the stepmother

There was a stepmother. I wished for one, begged for one, prayed for one - but not the one we got. She wasn't mean, but she was crazy. The kind of crazy, that cuts off an 8 year-old girl's hair because she and her daughters are sick of looking at it, the kind of crazy that punishes a six-year-old for not vaccuming the pool, the kind of crazy that makes her try to kidnap you, because she "loves you so much." The kind of crazy that nobody could see, until it was too late.

My fine, blonde hair was past my shoulders and always straight. I could do my own ponytails, and I was pretty good. I'd been doing it since I was five. When mama was tired and the radiation made her arms sore, I would get out my blue AVON brush and I would make my blonde hair as smooth as Cher's. Then I would twist my binder around the ponytail. I always used the kind with the two little beads so I could just wrap it and wrap it until mama said "that's enough." Then mama would pull on my ponytail and kiss the tips of my hair, and rest her chin on the top of my head and smile.

My stepmother, Lynn was a hairdresser. She had three daughters who were older than me. They all had thick, dark, Italian hair, that looked like a shampoo commercial. They never wore ponytails. They used hot rollers, and curling irons in different sizes. They had a billion cans of hairspray all over the house.

One morning I woke up and Lynn told me that I was coming to work with her. She said she was cutting my hair off. She said, "The girls and I are sick of having to look at that ratty blonde ponytail." My ponytail was never ratty. It was straight and plain, but not ratty. I asked where my dad was. She said he was at work. I asked to call him. She said, "No, this was his idea."

So I climbed into back of the station wagon, alone, betrayed by my own father. Wasn't he the one who said I was better at ponies than he would ever be? Why would he do this? Why would he team up with her? With them? Against me?

At the beauty shop, the other hairdressers beg her not to cut my hair. Patty pleads my case, but Lynn won't be swayed, "It will be sooooo cute!" she gushes. Tears are filling my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Patty's eyes meet mine, and she asks if she could do the cutting. But the stepmother, snaps her red cape over my shoulders and says, "Don't be silly! She's my kid!"

She cuts, and I cry. My hair falls to the ground, and I can hardly breathe. She is cutting off my mama's kisses. She's hacking off my mama's brushing, the hair she washed with strawberry shampoo, the hair that snuggled under her chin while we watched Donny and Marie. It is the last girly thing my mama taught me, how to wash my long hair, and now it was gone.

Patty hands me a kleenex. I wrap my fingers around a chunk of old hair. I am sweaty and it sticks to me. She squeezes my hand and says, "You look adorable." I look like Peter Pan and she knows it. I put the sweaty piece of hair in my pocket, before Lynn can take it away.

I get home that night and my dad is in the living room. "Oh my god," he says, "why did you cut your hair?"

I look at Lynn, the lying, coniving, manipulative adult who is suposed to be my new mommy. She shrugs her shoulders like it was all my idea. Dad looks a little sad, a little worried. I am only 8, but I remember that my mama said to be strong. She said to help daddy and my brother. So I don't tell him, I just climb into his lap and say, "I don't know." Which is true.

School pictures are in two days.