Redheaded Hellcat

My fascination with red hair began back in junior year of high school. That was the year I met a boy--Curtis--from a neighboring school district who would eventually become my cousin's boyfriend. But when we met, Curtis was as single as they come. He was so in love with my cousin and wanted to break her down, wear her down, make her his own, but my cousin was having nothing to do with that. She had a football star in her life at that time, so she kind of hefted Curtis off on me at a summer bonfire party she was throwing.

Curtis and I hung around that night at the bonfire. He pouted quite a bit. My cousin was off charming her football boyfriend and he'd been stuck with her not very cute cousin, so he wasn't quite a fan of the way the night was shaping up. Of course, after a little while I did a little breaking down, wearing down of my own and suddenly there was something going on. We had rapport. We had wit. We had a thing. But none of that was enough to turn his attentions. And, unluckily for me, my cousin would eventually get tired with the football player and move on to Curtis, who had been biding his time and following her around, thinking, She'll snap out of it. She'll snap out of it. She'll snap out of it.

She snapped. She snapped right out of it. All the rapport, wit, and things in the world couldn't win against my cousin--willowy, blond, beautiful eyes--and so they went off together, and I went on being the only thing left for me to be: mousy friend.

Except Curtis didn't really think I was mousy. He thought I was pretty funny, pretty badass. He thought my friends and I--girls who ran around like a little squealing gang, doting on him, telling him how sweet we thought he was, asking him to sing us another song, asking him to do the Usher dance for us--were something as close to superheroes as he'd ever know. He nicknamed us The Superchicks and gave us each superhero figures that embodied our personalities. Patty was a patriotic red, white, and blue-spangled figure with boots up to her thighs. Amy was a vamp in a couture dress and spike heels, and her leg snaked out of a slit that went to heights impossible for us to wear at that point our lives. And me? Well, I was slim and slinky, with red hair that necessitated a description with the verb tumble. It was all pretty fantastic:

I loved that that was how a boy saw and thought about me. The picture was everything I wanted to be but felt I wasn't: powerful, tough, beautiful, sassy. And I thought the first step to making my real self more like my superhero self was to morph into her the best I could. The catsuit would be a problem, but I could do a little something with my hair. I could make it red. And so I did. And Curtis? He loved it. He thought it was absolutely brilliant, which made me feel brilliant and clever and capable. Suddenly I was a whole new girl. I had a whole new bounce to my step.

Of course, the whole Curtis thing was destined for ruin. He said he liked my cousin, he liked me, he liked my cousin, he liked me. He also liked several other girls from his school district, but I didn't find that out until much later. He was the worst type of boy. He built me up, he made me think I was really something, he made me feel like I was bigger and more powerful than any other girl my age, but he was doing the exact same thing for lots of others, which meant I wasn't special. I wasn't anything like my superhero.

But even if I wasn't tough, even if I wasn't badass, even if I wasn't powerful, I was a redhead, and I could walk my shining red head past him every chance I got. I could throw my hair over my shoulder and send him a look that said, You screwed this up, buddy, and don't you ever forget it. There was power in that hair. There was power in that color. It was what he had wanted, what he had loved, and now I had made it my own. I had taken it away from him. It was no longer his.

And since then, I've used red hair as a sort of marker, as the first movement from one stage to the next. After Keith and I broke up, I dyed my hair red. After the Wily Republican broke my heart the first time, I dyed my hair red. After the Wily Republican broke my heart the second time, I dyed my hair red. It was always something I felt I needed. It was a way to measure heartache and healing. It was a way to show the world that I wasn't going away quietly. I was going to go loudly and with a fuss. I was going to throw my red hair over my shoulder--I was going to let it tumble behind me--and I was going to be the wildest girl they'd ever seen.

Today I dyed my hair red again. I sat in my hairstylist's chair and said, "Do whatever you want to me, as long the hair is red." I said, "Do what you think is best." I already knew what was best for me. I needed to shake some of the sadness from my heart. I needed to move myself toward whatever is waiting around the corner for me.

The Lost Beatle

When I woke up the day after Thanksgiving, the very first thought in my head was, Oh my God, what did I do?

A few days earlier I'd driven to the salon to which, when I lived in Buffalo, I used to pledge my undying love. I sat in my stylist's chair and let her put her hands in my hair. I let her make the same orgasmic noises she makes every time she puts her hands in my hair. I let her tell me that I have the best hair she's ever touched. I let her do all those things because I don't have a stylist I can trust here in Maine--not yet, at least--and I had promised myself if I could just hold out on a haircut until I went home for Thanksgiving then I would let my stylist do whatever she wanted, whatever she felt was best.

And so when she asked me what I wanted to do, I said, "Go nuts. Do what you want to do."

In the mirror her reflection had wide, wide eyes. "Really?" she asked. "I mean, really?"

"Yes, really," I said. I trusted her. I trusted her with my life. After all, she was the one who gave me The Bangs of a Lifetime last year, and those had been some pretty successful bangs.

"You are prepared to lose a lot of length?" she asked.

I grimaced. Was I really? Not exactly. I love my hair long, but every now and again a girl gets the itch to do something a little drastic. At that moment, sitting in her chair and listening to the reassuring snip-snip-snip of women getting made into more fabulous versions of themselves in other chairs in the salon, I was itchy and ready to scratch.

"Yes," I said. I closed my eyes. "Yes, just do it."

And she did it. An awful lot of hair fell off my head, but she told me not to panic. "I just want you to know that it might look like a mullet right now, but that'll change in just a few minutes," she said, smiling brightly. "Don't worry."

I hadn't been--in fact, the word mullet hadn't even crossed my mind--but now I was. Now I was having flashbacks to that period in high school when the style that graced my head looked very much like a mullet, like some sort of miniature dog had clambered up onto my skull and sat down for a good long while. It was hideous. I was hideous. I did not want to go back down that road.

But my stylist was right--shortly after the mullet discussion my hair did start to take shape, and it looked really cute. That was a short-lived phenomenon, however, because when I left the salon I was greeted by a sheet of unforgiving rain. Still, I left the salon feeling good about the cut.

I felt good about it the next day, too. I was pleased with its shape and sassiness, and I liked what I saw when I caught glances of it in mirrors or windows during the big Thanksgiving meal. But the next morning when I woke up I was not at all pleased. I could not get it to look right. I could not get it to do what I wanted it to do. I looked awful. And I couldn't stop thinking about what a big, big mistake I'd made. I am a simple girl with simple hair, and it doesn't need bells and whistles to get by. What I'd done was let the bells and whistles get cut into it.

What I'd done was get the same haircut as Paul McCartney.

Paul and I now shared the same length, the same choppy layers, the same poof at the top of our heads. With my new haircut, I looked like a long-lost member of the Beatles. I looked like I should be singing about Sgt. Pepper and His Lonely Hearts Club Band instead of teaching English at a college in Maine.

"So," I told the Boy from Work, "you're totally dating a boy now. I mean, that's what I look like."

The BFW just shrugged, told me he liked my hair, and went on his merry way. Although this was the correct response, it did not in any way help me from imploding later that week.

I had a minor breakdown about the situation on Sunday, right before my mother and I headed out for our big Christmas Shopping Extravaganza. Moments after I made the mistake of using the communal lotion, I stood in front of my mother's bathroom mirror and fisted my hands in my hair. There was a part of me that wanted to rip it all out, but I just half-cried instead. I allowed myself one minute of immense pity, and then I went out and bought myself two hundred dollars of new clothes (which, Diana, are AMAZING! CUTE! SASSY!).

I didn't really develop a true appreciation for my new cut until I got back here to Maine. The first morning I unveiled it to my students, I was greeted with an enthusiastic response. One of my girl students saw me coming down the hall and actually started squealing right there, out in the open where everyone could hear her hysterics.

And even the guys got in on the action. When one stopped in before class, he raised his eyebrows at me. He grinned.

"Hi," I said.

"Hi," he said.

"How are you?" I asked.

"Good," he said. He appeared to be stumped. He appeared to have forgotten what he came in for.

"What's up?" I asked.

"Your hair--" he said. "Did you get it cut?"

"I did."

He nodded enthusiastically. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah. Man, it's nice!"

I gave it a little toss then and decided that, yeah, it was a nice change. Will I go back to long hair? Probably. But in the meantime, I'm going to enjoy this cut and all its kicky little layers.