Melanie

She had the silkiest, longest, most beautiful jet black hair. It flowed like a waterfall of tar straight down to her butt. Her bangs were very much late ‘90s bangs. Late ‘90s midwestern bangs that is. A delicate curtain of hair that hung down from a widow’s peak to her dark eyebrows. The bangs were curled with a curling iron. Probably one of those cheap Conair ones we bought at Super Target back in the day. Her hairstyle was symbolic: midwestern teenager in the front, all Native American in the back.

I remember we were friends for awhile. Not the closest. But we knew each other enough for me to know she went to “the reservation” every weekend. I have no idea what she did there. She never really talked about it. At least she never really talked to me about it. It was like a secret society membership. The reservation. It seemed so mysterious but considering we were 100% in Native American territory, it should’ve seemed obvious. It didn’t.

I think I borrowed some Tommy jeans from her once. Or maybe they were FUBU jeans. The wide-legged ones that would be paired with a Tommy t-shirt or a polo. Some kind of hip hop meets American mall mash-up typical of the times. Everybody was trying to be a suburban gangster. Blame Bone Thugs ‘N’ Harmony. My bedroom was a melange of 2Pac CDs, Mariah Carey tapes, Andre Agassi posters, swim meet ribbons, tennis and spelling bee trophies, MTV’s Total Request Live videos a la “Hit me Baby One More Time,” Gap Anoraks hanging in the closet, and cream-colored carpet on the floor. The day I wore those Tommy jeans to school, I felt like a new me. A less studious version of myself. More street somehow. But there was nothing street about me. My Taiwanese immigrant mom dropped me off at school in a Ford minivan that morning, to put things in context. She also picked me up after school that day in the same Ford minivan. An Aerostar to be exact. There was zero time or space to run the streets. She made sure of it. I was off to tennis practice.

Melanie, on the other hand, ran the streets. In junior high, she started hanging out with a girl named Theresa. Brown-skinned Theresa. Latina Theresa? The thing was in the Midwest, if you weren’t white, nobody exactly knew what you were, ethnicity-wise. And nobody cared either. You were some variation of yellow, brown, or black. And so you weren’t white. So Theresa was not white. A part of me was drawn to these girls, the girls who strutted around in their Ecko gear in the school hallways, who bragged about their sexual escapades in the 7th grade, who were the first to reveal lacy black bras in the gym class locker room along with tallies on their K-Swisses for each time they did the deed, who smoked cigarettes in the football field as soon as the last bell rang. But I also didn’t really get them. So I hung out with the mostly white girls and then some Asian girls, many of whom had goals, I suppose. My goal, it became abundantly clear over time, was to get out. And so I needed to be around other girls with goals, whatever they may be, even if that goal was to land a husband at 18.

Senior year came around and it was time to vote for senior superlatives, the totally meaningless annual ritual of voting on who was the “best looking,” the “funniest,” the “most likely to succeed,” the “cutest couple,” who had the “best laugh,” the “best butt,” and the “best hair,” etc. The winners of those categories would be printed in the yearbook alongside their headshot. This was something most people took a huge interest in. This was an event that caused controversy and excitement throughout the school. This was extremely dumb and super American. I didn’t get it.

Nonetheless, I was voted as “most likely to succeed” and “best hair.” Two things. As each person could only win one category, the student committee decided to give me the best hair award and another girl the title of most likely to succeed. I was relieved. I didn’t want that label on me. Succeed at what? Life? School? What did that even mean? Whatever it was, I didn’t want a designation hanging over me like a curse for the rest of my life… the pressure of eternally feeling like I needed to “make it” by some myopic midwestern standard of success. I think the girl who won most likely to succeed became a pharmacist and a mom. I have no idea how she is, but I think, she being a mixed black woman in America and doing that alone makes her a damn success.

Back to the best hair business, Melanie’s gang of friends, when they learned I had won the category, rose up in revolt. Full on high school-style revolt, where they spray-painted over the banner announcing the senior superlative winners. A big black X over my name and her name written in instead. Latina-esque Theresa stared me down for a few days in “the pits,” the sunken square platforms surrounded by a few tiers of stairs where the most vicious of high school kids sat around between classes like a pack of hyenas, cackling, judging, and plotting. The truth was Melanie probably did have more naturally beautiful hair. In fact, I’m pretty sure she did. Is there anything more beautiful than a full head of a Native American woman’s natural hair? Thick, long, braided, undulating after unbraiding, adorned with feathers and fur, this was indeed hair to be honored. But as previously stated, we weren’t anywhere near the reservation, certainly not mentally. We were in the land of Walmart and curlers, aerosol hairspray and straightening irons. And so with my 1 1/4” curling iron, my can of hairspray, and my can-do attitude, I won best hair. And I don’t think I ever saw Melanie or her best hair again.