Kissing Kate Read Free Page B

street to Cost Cutters, where I had an 11:00 appointment. I’d planned on simply getting a back-to-school trim, but now, after listening to Vanessa for the entire car ride, I found myself considering something more drastic. Maybe short hair would look good on me. Something soft around my face, maybe some layers . . .
    Wait. I was letting a ten-year-old influence how I cut my hair? I’d worn my hair the same way for the last three years— shoulder length, the ends slightly turned under—and except for a disastrous attempt to grow out my bangs, I’d liked it just fine.
    I wondered what Kate would say if I cut it short. Kate had great hair: blond and thick and really soft, not coarse like mine. She used to get me to play with it when I spent the night at her house. She’d put her head in my lap while we watched TV, then close her eyes while I ran my fingers over her scalp.
    Last summer we put lemon juice on our hair to add highlights, and afterward, when she stood in the sun, the strands around Kate’s face glowed like gold. My hair turned kind of orange-y.
    “Auburn,” Kate said.
    “Yeah, right,” I responded.
    Now my hair was back to its usual dull brown, and the more I thought about it, the more I decided that a short haircut was just the thing to get me out of this rut. What kind of wimp was I if I couldn’t take a risk?
    “I need a change,” I told the stylist, whose name was Marcia. “Something kind of feathered around my face? Well, no, not feathered, exactly, but—”
    “Something classy,” Marcia said. She ran her fingers through my hair, lifting it in her hands as if weighing it. “A wedge. An asymmetrical wedge.”
    I should have known right then that I was making a mistake. I should have gotten up and run. “No, um, that’s not really what I—”
    “Oh, honey, it’ll be perfect. ” She leaned closer and pressed her hands against my cheeks. “You have an oval-shaped face. See? You need something perky and full to bring out your eyes. Do you ever wear eyeliner?”
    “Well, no, not usually. Eyeliner kind of scares me. I don’t like touching my eyeballs, and I don’t think—”
    “You should consider wearing eyeliner, hon. You have lovely eyes.” She patted my shoulders and straightened up. “All right. Let’s get this show on the road!”
    I didn’t end up with an asymmetrical wedge, thank God, but it couldn’t have been much worse if I had. I finally convinced Marcia that I didn’t want to go super, super short, and so she chopped off my hair at this awful mid-cheek length that made me look like an Eastern European refugee. It was just short enough that I couldn’t tuck it behind my ears without it falling in my face, and just long enough that it wouldn’t stay in place if I raked it back with my fingers. In fact, if I’d gotten a super-short haircut and had been trying to grow it out for a couple of months, this is how it would look. I had gotten my hair cut in an awkward, growing-out stage. I had paid to get my hair cut in an awkward, growing-out stage. I even left Marcia a tip.
    “What did you do to your hair ?” Vanessa said when I arrived at Chick-fil-A.
    “I cut it,” I said. I resisted the urge to try to push it behind my ears.
    “Well, duh,” Vanessa said. “But why ? Are you going to go to school like that?”
    Beth looked mortified. She busied herself gathering their empty cups and refused to meet my eyes.
    On the drive home, while Beth, Nikki, and Vanessa tried out each other’s new lip balms, I mentally rehearsed my rules for future living. Never make a major hair change without thinking about it for at least a day. Never make a major hair change at Cost Cutters. And regardless of how horrible life is, don’t think a new look will solve the problem.

CHAPTER 3
    I DROVE AROUND FOR A WHILE after dropping off Beth and her friends. I wasn’t due at work for a couple more hours, but I didn’t feel like hanging out at home. I turned right, and then left, and then