It was the late 80s and I couldn't stay out of my mom's makeup drawer. I slipped my little feet in her high heels and posed in the mirror, draped in every shawl within reach. I worshipped Madonna and Paula Abdul. I wanted scrunchy, wavy, platinum hair. I had a curtain of black hair, glossy as patent leather and I hated it. I finally annoyed my mom into letting me get an actual fucking perm the summer between 5th and 6th grade. If you don't have children or don't remember being 11, you might not know that 11 year olds are disgusting. I didn't know how to take care of my hair very well even before the perm so it predictably and quickly took on the appearance of those tumbleweeds of filth that collect behind furniture and embarrass you when a technician has to move your dresser to install the cable box. I changed schools in the middle of the year after I was attacked in the hallways between classes and my mom instructed a stylist to cut off the dead ends and I walked out with a fresh chin-length bob.
When I was in 7th grade, I became obsessed with Shalom Harlow's flawless complexion when she appeared in my Seventeen magazine on a two-page ad for...foundation I guess? I just remembered that aside from being achingly gorgeous, there wasn't a single freckle on her face. I was not achingly gorgeous and decided that the first thing that had to go in order to get closer to being Shalom was the spray of freckles on my nose and cheeks. I didn't know about photo editing at the time. My grandmother told me that lemon juice would get rid of my freckles. I told my mom I needed to begin this treatment immediately. She immediately shot it down and told me about her friend who owned Florsheim Shoes in the mall whose vain attempt at removing her own freckles resulted in grisly burns that left permanent scars. One afternoon not long after my mom had dashed my hopes of being Shalom Harlow, I was sitting on the carpeted floor of my school (I know, carpet at a pre-K-through-8 school. What were they thinking?) waiting for my mom to come pick me up. Angela, the most popular girl in our class, was sitting a few feet away with her long legs folded against her chest. I was thrilled when she called my name and beckoned me closer with the coolest nod of her head.
"You wanna get rid of your freckles?"
"Yeah!" I answered, and gushed about the lemon juice cure that my mom had crushed before I ever got a chance to try it. Angela went on to tell me about a cream had heard about and was trying to get her mom to buy for her. It never panned out but for a second I thought Angela and I would become best friends over our shared hatred of our freckles. I don't know if she ever pursued the vanishing treatment. I found her on Instagram but it's hard to tell in the pictures. She's still skinny and athletic as ever. I kept my freckles and pray for an extra dusting of them whenever I feel the sun on my face, melanoma be damned.
Sometime around 6th or 7th grade my mom received a tomato-red Chanel lipstick and matching nail polish for Christmas from her boss' elegant wife, a soft-spoken women with a silky black bob and a deep, Sofia Loren tan that made her soft green eyes glimmer with, I don't know, maybe intrigue? She could be dull as a rock to her Pilates-toned core for all I know but beauty makes us assume all kinds of flattering things about people, doesn't it? I almost lost my entire fucking mind when I saw those white interlocking C's against the lacquer-black plastic caps. Behold, I thought. The talismans of the glamorous life I was meant for.
My family spent money differently than my classmates'. They lived in little, zero-lot townhouses deep in the suburbs but kicked off the start of every school year with brand new Nikes and a closet full of baby T's from Wet Seal. I lived on an acre of verdant, sub-tropical paradise in a prime location but my wardrobe was from clearance racks or hand-me-downs, something that did not go unnoticed by the ruthless gaze of my peers. One of the many things I was bullied for, I finally begged my mom to transfer me back to public school. I felt a freeness so thrilling that summer between 7th and 8th grade that cannonballed me through the rest of my school days until my highschool sweetheart and I broke up at the beginning of my senior year, just as the planes hit the towers. I sank into a deep, nauseating depression. My waist-grazing auburn waves hair fell out by the handful in the shower until I cut them into a forgettable shoulder-length bob. I spent nights doing acid at a friend's and weeping uncontrollably. In the mornings we'd pack glittery pastel loose pigments that came in little plastic pots from the Delia*s catalog onto our eyelids and finish them off with a rim of thick kohl black on the entire lash line. That was the year we started practicing winged liner.
Soon, I added turquoise streaks to my dark red hair without my mom's permission. I had attempted a punky color in 9th grade, following my mom's no-bleach rule. The Pillarbox red Manic Panic dye sat uselessly on my stubborn, natural espresso, while my friend Berit's honey waves stained teal in a perfectly punk unevenness that I worshipped about her. A family friend and certified adult needled my mom into conceding to the bleaching process. When my aqua streaks faded to a moldy green, I was back in the stylist's chair for my 17th birthday and partied that night at the piano in our dining room with a cherry cola bombshell blowout through which none could resist raking their fingers.
I cut it again as it faded to cinnamon. I started experimenting with hot rollers, a trick that had worked astonishingly well for prom two years prior. I got the hang of it quickly, and my grandmother beamed with pride as her first grandchild inherited her manual dexterity for the almighty rolo electrico. I rolled and pinned my hair closely to my scalp on the morning of my graduation. I swept layers of lavender shadow on my eyelids and slicked pink gloss speckled with chunks of glitter the color of rainbow moonstone on my lips. As I waited in the sweltering stairwell at FIU's Golden Panther Area for a diploma I'd barely earned, my big, bouncy curls frizzed and kinked up under my white cap. My makeup slid off with sweat and evaporated into the afternoon heat before I even got to sit down. I shrugged, resigned. All the years of academic ennui, of being constantly grounded for bad grades, of being too young to be allowed out, were finally in my rearview. I freshened up when I got home and rode around in a car with a killer system, passing a quart of Olde English between two older boys with criminal charges.
"Ugh! We're both wearing your lipgloss now," said one, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. I tried to think of a clever reply but looked out the window and smiled instead.
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