Sixteen the Hard Way - 15.3 - Colors (Patreon)

Buffy worked quickly, trimming my hair, then putting it in rollers. The perm solution stank like someone burning skunks, but at least she had warned me about it. She talked a lot actually, and eventually, I sort of tuned most of it out. I remember parts of her chatter though.

“I’m doing a soft perm here and it will be even softer when I do the color rinse afterward,” she explained. I didn’t nod; I’d been warned about that already, so I just grunted.

“Do you have a boyfriend?” she asked at one point.

“Oh, God,” I said. “I’m only fifteen.”

She laughed at that, but now she had me worried. If I went back to school looking like I did now, even with red hair, people recognizing me would not be the major problem. I’d already had a sample of how much male attention I attracted just walking around the mall. It would be twenty times worse than the stuff Rod had complained about, what he called me “acting like a girl.”

Looking at me, no one was likely to doubt I was a girl. That’s why I was hoping I could pass as someone else, my own cousin perhaps. Aunt Hildy’s daughter? Except she went by Heidi now, at least in her job selling real estate. Maybe I could move up to Orange County and live with her.

There was probably something wrong with that idea, but I needed to talk to my aunt about it. Unable to do so, I sort of constructed a scenario in my head where I went to OC and started school there as a girl. Maybe that was the best solution. According to Mom and Dad, the doctors may have made a mistake when I was born, and I really was a girl.

I sighed, and Buffy commented on that. “You sure you don’t have a boyfriend? That sounded like a romantic problem sigh.”

I sighed again. “I’ve spent at least twelve years or more telling people I’m a boy. The last thing I want to do is date one.”

She laughed.

* *

I wasn’t sure of how the process worked, but somehow she used the color rinse on my hair before the perm was finished and brushed out. I ended up with a head full of soft red curls. But it wasn’t all one color; there were pinks and oranges and dark reds that were almost maroon.

I sat there staring at my reflection. On the whole, it was much redder than Aunt Hilda’s hair and more interesting.

“Do you like it?” Buffy asked.

“I think so,” I said. “But it kind of looks like my head caught fire.”

“That might be too exciting a description,” she said, smiling.

My reflection turned this way and that, but I couldn’t detect any sign of a boy named Jonny. Just a flame-haired girl who was going to get a lot of attention and not just for her chest. “Hoo boy,” I breathed. I wasn’t going to get recognized easily but was this really what I wanted?

I wondered what Mom and Donna were going to say?

* *

“Joni!” Donna squealed when she saw me. “Look at you!”

I probably turned the new color of my hair. “Don’t!” I protested. They showed up at the salon just as I ventured out into the corridor to go looking for them.

Mom was smiling at me. “That is an amazing dye job! It looks like you were born with red hair. Even more than Pinkie’s does!”

“Who?” I asked, confused.

“Pinkie is what your grandfather called Hildy when we were growing up,” Mom explained.

“No wonder she goes by Heidi now,” Donna said, laughing. “We’ll have to pick a new nickname for you, Joni.”

“Don’t you dare!” I warned her. Her last nickname for me had been Sluggy when she discovered she could outrun me back in sixth grade. She’s always been more athletic and is the real tomboy in the family.

We headed off toward Nordstroms as if by previous agreement.

“It really does look nice.” Mom was saying as we passed through the food court.

“And not at all like your head caught fire,” Donna put in. Which got an accidental giggle from Mom and a glare from me, even though I had already thought the same thing.

A group of three boys waiting in line at the taco stand all turned to look at us as we passed. I frowned at them and they all grinned back. What the heck?

We reached the door of Nordstrom’s just as Donna said, “I know, we can call you Ember!”

“Huh? Why?” was the most intelligent question that occurred to me.

“Because you’re obviously hot stuff, your head is on fire,” she explained.