RELUCTANT PRESS

and for the next several hours pass myself off as a girl in a place where only women belonged, or run the risk of total humiliation.

The look, the smell, and even the feel of the school, which was like a huge beauty shop, was totally feminine. And the feelings that came over me were very strange indeed. I had never been in a beauty shop in my life yet I felt like I belonged here. I suppose I felt like someone about to go on stage as the star of the show nervous as hell, but excited and thrilled and anxious to hear the applause.

As I followed my Mom I hoped my legs would not fold under me. Mom seated me in one of about twenty work stations in two rows in a room that went all across the back of the building. While I took it all in Mom got her things ready and had a brief discussion with the head instructor.

The head instructor and three other people walked slowly down the rows to inspect each model's hair and make notes on clipboards.

There were not enough shampoo sinks for all of us at once so we went in groups. After getting my hair washed Mom sectioned my hair and began cutting. I had not expected this, but kept my mouth shut as instructed. During this, and through each following phase of my ordeal, the four judges, three of whom were actually owners of large salons in the city, would check my Mom's work and ask her questions. When the cutting was done, Mom put a tight plastic cap over my head and tied it under my chin. The cap was covered with small, different colored circles. Without telling me what she was doing, she took a plastic rod that looked like a crochet hook, and began to puncture the circles and pull out small strands of my hair from the cap. Pretty soon, I looked like something from outer space with the white cap and pieces of hair sticking out all over the place. Mom got a bottle of some foul smelling lotion and dabbed the stuff on my exposed hair. She was wearing rubber gloves for this operation, which did not make me feel very relaxed. I had to sit for about fifteen minutes while Mom talked to one of the judges. Mom whispered, "Good boy," and patted my shoulder before she left with the judge.

While I waited, I got up enough courage to look around at what else was going on in the room. There were some strange

Page 12

RUFFLES & CURLES

By Kammi Morton

sights as the models went through a variety of rituals on their hair. Worst of all was the pungent odor from the different chemicals being applied. I wondered why women put themselves through all this.

When Mom came back, she inspected her work and took me to the shampoo sink and rinsed my hair. She put some more smelly lotion on the exposed hair. It had been over an hour since we had arrived. She removed the cap and very carefully wound all my hair on different sized and colored plastic rollers and covered them with a net that was drawn tightly around my head.

Next, it was off to another room where several others were already sitting under the dryers. I sat under mine for forty-five minutes, relieved when the hot air turned cooler signaling that the end was near. It was a number of minutes after the dryer shut off before my mother came.

"Since we are so close to noon it has been decided that the styling will take place after we come back from lunch. Are you hungry, Danielle?"

I was starved, but of greater concern was where we

would be eating lunch.

"We don't have to go out, do we?" I asked.

"You don't see any lunch counter in here, do you?" said the woman who was with my mother.

"Danielle is a very proper young lady and does not like to be seen in public with her hair in rollers," Mom answered for me. "Don't worry, Danielle, around here they are used to seeing us everyday with our hair in all sorts of weird states. Nobody will give you a second look."

And so, along with a bunch of women, I went outside and walked a block to the cafeteria style restaurant. I imagined that my head was as big as a blimp and that everybody was laughing at me, but in fact this was far from the truth. By the time lunch was over I was quite relaxed and even enjoying my time with "the girls".

When I was seated at the styling station, Mom put a short pink cape with a lace border over my shoulders and secured it under my chin with a clip. She removed my net and rollers and brushed and teased my hair vigorously. She had turned the chair around so I could not see in the mirror what was being done. But it sure felt awful and I could not

Page 13