Then Courtney’s face appears in my feed, and I click on a picture she’d taken after her appointment at Drybar—the one that I hadn’t joined her for. A shiver runs through me as I study her chestnut-colored eyes. I know now that she hadn’t really stolen my fiancé, but for some reason I still felt inexplicably angry with her, a raw rage that I’d never experienced before—one so intense it compelled me to want to find her and pluck every last silky hair out of her scalp.
I click back over to my own page, desperate to get away from Courtney’s perma-grin, her row of perfectly even beauty pageant teeth making my stomach hurt. For a split second, I consider grabbing my phone and pointing it at the bathroom mirror, capturing my hair as it looks in this moment, soggy and limp, half straight, half wavy, framing my face and making me look like a poodle that’s just come in from the rain. Then I’d upload it to Facebook and write:
The wet dog look is severely underrated. #whoneedsblowdryers
But of course I can’t do that. The only pictures I post have been taken by someone I’ve instructed to hold the camera far above my head and angle it just so. By the time I edit and upload the picture, I look like the latest celebrity on the cover of Vogue, like a plastic version of myself.
Glaring at my blowdryer resting on the edge of the black-and-white tile countertop in my bathroom like we’re in a standoff, I know I’ve already lost this battle. The dryer and I both know I need him. I don’t care what those magazines say. A little mousse combined with a few zaps of my hair through the diffuser does not give me beachy waves. I quickly type my status.
Thinking of the time we’d all save if we had hair that would magically blowdry itself. Is that possible? #wishingformiraclehair
? ? ?
When I look up again and see my reflection in the mirror, I jump back, my arm inadvertently knocking the blowdryer off the counter and sending it cascading down to the floor. I blink several times, but when I look at myself again, nothing has changed—the wet, stringy hair I had just moments ago has been transformed into smooth strands I’d never been able to achieve on my own.
Am I still dreaming?
I peer over the top of the stairs to see if Max is still in the kitchen. I spot him just where I’d left him, now pouring coffee into his favorite mug—the one with a picture of a bull and the word Espa?a printed on the side in bold block letters that he’d bought before we’d boarded our flight home from Barcelona last year. We have to get something! Even if it is a cheesy airport souvenir, he’d joked.
If this is a dream, how do I get the hell out of it?
I punch myself in the leg. Pinch my ear. I even kick that part of the bed that sticks out just far enough for me to stub my toe on it regularly. It hurts like hell, but still, nothing changes.
I try to think, letting out a gasp when I finally put the pieces together.
It was my status update.
Reaching for my laptop again, I check what I’d just written—that I’d wished for miracle hair. The ceiling starts to swirl as I remember the update I posted last night—or at least what I had thought had been last night—the one where I’d wished I could do the past thirty days over again. Had my last two status updates actually come true?
“It can’t be,” I say to myself.
“What can’t be?” Max asks as he strides into the bedroom holding out my favorite mug, lime-green with a huge chip on the rim that I refuse to get rid of, even though my lip brushes against the sharp edge each time I take a sip.
“Nothing,” I say quickly.
“Wow, your hair looks great—I didn’t even hear you turn on the blowdryer!” Max says.
Because I didn’t!
“I got a new one—it’s the as seen on TV one. You know, perfect hair while you barely lift a finger,” I say, deciding I’m being sort of honest as I quickly recall the infomercial I’d seen late one night and the blowdryer I’d come very close to actually buying.
Max smiles as he grabs a towel from the closet. “I never thought that stuff really worked. Now maybe I’ll have to buy that Grill Daddy they’ve been advertising?”
“Maybe,” I murmur. “Hopping in the shower?” I ask hopefully as I quickly grab the evidence proving I wasn’t being truthful, the lemon-yellow blowdryer I’ve had for years—and slide it under the sink before Max spots it. If this was really happening—if my status updates were actually coming true—I needed to test it again to be sure. Right now.
“The last grill-cleaning tool you’ll ever need,” Max says, mimicking the deep tone of the announcer’s voice from the commercial as he brushes past me and clicks the bathroom door shut.