I swear I could see the steam coming out of his ears. “An inch! That’s all I’m asking.”
I knew I was right, and I wasn’t about to back down. I easily got more respect from the inmates than I got out of the men who worked in this prison. Within the system, there had been way too many dropped hints about the exchange of “favors” for a promotion. And I was sick of it.
“You know, if you want my ponytail moved, move it yourself. On second thought, no.” I unhooked the wad of keys from my belt and flung them on his desk. “I’m outta here.”
After the prison stint I tried to go back to my old standby, hairdressing, but at that point, with no customer base and no insurance and almost no money, it all seemed so hopeless. An opportunity (and yes, a man) dropped into my lap, one that just seemed too good to pass up. Bobbie was a Bahamian who lived in Chicago. There was a lot of money to be made down in the Bahamas, he told me, diving for lobsters and crayfish. We were moving to the islands, where we would build a house on the water. I was truly intrigued by the idea of showing my kids the world beyond Holland, Michigan. It would be an adventure!
So I sold my house, bought a pop-up tent, packed up the boys, and moved to Mangrove Cay. My vision of living on an island, spending long, sun-kissed days combing the sand with my sons, sounded way better than raising a couple of latchkey kids I never saw. Nothing was worth missing the opportunity of seeing them grow up. And I did make it work, for a while. We began construction on the house. Earning a living from diving was proving to be difficult, so for extra money I’d fly to Nassau once a month and buy Twinkies, Juicy Juice, and Doritos in bulk, then sell them out of the back of my battered old car to hungry schoolkids on lunch break and families at sports events and festivals. In our temporary home, we had no water, we had no electricity, but for the first time in my kids’ lives I was there to greet them at home every day after school, even if it was just from the flap of a tent. It was the packs of flesh-eating sand fleas that, after six months, drove me away from the Bahamas, back to Michigan, and into my next marriage.
Who did you think you were, Elizabeth Taylor or something?
It was clear that the loudmouth inside wasn’t about to let up on me. On the contrary, I was no Elizabeth Taylor. One thing I never understood about myself was the fact that although there were always plenty of prettier and thinner and smarter women around, I never seemed to be able to date a man for long before he’d ask me to marry him. And though I knew that “no” was an option, and at times may have been the wiser choice, I just couldn’t seem to get myself to say it out loud.
With Mr. Right, I at least forced myself to try. I told him maybe. We met at the mall, where, with my last five hundred dollars plus a two-thousand-dollar loan, I had set up a holiday kiosk to sell plaster gargoyles. I had come across them during a trip to Chicago and couldn’t get over how cool they were. So I found the factory that made them and was soon in possession of a boatload of gargoyles—two-inch gargoyles, six-hundred-pound gargoyles, and everything in between. My dad had always told me I could sell ice to an Eskimo, but here I was, trying to persuade conservative midwestern Dutchmen that a scary cement sculpture was something they just couldn’t live without.
One day Mr. Right came by to check out my gargoyles, with three kids just as adorable as he was in tow. Soon he was dropping by every day, bringing me coffee or cocoa or tea. We talked about our families, his amateur acting career, my love of travel. I learned he even went to the same church that I had recently visited a few times. I was smitten. I left the mall seven weeks later with enough money for a down payment on a home, and a new boyfriend.
Then he asked me to marry him. Though things had been going extremely well, I was determined not to make another mistake. So I suggested we date for a year and then revisit the question.
Our dates always involved seven people—with his two sons and daughter, and my two boys—all of them between the ages of eight and thirteen. We traveled around with our own little Brady Bunch, which to me seemed like a good way to keep things from moving too fast. Mr. Right, who sang at church and played Jesus in the Easter pageant, encouraged me to play my trumpet at every service. It was so much fun to pick up the instrument again after nine years. I loved the powerful feeling that came from blasting out those sweet notes all the way to the back pews. And after a nearly perfect year, one that felt almost too good to be real, I said yes.
It was a fairy-tale wedding. All the kids stood up for us, and each and every member of the new family added a ring to the third finger of his or her left hand. After a romantic Italian honeymoon (for two), we all settled into a farmhouse big enough for the whole gang. And though we worked different shifts, Mr. Right managed to keep the weekday passion alive through hidden notes and frequent phone calls.
It was only six weeks after the marriage that I sensed a change. He had begun to distance himself from me. No more phone calls, no more notes. And when we were together, he seemed to have no patience for me. I suspected depression. He claimed the depression was mine. Then one day it simply stopped. He suddenly seemed to hate everything about me—my body, my hair, my smile, my kids. It was as though just the smell of me when I entered a room would make him sick. I had no idea what I had done.
By now he was making sure we were never alone. His weekends were spent being Super Dad, a role I still admired him for. Then one Sunday, on a weekend when my kids were at their dad’s, I headed out to the car with my trumpet, anxious to get to church early to warm up before the crowd arrived. There, in the driveway, was Mr. Right hurrying all his kids into the van.
“Why so early?” I asked. He didn’t answer. I never saw Mr. Right and his kids again. Soon we were divorced. I later heard he had moved to Florida and come out as gay.
For once Inner Debbie didn’t seem to have much to say. And I really didn’t need her to remind me about the next disastrous relationship, the one that sent me packing to Afghanistan. I had married a preacher—a jealous, hot-blooded, hotheaded Latin preacher. At least something good came out of that union, even if it did come from a place of dark desperation. But honestly, when you leave during a screaming match with your husband, swearing that you’d rather die in Afghanistan than live one more day in Michigan with him, you know it’s time to go.
The truth was, I had already started making an attempt to head down a different path well before that confrontation with my preacher husband. I’d always yearned to be more than just a hairdresser. To me, hairdressing was what those girls did who got pregnant in high school, or who weren’t smart enough or rich enough to go to college. I didn’t look at my trade as something to be proud of. It was just something I had settled for. What I really wanted to do was help people, and to the younger me that meant either cop, firefighter, or military. But back then, at least where I lived, girls just didn’t do that. I considered becoming a missionary, but the thought of cramming religion down people’s throats just didn’t fly with me. That, and I hated the outfits.
But times had changed, and now that my kids were nearly grown, I was determined to turn my energy toward something that mattered. By that time I was too old to be accepted by the police academy or the military, and I wasn’t even close to being in good enough shape to battle a raging inferno. So when I came across a Christian organization in Chicago that was offering disaster relief training, I jumped at the chance.
Two weeks without my husband was like a spa vacation, that is, if your spa focuses on teaching CPR and the basics of decontamination. Then, two weeks after my training was complete, the terrorist attacks of 9/11 hit. I was on a plane to New York within hours of a call to come help. Day after day, I’d massage weary firefighters’ callused, pungent feet and listen to the horror stories of what they’d been through, happy to be able to give them even a few brief moments of comfort and calm, while at the same time trying my best to ignore the cell phone constantly buzzing in my pocket. My controlling husband and my sorry li
fe seemed far, far away. Even in the midst of all that chaos and despair, or perhaps because of it, it became abundantly clear to me that it was time for my life to change, big-time, and that I was capable of being the one to make that happen. So when I heard that the organization I was working with was putting together a team to be sent to Afghanistan, I immediately began to campaign for a spot. I would spend a month, I thought, putting my training to work helping those who had suffered from the Taliban’s brutal regime. It would be the start of my new future.
Speaking of Afghanistan . . .
“C’mon, do we really need to go there? I did a lot of good things in Kabul.”
Sure, the reproachful Debbie inside reminded me, but let’s not forget that you ended up running away from there, too.
That one really hurt. On my best days, I understood that I didn’t run away from Kabul at all. I hung in there until it became impossible to do anything but leave. In fact, it was a voice inside, much like the one now bumming a ride to the border, that convinced me to stay as long as I did. You can’t leave, you’ll let everybody down, it would say, over and over. You have no choice. And honestly, if it had been just me on the line, I probably would have stayed. I had become used to putting myself out there, and had become weirdly inured to the danger. But when my son was threatened, the mother lioness came roaring out of me and whacked me back into reality. Staying would have, no doubt, ended in something I’d rather not even imagine. No, it did not end the way I wanted. Of course, I was still struggling with the pain and guilt of leaving everything, and everyone, behind. And no matter what my situation might have been at home, I went to Afghanistan in the first place thinking I might, for once in my life, actually be able to do something good, perhaps make a difference. When the opportunity came to use what I knew best in a way that could help other women gain their own independence, to share the tricks of a trade that had, more than once, saved my own life, it seemed like it was all meant to be.
And where did that leave you? Running away again?
“I am not running away.”
You always run away.
“I do not!”
Do so.
“Cut it out!” I answered out loud. “Can’t you see I’m trying to drive? And that, I might add, is a big deal for me these days.”
Big deal? Driving? Who are you kidding, Rodriguez? You’re nothing but a . . .
Whoosh! My heart jumped into my throat as the gust from a barreling eighteen-wheeler thrust my little Mini off onto the gravelly shoulder of the road. I slowed to a stop, shut off the ignition, and turned around to check on Polly, who was frozen in a crouch, her green eyes wide with fright.
“It’s okay, baby,” I lied, lighting a cigarette, the one I swore would be my last, with a shaking hand. An oven blast of sweet, dry air flooded the car as I slowly lowered the windows. In the distance I could see a range of snow-covered peaks jutting out from the flat desert floor. On either side of me, a strange vineyard of giant white fans turned lazily in a synchronized waltz, in rows and rows stretching out for miles against the cloudless blue sky.
Personally, I had to admit that it was hard to believe I was actually doing this. Mike (or rather Mike’s mother) breaking up with me might have been just the kick in the ass I needed to get me on the road to a new phase in my life, but I was far from feeling sure about it. If only I could simply reach across, open the passenger door, and boot that belittling voice inside out into the scrubby sand. I still had more than a thousand miles to go before I reached Mazatlán, and she was starting to really, really piss me off. Instead I pulled back onto the highway and turned up the radio to try to drown her out.
Was I running away? How can you run away from something you never really had in the first place? Napa was not my life. It was more like my rebound life, the one your girlfriends warn you against and the one you jump into because it’s easier than facing up to the reality and pain of what just hit you. In Napa I had been on hold for two years, trying to make something work that probably never should have happened at all.
The sky had turned into a melted neon Creamsicle swirl by the time I pulled up to the Days Inn on Palm Canyon Drive. I barely had enough energy to pour a bowl of Friskies for Polly before flopping down on the bed, the stiff polyester bedspread practically cracking beneath my weight. If I hadn’t been too exhausted to pray, I would have. But what would I have asked for? I would have had to come up with an actionable scenario, a clear-cut vision for what I wanted my new life to be. But, as usual, I didn’t really know what I was getting into, so instead I just held on to the little santo around my neck and hoped that this time things would turn out differently.
“Maybe I could drive a taxi down there. I’m getting a lot of experience, right? What do you think, Pol? Or maybe I could, if worse comes to worst, sell time-shares? We both know I’m a good talker. How does that sound?”
Polly didn’t answer. We were on our way to Tucson, and my poor cat was moping in her carrier, miserably wedged in the backseat between mountains of vacuum-sealed space-saver bags that, for some reason, seemed to be expanding by the minute. I was trying hard to keep Debbie Downer from entering the conversation. But I couldn’t deny that my lack of a plan was more than a little scary. My future was staring me down like a pissed-off pit bull. It was hard to look away, but more frightening not to. Even the cactuses standing tall by the edge of the road, waving at me like funny, giant green men, couldn’t distract me from my anxiety.
One thing was for certain. I was not going to be a hairdresser in Mexico. Though I knew I was damn good at it, my dismal attempts at getting a salon job in California had done a real number on me. Realizing that I was being looked at as an old hairdresser was like getting a kick in the teeth. The whole experience only served as a reminder of the negatives of the profession. When I really think about it, I can’t really say I ever actually wanted to become a hairdresser. Though it had been kind of fun playing hairdresser in my mom’s salon when I was little, folding the towels and taking the rollers out of the old ladies’ hair while they sat under the dryers, I was all too aware of what it actually meant to be a real one. I can, to this day, picture my mom on the couch at night, heating pad stuffed under her spine and swollen feet propped up on a cushion, her smile slowly thawing from having to remain cheerful whether she felt cheery or not. Back then I wanted to be a princess. That, or a famous opera singer. My doting mother never failed to indulge me in my fantasies. Nevertheless, when I turned fifteen, she sent me to beauty school. “It’s a great skill to fall back on,” my overworked and underpaid mother insisted.
So for a year after earning both my high school and beauty school diplomas, I worked in my mom’s salon. It was expected. It was easy. But I wanted more. Though I had struggled in school, I longed to be an educated, sophisticated world traveler, a woman of importance. So I told my mom that I wanted to go to college. “Oh, honey child,” she crooned in her sweet southern drawl, “you know you’re not college material.” After one year at John Brown University in Siloam Springs, Arkansas, I proved her right.
I fell back on hairdressing, of course. And when, a few years later, with a husband, two kids, two cars, and a house, I called my mom sobbing, she was perplexed.
“Are the kids okay?” she asked as she rushed through my front door, scanning the room for any signs of an accident or mishap. I nodded.
“Are you okay?” She took my chin in her hand, my tears cascading over her fingers and onto the floor.
“Yes. I mean, no. Oh, Mom, I just don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m miserable, and I have no right to be.” She went into the kitchen and put the kettle on the stove. I followed. “I mean, I should be happy, right? I have so much.” Mom nodded. I plopped down on the kitchen chair. “I just don’t get it. Why doesn’t this work for me? I still keep feeling there has to be more.”
Mom poured the hot water over a tea bag and handed me the cup. “I’
m not sure, baby girl,” she answered as she stroked my hair. “But I do know one thing. You can do anything you set your mind to. What do you want?”
“That’s the problem,” I said, sobbing. “I just don’t know.”
She pulled a tissue from under her sweater sleeve. “Well, that just doesn’t make any sense. You’re a dreamer. Always have been. Come on, what does your heart tell you?”
“I’m a hairdresser. I’m already a mom. What else can I be?” I whined.
“Listen to you. You don’t have to be just one thing, or even two. You can do anything you want. And that, child, is not a reason to cry.”
“I know, Mom.” I sighed. “I just wish I could figure it out.”
My mother sat down across the table. “You know, you always did want to be a princess. It’s not too late . . .”
I snorted a laugh in response.
“Well, that’s not very princesslike of you,” she admonished, producing yet another tissue.
“Thank you, Queen Mother.”
“Debbie, I think you can be a mother, and a hairdresser, and a princess.”
And as she reached across the table to take my hand in hers, I wondered if this woman, whose own mom had died when she was just a baby, who married at sixteen to escape a household of fourteen kids, living a dirt-poor existence in the Arkansas cotton fields, who remained trapped in a disappointing relationship until death did them part, had once wished for someone to tell her she could be a princess, too.
I carried my mom’s words with me wherever I went. They were there as I patrolled the prisoners’ bunks for shanks and battled the misogynistic prison staff, they were there while I was swatting away the killer insects on the Bahamian beach, and they were there when I boarded that first plane to Afghanistan. I heard them every single time I stepped out of the supposed comfort zone, which, for me, was never particularly comfortable in the first place.