Free Dora: A Headcase by Lidia Yuknavitch Page A

fall out of her head. It happened three years ago. When my father made his choice with Mrs. K.
    It grew back the next year. Slowly. But her eyes never were the same.
    There’s a book my mother read to me as a kid. At least at first. I still have it. It’s under my bed. It’s a little trashed, but still cool. Are You My Mother ? You know it? It’s about a pathetic baby bird. The kid bird hatches while the mom is gone out of the nest. He’s clueless. He goes looking for her. He asks a kitten, a hen, a
dog, and a cow if they are his mother. They go, “No.” Then he asks a shitty old car, a boat and a plane, and at last, a fucking power shovel. The shovel dumps him back into his nest and the absent mother returns.
    It’s a good book. But the kid bird is pretty much a tard.
    Marlene’s got an old school man’s silk smoking jacket on and a Marlene Dietrich wig and a cigarette in a long thin cig holder.
    Three magnificent wigs sit on her kitchen table, staring up at us, headless.
    I look down at the wigs on Marlene’s table. I rub my stubbled head. This is the closest I have ever come to looking like my mother. Er how she did hairless, anyway. Sometimes I think that’s why I did it. Whatever. I study the wig selections.
    Wig one: a black as crows chin-length blunt cut. Very smarty looking. Would look great with black-rimmed smarty glasses and a shiny black raincoat. And boots. Kinda Emma Peel from The Avengers .
    Wig two: shoulder length strawberry with color weave highlights – kinda preppy. Would need cashmere sweater and a thin strand of pearls. Think Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club .
    But it’s wig three that’s dominating the others. Totally badass feathered and frosted. Christ. It’s so … man. It’s so hot … it’s so 80s … it’s so motherfucking Ultimate Farrah. It looks like it might lift off the table, achieve loft, and fly around the room.
    “Think I could pull that bad boy off?” I say, pointing to it. “What do they even call that, frosted?” The other wigs look dejected and jealous.
    “That depends,” Marlene says, tilting her head to the side, touching her blue Lee nails against her Coca- Cola red lips, “if you wear this you will turn heads. People can’t help themselves. They are nostalgic for the times with big hair.”
    “Yeah, I know what you mean … that’s not necessarily a good thing …”

    “When trying not to be seen.” She taps her lips. Her eyelashes seem longer than my thumbs.
    “Yup.”
    “On the other hand,” Marlene walks around the table of wigs inspecting them, kinda picking at the other two, “it looks the least like you, Lamskotelet. Your Herr Doktor would never recognize the you under this hair. No one would. Not even I would.” She strokes the wings of it.
    We stare at it there on the table.
    I lift the Farrah up off of the table balancing it on my fist and hold it slightly higher than my skull in front of me. It shimmers under the kitchen light. Its wings positively radiant. It asks me its question. Can you, be me?
    Somehow it is very solemn, this choice, who to be, who not to be.
    “Come, we will try it,” Marlene says, and shoulders me toward the bathroom mirror.
    The second it’s on my head we both know it. I don’t care if I have to wear a fucking jumpsuit with platforms and sing Bee Gees. Sometimes you just know things. This is the one.
    First of all, it’s heavy. In a good way. Like you are more important than usual. And my whole face looks different. I look like a woman with feathered bangs. A woman who will wear a lot of mascara and eye liner. A woman who is going to need a shitload of lip gloss. But there’s something else going on, too.
    I stare at this self in the mirror, Marlene just behind me. You know, in life? Whoever you’re gonna be, I think maybe the trick is to be it over the top. Maybe that’s part of my problem. I’m me, but I’m me like 50%. I’m out there, but I fade. I cough. I look away. I pass out.
    Little Teena,