. . .
As it turned out, what they called “ugly” in the South was simply “ungroomed” in Los Angeles. And if there’s one thing Los Angeles knows how to do for a child just off the bus, it’s get them looking real good real fast.
Four hours later, I walked into my dressing room with a huge Afro and a fully made-up face (courtesy of the Fashion Fair cosmetics counter in the Beverly Center Macy’s). I had grown up thinking of my hair as lumpy and unmanageable. But Pearl must have done some kind of magic on it because now it looked so thick and healthy that Russell said, “Damn, Pam Grier,” when he came to pick me up.
I didn’t have any trouble getting through the door or anything, but the Afro was definitely large and in-charge. I could feel my hair all the way out to my shoulders now.
“Do you think Nicky will be all right with it?” I asked. “He told me to get a perm.”
“Girl, forget Nicky. You are ready for the spotlight.” He grabbed my hand and led me back to the car. “Wait till we get some makeup on you.”
It was funny, because I had given up on having a Molly Ringwald Ending, but here I was caught up in one of those eighties movie makeovers; and when I slipped on my yellow Caché dress a little while later, there was no refuting it.
“Davie Jones,” I said to myself. I loved the taste of my new name in my mouth. “If James Farrell saw you now, he just might ask you to the prom.”
That thought had sounded good in my head, but when I said it out loud it made me feel sad even though I was standing there in my beautiful dress, with my gorgeous hair. As long as I was feeling bad, it seemed like as good a time as any to break the new look to Nicky.
He hit the roof when I walked out of the dressing room with my hair still natural and now blown out into an even bigger Afro. “What did I tell you?” he said over and over again, like repeating it would turn the Afro into a perm. “Ain’t nothing authentic about a 1940s-style singer with an Afro. What didn’t you understand about that?” He stuck out his hand. “Give me back my money.”
“I only have half of it now, because I got a trim and a blowout. But I’ll pay you back the rest with my first check,” I promised him.
“You’ll pay me with—” He stopped to clench and unclench his outstretched hand. “You ain’t got a apartment. You ain’t got a car. And you already spending a check you ain’t got yet on a hairstyle that’s about to get you fired?”
Well, when he put it that way, it did sound country simple. But I could not make the only offer that would get me out of this situation. I could not say, Okay, Nicky. I’ll take two buses back to that lady and I’ll ask her to put Farrell product in my hair—no, I couldn’t do it. So I stood there, waiting to get fired just because Pearl had liked my natural hair and used the wrong kind of relaxers.
He took me by the chin, and looked over my hair like a scientist studying an ancient species. “I didn’t even know hair salons were still doing blowout Afros.”
He let go of my chin, sucking on his teeth. “When I kick your ass out of here, you planning on becoming a revolutionary?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
His eyes nearly came out his skull. “Maybe? Did you just say maybe?”
I answered him the only way I knew how, though I could tell it wasn’t the smart thing to say even as it was coming out my mouth.
“Anything could happen.”
Which is true. I mean, here I was thousands of miles away from home, singing in a nightclub, because some spoiled rich kids had played a trick on me. I was living the truth of that right there, so I said it again, straight-up: “Anything could happen.”
Apparently that was funny, because Nicky started laughing. It was a surprisingly light sound coming out of his large, mountainous body. “Anything could happen,” he said, shaking his head.