Free Unbeweaveable by Katrina Spencer

you?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYou have a brain, Mariah, and you better start using it. Being ugly is one thing, but being average?” She clucked her tongue. “That’s something else altogether. You’re smart. And that’s what makes you beautiful.”
    It wasn’t until I got much older that I realized that she never answered the question.
    Beverly is beautiful. The kind of beauty that even women have to stop and stare at. Her hair grayed prematurely, and when most women would look to Clairol to solve that problem, she didn’t see a problem and never colored her hair. For some reason it never aged her, just enhanced her beauty even more. And Beverly knew she was beautiful. Her beauty was as insignificant as her pinky finger—she always had it and, therefore, didn’t realize its importance.
    â€œHow do I look?” she would ask, twirling into the living room before she went out for a night on the town with Anthony. Her hair would be down, shiny grey strands running through it like a river of silver, her lips painted a dark red that matched her dress.
    â€œMama, you look—”
    â€œI was asking Renee,” she would say, not even turning to look at me. “So, Renee, what do you think?”
    â€œYou look gorgeous, Mama!”
    â€œSee how it twirls and spins?” She would spin around the room, her dress fanning around her like a red umbrella.
    â€œMama, you are so pretty!” Renee would get up and dance around the room while I put my nose further in my Judy Blume book.
    She’d kiss both of our cheeks, remark on how fast a reader I was, and leave us for a night of dinner and dancing.
    That’s what it felt like growing up with Renee—I could be in the center of the room and she could stand in the corner, and somehow I was invisible. Renee came in the room and cast a ray of sun around her, and everyone wanted to be near her so they could bask in her warmth. I was the cloud that passed over the sun, a brief annoyance that was permitted only because soon the sun would shine again.
    Our favorite game growing up was beauty pageant. Renee would gather her long hair in a ponytail. I would wrap a bath towel around my head and pretend for once in my life that I had long hair. I would swing it around, pretending that the blue, pima-cotton towel was my magnificent, beautiful long hair. We would dress ourselves in sheets, wrapped up like Grecian women. We had three rounds as all beauty pageants did— talent, swimsuit, and evening. Beverly was the judge and always gave me the swimsuit round as I pranced around the living room in my pink, polka-dot swimsuit. But Renee always won. Always. Yeah, Beverly would make it a close call, saying if my voice hadn’t gone flat while singing “I Believe Our Children Have a Future,” then I would have won. Or if my evening gown had been tied more elegantly around my waist then I would have won for sure. The more I lost, the more I wanted to play until we were in junior high and Renee said she didn’t want to play anymore.
    â€œIt’s just a game, Mariah. It’s not real life.”
    For her, maybe. But to me it was as real as anything could be.

French Toast
    Life has a way of throwing a monkey wrench in your plans. I swore three things that would never happen to me: I would never take out my weave, never lose my job, and never, never move back home. Yet here I was, on a plane back to Houston.
    I can’t remember the last time I didn’t have a plan. But I feel my stomach churning, and for once, I don’t think it’s my ulcer. What am I doing here? But more importantly, how long was I going to be here? Beverly booked a one-way ticket to Houston, which gave me the impression it would be a long time before New York was my home again.
    So many changes. And everything happening so fast.
    I put my pen down and reached up to twirl a lock of weave around my finger, and was