Free A Little Change of Face by Lauren Baratz-Logsted Page A

breasts.”
    â€œI’m not going to bind my breasts!” I half shouted. Sheesh. A girl had to draw the line somewhere.
    â€œJust a suggestion.” Pam smiled.
    â€œWell,” I said, thinking about it all, everything, all at once, “if I do all that, I might as well change my name, too. People still do that sometimes when they get married or if they go Hollywood, so why can’t I? I could even change it legally.No sense in creating a new life, a new persona, and then keeping the same name.”
    â€œNo sense at all,” said T.B., in a tone that clearly revealed that she’d gone back to thinking me nuts.
    â€œNaw,” said Delta, “Scarlett’s the name of a femme fatale. It’s the kind of name men can’t resist. We can’t have that.”
    â€œSo,” asked Pam, “just what are you going to call yourself in your new life? Who is the new and de-improved Scarlett going to become?”
    â€œWho the hell knows?” I answered.
    â€œAre you really gonna do this thing?” T.B. asked a few minutes later, once Delta had joined Pam in the pool, the two others caught up in talking TV.
    â€œYes,” I said. “I don’t know.” I thought about it some more. “Maybe?”
    â€œBut,” T.B. said, “forgive me if this is a dumb-ass thing to ask— Why? ”
    I thought about how Pam had planted the seed when at the bar, had been planting the seed for years, that my luck with men was unearned. I thought about how having the chicken pox had harvested the seed that I might not be as lovable if I didn’t look as good. I thought about my realization, while watching Extreme Makeover, that my looks might have brought me attention, but they hadn’t brought me love.
    â€œBecause Pam’s got me curious,” I said. “Because for thirty-nine years I’ve done things one way, and it hasn’t gotten me anywhere, not really. Has being attractive got me that Prince Charming you were talking about? No. So maybe doing something drastically different will get me what I want. Do I even want him? Who knows? Some days, yes. Some days, no. Maybe I want to do it because I worry thatPam might be right, that my good looks have earned me a free ride. Maybe I want to do it because I want to prove something to myself, that I’m likable just for me after all. Or maybe I want to do it simply because,” I finally sighed, “who the hell knows why? What can I say? I’m a confused and conflicted and ambivalent woman. I have murky motives.”
    â€œAh,” T.B. said. “I getcha now.”

13
    I stood before the mirror in my bathroom, studying my hair.
    Yes, I know. That does sound a bit too much like navel-gazing. But I had a purpose to what I was doing. And, besides, it was hair-gazing instead of navel-gazing, so didn’t that somehow make it okay?
    Looking at all that long black hair, I thought about how long it had been a part of who I was. Ever since I’d been little, with the singular exception of a college flirtation with the shag, I’d always been the girl—now woman—with the long black hair. It was something I’d always received compliments on: from babysitters who had liked to play with it, turning it into long braids or trying to get it to take a wave with the curling iron, to men who had liked to see it splayed out against their pillows. Hell, there had even been a few women who had made passes at me because of it. Unlike some of my acquaintances, who were made uncomfortable by lesbian advances, I’d merely turned those women downin the same way I’d have turned down a man whom I wasn’t interested in dating: “Thank you so much for the compliment, but I’m just not looking to date right now. What can I say? It’s a character flaw.”
    Even my mother had always claimed to love my hair, calling it my “crowning glory.”
    Was I really going to get rid