamed part.
Yikes! Then he did the other eyebrow! Yow! But at least I knew it was coming. Then the tweezers.
When he finished, he did one more warm rinse of my hair and wrapped my hair in a towel and led me back to his chair.
Already my face looked different. Not bad. Instead of two hairy caterpillars clinging onto my face for dear life, I had two nicely shaped, albeit still red, brows.
“No highlights today?” he asked Marie.
“Let’s start small,” Marie said.
“What are highlights?” I asked.
Marie dismissed me with a shake of her head. “At least you don’t have to go in for a keratin treatment, or we’d be here all day.”
I had no idea what she meant.
The man clipped and combed, and dark pieces of my hair fell to the ground. Long, dark pieces! All around me! I nearly choked. My hair! He’s cutting my hair! The cape felt tight around my neck. I wanted to escape his chair. To run away. When my dad cut my hair, the carnage wasn’t that bad!
He worked his way to the front and finally blocked my view of the mirror.
When he was done, he took his blow dryer and worked my hair over the curled brush.
But my hair. Most of it was strewn across the floor. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror. I just roved an eyeball to the floor.
At last he was done, and he handed me a small mirror. Instead of shapeless hair hanging down the back in a pony, my hair had bounce, layers; a sleekness and sophistication I never thought possible.
“Wow!” I cupped a hand over my mouth.
Hans cocked his hip showing off awesome biceps in his tight T-shirt. “Wow? Is that all I get?”
“No! Thank you!” And I leapt from the chair and gave him a big hug, black hairy cape and all. “My hair looks amazing! You’re amazing.”
He winked and pointed to me. “No, you’re amazing.”
I stared at myself in the mirror. Excepting the clothes, I could be any other girl at college. I looked like a Class A goat—high breed, high price, registered doe.
And I was hot! “You’ve got to teach me how to do this!”
“We’ll buy some styling tools.”
I shook my head, sure the magic would disappear in the first wash. I had no idea how to use styling tools to replicate this work. Before leaving, Marie insisted I buy a bottle of both shampoo and conditioner.
Marie nodded. “Now for some clothes.” She pulled me toward the register desk to pay, and then out to the mall.
A pit formed in my stomach. My mouth went dry. My two most hated words. Clothes and mall.
* * *
I hated malls.I mocked people who drove two hours from my small town to go get an outfit in a pink carrier bag. I thought them vain and ridiculous—frivolous, even. I was smart and thrifty and borrowed clothes from Bryan and my dad. And occasionally Gayle. Hey, I saved a lot of money doing that.
“Now comes the fun part.” Marie surveyed an outfit in a store window.
Acid turned my stomach. There were so many stores, so much loud music. I wasn’t used to this. A headache bubbled at the base of my skull. People stared at us. They could tell I don’t belong here. I wanted to slip a paper bag over my head. I stuffed my hands in my cargo pants.
Marie faced me. “Don’t tell me you’ve never shopped at a mall before.” She tugged me into a store to browse.
“I have.” I plucked at a XXL sweater. “Just not to buy clothes.”
Marie dropped the sparkly pink sweater back onto the rack. “Remember the book: Only look for clothes in your size.”
I bit my lip, freezing in the store. “I don’t do shopping.”
“What does that mean?”
I waited for a well-dressed clerk with an earpiece to walk by before continuing. If only she knew. “I don’t buy clothes,” I whispered.
“You bought what you have on, right?” Marie’s adorable perfectly sculpted eyebrows furrowed.
Marie was the type of girl I instinctively knew I could trust with my secrets. She wasn’t the type that would gossip and tell everyone. I decided to tell her.
I danced like I had to pee. “I’ve never really gone shopping for clothes,” I whispered to her. My eyes stung, a precursor to tears.
“How, what? How is that even possible?”
“People give me stuff, you know, or I get hand-me-downs.” Music thrummed in my head to the beat of my headache.
Marie didn’t say anything.
“There aren’t a lot of clothes shops where I live, and my dad and I were always busy with the goats. Believe me, the goats are not very picky about what I wear.”
“You’re not among goats anymore.”
I dropped my head, nausea rising in my stomach. “I know.”
“Do you even know what size you are?” She was kind in her inquiry.
I shook my head, my sinuses threatening tears. I could tell she was having a hard time letting this sink in. My armpits started turning up the heat. It was unbelievable I’d never shopped. Who would take me? Dad? No, Bryan. Laughable. Gayle offered, but I was usually satisfied with what she cast off.
I dropped what I was holding. “This was a bad idea. The haircut is great. I already feel like a better person but the clothes thing… I—I just don’t do clothes.”
Then I turned and headed out of the store. I didn’t know where I was going because with all the shops I wasn’t sure which way we came in, or if I was even going in the right direction, but I just needed to get out of the constant blare of music and the people all around.
I heard Marie calling behind me. But I kept walking.
Then tears poured—hot, furious, humiliatingly—onto my face. People were staring again, or trying not to stare.
I found an exit to the mall. When the automatic doors slid open, music grew louder, and teenagers hung around the burbling fountain.
I just wanted to get away. I ran to the end of the parking lot, to Marie’s Prius. Finally, to some peace and quiet and space to breathe.
“What’s wrong?” Marie caught up to me.
“It’s just too much.”
“What’s too much?”
“All this.” I pointed to the people, the lights, the speakers blaring music. “I’ve never done this before.”
“So you learn.”
“It’s too hard.” I leaned up against a Ford Taurus next to her Prius. “I don’t know anything about choosing clothing.”
“Most people wear clothes all wrong for them. Why do you think there is such a thing as ‘mom-jeans’?”
“I just don’t want to look like an idiot.”
“You already do! You can’t look worse!”
I should’ve been hurt, but it was the truth. “I don’t want to look like I’m trying but failing.”
“That’s worse than not trying?”
I nodded. “I lived my whole life”—tears were flowing hot and heavy now—“telling myself I didn’t have to care. I was the Goat Girl. People knew and accepted that. I accepted that. Few mocked me. But this, this is new. If I look like I’m trying and fail, people will see it and laugh.”
“You promised to follow the rules in the book faithfully, right?”
More nodding by me.
“Well, open it up, let’s see what it says.” She opened her Prius and fished out the book.
In the relative quiet of the parking lot, I opened the book on the hood of the Taurus, shading my eyes from the glare of the sun reflecting off the top of the car.
I pasted on a frown. “Says here for a petite frame to go with a more tailored look. I hate the tailored look. I’ll be so uncomfortable.”
“Avoid large prints, drop waists, overly long skirts.” Marie was breezing through the list.
“My fear is,” I breathed in, grateful for Marie’s waterproof mascara as I wiped my nose across my sleeve, “I won’t be able to find clothes I like. Ones that fit and follow the rules and are cheap enough and look good on me. And if we don’t, then I wasted your time. My time. And I’ll feel like an idiot.”
“Where does that fear come from?”
“I try on a lot of clothes that don’t fit.”
“When you shop at stores where they also sell groceries, what do you expect?”
I tried not to be hurt.
“It’s the clothes, not you.”
“My mom wasn’t around to show me how to dress. I grew up with a brother. My sister ignored me.”
“Well, let’s see what flatters you. There are different style types.”
“This book was written in the sixties. How accurate could it be? Styles have changed so much since then.”
“Fashion is fleeting but style is eternal.” Marie held the book in two hands. “So we don’t wear pill hats and gloves, but everyone has a style. We’ll just translate it to modern wear.” Flipping the book to one hand, she opened the car, and we sat down and peered at the versions of style listed.
“First is the athletic type: sporty wear, a practical sun hat, comfortable sandals, crop pants, a little scarf around your neck and a boyish cut. Bold reds, navy, and gold. Or lots of pockets, heavy canvas fabrics, neutrals. Safari-look.”
I shook my head. “Hm, I don’t think that’s me.”
“Okay, next is the girlish type. Lacey, frilly, light pastel colors, soft fabrics like chiffon for going out or cotton eye-lit lace or muslin, peter pan collar, puffed sleeves.”
“No, too frilly.”
“Okay, classy: black dress, pearls, sophisticated dress, silks, satins.”
“Can’t see that on me.”
“How about this one? Loud prints, large costume jewelry, turquoise, reds, magenta, boots, and large A-line jacket?”
“No. I’m not a loud person. But that could’ve been Kat in the sixties.”
Marie nodded in agreement. “Or Kat probably would’ve been a hippie in the sixties.” She read from the Book again. “How about feminine? Classic lines, muted colors, small delicate jewelry, small florals, mauves, violets, off-white.” She pointed to the picture. “That’s perfect for you.”
I nodded, sniffling up snot into my nose. “That sounds about right. Not too extreme in any way.” I closed the book, feeling armed with an idea. A vision.
Marie put her arm around me. “Now that we have a style type, remember: fit above all else. Don’t buy something that doesn’t flatter you.”
“It’s going to be hard.” I sniffed.
“You’ll have to break old habits, but you can do it.”
“Why is buying clothes such an emotional experience? What makes it so hard?”
“It’s like you’re a blank canvas. People are looking at you and making judgments about the type of person you are. Do you want them to get the wrong idea? Be the one who crafts what people think of you. Like my blog, I need to be the one who creates the image. I control what people think of me. My brand.”
I guess that all made sense, yet still, I was hesitant. “No tight jeans.”
She laughed wickedly, throwing her head back in a hearty, throaty laugh I’d never heard from her before. “We can find a pair with spandex.”
Gulping, I followed Marie to the entrance of the mall.
* * *
I partedthe curtains to let Marie see what I was wearing. “These jeans are too tight. I can’t even toot.”
“They’re not too tight. And don’t talk about tooting.”
Marie had helped me pick out a few things, and we hauled enough cotton to support a small agrarian country on my forearm. I let Marie do most of the choosing. A pair of jeans crushed my calves, like a fiberglass cast around my legs. I couldn’t sit.
“Well, my cheeks cannot even separate to let air pass!”
“You’ll get used to it. Turn around. And just don’t talk about gas at all. It’s not classy.” She raised a warning eyebrow. “We’re working on the charm part next.”
“You can see my panty lines!”
Marie nodded. “Get one size bigger.”
Panic seized my chest. “I’m just not sure this is a good idea.”
“You can’t just wear cargo pants or blocky boy shorts.”
I scooped up my cargo pants and held them to my chest. “Please!” I begged.
“No! We’ll find something you like. Next one!”
While I changed, she asked the saleslady to get a size larger in the jeans.
I tried on a skirt.
I zipped it up without even looking in the mirror. I held my breath and faced the large rectangle on the wall.
I caught my breath. It actually looked…good. I smiled. For the first time in a long time, I smiled at my reflection. Even in the disfiguring florescent light, I looked pretty hot!
Marie returned and called out to me. I pranced through the curtain and twirled.
“You like?” she asked, approval on her face.
“It pleases me.” I didn’t have a horrible figure! This revelation surprised me. It may need a little work, but the skirt was flattering, fitting me in the hips and flaring at the knees.
Why hadn’t I thought to wear skirts before? And I didn’t feel trapped. I twirled again. For the first time, I felt weird, flirtatious, funny…feminine.
I felt attractive. I’d never felt that way. I didn’t even know I could. “Let’s find some more!”
Fueled by this new hope, I went through and found more clothes. Is this why people went shopping? Maybe I wasn’t persistent enough before.
In the end, with an armful of colorful clothing, I made my way to the sales desk. I didn’t want to know how much of my goat earnings were going to this pile of beautiful colors. I silently said thank you to Gertie, my prizewinning doe, and swiped my card.
I vaguely looked at the numbers as I signed my name.
Marie nodded in approval. “It’s all going to be worth it.”
I tucked bags under my arms, over my forearms.
“Next stop,” she said, grabbing a few bags. “Makeup counter.”
“We did makeup.” Or I should say, Marie did my makeup this morning before we left on our errands.
Marie shook her head. “Oh, hoho! I put my makeup on your eyes. Now you’ll have a professional teach you how. And you can buy your own.”
No single word struck more terror in my heart than this: makeup. Unless we’re talking about homework redo, I didn’t want anything to do with it. Marie doing it was one thing. Me applying my own? Acid boiled in my stomach.
She took me to the part of the mall with a cloying smell of cologne. Ladies, dressed in black, flanked the vitrines, all wearing so much makeup you could press a paper towel across a face and still have a face left.
Marie hailed one of them who didn’t even look at me. Marie, already fabulous in her perfectly applied flawless face, didn’t need help. But in a supreme irony, she was the one who attracted the most attention from these women. Probably because they smelled an easy sell.
Finally, a woman with a little gold tag that read Wanda smiled at Marie.
Marie pointed to me. “We want to buy makeup for her, but we don’t know what yet. Will you show us a few things?”
Wanda scrutinized me under her heavy and no doubt fake lashes, her red lips gathered in a frown. Then she refreshed her face with a smile. “Let’s see what we can do.” With fake nails, like giant pincers, she plucked up a few cotton balls from a little container.
I sat in her chair. She started with a citrusy-smelling facial cleanser. I closed my eyes trying to channel a morning where I could smell nothing but oranges.
Next was a moisturizer. I had to say, I felt a little pampered. My skin licked the stuff up.
“What’s your normal skincare routine?” Wanda asked.
I opened my eyes. Routine? Skincare? “Bar soap. Whatever’s in the shower.”
She arched an eyebrow. “No moisturizer?”
“No moisturizer.”
She frowned again, then shook her head with disbelief. “Girl, we live in a desert. You need a moisturizer and sunblock to keep all those harmful rays off your skin.”
When she had finished, my face felt velvety, supple—not tight as like after I washed it with the same bar I used to scrub my pits.
Next, the foundation. We tried a few along my jawline until we found one that didn’t look like a mask. My face felt itchy, heavy, like it couldn’t breathe. While she sponged on the liquid zit-concealing magic, I contemplated why I didn’t wear makeup. One person had always steered me clear of makeup: Mary McGhee.
Mary McGhee was one of the livestock judges from the county, and the woman was scary and intimidating with a sharp look and pinched lips as she observed and scribbled notes about does on display. I noticed, even as a fourth grader, she painted on all her features. Her dark eyebrows were drawn on in sharp angles, and they contrasted with her strangely yellow hair, dyed to make her appear younger, but in reality made her look fake. Her blush, an obvious shade of pink, crossed her cheeks in two streaks. Her lips were blood red. Black eyeliner circled her little blue eyes and fake eyelashes finished them off. So many times I was tempted spit on a hanky and wipe off her face just to see what she really looked like. Even at that young and tender age, I decided if wearing makeup looked like that, I wanted no part in it.
Wanda kept going on my face, lips, eyes, cheeks. Finally, she smiled at me, a real smile, a satisfied smile and spun the chair around to the large and lit mirror.
A beautiful young woman gawked at me. I stared again. The person in the mirror stared back. I smiled. She did, too. This heavenly being smiled at me.
Was this some sort of trick mirror? I blinked. So did the beauty in the mirror.
She was me!
I spun to the saleslady. “I’ll buy all of what we used.”
I held out my card as she wrapped then stuffed in a bag a dozen creams, pots, brushes, and tubes. Thank you again, Gertie! This time for a new face.
I could smell the powders and creams. They smelled girly. Fresh. I felt confident. I smiled a little more, my head held high.
She handed me the bag.
The plastic strap cut into my palm with its weight. “I’ll be back.”
The lady smiled, a big toothy grin.
I walked a little taller, held my head up a little straighter. What was the transformation? Could makeup really change me?
Marie nudged my shoulder. “Makeup only enhances your beauty. You had good bones, you just needed to make sure everyone saw it.”
A tremor rippled through me. “I’m nervous about replicating it at home.” I gripped the bag tighter in my sweaty hands.
“I’ll help you.”
“Am I ready?”
Marie winked. “With new clothes and a new look, you’re totally ready for this.”
Excitement fluttered in my stomach. Finally, I wouldn’t be known as Gabby the Goat Girl. All the shreds of the old me were torn away. Nobody here knew the old me. I could be whoever I wanted. I could be the me who has been trapped inside waiting to get out.
“But transforming the outside is just the beginning,” I said. “That’s just the first chapters of the book. If I truly want to change, I have to commit to learning the rest of the book. Am I willing?”
Change was hard, even good change, even when I was motivated. In a passing window of a store, my reflection still shocked me. I wasn’t used to seeing myself like this. But if I could add poise, charm, and grace to this beautiful face, I’d be near perfect. Achieving those things couldn’t be that hard, could it?