I AM NOT MY HAIR, page 1
Table of Contents
IANMHChapter1
IANMHChapter2
IANMHChapter3
IANMHChapter4
IANMHChapter5
IANMHChapter6
IANMHChapter7
IANMHChapter8
IANMHChapter9
IANMHChapter10
IANMHChapter11
Natural Sistahs Book and Author Info
Chapter 1
“This is a disaster!” My heart stopped, dropped to the back of my knees and did a slow roll to the bottom of my stomach.
No one moved. Even the grips and backstage workers froze.
“Where is Cassandra?” My stylist was missing. All of her combs, the products my hair craved and her bubbles with a side of sunshine were missing.
“Boehner fired her. He said they were paying her too much.” A makeup artist mumbled under his breath.
“I’m fresh off a weekend from hell. I haven’t looked near a comb. My natural hair is my Clark Kent mask, and now I need to be super Maya ... her hair is sleek and always in place.” My eyes roamed every inch of what we called the transformation chamber. “Cassandra is my phone booth ... someone fix this and get me right.”
Curls popped all over my head and I loved the look for a weekend on Hilton Head but not going on the air in thirty minutes. My natural hair was me, not the persona I built on air for the last twenty plus years.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Hatton. No one knew you were natural.” A young Caucasian girl blinked a hundred miles a minute.
“Who are you?” I wanted to scream but I didn’t because, I’m a professional.
“The new stylist.” She gave a weak smile.
“Get me, Boehner. NOW!” A tremor underlined my reserved tone.
Ten minutes before airtime, Boehner walked in and his face collapsed. Were those tears behind his eyes? Crybaby. This man wouldn’t last five minutes with us if he cried at every close call and emergency.
“Maya,” Boehner gulped. “What happened to your hair it looks ... Becky, please fix her hair.”
“I don’t do ethnic hair. You said she had straight hair.”
“You happened, when you fired, Cassandra. I’ve worked too hard to be treated this way. Who waits until the head anchor is away for time off to fire her stylist?” The makeup artist touched up my lipstick. I pulled my emergency pomade from my purse and slicked the front of my hair down to make it presentable.
“No one told me your hair was like this ...” Boehner looked around. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
The room froze again.
“No one told you, because it isn’t your business how I wear my hair. I’ve been doing this job since, never mind. You’re not going to come in here and ruin my career so you can bed every blonde with a curling iron or whatever you were trying to do when you fired my stylist and brought this other child in here with you.” Ten. Nine. Eight. Seven. Six. Five. Four. Three. Two ... I pulled in several deep breaths to calm myself down. Hilton Head wasn't enough, I needed to leave the country. “This conversation is not finished.”
***
$643,268.98 . The culmination of the last twenty plus years of my life on television. I’ve bought some expensive cars. Crashed two of those pricey toys. Married a gorgeous man, lost two babies and now him to midlife crisis. Midlife at our age felt late, but I couldn’t explain Roddreccus leaving me any other way. Walked into the house and there he was, with a long duffel bag and a longer face.
The vacation saved my sanity. Cost me seven hundred of my hard-earned dollars but I have over a half a million left, so I refused to sweat the small stuff. Those wrinkles on my hand are the only thing that tells the truth about my age. A woman of a particular age in my profession lived by botox, heavy makeup and for some the surgeon’s blade.
Busboys and valets still flirted with me. Outside of my hands, my age mystified most men I encountered. Only a few years since the big “five o.” No need to dash their hopes and dreams. Old enough to be their mother. A chill ran through me. My husband didn’t have to know what he had. I knew my worth, worth living with and loving.
The next day, I packed my bags and boarded my plane back to Macon and my pseudo celebrity status as the headline news anchor for the evening news. Primetime. My goddaughter, Anisa, called me Primemommy until middle school. I needed to call and check on her, make sure Atlanta treated her right. Add that to the long list of things I needed to do including decide if I’d take my 643,269.98 and walk away from a career and industry with at least another ten years of goals and dreams to accomplish.
The sun peeked through the cloud blocking it and I smiled. Sun kissed skin looked amazing on screen. My eyes closed as I took in the scent of the ocean air. Shade caused goose bumps to cover my arms. A figure blocked my golden friend.
“Pardon me, but the gentleman over there gave me a forty dollar tip to bring you this drink and ask if you’d be interested in joining him for dinner.” The server handed me what looked like a pina colada.
I sat up. The gentleman nodded, raised a glass with honey brown liquid inside and smiled. “Sure.”
The salt and pepper at the gentleman’s temples meant he was closer to my age than the three other men who’d offered her drinks this week. His skin looked well moisturized and he appeared to have all his teeth. He had no tan line on his left hand and muscles in all the right places without appearing obsessed with weights or himself.
“Please have him write down his room number, tell him I'll consider giving him a call so we can meet somewhere on the resort.” My glass tipped toward him again. I took a sip. No woman turned down a free drink from a handsome man in Mexico. Wasn’t proper.
Familiar drinks with unfamiliar men described the days ahead once the divorce finalized, if Roddreccus filed the papers. Dates weren’t easy when your face filled people’s television screens five nights a week. No one in Macon knew how to separate what I did from who I am. Roddreccus left big shoes to fill and a long list of things to put on the non-negotiable list. Janice, Olivia and Pam were into the second decade of their new marriages. Fifty something felt too old to be dating and rushing had never been my style. These men were trying to bed me or persuade me to buy into their pipe dreams under the guise of being acquainted. All I wanted was for Roddy to come home and play some Teddy Pendergrast.
“Ma’am, did you say eight or seven?” The server waved his hand in front of her face.
“I didn't, let him know I'll call when I call, if I call.” The sun peeked around him and I eased back onto my towel. If no one else wanted to play Don Juan, four more hours of happy light had an appointment with my skin, and I intended to enjoy every minute of it.
***
Phyllis looked like a glass of sweet tea on a hot summer day as I exited the airport doors with my week's worth of luggage and souvenirs behind me. The time in Mexico gave me more time to ask questions than answers. No better place existed to contemplate the beauty and ugliness of a potential divorce than next to deep blue waters. I’d been thinking through my problems next to water since I’d saved up to purchase my first membership at the pool in the fourth grade.
“You might need to go back, Maya, I don’t know anyone who comes back from vacation looking more perplexed than they did when they left.” Phyllis hugged me.
“Good to see you, too.” My chuckle sounded tinny to me, so I knew Phyllis heard it.
“Mm hmm.” Phyllis looked back to the skycap. “Young man, it’s the Toyota behind the Range Rover.”
He tipped his cap.
“We’re going to eat. No one should be subject to airplane food after being at a resort in Mexico and enjoying all that good food. You need your palate cleaned.” Phyllis slipped her arm through mine.
“Is that right?” Of course, we’d talk and in between me spilling my heart, I might get in a bite or two of something green, leafy and low in calories.
“You’d be worried if we didn’t.” Phyllis nodded as the skycap closed her trunk door.
I passed him a ten-dollar bill. “Thank you.”
“Thank you, Ms. Hatton.” He grinned. “You’re my favorite reporter. I can’t wait to tell everyone I pulled your luggage and you’re not a cheap tipper. Real class act. Thank you ma’am.”
The desire to drop my second nature reporter’s smile dissolved as he opened the passenger door to Phyllis’ Toyota.
“You’ve been doing that to men, since college. Make no sense, Maya Collins.” Phyllis chuckled.
“Hatton, to my confusion and frustration it’s still Hatton and since my man hasn’t filed any papers I’m not sure if it’s going to change back to Collins.” My sigh hurt coming up my windpipe and pushed over my lips.
“You guys are just having a hiccup. Every couple has hiccups. Go talk to him, have you even asked why he moved out?” Phyllis pulled into the exit lane.
“NO!” This woman knew I jumped on a plane fast as I could after he moved out. “He got this ball rolling, he needs to dribble it and get it in the net. I’m not chasing him.”
Phyllis rolled her eyes.
“You keep doing that they’ll get stuck.” I could mimic my friend’s voice better than any of my other line sisters. She used to tell my goddaughter that lie.
“Very funny.” Phyllis chuckled. “He’s been chasing you, loving you and supporting you over thirty years, Maya. Meet him halfway. What did he say?”
“It’s what he didn’t say, that confuses me and he knows my contract at the station is expiring. He could have waited until I resigned or signed on
“Nice tan.” Phyllis shook her head.
“Don’t patronize me, woman. Running away was not my objective. I needed to clear my head.”
“Mm hmm.” Phyllis shook her head.
“Stop trying to read me. It did work, a little bit. Seven hundred dollars well spent to realize ... I’ve lost something somewhere in the last ten years and if I don’t find it again soon ... I might lose everything.” A lump lodged in my throat. Decades of training to squelch my emotions kicked in and I stopped the tears forming in their tracks. My vocal chords betrayed me and the voice thousands loved to hear reduced to a whisper. “I’m scared, Phyllis ... Roddreccus, this job ... I’m terrified. I’ve gotta get myself together.”
“That is what you always do.” Phyllis cut her eyes from the road to me. She patted my left knee. “No one can be as strong as you pretend to be, forever. Life has a way of changing what we think we want out for what’s best for us. When we ignore the cues and warnings sometimes we have to let it fall apart to for everything to come together.”
I laughed. “What does that even mean?”
“You’re not a superhero, Maya. No one expects you to don a cape and fly through life. Come down here with us mere mortals. Leave or work this out with Roddreccus. Figure out what you lost, figure out if you need to get it back and then do what you need to do to move forward.” Phyllis cleared her throat. “Don’t fight the process or try to figure it out. This isn’t one of your news pieces. It won’t be tidy and pretty. Gonna be messy, painful, beautiful and necessary for you to get whatever your missing back or find something new.”
Chapter 2
Boehner looked younger, fresher and dumber than ever, as he walked into my office. The sheen from his off the rack suit made me dizzy. Whose cousin owed whom a favor for this yokel to be the new station manager?
“Good morning, Ms. Hatton um Maya. Can I call you Maya? I think we started off wrong.” Boehner offered a limp hand to shake.
“Mrs. Hatton is fine.” I crossed my arms. Petty? Yes. Effective. Damn right.
“Right. I apologize about, Cassandra. The execs are breathing down my neck about the budget and I didn’t realize you needed special accommodations for your hair to look right.” Boehner pulled at his collar.
“To look right?” Ten. Nine. “Look, young man. I’m not sure what you’re implying or what you said so I can’t even hire Cassandra to come back to do my hair as a freelancer but I suggest you call these execs and get this fixed.” Air quotes around execs was more dramatic than I normally played it but messing up my image called for drastic measures.
He cleared his throat again. “Well, I did call and they asked if it were possible to put in a clause that we be able to keep the young lady we have who will work at half the spec we paid Cassandra. As I understand it, there are things you can do to alter your hair so she’ll be able to make it work on air.”
Before my good sense prevailed, I’d left my chair. “My hair has worked on air just fine since I started using the two stylists before Cassandra and it works fine now. I’m not sure you know who I am or even what you’re able to do as the manager but bullying me to alter my hair is outside of the constraints of your job description. In the almost thirty years I’ve been here aesthetic clauses in my contract have been unnecessary because I have an impeccable image, which your hasty firing jeopardized.”
Boehner cleared his throat. “That’s what I came to speak with you about. I had legal rework your new contract and there is an aesthetics clause. I’m requesting you have your hair polished, and professional at all times when on air, as part of your head anchor duties. We have an image to uphold and our core audience wasn’t happy about the hair change”
“The image you jeopardized. Not me. Don’t place your mail in my inbox, sir.” I walked over to my door. “Now, I’ve some calls to make. Forward the documents to me and I’ll have my lawyer look over them to see how much longer I’ll be here or if I’ll be considering the offers I’ve received from Atlanta and Savannah.”
Boehner’s eyes bucked. He gulped. Again. I think he needed to be checked out by an ear, nose and throat doctor.
“I have a copy in this folder.” Boehner pulled a manila folder from under his arm.
“No offense but I don’t deal with papers that have been in contact with areas that release body fluids. I’ll forward them to my attorney once you send me a soft copy.” I leaned on the door.
“According to the personnel records you’ve never involved a lawyer in the contract negotiations.” Boehner crossed his arms.
I pulled a string up my spine and looked down my nose at this snotty boy out to prove himself, pulling out the pen to write a check I knew his ass couldn’t cash nor credit to cover.
“Before you open your mouth again, I suggest you look at the same record and check the rest of my files. If you please, since you’ve been unable to secure Cassandra’s services and I’ve not heard from anyone else with proficient cosmetology experience, licensing and training, I’m going home. My back up anchor is here and eager to continue pretending she’s about to take over my time slot.”
Boehner’s spine crumpled.
“Which may not be a far from true, if this isn’t straightened out. I’m not sure where you trained or who you learned your management skills from but I assure you, the way you’re trying to handle this will not yield the results you desire.” I backed him into the hallway. As he opened his mouth to speak, I closed the door in his face without making a sound.
***
Phyllis wanted to kill me. I leaned on her doorbell until she opened it. Same thing I used to do when I would go to her apartment during college with my man woes. Roddreccus’ unexpected departure needed to be discussed, soon as I knew what I wanted to say about it.
“This isn’t 1983 stop that!” Phyllis said. She snatched me in off her front porch.
“Did I disturb Mitchell?” I looked around. Forgot about my goddaughter’s gruff daddy. Never met another man so sweet and grizzly.
“Not today, if he were here I wouldn’t be answering the door.” Phyllis swung her hips from side to side and snapped her fingers.
“Whoever created these pills is somewhere putting capped teeth on their poodles.” I chuckled.
“You didn’t come over here to talk about my love hangovers so what happened with Roddreccus?” Phyllis said.
I shrugged my shoulders.
Phyllis leaned her head to the side and raised one eyebrow. “Maya, don’t make me go on a search expedition. What is going on?”
“My new manager put an aesthetics clause in my new contract and because Cassandra was fired in the middle of her contract she opted to take a buyout for the remainder of her time and is opening her shop. She doesn’t want to come back. I’m stuck between a lye and a bald place.” Hysteria didn’t sound natural in my voice but I recognized it, same as Phyllis.
“We need some chamomile tea. Let’s relocate to the patio while I make some tea.” Phyllis led me into the kitchen. She filled the teakettle with water. We walked to the patio.
I took up residence in the double swing.
Phyllis sat next to me in the lounge chair.
“You were thinking about easing into a less visible role last time we talked. Now you’re contemplating doing what?” Phyllis watched me rock the swing with my feet.
I shrugged.
“We’re too old for this foolishness, Maya. Spill it or I’ll make you cry it out watching Steel Magnolias.” Phyllis crossed her arms.
“The new one or the original?” I paused the swing.
“Stop testing me, woman.” Phyllis relaxed her arm. “Talk to me.”
“This new manager put a straight hair clause into my contract. He wants me to have it permanently straightened or as he called it altered.” I did air quotes around altered. “To a state where any stylist is able to style it.”
Phyllis’ mouth dropped open. She leaned forward to speak. The teakettle whistled. “Hold that thought.”
I nodded. The rhythm of the swing lulled me into a less hectic state of mind. Phyllis brought me out here for it to work its wonders on me. Holding the thought was all I could do all night, which is why I found myself on her porch before decent folks called on retired folks. Especially retired folks with a spouse they’re still in love with, which is a thought I want to be as far away from as possible. Roddreccus would have straightened all of this out and me last night, if he were where he belonged.
