“You look like you just seen a haint!” Miss Sandra says, with her voice like the bottom of the ocean. “Come on! You need a fairy godmother to work some magic on you, honey.”
Inside the Unique Hair Essentials house, there are more fancy ladies. Some with hair as long as their legs, others with eyelashes as long as their fingers. A short lady comes over to Donna and gives her a big hug. Then she pushes my cousin, taking me in.
“Let me see what kinda science project you done dragged up in here,” she says. Her voice is not as deep, but her slim arms are all hard, tight muscle.
I smile on the inside because I’ve seen this before in Haiti. This place is like a whole peristyle devoted to the children of Ezili. Posters of beautiful women with hair in all sorts of styles cover the walls. There’s a whole table just for plastic heads and their many, many wigs; hair dryers; bins filled with hair rollers of all colors and sizes; shelves lined with nail polish that look like an arc-en-ciel, a rainbow; a dress rack full of bright, sparkling clothes.
“Hello, Ms. Science Project!” the lady says, holding out a hand to me. It’s soft, soft, as if she’s never scrubbed a pot. “I’m Ms. Unique, and this is my laboratory.”
“My name is Fabiola,” I say, still looking around at the other women, who are all much more than just women.
“Oh, Fabulous! I like her already.” She turns to Donna. “Your family sure knows how to pick those names, Primadonna.”
Unique walks away, twitching her small, muscular butt. Donna is already seated on a salon chair, and in front of her is a huge mirror with bright lights all around it and a table covered with all kinds of hair tools, makeup, perfume, and even glass bowls filled with candy. This is a makeshift altar for Ezili with all the things she loves in the world. My whole body tingles when I realize what’s happening.
Again, Papa Legba has opened another door. How could I have missed this? Of course, I need Ezili’s help, too. And she’d been right under my nose, working through Donna with all her talk about hair, jewelry, clothes, and beauty.
This is what Dray likes. This is why he’s with her. This is how I will get to him, too.
“Oooh, honey. What happened?” Unique says, and I quickly get up to see why she’s examining Donna’s face so closely.
Before Donna covers the left side of her face again with her fake hair, I see the swollen scratch marks. I hadn’t noticed how her wigs have been much thicker recently, how she’s let the hair fall to her face so that only her eyes, nose, and lips show.
“Oh, no, no, no! Come on, Donna. Let’s see it.” Unique tries to pull Donna’s hand away. “Miss Sandra, come see this baby girl’s face.”
“Shit! Again, Donna?” Miss Sandra calls out. Two other women gather around Donna and I try to see her through the mirror, but they all block me.
“I will cut him for you, just say the word, D,” Unique says.
“Yes!” I call out. “Yes! That’s what Ezili-Danto would do.”
They all turn to me and say, “Who?”
I squeeze my way past them to get to Donna. Her wig is off and the scars are as clear as day. My heart sinks when I see how Dray has hurt my dear cousin. “Ezili-Danto, the lwa of vengeance for women. She has the scars on her face, too. And she carries a knife. She will cut a man or woman if she feels betrayed.”
“I hear that,” someone says.
“Yeah, well, I ain’t stabbing my man with no dagger,” Donna says.
The women talk over her and all I can think is Don’t worry, Donna. I will do it for you.
When it’s my turn on the chair, I let Unique add lots of fake hair to my head. It falls down to my elbows and it tickles the back of my neck. She tweezes my eyebrows and adds fake eyelashes, too. Already, I feel transformed.
I will wear the costume. I will say the right things. I will play the game. I will get Dray.
EIGHTEEN
AFTER UNIQUE DROPS us off, Donna rushes out of the car and bursts into the house, yelling, “I won, bitches!”
She opens the door wide to make way for my grand entrance. But Pri and Chantal are not in the living room—it’s Matant Jo and the four men who were here weeks ago. One of them is counting a pile of cash on the coffee table. Deep in concentration, he doesn’t even look up.
“Oh, nice,” Matant Jo says in her deep voice. “Donna’s trying to make you her Barbie doll?”
Pri and Chantal hear the shouting and come down—one shaking her head, the other with her mouth open.
Donna pulls me up the stairs and into her bedroom, where it’s a frenzy of finding the right outfit for my very new hair and my very new face. Again, I put on a dress, pose for pictures, change into jeans, pose for more pictures. And finally, I’m settled in a pair of tight black pants and an even tighter denim shirt that makes my breasts look much bigger than they really are.
I don’t argue with Donna. I let her win. Because tonight, I will be the Ezili-Danto that she is too afraid to be.