“Mmmm, true. Your Aunt would have been putting all of your curltasticness on blast every week.” Breyonna tapped the thinking spoon on her bottom lip. “So you don’t have mixed chick hair. The bushy and crinkly look is in now. No one expects all black women to have frizz free wavy hair. Those girls kill themselves trying to have a cute afro.”
I waved my spoon at her as I tried to swallow. “Yes, they want to have thicker hair, but the emphasis is on cute. How about the people with that in between straight but not straight doesn’t curl limp, thick, bushy stuff? No one is wearing their actual natural hair who isn’t coily, curly, or wavy. They just stopped relaxing it and learned how to tame it by styling it without a perm. Girl, I’ma be bald with your Mom for real if that’s the only other option. Who has the time?”
“True, if you want to be technical. But no one does what you’re talking about even people from other cultures with bone straight hair use products.” Breyonna ate another spoonful of yogurt.
I sighed. “At least now, Brielle, is going to teach me how to take care of whatever is going on under all these styles and braids on my head. No way I’m gonna graduate college and do well if I’m dedicating six and seven hours a week to haircare. Girl, bye. Who even knows how or when to start teaching little black girls when to do their hair?”
“You know you’re right. Remember, we had to do that family simulation project for science life. Every book I found about parenting focused on Caucasian or straight hair children. No black mom with a relaxer in her child’s head is brushing it for a thousand strokes. It’ll fall out. It’s weakened. None of those books talk about how to show natural hair black girls when and how to care for their hair. Thank God for YouTube.” Breyonna shook her head.
I nodded. “I hadn’t even thought of that. Brielle said they just assumed I knew from being around the shop. Um… No! Too busy trying to make sure I qualify for an athletic or academic scholarship so I don’t end up in debt the rest of my life. I’m not joking. Going bald is becoming more of an option every day.”
“Girl, you know you’re not cutting your hair off, so stop. Locs like ones your Aunt has or SisterLocs--”
I shook my head. “Are not an option. No thank you, just as hard to find a good loctician as it is to find a good stylist. In a primarily White university town? Please, I’ll pass. What else you got?”
“You want the truth or feel better?” Breyonna pretended to offer the truth in her tub of froyo and feeling better in her empty hand.
I pointed to the truth.
“This needs to be your next vlog topic. No, black girls in the natural hair community aren’t expected to have frizz free curls, waves, and coils anymore, but this crap is hard. I mean. For real. When are we supposed to learn how to do our hair? Who is writing that into the parenting books? So some of us have stopped pressuring each other to look like the status quo, but what about men?” Breyonna waved her thinking spoon around.
I swallowed the spoonful of yogurt I’d just eaten. “One existential crisis at a time, Breyonna. You’re right. We’re not all buying into the curly girls only mentality, anymore. But no one is talking about when, where, why, or how to teach little natural hair girls to take care of our hair if we don’t decide to wear sew-ins and wigs. We can’t all look as fierce as your, Mom with a buzz cut.”
“I know right. We cute or whatever… but I’m not cutting my hair off, too.” Breyonna placed her thinking spoon in the tub. “This is definitely one of those hive mind topics you can riff on for the vlog. Get them talking to you so you don’t feel like an animal in a science experiment.”
I sighed. Breyonna knew I hated this attention more than I cared to explain. “Girl, because I’d rather be doing anything else than this but, Brielle said it’s the consequence of my action. So I have to learn to live with the result of the choices I make.”
“Girl, you have a very wise godmother. Almost as smart as my MomNisa.” Breyonna ate a spoonful of yogurt.
I pretended to drop my tub of frozen comfort.
“Cute. Don’t get too excited. I said, almost. No one beats my godmother. She is the bee’s knees, as her godmother likes to say.” Breyonna chuckled. “They are so corny. Ugh, girl, you don’t think we’re gonna be as bad as they are when we become adults. Do you?”
The thought of how corny my Mom’s sayings might be if she were still alive caused a wave of nostalgia, sadness, and love to wash over me. I’d never know. Keylisa never knew. “They’re what? You have lost it. Ms. Maya is a stunner and from what you say she keeps Anisa on her toes. If that’s bad, girl, corny is the new cool, and bad will be the new lucky.”
I waved goodbye to Breyonna. I closed my locker to find myself surrounded by the smell of cinnamon, vanilla, and a spice I don’t know the name of. My eyes rose and locked with a girl known for being “woke”.
“JeShaun, right?” Ms. Woke nodded her head.
I scanned the girls behind Ms. Woke. I returned the nod.
“I’m Knowledge.”
I fought the urge to laugh in her face. Of course, a girl whose parents
