Chapter Eight
Penny
I slept in late on Saturday morning. When I awoke, I had a text from Nic.
Hey boo, I was thinking I might want to go into town today and buy some new clothes. I don’t want Darren to think I wear the same clothes every day.
To which I replied: Nic, you *do* wear the same clothes every day. You work in an auto parts store.
and Nic wrote back: I know, I know, but you know what I mean.
I sent a laugh-crying face and wrote, I do.
Plus, she wrote back, I haven’t done my laundry in about a week and I’m feeling lazy. I just would like to go shopping.
And you want me to give you permission?
No, she said, I want you to come with me.
I wanted to go, too, but I decided to string her along first. Hmmm. Let me mull that over for a bit.
Please, please. You’re the only friend I have.
That’s kind of sad, actually, I replied.
It is, but there’s not much I can do about it before the race. I can’t just go out and *buy* new friends.
Ah, if only we could.
It would be a much better world, she agreed.
But then those who had money would have all the friends. And I would have no friends at all.
I’d still be your friend, Pen.
ty, ty
When she didn’t respond for a few minutes, I added, I’d like to go out today. I’d been thinking about getting a haircut.
Nic sent a heart-eyes emoji. Oooo how short are you going to cut it?
Idk yet. I haven’t even decided if I want to get it cut.
I think it would look cute. It would make you look about ten years younger.
Boys already think I’m fifteen, Nic.
Hmmm, very true. Maybe you oughtta keep it long for now.
I sent her a sad face.
After a few minutes, she wrote back, But I think your hair looks great no matter how you wear it, and if you want to cut it you should go ahead and cut it.
It would be easier to manage, anyway. Right now, it’s all the way down to my waist, takes about an hour to wash.
It’s going to feel amazing when you finally get all that weight lifted off.
Ikr? The more I think about it the better I feel about it. Maybe I’ll keep the hair and make a nice rug out of it.
Sometimes when you say things like that, said Nic, I can’t tell whether you’re joking or not.
Why would I speak in jest? I replied.
I got up and washed my face and did my morning exercises, then threw on a pair of blue jeans and a yellow t-shirt and went out to find Dad. His nurse had brought him a light salad with almonds, pecans, cherry tomatoes, egg whites, and sliced roasted chicken. Out of solidarity, I decided to forego the waffles I had been planning on making and rummaged through the refrigerator until I found a container of yogurt.
“What have you got going on today?” he asked me as he searched through his salad for the chicken slices.
“Well, I was thinking about going to get a haircut, and then I think Nic and I were planning on going to see some street races. They’re underground races and probably illegal, so please don’t call the police on us.”
“As long as you’ve got a good lawyer.”
“I don’t think the cops go after these guys too hard. The heading on the flyer said it was the fifth annual Dallas automobile drag race, so I assume the last four races didn’t end in mass arrests.”
“Probably not. I performed in some drag races myself back in the ‘70s, back when drag races were cool, and nobody cared whether you risked your life flying down the strip.”
“Seriously? Are you pulling my leg?” I knew Dad had done some strange things before he settled down and married my mom and became a teacher, but I had never pictured him drag-racing. It was a bit like finding out your pastor had been in a street gang and fallen in love with a girl from the wrong side of the tracks.
“No, and I would’ve kept doing it after we were married, but your mom talked me out of it. She said she didn’t want to have to bring her little girl into this world all by herself.”
He smiled at the memory, but I couldn’t help thinking about the tragic irony embedded in those last words. “Mom was probably right—you’d have broken your neck, and then I wouldn’t have had a mom or a dad.”
“You underestimate me,” Dad replied, a touch of pride in his voice. “Back in my teens, I was an excellent racer.”
“Well, I think Mom did the world a favor by keeping you alive. I bet she was relieved to get you away from all the other girls.”
“That probably had a lot to do with it,” he admitted. “Gwen always said she lucked out when she married me because there were a hundred other girls who wanted to, and she managed to snatch me away before anyone else had the chance.”
“Well, from the pictures I’ve seen of Mom, you were pretty lucky yourself.”
“Yeah, for a few years.”
Just then, Nic came into the room with a towel wrapped around her head. She was wearing a pair of faded denim jeans and a red spaghetti strap shirt that was cut low enough to expose the cup of her orange bra. “Hey, boo,” she said, sitting down in the leather recliner. “So where are we going this morning?”
I wanted to go and get a bigger breakfast, but I didn’t dare say that in front of Dad. “I think I’m about ready to visit the barber. It is time.”
“You sure you don’t want me to cut it for you?”
“You know how long that would take? I don’t want you to spend three hours cutting my hair. Not to mention the clean-up afterward.”
“I told her she should just go bald,” said Dad, who had been trying to get me to shave my head since I was five.
“You could get it buzzed like Furiosa,” suggested Nic.
“I think maybe we’ll start small. How would it look if I just cut it to right here?” I motioned to a spot about midway between my neck and shoulders.
“That’s about how short you had it in middle school,” said Dad. “I think it would look really cute.”
“I think it would look really sexy,” said Nic.
“Okay, but you’re not the one I’m trying to impress.”
“Who are you trying to impress?” came two voices at once.
I smiled and shrugged innocently. “Nobody in particular. If the boys want to be impressed, I won’t stop them.”
“Okay, but you’ve gotta have somebody in mind. Nobody cuts their hair, that they’ve been growing out since they were in junior high, just to impress ‘The Boys.’”
“Well, I’m a pretty unique person,” I replied. “So…”
Dad rose from the couch and shuffled toward the trash bin the kitchen to throw his salad away. I got up and ran after him. “Here, Dad, I’ll get that for you…”
“It’s alright,” he said, a note of frustration in his voice. “I can throw away my own salads.”
Meanwhile, Nic was examining herself in the reflection of the big-screen TV, trying out various hairstyles to see how they looked on her. “Sometimes I wish my hair was wavy likes yours is. The kind of wavy where it’s almost curly, but not quite. I hate having stringy, straight hair that I can’t do anything with. Every time I go out, I feel like the other women are judging me for having such straight hair.”
“Nic, calm down,” I said as I returned to the couch. “You can curl your hair if you want.”
She shook her head. “I’ve tried curling my hair, and it doesn’t look as good on me as it does on you. I look like I oughtta be wearing padded shoulders and dancing to Cyndi Lauper.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” I said, blushing slightly. “Anyway, why are you so jealous of someone who isn’t even as pretty as you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re, like, the cutest woman I know, and when we go out, all the guys are lining up to buy you drinks. You don’t see them lining up to buy drinks for me, even though I’m right there. But you’re always complaining about how you wish you had my hair, or wish you were short like me, or wish you weren’t as tan and had paler skin. It’s okay to look the way you look. You don’t have to steal everything from me. I’m not even that pretty.”
Nic placed a hand on her hips. “I bet I know some boys who would beg to differ.”
“Oh, yeah? Who?”
There was a long silence which ultimately dissolved into laughter.
“See, I told you!” I shouted. “Don’t pretend you know loads of secret guys who love me when you can’t even name one. You’re just getting my hopes up.”
“If it’s any comfort,” said Dad, who was still in the kitchen pouring himself a glass of O.J., “I always thought you were the cutest.”
“It doesn’t mean the same coming from you, Dad.” I turned back to face Nic. “Look, you’re young and hot. Just enjoy being young and hot.”
“I’m alright,” said Nic, waving her arms in the air limply with a disgusted look, like a skeleton who had just found out he was dead. “I wish I wasn’t so skinny. I wish I was curvier like you.”
“Nic, I weigh 98 pounds.”
“You wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at you.”
“Thanks, I guess?” It was always hard to tell when Nic was giving you a compliment. “Before we go anywhere today, let’s make a deal. Are you ready for this?”
“I’m listening,” said Nic, putting her hair into a half-up.
“I want you to go for a whole month without comparing yourself to me even once. Thirty-one days. Do you think you can do that?”
Nic frowned thoughtfully. “What do I get if I win?”
“I’ll buy you a steak.”
“You’ve gotta do better than that.”
“Fine, I’ll take you to see Owl City the next time he comes to Dallas. We’ll go together.”
A gleam of satisfaction shone in Nic’s eyes. “Now that I think I can do. Thirty days without comparing myself to you. Does that include positive comparisons?”
“Thirty-one days, and it includes all comparisons.” She came forward and shook my hand. “I’ll be really impressed if you make it through a whole hour, but also, I believe in you.”
“Maybe we should have waited until after you got your haircut,” said Nic with a gloomy look. “You’re gonna be just—super cute!”
“Well, that in no way detracts from your worth as a person. So you just keep that in mind.”
***
After we left the house, we went out for breakfast at Waffle House. I ordered a plate of Texas bacon and an egg-and-cheese melt with hash browns, and Nic ordered a two-egg breakfast with coffee. I sat there for a few minutes in a booth by a window looking out over a quiet city street. It was a cloudless blue morning, and the sun gleamed on the hoods of the cars in the parking lot.
“It’s gonna be sad saying goodbye to my hair after growing it out for so long.” I poured a small packet of sugar into my orange juice and stirred it thoughtfully. “It’s like losing an old friend.”
“Well, maybe you can donate this friend to someone,” said Nic. “Maybe a kid who has cancer would like to have a nice head of wavy blonde hair.”
I was quiet for a moment trying to picture what that would look like. “I guess I wouldn’t mind some little girl having a Penny wig. I just hate to see it thrown away. I almost want to frame it and hang it up on my wall.”
“If you like it that much, then maybe you should just keep growing it out.”
“I could, but it’s getting really long. I don’t know if you’ve noticed. Soon I’ll be tripping over it.”
Nic frowned and stared down into her half-empty lemonade glass. I could tell there was something she wanted to say, but she knew if she said it she risked losing a chance to see Owl City. “Maybe you could do the bun thing like Princess Leia. Then you wouldn’t have to cut it, but it wouldn’t be in your way anymore.”
“I could do that. I was never much of a Star Wars fan.”
From the expression on Nic’s face, you’d have thought I had admitted to hating babies. “So, rule number one of dating: never admit that to a boy.”
“Why not? If we get married, he’s going to find out eventually.”
She reached over and patted my arm. “Maybe just never tell anyone that you don’t like Star Wars. Or come to your senses and like it—whichever is easier for you.”
“Hey! I don’t make fun of you for not liking Lord of the Rings.”
“Okay, but Lord of the Rings has no plot! There’s an elf, a dwarf, a man, and a couple of tiny people, and they’re walking toward a volcano for, literally, nine hours.”
“They’re called hobbits.” I threw my straw at her. “The tiny people are hobbits!”
“Whatever they’re called—I could have reached that volcano in half the time.” She studied me curiously for a moment before adding, “It never occurred to me before, but you sort of resemble that one chick—the one who kills the dragon.”
“I assume you mean Eowyn, and yes, I have been told that I look like her. It’s because we both have long wavy blonde hair and huge bluish eyes.”
“See, and if you cut it, no one is going to think you look like that.”
“That’s okay; I would rather look like me anyway. I knew a boy in high school who was obsessed with The Two Towers and wanted to go out with me because he thought I looked like Eowyn. He ended up marrying a girl who looked like Arwen.”
Nic gave me a blank stare. “I don’t know who any of these people are.”
“Arwen is the other girl in those movies.”
“Oh, right.”
So after we left Waffle House, I went and did it. I got my hair cut, and I was only a little scared, and the barber, whose name was Selena, kept asking me if I was nervous because my shoulders and arms were shaking. I was so nervous I didn’t risk looking into the mirror even once until she was completely finished and my beautiful blonde Eowyn hair lay in a pile on the floor like a carpet with dandruff in it.
But when I saw how I looked in the mirror, I was glad I had done it. It was so short—it didn’t even go down to my shoulders, and there was so much less of it. And Nic was right; I loved the feel of it on my head now. I kept shaking my head and letting it fall into my eyes because it felt so light and brisk like a cool wind after the rain.
“Well, when we go to the bars now,” said Nic, surveying me approvingly, “you’re definitely going to need to show your ID.”
“I’ll probably get arrested for driving as a minor,” I said, “but I don’t even care; I love this hair. You know the feeling when you change out of your work clothes and your stinky old shoes and put on a pair of short shorts and an old t-shirt? That’s how I feel right now. It feels like I lost a hundred pounds that were just sitting on my body not doing anything. I’m definitely having a dance party when I get home tonight.”
“You ought to weigh yourself when you get home,” said Nic. “I bet you don’t weigh more than ninety pounds now.”
“I probably don’t. That’s how much I weighed in middle school, the last time I had it cut this short.”
“Have you grown even a little since you were in junior high?”
I shook my head sadly. “Not even an inch.”
The feeling of elation persisted as we left the hair salon and walked out into the cold spring sunlight. I really wanted to skip down the sidewalk, and I might have done it if Nic hadn’t been there. It was a perfect day for going to the park and sitting on a blanket at the top of a hill, eating tangerines and blowing bubbles. I promised myself if I ever had a boyfriend, I would make him do all those things with me.
It took us about twenty minutes to reach the location indicated on the flyer. Nic parked the car in the middle of a large parking lot filled mostly with trucks, motorcycles, and newly restored vintage cars. At the end of a long strip of gray asphalt stood three brightly painted Mustangs and a Porsche 944. Their owners stood beside them beaming proudly and talking to the crowds of enthusiasts—mostly suburban moms and tattooed guys in sleeveless shirts who looked like they had grown up listening to Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Nic nudged me in the ribs and motioned to the third Mustang. “Look, it’s Darren! We ought to go say hi.”
“But what if we’re so cute it distracts him?”
“You ask that as though it’s a bad thing.” She ran on ahead, and I raced to keep up. But before we had reached him, Adam came running up and whispered something into his ear. Together, they strode away a few paces behind the row of cars.
Sometimes, I could read lips, but at this distance, it was hard to make out what they were saying. Adam kept waving arms in the air and pointing in our direction, while Darren just shook his head and rolled his eyes like he didn’t have time for this nonsense.
“Why do I have an uncanny feeling I know exactly what they’re arguing about?” asked Nic.
Finally, after what felt like ten minutes, Darren came running over toward us. Adam ran behind him with arms outstretched as though trying to stop him. But Darren proved too quick, and before very long he gave up in defeat.
“Friend of mine over there had a funny story about you two ladies,” said Darren, jerking his thumb toward Adam. “I told him I didn’t believe a word of it.”
“What did he say?” I asked.
“Says he ran into you both at a bar the other night. Says you’re both police.”
Nic doubled over, shaking so hard with laughter it was a good three minutes before she was able to speak.
“If we were police,” she said slowly, tears in her eyes, “why would we both work at an auto parts store?”
“THAT’S WHAT I TOLD HIM!” shouted Darren. “But he wouldn’t listen! Swears y’all are cops and you’ve shown up to shut down the race.”
“Adam, it’s alright!” I called after him. “We’re not here to arrest you.”
“We don’t even have the legal authority to do that!” Nic added.
By now, the sun was just high enough in the sky to be in all of our eyes. Slowly and cautiously, Adam loped forward, sheepishly blinking back sunlight. “You sure about that?”
“If we were going to arrest you,” said Nic, “we’d have already done it.”
He stood there in silence for a moment, not looking particularly reassured. It was like he was just waiting for the two of us to rip off our shirts and reveal our uniforms and badges. “Did you get a haircut?” he asked, looking at me in surprise.
“I did!” I reached up and flounced it with both hands. “Do you like it?”
“It looks adorable,” said Darren, stepping forward and looking over it for what felt like a strangely long time. “I hope you tipped whoever cut it. They did a really good job.”
If I could have run away just then and screamed into a pillow with surprise and excitement, I would have. A boy liked my hair! He actually liked it. But instead, I reminded myself that I was an adult hanging out with a bunch of adults, and I needed to hold it together. “Thank you,” I said with a curt nod. “It’s very nice of you to say that.”
Darren blinked back confusion as if this wasn’t the response he had been expecting. “Did y’all hear about the money prize they’re handing out today?”
“No, how much is it?” asked Nic, who always took a keen interest in matters of money.
“The winner of the race gets forty thousand dollars.”
“Wow!” Nic doubled over in surprise, her hands on her legs. “Wait, did you say four thousand or forty thousand?”
“Forty thousand.”
“Wow! With a prize like that, I could put myself through school. I wouldn’t even have to take out a loan.”
“I could buy a fishing boat,” I said.
The three of them turned to face me with bemused looks. “Why would you want a fishing boat?” asked Nic.
“So I could go fishing. What would y’all do if you won?”
“Shoot, I don’t know.” Darren scratched the back of his neck. “There’s so many things I’d want to do with it; I’m afraid I would end up spending all of it the moment I got it.”
“You have to be careful,” I said gravely. “I had a cousin who won ten thousand dollars in one of those Pepsi-Colas giveaways and ended up spending all of it on ice flurries at McDonalds.”
“Is everyone in your family like this?” asked Nic.
“Like what?”
“If I had that much money…” said Adam. He paused and stroked his goatee thoughtfully. “I might as well just save it and tell girls I was rich!”
“Shit, forty thousand ain’t rich,” said Darren with a shake of his head.
“No, but it’s close. It’s more than I’ve got!”
“Ain’t that right. I bet I’d probably end up giving it all to my mom. If not, I’d have to get the heck out of town before my brothers found out about it and suddenly decided we were friends.”
“I almost wish I was competing today,” said Nic sadly. Reaching over and grabbing me by the arm, she began to shake me dramatically. “Penny, what are we doing with our lives? Why are we working in an auto parts store?”
“You can quit at any time.”
“I don’t want to sell parts; I want to fix cars and make forty thousand dollars in a race. Then I want all the guys to take me out for dinner and tell me what a babe I am.”
“They already do,” I pointed out.
“I know, but it would mean more if I had money. Then I could buy a house on Martha’s Vineyard and go windsurfing with my golden retriever. I would never have to worry about anything.”
“I’d go out with you,” said Adam, “even if you weren’t loaded with cash.”
For a moment, I thought Nic was going to take him up on this offer, but instead, she flung out one hand like an Egyptian queen. “That relationship would turn very tragic,” she said, “when I had to arrest you.”
“Well, there are four guys in this race,” said Darren. “Adam and me are both racing, so the odds of one of us winning is fifty-fifty.”
“Never tell me the odds, kid,’” muttered Adam.
Nic nudged me in the ribs and whispered, “That’s a Star Wars reference.”
“Thanks, I got it,” I replied.
“Just promise you won’t shoot me and steal the money if I end up being the one who wins it,” Adam said to Darren.
“Shoot, I ain’t makin’ no promises,” said Darren.
Just then, there was a sound of loud guitar music from over by the stands where the audience was gathering, and I heard someone behind us yelling, “The race is about to start!” The crowd that had gathered around the cars began to disperse, and the other drivers began putting on their helmets.
Darren nodded soberly at Adam, who nodded back. “Guess this is it,” said Darren.
“Guess it is,” said Adam, coming forward and shaking his hand. “Good luck.”
Nic reached into her purse and pulled out her sunglasses, the big ones that made her look like a ladybug. “Well, shall we go find our seats?”
I followed her quietly into the stands. The wind felt cool on my face and hair, and I was grinning irrepressibly, Darren’s voice playing in my head like a recording. He said he had liked my hair! Somehow it had been worth it getting my hair cut, just for that one moment.